Long time, eh ?
RE: herd travel.
MY suggestion for a fix is:
Herds require to feed and drink to keep up their spiritual and physical
strength. More time needs to be committed to doing this in chapparal due to
the relatively low food quality and need to forage. Therefore: in any
journey which includes a chaparal hex, herds may travel up to half their MF
(round up) at no penalty; if they exceed this distance they are disrupted
(note this lowers their support factor). This should slow down travel
somewhat, at least for longer journeys. (It should make those spirits which
create little areas of fertile ground quite valuable too).
This should slow down travel in chaparal - Llama, Impala and sable herds travel at 3 unless driven hard, moro at 2. I can't remember the bison herd mf off hand, I believe it is 5, but 4 would be better. Should make moro little less uneven in chaparal - well maybe. (And see below for Protectress)
Along side which :
I don't like the current rules for the protectress. I think her appearances
should be limited in a similar way to the Ancestors ie 1 "free" appearance
(first time an undefended herd is attacked) and whilst on board acts as
before - "teleporting" to defend herds. But once "killed" the tribe need to
sacrifice a medicine bundle to re-establish the link. NB this doesn't
"summon" the protectress (though it counts as a summoning attempt) it just
resets the situation to that at the start of the game. Not sure who can
perform this ritual - shaman only ? Any Tribal clan ? If Don's priestess
were used they'd be the natural choice. - Can this ritual only be carried
out at the Paps ? Maybe priestess (or shaman) can do it any holy place, but
other units only at the Paps.
Furthermore, for the protectress to be able to appear, the herd collective spirit (I forget its' name) must be strong. Disrupted herds do not have a magical link strong enough to allow the protectress to appear - they are fair game for rustlers.
If this seems to sever then she appears on a 1-2/6.
Re: how great spirits and agents work:
"Officially" the elementals work as other spirits when encountered randomly or not under the great spirit's control ie wildfires physical attack is part of melee etc. But when under the GS control they they act as agents and so fight during physical magic phase which then has to be broken down into chaos/spirit/physical stages. This is ridiculously comnplex though and most folks probbaly ignore this and treat the wildfires as attacking during melee, the shades during spirit magic etc.
Re:Archives. Did they ever become available anywhere ?
There was lots of good stuff there, including rules clarifications and options, and stuff to add colour.
Also Doug, did you see the little booklet we produced a couple of years back ? We gave it out at the last but one Convulsion, I think it is still downloadbale from Issaries web site. It is called "the raiders' digest".
Good to "see" you all again, best wishes - Chris (rambling on too long, just like in them old days:-)
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