Blood Elves

Discussion on playing Earthdawn. Experiences, stories, and questions related to being a player.
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Slimcreeper
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Blood Elves

Post by Slimcreeper » Sun Feb 24, 2019 6:49 pm

Blood Elves: Blood Elves may travel from the Blood Wood for a variety of reasons, but it is very hard on them and uncomfortable for everyone else.

Racial Abilities:

Unappealing to Horrors: Intelligent Horrors always target Blood Elves last, if at all. They cannot get any nourishment from them, so tormenting them is like eating dirt.

Pain Resistance: Blood Elves ignore 1 point of Wound penalties.

Reduced Recovery Tests: Blood Elves have one less recovery test per day. If he would normally have 1 recovery test per day, he can only make a recovery test every other day.

Armor Restrictions: Other than Fernweave, armor and clothing must be specially crafted to be worn over the thorns, increasing its cost by three to four times when purchased outside of the Blood Wood.

Intense Reaction: Nearly all Namegivers begin with an Attitude of one worse than normal towards Blood Elves. However, any successful Interaction tests results in a free additional success.

Intense Woodlonging: In addition to knowing the direction and distance to the Blood Wood, Blood Elves may become physically ill as a result of their obsession with the Wood. Triggers for Intense Woodlonging vary, but may include near death, the death of a loved one, a major triumph, or intense reaction to a work of art. When the GM rules that it has been triggered, the elf must make a Willpower test against the number of months the elf has been away from the Wood. On failure, the character becomes afflicted with Wood Consumption.

Wood Consumption
Type: Debilitation Death Effect Step: 7 Onset Time: 1-2 months.
Interval: Chronic/1 Month Duration: Cronic
A Blood Elf taken with Wood Consumption know as soon as he fails the Willpower test. As with other Debilitating diseases, for each Success the disease gets against the victim’s Toughness Step he suffers -2 to all tests. If the penalty exceeds the victim’s Toughness Step, he is bedridden. If it exceeds his Toughness x2, he dies and cannot be revived through any means short of the intervention of a Passion. The only cure is to spend a night in the Blood Wood while suffering from no Wounds or Damage and to take a morning recovery test.

Bonhumm
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Re: Blood Elves

Post by Bonhumm » Sun Feb 24, 2019 7:38 pm

They also have slightly different starting Attributes than 'baseline' elves:

DEX: 11 instead of 12.
STR: 10 remains the same
TOU: 8 remains the same
PER: 10 instead of 11
WIL:11 remains the same
CHA:13 instead of 11

They also get +1 Mystic AND Social Defense.

As for the armor; I would personally make an exception for Blood Pebbles; it would be easy for a weaponsmith during the 'installation' to spaces the pebbles and thorns equally.
Last edited by Bonhumm on Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Slimcreeper
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Re: Blood Elves

Post by Slimcreeper » Sun Feb 24, 2019 8:21 pm

I didn’t change their attributes or do the bonuses to defense because I wanted to emphasize the RP over mechanical advantages. However, the missing recovery test and attitude adjustment may be enough to justify it. I agree about blood pebble armor.

Belenus
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Re: Blood Elves

Post by Belenus » Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:44 pm

I'm playing a blood elve in the 4th edition for quite some time now with all the above rules.
There is just one error: They get a bonus of +1 to Spell and Social Defense, not to Physical.

And they must have a Willpower Attribute Value of atleast 12 (before racial modifiers).

Slimcreeper
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Re: Blood Elves

Post by Slimcreeper » Sun Feb 24, 2019 10:25 pm

I did change all of the rules from the 1st ed book, so there are probably lots of errors from what you are playing!

Bonhumm
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Re: Blood Elves

Post by Bonhumm » Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:57 pm

*Corrected*

Anyway, I guess (I hope?) they will take the opportunity to update/confirms the Blood Elves 'modifiers' in the Elven Nations book.


I was thinking of creating a cheat-sheet with the 'optional builds' of races in Earthdawn (stats modifiers AND physical differences):

Humans: 'Baseline', Cathans, Dingannis, Galab-Kleks, Pure Galeb, Pure Klek, 'Riders of the scorched plains', Scavians and Vorsts.

Elves: 'Baseline' and Blood Elves

T'skrang: K'stulaami and Pale Ones.



Am I missing anything else?

Slimcreeper
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Re: Blood Elves

Post by Slimcreeper » Mon Feb 25, 2019 12:51 am

I’d like to hear more about the k’stulaa aropagoi too

AnnWanges
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Re: Blood Elves

Post by AnnWanges » Fri Mar 22, 2019 8:09 am

I had been playing a blood elve in the 4th edition, but with a couple of changes in rules, needed to improve the gameplay.
And if I recall correctly, they get a bonus of +1 to Spell and Social Defense, but not to Physical.
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Bonhumm
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Re: Blood Elves

Post by Bonhumm » Fri Mar 22, 2019 10:03 am

The newly released Elven Nations confirms pretty much everything from my previous post except for a few differences in bold:

DEX:11
STR:10
TOU:8
PER:11
WIL:12
CHA:11

- They keep the same Movement Rate (14) and Karma Modifier (4) than 'normal' elves.
- Get -1 Wound penalties
- INTELLIGENT Horrors gets a -2 penalty to tests against a blood elf's Mystic and Social Defense INSTEAD of the previous +1 against everything.
- One less Recovery Test per day.
- Blood elves suffer their armor Initiative Penalty TO ALL TESTS except if wearing living armor (and, I assume, specially tailored armors).
- Still have the Wood Longing curse.

I think those few changes addresses the few issues that the Blood Wood mechanics had with blood elves nicely.

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