Battle Mages

Dungeons & Dragons MPGN Mailinglist archive 1996-1999
1

>It’s more like the
>process that “settled” North America or the one that is chopping down the South
>American rainforests right now.

    No, South America is different. Here the farmers will burn down a

part of the forest and farm it for two, or at most three, years before
moving on. You must realize that the land which the forest is on is
basically not fertile, if it were not for the trees this area would be barren.
Another difference is that the fires started here are often
uncontrolled. They practically burned down the state of Roraima earlier this
year!

Bearcat
lcgm@elogica.com.br
Come visit Bearcat’s Birthright Homepage at:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/6204

2

How many mages capable of casting battle magic should there be available
to a regent.
How many could Roesone or Avanil call on compared to the Gorgon or
Tuarhievel?

More questions, somebody ring the answer people!!

3

On Wed, 6 May 1998, Raygun wrote:

> How many mages capable of casting battle magic should there be available
> to a regent.

In my games virtually every nation is capable of having at least a “court
magician,” (although the PC’s don’t always take the time for the necessary
“lieutennant action.” These court magicians would have sufficient
hirelings/apprentices to cast the battle magics that they know. Rarely
will a regent have more than one, but for some of the big guys that may be
possible, esp. if they “control” more than one realm. Generally, to field
more than one force with magical support requires cooperative ventures
between two realms.

> How many could Roesone or Avanil call on compared to the Gorgon or
> Tuarhievel?

Roesone: probably 1 court magician, any any diplomatic agreements
arrainged w/ either Aelies and/or Aglondier.

Avanil: Wizard of Taeghas (can’t remember his name–never played in the
west), plus perhaps 2 court magicians, or perhaps a non-regent wizard.
Plus any number of favors he could call in (from the Imperial Chamberlain,
from Tuornen, from Brosengae, from Mieres).

Tuarhievel: I would probably allow as many non-regent wizards as there are
provinces in the nation. The real drawback is the lack of efficient and
effective fighting forces (elves are expensive and difficult to organize
into units, although those units are quite powerful once formed). I have
toyed with the idea of each elven unit requiring a lieutennent of the
domain’s regent in order to be formed, thus limiting the number of units
the nation can field based on the regent’s charisma, but none of my
players have ever run elven domains.

Gorgon: this is an interesting question. On the one hand, I can’t really
see old rock-butt allowing any blooded wizards run around his pad–he
would just as soon bloodtheft them. On the other hand, he might have a
small cadre of evil magicians running around and doing his bidding (I’m
really not that knowledgeable about FR, but perhaps something like a
under-powered and less-ubiquitous Red Wizards–or perhaps the Brotherhood
of the Flame from Al-Qadim is a better illustration). I would expect that
it would be difficult to field more than 3-5 battle mages at one time (w/o
recalling his “undercover” operative magicians).

Is this helpful?

