From: Jim Ogle (Ks. Jim) <jogle@aoc.nrao.edu>
Subject: REVIEW: Ravagons supplement
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
X-Gated-From: torg mailing list
Organization: University of North Texas
X-Gatemail-Version: 1.0b
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 06:51:07 GMT

"Ravagons: Dark Hunters from A Dying World" is a 96-page sourcebook
detailing the cosm Ts'Ravok and its inhabitants, the ravagons.  It
sells for $15.

Two things surprised me when I read this supplement.  The first one is
that ravagons have red skin (it wasn't mentioned anywhere before and
I'd always just pictured them as being grey).  The second thing that
surprised me is that I actually like this book.  It's jam-packed with
useful information and the ravagons do not come across as "edeinos
with wings" or "low-tech tharkoldu".

Players should bail out now, spoilers ahead...



The cosm itself, Tz'Ravok (Ravok's World in the native language), is
detailed wonderfully (not surprising since there isn't a realm to
detail).  The surface of the ravagon's planet is a ravaged wasteland,
covered with volcanoes, lava pools, and deadly dust and lightening
storms.  The only places that life can survive are in deep Grand
Canyon-like chasms in one area of the planet.

Tz'Ravok is also a barren world when it comes to Possibility Energy,
yet PE (szilvaravok, "Essence of Ravok") plays a central, important
part in the ravagons existence.  It plays a part in their religion and
in their society.  Their rituals are primarily concerned with the
acquisition of Possibility Energy (through the elimination of others
and absorbing some of their P-energy when they die) or becoming
P-rated in the first place.  Ords have no place in ravagon society -
they are weak and unimportant since Ravok hasn't blessed them with his
essence.  Non-ravagons with P-Energy are seen as thieves and defilers
of Ravok, and so they must be killed so that their P-Energy can be
reclaimed by Ravok and those strong enough to deserve it (ie, the
ravagons).  (The Gaunt Man has gotten around this by tricking the
ravagons into accepting him as one of Ravok's prophets, and thus
obviously a ravagon even though he doesn't look like one - plus
there's the fact that he's more powerful than any ravagon.)

There are basically seven different 'kinds' of ravagons: Cubs, Unnamed
Youths, Named Adult, Veteran, Leader, Chosen, and Twice-Named.  Cubs
are the youngest (obviously) and most will be ords, though some
experience their Moment of Crisis when forced into battle with their
brothers at hatching.  Unnamed Youths are basically the teenagers and
some will still be ords.  By age 15 the Unnamed Youths will have
undergone a trial or some sort (planned or otherwise) and if they
survive, its only because they're P-rated or had their Moment of
Crisis in time to survive the experience.  Those who survive their
trial are given a Name.  All ravagons with names will be Possiblity-
Rated.  

Veterans and Leaders are higher experienced ravagons.  The Chosen have
received Possibility Energy from Ravok (or Heketon) to improve
themselves and will have higher attributes than other ravagons.
Twice-Named ravagons have great heroes of Tz`Ravok and have received a
second name in honor of their strength.  Chosen ravagons are actually
more powerful than Twice-Named ravagons, but they are not held in the
same regard by ravagon society.  It is not mentioned anywhere but I
would assume that it is possible to be a Twice-Named Chosen ravagon.

There is much information concerning how the Gaunt Man uses his
ravagon assistants and how each High Lord is using the ravagons that
the Gaunt Man "gave" to them (they are actually still working for the
GM of course.)  There is also useful information about the High Lords
themselves and what Thratchen has been up to (he has the Cyberpapal
ravagons watching for Dr. Hachi Mara-Two for example.)  A ravagon sent
to South America to investigate the situation there was infected with
the Comaghaz virus so Sarila knows everything there is to know about
ravagons (and is scheming on how to seize control of them away from
the Gaunt Man.)  Ravagons sent to Tharkold have been killed by
Jezrael's agents (she wants time to prepare her power base before the
Gaunt Man discovers what has happened to Kranod.)  

