That's also a nice idea, although somewhat different from what I was thinking of.
I was thinking more of something like the guards at the gate to Kuudad or on the road to the dwarven village. But instead of human guards, there would be giant birds that would let you through only when you did not have food on you. If you had any food on you, however...
That would allow for creating an area where food would be scarce, as you couldn't stock up in advance.
Maybe later, when you were stronger, you could kill the birds for fulfilling a quest.

That's different from your Gremlins, I think, although I'm not sure I fully understand the idea. What are the Gremlins doing when you don't have food on you? And I suppose there need to be messages about what got stolen from your inventory?

Huh. I didn't realize that's what you were getting at. I definitely think something along these lines is a cool idea, though I suspect it's the kind of thing you could only implement at one or two points in the gameworld...

But having to play through an area of the gameworld while having no food in your Inventory would be a good challenge.


Good question - I hadn't really considered that question. I guess they could still steal water from you, if you didn't have any Food Items on you, along with an accompanying message in the Narrative Text Box. (And with every time a Gremlin steals something from you, there should be an automatic "Spotting" roll to see if you spot them as they steal from you...)

I guess if you're out of both Food and Water... maybe they'd just leave you alone?!


Yeah, I guess if you've never played Ultima III before, the "Gremlin" idea is probably kind of vague.

But, yeah - presumably Gremlins would be "invisible" (unless "Spotted"), and when "invisible" (or, also during combat?...) they could steal Food (or other?...) Items from your inventory.

In Ultima III, they'd just pop up, but you could never engage them in combat.

For Eschalon, I think if you "Spot" Gremlins, you should be able to attack them, but they should probably be really easy kills (say, 5 HPs, or something...).

Note, that I'm not exactly expecting BW to add Gremlins to Book III. But it might be kind of a cool addition if he did...

Absolutely. I see a puzzle element in this. Once you've figured out the birds leave you alone when you don't have food you've solved a small puzzle - you might have received a hint of someone towards the solution, but not more than that.
Even though the puzzle element is thin, you still don't want it at different places on the same map.

But it's normal for creatures only to appear in a certain spot on the map; the Rift Harpies for example, who would be the perfect pick for this role of bird-guard, only appeared in one area in book II as well.