FASA Games, Inc.

Hi,

I'm thinking of running a kaer-start campaign, but I'm new to Earthdawns system.

Scanning through my Mongoose 3rd Ed books, I've got a few questions that I hope the experts can help me with.

1. For something like Melee Weapons, why wouldnt an Warrior Adept learn it as a skill rather than a talent? It seems identical to the talent, cant be dispelled or magically prevented, and frees up Talent ranks to buy higher ranks in things like Avoid Blow or Woodskin? And if you have the Melee Weapons skill, can the ranks in that be used to count towards the minimum ranks needed for advancement?

2. If there is no higher level Adept available, how do you advance in Circles? e.g. if you were in a sealed kaer and your father (who'd tutored you in Swordsmaster) dies, and no other Swordmaster exists in the kaer, how do you advance?

3. Where can I find the Horror Stalker discipline? Cant see it in the Players handbook or Companion.

4. What kind of animals might a dwarven Beastmaster have raised in an underground kaer?

Thx.

SJE

Thank you for the answer James.

Incidentally, since skills dont seem to be needed for advancement, do many people bother buying them up? Whats the advantage other than flexibility?

And for underground creatures (like snakes or giant spiders) is there anything in the GM's Guide that would be recommended for a 1st circle Beastmaster?

Thx.

SJE

Well it doesnt make much sense to me that any horses might survive underground for so long- especially with their food needs. I suppose if you did feed them, then what you'd get after 400 years is closer to pit ponies than Shadowfax, so I'm thinking in a Sealed Kaer that only those animals that could prosper underground or who were put in stasis or hibernation would make it through the Scourge.

Note that I'm not going for any sort of metabalance or hand waving to let a Beastmaster have a bird or something -if they've grown up for generations in tunnels, then they'd rear animlas that did well in those environments.

Have to say, I really dont understand how any ork kaers, Cavalrymen and their horses survived underground given how freedom loving the orks supposedly are, and how big and volatile their favoured killer mounts are. Dont think they would do well in enclosed spaces for umpteen hundred years....

SJE

But you have to remember, many kaers were quite large, with fields and simulated sun (by massive light quartz) and more. A kaer is more of an underground city (or even village) than a classic dungeon, especially in the inhabited parts. What leads from the surface to the habitation areas, THAT's a dungeon!

Animals lived and died, meat was consumed often enough for the entirety of Barsaive to not shift into unintended vegetarianism, and that meat had to come from somewhere.

So many, many varieties of horses, birds, etc. (and orks) did just fine. Well, maybe not "just fine", but well enough. One of the most important things that Beastmasters did in the kaers was tend to the well-being, both physical and emotional, of the various animals living below ground, especially when it was not in their nature. And, as always, Jaspree provides strength to those creatures weathering the storm of the Scourge underground because such beasts must survive to repopulate.