De romanicorum theoriarum XVII

This is post 640, 2⁷ × 5. Spec fic thoughts. Mostly fantasy.

• Decided that zled numerals are not acrophonic: they're like the Cistercian cipher. Only instead of numbers 1–9999, they only use the two different positions to encode 1–99—a two sided symbol instead of four—because their superbase is hundreds instead of thousands or myriads. Basically the first side is the tens place and the second is the ones, with a bare base-stroke as zero. Might still have the base forms of the numbers within that be acrophonic, like a modified E for egeik "one", and so on.
• I think I'm gonna just have elf and gnome weapons have the +2 to CMD vs. sunder attempts of an elven curveblade; making any weapon made of them eligible for Weapon Finesse was super OP (though the elven branched spear is identical to a regular spear but eligible for it). I briefly considered giving the elves their weapon set from Pathfinder core rules, maybe with the "Aldori" dueling sword as the weapon between the thornblade and the curveblade, but nah.
  
  Might make dwarves only automatically proficient with warhammer and earthbreaker, not picks—kinda want a 1d10 hammer (name to be determined) that can be one-handed with Exotic Weapon Proficiency, and is a martial weapon for dwarves, though. Maybe only the black dwarves (who make their stuff from giant-spider chitin with the same stats as mithral) will use picks, made from the limbs of giant arthropods, like a Falmer war axe in Skyrim.
• Come to think of it humans' weapons and armor made from magical-beast bone would actually do better with the qualities of spiresteel, rather than noqual. Might also change it so elven weapons just always have the benefit of alchemical silver (but without reducing the damage, so they cost as much as mithral, or half as much in the case of the half-mithral stuff), rather than also having the "life point" function of wyroot, and dwarf stuff always has the benefit of cold iron in addition to always being brutally weighted. Think gnome armor will still have the singing steel property, though, but not their weapons.
• Decided my elves' armor is lamellar over-sleeves that combine cannons and vambraces, and lamellar chaps that combine cuisses and greaves (I guess the latter would be lamellar chausses, and the former manicas?). Apparently nobody ever really wore the waist-apron thing (see, e.g., Alphonse Elric), but my elves do, because it's stylin'. Even if no real society ever did a thing doesn't mean a fictional one can't, unless someone gives you a damn good reason why not.
  
  My humans instead wear the more common pauldrons, and tassets, like samurai or Mongol armor. Maybe also with plate vambraces and greaves? I think that still counts as just lamellar for game-mechanical purposes, same as how full plate doesn't worry about having mail on the joints. (Chinese armor went the interesting direction of having a sort of lamellar skirt, divided from the waist like a tailcoat—their armor was basically a duster made of lamellae.)
• Apparently at least one kind of flying squid (they're squid that jump out of the water and float on gliding membranes, like flying fish) undulates its body, a bit like a dolphin, in order to prolong its flight. Which may mean that they are the only non-insect invertebrate capable of powered flight. If that doesn't fill your head with xeniobiology possibilities, I dunno what to tell ya.
• Think I might have kytons, but obsessed with fear not pain, as what my goblins become when they die (maybe retire barghests, or have them automatically be reborn as the bigger kinds of kyton?). And then maybe ogres become oni? Or rakshasas. Not sure what kobolds will become. Daemons? Didn't use them or demons yet (let's not discuss how incredibly lazy it was—of Gygax not Paizo—to have daemon and demon as two different things).
  
  Not sure what to do with the evil subraces of humanoid that weren't transformed (kobolds aren't transformed gnomes but occupy the same role relative to them). Maybe sahkils, demodands, demons, or whichever of oni or rakshasa I didn't use for ogres. Thinking asuras for dead evil giants, maybe aeons for the non-evil ones? Vedic and Gnostic are very distantly related, I think you can make that work if you force it a bit. Also could use psychopomps for something.
  
  Dead evil mortals who are not worshipers of evil deities (I might actually change those deities to neutral but with the Evil domain because they're really not nice?) just become undead.
• Keep seeing people saying that resurrection spells are commonplace in D&D. Um…what? Even just raise dead, which is only available in towns of at least 2,000 people and only works for nine days after death (depending who you get to cast it), costs 5,450 gp minimum; you can get an extra day at the price of another 50 gp, up to 20 days after death for 6,000 gp, but you can only get the higher level casters in bigger communities. Resurrection doesn't have the time-limit issues, really, but it can only be cast in cities of at least 10,000 people, and costs at least 10,910 gp, up to 11,400. (True resurrection is not typically for sale except by special arrangement, since even the biggest cities only go to 8th-level spells.)
  
  Raise dead, thus, costs at least as much as 109 head of cattle, or between 228 and 2,726 weeks (i.e. 4 years 5 months to 52 years 5½ months) of work if you make your living at a Craft or Profession skill (given how many gold pieces per week you can make at those). Resurrection costs, minimum, as much as 218 cattle (plus five chickens), or between 456 and 5,456 weeks (8 years 10 months to 104 years 11 months) of work. Resurrection costs as much as a war-galley, longship, or sailing ship—plus payment for all of the 100 soldiers they can carry, for 15 days. So unless you are as important as the loss of an entire ship at sea would be, you ain't getting brought back.
• Apparently people think you would just lob rocks at the Earth, in asteroid mining? And that that would be a reason not to do it, due to the obvious issues with significantly increasing the number of impacts the planet experiences. But why, though? You just take 'em to the top of space elevators and then send the minerals down. Do people think a space elevator is only one way? How would that work?