FASA Games, Inc.

I am about to run a game that starts out inside a Kear and i have a few questions that I'm hoping to get answers to.

1) Regarding T'skrang: As I understand it they ALL went into hibernation and if they didn't how were they able to survive. The text talks about how they would all go insane if not for the hibernation. As far those who did hibernate (all or most) did they hibernate for the full 400 years? Meaning the same T'skrang who hibernated pre-scourge were the same T'skrang who emerged from their kaers or citadels having not aged a day? Or did they alternate throughout the Scourge hibernating for some of it and staying awake for the rest.

2) Regarding Obsidimen: This is a similar question about how the Obsidimen survived the Scourge. I always assumed that a life rock is weaker when members of its brotherhood are outside of it so i reasoned that they all stayed inside the liferock all throughout the scourge to strengthen its defenses against horrors. However, some of the liferocks I have read about existed inside kaers or citadels. In theses cases could the members of a liferock come out during the scourge, even if that liferock is contributing to the kaers defenses?

3) Regarding certain disciplines: Some disciplines seem to have no problem surviving the Scourge but others like Air Sailor, Sky Raider, and Calvaryman to name a few seem to inherently present problems given the confines spaces. I was wondering if anyone can offer some interesting solutions or ways to handle these hurdles.

1) The t'skrang did hibernate, but I bet there's enough room in the story for them to alternate if you like.

2) Obsidimen did enter the Dreaming (merge with their Liferock) for the duration of the Scourge. There was some noise about them going into a coma if they stayed underground for more than a few months, but I don't think anyone payed attention to that.

3) The ones travel disciplines are tough. Some of the troll moots would have built giant hangers to store their drakars. They could play pretend that they were flying. The kaers would have had stables and runs for domesticated animals. All the same, I imagine the first batch of heroes was a little shaky. Good thing the disciplines are magic!

1) it's not a biological phenomenon
a) you can have situations where they may be able to bear being boxed in for extended amounts of time, e.g. years at a time. They may not be able to live in a kaer for 60 years, but they may be able to live there for 5 or 10. Maybe their hibernation is interrupted, etc..
b) This may be limited to the way of life of the river t'skrang. They had their separate kaers, and their separate societies. A throalic t'skrang may be totally different. As are the jungle t'skrang who didn't hibernate. The hibernation may be totally limited to the river-trading, racially segregated river t'skrang.

2) Much more problems here. See above, plus: you can introduce periods of being awake. An adventure may happen when the obsidimen is awake, when other characters spend their time relaxing between adventures, the obsidiman spends it within his liferock. While there is a period of a few days after which an obsidimen falls into stasis, there is no limit to how long he can stays within the lifrock, and how often he may re emerge. So he may well stay out a few days, merge a couple days, then return. Having a liferock inside a kaer is a bigger coincidence and/or greater hurdle.

3) Disciplines are a philosophy first, a way of life second. You can be a warrior without fighting a war (and I mean war, not some brawls or something, the warrior is about war, not about fighting). So, just the same, you can be an Air Sailor without airships (many PC sailors couldn't be used at all in a campaign if it were otherwise). You can have grat halls with a ship in it, and the bazaar of throal for example may have been used for that originally, but being an Air Sailor is more about forming a group and striving for improvement, and being a Sky Raider is more about providing for your own by physical means and live your ideal of honor, than they are about sailing.


For aditional suggestions, i recommend Ardanyan's Revenge, it deals with these questions. Not into the last detail, but to the point where it's usable for a kaer campaign.

I've gone on the assumption that disciplines like Sky Raider and Cavalryman largely died out during the scourge, but were revived after the kaers opened by way of ghost masters and self-initiation.

My question, though, is if there was a spell for the t'skrang to let them sleep through the scourge, why didn't everyone use it? What's so alluring about eking out a living in hiding for centuries? Why would you choose that if you could just fall asleep, and wake up when the horrors are gone?

My personal thoughts: I would assume because they, like the dragons, are more or less reptilian and as such were better able to use the magics on their biology.

That actually refers to the the cause, not the treatment.
If it was a spell or some ritual that was used, it may well have been limited to t'skrang. That would make it easier to perform. Or maybe it depended on their biology. No one knows. Just as with gahad and related spells like ork stoke.

The cause, however, is their restlessness. A major part of that is from the aropagoi culture and the way they live in their towers, which are rather small and crowded. Maybe there is a biological cause for their restlessness, but you could satisfy that with a nice big kaer or some other thing, or you'd compensate for it if you raised a t'skrang in another environment (you can run the halls of throal all day, but are from one end of a village tower to the other in two minutes).
You just couldn't put the t'skrang who had been living the t'krang life into a crowded tower. They'd go mad. Future generations might have been able to adapt, but if they all went mad in the first generation, there'd be no future generations...