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

4

At 10:13 AM 5/6/98 -0400, Mark Vandermeulen wrote:
>
>
>On Wed, 6 May 1998, Raygun wrote:
>
>> How many mages capable of casting battle magic should there be available
>> to a regent.
>
>In my games virtually every nation is capable of having at least a “court
>magician,” (although the PC’s don’t always take the time for the necessary
>“lieutennant action.” These court magicians would have sufficient
>hirelings/apprentices to cast the battle magics that they know. Rarely
>will a regent have more than one, but for some of the big guys that may be
>possible, esp. if they “control” more than one realm. Generally, to field
>more than one force with magical support requires cooperative ventures
>between two realms.
>
>> How many could Roesone or Avanil call on compared to the Gorgon or
>> Tuarhievel?
>
>Roesone: probably 1 court magician, any any diplomatic agreements
>arrainged w/ either Aelies and/or Aglondier.
>
>Avanil: Wizard of Taeghas (can’t remember his name–never played in the
>west), plus perhaps 2 court magicians, or perhaps a non-regent wizard.
>Plus any number of favors he could call in (from the Imperial Chamberlain,
>from Tuornen, from Brosengae, from Mieres).
>
>Tuarhievel: I would probably allow as many non-regent wizards as there are
>provinces in the nation. The real drawback is the lack of efficient and
>effective fighting forces (elves are expensive and difficult to organize
>into units, although those units are quite powerful once formed). I have
>toyed with the idea of each elven unit requiring a lieutennent of the
>domain’s regent in order to be formed, thus limiting the number of units
>the nation can field based on the regent’s charisma, but none of my
>players have ever run elven domains.
>
>Gorgon: this is an interesting question. On the one hand, I can’t really
>see old rock-butt allowing any blooded wizards run around his pad–he
>would just as soon bloodtheft them. On the other hand, he might have a
>small cadre of evil magicians running around and doing his bidding (I’m
>really not that knowledgeable about FR, but perhaps something like a
>under-powered and less-ubiquitous Red Wizards–or perhaps the Brotherhood
>of the Flame from Al-Qadim is a better illustration). I would expect that
>it would be difficult to field more than 3-5 battle mages at one time (w/o
>recalling his “undercover” operative magicians).
>
My own personal suggestion would be that an elven realm can field at least
as many wizards as comparably sized (province levels) human kingdom can
field of wizards (and magicians) and priests together. This is because I
believe that elven wizards end up filling the roles of both clerics and
wizards in elven society, and the inherently magical nature of elven society
(how do you explain size level 6 provinces in heavy woodlands with no lard
available for agriculture, eg. the capitol provinces of Sielwoode,
Tuarhievel and Lluabright?)
In terms of actually available magic that depends greatly on your
campaign. I find the birthright sourcebooks greatly confusing on this issue
as the description of the world is supposedly low magic. However the
availability of magic to NPCs is highly varied, with some NPCs having many
powerful items, especially for the NPC’s level whereas other NPCs have no
magic items at all. The modules also do not support the low magic theory,
with a) lots of magic items around and b) players having to deal with major
magical wardings (ie the symbol of discord in the Sword of Roele adventure).
Using the various rulebooks I came up with a total of 200 non-elven
true mages in all of cerilia (22% in anuire, 22% in brechtur, 10% in
Vosgaard, 15% in Rjurik, and 33% in Khinasi). Looking at the student body
from the Royal College of Sorcery in Anuire, I set the number of magicians
to 2000 with the same distribution. Add priests to taste (in my case, 2x
as many spell casting priests as magicians with an even distribution over
the human realms) (note that I have non-spellcasting, non-adventuring
priests), further breakdown by realm, and voila. You might also give realms
next to hostile elven domains Eg. the Manslayer’s province slightly more
magicians or priests because they will need them.

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

5

On Wed, 6 May 1998, Mark A Vandermeulen wrote:

> On Wed, 6 May 1998, Raygun wrote:
>
> > How many mages capable of casting battle magic should there be available
> > to a regent.
>
> Tuarhievel: I would probably allow as many non-regent wizards as there are
> provinces in the nation. The real drawback is the lack of efficient and

The Tuarhievel domain sourcebook has 15 wizard's towers printed on

the detailed map. Most of them are along the border with the Gorgon/
Markazor, and are there intentionally to act as defenders. Clearly, if
any elves know battle magic, the mages in these towers do, since they may
need to fight off the initial stages of an invasion themselves. Then we
ask, how many wizards are there, and what are their levels? My response
is, “lots, and high.” There are probably also numerous wizards in quieter
places who once experimented with battle magic but are no longer living
near such a high density of test subjects :wink: and who could be called back
into service in time of great need.
The idea of reservists returning to service is also of interest in
the answer to the questions about the level distribution in military
units; those elves who decide one day to run off and join the army will
probably stay several decades without realizing it, and end up 3rd level
or more. An elven “levy” is probably then composed of higher-level
fighters than the regular units, and thus should have rather different
statistics from the human ones; alternately, look at the large numbers of
regular units listed in the Tuarhievel book as “can be called upon by the
regent in times of need”, and say they don’t use levies as such, but
rather allow double normal mobilization when under attack, and half
otherwise.

  • –Ryan
6

In a message dated 98-05-07 00:10:08 EDT, you write:

> An elven “levy” is probably then composed of higher-level
> fighters than the regular units, and thus should have rather different
> statistics from the human ones; alternately, look at the large numbers of
> regular units listed in the Tuarhievel book as “can be called upon by the
> regent in times of need”, and say they don’t use levies as such, but
> rather allow double normal mobilization when under attack, and half
> otherwise.

Yes I agree about the levy. In my campaign I have described elven units as
comprising actually about 50 individuals or so. These independent-minded
fighters (not really needing commanders) are 3-4th level and barely look like
a unit at all. However, these few warriors really have teeth! and usually can
therefore account for 3 to 4 times their number on the battlefield. Elves
don’t need to outnumber thier enemy to crush them.

Of course this is not official, except for within the bounds of my game.

  • -DKE
7

>
>Yes I agree about the levy. In my campaign I have described elven units as
>comprising actually about 50 individuals or so. These independent-minded
>fighters (not really needing commanders) are 3-4th level and barely look like
>a unit at all. However, these few warriors really have teeth! and usually
can
>therefore account for 3 to 4 times their number on the battlefield. Elves
>don’t need to outnumber thier enemy to crush them.
>
>Of course this is not official, except for within the bounds of my game.
>
>-DKE

And Elves can cas invulnerability on themselves 2 times per day, never need
to eat or sleep, are a “good” race (even on Cerillia), are superior to
Humans in all respects, act as “one” even though they pride themselves on
their independance, and are basically little versions of gods themselves.

