Agentorange

I bet you had to fight off wolves on the way to school as well didn't you ?

It's worth pointing out that older mechanical machine guns were still in service at this time. For example: Nordenfelt, Gardner, Gatling, Hotchkiss revolving cannon etc. The Nordenfelt and Hotchkiss were mostly naval weapons and could come in fairly large calibres - 20mm and upwards. The maxim was rapidly becoming the machine gun of choice, but the others were still knocking about.

I actually own both those books and I have to say they're both pretty good. Eminently adaptable to any BRP based game with a bit of jiggling around.

Shekels or shackles, but not shackels

I'm with the school of thought that says the dragonewt, er, that is, big green thing is actually his pet and just doesn't want to let go of it's stick. So I voted no.

I don't know, I'd say the sections on charms and talismans could be looked at in terms of rituals ( albeit short ones ) Actually I should have posted this for you the moment you announced your project....I just assumed you'd already seen it. As you say there are some interesting ideas and mechanics in there.

Gianni, Have you seen the Eastern Mysticism rules that Sandy Peterson did for RQ3 ? They're Gloranthan in nature, in that they're designed for use in Kralorea. But since Kralorea was Glorantha's China analogue they might be worth looking at. There's a couple of copies knocking round the net if you want to practice your google-fu. EDIT If you go here: http://karamo.nexenservices.com/glowar/rqgb.htm and scroll down you should find a set.

You Know what I think ? Everytime the Travelling Beetle goes walkabout he should be forced to do a 'secrets/mysteries of......( insert country ) ' monograph for CoC for the country he's just visited. They've already got Secrets ( or is it mysteries ? ) of Tibet, and Nepal's right next door....

It's actually been scientifically proven that birthdays are good for you. The people with the most birthdays tend to live longest

I managed to get the overseas free shipping ( $125 or over ) and it was all sales items. Indeed I didn't even need to enter the free shipping code...it just automatically stuck it onto the order menu for me .

The stars are right......well, the price is anyway. Taking advantage of the sale and free shipping I've ordered the following: 1 x Agents of the Crown 1 x Berlin 61 1 x BRP Adventures 1 x Classic Fantasy 1 x Fractured Hopes 1 x The River Terror, and others 1 x Val-du-Loup 1 x Kingdom of the Blind Ok I'll have to live on gruel until payday, but hey reading the monographs will make the time pass swiftly.

Yeah, but you've got some pretty big lakes

In all fairness Gianni, we can get the monographs in Europe as long as we pay for postage and possible import tax. My strategy is to wait until there are enough monographs that I want to get free shipping that is: $125 worth and hope the customs men don't stick me for the import tax, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

That's an interesting article, as are the subarticles: Damascus steel, Roman metallurgy and so on.

Power Wushu ?

Thanks guys, I'm kind of intrigued now, I don't suppose anybody can recommend any good books on the subject ?

Ok, that all make sense. Moving forward then to the medieval period and the renaissance era presumably metallurgy had come a long way since the Roman period ? Steel is I'm guessing the default metal for such an era. Now in the renaissance era we get suits of plate armour that have been 'proofed' against firearms, that is at certain distances they would resist pistol ( and maybe ) musket shot. This obviously represents a major leap forward from the Roman era. Was this due to better materials ie better grades of steel, or was it due to better metal working and forging techniques ? Or, and I suspect this the answer, a combination of both of the above ?

My copy of BRP Rome arrived today, and a thing of beauty it is too, Ave Pete Nash ! Now, I was leafing through it and looking at the weapons and armour of the period and I started wondering about the relative strengths of the various kinds of metals available in relation to each other. Metallurgy is a subject about which I know very little. So...if it were possible to make a breast plate of all the various kinds of metal, and taking Bronze ( 6AP ) as our base line. can anybody suggest what values would be for: Copper Iron Steel so on and so forth ?

I can see where people are coming from on this one, but to me low or high POW is simply a matter of practicality in that if you have a low POW you've got less PP to fuel spells and less POW for enchantments etc etc. Now obviously someone with a low POW is unlikely to be a professional sorcerer because they simply don't have the magical resevoir of PP and POW to be effective in that role but I don't see a low POW actually preventing them learning sorcery spells. I suppose what I'm saying is that actual gameplay or real life ( as it were ) would weed out low POW characters from being sorcerers, their talents simply wouldn't run in that direction. So to me saying you've got to have 16 POW to be a sorcerer seems an arbitary rule rather than a practical impediment if that makes sense. On the other if you're dealing with " complex occult formulas " and grimoires full of spells then INT and possibly EDU would seem much more relevent. I can forsee a situation where you could have someone with high INT or EDU but fairly average POW acting as a tutor or teacher in the sorcerous arts, teaching sorcery 101 as it were. After all as long as you've got enough PP to crank off Witch Sight or Liken Shape or whatever does it really matter if you've got 15 POW or 16 POW ? It is after all PP that fuels spells not POW. Characters with low POW are unlikely to specialised magic users of any sort.

If you go here: Gloranthan Wars and scroll down you'll find the most recent ( to my knowledge ) collection of sandy's sorcery,shamanism and mysticism rules. There's some good stuff in there and the site in general is good.

Now this is something that's puzzled me since I bought the BRP rules. Sorcery is described as " complex occult formulas, formalised as spells " yet the deciding factor whether you can be a sorcerer is having a minimum POW of 16. To me that seems a bit odd, if we're dealing with "complex occult formulas" then having a good memory and being a bit on the brainy side ( both of which I would express as INT ) seem more important than how much raw POW you've got. It's no big deal I've simply houseruled in my campaign that INT is the deciding factor not POW. Just curious why is all.

I read somewhere that deflecting missiles was known as 'arrow cutting' whether that applied purely to arrows or was a more general term I don't know. for the super blow, how about 'concussion strike' ? or something similiar I'm curious, what are the literal translations of the Chinese terms ?

Say it isn't so, I'm really not a fan of PDF's. they're ok for small articles and supplements but reading a large document on the screen is eye punishing difficult. All the local printers are exhorbitant for binding. How about a POD on Lulu.com ? It's up to us if we want to fork out the extra for printing and posting then.

Ah...now I know

Don't worry there is still interest. Shame it's not getting the full book treatment though.