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Author Topic: Possible bugs for errata.
Steveg
Nakomé (Clanless)
Posts: 2
Post Possible bugs for errata.
on: October 19, 2014, 01:49

In 4.12.1 Strychnine is incorrectly listed. Strychnine is a plant extract. The description given is actually correct for arsenic which can be vaporized by the copper and lead smelting process and deposited in the flues and chimneys.
Wikipedia has a good description of the plant sources for Strychnine.
jeffdee
Administrator
Posts: 427
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: October 19, 2014, 01:55

I'll look into that, thanks Steveg!

-Jeff Dee
John-
Duxbury
Nakomé (Clanless)
Posts: 5
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: November 15, 2014, 16:09

I have been using Siónu hiTekkól's character sheet from the free downloads to work through character generation / advancement and I can't find an answer to the following question despite doing a word search of the PDF.
How do you calculate "Appearance"?
The two example characters seem to imply that it is equal to WILL, but it could equally be equal to the lowest of their stats (ignoring PSYC).

I also spotted a few "errors" that might be due to her being created under an earlier version of the system.
1) She has the advantage "Acute Reflexes" - Should that be Quick Thinking?
2) She has the skill "Medicine" - Should that be Physician?
3) Her Resist Sorcery skill is quoted as 7, but she has WILL 9, which with an untrained modifier of -1 should give a value of 8.
(Guténu hiKúrodu's calculates correctly - WILL 10, Resist sorcery 9)
4) Surely her Earned EPs should be 24 - Her starting EPs were 13 and her total currently is 37.
jeffdee
Administrator
Posts: 427
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: November 15, 2014, 22:53

"Appearance" is just the character's WILL attribute, modified to reflect Unattractive or Attractive personal traits. That's worth pointing out on an errata sheet.

1) Yes, Siónu's "Acute Reflexes" should be "Quick Thinking".
2) Yes, Siónu's "Medicine" skill should be "Physician".
3) Yes, Siónu's "Resist Sorcery" skill should be 8.
4) Yes, Siónu should have 24 Earned EPs.

Sorry about that! As you suspected, I was trying to adapt an old character. Still, that's no excuse. I'll post an update asap.

-Jeff

UPDATE: The Sionu PDF has been updated.
jeffdee
Administrator
Posts: 427
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: November 15, 2014, 23:41

Responding to Steveg's bug report on Strychnine: The source of that listing is Prof. Barker's own equipment list from Gardasiyal. He may have indeed intended to say that strychnine is somehow connected to copper and lead ore on Tekumel, and that the Earthly plant sources for it are not present. And he listed Arsenic separately, with different characteristics, so if it's an error it's not a simple matter of accidentally copying the entry for one onto the other.

So, I'm leaving this alone for now.

-Jeff
GeorgeHamm-
ond
Nakomé (Clanless)
Posts: 12
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: November 16, 2014, 21:51

Steveg is right. The same error appears in S&G section 2.350, on Food, Drink, Drugs, Poisons, and I guess was carried through to Gardasiyal. It looks like the Professor mixed up his notes about poisons. Strychnine is an alkaloid, a moderately complex organic poison, not inorganic.

Since it looks like the Professor was trying to use real geology and chemistry here, a fix seems appropriate to me. I suggest removing strychnine entirely, and changing the source of arsenic to read "a by-product of roasting copper and lead ores" and the source of antimony to read "from stibnite, also found with ores of lead and silver, particularly silver ore in southern Yán Kór."
jeffdee
Administrator
Posts: 427
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: November 17, 2014, 07:23

I'll bring this up with the Tekumel Foundation. They are the only ones who can say with authority whether Professor Barker made a mistake.

-Jeff
John-
Duxbury
Nakomé (Clanless)
Posts: 5
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: November 19, 2014, 03:49

Not wishing to get a reputation as a Stormcrow, but I spotted a very minor error on the Excel spreadsheet version of the character sheet. Cell L9 prints out as "02-Jan" rather than "1-2". I guess Excel decided to auto-correct something it shouldn't have. The only other place I can spot "1-2" is in cell AD37, where it prints out correctly.

From a history of messing around with Excel I know this can be fixed by typing '1-2 into the erroneous cell, but that requires you to unprotect the worksheet and then re-protect it.

Thanks for the revised version of Siónu's character sheet, which unfortunately has a rather glaring omission - Her spellbook page is missing.
John-
Duxbury
Nakomé (Clanless)
Posts: 5
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: November 19, 2014, 03:55

On the general subject of Arsnic, there is an interesting bit on wikipedia about how the element Cobalt got it's name - "The name of the element cobalt comes from the creature's name, because medieval miners blamed the sprite (Kobolds) for the poisonous and troublesome nature of the typical arsenical ores of this metal (cobaltite and smaltite) which polluted other mined elements."

Not directly of relevance to the thread above, but it might be an interesting bit of mythology to wrap around a mining based scenario where something is exploiting the legend for their own nefarious ends.

jeffdee
Administrator
Posts: 427
Post Re: Possible bugs for errata.
on: November 20, 2014, 04:09

I fixed Sionu's sample character sheet. Again 😉

I've also fixed the problem with the Excel sheet. Everyone who downloaded it so far should get an email letting them know to download the updated version.

-Jeff
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