Re: Hero Wars clan generation

From: TTrotsky_at_aol.com
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 17:46:10 EDT

Alex:

<< Hi gang. One of the most interesting-sounding aspects of HW is the clan rules, and alas, they're the ones I know least about, since while they were being run at Convulsion, I was elsewhere, playing the actual game. (!) Could some kind soul synopsise them here, for the benefit of me and other such benighted unfortunates? No more than was made public at the con(s), of course - -- I'm not looking for any Big Secrets (or to tread on any toes).>>  

     The clan generation proceeds by a series of questions, each explaining a bit of Orlanthi history and relating it directly to your clan. A great way to introduce the background to newbies IMHO! The questions are multiple choice, and the answers you give gain your clan points in such features as Farming, Magic,
Traditionalism, etc. I would guess there are around 20 such features in total.

     Your clan can either start in the Green Age or the Storm Age, the former meaning you get a few extra questions but not actually making you any more
'powerful' in the long run. Questions start out with what you did in the
Godtime, and then work on to Heort, Vingkot, Lokamayadon, the EWF, the colonisation of Dragon Pass, Sartar, the Lunar invasion and finally Starbrow's Rebellion.

      For example the very last question was something like: "Seven years ago, Kallyr Starbrow lead a great revolt against the Lunars to try and throw them out. Did your clan:

1. Send all their able-bodied men to fight for Starbrow
2. Send around half their able-bodied men to fight for Starbrow
3. Send only as few people as they could get away with to fight for Starbrow
4. Do nothing - they didn't think the time was right yet
5. Help the Lunars In this particular case, the main effect is to determine just how much your population has dropped in the last few years. a) is a really bad option if you want to be a populous clan! Answering a) or b) would also get you a point in
   'Anti-Lunar'. Presumably you can get points in Pro-Lunar as well but
   (surprise, surprise) nobody did! At the end of all this you get a few points to spend among whatever you have the highest scores in, so as to make the ones you want most even higher. Anything you have a high score in gets characters from that clan a bonus when employing it; for example we had Magic-5, so that gave a bonus whenever we used magic. You also get scores for morale, how much other clans fear you, etc. A series of simple calculations then figures out your population, number of warriors and number of hydes of land devoted to agriculture, pasture etc. If you have more points in Warlike than Peaceful, you are a War Clan. You will have accumulated points of favour with particular deities, and can now decide which ones you want to have shrines to. Normally your list of options is fairly limited, but our clan had a high score in Novelty so we were allowed anything we liked so long as it was feminine (we were a Peace Clan). One thing we noticed was that it's a good idea to pick a basic idea and stick to it. Deciding to be peaceful to begin with, and then being violent later on in the hope of 'evening up' the scores doesn't work. If there's a tie between two directly opposing scores (Novelty and Traditionalism, say) it doesn't mean you steer a middling course (this is Orlanthi we're talking about!) it means that your clan council is evenly split between factions favouring these two approaches and will argue about it all the time, which is a Bad Thing.

     In terms of adapting this to groups other than Sartarite Orlanthi clans you would have to devise a new questionnaire and scoring system, so it would require quite a bit of work. Obviously, something fairly similar like Heortlander or Tarshite clans, would keep most of the questions in common, and just change the last few. For totally different cultures, like Loskalmi or trolls, you'd have to devise the entire thing from scratch. You'd even have to change it a bit if you wanted a different campaign date, since I would imagine just chopping off the last few questions (unless it was just one or two) would lower the final scores more than somewhat, especially since only the last two or three questions will have a major effect on population.

     On the whole though, assuming you don't want to specify your group's clan in advance as GM, I'd say its a great way to get a new group of players to interact with and learn about Orlanthi myth and history and how their characters relate to it.

Forward the glorious Red Army!

     Trotsky

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