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> From: Birthright Roleplaying Game Discussion
> [mailto:BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM]On Behalf Of Gary
> If one were to map out a sort of topography of the explosion at Deismaar
> with the “shockwave” of divine energies that infused the attendant mortals
> with bloodlines depicted as rings how big might those rings be?
Interesting question, although I will say to start out that my conception of
how things happened at Deismaar is a little different than yours. There is a
picture of Deismaar somewhere that shows some human-scale figures fighting
in the foreground, and some god-scale figures fighting in the clouds above
them. This is more how Ive always figured things went. The gods fought in physical but godly form right over the peak of Mt. Deismaar, while their allies fought on a battlefield or a series of battlefields sort of on the eastern slopes of the mountains. So, when the gods did their kaplooey thing, I really imagine it more like their essences attempt to tranfer to the gods
champions, but the champions, while they absorb MOST of the essence, cannot
absorb it quickly enough, and a goodly portion of it spreads out from their
locations. This means that instead of a single “ground zero” there would be
seven ground zeroes around not where the gods stood, but around where
their champions stood.
This picture, incidentally, allows me to justify two things: 1.) after the
godsdeath, the Deismaar landbridge was destroyed/sunk under the sea, and 2.)
there were people at Deismaar who werent instantly pummeled to death from the pressure front, buried by the debris cloud, or drowned with the sinking landscape. This is because the gods were a goodly bit away from their lowly followers, the debris cloud spread largely in a southerly direction (killing the REST of Azrais army, which hadn`t even made it to Deismaar yet), and
most of those who escaped where either at the north end of the battlefield
where the land sank more slowly and they had time to make it to safer
ground, or were close to the shore and got out on the Masetian ships which
managed to avoid the giant whirlpools that formed as the land sank.
Incidentally, Ive always placed the battle on the eastern slopes of Deismaar so the Masetian ships could play a role, but I suspect that the argument could be made that the main land-path was probably on the Western side of the mountain, since those who crossed it seem to have spread mainly north and west, leaving the east for the Basarji to colonize. This argument may depend on the extent to which the Adurian refugees could rely on adequate shipping or whether they moved primarily by land. I think there is good evidense that the Andu at least took largely a land route (so they could take their horses with them), but Im less sure of the Ryuvik and the
Brecht.
Oh, bless me, Ive forgotten about the Vos. Oh, well, perhaps its not that
good of an argument.
There are five categories of bloodline strength; tainted, minor, major,
great and true. Strength was originally linked to a characters proximity > to "ground zero" of the explosion. (One might also speculate that > bloodline score of those originally infused was directly related to > proximity, only becoming variable due to events following the battle.) In > addition, there is a small group of individuals who ascended to > godhood due > to their exposure to the energies of that explosion, so we can hypothesize > five "rings" surrounding an "inner circle" that represents the explosions
“ground zero” for the purposes of such a topographical map.
One might be able to make a case for Tainted bloodlines being a degeration
of a stronger bloodline, rather than a “natural” catagory that existed
immediately post-deismaar. The word does seem to imply that, but I don`t
want to read too much into that.
> Optionally, those characters who got a true bloodline could also be at
> “ground zero” along with the mortals who ascended (that`s my reading, at
least) but did not ascend for reasons beyond their (or our) ken–much to
the chagrin of at least one of them… For the purpose of speculation we
can just put the inner circle in along with the first ring if we
want to go
with that.
Well, hows this for some heavy-duty kenning. The entirety of each gods
essence was INTENDED (if thats the right word) to go directly into their champions. However, because the champions were only humans, they couldnt
absorb the “stream” of godpower fast enough–at least at first. As the
champions underwent apotheosis, they shortly “grew” enough to absorb the
entire stream, so that the entire (say) last half of the godsblood went
solely to them, completing their transformation. (I may speculate that
Kriesha was in the process of healing Belenik when the apotheosis occurred,
which is why both ascended rather than only one).
Thus, instead of a “pool” of godstuff deepest at the center and shallower
at the edges, you get an expanding ring of power. Those closest to the ring
get a more concentrated dose, but as the ring expands it thins out, so those
more distant get smaller doses. This explains the bimodality of the
distribution pretty well. We don`t have a plethora of demigods and godlets
running around because MOST of the godsblood was absorbed by the champions,
while those around them could at most absorb a small fraction of the initial
“oversplash.”
> Of course, the rings neednt be perfect circles. We dont know
> how (or if)
> the explosion was affected by the actual topography, weather,
> etc. For the
> purpose of the basic idea here it doesn`t really make a difference,
though. “Average” width will do.
The question: how wide is inner circle A and each ring B-F?
Caveat emptor.
Circle A (True bloodlines): 10 Circle B (Great bloodlines): 30
Circle C (Major bloodlines): 90 Circle D (Minor bloodlines): 270
Circle E (Tainted bloodlines): 1/2 mile or so
Related questions: How many people survived the explosion? How many
occupants might each ring have had? That`s before any subsequent orgy of
> bloodtheft, of course.
occupants:
Circle A: ~10
Circle B: 50
Circle C: 250
Circle D: 1250
Circle E: 5000
% Survived:
Circle A: >50%
Circle B: 40%
Circle C: 20%
Circle D: 10%
Circle E: 5%
Is that enough wild speculation for you? I`ve got more…
Mark
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