Xykon as an Undead

[Phantom Thief]

So from what we see of vampires, they are distinct individuals created when a person is turned. Redcloak considers Tsukikos wights to be essentially tools made of magic. He even considers Xykon a tool, just with more complex control involved.

So what exactly is Xykon? Is he still the person he was before becoming a lich, or a separate entity that has the original Xykons knowledge and power?

Xykon himself seems to speak as though he persisted through the lichification process. He agrees with Oona that he used to eat, rather than disagreeing and saying the old Xkyon ate.

There is also a point where Xykon mocks the dead spellcasters V is channeling because they didn't have the balls to evade death the way he did, but that raises the question of why those other spellcasters didn't want to do what he did. Maybe they just had some personal sense of honor regarding the sanctity of their bodies, or maybe they knew something Xykon didn't. He's a sorcerer and doesn't have a theoretical understanding of magic, according to Tsukiko.

Xykon is not prone to introspection. The Quinton says it is a significant change that affects the total order of the universe for him to be forced to consider his own words carefully. So maybe Xykon has just never taken the time to think about his own situation and realize he is not the same person. Or maybe he actually does know and just hasn't revealed that to anyone else yet. Or maybe he really is the same guy just protected in a phylactrey now.

But given our previous exposure to undead, I think this would make Xykon and other liches the exception rather than the rule. A lich is a particularly powerful form of undead, so its not out of the question that they might be unique.

What do other people think? Is the Xykon Roy is trying to defeat the same Xykon that Eugene swore a blood oath over, or a different individual born when he became a lich? Does this change anything? Would it matter to anyone? Would it even matter to Xykon?

[brian 333]

By the monster description in older editions and in the 3x template, the actual soul of the lich is bound into a phylactery, from which it can inhabit its former body.

This is distinctly different from the 3x Libre Mortis description of the vampire, which has a new negative energy being inhabit the new vampire.

[hamishspence]

Libris Mortis does say that some undead have a new negative energy being inhabit the body, but it also says the soul has gone on to the afterlife, and it does not say which undead are like that.


Atrocity calls to unlife

Evil acts can resonate in multiple dimensions, opening cracks in reality and letting the blight creep in. A sufficiently heinous act may attract the attention of malicious spirits, bodiless and seeking to house themselves in flesh, especially recently vacated vessels. Such spirits are often little more than nodes of unquenchable hunger, wishing only to feed. These comprise many of the mindless undead. Sometimes these evil influences also manage to reinvigorate the decaying memories of the body's former host. Thus, some semblance of the original personality and memories remain, though the newly awakened being is invariably twisted by the inhabiting spirit, resulting in an evil, twisted, and intelligent creature. However, this being is not truly inhabited by the spirit of the original creature, which has left to seek its ultimate destiny in the Outer Planes. This amalgamation is something entirely new.

It's Complete Divine that states the soul of the original creature is trapped within the vampire, and that "a malign intelligence" is in control:



The souls of characters who die in specific ways sometimes become undead. Those driven to suicide by madness become allips, while humanoids destroyed by absolute evil become bodaks. As with ghosts, the soul creates a new body, whether it's incorporeal such as an allip's or corporeal such as a bodak's. The soul is twisted toward evil if it wasn't already. The new undead creature retains some general memories of its former life, but doesn't necessarily have the same mental ability scores, skills, feats or other abilities. Not every suicide victim becomes an allip, and not everyone destroyed by absolute evil becomes a bodak; as with ghosts, the exact nature of the transformation is unknown. Similarly, liches are characters who've voluntarily transformed themselves into undead, trapping their souls in skeletal bodies.

Some undead such as wights and vampires create spawn out of a character they kill, trapping the soul of the deceased in a body animated by negative energy and controlled by a malign intelligence. Sometimes the undead creature can access the memories of the deceased (vampires, spectres, ghouls, and ghasts can) and sometimes they can't (as with shadows, wraiths and wights).

[Jasdoif]

So from what we see of vampires, they are distinct individuals created when a person is turned. Redcloak considers Tsukikos wights to be essentially tools made of magic. He even considers Xykon a tool, just with more complex control involved.

So what exactly is Xykon? Is he still the person he was before becoming a lich, or a separate entity that has the original Xykons knowledge and power?Conveniently enough, we've gotten an answer about this:

Nothing that happens with vampires in this comic can be extrapolated to work similarly with other undead. All types of undead work differently, that's why they are different types in the first place. Xykon is still Xykon.

[Precure]

A puppet made out of carcass and dark magic pretending to be Xykon, drived by Xykon's corrupted soul and manipulated by the Goblin priest.

[137beth]

Start of Darkness says
Redcloak tells Xykon, while he is still human, that he would need to build a phylactery that would "hold your soul if your body was ever destroyed." It's possible Redcloak is referring not to Xykon's soul but to an unrelated negative energy soul, or that Redcloak is lying. However, I think the more likely, and simpler, explanation is that Lich Xykon is the same person as Human Xykon, with the same soul. That's different from how vampires work in OOTS, but liches are not vampires, and they don't need to work the same way.

Lich Xykon behaves almost identically to Human Xykon. Human Xykon loved murder and coffee. Liches can't taste coffee, so Lich Xykon doubles down on murder, but his personality is otherwise completely unchanged by lich-ification. Xykon's portrayal is totally different from how vampires have been portrayed: Even before we found out that HPoH was a new negative energy spirit, Vampire Durkon behaved like a totally different person than Durkon. The Exarch of Hel has a completely different personality from what we see of Gontor. But Xykon's characterization remained unchanged by his transformation.
EDIT: Of course, when I start a post and then go grocery shopping in the middle, I get ninja'd by a banana.

[Murk]

but that raises the question of why those other spellcasters didn't want to do what he did. Maybe they just had some personal sense of honor regarding the sanctity of their bodies, or maybe they knew something Xykon didn't. He's a sorcerer and doesn't have a theoretical understanding of magic

Becoming a lich wasn't Xykon's idea but Redcloak's - and Redcloak has access to a bunch of knowledge that other spellcasters do not have, through the cloak.

[hroþila]

I don't think we need elaborate explanations for why most people would feel rather strongly about not turning themselves into skeletons

[MReav]

I'd say the likelihood is that Xykon the lich is the same person as Xykon the living human, though warped by however many decades of whatever effects having your soul in constant contact with negative energy (if any) as well as the standard corrupting effects of power beyond what he had in life as well as lacking any grounding (like his love of coffee) would cause.

[NontheistCleric]

Functionally, it doesn't really matter. We saw with the vampires that given enough time to absorb memories, the possessing negative energy spirit comes to encompass everything the original personality was. Even if there were originally a 'Human Xykon' and 'Lich Xykon' co-located in his lich body, by the time of the comic they are likely indistinguishable.

[Jay R]

When analyzing Redcloak's comments, remember that he is Evil, and working for the Dark One. And he said that to an enemy he considered unreasonably attached to the undead, and who had been treated him badly since they met. You can't assume that he is telling the truth, or even that he knows the truth.

For him, the undead are merely tools to exploit for the Dark One's cause. In particular, Xykon, to whom he has been lying for thirty years, is merely a tool he's trying to exploit for the Dark One's cause. That does not tell me anything about their actual state -- only about Redcloak's frame of mind while using Tsukiko's emotions to destroy her.

[Aquillion]

As an aside, it's interesting to think about why 3e had it work like that (presumably, because they didn't want players to get a powerup by getting turned into a vampire, so they made the rules say "no, you don't get to play your vampire-self, not unless you go through some proper route that involves levels or LA or racial hit dice or whatever.")

[Ruck]

Functionally, it doesn't really matter. We saw with the vampires that given enough time to absorb memories, the possessing negative energy spirit comes to encompass everything the original personality was. Even if there were originally a 'Human Xykon' and 'Lich Xykon' co-located in his lich body, by the time of the comic they are likely indistinguishable.

The vampire spirits are separate spirits from the original host. They absorb the memories of the host, but they don't become the host. Malack was not the same person as the shaman he turned.

And as Rich said, as quoted earlier in this thread, the way vampires work cannot be extrapolated to other forms of undead.

I think it's pretty clear that Xykon is the same spirit as a lich as he was as a human.

[NontheistCleric]

The vampire spirits are separate spirits from the original host. They absorb the memories of the host, but they don't become the host. Malack was not the same person as the shaman he turned.
Not in the beginning, but remember when Vampire Durkon absorbed all of Durkon's memories and became him? There were, of course, still two spirits, but they were functionally identical, because they shared all the same experiences. Malack did seem to identify with his living self even when there was no need to continue pretending he was not a vampire, and while we can surmise his absorption process was far less violent and allowed for more time for Vampire Malack to build an identity of his own, that identity would still have come to incorporate everything the living Malack did and experienced, in the end.


And as Rich said, as quoted earlier in this thread, the way vampires work cannot be extrapolated to other forms of undead.

I think it's pretty clear that Xykon is the same spirit as a lich as he was as a human.
Of course–I'm just saying that even if we were to extrapolate it, there still would be little difference.

