seasong's Light Against The Dark II (May 13)

[seasong]

Note: some war stuff coming up this weekend, although as mentioned previously, the rules by which Theralis is playing the war game have changed. More importantly, Bellos will be unveiling his Beer Plan, which may well make the party filthy, filthy, filthy rich. By Theralis standards, anyway .

Anyway, because they might be rolling in disposable income within the next few game sessions, I thought I would share some of my thoughts as a GM about PCs and obscene wealth.

It gets touched on a lot on these boards, but in D&D, wealth = magic items = combat power. Too much wealth under this system, and the balance of the system breaks. Worse, there are items one can buy in standard D&D which essentially allow you to throw money at a monster to make it go away, not to mention the hordes of mercenaries and spell casting armies one can buy.

Theralis doesn't have hordes of spell casters to hire, and mercenaries (while they exist) are a mostly northern thing. The people of Theralis would likely frown strongly on the idea of such shiftless, landless criminals being relied on to defend Theralis lands. And magic items are generally on a per-commission basis, and take time to produce; those that already exist are usually in someone's hands already, and unless you can imagine Agina selling her sword (I can't), you are out of luck.

Something to consider, however, is the threat range they are to face. At 7th level, verging 8th, they have become regional heroes and are verging near legendary status. Realistically, if they spearhead a plan, they'll have many, many times their wealth in people who will back them on the plan. Realistically, if they need something to break the back of the enemy, the military will buy it for them. And realistically, they're going to need it to win.

Another consideration is that wealth, properly done, gives the characters something to lose. I love to allow characters to invest in things and then threaten that investment. They're usually jumping all over the threat like ugly on an ape before I can finish saying what the threat even is. Wealth ties you down - to land, to your partners, to the survival of the community that makes your wealth meaningful.

And finally, wealth won't impact things that much from a challenge perspective. I've got whole armies of eye tyrants, orcs, giants, northern aggressors, and who knows what else. if the PCs, at semi-semi-legendary status, are too rich for more ordinary threats, I've got everything I need to achieve the destruction of all they hold near and dear. Balance is between party members, not between the party and the GM.

Whew! Didn't mean to make that so long. Just my two cents .

 

[Greppa of Tartwater]

Mine mine mine! Go go go!

I'm Rich! I'm a happy miser!

I'll get to the underthingie when I get home after work. I have to collect my thoughts and marshal my paranoia.

 

[Greppa of Tartwater]

Update

Sorry I haven't posted it. I got new RPG books last night and they slurped the awareness out of me. The post should be up late tonight.

 

[Talix]

Wow, that was surprisingly easy. Good thing they're always meeting the nice eye-tyrants. More like the eye-local-landlords.

What is the translation for "biolenss", besides the obvious overtones of battle/violence? I couldn't place it...

 

[Nail]

Good points, Seasong! But the best is this:

And magic items are generally on a per-commission basis, and take time to produce; those that already exist are usually in someone's hands already, and unless you can imagine Agina selling her sword (I can't), you are out of luck.

This is key. Many think the core rules assume "magic shops". Well, sorry, but they don't. They do assume characters have a certain power levels of items.....and that's not necessarily tied to a PCs gp hoard or land/business/title value. A lord with millions of gp of worth need not own three +5 vorpal swords, or even have access to such items.

 

[seasong]

Wow, that was surprisingly easy. Good thing they're always meeting the nice eye-tyrants. More like the eye-local-landlords.

What is the translation for "biolenss", besides the obvious overtones of battle/violence? I couldn't place it...

Hee hee hee .

The eye tyrants don't have human-like teeth, and their sibilants are sonorous. Without an even, hard ridge (like human teeth), 'f' and 'v' translate quickly into 'b' or 'p'. I went with 'b' because it's more understandable when spoken out loud. The sonorous sibilants also limits their ability to state 'z' sounds, and they tend to avoid sounds like 'th'. So 'biolenss' is 'violenss'.

As for the eye-local-landlords... heh. During the game, Greppa went off for about five minutes on a 'conspiracy of tyrants' after this happened. He's positive there's more going on.

Maybe he's right...

 

[Greppa of Tartwater]

Greppa's poisonous little thought.

Theralis, at least as far as the players know does not have an underdark populated by drow, duergar, and mindflayers. However, there may be new, worse denizens under the civilized world.

Greppa's moment of paranoia.

As I watched the eye tyrants appear from the forest to return the stones they took from the road, a terrible thought emerged.

What if these two isolated incidents weren't isolated at all?

The first time we encountered an eye tyrant "colony" we were north of the Theralis valleys. They scrubbed over our brains and made sure that we couldn't find them again. They could have killed us but they captured us, tortured us, put some kind of geas on us and sent us out.

Now, we run across these, "peaceful" specimens. Is it coincidence?

