How does looting treasures worth legend points work?

Question

Earthdawn rewards player when they best an opponent with legend points. It also rewards them legend points when they loot "treasures" (e.g., Crackbill necks).

1. Am I right that they won't have the reward for the item if they don't take it, if they kill 3 and run away from the rest, or push them off a cliff?

2. How is an adventurer to know what part of a creature is salvageable (and worth doing it)?

3. Do you need a particular test to salvage the item successfully? (The amulet of a mummy is a given, a Crackbill's neck, you might spoil the whole thing if you just pull as hard as you can)

Also, are the adventurers preternaturally aware of the fact that the parts are worth LP and gold, or do they just know that some parts are worth stuff and some not but they don't know the specifics unless they researched it?

Answer 1

1. In Gamemaster's Compendium (p96 of 3rd edition - I doubt anything changed here) the corresponding passage sounds as follows:

Gathering Magical Treasure

Everything your player characters carry away from defeated creatures or other opponents is loot. However, treasure is the only kind of loot worth Legend Points. Characters acquire treasure through heroic acts; characters who claim legendary treasures soon become legends themselves. Treasure is represented by goodies that people expect heroes to acquire: bits of nasty monsters, forgotten items from legend, magical weapons or talismans, gems snatched from the hoard of a Horror.

Certainly doesn't look like the players earn LP for the creature parts they didn't actually salvaged.

2. From an in-game perspective it is a character knowledge - one may have heard that somewhere, or come across at a bazaar, or whatever. Mechanically, if you want to separate player knowledge from character knowledge, that would be a related knowledge skill (creature lore?) check with difficulty somehow proportional to the rarity of the creature in question. That probably also covers the question in your edit.

3. Once again, a relevant artisan skill check. Difficulty is entirely up to you, and most likely depends on the part being salvaged, ranging from trivial for the mummy amulet to difficult for, say, volus' magic-sensing organ.