[Ruck]

Not in the beginning, but remember when Vampire Durkon absorbed all of Durkon's memories and became him? There were, of course, still two spirits, but they were functionally identical, because they shared all the same experiences. Malack did seem to identify with his living self even when there was no need to continue pretending he was not a vampire, and while we can surmise his absorption process was far less violent and allowed for more time for Vampire Malack to build an identity of his own, that identity would still have come to incorporate everything the living Malack did and experienced, in the end.

He would have eventually absorbed the memories of the living shaman (who had a different name and who Malack identifies as a separate person from himself (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0874.html)), but I don't really think they're the same person on a fundamental level.

Based on what I can infer from the uniqueness of the Durkon / Durkula situation, the three days in a coffin give the vampire spirit time to develop a baseline personality/character that won't get overwhelmed by the host's memories and experiences, and generally also a vampire can absorb their host's memories at a much slower pace, incorporating them into their own personality before looking at more.

Durkula didn't have the opportunity to build that baseline, and then he made a mistake that allowed Durkon to dump all his memories on him at once. And even then, it's likely that Durkula's change into effectively Durkon was only temporary.

[NontheistCleric]

He would have eventually absorbed the memories of the living shaman (who had a different name and who Malack identifies as a separate person from himself (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0874.html)), but I don't really think they're the same person on a fundamental level.
I don't necessarily agree that he is identifying the shaman as a separate person–he uses 'I' when talking about him, and 'a complicated way of annihilating the person I am today' might be meant much in the same way as erasing the majority of anyone's life might annihilate the person they were.

It's ultimately a philosophical question–if you take into yourself the entirety of another person, to what extent are you now them? I don't think there's a clear answer to this, but on a functional level it does at least make you a kind of temporal branch of the original person.


Based on what I can infer from the uniqueness of the Durkon / Durkula situation, the three days in a coffin give the vampire spirit time to develop a baseline personality/character that won't get overwhelmed by the host's memories and experiences, and generally also a vampire can absorb their host's memories at a much slower pace, incorporating them into their own personality before looking at more.

Durkula didn't have the opportunity to build that baseline, and then he made a mistake that allowed Durkon to dump all his memories on him at once. And even then, it's likely that Durkula's change into effectively Durkon was only temporary.
That's fair, but Vampire Durkon would still have eventually absorbed all of Durkon's memories even if Durkon hadn't dumped them all at once. I do agree that the total personality override was likely because Vampire Durkon hadn't had enough time to become his own person, but even if it had happened more slowly, he would eventually have had to contend with the fact that after absorbing all of the original Durkon's memories, he would in some significant way be everything the original Durkon was.

[Tzardok]

I don't necessarily agree that he is identifying the shaman as a separate person–he uses 'I' when talking about him, and 'a complicated way of annihilating the person I am today' might be meant much in the same way as erasing the majority of anyone's life might annihilate the person they were.

I would argue that, just like Nega-Durkon and every other vampire on screen, he's lying his snakey ass off when claiming to be the same person.


That's fair, but Vampire Durkon would still have eventually absorbed all of Durkon's memories even if Durkon hadn't dumped them all at once. I do agree that the total personality override was likely because Vampire Durkon hadn't had enough time to become his own person, but even if it had happened more slowly, he would eventually have had to contend with the fact that after absorbing all of the original Durkon's memories, he would in some significant way be everything the original Durkon was.
And I would disagree with that. Having a person's memories doesn't mean you are that person. Having a person's personality makes you that person. And even though experiences and memories can shape your personality, they aren't everything that is to it. At his core, Nega-Durkon was created to be a negative of Durkon, patterned after what Durkon could've been at his worst, but never allowed himself to be. If he had absorbed Durkon's memories the slow way, he would have taken them in in his own way, accepting and disregarding them in his own way. The end result certainly wouldn't be the same as Durkon.

[Ruck]

I don't necessarily agree that he is identifying the shaman as a separate person–he uses 'I' when talking about him, and 'a complicated way of annihilating the person I am today' might be meant much in the same way as erasing the majority of anyone's life might annihilate the person they were.

Oops, I misremembered that part.

I think Tzardok already said everything I wanted to say otherwise.

[NontheistCleric]

I would argue that, just like Nega-Durkon and every other vampire on screen, he's lying his snakey ass off when claiming to be the same person.
Possibly. However, he is much further along in his development than any of the other vampires we see. When considering philosophical questions of identity, he may even have been expressing a truth that the other vampires did not realize would become the case for them in the future.


And I would disagree with that. Having a person's memories doesn't mean you are that person. Having a person's personality makes you that person. And even though experiences and memories can shape your personality, they aren't everything that is to it. At his core, Nega-Durkon was created to be a negative of Durkon, patterned after what Durkon could've been at his worst, but never allowed himself to be. If he had absorbed Durkon's memories the slow way, he would have taken them in in his own way, accepting and disregarding them in his own way. The end result certainly wouldn't be the same as Durkon.
Personalities are always changing. I'm not trying to claim that this hypothetical longer-lived Vampire Durkon is the same as Durkon in some absolute metaphysical sense, but at some point he would find that he was experiencing a significant degree of mental continuity with the 'real' Durkon. His personality would not be a complete replica of Durkon's at the time of vampirization, but then, neither would the real Durkon's if he had lived a comparable amount of time. Indeed, even memories of how he used to be would eventually be assimilated, so the best that could be claimed in the end is that his personality would have changed in a different way if he had not become a vampire–but it's only natural that changing any significant life event would change the course of one's development.

[Ruck]

Possibly. However, he is much further along in his development than any of the other vampires we see. When considering philosophical questions of identity, he may even have been expressing a truth that the other vampires did not realize would become the case for them in the future.

I suppose it's possible, but I think it's more likely that "this guy is already trying to kill me for being a vampire, no reason to motivate him by mentioning the soul I've kept trapped for hundreds of years" is his thought process.

[NontheistCleric]

Honestly, I doubt Malack saw it that way. Of course, there would have been a separate Original Malack (notwithstanding that he used to have a different name) somewhere in there, but one way or another, Vampire Malack had been existent for so long (and it was stated by Vampire Durkon, who admittedly may not be the most reliable source, that the original spirit eventually becomes dormant) that it seems likely to me he would have viewed himself as at least as much a legitimate version of Malack as the original.

[Ruck]

Honestly, I doubt Malack saw it that way. Of course, there would have been a separate Original Malack (notwithstanding that he used to have a different name) somewhere in there, but one way or another, Vampire Malack had been existent for so long (and it was stated by Vampire Durkon, who admittedly may not be the most reliable source, that the original spirit eventually becomes dormant) that it seems likely to me he would have viewed himself as at least as much a legitimate version of Malack as the original.

I actually don't disagree with this point, but I think it's more indicative of how Malack lies to himself. (After all, he considers himself a civil, respectable member of society, while he has plans to execute a thousand people a day once he takes over.)

[NontheistCleric]

True, but I think it’s important to note that with the latter, Malack is deluding himself about a very clear-cut ethical issue (it’s obviously wrong to commit daily genocide), while with the former, the metaphysics of the situation are ambiguous enough that he may actually be correct in some sense, even if only by accident.

[Tzardok]

The metaphysics are extremely clearcut in this case, because unlike real life we have a provable existence of souls that are "the real you" and just pilot the body around. Unless you believe that Malack absorbed the soul of his body's original owner, Malack can't ever be that guy, nor was he ever. Kill Malack, free the soul, and you can raise that guy, mostly as good as new.

[NontheistCleric]

Not really. Souls are not actually a metaphysical matter in a setting with souls, because there they are in themselves a feature of the physics of the setting. For example, a thought experiment involving humans and memory transfer in a non-soul world could easily be applied to souls in a world with souls, like OotS-world. Whether you believe that identity can be transferred or duplicated via memory transfer in a non-soul world will not change if souls are introduced into the equation, as the soul is merely like an additional organ with some extra functions (and which probably takes on some of the functions of the brain as we believe it to have in our world).

As I say, I think it’s ambiguous in a non-soul world, so it’s still ambiguous in a world with souls. Of course, there may still be an answer. Ambiguity doesn’t mean there is no true answer, only that there is some kind of inability or difficulty associated with obtaining it. However, in absence of that answer… I would say there is no principled method of saying a vampire with full memory absorption cannot be described as a continuation of the original self.

[Ruck]

But it's not ambiguous. We see Durkon's soul and Durkula's soul arguing in his head. When Durkula is staked, Durkon goes to Valhalla and Durkula is destroyed. Rich even specifically refers to "the vampire spirit" being placed into Durkon's body.

(The only part of Tzardok's post I have any quibble with is that you probably couldn't resurrect the shaman whose body Malack possessed after two hundred years, at least from my somewhat-remembered sketchy understanding of the mechanics.)

[Peelee]

I don't necessarily agree that he is identifying the shaman as a separate person–he uses 'I' when talking about him, and 'a complicated way of annihilating the person I am today' might be meant much in the same way as erasing the majority of anyone's life might annihilate the person they were.

Counterpoint: Shamansnake was along for the ride for Malack's entire unlife, experiencing everything Malack did. Ergo, under your interpretation, killing Malack and resurrecting Shamansnake would not be annihilating the person Malack is today. Malack explicitly stayed it would be, so your proposal cannot be the case.

