From: John Strauss (strauss@hopper.itc.virginia.edu)
Date: Sat 03 Sep 1994 - 08:52:21 EEST
Paul Reilly gives his view on how Morokanth compensate for the lack
of missile cavalry.
Good stuff, Paul. I am filing this stuff away along with a couple fo other comments on this thread. But I have reservations about one factor you proposed:
>5. They like marshy ground and wetland plants, and go down near
>the coastal flats, the Fever Trees, the Devil's Marsh, the Krjalki
>Bog, etc. They are immune to several human diseases (Yellow fever
>equivalent?) that make such places distinctly unhealthy for
>humans, and they like to eat some plants that humans can't live
>on. In short, they have a different niche from Praxian humans.
Number one: There are more than one models of gloranthan disease running around right now and I won't go into it here. But no matter what model you use, either the Morokanth or their herd and slaves will be subject to the same diseases as their opponents.
Number two: A central mythical theme of the Waha tribes states that the Morokanth are in the SAME subsistance niche as humans. If a human can eat it, so can a Morokanth and vice versa. They are competing for herd grazing and meat, the same niche, and that is why the issue of combat comes up in the first place.
Maybe this can be fudged a bit. Maybe they are different from a terrain perspective. As you pointed out, they have good night vision, can dig quickly, we might add swimming or marsh wading to that. But be careful about the food business.
If you have already established in your game that the Morokanth eat marsh foods or some such, you might shift that to the idea that the Morokanth have some secret knowledge about foods that the other tribes THINK are poisonous. The terrestrial example would be the tomato, which was considered poisonous by europeans for some time. (My wife STILL thinks so. ;> )
This leads me to a second food issue. Does anyone know if the *herds* can subsist in those marshes? Is there fodder suitable for herdmen or bison?
>Our Morokanth Khans keep prize fighting bulls and when two
>Morokanth tribes meet there is often a boxing match.
That gives me a subplot idea. Thanks.
John Strauss
strauss@hopper.itc.virginia.edu
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