Of primary interest to most players will be what the ravagons are
doing in Core Earth though; any organized Storm Knight group,
including the Spartans and Project Omen, is considered prey for the
ravagons.  Most ravagons have orders to wander Core Earth, locate
those undergoing a Moment of Crisis and eliminate them.  Ravagons are
also sent out to slay powerful stormers that have been causing
trouble.  

NEW FUN TO HAVE WITH BEGINNING CHARACTERS: Did a ravagon show up
during the character's Moment of Crisis?  The GM can roll a d20
(reroll on 10s and 20s) to determine this:

Core Earth - roll 15 or higher
Tharkold realm - no chance (no ravagons there)
Orrorsh - roll 10 or higher
Other realms - roll 30 or higher

These "crusading ravagons" have only one purpose; killing stormers.
Unless you want to roleplay the confrontation (which could be fun!)
any starting character who has met a ravagon must be assumed to have
survived the encounter (most likely by killing the ravagon - though it
could make for an interesting campaign Nemesis subplot to say the
character ran away and this ravagon has been stalking him ever
since....)  

As has been reported before, the axioms are:

Magic: 7 ("tool of the weak"; ravagons who have attempted to learn the
Occult in Orrorsh meet with Ravok's displeasure and have transformed
to the Orrorsh reality.)

Social: 18 (similar to middle ages on Earth, with a savage slant.  The
high Social axiom is what keeps the ravagons from descending into
mindless ferocity - "controlled savages")

Spirit: ubiquitous 17 (religion drives almost everything in ravagon
society.  I would have liked to have seen something other than 17
myself.)  

Tech: 12 (not real important to ravagons.)

Now we get to the World Laws...fortunately, they aren't as munchkin as
feared.  

Law of the Most Real -

"Ravagons who remain faithful to Ravok and the world view of the dark
hunters will never be deserted by the Scourge." (Scourge is another
name for Ravok.)  So long as a ravagon does not exceed his own
personal axioms he will never disconnect regardless of the axioms of
the realm he is in.  The Gaunt Man has theorized that ravagons are
subconciously leeching ambient P-Energy from their surroundings to
create in effect a reality bubble at all times (except when they
violate their own axioms.)

There is also the statement that this protection extends to
transformation as well - it isn't explained but the only assumption I
can make is that they mean reality storms will not transform a ravagon
if he loses.  I really, really hope that isn't what they mean though!
I will ask them on GEnie the next time I'm on and hopefully get an
answer.  

Ravagons who do exceed their personal axioms lose the protection of
this world law.  This just means that they run the normal risks of
disconnecting like everyone else.  Note that many of the Chosen
ravagons have received Occult magical benefits from Orrorsh and thus
do not receive any protection from this world law.  

When a ravagon does disconnect, it has a crisis of faith; Ravok has
deserted him!  If a ravagon doesn't immediately reconnect, he must
make a Faith check, which has a difficulty of the reconnection DV plus
one per round of disconnection.  This Faith check must be made every
round until the ravagon reconnects.  If the ravagon fails a Faith
check before he reconnects, his belief that Ravok has deserted him
becomes so strong the ravagon transforms to the dominant reality of
where he is!  A ravagon who transforms loses all of his ravagon skills
too (Possibility Sense, Possibility Rip, and Faith(Irishantism)
primarily.)

I guess if a ravagon doesn't reconnect before the the end of round
play he's pretty screwed....

The Law of Survival of the Fittest -

Every living thing on Tz'Ravok uses the P-Rated damage column, even
the ord creatures.  Only the strong survive, and over time everything
has evolved to be really damn tough.

The Law of Transcendence -

This is the one that really makes ravagons special.  A Moment of
Transcendence (becoming P-rated) can be detected by any living
creature from Tz'Ravok (unskilled Spirit check).  The ravagons have
extended this innate sense into being able to detect Possibility
Energy and not just the MoT.  The LoT also benefits the creatures by
giving them the ability to gain more P-Energy from their world - this
is where the skill Possibility Rip comes from (yes, creatures can have
this skill too,though only one creature in the sourcebook has it.)

