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<P>My thoughts -</P>
<P>1) An elder dragon is not just a Kotothi creature. It is viewed as a son of Kototh.</P>
<P>2) At the point they are at, the blood is worthless. It must be taken while the dragon still lives to be of any value.</P>
<P>3) The meat is either poison or a progressive taint that damns the eater. Which depends on the mood Kototh selects for his vengeance.</P>
<P>Finally, it's your game. Do what you feel is right. Sounds like you have a good one going.<BR><BR></P></DIV>
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<DIV></DIV>From: <I>"Tobie Bonahoom" <bonahoom@hotmail.com></I><BR>Reply-To: <I>The Powers and Perils Mailing List <pnp@abroere.xs4all.nl></I><BR>To: <I>pnp@abroere.xs4all.nl</I><BR>Subject: <I>RE: [PnP] Dragon skinning blues...</I><BR>Date: <I>Wed, 28 Mar 2007 06:20:46 +0000</I><BR>>Well, to start with - and I am sure you have thought of this, <BR>>however just need to bring it up -- this was a Kotothi dragon, so <BR>>that would make it a magical beast, which makes some of the <BR>>possibilities come to the front of my thoughts.<BR>><BR>>One, anything made from it would have the Kotothi alignment attached <BR>>to it, unless the players can come up with a way to purify it.<BR>><BR>>Two, Kototh might be a tad pissed off about one of his greater <BR>>creatures being killed -
especially if there was an elf of the Sidh <BR>>alignment involved. He might just do something about it quickly <BR>>(unless this dragon was of no real value to him).<BR>><BR>>Three, are they going to haul all this hide and scales to a place or <BR>>build the pits and curing and everything right there. As this will <BR>>take a minimum of 30 or 40 days to just get the hide cured and <BR>>tanned, before making anything with it.<BR>><BR>>Fourth, don't know if you are taking any of the magical properties <BR>>into place here, however because it was as dragon, most of them <BR>>inherit magical affinities that can come into play. With that <BR>>possibility you could also make the curing and armor making faster <BR>>or harder, with having to have a mage helping the out with the <BR>>process.<BR>><BR>>Just my quick thoughts on the matter for what
you put into this. I <BR>>would definitely have the rest (teeth, bones, talons, blood) be a <BR>>bit trickier as just getting those pieces off the dragon could kill <BR>>them with some of the wild magics that can run through them. Also, I <BR>>remember too that the blood still has properties even though they <BR>>did not get it from the dragon while it was alive.<BR>><BR>>Tobie Bonahoom<BR>><BR>>>From: Burton Choinski <bchoinski@comcast.net><BR>>>Reply-To: The Powers and Perils Mailing List <BR>>><pnp@abroere.xs4all.nl><BR>>>To: The Powers and Perils Mailing List <pnp@abroere.xs4all.nl><BR>>>Subject: [PnP] Dragon skinning blues...<BR>>>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:50:23 -0400<BR>>><BR>>>101 ways to skin a dragon...<BR>>>---------------------------------------------<BR>>><BR>>>Well,
the last session was an interesting one, and all sorts of <BR>>>plot undercurrents are springing up. The players managed to get <BR>>>their 20- Hunfrithi force to the hills west of Caldo without human <BR>>>detection. They left 10 at the chosen site and headed back with <BR>>>the other 10 to make a report to the elder.<BR>>><BR>>>On the trip out they been detected by something (they blew their <BR>>>ambush chance, it made it). It followed and monitored trhem until <BR>>>they left the Caldan area.<BR>>><BR>>>When they arrived back, the players noticed an Elder dragon <BR>>>(Kototh) flying high over head, sort of keeping pace with the <BR>>>group, but not attacking.<BR>>><BR>>>Silly players, they decide to
