Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Do these Hlyss versions from "Chitin" seem reasonable?
I envision raiding parties of Hlyss as good opponents of Heros and don't want just clones of the original.

The original version of Hlyss:
Damage: D6
Armor Class: 4
Movement: 9"
Hit Dice: 2

Well, they should be, frankly. They were fearsome opponents, and the stakes were always very, very high when we encountered them.

These look good. In our encounters with them, we saw a number of different 'castes': workers, who did all the basic lifting and carrying and which were not any good at fighting; warriors, who were more optimized for combat - very fast and skilled; magic-users, not all that good in combat but very expert with devices and spells; 'lords', leaders who were usually very good warriors or magic-users, and - as Zirunel points out, usually pretty encrusted with gems set into their chitin; 'drones', who were anything but passive, and were the 'breeder males' that served the 'queens' as mates, servants, and elite guards; 'techs', who seemed to be a sub-caste of magic-users and who did the hive ship propulsion and manned the really heavy weapons.

Finally, you have the immobile and gargantuan 'queens' who do nothing by produce eggs for the hive. David Allan has done a very good model of one, that gives me the creeps any time I look at it.

So, yes, I'd have different stats for each caste, and they do look different when you see them. We didn't encounter Hlyss very much, and when we did it was normally at sea. The one fight we had with a nest ship was enough for all of us, thank you...

Originally Posted by AsenRG

I know you're a populist, Uncle. So am I, so I didn't expect you to object because Only Phil Can* Create Tekumel Content, or something.

My point by letting you an opportunity to object was to let you tell us whether Phil had guidelines like this, and whether something in them contradicted my system. Say, if there's an ant kind on Tekumel that's associated with Avanthe**, that would require adding an exception for ants...
I'm simply not familiar with such details in the setting, so couldn't include them in the original guideline.

But overall, if you think it works well enough for now, it's probably time to make a random generator out of it!
I'll see what I can do...

*Obviously, even Phil can't create Tekumel content. He wasn't a person of colour, to begin with, not to mention that we don't have data whether he was bi enough.

**Say, because they understand that said insect helps the fertlization of the soil. Or it might be scarabs sacred for the Lord of Dead if you have to have at least part of your body be eaten by them post-mortem to get in the right Heavens. If you don't, you end up instead in the Hells of whichever god's or goddess' servants you had offended the most in your life.

Phil never had any formal guidelines for anything. If he liked it, and thought that it fitted in with his view of how the place worked, then it was 'in' and he'd use it. Over the time that I was his publisher, we got to know what he liked, and so we could screen things out that came in the door and were simply not going to fly with him.

Both your approaches are fine. He'd have liked this.

Originally Posted by Zirunel

somehow this reminds me of the beasts deployed by Vance's DragonMasters.

Personally, I've never looked that closely at the Hluss, so i don't know what the "official" stance on these would be, but why not? You could have differentiation of specialists within each hive, which I think is what you have in mind. But also, who says all Hluss hives have to be alike? I've always had the vague sense that individual hives were more or less independent, why not genetically as well?

The only thing I might suggest is you need a class of jewel-encrusted elite types, presumably with some magical ability...perhaps like your basics but a step above basic....oh yeah, and "queens"

What you said. yes, the hives don't seem all that 'well-connected', which is just fine by me...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I was envisioning them as creating tech "organically" instead of with manufacturing.
Their biggest downside is that they need a living human sized body to grow a new baby Hlyss on.
This restricts population growth.
So instead of cranking out endless clones the individuals get better at what they were "designed" to do.
I'm sure that they can progress as well as players do and as you say, some classic jewel-encrusted elites would exist.

(A little "Starship Troopers" vibe too.)
=

I'd agree with this. They use their chitin to make their ships, for example. And the slow growth rate is about the only reason we're all still alive; we humans breed so much faster, and it's about our only real advantage on the planet...

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Wow!!! I thought they were tuff enough as is. A Queen and some jewel-encrusted duelist/bodyguards may be too much for anyone, but some Hero's of the Age to handle!!! Dangerous...not to mention their great Hive Ship too. Good stuff.

H:0)

They are very, very tough. One does not go up against a party of them with casual distain. They are why nobody, except Harchar, goes out into the great deeps...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Chirine, my compliments to the commander of the Lightning Bringer cohort, and she may commence fire at her pleasure...

I wish. The one time we had to fight a nest ship, it was only my knowledge of hydrodynamics that saved us.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Phil never had any formal guidelines for anything. If he liked it, and thought that it fitted in with his view of how the place worked, then it was 'in' and he'd use it. Over the time that I was his publisher, we got to know what he liked, and so we could screen things out that came in the door and were simply not going to fly with him.

Both your approaches are fine. He'd have liked this.

I'll get to work on that random table, then. Or should I say "that set of linked random tables"?
Either way, I'm having some progress, and we'll soon be up to the ears in demons of both pantheons!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I wish. The one time we had to fight a nest ship, it was only my knowledge of hydrodynamics that saved us.

Do Hluss float? And can they swim?

Originally Posted by Zirunel

You know, a compendium of stability demons, or a more detailed work-up of Hluss variants are both things that would surely interest Tekumelophiles in general. I would encourage you each to work something up and share it with everyone, whether on a blog, or an upload to the Yahoo discussion group. I would understand of course if you wanted to keep such things a surprise for your gaming group, but if not, I know I would be interested to see what you come up with!

Seconded!!!