Re: Unhuman War

Static wrote:
> 
> Greetings all,
> 
> 
> [Snip points]
>         My general thought is that the first Unhuman War wasn't really
> a "war", more of a "general cleanup" of the space-lanes.  It was called
> a war because it looked like one to outsiders.  The rulebooks are
> inconsistent about how many ships were involved and the general level
> of warfare.  For instance, sometimes it uses "countless number of ships",
> but listed fleet sizes are in the tens.  Also, there are comments to the
> effect that the elves had an easy time against the disorganized fleets,
> but started building spirit warriors and bionoids near the end of the
> war to help with the battles.  (They wouldn't be needing to build stuff
> if they were winning so much, IMO.)  Can't wait to see more comments
> form other people... :)

	That makes more since than anything TSR ever wrote.  In WCC, it says
that the elves have so many ships that to list them all "would take a
book the size of the Spelljammer itself."  Yet it also lists 3 major
fleets of Known Space, each with less than 50 ships.  Given that there
are only 2000 crystal spheres total, and what, 100 known, exactly where
do the elves get those countless ships??  None of the other spheres that
TSR developed had established elvish fleets, which makes the listed 3
much more important.
	As far as the bioweapons the elves developed, I believe that they were
well in the works long before the war began.  There's no way the elves
could have developed them in the decade that the war took.  It takes
years for hasty mages to research and create even simple magic items. 
The elves, being more patient, would have taken centuries to prefect
something as complex as the zwarth's spell projector.

> 
> >*Goblin-kin are poor.  Spelljamming costs money.  Big money.  I once
> >calculated a good hammership out to 1 million gp, w/out magic weapons.
> 
>         1 million gp!?!?  That's quite a bit.  Most ships in my
> campaign are less than 100,000 gp, with helms.

	Mine too.  I used the old rule books for that.  Note that doesn't
include a passage device, perhaps the most expensive, single,
non-artifact item in history.
> 
> >*The psycological barrier.  Spelljamming is a concept that is very hard
> >to grasp, at least as far as ordinary people go.  Going into space (the
> >great unknown) can make one feel meek and frighten even the bravest soul
> >(for this effect, I refer to Into the Void, where Telden was reduced to
> >a near-child-like state at least once).  Space is a very dangerous
> >enviroment.  Given the already weak magic of the goblins, they would
> >have a very hard time compensating for any disasters that may strike.
> 
>         Then what the hell is *anybody* doing there... :)
> 
>         Just more food for thought...
> 
> -Static
> 
> --
>                          "Read more, kill less."
> 
>                  --==<< http://www.gwr.com/~eshum >>==--

	Again, thanks for the reply and opinion.

	BTW, while it was not my intention at first, I've started writing a
sort-of reference book on the 1st unhuman war.  I'm trying to make it as
generic as possible, but ideas are always welcomed.  If anyone is
intersted, I'll post it.  As of this moment, it is nearly 3 pages long.

Night Druid