Re: Ogre Mammoth

Thatotherguy wrote:

> >         I'd say extra time, maybe 1-2 rounds.
>
> Say 1 round per facing?
>
        That sounds good.

> Hehe.  Actually I think the basic description of the mammoth in SJR1 is
> for the standard human mammoth warship (the map and all make this seem
> even more likely).  The variants actually note the ogre standard as
> well as several human variants (including the one that gets extra cargo
> room by jettisoning the jettison).
>
        <shrug> Probably.  I did remove a couple of weapons to bring it more in
line with other ships of similar size (battleships would carry more, but
clanships would not).  Since I noted such ships varied greatly, each
ship would have it's own exact layout.  I just figured a slightly
altered one from the deckplans would be most common.

> Or anyone proficient in reading a starchart.  I imagine most tribes
> would either have a navigator raised from birth (like the shamans are)
> or the chief and leaders would learn this skill (as on old sailing
> vessels the navigator was so important that simply not having him on
> your side could cause you not to mutiny as you'd then be stranded).
> Shamans are also likely to learn to do this.  If kobolds and goblins
> can navigate space there is no need for an ogre mage to hold the hands
> of some ogres.  Ogres are also noted as forcing humans to helm for
> them.  I imagine they can force them to navigate/teach navigation also.
>  In fact the standard for ogres is to capture a human spellcaster,
> according to the SJR1 write-up.

        Base ogres aren't going to be very good at navigation; not impossible,
just that they'll get lost a lot.  Don't imagine navigation is something
easily taught at sword (or club?) point.  Too easy to lead them into a
trap.  And it does mention controling humans via spell...sounds kinda
like ogre magi to me (with their charm ability...:)
        From the description, it seems that most (like 90-95%) of ogre ships
used Death Helms.  Major helms & furnaces were used by humans (and
others) to replace death helms after the ship fell out of ogre hands.
Regardless, I wouldn't classify something mentioned as a 'could be' in
relation to major helms (which was only 10% of the helms used at best,
probably more like 5%) as 'standard'.

> Perhaps they were ancient illithid enforcers/overseers?  Recruited to
> help fight the gith when the illithid empire was falling?  It gives
> them a more interesting history in space and ties them in with an
> established empire (so the "ancient empires" the ogres recall in
> legends were actually them serving illithids as the ancient equivalent
> of what the giff now are to everybody else--a very interesting twist).
>
        Ya, but that's a LONG time ago; I'm kinda guessing anywhere from
100,000 to 1,000,000 years ago based on the number of gith queens there
have been (think it was in the high thousands).  The empire hinted at in
the writeup I'm envision as confined largely to one sphere, with some
colonies in other spheres.  The homesphere was destroyed, leaving just
the colonines.  But I left it nice and vague as it stands now :)

> Even if we assume the spikes are not of regulation length (*g*) they
> will still bleed the person and are going to inflict lots of nice
> diseases and such.  In short the power source just burns itself out
> faster (probably 1-2 days before it dies, no matter what its hps and
> saves are).  Ogres may not care especially but they can only hold so
> many slaves and then they're stuck in space.  Regardless, the death
> helm has quite a specific write-up with examples in the source, what
> you have written is still a lifejammer.

        <shrug> That's what a death helm is.  It's a pumped up lifejammer with
a charm ability.
--
Adam Miller