Questions about darksense

[Brootse]

What is the range of darksense? Can trolls sense far away ships with darksense? Does darksense work better through water or air, and does it work better in darkness? How much does mist affect it?

[M Helsdon]

3 minutes ago, Brootse said:

What is the range of darksense? Can trolls sense far away ships with darksense? Does darksense work better through water or air, and does it work better in darkness? How much does mist affect it?

This may help:

https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Darksense

A thin mist would not, I suspect, affect it very much; a thick fog might scatter it a little more, much like sounds sometimes seem deadened by fog, with their directions more difficult to discern.

[Brootse]

Additional question: does Farsee work with darksense? I'd say no.

[Kloster]

6 hours ago, Brootse said:

Does darksense work better through water or air,

Logically no, because darksense is about darkness variation.

6 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

does it work better in darkness?

Logically yes, because darksense is about darkness variation.

6 hours ago, Brootse said:

What is the range of darksense? Can trolls sense far away ships with darksense?

I don't remember if there ever was a rule, but we always played it's range was equivalent to sight.

2 hours ago, Brootse said:

Additional question: does Farsee work with darksense? I'd say no.

Because of previous answer, I'd say yes.

[dumuzid]

I'd answer no, on the basis that Darksense isn't sight.  It's echolocation, it has nothing to do with perceiving light.  A Farhear spirit magic spell might work, but echolocation isn't exactly hearing in the human sense either, which trolls are also capable of.  I find it more likely that some bat spirits, dehori, maybe even dolphin or whale spirits, can teach a Farsense spell to sharpen Darksense, which would be completely useless to most non-trolls.  Trolls have functional (if farsighted, colorblind) eyes, and access to the same sighted abilities as humans (with lower base values) for Farsight to work on, though I don't think halving the apparent distance between them and a target would actually help trolls see, since their vision is blurry and vague at anything closer than hundreds of yards.  If anything Farsight as-written seems to me like it would impede uz sight, while doing nothing for their Darksense.

The Darksense possessed by the Mistress Race is supposed to be much more powerful than the dark troll version.  Uzuz darksense is supposedly capable of perceiving at much greater distances, of feeling within objects, even of killing among other qualities.  Some of those tricks might be available to dark trolls as well through the Kyger Litor cult and the medium of a Mistress Race ancestor spirit.

[Sir_Godspeed]

13 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

It's echolocation

I've seen discussions about this (others have argued it's about perceiving Darkness as an element, completely separate from any other sense we might otherwise consider analogous), is there a canon answer?

[dumuzid]

7 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I've seen discussions about this (others have argued it's about perceiving Darkness as an element, completely separate from any other sense we might otherwise consider analogous), is there a canon answer?

From the Guide, p. 95

The classic Trollpack goes more into much more detail on troll digestion than Darksense, but refers to "trolls' sonar" repeatedly.  I've based my further understanding of it on the page-length writeup in The Unspoken Word #04: Trolls of Glorantha, p. 17, which includes a list of sense-words for Darksense without obvious human equivalents.

[soltakss]

Different kinds of trolls have different levels of Darksense. Trollkin (Enlo) only have a rudimentary form, Dark Trolls (Uzko) have well-developed Darksense and Mistress Race Trolls (Uzuz) have the best developed sense of all, being able to tell if a woman is pregnant, for example.

[David Scott]

Have  look through the RQG Bestiary, it covers most of it and the two Dark Sense skills. Classic Trollpak has a lot more.

9 hours ago, Brootse said:

What is the range of darksense?

I'd treat it like human sight with higher skill levels able to see more.

9 hours ago, Brootse said:

Can trolls sense far away ships with darksense?

Sure, why not on a calm sea. Classic Trollpak says:

Quote

It is not as good as eyesight at long ranges, and trolls only get silhouettes and general impressions of mountains over a kilometer off, for example. A dark troll would be unable to detect an object as small as a person at a range of over a kilometer.

9 hours ago, Brootse said:

Does darksense work better through water or air, and does it work better in darkness?

Works underwater as sea trolls have it along with other undersea creatures. (RQB)

9 hours ago, Brootse said:

How much does mist affect it?

I'd say none as smoke has no effect on it. (RQB p60)

5 hours ago, Brootse said:

Additional question: does Farsee work with darksense? I'd say no

I'd assume that there's a darksense equivalent. But it's up to you. There are trolls in Trollpak classic that have farsee, taught by the hunter cult.

