Topic: Random Updates from Terry Amthor

[markc]

  People have been asking about rules for hot/cold and mountain rules for years as well as dehydration and some general rules for exposure. I think most of them were coming from other game systems looking for something to adapt to their D&D clone game/company.
MDC

[Terry K. Amthor]

Is not Zor wastes a cold desert, Terry?

How would you describe that place? I usually associate 'Jaiman' with 'Cold', but maybe I'm wrong.

I tend to as well, but with the Zor wastes I like to imagine a magical effect of the destruction warms it up compared to the surrounding lands, on the average of 10-15 degrees (F). Still not super hot (like Arizona summer hot), but warm enough to throw visitors off.

It is a climate anomaly; I imagine it rather hot in the central region by day, and very cold at night, with wild temperature extremes, like the Gobi desert.

[mistrornge]

If you are working on Zor how do you handle radiation poisoning?  Not sure if that has been touched on.

[Terry K. Amthor]

  People have been asking about rules for hot/cold and mountain rules for years as well as dehydration and some general rules for exposure. I think most of them were coming from other game systems looking for something to adapt to their D&D clone game/company.
MDC

Hmm, I hadn't planned on doing actual rules, just reminders to the GM about the effects of travel in these harsh climates (e.g., just tromping through heavy snow or soft sand can slow you considerably and add to exhaustion), but I suppose I could do a little chart.

[Terry K. Amthor]

If you are working on Zor how do you handle radiation poisoning?  Not sure if that has been touched on.

I am thinking that the radiation threat has pretty much dispersed after 8000 years (anyone with more knowledge please weigh in!). The bomb was roughly equivalent to this fusion bomb, with the radiation effects fairly localized in central Zor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B41_nuclear_bomb

[Tommi]

Yes, no major is left  - anything that could cause radiation problems is long gone. Anything with half life over 250 years has been reduced to at least 1/10^9 th part. Even if radiation level soon  (days, weeks, months) after  expolosion would have caused deterministic heath symptoms radioactive decay would have resolved problems. Also sedimentation etc. weather and geological? (8000years) processes would have buried the fallout under enough soil or spread the material globally.  (Whole body dose over 0,2 Sv is limit to slight change in blood count, 1 Sv mild radiation sickness, 4Sv is LD50, 6Sv lethal without treatment and 9Sv lethal even with the most advance treatment our time can give) . In case of ground blast (as it went off in capital city) there would have been activation products but those are generally short living nuclides as fast neutrons produce a bit different material that thermal.  However also the soil type affects what you get... But in this time scale neutron spectra is irrelevant.  I think that gammaspectrometric measurements in environmental (low background) laboratory could find clues of something but that 's it.

[Terry K. Amthor]

Wow, thanks Tommi!

Though it should be noted that there are descendants of the original mutated flora and fauna now living there...

[markc]

  Just to throw rocks, what about magic radiation? Or that is to say radiation that is fueled/fed/sustained by magic? Is that a possibility? IIRC there are some radiation crit charts in the SM:P Data Nets and in the RM2 books somewhere.
MDC

[Terry K. Amthor]

  Just to throw rocks, what about magic radiation? Or that is to say radiation that is fueled/fed/sustained by magic? Is that a possibility? IIRC there are some radiation crit charts in the SM:P Data Nets and in the RM2 books somewhere.
MDC

Well, magic was used to trigger the bomb, and the magic of the Phoenix Crown was used to alter the Flows to shield Rhakhaan from the effects, so there could have been Essænce 'fallout' but aside from some faint Flow instability, I think it has subsided.

[Terry K. Amthor]

Okay, based on an exhaustion mod chart on my very, very old RM2 Character Law/Campaign Law (which included temperatures of 130°F and -50°F -- Really?), I have made a new little chart including Exhaustion and speed modifiers, some more realistic temps, and travel in some more environments (including various snow depths, based on my own experience...). Yay for charts! Charts are cool! 

[kmanktelow]

What about the idea that it set up a natural nuclear reactor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
Perhaps Zor was lucky enough (eh?) to reside on top of such an area - that hadn't been tapped out by the K'ta'viir: it wasn't pure enough for them to use perhaps. Then a combination of the cataclysm and the magical forces involved transmuted the materials in the ground and caused the radiation?