[Tzardok]

(The only part of Tzardok's post I have any quibble with is that you probably couldn't resurrect the shaman whose body Malack possessed after two hundred years, at least from my somewhat-remembered sketchy understanding of the mechanics.)

Resurrection and True Resurrection have a time limit of 10 years per caster level. A 20th-level cleric could resurrect proto-Malack, assuming it's not more than exactly two hundred years. For everything else you'd need to go into epic levels.

[NontheistCleric]

But it's not ambiguous. We see Durkon's soul and Durkula's soul arguing in his head. When Durkula is staked, Durkon goes to Valhalla and Durkula is destroyed. Rich even specifically refers to "the vampire spirit" being placed into Durkon's body.

(The only part of Tzardok's post I have any quibble with is that you probably couldn't resurrect the shaman whose body Malack possessed after two hundred years, at least from my somewhat-remembered sketchy understanding of the mechanics.)


Counterpoint: Shamansnake was along for the ride for Malack's entire unlife, experiencing everything Malack did. Ergo, under your interpretation, killing Malack and resurrecting Shamansnake would not be annihilating the person Malack is today. Malack explicitly stayed it would be, so your proposal cannot be the case.
I think what you’re not understanding is that I think it’s possible you could have two different souls/spirits that are both equally a continuation of the identity of ‘Durkon before vampirization’ and ‘Shamansnake before vampirization’.

(Malack would still be annihilated, and Shamansnake-in-Malack would have gone dormant, so he wouldn’t have experienced all the things Malack did, but they’d both be continuations of the original Shamansnake. Also, Shamansnake-in-Malack probably had a somewhat different experience from Malack, since one would experience being free to act and the other not)

Maybe this is not actually the case, but it being a metaphysical question, there isn’t really an empirical way to discover the fact of the matter.

In the context of the story, of course it does still make sense to treat the first Durkon soul as the only legitimate Durkon. That just makes things simpler. But let’s not forget there was the second Durkon soul, identical to the first, who did indeed perish when the vampire was destroyed. He thought he could not have sustained the change long, but was he right about that? In any case, he died as a Durkon who had gone through everything the original, pre-vampirization Durkon did. I’d argue that though he may have been separate, he was no less ‘Durkon’.

[Peelee]

I think what you’re not understanding is that I think it’s possible you could have two different souls/spirits that are both equally a continuation of the identity of ‘Durkon before vampirization’ and ‘Shamansnake before vampirization’.

No, i understand fine. I just don't think it's like you laid out, and i think if Malack acts like he is not the same person Shamansnake was, we should listen to him. He knows more about who Malack is than either of us do, and based on what i read in the story, he disagrees with you on who he is.

[NontheistCleric]

No, i understand fine. I just don't think it's like you laid out, and i think if Malack acts like he is not the same person Shamansnake was, we should listen to him. He knows more about who Malack is than either of us do, and based on what i read in the story, he disagrees with you on who he is.

I think we read it differently, then. Every time he refers to the living Shamansnake, he uses language that would be appropriate if it referred to himself. He does not appear to think he cannot be identified with Shamansnake.

For example: ‘When I was alive’, ‘Bringing me back to life would just be a complicated way of annihilating the person I am today’ (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0874.html) and ‘I had seven brothers once, you know. In that dim other life long past’. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0878.html)

He does acknowledge that he has changed from the original Shamansnake, but most people would change from centuries of being a vampire.

[hroþila]

Yeah to me it's pretty clear that the end-point of the memory absorption process is that the vampire fully identifies with and assumes the memories of their host. I think Malack saw himself as the same person as the shaman in a fundamental way (otherwise the quote about his brothers makes no sense). What he said about no longer being the same person is something any perfectly normal mortal could have said in similar circumstances, after all.

Moreover, I think it's important that Malack saw himself as fundamentally the same person, because it was important foreshadowing for what would eventually happen to Vamp Durkon. The whole climax of UD depends on it. We saw the early stages of the process when Vamp Durkon (a very new vampire) started not only adopting Durkon's speech, but also becoming emotionally invested in Durkon's memories.

[Peelee]

What he said about no longer being the same person is something any perfectly normal mortal could have said in similar circumstances, after all.

How do you figure that. We've seen two main characters get resurrected after death without any issues about not being the same person.

Also, I with all the memories, it's almsot certainly easier to frame everything as if it was you regardless, despite you clearly being a different person. No matter how long it took for the vampire to absorb Durkon's memories, by the end, he would still be thr vampire and not Durkon. He would not make any choices Durkon would make. He would not hold Durkon's beliefs and values. He would he completely different. Durkon's gambit work because he flooded a new creature with barely days worth of experience and memories with a lifetime's worth of those, which temporarily had the effect we saw. Even then, Durkon and the vampire-spirit-acting-as-Durkon both openly acknowledge it won't last. Because the vampire is a fundamentally different person.


He does acknowledge that he has changed from the original Shamansnake, but most people would change from centuries of being a vampire.

The except the shaman was never a vampire. He was a shaman. We know, objectively, that the vampire is a different person. At absolute best, the vampire would change from centuries of absorbing another creature, but even that would just be experiences and memories. Not their values (for example, embracing ongoing genocide on a continental scale).

[NontheistCleric]

The except the shaman was never a vampire. He was a shaman. We know, objectively, that the vampire is a different person. At absolute best, the vampire would change from centuries of absorbing another creature, but even that would just be experiences and memories. Not their values (for example, embracing ongoing genocide on a continental scale).

He was a different spirit–but as I've been trying to point out, that doesn't necessarily mean he cannot be identified with Malack, or that they were not the same person in the past (there may be some present divergence between Shamansnake-in-Malack and Malack).

Malack possesses all of Shamansnake's memories, including the experience of being Shamansnake in every intimate detail. He possesses Shamansnake's body (for all you animalists out there). Is there really a principled reason to say he cannot be identified with Shamansnake? Maybe if your philosophical stance is that identity fundamentally consists of a bunch of subconscious inclinations based in the soul, but I personally don't find that very defensible, not least because individuals' inclinations change over time anyway.

[Peelee]

He was a different spirit–but as I've been trying to point out, that doesn't necessarily mean he cannot be identified with Malack, or that they were not the same person in the past (there may be some present divergence between Shamansnake-in-Malack and Malack).

Malack possesses all of Shamansnake's memories, including the experience of being Shamansnake in every intimate detail. He possesses Shamansnake's body (for all you animalists out there). Is there really a principled reason to say he cannot be identified with Shamansnake? Maybe if your philosophical stance is that identity fundamentally consists of a bunch of subconscious inclinations based in the soul, but I personally don't find that very defensible, not least because individuals' inclinations change over time anyway.

Im married. My parents are dead. I refer to my wife's parents as "our parents" (when i call them parents). I am not my wife.

Pronoun use does not sway me. What does sway me is Malack openly and directly stating that revival would destroy him. Between you and Malack, I'm going to trust Malack on how it works.

[NontheistCleric]

Im married. My parents are dead. I refer to my wife's parents as "our parents" (when i call them parents). I am not my wife.

Pronoun use does not sway me.
If you think my argument boils down to pronoun use, you clearly did not understand it as you claimed. You are not–and no part of you is–a mental duplicate of your wife at any stage in her life.


What does sway me is Malack openly and directly stating that revival would destroy him. Between you and Malack, I'm going to trust Malack on how it works.
Yeah, it would destroy Malack. That doesn't mean Malack is not identifiable with the original Shamansnake. To put it simply, Malack includes everything Shamansnake was. That does not mean Shamansnake includes everything Malack is. The set of things that are Malack is larger than the set of things that are Shamansnake.

Malack's speech is perfectly consistent with what I've outlined.

[Peelee]

If you think my argument boils down to pronoun use, you clearly did not understand it as you claimed. You are not–and no part of you is–a mental duplicate of your wife at any stage in her life.

I do understand your argument. I simply disagree with it. I do not think Malack was a mental duplicate of the shaman at any stage in his life. I think your assertion of such is based on conflating real-world metaphysics and conjecture with D&D-world objective reality of souls being discrete entities. I think one pillar of your belief is due to pronoun use (as you yourself have advocated this as evidence in your favor) and chose to use that route because I tend towards being more pithy and concise.

I promise you, i understand your argument. I just don't buy it at all. Continuing to think i dont buy it because i don't understand it is a choice you fna certainly make, but it's not going to be any more convincing.

[Keltest]

I do understand your argument. I simply disagree with it. I do not think Malack was a mental duplicate of the shaman at any stage in his life. I think your assertion of such is based on conflating real-world metaphysics and conjecture with D&D-world objective reality of souls being discrete entities. I think one pillar of your belief is due to pronoun use (as you yourself have advocated this as evidence in your favor) and chose to use that route because I tend towards being more pithy and concise.

I promise you, i understand your argument. I just don't buy it at all. Continuing to think i dont buy it because i don't understand it is a choice you fna certainly make, but it's not going to be any more convincing.

Wasn't there a whole arc in the comic about how if a vampire spirit absorbed all their host's thoughts, feelings and memories, they were functionally the same person? I distinctly remember that being a plot point.

