Five Earths, All in a Row

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by warellis

I've been wondering something regarding Dsp-Earth, other than Russia, are any of the other Eastern European countries attempting to send supplies to Dsp-Eastern Europe to fight both the Germans and Soviets? I remember many of the Eastern European countries pretty much hate the Russians, especially Poland. Is it trying to send supplies to the Dsp-Allies in order to possibly help the Polish government-in-exile get back in power?

Answered on SB.com, you can quote it here if you like, or I can, later. Short version is that the EU is absolutely working on that.

Originally Posted by warellis

Also in what ways are drones still useful?

Generally, they work well as observers, and air-to-ground missile buses, they just aren't so good against enhanced vehicles that are manned (though in the case of enhanced ground or sea vehicles, even unenhanced drones can sometimes be effective, because luck can only do so much, and dodging in only two dimensions is more limited than dodging in three).

As mentioned previously, they are also somewhat useful as escorts for vehicles that are carrying the drone's pilots (because you can't just ignore the drones, even if they're relatively easy to kill).

Originally Posted by Dargaron

About how much further into Russia are you thinking? Just including a bit more of Ukraine? Up to Kiev? The area between the Caspian and Black Seas?

Haven't decided, yet, but I think they Safavids would have something to say about the area between the Caspian and Black Seas. Judging by these two maps, I almost should have said 'farther into Lithuania', as well. I would say for now that there have been battles near Kiev, but the city has neither been taken nor encircled by the Ottomans. They do have rather more of what we know as Ukraine than modern Russians or Ukrainians are comfortable with, though, and that may lead to issues, after WWII(2) is over.

Originally Posted by Dargaron

Between the Knights of St. John still controlling Rhodes and the slightly stronger Persia (I am assuming that Persia is still on good terms with the Moguls, and that is where they are importing their Zoroastrians from), things aren't looking good for the Ottomans, although they probably have a definite advantage when it comes to Clanks, due to a more tolerant attitude towards the Jews.

Well, the Jews have mostly made golems (and those, mostly for themselves), rather than clanks, but they did probably get the secret of springmetal from the Jews, and they might have Qabbālists making the 'brains' of some of the smarter clanks, or might just have learned the 'normal' method from Jewish scholars who learned it from European Jews.

Originally Posted by Dargaron

Actually, how "European" are Clanks? I know you are going to have a post about them in the Fiction Thread on SB, but how widespread is the technology? Do the Russians, Ottomans and Poles have a small number of Clanks on hand? I am assuming that the technology doesn't extend much farther than that, so Persia, India and China would have their own kinds of technomagical gizmos, with their own aesthetic and idiosyncrasies.

Generally, the process of making clanks has spread slowly, partly for religious reasons, but enough trade exists for the Orthodox and Coptic Christian nations to have learned it by now, as well as the closer Islamic nations like the Ottomans and Egyptians. If other nations build 'mechanical men', they aren't widespread, and might come at the design from a different direction. Springmetal is likely to be rather more widespread, though, as it's simpler in concept.

Originally Posted by Dargaron

Yes, the template looks good without Rapid Healing or Regeneration. It would be harder to explain why the Ordo Canis Christi took such heavy losses during the Ottoman conquest of Hungary if they had those advantages. I was picturing them as not much more durable than a human, and naturally inclined to fight as skirmishers. I'm thinking that at some point during Suleiman's invasion, they got forced into an open battle, either by Hungarian leadership overriding their usual doctrine of warfare, or because the Ottomans were able to force them to fight somehow (threatening a shrine?), and that's where most of them died.

That works. I did make a small math error, though, due to tiredness, so the cost of Uncontrollable Appetite should be -5, not -10. Going to go back and edit the template, now. EDIT: Done.

On a related note, what are your thoughts on the vampires? They seem to be either corpses animated by spirits (which also keep them from decaying), or living people who arise from a death-like coma with strange powers. Bram Stoker, in the character of Abraham van Helsing, had this to say about the powers of Dracula, as of the 1890s (split up for easier reading):

This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men,

he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages,

he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command,

he is brute, and more than brute, he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not,

he can, within his range, direct the elements, the storm, the fog, the thunder,

he can command all the meaner things, the rat, and the owl, and the bat, the moth, and the fox, and the wolf,

he can grow and become small,

and he can at times vanish and come unknown.

Obviously, even if we use something like Stoker's template, the much younger vampires of this era will be less powerful, and unless they are actual spirits, the growth and shrinking powers should not be available (that sort of space-warping is possible, but rather difficult due to the power and complexity involved).

Enhanced strength (though far less than that of twenty men), greater skills due to age, Necromancy, weather control, animal control, and Obscurity/Invisibility are all reasonable powers in-setting (the line starting with 'he is brute, and more than brute,' is probably not useful, and is included only for completeness), some of them specifically mentioned in GURPS Psionic Powers, but I'm not remembering enough of Eastern European vampire lore to be sure of what powers properly fit their origin, and can't find the book I have on the subject (nor am I sure of its accuracy).

EDIT: OK, missing things are back again. Something we seem to have forgotten about, re: werewolves - shouldn't the Appearance stat be altered by the transformation?