After looking back in Trollpak, I discovered to my surprise that Trolls _can_ see at least one color: red. In fact, they're limited to red, black, shades of grey, and white. All the better to target Lunars, I suppose... ("Hey, those 'uns wearin' red." "Lunars! Kill 'em!")
With regards to the discussions about textures: I've always played darksense at having a _limited_ ability to define density, as well: the return signals are "different" for objects which are denser/less dense, have hollow bits, etc. (eg, this is how they go about this business of "sensing what's in others' stomachs," as noted in Trollpak). If objects are particularly defuse and the troll concentrates, darksense can be unconsciously "focused" to weed out the less dense objects (like water, fog or the Glorantha equivalent of tissue paper). Speaking from experience, it's like wearing glasses: _most_ of the time, I forget I wear 'em: I simply weed out the visual signs. ('Course, now that I've thought about it, I can't _not_ notice them. Arrgh.).
Anyway, that raises the interesting point of having textures _over_ textures. A gravel-bed lake with still water "scans" differently when the water is choppy, and "scans" differently from a sandy-bottom lake. The _water_ may be the same color, but the combination of texture's isn't. The combination of the two textures produces a "texture" unlike the original two.
The ability to make some adjustments for density might also explain why Uz seem a little less concerned with clothing, in some cases: if you pick up a general sense of "what's under there" anyway, there's less reason to wear clothing for modesty.
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Trolls that go "ping":
Something I've argued with other GMs (uh, usually while playing an Uz PC) is whether or not Darksense is "noticed" by other Uz. If this is a subsonic "ping" like sonar, wouldn't the receivers on other Uz notice it? This might be a good reason why Uzko have kept (and even refined on) Uzuz eyes; it can be _dangerous_ to sense/scan other trolls. Ogling the local Kyger Litor priestess with your eyes is safer than darksense, which she's better able to detect. IMO, darkscan would be more obvious to other Uz than darksense... darksense is a little more "passive" and doesn't involve as much active use of emissions. (For some trollkin, eyes become a survival feature: although your trollish masters will give you a boot to the head for being "uppity" and "looking" at them with darksense, you can visually look at them with impunity. Some values might even develop the ability to detect other colors...)
To be fair, the arguement I've heard against it is that the initial "ping" is at a different pitch, and that until it "reflects" Uz don't pick it up.
Any thoughts?
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Glenn Micah Glazer writes:
> To me, one of the fun things about the Uz is that they challenge our
> definitions of what it means to be cultured or civilized.
A fairly humorous moment in a campaign occurred when a party of PCs were introduced by local Uz to the Famous Uz Artist of Pavis. The PCs were faced with a large block of stone, with some odd bits haphazardly chopped out. After various (false) compliments, the party trooped off, with characters making comments like "stupid trolls" (and the players, "ha ha, modern art comes to Pavis.") It never occured to them that the weak-eyed trolls wouldn't make _visual_ art: it was the combination of textures on the surface of the object, various hollowed out portions, and the introduction of denser materials inside that gave a remarkably pleasing effect for Darksense. One of the players later caught on when he accidentially touched a different "sculpture" by the same artist, and noticed patterns of texture on otherwise featureless bits.
James Frusetta gerakkag_at_wam.umd.edu Department of History University of Maryland, College Park ========================================================================== ------------------------------
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