[NontheistCleric]

I do understand your argument. I simply disagree with it. I do not think Malack was a mental duplicate of the shaman at any stage in his life.
If he absorbed all the shaman's memories, he would have to contain a mental duplicate of the shaman at some point in the shaman's existence (allowing for the fact that memories can be forgotten).


I think your assertion of such is based on conflating real-world metaphysics and conjecture with D&D-world objective reality of souls being discrete entities. I think one pillar of your belief is due to pronoun use (as you yourself have advocated this as evidence in your favor) and chose to use that route because I tend towards being more pithy and concise.
Metaphysics is not world-dependent. That's why it's metaphysics. It doesn't change based on the physical realities of worlds (which may or may not include souls). I've already explained how this works with souls.


I promise you, i understand your argument. I just don't buy it at all. Continuing to think i dont buy it because i don't understand it is a choice you fna certainly make, but it's not going to be any more convincing.
If you misrepresent my argument for the sake of pithiness, don't blame me for thinking you misunderstand it. I also don't care about convincing anyone in this regard, since I want them to be convinced by my actual argument, not whether or not you in particular understand my argument.

[Peelee]

Wasn't there a whole arc in the comic about how if a vampire spirit absorbed all their host's thoughts, feelings and memories, they were functionally the same person? I distinctly remember that being a plot point.

There was a climax where a spirit absorbed the entire thoughts, feelings, memories, etc immediately and all at once and was temporarily functionally the same person. Where both the original character and the vampire spirit acknowledged it would not last and where the author made a note in the forums of pointing out that it was the sudden dump all at once to what was effectively still an infant that caused this incredibly unique scenario to happen.

So i dont really see the relevance there. Outside of admitting that, sure, if i forced fifty gallons of water into a person that person would temporarily be like 99% water, but I'm pretty sure I've drank well over fifty gallons of water in my life without it being over 70% of me.


If you misrepresent my argument

I'm not. That is your argument. You see it a different way which is why we disagree.

Metaphysics is not world-dependent. That's why it's metaphysics. It doesn't change based on the physical realities of worlds (which may or may not include souls). I've already explained how this works with souls.

You have explained it wrong with conflating ideasyand conjecture with actual factual souls in the D&D-world, yes. I am not beholden to accept your incorrect explanations.

[NontheistCleric]

So i dont really see the relevance there. Outside of admitting that, sure, if i forced fifty gallons of water into a person that person would temporarily be like 99% water, but I'm pretty sure I've drank well over fifty gallons of water in my life without it being over 70% of me.
This is a poor analogy, since people replace the water in their bodies, while the vampire spirit keeps the memories once they are absorbed.


I'm not. That is your argument. You see it a different way which is why we disagree.

You have explained it wrong with conflating ideasyand conjecture with actual factual souls in the D&D-world, yes. I am not beholden to accept your incorrect explanations.
If you think I've explained it wrong, maybe you could try explaining what you think I've gotten wrong instead of nit-picking at individual bits of supporting evidence.

[Peelee]

This is a poor analogy, since people replace the water in their bodies, while the vampire spirit keeps the memories once they are absorbed.
Yes, shockingly there is no perfect analogy for two discrete people not permanently becoming the same entity except for "two discrete people to not permanently become the same entity".

If you think I've explained it wrong, maybe you could try explaining what you think I've gotten wrong instead of nit-picking at individual bits of supporting evidence.
I did. You disagreed. I'm not sure blithely assuming that you do not understand and restating it would suddenly make you agree.

[NontheistCleric]

Yes, shockingly there is no perfect analogy for two discrete people not permanently becoming the same entity except for "two discrete people to not permanently become the same entity".
Then maybe you should have refrained from saying anything, instead of offering a poor analogy that could only confuse people.


I did. You disagreed. I'm not sure blithely assuming that you do not understand and restating it would suddenly make you agree.
No, you said that I was conflating real-world metaphysics with the mechanics of souls in OotS-world, to which I replied that I was not, as what I was actually doing was applying metaphysical theory, which is independent of worlds or the existence of souls, to the question of vampire identity.

You didn't explain anything, only declared that I was wrong. I mean, if that's how far you want to take it, fine with me, but don't pretend you provided a counter-argument or competing explanation of any kind.

[Tzardok]

If he absorbed all the shaman's memories, he would have to contain a mental duplicate of the shaman at some point in the shaman's existence (allowing for the fact that memories can be forgotten).

Untrue. The sum total of all memories does not make a mental duplicate. For example, even if we disregard personality, order plays a role too. The same experiences in a different order, experienced while in a different state of mind, make for a different result.


Metaphysics is not world-dependent. That's why it's metaphysics. It doesn't change based on the physical realities of worlds (which may or may not include souls). I've already explained how this works with souls.

You claim that, but can you prove it? I disragree with both the idea that because one can interact with souls they suddenly stop being metaphysical, and the idea that metaphysics are immutable over all possible worlds.
For example, if you argue that souls stop being metaphysics and start being physics because they can be interacted with in that world, why don't you argue that personality and memory stop being metaphysical too? They can be provably interacted with, after all. You can take a memory and put it elsewhere.

[brian 333]

I don't think Durkon's experience should be used as an example of how vampires work. Malack said he would release Greg from his control but doing so too soon would be confusing.

Greg literally never learned how to be a vampire. He never learned how to be a dwarf. He was programmed by Hel to worship her and pursue her plan, but was otherwise dependent on Durkon's memories to figure out how to act. In a few years what Durkon did would not have worked. Greg would have been experienced enough to absorb the memories while retaining his self identity. A few hours sooner and Greg would have had time to assimilate those memories and separate himself from them.

Durkon's trick bought a very brief window where his captor was overwhelmed. And that was all it was worth because in assimilating all his good memories, Durkon had no further ammo to use against Greg. But in that brief moment the vampire was more Durkon than Greg.

The same trick would not have worked on Greg at all had Malack lived long enough to teach him. Malack might have taught Greg how to control the flow of information, taught him the dangers of the trapped spirit's ideas, and helped Greg develop a strong self-identity.

It is safe to say that virtually any other vampire would have been immune to such a tactic. It is not a vampire vulnerability, it was a Greg vulnerability because he was literally an infant operating in a grown-up world.

[NontheistCleric]

Untrue. The sum total of all memories does not make a mental duplicate. For example, even if we disregard personality, order plays a role too. The same experiences in a different order, experienced while in a different state of mind, make for a different result.
The vampire, once in possession of all the memories, would be able to order and interpret them at its leisure, and even recall the past states of mind of the original creature. If that doesn't produce a perfect mental duplicate, it would only be imperfect in the same way that we don't experience our own memories in perfect order either, when trying to make sense of our pasts and personal identities.

Of course, the vampire would also contain things other than the sum of the mental states of the original individual, but I, for example, contain more than the sum of my mental states when I was twelve. That doesn't mean I cannot be identified in some meaningful way with my twelve-year old self, and if I were to be reduced to my twelve-year old self, either solely mentally or physically as well, that would be, as Malack puts it, a complicated way of destroying the person I am today.


You claim that, but can you prove it? I disragree with both the idea that because one can interact with souls they suddenly stop being metaphysical, and the idea that metaphysics are immutable over all possible worlds.
For example, if you argue that souls stop being metaphysics and start being physics because they can be interacted with in that world, why don't you argue that personality and memory stop being metaphysical too? They can be provably interacted with, after all. You can take a memory and put it elsewhere.
Indeed, personality and memory are not metaphysical. What is metaphysical is what particular arrangements of personality and memory imply, and in this case in particular, imply for questions of personal identity.

Since in the case of souls, the soul only appears to be a different sort of receptacle for personality and memory–as I said, taking on certain roles of the brain–nothing about the metaphysical situation is changed. We've moved from a brain with certain physical functions to a soul with the same physical functions, at least as far as memory and personality go. But the physical has not been changed in a way that would make a difference to the metaphysical situation, as far as I can see.

For example: A brain, unlike a soul, cannot survive death of the body and travel to a faraway corner of the cosmos to live forever with some superbeing. Yet even if my brain were to somehow gain these abilities, I would not think this made any difference to the impacts on my identity produced by a memory-transplant or memory-copying case, if any.


I don't think Durkon's experience should be used as an example of how vampires work. Malack said he would release Greg from his control but doing so too soon would be confusing.

Greg literally never learned how to be a vampire. He never learned how to be a dwarf. He was programmed by Hel to worship her and pursue her plan, but was otherwise dependent on Durkon's memories to figure out how to act. In a few years what Durkon did would not have worked. Greg would have been experienced enough to absorb the memories while retaining his self identity. A few hours sooner and Greg would have had time to assimilate those memories and separate himself from them.

Durkon's trick bought a very brief window where his captor was overwhelmed. And that was all it was worth because in assimilating all his good memories, Durkon had no further ammo to use against Greg. But in that brief moment the vampire was more Durkon than Greg.

The same trick would not have worked on Greg at all had Malack lived long enough to teach him. Malack might have taught Greg how to control the flow of information, taught him the dangers of the trapped spirit's ideas, and helped Greg develop a strong self-identity.

