Markdoc

Re: To catch a clone The twins analogy is the way to go, but not exact. Assuming the cloning process is efficient, you can still expect anything not hard-coded to differ - which means, in fact that a clone (by definition developing in a different environment/mother) will be MORE different from the original than a homozygotic twin. Thus: retinal patterns, follicle layout, voice patterns and fingerprints will NOT be identical - they may not even be any closer than two similarly-sized, related people. HLA-typing and similar immunology-based blood tests will also readily tell them apart. Sorry. Depending on nutritional status, environment and exposure to disease, height, weight and intelligence may be very similar or somewhat different. On the other hand, given similar environments, the two will probably look very much alike- even to the point that people might have difficulty distinguishing them, if the age difference is not significant. cheers, Mark

Re: Tuala Morn Discussion They were similar, but culturally and ethnically different groups. There were many different celtic tribes, but they had linguistic and cultural linkages which they acknowledged even at the time, while regarding the Germanic tribes as foreign. It's generally thought that "Germanic" comes from the proto-celtic word "ger" meaning beside or neighbour, while names for remnant celtic areas suchs as wales and walesia comes from a proto-german word "walitch" meaning foreign. The Celts had over-run most of Europe and the Balkans by the last 500 years BC. To add to confusion, by the time of Rome's rising power what's now Germany was in fact full of celts, so the Germannii are in fact celts However, classical civilsations knew of Germans and regarded them as different from the celts: Strabo and Posidinus both write of them as different peoples in the first century BC. The Romans did the same. The Germans, based on linguistic and grave-find studies, originated in the area around the Baltic and southern Scandinavia and started to expand into Southern Europe in the period 300-200 BC, coming into contact with the Romans around 1 BC. As they did, they acquired some trapping of celtic and roman culture, but remained culturally distinct. As Roman power collapsed the germanic people, expanded into Europe over-running France, Spain, Italy Britain and (yes!) parts of North Africa. Celtic culture was eventually either suppressed or pushed to the margins (Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Britanny, Celtiberia, etc, etc). cheers, Mark

Re: Islam replaces Christianity For that to work in 2 generations, muslims would have to be present as a substantial proportion of the population. Where did they all come from? Secondly, to give those numbers, Europe would have to have a replacement birth rate lower than any culture that has existed and the muslims would have to have a fertility rate that matches the highest recorded (for example in the world today, Europe's replacement birth rate is at it's lowest ever - currently 1.7, compared to 2.6 for North Africa and the Middle Eastern Countries: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5388/419). Medieval/Pre-industrial fertility rates were more or less the same, so for this to have happened, you'd need some sort of major diversion from history: the black death uber-disease thing, for example. So it's possible that Christianity could be replaced by differential birth rates, but you'd need substantial muslim immigration and/or centuries of co-existence. cheers, Mark

Re: Islam replaces Christianity More accurately, they won a lot of battles and conquered southern spain - but they were never able to assert control of Spain or even defend most of their conquests in the northern 2/3rds of Spain - which of course led to their defeat as those regions united and became serious military opponents. I think a more credible candidate for islamic conquest was the invasion of Europe by the Ottomans in the 17th century - they reached as far as Vienna and were repelled by a loose and fractious alliance. But it was a near-run thing - many of the nobles and royals of Europe being too busy fighting each other to participate. That's exactly the kind of disunity that let the Turks defeat the Byzantines at manzikert and the Crusaders defeat the Seljuks. cheers, Mark

Re: Social Effects of the Undead in the Empire Also check out The Awakeners: Northshore & Southshore (two book series) by Sherri S Tepper. Overall a pretty nifty read and it depicts an uprising in a society where dead people are recycled first as labour and then (once they have ripened enough) food for the alien overlords. In return the ruling class gets not quite immortality, but greatly lengthened life-spans cheers, Mark

Re: Attuning to Magic Items

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

Re: What exactly is the "Spell" limitation? Depends on your game - we discussed it a while ago and several GMs (including me) said they didn't use it, while a few said they did. In my case, I've never had people try to spread, push or bounce spells, so it's basically a -0 limit. cheers, Mark

Re: Attuning to Magic Items

Re: Ran my first FH session... some questions 'Cos you're doin' it wrong, son! Hmm. Very minor healing, some divine favour (luck) and the ability to detect evil. 20 points, tops (probably half that). Going higher up, a strong PRE (can use PRE attacks to boost allies or a limited version to turn undead), immunity to diseases, a follower (mount) and some pretty minor spell powers. Now I'm not a big fan of classes, except as a rough guidleine, but there's nuthin' expensive there. It is more work, that's definately true, but that naturally comes from the flexibility. There isn't as much prepackaged stuff and I'd agree what is available is much more limited. But on the rules side, D&D is a pretty limited system, geared almost exclusively to combat, which for us at least, tends gets boring - especially for the DM - after a while and chracters tend to be a bit "samey". Our most recent D20 game just collapsed - in part because the GM got tired of giant combat-fests and the pre-packaged material he used, doesn't really run to much more than that. The Hero game, OTOH, which naturally lends itself to more varied activities - is still rolling along (although I've been really bad about posting updates to this board). I guess you get out what you put in. cheers, Mark

Re: When you hear Urban Fantasy... Your understanding is correct. Originally, Daywatch was going to be called Nigtwatch II: the chalk of fate. No, I kid you not - apparently it's about a piece of chalk! But they decided to go for a snappier title! cheers, Mark

