The more I read MRQII, the more I think it would completely rock as the system for the Birthright setting. What do ya'all more experienced with MRQII think?
I can totally see the various churches as cults. I would let magicians use common magic, and restrict sorcery to blooded scions and elves. Spirit magic I'm still thinking about, maybe use that as elven magic. Empires gives rules sufficient as far as i can tell for running BR at the realm level. The heroic abilities could be used for Blood powers. It would just be a matter of deciding how to present Awnshelien... perhaps they could have little cults of their own or something, or each belong to various "Cult of Shadow" cells that have slightly different runes. Then there's dealing with the halflings and their Shadow World powers and connections... or not, it wouldn't hurt the setting much to leave them out honestly. I'm really kinda liking this line of thought...
Quote from: Sigmund;429047The more I read MRQII, the more I think it would completely rock as the system for the Birthright setting. What do ya'all more experienced with MRQII think?
I can totally see the various churches as cults. I would let magicians use common magic, and restrict sorcery to blooded scions and elves. Spirit magic I'm still thinking about, maybe use that as elven magic. Empires gives rules sufficient as far as i can tell for running BR at the realm level. The heroic abilities could be used for Blood powers. It would just be a matter of deciding how to present Awnshelien... perhaps they could have little cults of their own or something, or each belong to various "Cult of Shadow" cells that have slightly different runes. Then there's dealing with the halflings and their Shadow World powers and connections... or not, it wouldn't hurt the setting much to leave them out honestly. I'm really kinda liking this line of thought...
I'm loving MRQII and Birthright is one of my favorite settings.
I'm not sure how I'd handle bloodlines; it was the element I least liked from the original BR. I like my hero-kings to start as cunning adventures and claw their way from the mud to the throne, thank you very much. :D
When Reign came out, I did a mash-up of Reign's setting material with the Birthright setting, recasting high fantasy elements as gritty sword-and-sorcery hiding behind myth and folklore. For example, the Gorgon was rumored to be immortal, but actually a hereditary title. The shadow-manipulating sorcerers from one of the Reign Supplements, recast as an Azrai cult, with the Cold Rider as their leader. And so on, and so forth.
The Common Magic/magicians thing is spot-on, and Shamanism as elven magic has a lot of potential. Imagine Rhoubhe Manslayer calling on some really old, really badass spirits dwelling in the darker corners of Cerilia's forests...
Quote from: The Butcher;429048I'm loving MRQII and Birthright is one of my favorite settings.
I'm not sure how I'd handle bloodlines; it was the element I least liked from the original BR. I like my hero-kings to start as cunning adventures and claw their way from the mud to the throne, thank you very much. :D
When Reign came out, I did a mash-up of Reign's setting material with the Birthright setting, recasting high fantasy elements as gritty sword-and-sorcery hiding behind myth and folklore. For example, the Gorgon was rumored to be immortal, but actually a hereditary title. The shadow-manipulating sorcerers from one of the Reign Supplements, recast as an Azrai cult, with the Cold Rider as their leader. And so on, and so forth.
The Common Magic/magicians thing is spot-on, and Shamanism as elven magic has a lot of potential. Imagine Rhoubhe Manslayer calling on some really old, really badass spirits dwelling in the darker corners of Cerilia's forests...
Absolutely, I think that's the way to go. Elves use spirit magic, it would also go towards explaining their lack of religion.
I've played BR both using blooded scions and not using them and it's awesome either way. I think using MRQII's heroic abilities would simulate the blooded scions adequately but also tone them down a touch, as it's the ability to use true magic (sorcery) that would really set them apart from unblooded. MRQII's system would mean that all the rulers would be able, and most would be willing to learn and use at least a couple sorcery spells. Without "sources" in the game, it might be interesting to open up regency to unblooded folks, especially for guilds and churches. Maybe narrow regency down to just realm rulership and allow churches and guilds to be lead by anyone. Blood-theft is something to consider. I still want to use blooded scions, which explains the Awnshei, which means a mechanic for blood-theft needs to be devised since it's a favorite hobby of the Gorgon. I appreciate your idea of "Gorgon" as the title of that realm, but I like the idea of the Gorgon being THE Gorgon and a major Sauron-style villian. The Spider is another that we got miles of usage out of as we adventured alot in that part of Anuire in our lead-up to freeing Osoerde from the tyranny of the usurper Jason Rainech. I played an elven Ambassador to Osoerde from The Sielwode who pledged to help William Moergan regain his realm in return for aid against the Gorgon and his puppet states, all of which we accomplished, including throwing back an invasion force sent by the Gorgon and lead by a pretty dang big black dragon. It was some of the best gaming I've ever experienced :) Anyway, it leads me to want to preserve the "bigness" of the Awnshei. I'm totally running with this though. MRQII seems an even better system for BR than any edition of D&D.
