Thar Shaddin

So, while working on my character's bio, I came up with some random questions...

• 1. What's the climate in Thar Shaddin (and Marn)? From what I understood, is very hot in summer and hot in winter. Did I get it right? What about the night? Is it hot too, or is the air's humidity so low that the temperature drops sharply at dusk (like in a desert)?

• 2. Is the Historic District only a black market, or is it a proper slum (with houses, taverns, etc.)? In any case, what is the Guard's attitude towards it? Do they ignore it? Do they raid it regularly? Do they fear to go in there if not in great numbers?

• 3. Does some kind of lingua franca (like latin during the Roman Empire, or english nowadays) exist?

• 4. What about half-breeds, are they sterile (like mules), or are they able to impregnate and get pregnant?

• 5. So, the tech in the setting is quite advanced (steam-power, electricity), but what about gunpowder? I think I saw cannons mentioned somewhere in the setting section, but are guns common or just exotic stuff? Are they single-shot, pepper-pots, revolvers, something else?
  If gun powder is not that common, what about "magic guns"(of course outside of Thar Shaddin)?

• 6. Are people in Thar Shaddin allowed to walk around with openly displayed weapons?
  If yes, is it frowned upon, or is it considered normal?

• 7. Do corrective eyeglasses exist?

• 8. Is acid effective too against trolls?

• 9. What happens if a troll gets a limb cut off? By that I mean: does the severed limb grow back a new body (so we'll have a second troll) or not?
  If no, what happens if a troll gets cut in half? What is the part that regenerates? The one with the brain?

And that is all (at least for now).

Thanks.

Bread! (Sorry, private joke...)

• 1. What's the climate in Thar Shaddin (and Marn)? From what I understood, is very hot in summer and hot in winter. Did I get it right? What about the night? Is it hot too, or is the air's humidity so low that the temperature drops sharply at dusk (like in a desert)?

I think the climate in Marn is generally considered to be "temperate". Seasons and severe weather aren't really dealt with, because it's too hard to coordinate that sort of thing with all the threads that are happening at the same time.

• 2. Is the Historic District only a black market, or is it a proper slum (with houses, taverns, etc.)? In any case, what is the Guard's attitude towards it? Do they ignore it? Do they raid it regularly? Do they fear to go in there if not in great numbers?

The shanty town, which primarily exists in the Historical District, is a proper slum. There are a few seedy businesses, some abandoned buildings, and a lot of improvised shelters. Most of the vice trade in Marn goes on here (prostitution, black market, drugs, ect...). When I asked Frug why the guard left it alone, this was his answer:

There's nothing in the shanty town that could come close to stopping the guard if they decided to march in there and wipe the place out. That would be a slaughter and I doubt a single guardsman would fall.

The shanty town is a spy tool and a piece of social engineering. If people think they can freely go in there and do what they want, then the authorities know exactly where to look when something is awry. Place a few spies and informants in there, and you can keep an eye on everything that goes on in the city's underground. Give people an outlet for illegal activity, and they feel less oppressed. To the citizens, it gives the illusion of more freedom than they have because it's not obviously being watched. Not obviously, anyway.

Mostly, though, it's a spy tool. You can assume anyone of any real significance in there is in league with the judges, or is at least more concerned about pissing them off than with helping you.

• 3. Does some kind of lingua franca (like latin during the Roman Empire, or english nowadays) exist?

I think there's a sort of "common tongue" spoken in most of the empire, although characters from far away sometimes choose to play out the difficulties of speaking a language that is not their native one.

• 4. What about half-breeds, are they sterile (like mules), or are they able to impregnate and get pregnant?

As far as I know, half-breeds are not sterile.

• 5. So, the tech in the setting is quite advanced (steam-power, electricity), but what about gunpowder? I think I saw cannons mentioned somewhere in the setting section, but are guns common or just exotic stuff? Are they single-shot, pepper-pots, revolvers, something else?

Cannons and primitive guns exist, but they are rare and extremely unreliable. The only guns available would have been created by gnomes, and gnomish technology tends to be a little "funky" -- if you want your character to carry a gun, you will need to give it a major malfucntion. Difficult to load, or hard to aim, or likely to explode...you get the idea.

• If gun powder is not that common, what about "magic guns"(of course outside of Thar Shaddin)?

Gnomish technology is "magic" -- it's gnomish magic. As for guns created by some other, more dependable magic, that seems possible. But such a thing wouldn't be allowed for a new character, because it makes them too powerful.

• 6. Are people in Thar Shaddin allowed to walk around with openly displayed weapons?

I sure hope so. My character has been doing it for weeks.

• If yes, is it frowned upon, or is it considered normal?

I think it's considered pretty normal. Marn is a rough-and-tumble kind of place, and people would be expected to take on the responsibility of defending themselves. You might get a few more raised eyebrows in Shim, but it still wouldn't be that big of a deal.

• 7. Do corrective eyeglasses exist?

Yes.

• 8. Is acid effective too against trolls?

I would think so.

• 9. What happens if a troll gets a limb cut off? By that I mean: does the severed limb grow back a new body (so we'll have a second troll) or not?

I think the body regenerates the limb, but the limb doesn't grow a new body.

• If no, what happens if a troll gets cut in half? What is the part that regenerates? The one with the brain?

If a troll gets cut in half, you might -- possibly -- get two seperate trolls. I'm not sure about that one.

This is what I get for going to watch Doctor Who in the middle of a post.

As Julen said, although to add my own comments.

1 - Thar Shaddin is in the middle of the Sooqui plain, which is effectively the Great Eurasian Steppe. Climate and temperature will be similar to the edge of Eastern Europe.

