I'm not knocking your comments in fact many of them are really good and I've picked up a few points as well. However that divine disease doubt has crept into that cabbage on my shoulders.
that >
>Is there any references to scorpion man ecology/culture been
> >published?
> No, but scorpion men have a pretty primitive "culture". I
Sorry I mean't Chaosium/Avalon Hill writings other than CoT
> Their "culture" is more of a biology than a culture. In the
> same way that various populations of chimpanzees share many things
> in common, so do the various populations of scorpion men.
Himm, I would have thought the scorpionmen would still have a 'culture' on a par to gloranthan baboons or nomads. Although chimpanzees make tools (twigs for picking grubs out of holes) and live in family groupings they don't actually fabricate even crude leather armour or manufacture shields and spears. Chimps so far as I know are not 2001 a space odessey material yet.
> quite deadly. They have low POW because that's their nature. Just
> as it is in human's nature to have a higher POW.
> 1) Maybe they have. Maybe they used to have POWs of 1d6.
Ouch, one step up from a fish!
> 4) Perhaps it takes significantly extra spirit proteins or
> something to hatch out a being with a high POW -- most high POW
> beings are either small and sickly like Elves (showing what they
> paid for that high POW) or else they have an ungodly slow breeding
> period like jack o'bears or wyrms (showing that it's hard for the
> parent to produce a kid both strong _and_ magical). Presumably it's
> better for the scorpion species to have 100 POW 2d6 individuals than
> 65 POW 3d6 individuals.
Good point, but if you take the case that nourishment of 'power proteins' provides increased pow. Then races that eat a lot of 'powerful' sources would start to see their species pow increase? Thus scorpionmen chomping away on lots of sentient races would see their racial pow go to 3d6. Conversely beings eating non-sentient food sources would have their inteligence start resembling the cabbages they're eating. Of course there's nothing to say that digestive systems are all the same, even gloranthan wise, it's clear that trolls have different digestive systems (Trollpak) to humans why not scorpionmen.
> One final point. Using ecological evaluations, I believe it
> is quite clear that the scorpion man is a R-strategist creature.
> They breed rapidly, come to maturity swiftly, are highly
> opportunistic, and are able to spread with frightening speed when
> conditions are right. R-strategists are not necessarily common or
> numerous most of the time. They lurk in the background, waiting for
> a habitat to be disrupted. When this happens, the scorpion men
> multiply like crazy and spread over the countryside, devouring
> everything in their path over hundreds of acres.
> So don't be too sanguine about the fact that scorpion men
> are generally a marginal species. If you walk into the deep woods or
> unplowed prairie, you don't see many dandelions (another
> R-strategist). But look at a disrupted habitat -- like your front
> lawn. Hmm. When things get worse -- like at the time of the Hero
> Wars? -- the scorpion folk will be everywhere.
That's a real good evaluation, just like broos I guess. I'd always have respect for something that could hit me twice when I could only parry once.It's pretty remarkable that they're not more numerous considering their natural fighting ability and the points on rapid reproduction. There can't be too many crazy adventurers chasing after them, what keeps their numbers low? Lack of food facilitating egg laying?
> >Were scorpionmen chaotic in the beginning?
> I do not believe there _were_ any scorpion men in the
> beginning. There was only Bagog.
Yes, as it say's in CoT Bagog started laying eggs that took the form
of what she had eaten last.
>She was not a scavenger god, as you
> appear to believe. She is a _converter_, transforming dead or
> moribund life into chaotic life. A sort of scavenging vampire.
Ooh, that sounds a convertly lunar answer, death being converted to life. Didn't Bagog start out eating the dead rather than actively preying on beings (CoT). Although it would make sense to go after the living too.
Just looked up the runic associations (Beast, man, darkness, chaos). CoT states Bagog was a darkness diety, the first three runes make sense, the chaos would also make sense using your chaotic life transmogrifyer theory.
> Huh? The max POW 14 is by RQ III rules, too. If you use RQ
> III, then you don't need a high POW to become a priest or lord or
> shaman, so scorpion folk can do it -- of course, they're crappy
> ones, but they can do it. And they're hell on wheels in combat.
Sorry, I'm still using RQ2, so I'm not aware of RP being
possible with pow14.
After buying the players book for RQ3 there was no way I was going to
convert. When I have all the rules I need already why buy the next
edition (which was out of my pocket money range then) if I'm happy
with RQ2.
> Of those possessing chaos features, around 6% get extra POW
> - -- half get +1d6 POW, a third get +2d6 POW, and 1/6 get +3d6 POW.
> This means that 1.05% of the scorpion population have a POW of 3d6,
> 0.7% have a 4d6 POW, and 0.35 have a 5d6 POW.
So you'd get one priest (considering restrictions if only females are
priests) per 100 two if males are allowed in the priesthood. Could a
marginal area support that number. Looks like your R-type dandelion
wannabes would be popping into human occupied areas often to find
enough food to support the growing youngsters and to allow the queen
to continue egg laying to replace numbers lost in action.
Considering the scorpionmen come from one queen per village and that much of the genetic material (king who came from a queens egg) also comes from the queen isn't there going to be a tendancy for inbreeding to occur (explain the chaotic features). Even if eating other races inputs genetic material into the tribe it will only be found in one scorpionman if converted. Maybe a whole batch of eggs if it is incorporated into the genome of eggs. For a genetically heterogeneous community you need around 200 individuals to ensure long term survival (reason why a few south sea islander communities died out). Then again glorantha is a whole lot different than earth. If the laws of physics are up the spout in glorantha i think biology would also have had a good going over too.
> One more point -- in any scorpion
> society, there is likely to be a certain percentage of individuals
> who were not naturally born scorpion folk, but were "converted" via
> the Ritual of Rebirth. These individuals generally have higher POW
> than the average scorpion man, and no doubt show up as priests and
> shamans with more than the usual frequency.
Sorry, I'm obviously not understood rituals of rebirth, yeah all the knowledge abilities would be there but I didn't realise that pow would be 'previous species values' Would then INT paticulary and other stats be 'retained'? Knowledge retained but behaviour changed? Horrible thought's of giant scorpionmen if the queen could eat that much.
> I agree somebody should try it. Maybe an Irrippi Ontor, who
> could undergo the fabulous Ritual of Rebirth without losing his
> membership in his cult? And then what a fabulous sage he'd be -- he
> could hang a satchel of books from his sting, and use his extra legs
> to climb high library shelves. Plus nobody would argue with his
> commentaries, at least not face to face.
There you go again, only a lunar would be 'loony' enough to think about getting eaten so they could be intimate with their field of knowledge. Think of the problems getting clothes that fit!
Cheers
Chris Graham
GRAHAMCD_at_aston.ac.uk
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