Darn you for making me want MRQII even more.
I've always been on the lookout for a better system than AD&D2E for it (despite like AD&D2E for what it is--it just doesn't do Birthright well.)
From what I've read if you can put Birthright abilities there you could do a good job; just don't under power them too much, as bloodtheft is a part of the setting and they do get stronger as things happen.
Cerilia rocks!
And Reign and MRQ II are both very obvious choices and will work well....why didn't I ever see it :D
Cool stuff. Keep us updated on your ideas and progress, will you?!
Bloodlines are just personal cults. You get a myth and a runic association from the god you're descended from, and then you set some conditions for ascending in rank that're personal. "Rune Priest" just becomes "Full Scion" or whatever. The cult grants a unique spell list of divine spells.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429111Bloodlines are just personal cults. You get a myth and a runic association from the god you're descended from, and then you set some conditions for ascending in rank that're personal. "Rune Priest" just becomes "Full Scion" or whatever. The cult grants a unique spell list of divine spells.
It would have to be limited though because only one character would belong to that particular cult, is that ok? Haven't read far enough in the rules yet, been alternating between the core rules and the Glorantha book.
Quote from: Silverlion;429068... bloodtheft is a part of the setting and they do get stronger as things happen.
This is the part I'm thinking might require the most tinkering, but given that just about everything else seemingly falls right into place I'm pretty optimistic that it will be a relatively simple matter to deal with.
P.S. Have to get home to read through the book to solidify some of these ideas some more.
Quote from: Sigmund;429116It would have to be limited though because only one character would belong to that particular cult, is that ok? Haven't read far enough in the rules yet, been alternating between the core rules and the Glorantha book.
Shouldn't break anything if they're personal instead of public. I'd just make the advancement conditions not rely on any external factors (like tithing or examinations), and have it be purely internal (skill levels, POW requirements, etc.).
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429200and have it be purely internal (skill levels, POW requirements, etc.).
Bloodtheft (Part of absorbing more POW), Rulership of a realm related to your bloodline (after all the blood powers recognize connections--being a duke is awesome, ruling a magic school or tower with blood powers from the former god of magic? MORE AWESOME!
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429200Shouldn't break anything if they're personal instead of public. I'd just make the advancement conditions not rely on any external factors (like tithing or examinations), and have it be purely internal (skill levels, POW requirements, etc.).
Very awesome. I'm definitely going to have to explore this further. Over the New Year break I'm going to try to finish the core rules and delve into the Empires book in more detail. I haven't been this excited about a new project in awhile. :D I'll do my best Anglachel :D
I see no reason why RuneQuest wouldn't work with Birthright.
Maybe it'd steal some of BR's original feel in that it was like AT LAST getting that D&D game totally focused on the Stronghold and Fief that kept being alluded to in previous versions of the game without that part of the game being fully fleshed out, but that would be replaced by RuneQuest's own feel. So you'd take some thunder away from BR, but you'd give some back to it by switching to RQ. It'd be different, but I guess could very well be awesome in its own right.
Quote from: Benoist;429226I see no reason why RuneQuest wouldn't work with Birthright.
Maybe it'd steal some of BR's original feel in that it was like AT LAST getting that D&D game totally focused on the Stronghold and Fief that kept being alluded to in previous versions of the game without that part of the game being fully fleshed out, but that would be replaced by RuneQuest's own feel. So you'd take some thunder away from BR, but you'd give some back to it by switching to RQ. It'd be different, but I guess could very well be awesome in its own right.
What it does do for BR is give it the gritty feeling it always seemed it should have, along with the feeling that the mechanics for the BR-specific things weren't just tacked on. MRQII already has almost all the subsystems in place to cover the unique facets of BR. In fact, I was thinking last night while reading that the Bloodline derivations could be cults of the dead gods, with all scions of that derivation automatically belonging, with the runes from that deity, and then lists of sorcery and even divine spells as well as heroic abilities that those scions could choose from to use. Also, any blooded scion can have the capacity to study and use sorcerous grimoires on top of their bloodline cult's spells. Then, unblooded folks can study and use common magic, and join and use magic from divine cults of the living gods. Bloodtheft itself I'm still thinking about, but perhaps it could be used to steal POW dedicated to the bloodline cult, still have lots of reading to do of the MRQII rules.
Edit: Oh, and i was thinking scions could get a bloodline bonus to their POW depending on their bloodline strength, which could be one of the things increased through bloodtheft.
I'd be very happy to play RQII in Birthright. But I also would not want to be a ruler, just an adventurer.
