Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Greetings,


Here are some of my notes on the subject. Hope it makes sense...

Shunned One Tracking "Dog" -

The Vleshgayal have some kind of six-legged greyish/white tracking creature

We did see these things once, when Eyloa's infallible navigational skills and in-depth expertise with ancient technology landed us in a Shunned Ones city. The things seem to hunt by a combination of infra-red sensing and being able to sense living beings. Think hunting dogs with really bad attitudes. The only good news is that if they do bite you, human blood gives them very bad indigestion as the chemical basis is too different.

the six legs, Phil once said, mark beings as coming from a specific region of planets in Humanspace, and two- and four-legged from another. So, I'd guess that these hunting animals are beasts that the Shunned Ones found on Tekumel, and adapted to their needs - which is why they don't have to have the different atmosphere.


"The side panel showed five of the hideous Vleshgayal. They loped across the floor with a gait that hinted at more joints than any human possessed. In front, came a greyish-white , six-legged creature that snuffled and wriggled from side to side. The thing had no visible eyes, but its long oval mouth was evident enough. Inside were ragged-edged ridges that would serve nicely as teeth."
PoS pg22

Enjoy,

H:0)

PS Mostly Uncle's words...some of the Professor's.

Thank you Mighty Hrugga of the Epics! Your post came in very hand yesterday evening, as the party was being hunted at night, by three of these critters, in a rain soaked forest.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

There probably is, given the big wide nature of the Internet, but I don't know what it might be. My guiding text was one that Phil had, "The Ancient Engineers" by (of all people!) L. Sprague DeCamp - who is better known for his 'hard SF'. I have a copy of it myself, along with other such books, and I think you can get much the same materials on line. (Like Gronan did - Babbage engines in your hover tanks.) The history of warfare is full of goofy ideas that somebody sold to the paymasters, going back to Rome and China and before. Phil was very big on Greek technology from the Alexandrian school, so that might be good starting point. Every army has it's share of crackpot inventors, and in wartime they get the funding to build their inventions. (Like the Blacker Bombard, for example.)

What history does usually not record is the reaction of the trooper detailed to operate the new 'wonder weapon'; I would love to have been there to see the reaction of the crew assigned to the fire syphons in the Byzantine navy, for example.

Weapons on carts? Anything, from a small bolt-thrower to a fire syphon. Plenty of historical examples to choose from, as Phil would say - usually right before he told me to have some ready for next Thursday...

Well, I'm searching. This is one of the most amusing I've been able to come up with, and it still doesn't beat Phil's invention.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Off to play D&D, this afternoon!

Don't forget to report, Uncle, for I have a feeling that would be fun!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

A lot; we'd find this stuff all over, usually by stepping in it. Molds, fungi, mildew, nasty insects, 'rats', you name it - Phil had it. (Not personally, of course.) Phil just didn't detail them, as he assumed that people could extrapolate from what was in caves and ruins - or in their basements, for that matter. EPT details the 'major threats', and tends to skimp on the 'minor ones'. I'd suggest reading books on exploration, or TV documentaries for examples. The old Conan movie had some nice bits on this, too. Otherwise, use the 'minor' items in profusion. The worst underworld I ever encountered was in Hekellu, where it's right nest to the lake and mostly below the water table. Take all you usual underworld critters and add in all the aquatic horrors, and you understand why we tried to stay out of it...

What I think that we, as GMs, are up against is that Phil had 'been there and done that', and simply used his personal explorations of ruins and underworlds in India and didn't bother to write any of it down. In some ways, I think he assumed that everyone was able to come up with stuff like this for himself - he was like that on a number of other subjects, like rural life and clan-based family relationships. His stories about going through the ruined casemates of the Red Fort at Delhi was exactly how he ran us through the underworlds. As he remarked, one you get off the beaten path that all the tourists take, it gets messy pretty quickly. I might add that I found the same to be true of castles in Wales - despite their being open for visitors, there was some pretty nasty stuff in the dark corners.

Off to play D&D, this afternoon!