It is safe to say that virtually any other vampire would have been immune to such a tactic. It is not a vampire vulnerability, it was a Greg vulnerability because he was literally an infant operating in a grown-up world.

Yes, but even if Vampire Durkon had gone about it more traditionally, he would eventually have had to contend with the fact that his memories now contained all the past mental states of Durkon, and that would have implications for who he was, even if it did not result in a dramatic personality change.

He might even, as Malack seems to, have begun to start thinking of himself as the continuation of Durkon in a meaningful way.

[Tzardok]

For example: A brain, unlike a soul, cannot survive death of the body and travel to a faraway corner of the cosmos to live forever with some superbeing. Yet even if my brain were to somehow gain this ability, I would not think this made any difference to the impacts on my identity produced by a memory-transplant or memory-copying case, if any.


It changes a lot wether we are talking about a brain or a soul. A soul, in D&D, is the person. We have many cases where copies and transplants of memories exist. For example, the spell speak with dead addresses an imprint of the memories left in the body, allowing the body to answer with all the knowledge the person had while alive. Yet this imprint is not the person. A greater doppelganger can eat a person's brain, gaining access to all their memories and skills and being able to perfectly imitate them (both in appearance and acting). Yet they don't have the soul, and nobody would claim that they are the same person. Any magic that searches for a person or requires a connection to them will not recognize that facsimile as the real deal, especially if the real deal was raised.
Questions of identity in D&D are "physics". The rules of magic and the world address them.

IRL I think the same. If a soul exists that works the way people generally think of it (which I doubt), then you need to have my soul to be me. If souls don't exist, then you need to have my personality to be me. In either case my hypothetical Nega-Tzardok would never be me, as he's neither my soul, nor will he ever think like me, as taking in memories piece-meal and out of order will never result in the same result as in the original order. At best, he would be a potential permutation of could've-been me.

[NontheistCleric]

It changes a lot wether we are talking about a brain or a soul. A soul, in D&D, is the person. We have many cases where copies and transplants of memories exist. For example, the spell speak with dead addresses an imprint of the memories left in the body, allowing the body to answer with all the knowledge the person had while alive. Yet this imprint is not the person. A greater doppelganger can eat a person's brain, gaining access to all their memories and skills and being able to perfectly imitate them (both in appearance and acting). Yet they don't have the soul, and nobody would claim that they are the same person. Any magic that searches for a person or requires a connection to them will not recognize that facsimile as the real deal, especially if the real deal was raised.
Questions of identity in D&D are "physics". The rules of magic and the world address them.
I would say what the rules of magic operate on is a kind of magical identity, but this is more like legal identities in the real world, not metaphysical personal identity (and the degree to which such concepts hold logical water is also debatable, but let's not go down a whole other rabbit hole). It would be perfectly possible for the story in a campaign featuring a greater doppelganger to feature questions of personal identity. The rules can't decide on this because the rules can only decide physical features of the setting.

Speak with Dead doesn't serve as a useful example because the memory imprint is not conscious or thinking–it's only a sort of database for the spell to reference. If it did actually conjure up a consciousness for the dead body with all the memories of the original, then I would say it's perfectly legitimate to ask if it does, indeed, share the original's identity.


IRL I think the same. If a soul exists that works the way people generally think of it (which I doubt), then you need to have my soul to be me. If souls don't exist, then you need to have my personality to be me. In either case my hypothetical Nega-Tzardok would never be me, as he's neither my soul, nor will he ever think like me, as taking in memories piece-meal and out of order will never result in the same result as in the original order. At best, he would be a potential permutation of could've-been me.
As I said before, though, even if the memories are not taken in in strict order, they can always be ordered afterwards. Even now, it would be difficult for me to recall my memories in the order I originally gained them, but I can still piece them together in order to understand who I am.

[brian 333]

Sorry, but all the points I made above were already addressed in the thread before I posted.

(Fall asleep posting in a slow moving topic, wake up and submit, then discover a tidal wave happened.)

The point is that the Durkon vs. Greg thing worked only because Greg lacked a self-identity.

Malack the vampire has one. So does the lizardfolk shaman he used to be. The former shaman might have enjoyed watching Malack at work, or might have resented it. Does not matter, because if Malack is destroyed and he becomes a living person again, he will have his own personality through which his experience as a trapped soul in a vampire's body will have been filtered.

Imagine some event. Let's say it is a really fun party. You and your identical twin go and in the morning after you discuss it. One of you was designated driver, the other was not. Can you not see how each twin will gain a different 'experience' from the same event?

The events which shaped Malack's personality would have been incorporated by Shamansnake quite differently. All one has to do to confirm this is to speak to others who witnessed a dramatic event you witnessed.

Friends get front row midfield seats at a football game then talk on the way home:

Courtney: Did you see those uniforms?

Bart: Did I ever! They looked like they were painted on!

Cliff: The shoulder pads?

Glenda: He's talking about the cheerleaders. He was drooling all night.

Courtney: No, I meant the retro-look the team wore this evening. Plain orange with black letters. They looked like pumpkins!

Cliff: High visibility. Made it easier to follow the game. With all the colors on the new uniforms it's hard to tell which team the guy is on.

Bart: Well, I never knew how good those Millennials had it back in the old days! They sure weren't afraid to show some skin!

Glenda: They are called boy-shorts and nobody wears them anymore because you might as well go in your underwear.

Bart: Works for me!

Courtney: I should really design some new uniforms for the team. Something that really pops.

Cliff: Okay, did anyone else see Haydecker run for 93 yards on that punt return? Do any of you even know the score? Am I the only one who watched the game?

[Keltest]

I'm not sure why Malack would be expected to have any more of a self identity than Greg did.

[NontheistCleric]

Sorry, but all the points I made above were already addressed in the thread before I posted.

(Fall asleep posting in a slow moving topic, wake up and submit, then discover a tidal wave happened.)

The point is that the Durkon vs. Greg thing worked only because Greg lacked a self-identity.

Malack the vampire has one. So does the lizardfolk shaman he used to be. The former shaman might have enjoyed watching Malack at work, or might have resented it. Does not matter, because if Malack is destroyed and he becomes a living person again, he will have his own personality through which his experience as a trapped soul in a vampire's body will have been filtered.

Imagine some event. Let's say it is a really fun party. You and your identical twin go and in the morning after you discuss it. One of you was designated driver, the other was not. Can you not see how each twin will gain a different 'experience' from the same event?

The events which shaped Malack's personality would have been incorporated by Shamansnake quite differently. All one has to do to confirm this is to speak to others who witnessed a dramatic event you witnessed.

Friends get front row midfield seats at a football game then talk on the way home:

Courtney: Did you see those uniforms?

Bart: Did I ever! They looked like they were painted on!

Cliff: The shoulder pads?

Glenda: He's talking about the cheerleaders. He was drooling all night.

Courtney: No, I meant the retro-look the team wore this evening. Plain orange with black letters. They looked like pumpkins!

Cliff: High visibility. Made it easier to follow the game. With all the colors on the new uniforms it's hard to tell which team the guy is on.

Bart: Well, I never knew how good those Millennials had it back in the old days! They sure weren't afraid to show some skin!

Glenda: They are called boy-shorts and nobody wears them anymore because you might as well go in your underwear.

Bart: Works for me!

Courtney: I should really design some new uniforms for the team. Something that really pops.

Cliff: Okay, did anyone else see Haydecker run for 93 yards on that punt return? Do any of you even know the score? Am I the only one who watched the game?

The difference is that I don't have the ability to absorb all of my identical twin's memories. If I did, their experience would also become my experience. Imagine if I went up to my twin and absorbed all their memories of their life right up until now. It would be as if I had lived two whole lives.

Now imagine that I was only created five years ago, but physically the same as my twin. In fact, I was created by a cloning gun that made me pop into existence right next to them. I'm remembering my twin's whole life up until then. I remember that they saw someone pop into existence exactly like them at that point, except I remember seeing that. That was me. I remember it from my own perspective, even though it was theirs.

Now imagine that actually, I only exist inside my twin's head. The cloning gun only created split personalities. Since five years ago, I have been in control. I've been absorbing all their memories trying to figure out what is going on, all while I figure out who I am. I'm starting to piece it all together. There was this whole life, lived in this very body. It's all a part of me now. That life led to me becoming who I am. Even as I absorbed all those memories slowly, they changed me. They were my life, and this is my body–the same body that did all those things I remember doing.

Yet there's this other person, my sibling, also in here with me. No–we're more than siblings. At one point, we were the same person. That person was the one who existed before five years ago, who collected all those memories and did all those things that made us who we now are. My twin and I, we realize, are like tines on a dual-tined four-dimensional memory fork, arranged through time. I am not my twin, and they are not me, but we stemmed from the same place. Tine one is not tine two, but both share a larger identity with the fork as a whole.

I am tine two. You want to bring back the fork like it was when it was just a stick of metal? You'll have to cut me off. Vaporize me.

Destroy me.

[brian 333]

I'm not sure why Malack would be expected to have any more of a self identity than Greg did.

Time.

