[Glorantha] The Uz

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Darksense actually has some qualities of Imaging Radar AND Sonar. If you wanted to be exacting, you could build it as a new Scanning Sense, using the flipped ranges, the penetration of IR, and the susceptibility to auditory "jamming".

That's probably the best way. Any idea on what it would cost?

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Anders

That's probably the best way. Any idea on what it would cost?

I had figured the cost at 26 (as a +30% Enhancement to Sonar). Since that equals the cost of an equal range Imaging Radar, you might bump the cost up a point or two. If you wanted to end up with a multiple of five, it looks like a coin toss to decide which direction to go. I wouldn't dilute it to justify lowering the cost, but I might just call it 25 and not worry about it being a good deal, or I might add some small beneficial feature and price it at 30.

[Astromancer]

How would the Trollkin curse be modeled? It's isn't the same as sterile but in many ways it's worse.


There are also social problems caused by the Curse too. Each generation is weaker and smaller than before. Hostile neighbors become enboldened potential allies hold back because they don't want to be to closely tied to a declining power. This used to be represented by the Dying Race disadvantage. But that social disadvantage is gone now isn't it.

[Anders]

I don't think it adds or subtracts to a character, it's on another level. If a character has an Obsession about breaking it, that's another matter.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Anders

I don't think it adds or subtracts to a character, it's on another level. If a character has an Obsession about breaking it, that's another matter.

Yeah. The Curse itself is just a Feature, the same as Sterile. A Quirk-level Obsession with it might be fairly common, although I don't think that it would be a racial trait.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Yeah. The Curse itself is just a Feature, the same as Sterile. A Quirk-level Obsession with it might be fairly common, although I don't think that it would be a racial trait.

The curse is worse than Sterile. With Sterile you get no kids. With the Trollkin Cruse you get large numbers of sickly warped Trolls that are hard to care for and potentially dangerous ever to Trolls. It has to be a bigger negative than Sterile.

[Anders]

Sterile is a quirk because everybody else is fertile. There's a "shared misery" clause that turns things into features.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The curse is worse than Sterile. With Sterile you get no kids. With the Trollkin Cruse you get large numbers of sickly warped Trolls that are hard to care for and potentially dangerous ever to Trolls. It has to be a bigger negative than Sterile.

Note that trollkin only account for about half of all troll births (though the fact that they are born in litters does mean that the tendency for the overall population is for other trolls to be in relative decline). Caring for trollkin is generally not a preoccupation of trolls. Only the ones that have some useful trait or skill are accorded any value to their society, and they're still considered to be of less worth than any dark troll. When they contribute nothing else, trollkin are still food.

I wouldn't expect a dark troll female to agree with the assumption that sterility is better than a 50% chance of giving birth to a normal, healthy troll. Not that I have any special insight into Uz psychology, but they seem to be easier to understand than most of the other non-human Gloranthan races.