Shop, Ninjuz, Silk, Bees

From: James Frusetta <gerakkag_at_wam.umd.edu>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 19:15:39 -0400 (EDT)

Michael Lay wrote:
> 1) The street map shows a magic shop, presumably run by a mage of some sort.
> Has anybody any comments on what such a shop would sell (and for how much)?
References? If you want to buy spirit magic, you're from out of town, and your cult isn't found in Pavis, you pay a small fee and the shop owner connects you up with a priest/shaman who can provide the spell you need. Add in a little kickback from those priest/shamans you reference to, and you might make a few lunars per spell. Might sell replacement foci as well, and references to a p/s to attune. Not exactly a major source of income, though.

Peter Metcalfe wrote:
> I would have thought that you would be claiming Cloaking Devices
> for the Blue Moon Uz. Y'know Decloak, Bite Victim's Head Off, Encloak.
Already have it -- Invisibility and Conceal. :)

> But I'm not sure that Uz would have martial arts in
> the hooman sense as their primary tactic of unarmed combat is bite.
Not in the hooman sense, but in a trollish sense, perhaps. After all, you have to subdue your opponent before you can bite or he parries your face with a mace; or perhaps to simply misdirect and distract your opponent while you bite. Couldn't see most troll communities bothering, but (assuming there are martial arts in Peloria, which is far from given) there is a fair bit of hooman influence from the Lunars and from the Mutie Human worshippers of Blue Moon. Conceivable they might adapt Pelorian human techniques into a Blue Moon school.

I'm not sure it's true, but it's an amusing speculation.

Sandy wrote that the Kralorelans export:
>silk

and that humans eat:
>silkworms

Oho! So there is another Gloranthan source of silk besides giant spiders. Is there a giant variety of silkworms, providing a lucky bunch of trolls with all the silk they want?

Or are silkworms originally a _trollish_ practice (in the Kingdom of Ignorance) that the Kralorelans adopted after taking over there, and were subsequently brought into Kralorela proper?

Caroylyn mentioned what she's interested in, and not. So no more wargaming.

A couple people have said there can't be a TW Bee Tribe, coz there's no giant flowers near Kitori lands. But the Bee Tribe of Dakori Inkarth is _big_ -- 11,000 trolls (maybe more), 1,400 of which are military bee pilots (there might be additional "civilian" bee pilots). That suggests a lotta bees -- so they need something the size of the VoF. A Kitori Bee Tribe is probably a lot smaller, with perhaps only a hive or two of bees So they might only need a small patch of Giant Flowers that outsiders just don't know about. (Anyone know how many flowers you need to support a single bee?)

Alternatively, since your Darkearth Kitori are much more keen on agriculture than your average troll, they might artificially support the bees -- keep lots of small flowers growing on the edges of the Troll Woods, and use slave trollkin to harvest the pollen and bring it to the bees in big piles (I'm assuming a giant bee can't harvest pollen from a small flower). Lots of work just for a few bees, though. And it might not work -- it _might_ be the Giant Flowers that make the bees big; or using normal pollen might only make low-grade honey and non-magical royal jelly, which makes the bees less useful for economic purposes.

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