At 08:15 AM 3/21/2009, Rey wrote:
>This is something that has to be viewed from another, much wider, angle. Which areas of Aebrynis respond to the same scheme as Cerilia? Is Cerilia the only continent that responds to the blooded scions, and do they only live here?
The powers of the scions appears to be pretty much the same on all of Aebrynis, not just Cerilia. Theres no absolutely direct statement to that effect in the original materials, but there are a few things that can be taken as evidence. First, there are colonies of Cerilian scions on other continents. At least, theres one: Mieres. But there appears to be more than just that one if other possibilities are taken into account. The Rjurik have far flung colonial efforts too. Second, ley lines can travel over water up to 150 miles. Now, that`s not really to another continent, of course, but the implication is that one could have source holdings further afield than that, so that would seem to indicate that scions could operate pretty far from Cerilia. There aren’t really a lot of bodies of water that stretch that far that aren’t continental, so the restriction seems to indicate that someone could create a source holding any number of miles away and try to connect it to a province in Cerilia. One couldn’t do that unless bloodline works the same way all over the planet. Third, there are transplanted scions to the Ravenloft world. If scions can travel to another planet/material plane/campaign world and retain their abilities surely they can go to another continent.
Theres not much to indicate how the land responded before Deismaar, or if it responded at all. Personally, I don't see a lot of evidence for bloodlines or anything like them before the BoD other than the existence of the Lost, and IMO those guys are something very different. So how did people rule? Well, I think they probably ruled the same way people rule everywhere else--through a system of political influence, control and favors that has no actual magical manifestation in bloodline or regency. Thats not a particularly satisfying answer, I know, but thats kind of the point. Something very different is going on with bloodline and regency; hence the importance of the setting. The BRCS 3.5 update did have material that would allow a non-regent to have a domain, and that was expressly done to extend the concepts of the domain level of play outside of the setting, but Ive personally always found that problematic because I don`t think rulership works anywhere else the way it does in the BR setting.
>How did the land respond before Deismaar, or did it “come alive” after the disaster?
I think the land literally came alive after the battle. The Land’s Choice indicates (to me, at least) that something woke up in the land itself after the battle. Maybe it was always there and was suddenly given a set of tools to use that mortals (and elves) could recognize, or maybe it wasn’t there at all before Deismaar and the battle “awakened” the Land itself like a vast, planet-wide spell. Personally, I favor the latter interpretation, but it seems to me that the Lands Choice is a planet-wide phenomena, not just a Cerilian one. It could be the continent rather than the planet, and that interpretation would actually explain a few things, but on the whole it seems more sensible to me that Aebrynis has some sort of life itself rather than just Cerilia because then we run into troubles with things like the Mieres colony and just about anyone who sets sail being "out of reach" of the Lands Choice. I don`t see any indication that a Vassal, heir or other scion somehow loses contact with a Regent, benefactor or holding by travelling away from the continent.
>How were the first blooded regents recognized as rightful rulers?
First off, the domain level works at a much faster pace than would seem normal. One could, potentially, start up and rule three provinces to level 10 in under 3 years. It`s kind of hard to imagine a non-blooded character doing the same. So the first blooded regentsly likely were recognized by the simple pragmatic ability to rule more effectively than non-blooded characters.
Secondly, its probably important to remember that those who became blooded were very often already nobles. Lots of commoners (lower case C) also got bloodlines at the BoD, but so did their commanders. So a lot of the regents were simply returning to their homelands to rule once more. Im sure there was a lot of upheaval as those who returned took over from those who stayed behind, but isn`t it the nature of a cataclysmic battle of the gods that most people of consequence would want to be in attendance? I suspect a large percentage of the people in rulership positions were already there…
>What happens if a blooded individual steps on another continent, does his power vane, can his blood be stolen?
I dont think a scion loses his bloodline or abilities when he leaves Cerilia as noted, so I think it would work the same way on another continent as it does "back home." Note, however, that most of the folks on that other continent arent going to know how bloodline works, so the priests wouldn’t be able to conduct investiture ceremonies, establish heirs, etc. Bloodtheft would work the same way, but in the original materials bloodline could not normally be transferred from a scion to a commoner through bloodtheft, so that`s less likely unless one is using different rules.
Gary