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

4 hours ago, dumuzid said:

From the Guide, p. 95

The classic Trollpack goes more into much more detail on troll digestion than Darksense, but refers to "trolls' sonar" repeatedly.  I've based my further understanding of it on the page-length writeup in The Unspoken Word #04: Trolls of Glorantha, p. 17, which includes a list of sense-words for Darksense without obvious human equivalents.

I'm trying to envision hulking Dark Trolls or Cave Trolls give off high-pitched squeaks/pings now. Amusing, although probably too high-pitched to even hear. If indeed it's actually literal echolocation and not something magical "similar" (per the quote) to sonar/echolocation. 

On another note, I watched a clip of a RW blind person using echolocation. I was skeptical, but it seemed to be the real deal. He was able to determine the difference between an empty and filled cup at about a meter's distance just by tutting in his cheek. Neat stuff.

Edited April 19, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[g33k]

40 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm trying to envision hulking Dark Trolls or Cave Trolls give off high-pitched squeaks/pings now. Amusing, although ...

whales

 

😁

[dumuzid]

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm trying to envision hulking Dark Trolls or Cave Trolls give off high-pitched squeaks/pings now.

The typical in-game explanation when my usually quite charismatic dark troll character fails his Charm or Sing tests is that he failed to calibrate his performance for the human audio range.

Either Unspoken Word or the Trollpack also describes how a troll physically shows they're angry or aggressive: by laying their ears back tight over their skull and growling, initially at a register too low for humans to catch, but fully audible by the time the troll is properly enraged.

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by dumuzid

[Joerg]

In my Glorantha Darksense doesn't use air or water as its medium, but someone using Darksense cannot avoid to make sound in addition to the Darksense pings.

Theoretically, trolls could have musical instruments that are primarily attuned to Darkness as medium. In case of drums, that doesn't change much in the sound profile, but harmonies and tuning may suffer. Think of throat-singing without the basic sound.

[soltakss]

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

There are trolls in Trollpak classic that have farsee, taught by the hunter cult.

Trolls can see, so Farsee would affect their vision. They probably augment Darksense with Spot to make out details that darksense can't tell them.

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Trolls can see, so Farsee would affect their vision. They probably augment Darksense with Spot to make out details that darksense can't tell them.

Normally I'd agree, but trolls in RQG have two skills, Darksense Scan and Darksense that replace Scan and Search. Spot Hidden Item doesn't exist in RQG (it's now Search).

[Brootse]

16 hours ago, David Scott said:

It is not as good as eyesight at long ranges, and trolls only get silhouettes and general impressions of mountains over a kilometer off, for example. A dark troll would be unable to detect an object as small as a person at a range of over a kilometer.

 

A human eye can theoretically see an object of 2m diameter from 7 km, so a rule of thumb could be that at long ranges darksense's accuracy is about 1/10 of a human eye.

[dumuzid]

Of course, by the time a dark troll projects their Darksense that far out they're dealing with ranges where their own eyesight is at par with a human's, praise be to Kyger Litor for her gifts to survive the Hurtplace.

[Brootse]

32 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

Of course, by the time a dark troll projects their Darksense that far out they're dealing with ranges where their own eyesight is at par with a human's, praise be to Kyger Litor for her gifts to survive the Hurtplace.

Visibility ratings:

Very poor: less than 1,000 metres

Poor: between 1,000 metres and 2 nautical miles

Moderate: between 2 and 5 nautical miles

Good: more than 5 nautical miles

Using that 1/10 rule, a troll could sense a galley's sail at about 3 nm. So if the visibility is moderate a troll would be as good watchman as a human, and since mist doesn't seem to affect darksense, trolls are superior at poor and very poor visibility ratings. And of course at night.

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Brootse said:

A human eye can theoretically see an object of 2m diameter from 7 km, so a rule of thumb could be that at long ranges darksense's accuracy is about 1/10 of a human eye.

Cows disappear from the windows of a starting plane at about 1000 meters, but then they aren't 2m in diameter, only in one dimension.

 

4 hours ago, Brootse said:

a troll could sense a galley's sail at about 3 nm.

Three nanometers? I knew trolls were short-sighted, but that bad?

[Sir_Godspeed]

The mixture of measurements is doing my head in.

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

Three nanometers? I knew trolls were short-sighted, but that bad?

I believe he meant nautical miles.

[dumuzid]

found this in Book of Drastic Resolutions: Darkness, for whatever weight you give that.