Karmic Hoard question.

[Dangerbutton]

okay, on page 51 of the GM handbook, under the sub-heading "Karmic Hoard", it says that for every 5 ranks of karmic items gathered together in one place and designated as a part of a hoard, the areas surrounding the hoard gains a karma rating of 1.
  So, does this mean that all you need to do is find five rank 1 karmic items and it becomes an infused area with a karmic rating of 1?
   In which case, would you be able to get an infused area with a karmic rating of 5 by simply finding 25 rank 1 items for your hoard?
   This confuses me, because everything else with karma seems to be on a more exponential scale. you go from hours, to days, weeks, months, years, centuries, rather than just one hour, two hours, three hours, etc. You follow what I'm saying?
   It also confuses me because that would make it so that you could get to rank 6 with just 30 rank one items, when the book makes it clear that you can't get to rank 6 (well, unless you do the crazy stuff to get beyond AR 5. . . .)
   Someone please let me know if I'm interpreting that section wrong.
   Now, what would make sense, to me at least, is if it were that you needed five items of a specific rank to get it to that rank (but you'd have to build up, though, starting with rank 1 items). This would solve the problem of going past rank 5. . . . is this the way it's supposed to be, and I was just interpreting that section wrong?
   Someone please help me. I'm confused.

[Ironchicken]

Yes you are reading it right. First, I think it depends on how easy you make it to find karmic items. If it is easy then this rule may need adjusting.

You could do something like 5 level 1 to get to level 1, a further 10 level 1 or 5 level 2 to get to 2, a further 20 level1, 10 level 2 or 5 level 3 to get to 3 etc.

I have done it a simpler way I just doubled the 5 to 10 from the outset.  I like things simple.

[Jeff BiscuitGod]

Personally, I took the approach of limiting the maximum Karma rating imparted onto an area by a hoard to the karma rating of the most powerful item in the hoard (so while 20 rank 1 items could make a rank 4 area, you'd need one or more rank 4 items to actually make it so in practice). Part of it is to keep the karma rating of the area from getting too high too quickly, but it's also for other reasons - amongst other things, it makes the players more willing to grab an item or two from their hoard (or keep an item or two on their person for emergencies) as it's less likely to deplete the karma a large hoard produces.

I tended to distinguish between karmic items that were once part of the Scions' original hoard, and new karmic items collected as part of their new hoard - the latter being far, far easier to find and far more diverse in form and appearance, piled in there along with whatever other interesting trinkets and mementos (and loot, in some cases) the characters accumulate.

[baxil]

The way that it would make the most intuitive sense to me would be in a similar way to the starting equipment rules.  If you recall, when you are buying items with your starting wealth, you can trade in an item of Wealth rank X for five items of Wealth rank X-1.  This means that (1 Cost 5 item) = (5 cost 4 items) = (25 cost 3 items) = (125 cost 2 items) = (625 cost 1 items) = (lots of cost 0 items).

Since everything else in the same game seems to work on that exponential-type scale, it seems like spontaneous karmic enrichment should work the same way.  5 ranks of karmic items can produce an area of 1 karma, but it would take 25 (not 10) ranks of karmic items for an area of 2 karma, and 125 ranks of karmic items for an area of 3 karma ... at which point your dragons need to just start nurturing karma themselves.

This makes intuitive sense in that the mere presence of their stuff gives scions a modest recovery ability, but areas with higher karmic ranking are as rare as they should be.