Re: Look ma! No INT! No - what you describe above is what happens: the pool gets a bunch of common lim.s (Gestures, incantations, can only use when naked, etc) and then the individual slots tend to get extra limits dropped on them to "flavour" the spells and shave a few points. But it does dispel the "all same limittaions" idea. cheers, Mark

Re: When you hear Urban Fantasy... And if you are, the second movie (Daywatch) is out now. Haven't seen it myself, but the reviews so far all agree it's better than Nightwatch, which means it's definately worth catching. It's on my very, very short list of movies to look forward to. Also the original trilogy is apparently now being stretched to 4 movies. cheers, Mark

Re: UNTIL Uniforms - Now I know why they BUG me so much. Uhhh - a building. Or a stone. Both of which seemed to be smarter than the average trooper. cheers, Mark

Re: Look ma! No INT! My experience says otherwise - I think simply because most players are cheap enough that even saving one or two points on a slot appeals to them - and it's not like they have hundreds of points to spend. It is fair to say that most spells share almost all of the same limitations - but then I require 4 specific limitations on all human magic, so I can't blame the players for that! cheers, Mark

Re: District B13 Definately the selling point of the movie - although the fight in the nightclub/casino wasn't too shabby either cheers, Mark

Re: Random Character Creation So what are you guys waiting for? Do it, do it! cheers, Mark

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

Re: District B13 Yep - I thought the ending was bit too "feel-good", but the first half of the movie just pumped. The district is a nice example of a "zero zone" from Mike Surbrook's Kazei 5. cheers, Mark

Re: Historical Nexus Points Ooh, where to start? Here's a good place http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1421_Hypothesis Yeah, I know it's wiki, but the links go directly to sources discussing the errors. Or you can try: http://thehallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=91 which goes through in detail providing evidence of fudging with links to original sources. The short version is that the "ancient chinese map" showing a detailed picture of the world has been carbon-dated to the late 18th or early 19th century and there's no evidence that it is, as claimed a copy of a much older map - it is now believed to be a copy of a contemporary European map - which is exactly what it was previously believed to be. All of the "ancient chinese artifacts" - like the so called "Gympie Pyramid" in Australia turn out to be ordinary houses, vinyards, etc. One of the "authorities" Menizies cites - Rex Gilroy - now believes the "chinese" "Gympie pyramid" to have been built by Pharonic Egyptians, maybe Sumerians, or possibly UFOs. You can find his illuminating website on the scandalously-ignored flourishing of early Egyptian (or possibly Sumerian) culture on Australia's Eastern seaboard in the period before Christ here http://www.rexgilroy.com/uru_chapter16.html I must admit I particularly like his description of the previously unknown race of giants who roamed Australia for millions of years (possibly building Pyramids as they went) here:http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sciences/lifescience/PhysicalAnthropology/AbnormalStatures/ThereWereGiants/ThereWereGiants.htm OK, that's Gilroy, who is clearly such a loon as to deserve his own Canadian coin - but the fact that Menzies refers to him as "a respected australian historian" rather undermines any respect for his own research, no? Especially as he cites Gilroy's work multiple times. In an area where I have a little professional expertise - MtDNA tracing, Menzies is regarded as a clown, if he is considered at all. Menzies claims that DNA from populations including Greenlanders show traces of Chinese intermingling. In fact, no such evidence exists - and the considerable volume of evidence that does exist directly refutes his claims, see for example http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:10924403. There's plenty more, but I guess you get the drift. Plenty of the people Menzies cites are complete whackos, but harmless enough for all that. I'm personally not sure whether Menzies is a whacko or merely a smart chap, who realised he could earn some cash and a little fame by writing a "controversial" book. cheers, Mark

Re: Historical Nexus Points

Re: When you hear Urban Fantasy... Then try a book that hasn't been mentioned so far: "Metropolitan" by Walter Jon Williams details a science fiction world where magic is the centre of all power politics - basically, the idea is that if you can control "Plasm" - magical force generated by what's essentially feng shui, you control political power. It's a good gritty, politics, revolution and magic story. There's a sequel, but it's not as good. cheers, Mark

Re: When you hear Urban Fantasy... And for that matter the Hellblazer Graphic novels and the trashy movie inspired by it. cheers,Mark

Re: Eunuch as a disad

Re: This is why I play Fantasy Hero Usually I play the typical "nice" paladin - even my current character who started out as a barbarian and is evolving into a divine champion is basically a decent chap, if a bit enthisiastic when it comes to fighting. But a while back I played a "bastard paladin" like this (after clearing it with the GM). Totally convinced he was right and totally merciless to anybody not of the faith. He used to carry a little book of holy teachings around (slung from his belt by a chain in best Games Workshop style) which he used to open and quote from "See! Here! It says Enemies of the Faith "to be destroyed". Not converted. Not taken prisoner. Not left wounded and told to behave better in future. Destroyed!" I basically played him like Judge Dredd and didn't actually expect him to have long life expectancy since he a) irritated the rest of the group and was always first in and last out of any fight (unless he thought it was "unrighteous" in which case he wouldn't fight at all). But in fact, he proved near indestructible - and the rest of the party put up with his foibles in exchange for a meat shield that never learned Eventually he started learning magic, getting ever crazier and more powerful, until he finally vanished making a valiant last stand against hordes of evil dark elves, so that the rest of the party could escape. Once they had gotten away, he threw himself (badly wounded) into a racing underground torrent, and was swept away so maybe he's not actually dead.. cheers, Mark