taunt it in order to get it down to <BR>>>where they can attack it. I have the main warrior character make <BR>>>his case and make an influence chance ... 01! Holy crap -- you <BR>>>just flippled off the dragon and now he's coming in.<BR>>><BR>>>Over the course of the battle the dragon pretty much flew at 100' <BR>>>or so, huffing up a flame on the main tank. Now this character <BR>>>has a very high MDV to begin with (character), plus he is immune <BR>>>to 5 levels of magic as a special (yea, it's gross, but these are <BR>>>our old 80's characters and we decided that if we reupped this <BR>>>once-a-month game they would be doing big things).<BR>>><BR>>>As the battle went on, the tank was getting
slowly burnt up. The <BR>>>elf was doing his best with the bow and was getting the draggon <BR>>>nibbled down (side note: this was the first time the new SIZE <BR>>>rules were really felt and there was quite the heated discussion <BR>>>on it. see below). The dragon was getting weaker, but since it <BR>>>refused to grapple with an obvious combat monster the tank would <BR>>>be done before it was. They gambled on another taunting to get <BR>>>the dragon close whough for the law wizard to cast a spell -- <BR>>>killing light.<BR>>><BR>>>And they did it. That kototh dragon had the biggest look of <BR>>>suprise on it's 3 heads.<BR>>><BR>>>-----------------<BR>>>Ok, now
they have the dragon and they want to "loot the body". And <BR>>> of course, with no rules in the books on this it comes to rule <BR>>>makeup time. Comments are very welcome, especially since the next <BR>>>game is this sunday (the 1st).<BR>>><BR>>>Okay, first off we figured this elder dragon was 30' or so. A lot <BR>>>of that, obviously, is tail and neck. Nothing to go on for <BR>>>weight, so I had to play with numbers.<BR>>><BR>>>An eagle scaled to 30' would weigh 12,000#.<BR>>>A Komodo dragon scaled to 30' would weigh 10,000#<BR>>>A nile crocodile scaled to 30' would be 3,300#<BR>>>A salt water croc scled to 30' would be 5,500#.<BR>>><BR>>>Ok, splitting the difference from reptialian and large wingspan
<BR>>>bird, I come up with 7,500# or so. Looking at it again, and <BR>>>rounding numbers for taste, we come to 8,800#. This means that <BR>>>dragons weigh in at 100#/AHP.<BR>>><BR>>><BR>>>MEAT:<BR>>>This all assumes that dragon meat is even edible, much less Kotothi <BR>>> dragons. Assuming it is, the obvious plan is to preserve what <BR>>>they can of the "best" meat and sell it as a novelty. I presume <BR>>>they will be using the wizard's preservation spell to keep it okay <BR>>>for now (have to investigate spell limits).<BR>>><BR>>>presumably we are talking top-grade cooks for this. it looks like <BR>>>EL20 is about fair for your normal trained cook, with EL40
for a <BR>>>"x2" cook. Assuming the meat is nothing special I suppose that <BR>>>EL40 is sufficuent to cook it given the instructions on <BR>>>preparation, but presumably requires character-class cooks to <BR>>>actually figure out those instructions of how to cook, season, or <BR>>>otherwise make it edible. I guess we can figure on losing at <BR>>>least some of the meat in experimentation.<BR>>><BR>>>Looking into it online, it looks like herbivores come in with a <BR>>>wide range of "meat ratios" , but fumbling the numbers a bit and <BR>>>rounding for ease of use it looks like wild herbivores come in at <BR>>>25% weight for meat and domestic herbivores at 50% weight. The <BR>>>remainder
is waste and non-meat products (bone, blood, intestines. <BR>>>(Domestic is higher since it is raised for meat).<BR>>><BR>>>From Wik: "Beef is first divided into primal cuts. These are basic <BR>>>sections from which steaks and other subdivisions are cut.When <BR>>>looking at a diagrams such as the ones below, note that the closer <BR>>>to the middle back, the more tender the meat is. Since the <BR>>>animal's legs and neck muscles do the most work, they are the <BR>>>toughest; the meat becomes progressively more tender as distance <BR>>>from "hoof and horn" increases."<BR>>><BR>>>One would assume that would normally apply to other animals, but <BR>>>dragons have a big honking set of wings that impact the area
where <BR>>>the sirloin would be. I guess by this rule of thumb, the tail meat <BR>>> is what ends up being the tenderest, with the rest being <BR>>>relatively tough. Also, I figure that as a flying beast at least <BR>>>hal it's weight will be in the huge wings, and there will be <BR>>>hardly anything usable in that, so cut all yields in half.<BR>>><BR>>>With beef, "the good cuts" (Sirloin) end up being 10% of the meat <BR>>>weight. About another 20% are "fair" cuts (roasts and chuck). The <BR>>> rest is stew meat or burger.<BR>>><BR>>>So this 8800# dragon will render 1,100# of meat, of which 110# are <BR>>>the tenderest cuts and another 220# are decent steaks and
roasts.<BR>>><BR>>>Preservation does not indicate a quantity limit -- Give the base <BR>>>time I assume the original intent was a man-day of food (3FP, or <BR>>>3#) that could be preserved for travel. To keep it simple, I <BR>>>suppose we can figure the effect is a combined value -- at EL4 we <BR>>>have an effect of 32 -- this is one man-day of food preserved <BR>>>untouched for 32 days, or 32 man-days of food left safe and <BR>>>unspoiled for 1 day (even if it's full of mayo :) or any range in <BR>>>between. Presumably the caster can refresh the spell each day, so <BR>>>if need be he can spend it all on quantity, but the time is never <BR>>>less that a full day.<BR>>><BR>>><BR>>>HIDE:<BR>>>The tank character is
an armorer, so he wants the hide to make <BR>>>leather armor from. An elder dragon's AV is 6, but this is on a <BR>>>30' beast (of which we can figure that about HALF that is body). <BR>>>The question becomes one of "how much of this AV is due to <BR>>>thickness, and how much is due to properties?<BR>>><BR>>>As a flying creature, weight does become a premium, so a good <BR>>>portion of the AV is due to properties of the hide. many of the <BR>>>larger reptiles that are ground based seem to hit around AV2, so I <BR>>>can feal comfortable with have a base of 2 for larger creature <BR>>>(increased for size, decreased for flight). If we consider dragon <BR>>>hide to be scaled, an actual
dragon's hide is a lot like scale <BR>>>mail or lamilar -- AV2 in raw hide, with AV4 in overlapping <BR>>>plates.<BR>>><BR>>>Your average modern cow can be peeled for about 50 square feet of <BR>>>hide. This is presumably fairly thin and needs to be doubled up <BR>>>when making leather armor (to get AV1). When a cow is layed out <BR>>>it's pretty much a squarish rectangle, but a dragon would be more <BR>>>drawn out. Given a main body size of 15', we can probably look at <BR>>>about 25' (body plus some usable tail and necks) by 6', or about <BR>>>150 square feet of hide and scale (about triple that of a modern <BR>>>cow, or five times that of a medieval cow). It takes about a week
<BR>>>to prepare raw skin into leather, though a process of soaking, <BR>>>scraping, tanning (often using the brains of the creature as a <BR>>>part of the tanning mix) and smoking. Presumably the dragon hide <BR>>>will need a bit more work. I think a good guess is that it will <BR>>>take at least four times as long (twice as long for the size and <BR>>>efort to soak and scrape, and twice as long for the smoke time to <BR>>>cure it). In addition, one will be going somewhat slower so as to <BR>>>not losen the scales before the hide is fully cured, so ut the <BR>>>time by another 2 factor to SIX times as long. My cost estimates <BR>>>have it at 1SC to cure a cow hide into leather. A dragon
hide <BR>>>will presumably require more expensive (and probably caustic) <BR>>>materials, so I would have it be at least 1GC in materials as a <BR>>>minimum for the hide alone. Presumably the scale would need even <BR>>>more treatment so that they would not loosen from the hide, so I <BR>>>would up the material cost by 4GC more for the scales for a <BR>>>minimum total of 5GC.<BR>>><BR>>>Ok, so how much leather is needed? About 4# of leather go into <BR>>>leather armor (by the books) which is about 8 square feet of 8oz <BR>>>leather (8oz per square foot). Cow hide is easily thich enough for <BR>>> this, but we obviously have to thicken it up by doubling over <BR>>>when you make armor.
Call it 15 square feet of cowhide for leather <BR>>>armor. If we go by the same rule of thumb, the underlying hide of <BR>>>the dragon is normally AV1 right off the bat and thick enough to <BR>>>not need doubling (and in fact cannot be so, since we havethe <BR>>>scales on the outside). The scales themselves only provide AV3 <BR>>>since they are stiffer and don't provide the coverage they did on <BR>>>a live dragon. Accounting for waste, call it 10 square feet of <BR>>>hide for AV4 dragonscale leather, with a weight of 10# for the <BR>>>hide alone. Assume the scales are tough and thin, but with an <BR>>>equal weight, so this dragonscale armor would weigh 20#.<BR>>><BR>>>Construction?<BR>>>Given all that
wonderful dragon leather, how long will it take to <BR>>>form? The underlying hide will take at least twice as long to cut <BR>>>and sew. The armorer is not actually cutting the scales (hard as <BR>>>plate and cannot be hammered or shaped like for metal armors) but <BR>>>instead cutting out the leather underneath to form the peice, which <BR>>> is then sewn together much like normal leather armor.<BR>>><BR>>>In my armorer rules I tried to figure out appropriate times to make <BR>>> armor based on the sale price and material cost. If an armorer <BR>>>makes 2GC per month then obviously that is the sale price of all <BR>>>his armors after taking into account materail cost. By my <BR>>>figuring,
leather armor takes a tad less than a day to make (1SC, <BR>>>with a material cost of 4CC. Labor value is 6CC. 200CC/30 days <BR>>>is 6.667CC per day). using the same concept and a few assumptions, <BR>>>we can generate the numbers we need.<BR>>><BR>>>Assuming a final price of 40GC, and materials value 200x that of <BR>>>leather (for comparison, steel has a value of 10x that of leather), <BR>>>I jiggered the material% until the numbers lined up. It works out <BR>>>to 240 days of work to account the armorer's labor costs in order <BR>>>to justify the 40GC of sale price. Now this is a special item, so <BR>>>I'm tweaking the umbers a tad. One, any armorer who can do this
<BR>>>is obviouly skilled enough to justify a greater rate. If we <BR>>>figure a rate of 5GC/month, that would assume labor is actually <BR>>>100 days. But that still seems awfully long just for cut and sew <BR>>>(essentially) thick leather. I'm willing to cut the time by a <BR>>>third (round to 30 days, or one month) to call it a "luxury" <BR>>>peice...any armorer who has the chance to make it can make one and <BR>>>then relax the next 60 days.<BR>>><BR>>>That's enough for this tome. The other items of Question are TEETH <BR>>> and BONES. Any suggestions there?<BR>>><BR>>><BR>>>_______________________________________________<BR>>>pnp mailing
list<BR>>>pnp@abroere.xs4all.nl<BR>>>http://abroere.xs4all.nl/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pnp<BR>><BR>>_________________________________________________________________<BR>>Exercise your brain! Try Flexicon. <BR>>http://games.msn.com/en/flexicon/default.htm?icid=flexicon_hmemailtaglinemarch07<BR>><BR>><BR>>_______________________________________________<BR>>pnp mailing list<BR>>pnp@abroere.xs4all.nl<BR>>http://abroere.xs4all.nl/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pnp<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></div><br clear=all><hr> <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMAENUS/2734??PS=47575" target="_top">Live Search Maps – find all the local information you need, right when you need it.</a> </html>