Yeah, I bet the servants in Harlech castle had their hands full.

And when we went to Chinon and visited where Jacques de Mornay was imprisoned, did it ever feel like a "dungeon descent."

And have fun with D&D....

i think this post on TBP deserves to be quoted.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Uncle,

Could expand a bit on the Professor's "rats" please...Thank you. Enjoy your game!!!

H:0)

PS I liked your Sakbe post and pictures. I also loved your library. When you get the chance could you tell us about your book collection? You have already given us some really great reference books to get...

The 'rats' are your basic vermin; they come in various forms, and have the usual variety of number of legs common to Tekumel. They all seem to have teeth, and voracious appetites. Phil didn't go into too much detail - I think his assumption was that rats are rats, and we should know what they were.

My library. I will freely admit that I love books, and I have a pretty good collection. The ones in the photo of the Sakbe road are the ones in the game room; my railway and F/SF libraries are elsewhere in the house. What I've tried to do is collect (I hate that word) books that illuminate aspects of what we learned from Phil, and reflected what he told us about over the years. Phil was very well-educated and well-read, and what he didn't know about he had a book about. In quite a few cases, I've been able to go back and get copies of books that Phil had, so we can all look at the same source materials.

I do not have a library catalog; I suppose I should do on, eh?

Thank you for the kind words on the Sakbe road posts; It was a fun project to build in the first place, and I got on the subject while building the storage crate for the set.

One of the fire siphon fumble results in Sea Law has the weapon being unready to fire because the crew is having an impromptu barbecue,

I had a good time. the players were a very solid bunch, and while a very diverse group, worked very well together. The GM did a 1st Level D&D version of dear old Chirine, who took up the rear guard duties and managed to be useful. Blackmoor castle is still as deadly as ever - we were in the modern d20 version - and we got worked over pretty well on several occasions. For me, it was like stepping back in time some forty years, and I enjoyed the game.

I was astonished by the rules books. A lot of numbers and number-crunching, but several of the players had handy tablet-based applications to roll up characters. I though that all the modifiers and bonuses were a lot to keep track of but again I had help with this. It all reminded me of "Tractics", actually. I mostly provided tactical advice and suggestions - there was almost nothing about this in the game books, oddly enough.

I will say that I found the d20 Blackmoor books disappointing. They are very good, and very playable; they do not have a lot of Dave Arneson or the early Blackmoor in them. They are set in the much later - 1990s and 2000s - version, and quite a few of the quirky things that made Blackmoor Blackmoor have been removed. Gertie and her island, the elves with the holy water pumps, the king of the orcs, and Sir Fang are all gone. My problem, I think, is that I played with Dave in his original idea of what he wanted to do; Blackmoor is now a Serious Place. What kept the game fun for me were the superb players, and I will treasure that. My thanks to all of them, and to the GM.

Seems like you had fun, Uncle. I guess it's normal for settings to change somewhat between editions, it's probably better to treat them as new settings, or maybe 100 years in the future.

Lately, quite a few books don't offer tactical advice. Sometimes, this leads to funny scenes.
(I remember and treasure the scene when my wife was playing the role of giving out in-character tactical advice to another player in RQ6 Sengoku Japan. It was doubly funny because the other player was her superior in the ninja clan hierarchy, and that didn't save her from name-calling. She explained her exactly why she's going to get her character killed and destroy the clan's reputation. Quote "how can you be so stupid to expect another ninja would fight fair and not bring assistance, you moron", unquote, which had me grinning widely because I was in the process of rolling the stats for the two helpers.

And yes, I know ninja didn't have duels, what they did do was psychological warfare. The NPC had made the offer just to psych her character out, and was actually quite surprised when the PC accepted).

The comment about Tractics made me laugh, though. You were probably playing D&D 5e (or maybe, less likely, 3.5/Pathfinder), and I assure you, I could think of games that are much heavier at first level.
It's the new normal. Thankfully, it doesn't bother me to play mechanics-heavy, as long as the mechanics can be used for something that makes sense.
Applications are almost a blessing, though, I fully share those feelings!