On Destiny. [possible spoilers]

[Optimystik]

Assume for the moment that V's "four words" are either coming quite soon, or have already been said. Certainly what the Fiends are offering sounds like Ultimate Arcane Power to me - to pilot the souls of not one, but THREE epic-level arcane casters, two of which specialize in the very schools of magic V banned and the third of which can cast spontaneously, use SLAs and shape his spells.

This leads to an interesting question; if the Oracle did indeed foresee this, then how far did he see? He knew that V would be faced with the archfiends' offer. Did he see if the fiends' gambit would be successful? Will their bid at fel cooperation and planar domination bear fruit? And if the Oracle knows the answer to that question, then hasn't it on some metaphysical level already happened?

Do the Fiends have Diviners and Oracles of their own? If so, couldn't they just look ahead and see if their venture would be successful? Or a more frightening thought... have they already done so and gotten a response of "yes"? One thing I do agree with, if the IFCC's plans work, then pretty much everything else they said would come to pass, would.

Enough rhetoric. Playground, what do you think? Is the stick-figure future set in stone?

[SPoD]

The fiends may well not have the level of foresight available to the Oracle. The Oracle is powered by Tiamat, a A-list goddess; the fiends do not necessarily have any gods on their side.

And they likely don't have Tiamat on their side, either, since they're about to wind up some elf to go slaughter one of her more powerful devotees. So if the Oracle knows whether or not the fiends' plan works, he has little reason to tell them. We know he's not above withholding prophecies from people he doesn't like, after all.

EDIT because I thought of this: In all likelihood, no other god/power offers the kind of easy-access oracle that Tiamat does...because if they did, people like Roy and Roy's dad would have gone to those people instead of the Oracle.

[Optimystik]

The fiends may well not have the level of foresight available to the Oracle. The Oracle is powered by Tiamat, a A-list goddess; the fiends do not necessarily have any gods on their side.

Perfectly true, which has me wondering what her take is on all this IFCC nonsense. Since we can assume that anything the Oracle prophesies comes straight from her, she probably knows about their bid to topple the heavens. Maybe she's okay with it?


And they likely don't have Tiamat on their side, either, since they're about to wind up some elf to go slaughter one of her more powerful devotees. So if the Oracle knows whether or not the fiends' plan works, he has little reason to tell them. We know he's not above withholding prophecies from people he doesn't like, after all.

That's a good point - our scaly friend had to have known that V's very first use of his newfound power would be to obliterate one of his most esteemed clientele. One wonders why he wouldn't have passed on a warning to that effect to Mama Dragon.

As for the IFCC, I doubt they care about Tiamat or her children. They don't even care about V, and they're about to make him unbelievably powerful.


EDIT because I thought of this: In all likelihood, no other god/power offers the kind of easy-access oracle that Tiamat does...because if they did, people like Roy and Roy's dad would have gone to those people instead of the Oracle.

Even if there were other oracles, they might have gone to the kobold anyway - that pesky memory charm keeps anyone who avails of his services from remembering just what he is, after all. The clients then make up a version of events that best suits their own worldview. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0333.html)

[Broler]

i wonder if somewhere the oracle is laughing at V?

[imp_fireball]

Did anyone ever think to consider that due to the Fiends' extraordinary challenge ratings, they are likely to have some anti-scrying anti-clairvoyance quality about them?

I bet somewhere at some point, the oracle doesn't actually know what the hell is going on (in hell) for once.