K wrote:I think the whole idea of "finding" sites is unworkable for a setting. I mean, a site should be spawning monsters regardless if someone is tapping it, so you know where it is if you walk by.
Also, once anyone in the setting gets powerful they really will just sit on the known sites and cock block and there is no reason why you wouldn't know all the sites since they are spawning monsters. Sure, the Cave of Red Crystals might only make fire drakes when no one is around, but if someone moves in and starts making troops the Sun Emperor is going to send in his troops before that someone builds up an army. There is no reason why all the sites in the world aren't blocked down.
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Not letting heroes act as sites means that there are no independent mages making items or casting spells for hire, no bandit lords training a thieves armies, and generally no independent powers in your setting. I mean, you can make a campaign where everything is hidden and the whole campaign is about finding sites, buts thats not a setting that other people can play in (including you, since once the campaign is over you can't make another in the same setting because all the sites have been found). I just don't see any good reason to do it.
I think there may be a solution to most of these issues. That being, that power sites are unpredictable in their magical supply. Sites function for days, months, years, decades, centuries, or millennia, and then for some reason they stop. And then for some reason after they have been dormant for a suitable amount of time, they start back up again.
In many cases that suitable amount of time is long enough that everyone in the setting has given up on it, or at least it has proven unprofitable to sit on it for an extended amount of time. If a level 1 power site has been been dormant for 100 years, then the emperor sitting on his level 5 power site has no interest having his troops 'cock block' the level 1 site.
By extension, you just need to have enough power sites that go active/dormant that it becomes unprofitable to guard dormant sites. For example, the emperor might be sitting on his level 5, century old power site, and have half a dozen little power sites guarded by his minions. But as soon as one site stops working the emperor pulls all his troops. Why? Because there is no evidence that the power site will start working again this millennia.
Instead the emperor sends his troops (adventurers and Pc's) to go find old power sites (ruins of old civilizations) that might have started up again.
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An additional possible reason that dormant sites are not guarded is because they are inherently unstable upon becoming active again. It would be disadvantageous to have your troops stationed there when it reactivates. People don't guard the dormant Citadel of the Magma Rift because when it reactivates, creatures near it randomly spontaneously combust or turn into fire elementals. (In this way certain areas could always be predisposed to be ruled by certain creatures if you wished.)
A final reason for people not to guard dormant power sites is that there are false-starts. It might appear that a power site is becoming active again, but in fact only the negative "tremors" (the spontaneous combustion or fire elementals) are occurring. After the Citadel of the Magma Rift spits out a hundred or so fire elementals, it calms back down to dormancy.
There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe