seraphic's page

Hello.
Feedback please.

SHROUDS OF THE ANCIENT

Aura: Moderate Necromancy; CL 11th
Slot Body; Price 49,000 gp; Weight -

The primary purpose of these silk and linen wraps is to preserve the body of the deceased for their afterlife.
When a body, living or dead, is placed within the shrouds, they writhe and bind it, putting the body under the effect of a Gentle Repose and Protection from Good of unlimited duration while shrouded. The shrouded subject is considered entangled as if by a Rope of Entanglement. The shrouds may be removed as a full round action, and have the statistics and self-repairing ability of a Rope of Entanglement with 24 hit points.

While the above effects are readily discovered, the shrouds have another, more powerful, ability. A shrouded subject is enabled to cast Magic Jar without a concentration check and without a focus; the amulets and talismans within the shrouds serve this purpose. Additionally, the effective duration of Magic Jar cast in this way is unlimited, although a trapped soul receives a new Saving Throw each day to return to its body.

CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Extend Spell, Craft Wondrous Item, Gentle Repose, Protection from Good, Magic Jar; Cost 24,500 gp

The main one that jumps out at me is the capitalized spell names. Not sure what else I did wrong, or if it is just not interesting enough.
Thanks Clark.

Italy was a really poor choice for an example...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Italy

That gives you some idea of what constituted "Italy" historically. Britian isn't a very good choice either, nor is Spain or Germany.

Really, the best example for your purposes is probably France, since it has a good long-term correspondence between a people group (the Germanic Franks) and territory (France). French history, territory and people are fairly continuous starting around 500 AD/CE.

I mean, designing Vatican City *might* get you disqualified, but designing Italy surely won't. So why not just design Italy, and avoid the potential problem?

Ok, the reason this statement is frustrating is because historically, there was no such thing as Italy. The reason the Sicilian mafia has persisted for so long is many Sicilians think the idea of "Italy" is a joke, and certainly don't think of themselves as "Italian".

Without getting technical, the idea of a modern nation state is arguably a fiction, a fake idea created by those in power as a tool of their power, a sort of mind control. Historically, both territorial borders and governments were very fluid.

Generally, people were loyal to their group, which usually was nuclear family, then extended family, then tribe, then ethnicity. This is why Yugoslavia disintegrated into warring territories. Tito may have been able to force Croats, Serbs, and others to get along, but as soon as he died, the whole thing disintegrated. These people were loyal to their group, not to some tyrant's loony idea of a country.

Or consider Britain. Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Northern France all could be considered separate "nations", or part of Britian depending on what moment of history you choose. Normandy was once part of what we think of as "England", during the era of the Norman kings, after William the Conquerer defeated the (Anglish) Anglo-Saxons at Hastings. And there are muttered rumblings right now that Scotland should cut loose of Britian entirely, since virtually all British oil wealth comes from petroleum fields in Scottish territory.

Considered from this perspective, a "nation" is really just a government (usually hereditary monarchy/imperium) and the territory and groups it exercises nominal control over, at any given moment. That could be a radically different thing a year later.

Historically, a nation could be considered an ethnic people group, since that is what usually endures from era to era, not governments. That definition also casts new light on the idea expressed by Tolkien in the Two Towers that the war on Rohan was to destroy her people, not simply to take land. Essentially, the only way to defeat a nation, by this definition, is to destroy the people, which is an awful way of looking at it, but then the idea of ethnic cleansing suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Considered from a real world historical perspective, Vic's statment is frustrating because we are given the choice of either making a bizarro, ahistorical thing like a modern "nation", or we risk being immediately disqualified.

Thats not a decision I would enjoy making.