What if there was a large eye tyrant community under the Theralis valleys

The Kithios empire stretched well across the valleys. What if it had stretched underneath them as well. If those underground caverns still existed, then the eye tyrants we met tonight could be the SAME eye tyrants we met up north.

What if they weren't looking for general knowledge, but for something in particular, an artifact that will let their faction achieve supremacy in their home dimension. If they're peaceful then them taking over their home dimension would be fine, but if they're not and are being nice because they don't have the resources for war on this plane.

I can't believe that I oathed myself to keeping their secret, but they also said that I could keep an eye on things down here and I will...several pairs.

 

[seasong]

Note: the above almost sounds reasonable. As such, it fails to capture Greppa's brief rant in the game . And that's nothing against the player - I personally thought it was most excellent, although not quite long enough (a few minutes only) to qualify for raving status.

In essence, the theory was thus: there are eye tyrants up north, and eye tyrants down south, and there are probably eye tyrants beneath our fair city, just waiting to destroy us all! Also mentioned in the rant were an eye tyrant hivemind, a vast underground city, ancient Kithios artifacts, the oozelords, and other such unlikely things.

I mean, who'd believe all that?

 

[seasong]

Hopefully soon I can start my own story hour. I finally have a group and we start playing Sunday, should be fun!

Hey Delgar! Let us know here when you get it started!

A lord with millions of gp of worth need not own three +5 vorpal swords, or even have access to such items.

Darn straight! And while I have run settings with magic shops, one still has to remember that most economies are competitive, and magic items are typically a seller's market. A shop will have lots of the more commonly desired items, but rare stuff goes to the person with the most money and desire for it.

Update coming up.

 

[seasong]

Between Times

Upon arranging times and signals to the earth elemental, so that Greppa could track the adherence of the eye tyrants to the deal, the group left back for Theralis. They had spent too many days already to continue on, as they would be needed soon for the war effort at home.

On the way, Bellos was seeped in thought, his brow furrowed. It was an uncommon sight - not that Bellos thinking was uncommon, but they had become rather accustomed to Athan's lack of it. It ended when they arrived in Theralis, and Arkos parted ways with them to return to the Keraunesti quarters and Greppa, Merideth and Bellos returned to Greppa's tower.

"Greppa, how much weight can that glowing light creature carry with it?"

"About half of me. Believe me, I thought about that, but there's no good way to transport people."

Bellos took a moment to breathe, "Half of you!? That's... that's... oh, sweet gods, that's incredible. And how often?"

Greppa looked at him, "Bellos, what are you talking about? I mean, we could drop rocks, or have them scout out the enemy... I was thinking of suggesting the scouting thing to Agina, but the carrying thing is pretty useless."

"How. Often?"

"Well, all day long, really. It's mainly a matter of how long I can keep them here, which is typically less than a minute, if I'm having them do heavy stuff."

"And they can go... they can go all the way from here to the earth elemental?"

Greppa didn't dignify that with a response.

"Hear me out. Wine. Aglaonis. Beer. Theralis. Half your weight per trip. How many trips per less than a minute?"

Merideth, who had been quietly gazing into the innerspace where her heroic visions lay, woke up and shrieked deliriously. She wasn't big on math, wasn't keen on economics, and barely even tried to understand how Greppa did the accounting for the tower and team budget, but she understood naked profit well enough, and profit was very attractive naked.

Greppa just sat there, his mind dancing through the numbers, focusing on angles... He was interrupted by Bellos, "Well, we can't do too much. I think the archon's abilities outstrip our ability to utilize it - if we did too much of it, other arcanists would be jumping all over it real quick, and we'd end up with only a small fraction of the profit."

Greppa quickly agreed, "Yes. We would need to keep it concealed. Maybe work with Uridates again, see how much he thought would be reasonable."

Bellos quirked an eyebrow, "Uridates?"

"Oh, right... you weren't around. He's a merchant we worked for a few years ago, as guards. As best as we can tell, he's the greediest man in Theralis, who's still honest. And it would be in his and our best interests to keep this a secret, so he'd go along with it."

Merideth finally drifted back into the conversation, "Would it be better for Theralis if we shared?"

One heartbeat passed. Two.

"Naw."

Note 1, Uridates: From this post, "Uridates was a man of consumate greed. He knew the names of obscure, distant gods of coin, and had a lucky coin in every denomination he had ever encountered. He could identify precious metals by touch, taste, smell and sight, and could spot many forgeries merely by hefting it for weight. He also knew wine, as any Theralese merchant must, but more importantly, he knew how to sell it."

Note 2, Greed: The idea of open markets, open source, and the value of increasing public knowledge is not a common idea in this setting. In the characters' heads, if they shared their idea with others, the same amount of wine would be traded, leading to a negligible gain in Theralis' wealth. The idea that easier trade would lead to even more trade is not something they quite grasp - who would have imagined that cell phones, for example, would have led to anything other than portable payphones?