So how horrible would it be to set up a special bloodline POW score? I need a mechanism that would allow POW or some other form of magical strength to be stolen through bloodtheft.
Quote from: Sigmund;429677So how horrible would it be to set up a special bloodline POW score? I need a mechanism that would allow POW or some other form of magical strength to be stolen through bloodtheft.
Sounds fine to me. OTOH I am no expert concerning MRQ II or any other RQ Version. I just started reading through MRQ II ... so I might not see what problems there are with generating another POW BL score :idunno:
Quote from: Anglachel;429707Sounds fine to me. OTOH I am no expert concerning MRQ II or any other RQ Version. I just started reading through MRQ II ... so I might not see what problems there are with generating another POW BL score :idunno:
I'm in the same boat. Hopefully some of the MRQII vets will chime in. I've decided to use the cult mechanics to simulate bloodlines, with the bloodline derivation being a cult of the dead god. This works within the MRQII rules to allow scions to have access to heroic abilities and divine magic and sorcery. The bloodline strength can perhaps be simulated by the cult rank. The only stumbling block for me so far is allowing for bloodtheft, but I'm thinking it can somehow work with the POW dedicated to a cult by pacts, however I'm loathe to have a character's permanent POW stolen, although it's not yet off the table. For the MRQII vets, is there a way in any of the RQ books for POW to be stolen?
I'm going to assign spirit magic to elves, with being blooded the only way elves can get access to divine magic or sorcery. This would jive with why elves, despite being so long-lived, have gotten repeatedly defeated by humans in war. I'm thinking of stealing Glorantha's Mostali for the dwarves, since Cerilian dwarves are rock-like anyway.
Quote from: Sigmund;429716I'm going to assign spirit magic to elves, with being blooded the only way elves can get access to divine magic or sorcery. This would jive with why elves, despite being so long-lived, have gotten repeatedly defeated by humans in war. I'm thinking of stealing Glorantha's Mostali for the dwarves, since Cerilian dwarves are rock-like anyway.
It isn't like they'll be using it, as if I remember correctly bloodtheft requires that the opponent be killed with the final blow striking them through the heart.
Quote from: Silverlion;429774It isn't like they'll be using it, as if I remember correctly bloodtheft requires that the opponent be killed with the final blow striking them through the heart.
That is true enough. It's only a mechanism really for villains, but especially with MRQII's hit locations, I'd like to have a mechanism in case it happens in the game. I'm thinking it's going to grant a bonus to POW, specifically to the POW dedicated to the bloodline cult pact. I think I've ditched the idea of adding a POW bonus, the POW required to be dedicated to the bloodline's pact can be a limiting factor on the starting strength a player is going to be willing to assign a character, which the more POW dedicated to the pact the stronger the bloodline. Then, the only way to change it after character creation is through in-game means. The flip side is, the more POW dedicated the bloodline pact the less is available for pacts with the cults of living gods and for using with sorcery. The next hurdle is to determine the way blooded characters can refresh their divine spells they gain through their bloodline cult, since the gods of those cults are dead and have no temples or shrines at which scions can renew their dedication. Might just do it the old D&D way and have the powers only be usable 1/day, 1/week, or even all the time depending on the power. I can just try to match the BR rule book in that regard.
Another consideration that has arised in reading through and comparing BR and MRQII is the concept in BR of how the regents are invested magically in their realm. I can either try to build an adaption, or basically ignore it and make blooded scions rulers through tradition/social convention rather than through game mechanics.
I don't care for either runequest or birthright.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;430575I don't care for either runequest or birthright.
RPGPundit
How unfortunate, because they both rock.
Quote from: RPGPundit;430575I don't care for either runequest or birthright.
(http://knowyourmeme.com/system/icons/346/original/969638-cool_story__bro_super.jpg?1244744838)
I'm just going to necro this thread rather than start a new one for this topic, hope nobody minds. I've determined/decided making each bloodline derivation it's own cult will work well and allow me to assign different runes, customise spell lists, add heroic abilities, and use gifts and compulsions (especially for Azrai derivations) for the different derivations. I think this will work fine to model the scions and their abilities. This works at the character level just fine, but it's at the realm level that I'm kinda stumped. I have a decent system for wizards I think. Scions who study and use sorcery are going to be handicapped slightly as they must assign POW to their bloodline cult in order to be scions and use sorcery at all, so their available magic points for sorcery will be reduced, and at first it seems they'd prefer less dedicated POW for their bloodline pact, thereby having weaker bloodline lines (from a pure metagame perspective of course). I figure, though, that at the realm level wizards can use their magical holdings to draw magic points from the land to fuel their magic with, offsetting the POW dedicated to the bloodline pact. In a break from BR I might limit the amount of MPs a sorcerer can draw from magical holdings based on their bloodline strength (POW dedicated to bloodline pact). Additionally, the limiting factor of POW dedicated to bloodline is similar to the Birthright.net team making being blooded a level-adjusted template like they did for the 3.x conversion (at least the last time I looked around over there). Of course the MRQII magic system is superior to D&Ds anyway :D and RQ BR wizards can also just make themselves nice magic point stores :D I still have to hammer out how many dedicated POW each bloodline strength level needs, but that shouldn't be too difficult. I don't want ot make it too onerous, because scions still need to be highly ranked religious leaders and decent sorcerers, maybe every 2 dedicated POW would equal a bloodline strength level.
