Re: Magic side effects

From: Sandy Petersen <sandyp_at_idsoftware.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 11:32:48 -0500

Shon Vaughan
>1. A matrix holding an elemental does not display any of the elemental's
>qualities. Examples: a salamander matrix is not hot and an undine matrix is
>not wet.

        This isn't as fun as the other possibility. Hence, I play that a binding object DOES have some traits of the creature in question. An object holding a pain spirit might smart when touched with the bare skin, and when you put your ear to an undine matrix you can hear the ocean. Plus it's damp.

>2. When an elemental is pulled from its matrix it does not require outside
>material. That is, for example, a salamander does not require a
>pre-existing fire to manifest.

        Runequest rules since RQI have required you to have some of the relevant element present when summoning an elemental. I play that you need enough of the element to create the entire elemental if you are summoning a "physical" elemental, such as a gnome, undine, or sylph. Thus, summoning an undine for drinking purposes in the desert is pointless. However, summoning a gnome to dig its way down to water might be useful.

        The non-physical elements (shades, lunes, and salamanders) are different. They require "intensity", not bulk for summoning.

        Hence, a shade requires a shadow, but it's the darkness or depth of the shadow, not its size, that is important. Thus you can get quite a large shade out of quite a small shadow under certain circumstances.

        Salamanders are made of fire, which "grows" naturally. A very small flame can be used to command forth almost any size salamander. But you _do_ have to have the flame first, and it is subsumed in the elemental.

        A lune just requires a pool of moonlight. Note that when _initially_ summoning a Lune, you need moon rocks, the Bat, or some other intense source of moonlight. However, when you're just bringing a bound lune out of a magic item, this isn't as important. You just need to be within view of the moon, and of course the lune's power waxes and wanes accordingly.

        Selenes are much like lunes except they are tons harder to summon in the first place because of the non-ubiquity of blue moon rocks.

>consider RW examples and you will see that creatures that reproduce by
>parasitic means usually have much shorter gestation periods relative to
the >host.

1. this isn't often true.
2. when true, it is generally mostly because parasites tend to be smaller than their hosts. And smaller animals mature faster.
3. parasites find their breeding uniqueness not in speed, but in complex life-cycles, and in breeding HUGE numbers. A tapeworm can take weeks or months to mature, but eventually it will launch millions of eggs over its many-year lifetime.
4. Broos are not true parasites. They are parasitoids. The nearest equivalent to a broo is a wasp -- the wasp grub invariably kills its host, and ecologically and functionally the wasp acts as a predator, not a parasite.

If there is a need for a broo's gestation period to be shorter than 2 seasons plus 1-8 weeks, it's easy enough to change. For one thing, every broo, and probably every broo rape, is different. I'm sure there are cases in which the broo grew up and emerged within seconds after insemination.

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