Malack had years of experience as an individual. Presumably his earliest were under the control of another vampire, and if not, he was surely controlled by his thirst.

[Precure]

Malack clearly identified himself as the shaman
Vampire pretending to be Durkon turned into Durkon

It seems clear cut to me: Vampires turn into their hosts

[Peelee]

Then maybe you should have refrained from saying anything, instead of offering a poor analogy that could only confuse people.
You're right, I should have used a better analogy, like the time that the author used an analogy of.....drinking water.

The best way I can put this, overall, is that a human needs about half a gallon of water a day, or about 93 gallons over the course of 6 months. But if I poured 93 gallons of water down your throat today, you would die. That is not a significant design flaw in the human body that needs to be addressed! It's just a circumstance that doesn't come up enough for us to spend all of our time worrying about whether or not we are in imminent danger of swallowing 93 gallons. And if someone offered you a drink, you wouldn't think about, "But what if they suddenly whip out a fire hose?" before accepting.


No, you said that I was conflating real-world metaphysics with the mechanics of souls in OotS-world, to which I replied that I was not, as what I was actually doing was applying metaphysical theory, which is independent of worlds or the existence of souls, to the question of vampire identity.

You didn't explain anything, only declared that I was wrong. I mean, if that's how far you want to take it, fine with me, but don't pretend you provided a counter-argument or competing explanation of any kind.
Yes. That was me explaining how you were wrong. You are wrong because you are conflating real-world metaphysics onto a world that has objective, factual souls and objective Good and Evil exist. Your ideas of metaphysics are incompatible with D&D metaphysics, and continuing to insist otherwise with no support other than because you say so doesn't help your argument.

If you do not see "here is how you argument is wrong" as an explanation of how your argument is wrong, well, there's not much I can do to help with that.

[Blue Dragon]

He still is the person he was before becoming a lich.

[NontheistCleric]

You're right, I should have used a better analogy, like the time that the author used an analogy of.....drinking water.
Yes, but there he wasn't trying to make a point about Vampire Durkon's personal identity, he was just pointing out that the particular circumstance that befell Vampire Durkon was not something liable to happen to all vampires.


Yes. That was me explaining how you were wrong. You are wrong because you are conflating real-world metaphysics onto a world that has objective, factual souls and objective Good and Evil exist. Your ideas of metaphysics are incompatible with D&D metaphysics, and continuing to insist otherwise with no support other than because you say so doesn't help your argument.

If you do not see "here is how you argument is wrong" as an explanation of how your argument is wrong, well, there's not much I can do to help with that.
No, you're wrong about what is and is not metaphysical. In the world of OotS, souls are physical, not metaphysical. There's literally a monster trapped in the planet that can tear them apart. You can Plane Shift to the afterlife and fight them. They may be made of a different substance from traditional matter, but that's about the extent of the difference.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'd say the likelihood is that Xykon the lich is the same person as Xykon the living human, though warped by however many decades of whatever effects having your soul in constant contact with negative energy (if any) as well as the standard corrupting effects of power beyond what he had in life as well as lacking any grounding (like his love of coffee) would cause.
From what I recall, he didn't seem that much different in his late human years than he did as a lich. He complained more about health problems, and presumably couldn't unleash quite as much mayhem without throwing out his back, but that's about it.

[Peelee]

No, you're wrong about what is and is not metaphysical. In the world of OotS, souls are physical, not metaphysical. There's literally a monster trapped in the planet that can tear them apart. You can Plane Shift to the afterlife and fight them. They may be made of a different substance from traditional matter, but that's about the extent of the difference.

You are correct, souls are physical in Stickworld. And as the soul is the person, and one person cannot be another person much as one rock cannot be another rock, it would be very helpful if you were to take the fact that souls are discrete physical entities and apply it to your own arguments.

[NontheistCleric]

You are correct, souls are physical in Stickworld. And as the soul is the person, and one person cannot be another person much as one rock cannot be another rock, it would be very helpful if you were to take the fact that souls are discrete physical entities and apply it to your own arguments.

A post ago you were claiming souls were metaphysical. Make up your mind.

In any case, the fact that the physical objects called souls are discrete does not mean that certain identities cannot be instantiated in more than one soul. The truth of that is metaphysical, not physical.

[Peelee]

A post ago you were claiming souls were metaphysical. Make up your mind.

Souls in the real world are metaphysical. Souls in Stickworld are physical. I thought i was clear on this. I apologize if i was not.

Maybe this will help. Bob ties up Alice and locks her in the basement. Over years, Bob slowly looks at all of her memories with Bob's Magical Memory Looking At Spell.

Is Bob now Alice?

Of course not. Alice is still Alice and Bob is still Bob. He just happens to know all of Alice's memories.

[NontheistCleric]

Souls in the real world are metaphysical. Souls in Stickworld are physical. I thought i was clear on this. I apologize if i was not.
Well, if souls existed in the real world they would also be physical, but that's kind of tangential to this discussion.


Maybe this will help. Bob ties up Alice and locks her in the basement. Over years, Bob slowly looks at all of her memories with Bob's Magical Memory Looking At Spell.

Is Bob now Alice?

Of course not. Alice is still Alice and Bob is still Bob. He just happens to know all of Alice's memories.
Sure, because that's what he would get if he only looked at Alice's memories. The vampires, however, appear to actually experience every detail of the memories they absorb.

At no point have I been talking about copying souls. I'm talking about the concept of identity, which can be instantiated across multiple physical objects (which might be souls). For example, the Order of the Stick webcomic can be physically printed more than once, but no matter how many copies one makes of it, it's the same story in each copy, and also the same story which exists on the giantitp.com website.

[Peelee]

Well, if souls existed in the real world they would also be physical, but that's kind of tangential to this discussion.


Sure, because that's what he would get if he only looked at Alice's memories. The vampires, however, appear to actually experience every detail of the memories they absorb.

At no point have I been talking about copying souls. I'm talking about the concept of identity, which can be instantiated across multiple physical objects (which might be souls). For example, the Order of the Stick webcomic can be physically printed more than once, but no matter how many copies one makes of it, it's the same story in each copy, and also the same story which exists on the giantitp.com website.

But your analogy is literally talking about copies. Vampires aren't copies. They are Bob. They take the original person and tie them up and toss them in a basement and use Bob's Magical Memory Looking At Spell at will for years or decades or centuries. The only difference is that instead of a basement, it's in their own vampire body head (unless that's a metaphor, but that's not too relevant). And the only reason it made Durkon' s vampire into Durkon, temporarily (as both Durkonand the vampire spirit openly tell us), is because of the culmination of several incredibly unique circumstances along with the incredible force of will of Durkon to boot.

But he wasn't Durkon. And if they'd stayed around for a few minutes or however arbitrary time it would have taken, he would have reverted from seemingly Durkon back to thr vampire, just with Durkon's memories. You would have two people, Durkon and thr vampire, and Durkon wouldn't be the vampire and the vampire wouldn't be Durkon.

That's what Malack said. Resurrection wouldn't work out because they wouldn't get Malack but without the vampire powers. They would get the shaman. Just like how, if the vampire had survived those extra few however longs, and made a friend, and then was destroyed and rezzed, the friend wouldn't get the vampire back. They'd get Durkon. Because Durkon and the vampire are two separate, discrete people and the vampire isn't Durkon. The identifies are separate. They remain separate, even if one knows everything about the other.

[brian 333]

At the end of the day the vampire spirit is not the lizardfolk spirit. There is still a discreet being that was the spirit of the lizardfolk shaman trapped in Malack's head.

Malack did not 'become' the lizardfolk shaman. The proper analogy is identity theft. Malack stole his driver's license, online password, and bank account PIN, but he has not become the real lizardfolk shaman.

And the real one still exists.

[Peelee]

At the end of the day the vampire spirit is not the lizardfolk spirit. There is still a discreet being that was the spirit of the lizardfolk shaman trapped in Malack's head.

Malack did not 'become' the lizardfolk shaman. The proper analogy is identity theft. Malack stole his driver's license, online password, and bank account PIN, but he has not become the real lizardfolk shaman.

And the real one still exists.

There's a fantastic analogy, thank you!

[brian 333]

There's a fantastic analogy, thank you!

I'm confused now. Does this, does this mean we're friends now? Should I make a drunken chicken on the grill and invite you over for the football game?

[Peelee]

I'm confused now. Does this, does this mean we're friends now? Should I make a drunken chicken on the grill and invite you over for the football game?

I don't know what a drunken chicken is but I'm willing to try it. Unless you want me to prep some good ol' southern barbecue instead.

And apropos of nothing, but barbecue sauce is red, not white, and I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

[NontheistCleric]

But your analogy is literally talking about copies. Vampires aren't copies. They are Bob. They take the original person and tie them up and toss them in a basement and use Bob's Magical Memory Looking At Spell at will for years or decades or centuries. The only difference is that instead of a basement, it's in their own vampire body head (unless that's a metaphor, but that's not too relevant). And the only reason it made Durkon' s vampire into Durkon, temporarily (as both Durkonand the vampire spirit openly tell us), is because of the culmination of several incredibly unique circumstances along with the incredible force of will of Durkon to boot.
They're not copies, but they are partly copies–because parts of them are exactly the same. If I take two copies of the same book and write a different continuation to them at the end, they are separate stories, but up to a point they are also the same story.

