By George Ehrhardt.
The Hated Races Concept and Revolts
Since the SOP module, Midnight Games has introduced the notion of Hated Races into the game. I think it’s a great idea: somehow I always had a problem with my NIC elves being able to administer Trolls, even though they were enslaved – that’s just not ‘natural’! However, as some people will still going to insist on conquering and mixing those hated races, here are some guidlines on how to avoid the horribly embarrassing situation of having your locations revolt out from under your control.
1. You can avoid some of the problems of hated races by conquering and enslaving the enemy population which will change the race ID# to a slave race (#261-280) – for slaves are too miserable to be counted as a hated race. In this way, your new citizens are less likely to revolt, and they are more easily handled than free hated races. At least until Spartacus-like slave revolts generated by the system come by…. But these are timely announced and are a lot less frequent then hated race revolts.
Further, with slaves, if someone was to take your location then instead of getting population that can be trained immediately against you and have a hated race bonus too, they would get slaves that cannot be trained into soldiers.
Note that there is a case of slave revolts which is more rare. As slavery is more than a political classification in Legends and is tied in with a kind of ensorcellement, there are general story lines out there that will allow one to lead the slaves in revolt somewhat like the Star Child of North Island Campaign.
Of course the slave option has its drawbacks too: they cannot be trained into soldiers by yourself either, and they reproduce at a lesser rate.
2. Revolts of population and troops may occur if:
- The over all commander is a hated race of the soldiers/population
- The over all owner is a hated race of the soldiers/pop
- There is a shortage of food (more of a food riot rather than a revolt)
- There are mixes of different hated races (race riots)
- Slot commander is hated by his troops (troop revolt)
- Slave revolt called for (smaller chance than hated race)
- Intolerant race (not hated but also not supportive) owned
This list (kindly provided by MG’s Edi Birsan) suggests that revolts are going to involve more than just administering hated races. Watch out for troop/commander mismatches affecting morale too! If they don’t like him, the soldiers will simply ignore their captain….
Page 48 of the Rules Book mentions that besides owners and assigned overall commanders, also assigned administrators may be the cause of riots and revolt.
3. Note that the chances of revolt vary, based on the garrison size versus the population size, with numbers of 10-15% being the key to safety. Meaning that chances of revolts become less if the number of soldiers (regardless of CF or training level!) guarding the population is larger: if the amount of soldiers is roughly 10 + 10%-15% of the population, than a significant reduction in the chance of revolt occures. If there is no revolt there will probably be any number of various events reported.
Note that Undergarrisoned locations of hated races are about 3 times as more likely to revolt than others. When you get a notice about more soldiers needed… might be a good idea to listen!
4. Successful Revolts may be led by NPC leaders who become the blood enemy of the old owners and as part of the dynamics of the revolt the NPC will start to raise rabble militia to defend the newly independent force. Recently saw a village led by “Robber E. Leary”–one such revolt leader? Such a ‘freed’ location will still continue to produce, but at a fraction of what it would have done in your hands, this to prevent a too large build-up of items.
5. Revolts occur about every other or every third month with about a 2% chance per day of something happening. All situations are checked where there are hated races as well as non-compatible races in forces, etc.
Changing Race
With the Hated Race concept, changing your Main into a totally different race to do diplomacy with ‘alien’ races, is not without its risks. Same with changing his religion (revolts of PCs due to wrong religion is very common, although they will not run away very quickly). Still, in some cases (e.g. when you are a lone Hero partaking in a factional Clash etc), it may well pay to change into a Red Dragon. What will happen? Here some answers by Edi Birsan.
Q: When a character changes race due to activating an item what changes and what stays the same.
A: This is the picture:
- 1. Your STR, Dex, Con and Bty stay the same
- 2. Racial base CF goes to the new Race
- 3. MAR and SAR of the new race’s base kick in
- 4. Racial hatreds and tollerances of the new race kick in
- 5. Mana Recovery (holy and magic) of the new race kicks in
- 6. DAM and INV of the new Race kicks in.
- 7. Terrain mods of the new race go into effect
- 8. Weight, sighting and size of the new race go into effect
- 9. Special Attack of the base new race goes in.
Q: How will being a different race affect any titles or status I might have?
A: Race will have no effect on the morphing of status. In SOP it has the potential to affect the morph of a familiar depending on how intense the morphing decisions were made for each of the familiars.
As for titles, it will have no direct effect in that you will not immediately loose a title for a race change. However, there are periodic purges that allow for players to purge members of factions that do not match the membership or leadership functions. These purges are not automatic but are player driven.
In SOP, changing into a Shadowling can be a little tricky around Melding time since you might get sucked back to Shadow City and dunked in the lake and made of the One.
This article is reproduced with kind permission from “Aayko’s The Legends Corner”.