Durkula and Redcloak

[CoffeeIncluded]

Remember Comic #830, where Redcloak killed Tsukiko? Remember how in the middle of it, he said that the undead are, "Nothing more than bits of skin and bone and dark energy, glued together in the shape of a man," and that Tsukiko's mistake was thinking they were like people?

Malack proved Redcloak wrong. And I think a part of Durkon's character development is going be to him, as a vampire, marching up to Redcloak and proving him wrong to his face. Because a Dominate Person on a living person, a servant to Tsukiko would have killed her just as easily as a Command Undead to her wights did.

I think this is also going to be a part of Redcloak's character development or fleshing out as well. We'll see for sure whether he actually believed what he was saying to Tsukiko, or saying it to twist the knife, or saying it to convince himself that the undead aren't free-willed.

(And of course, I'm talking intelligent undead here.)

[Excise]

Awesome speech notwithstanding, the whole 'undead are just tools' part seemed more important to Tsukiko's arc than Redcloak's.

His opinion of the undead has otherwise been unimportant. Even his relationship with Xykon is based on other things.

[Warren Dew]

Actually I think Redcloak is just using Xykon as a tool - or at least Redcloak thinks that.

[luc258]

Might as well be a delusion Redcloak created to rationalize past events, especially in Start of Darkness. It is obviously not true for free-willed undeads like Xykon or Malack.

[BroomGuys]

Yeah, the puppet strings Redcloak holds on Xykon don't have anything to do with the fact that he's undead, unless you count that RC now has his phylactery. The whole thing works the way manipulating a person would. When he gave the speech to Tsukiko, I think it was just dramatic hyperbole.

[Lvl45DM!]

There is a difference between free willed undead like Malack Xykon and Durkula and the wights that Tsukiko had enthralled.

[SaintRidley]

There is a difference between free willed undead like Malack Xykon and Durkula and the wights that Tsukiko had enthralled.

Except the wights had the capability to be just as free willed. Tsukiko was using her magic in order to keep them in her thrall.

[Demolator]

Except the wights had the capability to be just as free willed. Tsukiko was using her magic in order to keep them in her thrall.

I think if she really loved them she would have set them free.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Was it ever explicitly said that Tsukiko had them under her direct magical/supernatural thrall?

[Zmflavius]

It seems to me that Redcloak was completely correct up to a point. Undead who are dependent on a master, such as wights, whom Tsukiko loved as her children, fit squarely into that category. Other 'weak' undead also fall into this category.

However, sentient undead, vampires and Xykon, simply don't fit in at all. To say that controlling them is no different from controlling a skeleton or wight is no different from saying that humans or goblins are "bits of bone and flesh who can be manipulated." It might be true, but the fact that they're independent actors creates a gulf between undead control and human control. To paraphrase Littlefinger of ASOIAF; even the smallest human may sometimes refuse to obey you (with lethal consequences, to be sure), a wight never will, unless someone's cast control undead recently without your knowledge. As we've just seen proven recently; Xykon frequently refuses to obey Redcloak's indirect influence, to his annoyance.

So I agree with the assessment that Redcloak is attempting to rationalize everything he's done in support of Xykon, and Tsukiko was too busy getting level drained to counter him.

[fill-in-name]

Malack seemed pretty well controlled for Tarquin's purposes

[angry_bear]

There is a difference between free willed undead like Malack Xykon and Durkula and the wights that Tsukiko had enthralled.

The only difference is challenge rating. Wights are sentient, typically free willed undead just like vampires and liches. They might be weaker, but that doesn't make them any less sentient than a creature like Malack.

[Kish]

Was it ever explicitly said that Tsukiko had them under her direct magical/supernatural thrall?

Explicitly said? No.

Did it need to be? A type of undead creature that has a two-digit Intelligence and Wisdom score, acts like a group of mindless puppets, and "coincidentally" acts exactly like Thrall Durkon and completely unlike Free-Vampire Durkon.

Tsukiko's created undead would automatically be her puppets unless she set them free, and she was able to justify to herself keeping her "children" enslaved "for their own good," as Malack was able to justify to himself keeping his "brother" as a thrall "until we return to Bleedingham" so that he wouldn't be "confused."

Yeah, the puppet strings Redcloak holds on Xykon don't have anything to do with the fact that he's undead, unless you count that RC now has his phylactery. The whole thing works the way manipulating a person would. When he gave the speech to Tsukiko, I think it was just dramatic hyperbole.