In addition, the City Guard have thick black leather as part of their uniform, so the climate has to be one where they can reasonably wear that.

2 - As described, the shantytown exists to give the Judges and City authorities moderate control of the city underground. They don't really mind how the people living there suffer from gangs.

3 - Language in Thar Shaddin is a combination of Latin and Ancient Greek, with some Elven and Middle-Eastern elements. Really more a local dialect than a language in itself, part of the language in the greater Western Empire.

4 - Entirely up to the player of the half-breed. We assume they are fertile unless there is a reason otherwise.

5 - As Julen pointed out, gnomish technology is magic. Every single gnomish invention is a unique item which defies science in every way possible. This is part of why they are accident prone.

Any technology beyond Renaissance-era is an exotic luxury, produced only on a very small scale.

While gnomish revolvers are possible, in practice every gun is single-shot because taking multiple shots with a gnomish weapon in short succession is just begging to have your hand taken off. Overall, while some gunpowder weapons exist, they are not advanced enough to replace bows and crossbows.

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9 - Only the part attatched to the brain regenerates. Smashing a troll's brain kills it.

I can confirm what's been said above, with some minor exceptions:

The weather in Thar Shaddin is usually cool. It has been described as being in a state of perpetual autumn. The sky is often an orange or reddish colour (if you live on a similar longitude you know what it's like). This is a result of the Changers' War having actually altered earth's orbit and axis slightly.


Human pistols and cannons exist, using traditional gunpowder methods, except that they, like most technology, just never caught on. Nobody on Pal Tahrenor has thought of trying to equip an entire army with firearms because, good sir, don't be preposterous. That is simply not how warfare is done. Why waste your resources equipping a men with silly pellet shooters when one can acquire a few good mages who fly around shooting lightning bolts and casting shields. The rest of the men are fodder, and perfectly good with swords and bows, and whatever odd abilities they have. This is how we've fought since the changers' war.

Anyway, good luck finding gunpowder, ammo, and someone who knows how to fix a human gun when it's broken. You might ask a gnome to fix it, but he'll just rebuild it for you.

It's just a matter of time before someone on Pal Tahrenor realizes how well human firearms can augment a military. Some place with the facilities to fabricate such things on a large scale. You know, some place that has built up a lot of gnomish factories and managed to merge them with human products. A place with a disciplined, mostly human military that is capable of seeing past a reliance on magic. A place separated enough from the status-quo on Pal Tahrenor to try something different...


If you smush a troll's brain, the troll will die. Otherwise the troll regrows around the part that has the brain.

Frug wrote:Human pistols and cannons exist, using traditional gunpowder methods, except that they, like most technology, just never caught on. Nobody on Pal Tahrenor has thought of trying to equip an entire army with firearms because, good sir, don't be preposterous. That is simply not how warfare is done. Why waste your resources equipping a men with silly pellet shooters when one can acquire a few good mages who fly around shooting lightning bolts and casting shields. The rest of the men are fodder, and perfectly good with swords and bows, and whatever odd abilities they have. This is how we've fought since the changers' war.

I'm curious. Is military strategy so retarded? I mean retarded in the sense of being held back. In practice here, most mages lack the power to blast through ranks of troops like mobile artillery. Is there some standard method to enable mages to do these feats on the battlefield with enough resources and preparation behind them?

I ask because most of the characters here lack that level of magical power - We'd be very wary of allowing a mage character who flies, blasts lightning and casts magical shields.

You should be aware that the battlemages have that kind of power. Attack Marn and you'll see things worse than lightning bolts hurled from a flying mage. This goes likewise for all major powers on pal Tahrenor. We don't use characters that represent the most powerful kind of people on Pal Tahrenor, but that isn't because such people don't exist.

It has very little to do with military strategy being 'retarded'. It has to do with logistics, politics, money, and the fact that Pal Tahrenor never had anything like the renaissance. You're approaching this from the perspective of someone who already believes, perhaps even mistakenly, that a group of men with semi automatic rifles can be devastating and that it would be worth diverting resources into researching. Pal Tahrenor doesn't have semi automatic rifles, nor does it have very much industrial infrastructure. It has oddball inventors who have created these things and even deployed them to reasonable effect. But not the kind of effect you're going to get from a gnomish invention, or a good mage, or any number of other things they have at their disposal.

You want to use guns? Okay. While you were busy getting those guns I found a few trolls to stand in front of my army. And I found a fairy who can go invisible and make your men think they're at a ballroom dance.

I think you underestimate the kind of research, dedication and ingenuity has gone into guns to make them the kinds of weapons they are today. If you did it on Pal Tahrenor you'd end up with a block of musket wielding guys, for quite a bit of effort put into make those muskets. I don't believe it's retarded to decide to put that effort into gnomish artillery, mages, trolls, werewolves, and other assorted rabble to fill out the ranks. Just how useful are those primitive firearms really going to be?

A battle on Pal Tahrenor is going to be much more volatile than a battle that doesn't have magic. So all of that research and time spent making up a force of well organized humans can get completely trumped if you screw up on the magic side of things.

So lets say you, as a general in charge of some traditional wing of the Eyropan Army, go up to the government and tell them that you need 1 million bishani to equip and train a thousand human soldiers to use these new muskets, which you believe can, with another million later, be upgraded to something even better in the future. They say no, use what you have. The million goes to the mage with the big hat and the long beard.

A cannon. That I can see being effective. I think you can assume they use cannons. But I think it is also safe to say that the real power on Pal Tahrenor lies with magic.

Well, thank you guys for the answers.