Magical Power...

[SkredlitheOgre]

beyond your wildest imaginings!

So. If this is the part where Vaarsuvius gets ultimate arcane power, which I'm assuming it is, it will be interesting to see what is beyond her wildest imaginings.

The question I have is:

What would YOU use your ultimate arcane power for, limited to the D&D setting of your choice, from your character's point of view?

For me, it would have been the ability to stop Strahd Von Zarovich, from the Ravenloft setting. No matter how many times we went there, he always 'won.' We NEVER got out of Ravenloft and on one occasion, my character was the only one left, the others having been turned into either vampires or a werewolf. That sucked.

(Yes, I know this is because of our DM, but honestly, the whole thing was a blast, because we never knew who was going to 'die' next.)

[Volkov]

beyond your wildest imaginings!

So. If this is the part where Vaarsuvius gets ultimate arcane power, which I'm assuming it is, it will be interesting to see what is beyond her wildest imaginings.

The question I have is:

What would YOU use your ultimate arcane power for, limited to the D&D setting of your choice, from your character's point of view?

For me, it would have been the ability to stop Strahd Von Zarovich, from the Ravenloft setting. No matter how many times we went there, he always 'won.' We NEVER got out of Ravenloft and on one occasion, my character was the only one left, the others having been turned into either vampires or a werewolf. That sucked.

(Yes, I know this is because of our DM, but honestly, the whole thing was a blast, because we never knew who was going to 'die' next.)
Make Grazz'zt bite the dust, I'm so sick of him.

[Assassin89]

I would use the arcane power to restore a forest destroyed by a war. The forest is now a desert due to a powerful spell.

[Ladorak]

I'd turn it back into a desert:smallbiggrin:

Honestly, I'd cause every clone of a certain Drow to just drop dead and never EVER come back. Salvador has a lot to answer for

[fangthane]

First, it's Salvatore, not Salvador... But I agree, the man's visited some pretty mediocre writing on us and has been hoist on a pedestal despite not deserving it. (though in fairness, most D&D authors are so godawful it's hardly a surprise he shows so well in contrast)

Second, people hereabouts (and possibly V as well, we'll see) seem to have a fairly limited concept of what constitutes "ultimate" power. I'm of two minds when it comes to that sort of thing. The first would be to possess an unlimited ability to channel arcane power (ultimate in extent and in expression); sort of an arcane version of Tetsuo Shima or Hal Jordan, minus their limits. It's not necessary, to me, to specify a D&D setting because if I had ultimate arcane power I wouldn't be limited to a single setting. I'd own them all, get Iuz and Elminster to shine my boots, that kind of thing.

I don't think V will get that because, in honesty, it wouldn't make the story terribly exciting. "And for his next trick, V unravels the snarl forcibly and re-works its fibers to form a demi-plane wherein he can experiment."
The second, I'll spoiler just in case because I consider it more likely and I don't want to spook our host. ;)
The other thought which occurs with respect to the term 'ultimate' is 'final' - which would tend to mean that any level of arcane power which is the last achieved by its possessor is their personal "ultimate" arcane power. Based on this interpretation, V's prophecy becomes more a death-clock than an indicator of power.

[Kaytara]

I don't think what they're offering is the power that the prophecy refers to, for several reasons:

1) They've had previous customers. If it were as great as it sounds, you'd think we would have heard of someone by now.

2) Anything V says, he says to all three of them. Three beings, not one. (Granted, one of them could take V aside for a private chat, but this seems unlikely, given that they're on an island in plain sight of the others and that they seem to be working together on this.)

3) Vaarsuvius asks "How will I achieve complete and total ultimate arcane power?" Having it handed to you on a golden platter does not count as achieving it, IMO. Given what V said earlier, ("I will conquer this obstacle through my own diligence or not at all!"), the achieving part seems to matter to him as well. If, during their conversation, he thinks of a different way to save his family without getting an infernal power boost, he may turn it down specifically because he prefers to earn that power.

4) It's still too early in the story for that. Putting aside the idea that it would make things too easy, if the prophecy is fulfilled now we'd be left with no foreshadowing of V's future development. Given that attaining power is V's ultimate goal, it sounds like something that should come as a conclusion to his story, anyway. (I also like the theory about "ultimate" meaning "final" here.)

5) The way Rich is waving it into our faces. Vaarsuvius has been talking about getting more !POWER! and the fiends are now offering him more !POWER!. Rich is clearly leading us on in this. I am certain that when V's big moment arrives, we definitely won't see it coming several strips away.

[King of Nowhere]

It may be ultimate arcane power for a limited amount of time. Enough to wipe the dragon, but not to advance the main plot.

Anyway, for ultimate arcane power I'd choose the spellcasting of the Wheel of time. Basically, it's like being a sorcerer with no limit of spells known, and a number of spells per day much greater that an epic sorcerer.

[Silverraptor]

Well, out of all the campaigns my friends and I have wandering around, I would say the only one where I would have Arcane power is that 1 evil campaign I pestered them into starting, Thanks to reading SoD.

My character would use that power and kill the king who forced my character into the "criminal colony" with all the monsters around. That's his goal for revenge, after that, he'll probably find a nice seprate place and work on necromancy. After that, he'd just experiment on how people would react if an army of undead wanted to take over the world.

Ya so... that's *my* ultimate arcane power. In other words, don't give it to me or you'd probably regret it.:smalltongue:

[Optimystik]

I'd use it to get ultimate DIVINE power, which I personally find to be much more interesting.

[LurkerInPlayground]

I interpreted the prophecy in a manner that wasn't referring to a moral "right" and "wrong." I interpreted it to mean that the way V actually achieves power will be in direct contradiction to his/her expectations. As in: correct and incorrect rationales.

That is, if V thinks that (s)he'll achieve power by striking a bargain, it won't actually work as planned. S(he) will gain power in a manner that is in direct contradiction to the V's expectations.

It wouldn't surprise me if this Faustian bargain isn't what the prophecy was talking about. I readily expected Belkar to die as a result of his curse going off, but that hasn't happened yet.

[Raging Gene Ray]

I interpreted the prophecy in a manner that wasn't referring to a moral "right" and "wrong." I interpreted it to mean that the way V actually achieves power will be in direct contradiction to his/her expectations. As in: correct and incorrect rationales.


That's the first thing I thought of, too, when hearing the prophecy.

To answer the OPs question...I'd send cows to a parallel dimension filled with lots of beans.

[madmotoristmonk]

I'd squander it with material and physical pleasures.

Then I'd probably use my "PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER to find out what the MOTD is, only to go "huh" because I only have cursory knoweledge of this interesting game because of you posters and the comic itself.

[Palliard]

Booze and hookers. I have simple needs. :smallbiggrin:

[LurkerInPlayground]

Oh, and to answer the question of what I'd do with ultimate arcane power, and to answer it honestly:

- I'd use my superior knowledge to sneer down at the rest of humanity.

- Sneer especially hard at people who really have no actual commitment to knowledge or investigation, but nonetheless pretend for motives I find both despicable and distasteful.

- Actively quash and undo individuals/organizations I would consider to be my enemies. (Especially people from the above-mentioned group.)

- Dictate my life according to my terms, as well as those bits of reality (social or otherwise) that I'd care enough to actively involve myself in.

But I have a feeling a lot us are just being polite and just not saying this . . .