Does anyone get tired of putting Elves on a pedestal? Does anyone wonder
why Elves don’t just conquer the world and get rid of all their enemies?
You may recall that the did TRY that, but failed because they had no gods.
This reclusive, dwindling race of Human-haters does not deserve this type
of worship in the Birthright game. Perhaps in a Middle-Earth game setting
they do, but not here.

  • -Clay Hinton
    chinton@mail.utexas.edu

>***************************************************************************
>>‘unsubscribe birthright’ as the body of the message.
>

8

Clayton F. Hinton wrote:

> Does anyone get tired of putting Elves on a pedestal? Does anyone wonder
> why Elves don’t just conquer the world and get rid of all their enemies?
> You may recall that the did TRY that, but failed because they had no gods.
> This reclusive, dwindling race of Human-haters does not deserve this type
> of worship in the Birthright game. Perhaps in a Middle-Earth game setting
> they do, but not here.

Personally, I rather like Cerilian elves. Of course, I don’t see them as being as
incredibly powerful as several other people do. As a race, the pluses of elves
are pretty much balanced out by the minuses. Sure, they live longer and can cast
“true” magic, but they don’t have any priests (or significant healing magic) and
they breed much more slowly.

Why don’t elves take over Cerilia? Because there are WAY more humans. Simple as
that. Even elven battle spells can’t compete with that. Colonization isn’t a
battle by battle process, really. It’s a slow, migratory one. Elves might be
able to face a much larger force on a battlefield with their spells and superior
movement, but that doesn’t mean they would have the same ability when faced with
the hordes of woodcutters and farmers who trickle into their lands like locusts,
chopping down the forests and destroying their sources. It’s more like the
process that “settled” North America or the one that is chopping down the South
American rainforests right now.

Laters,
Gary

9

>This reclusive, dwindling race of Human-haters does not deserve this type
>of worship in the Birthright game. Perhaps in a Middle-Earth game setting
>they do, but not here.

funny you say that, when cerilian elves are so much more tolkienesque than
in any other ad&d setting =)

cheers,

  • -nick
10

At 10:41 AM 13/05/98 -0500, Clayton F. Hinton wrote:
>
>Does anyone get tired of putting Elves on a pedestal? Does anyone wonder
>why Elves don’t just conquer the world and get rid of all their enemies?
>You may recall that the did TRY that, but failed because they had no gods.
>This reclusive, dwindling race of Human-haters does not deserve this type
>of worship in the Birthright game. Perhaps in a Middle-Earth game setting
>they do, but not here.
>

Well, actually they aren't worshiped in Cerilia. I like the role of elves

in Cerilia because here they’re considered almost abominations in the human
dwellings. They’re proud, and have a personal battle versus the people who
do what they most hate, destroy the forest. They know that they’re loosing,
but they’ll continue fighting until the last man (I mean, elf!).

By the way, is it true that there's going to be released the second

version of Birthright in September?.. Which changes will it have?

Trankel Al Ker
Lord of the Brotherhood of the Black Tulipan

11

Bearcat wrote:

> >It’s more like the
> >process that “settled” North America or the one that is chopping down the South
> >American rainforests right now.
>
> No, South America is different. Here the farmers will burn down a
> part of the forest and farm it for two, or at most three, years before
> moving on. You must realize that the land which the forest is on is
> basically not fertile, if it were not for the trees this area would be barren.
> Another difference is that the fires started here are often
> uncontrolled. They practically burned down the state of Roraima earlier this
> year!

I meant it as more of a generic comparison of the way population
pressures/colonization works rather than a specific example regarding ecosystems or
slash and burn farming. I’m going to have to plead ignorance when it comes to the
South American rainforest. All I know is what I’ve seen in the occasional PBS
program, read in the papers, or heard in Sting’s lyrics.

  • -Gary
12

My feeling is that the Middle Earth elves were the “chosen of the gods,”
and deserve all the praise in the world. But Cerilian elves are just
faries, elfs that only worry about their own superiority and their own
little version of reality.

  • -Clay

>
>funny you say that, when cerilian elves are so much more tolkienesque than
>in any other ad&d setting =)
>
>cheers,
>
>-nick
>
>***************************************************************************
>>‘unsubscribe birthright’ as the body of the message.
>

13

In a message dated 98-05-13 16:49:57 EDT, you write:

> By the way, is it true that there’s going to be released the second
> version of Birthright in September?.. Which changes will it have?
>
No this is not true. You have to wait until next year (Summer). Or so it was
said by TSR reps a month ago, and things can change rapidly however.

DKE