[Terry K. Amthor]

I think Zor is going to be a scary/hostile enough environment without the danger of radiation poisoning, but if the GM wants to go there, that's up to you!

[Tommi]

What about the idea that it set up a natural nuclear reactor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
Perhaps Zor was lucky enough (eh?) to reside on top of such an area - that hadn't been tapped out by the K'ta'viir: it wasn't pure enough for them to use perhaps. Then a combination of the cataclysm and the magical forces involved transmuted the materials in the ground and caused the radiation?

If you have conditions that support natural nuclear reactor like hundreds of millioins years ago in Earth you don't need trigger. Spontaneous fission is enough - it may be very rare but avocadro number is 6*10^23 so you do get those fission (out of U) neutrons anyhow roughly 1/mole/s.  Now it is not possible anymore in earth - U-235  has too low concentration. But Kultheas solar system may have different isotope ratio and natural reactor could be possible. Still my comment about triggering stands.

I can't see that Zor accident could anymore cause radiation problems.

However there could be radioactive hot spots in Kulthea: natural reactor -needs water to moderating neutrons - circulating water has suitable minerals that would activete. A process that pumps water to ground. However activation robs neutrons from the reaction and makes the reactor subcritical. Thus the reactor would have to be pulsating and would have to have two routes of feed water - one clean enough to support reaction and one that periodically provides material to activate. OR very special geometry. My reactor-criticality calculating times are long gone...

[Terry K. Amthor]

Do drugs and drink play a part in your campaign? Remember the drinking in the LotR movies, and how Gimli passed out while Legolas only got tingly. And Saruman saying that Gandalf smoked too much of the longbottom leaf (while he had a big store himself), and Merry telling Pip that he smoked too much.  And in the first Hobbit movie, Saruman derided Radagast for his mushroom use, saying it yellowed his teeth (while showing icky yellow teeth himself).

"Poppies... poppies will make them sleeeep...."

[RandalThor]

Not usually, but occasionally for story purposes I might have a character notice that an ale or wine (or whatever) is particularly strong or weak - which could have something to do with the ale/wine/whatever or with the character. That is as a GM, of course. As a player, only when it is party time for the PCs, and then I still don't go into detail, just try to have my PC act normally, and in town with a ton of treasure, having a few nights of partying fun is normal. (Unless, of course, my character has a pre-determined reason for avoiding such things.)

[markc]

 Yes; plants, herbs, drugs, alcohol, coffee (like drug), tea (like drug) etc all have payed a big part in my games in the past. In my game it adds some flavor to the setting(s) and can be a stress relief from trying to figure out plot lines, escape from ambush's, etc. They also can be sources of $ for the players as some of the rarer "drugs/herbs/etc" cannot be grown in a garden but need to have specific conditions in the wild to flourish. 
MDC 

[yammahoper]

Absolutely.  Chain smoking orcs to skooma swilling mages, in a world with magic potions, enchanted herbs and Animist, drugs of all kinds are rather common.   There is always a black market for something.

[Terry K. Amthor]

I have a ton of adventure ideas for the Eidolon new edition, but I just am just not able/willing to flesh them out as elaborately as the original adventures, so I have a couple fully detailed, and a number of 'adventure ideas' to use as starters. And the other sections of the book are greatly expanded with new organizations and interesting NPCs, more on ships and all about the city of Sel-kai.

And now I need to go shop for a Cornish hen for our US traditional Thanksgiving, when I watch two of my favorite movies. Lady Jane and A Man For All Seasons. I highly recommend both films. And for the weekend, a fire in the fireplace and a binge of the extended edition LotR is in order, It's been a few years now. Happy Holidays!

[Terry K. Amthor]

Here's some Shadow World adventure ideas right here...

http://www.earthporm.com/20-mystical-bridges-will-take-another-world/

[Terry K. Amthor]

I'm scared to even dip my toe in the (apparently) interesting RMU discussion, partly because I feel like the new blood should have their say without the cranky old guy from the early days of RM sticking his nose in things. Because if I got in there, I would have opinions. We had arguments for days about the old system.

But I am wondering how the old Monks vs Bards thing is playing out. I always said that Monks should be Mentalists and Bards Essence (as noted in the infamous 'Amthorian view' in early RM2 editions. Anyone know what's happening there?