In that situation, the spirit was only a perfect copy of Durkon and had the exact same interests because of the unique circumstances, true. That's what allowed the plot to happen the way it did. But even if he had survived for longer and become a more adulterated copy of Durkon, eventually everything the original Durkon was would be taken into him, just the same. It wouldn't be as if he had only watched Durkon's memories–from his perspective, he would have lived all those memories, and everything the original Durkon had gone through to make him into Durkon as he was up until the moment of vampirization at least would also have been experienced by the vampire.

It's not Bob's Magical Memory Looking At Spell–it's Bob's Assimilating Memory In Its Entirety Spell. If you do it for only one memory or two, you might be safe, but eventually, the lines between Bob and Alice would begin to blur. The first Alice wouldn't disappear, but at some point Bob, if his human mind could even stand it, would also contain an instance of Alice.

Now, maybe you think this isn't a valid way of thinking about identity, and that only the original body or soul can ever have a particular identity, but that would be a case of philosophical disagreement, not something that could be empirically proven–and returning to the initial question, functionally, if we imagined this had happened to Xykon (though it didn't), there would be no difference after a point because the Lich Xykon would eventually have absorbed everything that made the original Xykon Xykon. Whether or not he would have been Xykon in some strict sense is open to debate, but it would not have mattered to Xykon or anyone dealing with him.


But he wasn't Durkon. And if they'd stayed around for a few minutes or however arbitrary time it would have taken, he would have reverted from seemingly Durkon back to thr vampire, just with Durkon's memories. You would have two people, Durkon and thr vampire, and Durkon wouldn't be the vampire and the vampire wouldn't be Durkon.

That's what Malack said. Resurrection wouldn't work out because they wouldn't get Malack but without the vampire powers. They would get the shaman. Just like how, if the vampire had survived those extra few however longs, and made a friend, and then was destroyed and rezzed, the friend wouldn't get the vampire back. They'd get Durkon. Because Durkon and the vampire are two separate, discrete people and the vampire isn't Durkon. The identifies are separate. They remain separate, even if one knows everything about the other.
Yes, they are separate, the way the tines of a fork are separate from one another. Up to a point, though, because up to a point they have the exact same memories and the exact same record of mental states, they share in being Durkon.

We don't know how long the vampire spirit would have remained appreciably similar to Durkon to look exactly the same, but even if he were to change back to something resembling the old Vampire Durkon, he would still carry with him the experience of being Durkon as brought on by completely absorbing all of Durkon's memories. At some point, he would have been Durkon and then changed, so he might not have been the original Durkon any more, but when Durkon was finally resurrected, he would have found new experiences making him into someone slightly different as well. It's also worth noting that Durkon didn't believe it was absolutely guaranteed he would revert–he just didn't know if it would happen or not. He might well have continued on being Durkon inside, eventually changing, of course, but only as everyone does. That might have been influenced by the negative energy inside, but that would only be a case of changed circumstances.

You're confusing questions of identity with questions of number. If I take my Order of the Stick Copy A (with unique fanfiction A written in the back cover) and incinerate it, yes, I would have incinerated something separate from Order of the Stick Copy B (with unique fanfiction B written in the back cover), but that wouldn't mean Order of the Stick Copy B contained Order of the Stick any less than Copy A did. They were both, up to a point, equally Order of the Stick.

I suppose the real deciding factor here is: Do you believe mind uploading cases in the real world (notwithstanding that we can't actually do this in the real world) would produce entities that could claim to be the genuine person, or that they would be 'fake' in some way? The same will hold true for Durkon and Vampire Durkon, or Shamansnake and Malack.

[Ruck]

And apropos of nothing, but barbecue sauce is red, not white, and I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

I think outside of Alabama that's not even a hill you have to worry about dying on.

although the best barbecue requires no sauce at all.

[Tzardok]

I don't know what a drunken chicken is but I'm willing to try it. Unless you want me to prep some good ol' southern barbecue instead.

Drunken chicken is, I think, a term for different recipes that involve marinating/infusing chicken with beer. My father knows a recipe where you roast a whole chicken in the oven with a half-empty can of beer shoved into its cavity, so that the beer vaporizes and makes the meat tender and flavoured.


As I said before, though, even if the memories are not taken in in strict order, they can always be ordered afterwards. Even now, it would be difficult for me to recall my memories in the order I originally gained them, but I can still piece them together in order to understand who I am.

Of course you can't. Don't you know anything about how the mind indexes memories? You can't just try to recall stuff in chronological order and hope to get an understanding. There is more to that than chronology; the order I'm talking about also involves associations, what emotions connect to what, etc. And that is subconcious and not under your control. To use an analogy, you may own the library, but you are only customer in it, not librarian, nor do you have a say in or insight into the catalogization system.



I would say what the rules of magic operate on is a kind of magical identity, but this is more like legal identities in the real world, not metaphysical personal identity (and the degree to which such concepts hold logical water is also debatable, but let's not go down a whole other rabbit hole).

As Pelee reminded you: this is D&D, a world where Good and Evil are tangible concepts, where souls exist and can be caught in gems, where belief is an energy that feeds beings. Here concepts are reified, philosophies can manifest as beings and be discussed with and identity can be interacted with and manipulated. You can't just say "Oh, this identity that works exactly the way most people assume identity does and can be interacted with is just magical identity, it's not true identity", especially not without a good reason. That sounds like sour grapes. And if you have a weird detachedly metaphysical definition of identity that doesn't take the physical/magical realities into account, that definition is completely useless. Just ivory tower philosophy.

[NontheistCleric]

Of course you can't. Don't you know anything about how the mind indexes memories? You can't just try to recall stuff in chronological order and hope to get an understanding. There is more to that than chronology; the order I'm talking about also involves associations, what emotions connect to what, etc. And that is subconcious and not under your control. To use an analogy, you may own the library, but you are only customer in it, not librarian, nor do you have a say in or insight into the catalogization system.
Yes, but the vampire absorbs all those associations too. They're not just watching the memories, they experience every sensation the original felt while forming them, and if the original later reflected on the initial memories, the memory of that reflection would be transferred too. That's why Vampire Durkon can smell things in Durkon's memories, and if the associations aren't carried over, then Durkon simply dumping all his memories into Vampire Durkon would not have produced the result it did, because he wouldn't have made the same associations as Durkon.


As Pelee reminded you: this is D&D, a world where Good and Evil are tangible concepts, where souls exist and can be caught in gems, where belief is an energy that feeds beings. Here concepts are reified, philosophies can manifest as beings and be discussed with and identity can be interacted with and manipulated. You can't just say "Oh, this identity that works exactly the way most people assume identity does and can be interacted with is just magical identity, it's not true identity", especially not without a good reason. That sounds like sour grapes. And if you have a weird detachedly metaphysical definition of identity that doesn't take the physical/magical realities into account, that definition is completely useless. Just ivory tower philosophy.
Is it weird and detachedly metaphysical? There seem to be enough people who agree that memories do, in fact, determine who we are–and the vampires seem to agree as well. The only mature vampire we see in the story, Malack, speaks as though he is the original Shamansnake.

Vampire Durkon always had a different magical identity from Durkon, yet he was, at least temporarily, capable of sharing the personal identity of Durkon. That suggests that the two types of identity are, in fact, not the same.

Is personal identity the 'true' identity? I have never made that claim. Of all the kinds of identity that may exist, different kinds matter to different people. I care about my personal identity, the government cares about my legal identity, and Sending cares about my magical identity. Is one of these objectively the 'true' identity? Who knows?

[Peelee]

They're not copies, but they are partly copies–because parts of them are exactly the same. If I take two copies of the same book and write a different continuation to them at the end, they are separate stories, but up to a point they are also the same story.

In that situation, the spirit was only a perfect copy of Durkon and had the exact same interests because of the unique circumstances, true. That's what allowed the plot to happen the way it did. But even if he had survived for longer and become a more adulterated copy of Durkon, eventually everything the original Durkon was would be taken into him, just the same. It wouldn't be as if he had only watched Durkon's memories–from his perspective, he would have lived all those memories, and everything the original Durkon had gone through to make him into Durkon as he was up until the moment of vampirization at least would also have been experienced by the vampire.

It's not Bob's Magical Memory Looking At Spell–it's Bob's Assimilating Memory In Its Entirety Spell. If you do it for only one memory or two, you might be safe, but eventually, the lines between Bob and Alice would begin to blur. The first Alice wouldn't disappear, but at some point Bob, if his human mind could even stand it, would also contain an instance of Alice.

Now, maybe you think this isn't a valid way of thinking about identity, and that only the original body or soul can ever have a particular identity, but that would be a case of philosophical disagreement, not something that could be empirically proven–and returning to the initial question, functionally, if we imagined this had happened to Xykon (though it didn't), there would be no difference after a point because the Lich Xykon would eventually have absorbed everything that made the original Xykon Xykon. Whether or not he would have been Xykon in some strict sense is open to debate, but it would not have mattered to Xykon or anyone dealing with him.


Yes, they are separate, the way the tines of a fork are separate from one another. Up to a point, though, because up to a point they have the exact same memories and the exact same record of mental states, they share in being Durkon.

We don't know how long the vampire spirit would have remained appreciably similar to Durkon to look exactly the same, but even if he were to change back to something resembling the old Vampire Durkon, he would still carry with him the experience of being Durkon as brought on by completely absorbing all of Durkon's memories. At some point, he would have been Durkon and then changed, so he might not have been the original Durkon any more, but when Durkon was finally resurrected, he would have found new experiences making him into someone slightly different as well. It's also worth noting that Durkon didn't believe it was absolutely guaranteed he would revert–he just didn't know if it would happen or not. He might well have continued on being Durkon inside, eventually changing, of course, but only as everyone does. That might have been influenced by the negative energy inside, but that would only be a case of changed circumstances.

You're confusing questions of identity with questions of number. If I take my Order of the Stick Copy A (with unique fanfiction A written in the back cover) and incinerate it, yes, I would have incinerated something separate from Order of the Stick Copy B (with unique fanfiction B written in the back cover), but that wouldn't mean Order of the Stick Copy B contained Order of the Stick any less than Copy A did. They were both, up to a point, equally Order of the Stick.

I suppose the real deciding factor here is: Do you believe mind uploading cases in the real world (notwithstanding that we can't actually do this in the real world) would produce entities that could claim to be the genuine person, or that they would be 'fake' in some way? The same will hold true for Durkon and Vampire Durkon, or Shamansnake and Malack.
I think here's where we disagree at the most basic level. You think they're separate like tines on a fork, but still on the same fork. I disagree that its even the same fork. Its two completely separate people. Just because oe person knows a lot, or even all, about another person doesn't make them that person.

I think outside of Alabama that's not even a hill you have to worry about dying on.

although the best barbecue requires no sauce at all.
Actually it's not even that prevalent in Alabama, it's pretty uncommon here. I think it's big in the Carolinas. Regardless, it still exists in small quantities down here, which i find unacceptable.

Also, sauceless is also great, but i dont know if I'd call either sauced or sauceless "best". It's all good.

[brian 333]

I don't know what a drunken chicken is but I'm willing to try it. Unless you want me to prep some good ol' southern barbecue instead.

And apropos of nothing, but barbecue sauce is red, not white, and I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

Drunken Chicken is a barbecued chicken which gets to enjoy a beer as it cooks. So, two Southern traditions combined: barbeque and beer.

For the record, I cook it low and slow with a dry rub to make the skin crispy then serve the sauce after slicing. (Red sauce, I ain't no heathen.)

I don't have Cornhole boards, but I have horseshoes and a 72" flat screen.


It's not Bob's Magical Memory Looking At Spell–it's Bob's Assimilating Memory In Its Entirety Spell. If you do it for only one memory or two, you might be safe, but eventually, the lines between Bob and Alice would begin to blur. The first Alice wouldn't disappear, but at some point Bob, if his human mind could even stand it, would also contain an instance of Alice.

This is explicitly what it does not do, and in fact, it is the loophole Durkon exploited.

The memory is intact, but it lacks context.

Imagine if the only thing you know of Lord of the Rings is the movie trailers:
It has barefoot English gentlemen, a guy with a hat and he does some wizard looking stuff, lots of walking around, elves, ooooh! Some badass looking dudes on dragons, a city on a mountain that looks like a ship, and a giant flaming eye in a magnifying glass.

What is LotR about if this is all you know? That is how the vampire spirit comprehends Durkon's memories.

It does not understand why Sigdi saves the worker.
It does not understand that Durkon was not just being a sore loser, but actually placed a very high value on following the rules.
It does not understand that Durkon can hate Hurak one day then repent of his anger the next.

The memories without the context do not result in an exact copy. At best, it is the Reader's Digest Condensed version.

[Peelee]

Drunken Chicken is a barbecued chicken which gets to enjoy a beer as it cooks. So, two Southern traditions combined: barbeque and beer.

For the record, I cook it low and slow with a dry rub to make the skin crispy then serve the sauce after slicing. (Red sauce, I ain't no heathen.)

I don't have Cornhole boards, but I have horseshoes and a 72" flat screen.

In that case I'll bring the conecuh sausage.

[brian 333]

In that case I'll bring the conecuh sausage.

That stuff work in a jambalaya? Ever cook them down in beer in an iron skillet? Stuff them with jalapenos and wrap them in bacon? Can I make a po'boy with them? Gumbo?

I feel like Vaarsuvius with a doily now! A new ingredient! So many possibilities!

[Peelee]

That stuff work in a jambalaya? Ever cook them down in beer in an iron skillet? Stuff them with jalapenos and wrap them in bacon? Can I make a po'boy with them? Gumbo?

I feel like Vaarsuvius with a doily now! A new ingredient! So many possibilities!

DOES IT EVER. The hickory smoked ones work in everything. MIL only uses it when she makes her gumbo. For reals, of you haven't ever had it, you need to. I think you can get it shipped straight from the manufacturer.

I did that with Katz Deli's pastrami once. Expensive but 100% worth it.

[NontheistCleric]

This is explicitly what it does not do, and in fact, it is the loophole Durkon exploited.

The memory is intact, but it lacks context.

Imagine if the only thing you know of Lord of the Rings is the movie trailers:
It has barefoot English gentlemen, a guy with a hat and he does some wizard looking stuff, lots of walking around, elves, ooooh! Some badass looking dudes on dragons, a city on a mountain that looks like a ship, and a giant flaming eye in a magnifying glass.

What is LotR about if this is all you know? That is how the vampire spirit comprehends Durkon's memories.

It does not understand why Sigdi saves the worker.
It does not understand that Durkon was not just being a sore loser, but actually placed a very high value on following the rules.
It does not understand that Durkon can hate Hurak one day then repent of his anger the next.

The memories without the context do not result in an exact copy. At best, it is the Reader's Digest Condensed version.
Yes, and the key thing here is that the vampire spirit didn't have that context because he hadn't absorbed all of Durkon's memories. That's why Durkon's trick worked at all, because he wasn't lying. He was offering the vampire spirit the real chance to gain context it didn't have, by giving the spirit those memories of living Durkon's life; of thinking Durkon's thoughts about why his mother was the way she was, experiencing the events that caused Durkon to value the principles he did, and having relationships with people and society that meant he could be angry about one thing but not actually want bad things to happen to the people who caused that one thing to happen to him.

If you have all the memories of a person's life, then you have all the context that goes with those memories. It wouldn't start out an exact copy, but eventually, it would become more and more of one. Or all at once, in the case of Vampire Durkon.

[Aquillion]

I think there's several factors:

1. Vampires probably normally absorb memories slowly, which means they have more time to develop their own identity by the time they get them all. If Vampire Durkon had lived as long as Durkon did before getting all those memories, they wouldn't have had as much impact.

2. They tend to get memories out of order (grabbing the most useful ones first), and there's probably a bunch they never bother to grab at all because they don't care. As time passes there's just less and less relevance to a lot of those details unless you really care about the person who used to run your body, which many vampires won't.

3. Because of these two things, they develop their own context for memories. If Vampire Durkon hadn't immediately asked Durkon for all his memories, he would have formed his own opinions about the pieces he saw (eg. reaching the conclusion that Sigdi was just a sentimental chump, and forming a larger psyche where this conclusion was part of his identity.) Even if he later got the full story, it might not have moved him at that point because he'd have a more solid identity that supports conclusions that go against Durkon's.

I was reading an story recently, Infinite Bloodcore, where a character is revealed to have been a duplicate who was given false memories of another person - all his memories were fake, he had none of his own. What's interesting is that even though they had the same memories, they end up as wildly different people because they reached different conclusions from them. The duplicate (who "recovered" / gained these memories over time) didn't know who he was at first and was intentionally trying to look through his memories for proof that he was good person, so he found it even though the original person definitely wasn't.

Similarly, it's easy to see how a vampire who approaches their host's memories from the perspective of "this person was actually terrible" could construct or interpret them in a way that backs that up, even once they have all of them. Vampire Durkon just got them all at once and therefore wasn't able to do so.

[NontheistCleric]

Those are some good points, and I do agree with 2 especially in that if a vampire actually never ended up absorbing all of the host memories, there probably would be no case (or a much weaker case, depending on the exact amount that was absorbed in the end) for a transmission of personal identity.

I also don't disagree that in a different case from the one of Vampire Durkon, the vampire probably would be able to have a perspective unique from the living person's perspective on the events that transpired during their life—but my point is that once they got all those memories and all of the original context, the memories and original context would become a thing that they had experienced and felt to exactly the same degree as the original soul. Yes, they might have a different perspective, but then, people also develop different perspectives on their past lives and what they used to think was the correct interpretation of the context all the time. If Durkon had developed amnesia and rebuilt his identity in an evil society, then slowly began regaining his memories, maybe he also would have come to view Sigdi as a sentimental chump, while also recognizing that he used to think differently about her. Indeed, improbable though it may be, it's not impossible that he could go through such a change even without the amnesia.