When a creature is killed at the Moment of Transcendence, its newly
acquired P-Energy is released back into the world; creatures from
Tz'Ravok can attempt to intercept some of the energy though ("Ravok
sharing the wealth" so to speak.)  This uses the reality skill and not
Possibility Rip.  Success level determines how much the attacker gets
(only if he succeeds in killing the stormer within a certain amount of
time.)  

The Possiblity Sense skill can be used to track stormers; the level of
success determines a bonus to the Tracking skill.  At high levels of
success, the ravagon can also tell how many Possibilties the stormer
has and even gain a "Possibility Print" - a unique signature for that
stormer, very useful in locating stormers who get away the first time.
The difficulty is the stormer's Reality skill, minus the Power Push
value of the number of Possibilities the character has (those PP
hoarders better watch out - first storm wraiths, now ravagons! 8-)
A ravagon's range is equal to the value of his Sense skill.  Ravagons
also receive a +7 bonus to detect a moment of transcendence within
their range (and can even do it unskilled).

Possiblity Rip is nasty, but it isn't an ungodly ability.  It
basically represents the fact that ravagons, being from a P-Energy
poor cosm, act as PE sponges.  When an opponent spends a P-Point, the
ravagon can also spend one; this creates a link with the P-Energy
stored in the opponent and the ravagon can attempt to suck out some of
the opponent's P-energy.  On the ravagon's next action it generates a
Rip total (no cards or Possibilities can be spent on this roll); if
the total is higher than the opponent's Reality skill, the ravagon
gets back the P-Point it spent to establish the link plus one PP from
the opponent.  

The Ravok miracles are plentiful, but nothing to really write home
about.  Most of them have been seen before in one form or another in
other sourcebooks or supplements.

A handful of NPC ravagons are written up, including the ravagon leader
Parok, and probably the worst of the bunch, a vampire ravagon
(transformed to Orrorsh of course.)  Also featured is the ravagon
Ujeratza, who appeared in an early Infiniverse dispatch and was also
featured in a piece of fiction printed a few months ago in Infiniverse
(at least I think its the same ravagon.)

The creatures of Tz'Ravok are presented in the same format being used
in the "Creatures of..." supplements.  Nothing really interesting, a
lot of them awfully derivative (for example, the Storm Haunt is a dead
ringer for the Ayslish Storm Wraith.)

Making a PC ravagon is pretty much the same as making any other PC
(unlike say, a tharkoldu PC) except for two things; because Tz'Ravok
is so poor in P-Energy beginning ravagons only get five Possibilities
when they start.  The second thing is a skill package, which gives the
ravagon six adds in Flight and six extra skill adds (so 22 skill adds
total, counting the Tag Skill but not the Flight skill.)  This package
has an adventure cost of 6 PP but unlike other packages if the
adventure cost isn't paid the skill adds don't vanish forever; if the
ravagon pays the adventure cost at any time the skill adds come back.

I'm not sure what the reason behind the skill package is; tharkoldu
didn't get any extra skill adds for their flight skill and it is just
as innate to them as it is for ravagons. I can see that ravagons are
all going to be highly experienced in comparison to other beginning
characters but does that mean they should have to pay for it the rest
of their lives?  Perhaps when the rules for creating experienced
characters come out later this month I'll use those instead of the
skill package - having to pay for a bunch of skill adds the rest of
your life seems a bit much to me.

The templates have some nice stuff in the background and personality
sections (combat grunts will love playing ravagons) but there's
nothing really spectacular about the templates themselves.

Overall, I consider the Ravagons supplement to be quite good.  While I
don't think I'll allow PC ravagons right away, I will finally start
using ravagons in my game as they are now very useful tools for the
High Lords and can certainly become persistent and troublesome enemies
for players (as opposed to their earlier writeups, where they were no
better than P-rated gospogs.)


Kansas Jim (jogle@aoc.nrao.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg