Forum > Echoes of Heaven
Starting a game and running the first teaser
mocking bird:
So I have been going a lot of re-reading of the Throne of God and I have come across a few issues and would like some advice on what other's have done. They are primarily for if you ran the 'Teaser from Heaven'. Mainly magic.
I am planning on running it in HARP but have a question regarding spheres. In the book it says that if using RM the Arcane would be available since there aren't three realms yet. I think this would be a great idea but it does have a few problems. Mainly what to do in the current world. Arcane could be considered 'pure magic' that the church is looking for - but most likely isn't trying to hard and would still consider it corrupt. The Shadow Order would likely give various body parts to learn the arcane as well. Or count it as really really really rare making new list acquisition possibly problematic.
You could apply this same idea to the spheres allowing the player initially to choose any spell since there is only one 'magic'. But afterwards make them chose a sphere - for free of course - since the cosmology simply isn't the same.
I am also assuming granted mana is right out. Fixed could also be a problem since the flora and fauna would be much changed. However if a player had some angel/demon parts from Heaven itself those could be incredibly potent, and valuable. Save the trouble of carting around demon bits all the time.
Ambient mana has a similar issue. I would imagine the recovery levels in Heaven would be significantly higher than in Belkanath. Would Ulcers affect this rate as well.
And non system questions - what did the party do about hiding their origins? All sorts of orders would come out of the woodwork and want to kill the party for heresy - Lonnuso and Sinnius come to mind. Or the Sowers of Seeds may want the party to live and spread their story causing a schism within the Church.
Their clothes and general equipment might appear antiquated and quite valuable. But obviously a forgery - they look (too) perfect but obviously aren't old enough. Old coins as well, if there was money in Heaven, there weren't guards for the horses after all. What would it say, in lieu of 'In God we trust' would it just say 'Trust me' on it?
But seroiusly, I am just envisioning a Roman centurion speaking nothing but fluent ancient Latin or a commoner speaking Aramaic or an Egyptian merchant who speaks ancient Greek and Egyptian all from Palastine circa 28CE appearing outside of 1000 CE Rome and what kind of chaos it would cause.
Defendi:
Gerik, if you're reading, it might take a day or two for me to answer this (my mother just had a surgical proceedure). Answer as best you can and I'll confirm or correct. :)
GerikGnome:
I can comment on the Arcane magic thing. Arcane magic and magic of all types existed before the Sundering. Using Arcane above other types of magic was still rare, but some did. Those who did when transported to the Mortal Realm retain the ability to cast Arcane (you don't forget how to tap the primal powers). However, I have never met in playtest, or heard of in any other context, a caster from the Mortal Realm who can cast Arcane. At very least it's even more rare there.
The Church in general would consider using Arcane magic at least as evil as using any magic. There may be some who see it as more divine and pure magic, but those would probably consider it an even bigger blasphemy to use it than regular magic.
For other types of magic/whatnot, Defendi's general rule of thumb has always been that if changes in scenery would affect the usage of character abilities, we assume that with practice (maybe a little roleplaying), the character is able to adapt his powers intact to the new scene.
I assume Mana recovery in HARP is similar to Power Points in RM (Never played HARP; I'm not part of that playtest). Recovery in Heaven, Hell, and Ulcers happens at the same rate as anywhere. However, (click to show/hide) product 5 (which is coming soon) contains rules for tapping magic from Holy and Unholy ground at the cost of gaining corruption (Holy or Unholy, depending--my Gnome almost reads as having a Divine Spark as a result of drawing power off of the Holy See in Sulvican City).
For non-system questions: Our party always takes great pains to hide our origins. Our very existence is heresy. (click to show/hide)Thankfully, the first 2 people you meet when entering the Mortal Realm are those who will help you hide your origin (Brother Cathon(?) and Cardinal Gleann). You speak Divine Tongue and so do they. We roleplayed through figuring out that they were different dialects and learning to approximate the local dialect. It's not too strange to normal people because Divine Tongue is one of 2 lingua franca and they just assume your strange accent/phrasing just means you're some kind of foreigner. Same thing goes for odd cut of clothes/armor. Though, most people admired the angelic themes on our warriors' armor.
For money, the coins you bring with you are holy relics and extremely valuable. Certain groups (Sinius, Lonnuso, etc) might kill you for having them, since you obviously stole them. We gave them to Gleann for safe keeping, and he gave us local money.
The chaos your appearance might cause is softened by Gleann sheltering you and making sure you'll at least pass cursory inspection before turning you loose on the world. At that point, as long as you don't go around shouting that you're from Heaven (or are a Gnome so no one will believe you anyway), no one should be the wiser.
I hope that helps.
markc:
--- Quote from: Defendi on October 19, 2009, 10:25:30 AM ---Gerik, if you're reading, it might take a day or two for me to answer this (my mother just had a surgical proceedure). Answer as best you can and I'll confirm or correct. :)
--- End quote ---
I hope everything goes well.
MDC
Nejira:
--- Quote from: GerikGnome on October 19, 2009, 12:30:53 PM ---For non-system questions: Our party always takes great pains to hide our origins. Our very existence is heresy.
--- End quote ---
Can you explain that further please?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page