The lack of giant flowers has been pointed out by several digesters (hey - -- it's better than digest_ed_, Joerg. ;) At least for the Shadow Plateau, dragonflies or giant mosquitos* seem like much more natural critters. The Damned Marsh seems to be clearly in Trollish hands (as per Trollpak), and they border the Blackwind Marsh and Bottomland Marsh -- if human habitation is low in the latter two, the trolls may effectively control them.
Can't recall if any flying bugs are raised for eatin' in the Shadowlands (fruit midges? beetles?), but it'd be useful to have some sort of flying mount to herd them with, chase stragglers, etc., whether this be bee, dragonfly or mammoth mosquito.
David Cake
> I'm beginning to get to a strangely James Fruzetta like state of
>mind, where if I did change my mind and decide that elves lived in the
>Troll Woods, I'd want to lead an Uz crusade to wipe 'em out anyway.
Sounds good to me. But the fourth time, we have to sack the City of
Wonders instead.
> BTW -- love the e-mail address, James.
Kind of amusing -- I get my e-mail through the history department here at
UMCP and several people have been curious what the heck "Gerak Kag" means.
So far, everyone's accepted "Oh, he's the Dakori Inkarth hero who sacked
the city of Pavis in 1240." So far, I think most of them assume he's a
Turk or a Serb... :)
Daniel McCluskey defends those darned Elves:
> ;-). Jamuz also (inadvertantly) mentioned the (only?) two other places
> where plants thrive in contact with Uz -- Vale of Flowers and Sporewood.
> Funny thing, but there's elfses in BOTH.
Inadvertantly? Elsewhere, I've directly cited the VoF and admitted that
cooperation _can_ occur, and that it might have insight to the Kitori
case. Nyah, nyah, nyah.
But the elves of Sporewood are proper Darkness-lovin' Voralans -- makes sense for a fungus forest. Being troll buddies, why _wouldn't_ the trolls tolerate them? And I believe there's references to their being more such fungus forests as well (one in Pamaltea...?) And the Muri live in cooperation with the Aldryami, though this is going to mythic extremes, so there's at least a third category of Uz-Aldryami cooperation.
I _agreed_ that the cooperation between the VoF elves and the Bee Tribe existed, yadda yadda yadda. And _if_ the basis of Kitori power rested on cooperation with a segregated bunch of elves, there would be the basis of cooperation. I'm just not convinced they _need_ the Elfses; that's why I've wondered if there's a Bee Tribe or a Termite Tribe, for example, which would very closely parallel the VoF case. If they don't need the Elfs, I don't care how inconvenient it is -- those Elves are yesterday's entree.
But note the difference, too -- the Vale of Flowers is an Elf Forest. The Sporewood is presumably a Voralan Shroomery. The Troll Woods is neither. I continue to ask -- is it possible for Elves to survive 1600 years outside an Elf Forest? Or do they turn into stunted, degenerate Mutie elves?
Paul Chapman's Smart Arrows:
>Thank you, I'll take that as a compliment. I will develop this further
>soon.
I did like it (my trollish bias was just showing.) I do wonder, though,
how Flamal was able to give the Elves stuff when he was lounging about in
Hell (after Zorak Zoran liberated the plant world from him). Perhaps an
elf heroquested down to try and rescue him (or something), couldn't do it
but came back with the arrows...?
>><Trollkin Chaff Joke, RW weapons analogy>>
>I assume you're joking here, but in case you're not, the Smart Arrows
>don't really home in on one target, flying round corners and all that
>jazz. They are able to _slightly_ alter the course of their flight but
>this amounts to the Speedart effect, basically. I think anything that
>really homed like that would be ridiculous outside the bounds of a
>HeroQuest Gift.
I was actually taking you too literally on the use of "smart" -- rereading
it, you do specify that. My apologies. No flying through Iraqi air ducts.
Though I actually _do_ like the idea of tossing trollkin in the way of missile fire. A fine trollish martial arts skill, IMO, similar to arrow catching/deflecting and suitable for wizened troll sensei. "So, Gorakiki-Locust, you think you are ready? Snatch the trollkin from my hand..." And the troll martial artists would be known as the yakUZa, of course. <rimshot>
Sureshot could be interpreted as being "smart" to the extreme and obscene degree we both seem to dislike -- the spell description says a sureshot arrow automatically hits, "regardless of movement, range (within maximum missile range), concealment, etc." I've never seen a formal cult write-up (Devin Cutler had a nice one, which I use), but Golden Bow may well offer the spell -- meaning that Elves (assuming they worship Golden Bow) would have access to (arrrrgh!) a re-usable smart missile spell. I'm not sure how others would rule this, but I'd think you'd at least need an initial line of sight to the target -- otherwise this is _far_ too sick! "Uh, I think there's a troll over there, in that cave." <Twang> "AAARRRRRRGH!" <Thud> "Yup!"
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