Anyway, do any of ya'all MRQII authors and gurus out there have any ideas about how to approach the problem of BR's realm level components, namely modelling the law, guild, and temple holdings? I'm thinking I might be able to do something similar for the temple holdings as I've been thinking of doing for the magic holdings... giving divine casters more POW based on their temple holdings. The guild holdings I could live with not actually having as part of the system, but if it can be done, the guild holdings provide a nice counterpoint to the law holdings and drive some in-game behavior at both the meta and roleplay levels, so if I can figure a way I'd still like to use 'em. Also, while I have the basics of the magic and possibly the temple holdings systems in mind, I still need to determine an actual system with the numbers, otherwise I would just try to port the system as stock as possible from BR, but that won't work because if I convert magic holding numbers straight to MPs, they'd have too many. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
I also haven't even started on the awnshei/ershei yet. I'm thinking many will just be exceptionally powerful examples of whatever critter they're the progenitors of, but for certain ones (Gorgon, Spider, Raven, etc.) this won't work. Of course they're not too high a priority because characters won't be facing them right away. With MRQII's more gritty system, I would like to try to make them powerful, but not so powerful that they could never be defeated. Any guidance here would be appreciated as well.
The last thing I've been thinking about is bloodtheft. It's of course going to deal with stealing the POW a scion has dedicated to their bloodline pact. I might actuaally be able to port that rather easily, just saying that through bloodtheft a scion can take part or all of the bloodline POW of the scion they are killing, but I don't think a 1 to 1 conversion would be appropriate (or the Gorgon would be a nuclear power plant of POW), so some sort of ratio is what I'm thinking... 1 for every 3 or 5 or something added to the thief's own POW, which is automatically dedicated to the bloodline pact. Maybe 1:3 would be fine, or even 1:2. What do ya'all think, would 1:2 be too much? I'd think any at the tail end that wouldn't make a whole unit (i.e. 2 POW in a 1:3 ratio) would just be lost.
Quote from: Sigmund;435033Anyway, do any of ya'all MRQII authors and gurus out there have any ideas about how to approach the problem of BR's realm level components, namely modelling the law, guild, and temple holdings?
Well I'd offer to help but I have no idea about Birthright or its bloodline/social mechanisms. So I'm completely in the dark when you talk about realms and so on. :(
If you could explain the principles of the setting perhaps I could offer more constructive suggestions.
-wrongthread
The basics are that all the gods and their followers had this big apocalyptic battle hundreds of years ago. The gods exploded, and their followers absorbed the power. The closer you were to the god, the more you absorbed, and you pass that power onto your kids. This became the foundation of the noble families that arose afterwards.
So you've got two kinds of people - blooded and peasants. The blooded are able to link with the land to enable them to do things that others couldn't. Wizards and clerics can cast certain super-powerful "realm" spells, fighters and thieves could do something else (I can't remember what), and all blooded got magic powers (the usual D&D gamut from regeneration to detect magic).
If you wanted to upgrade your blooded type, from say, a minor bloodline to a major one, you could go around killing other blooded people with a certain kind of magic weapon. IIRC, there might be some way to do it through your link with the land as well that was more laborious.
Sigmund> I'd just use a variation of the cult rules. So you dedicate whatever amount of POW and this gives you magic spells like you were a priest of whatever level of initiation. Each holding you possess counts as a level of initiation. More holdings = more advanced spells.
In order to increase your POW, you need to have a blooded link with a holding for each point of increase, and if you ever lose the link, you lose the POW.
Quote from: Pete Nash;435134Well I'd offer to help but I have no idea about Birthright or its bloodline/social mechanisms. So I'm completely in the dark when you talk about realms and so on. :(
If you could explain the principles of the setting perhaps I could offer more constructive suggestions.
For any of ya'all that care to look and have the time, Birthright.net (http://www.birthright.net/index.php) has loads of info about the setting if ya wanted an overview of it. I know ya'all writers are pretty busy though.