I don't think it was "dramatic hyperbole." I think, rather, that Redcloak wants to believe what Xykon said to him at the denouement of Start of Darkness was wrong. He (Redcloak) can't be a slave if there's no there there for him to be enslaved to, so he tells himself that Xykon is a thing, a tool; "Is the axe the woodcutter's master?"

[sockmonkey]

There seem to be "degrees" of "personhood" in D&D with regard to some creatures. For instance, is a magic artifact you can have a simple conversation with count as a person, or is it just the fantasy version of a really good turing program?

Sapience is a tricky thing to define under normal circumstances.
Animals like chimps and gorillas are borderline cases.
Some individuals born with cognitive or emotional deficiencies might be considered "less" than fully sapient.

(no I'm not saying that such people shouldn't be thought of as less than other people, I'm speaking in the technical sense)

Does an intelligent undead like Xykon still possess the full range of emotions, self-awareness, and empathy as he did when alive, and if not to what degree do we consider those factors as being crucial components of sapience?

[LadyEowyn]

I don't know if it's going to be Durkon that proves it, but I'm positive that that comment (and attitude) are going to come back to bite Redcloak before the story is over. After all, his story (and the story) are all about showing that goblins and similar races are people, not just PC fodder. The storyline with V and the black dragon was about the same thing. It's therefore inevitable that Redcloak's assumption that the undead aren't people is also going to be tackled; ironically, he's looking at them in the same way most of the other races look at goblins: a means to an end, not individuals with personalities.

[Anteros]

I don't know about that. Goblins are a completely sentient and free willed race. Undead are almost always mindless machines set to a task for whoever created them. I don't really think Redcloak is including sentient undead like Xykon or Durkula in his rant.

[LadyEowyn]

I don't know about that. Goblins are a completely sentient and free willed race. Undead are almost always mindless machines set to a task for whoever created them. I don't really think Redcloak is including sentient undead like Xykon or Durkula in his rant.

He specifically states that what he's saying does apply to Xykon, it's just that more subtle forms of control are needed.

[Kish]

Undead are almost always mindless machines set to a task for whoever created them.

And when you say "almost always," you mean "the two weakest forms of undead, skeletons and zombies"?

Frankly, Rich's house rules make the vast, vast majority of undead substantially closer to "mindless" than they are in default D&D. No part of the D&D rules indicates that a standard vampire or wight is unable to reason until its creator dies or releases it--just unable to disobey, as would be the case for any living creature under similarly controlling enchantment.

[F.Harr]

I think if she really loved them she would have set them free.

I don't think she did. I think she wanted love from them. I don't think she wanted love from something she didn't control, I don't know if you could exclude Xykon from that. She'd still have a lever or two over him.

{Edit: Or she suckered herself into believing that he would be as. . . pliable as her own creations}

I think, in base, she was a very selfish person.

[angry_bear]

And when you say "almost always," you mean "the two weakest forms of undead, skeletons and zombies"?

Frankly, Rich's house rules make the vast, vast majority of undead substantially closer to "mindless" than they are in default D&D. No part of the D&D rules indicates that a standard vampire or wight is unable to reason until its creator dies or releases it--just unable to disobey, as would be the case for any living creature under similarly controlling enchantment.

Everything behaves that way when under mind control in the comic. The young black dragon behaved similarly when V cast suggestion on him, and so did Belkar when Nale cast, I think it was charm person, in Azure City.

A part of the way Rich does mind control it seems, is that first and foremost in the subject's mind are the commands of it's master. So when Redcloak tells the Wights to eat themselves one by one, they do so with a smile on their face without giving it a second thought. They know what they're doing, they just don't care about the consequences of what they're doing to themselves.

[Mighty_Chicken]

What Redcloak meant is that he could control the wights via magic, and Xykon via manipulation; but in the end, it was the same thing. Sack of bones and negative energy are controlled by him so he can reach his objectives.

The delicious detail here is that while Redcloak can control the wights with a slip of fingers, "controlling" Xykon (who's the puppet and who's the puppeteer?) requires him going through a lot of humiliation. So IMO saying all that to Tsukiko was really part of Redcloak's character development to say that. He needs to say that so emphatically because he's so frustrated in his daily relationship with Xykon. His crappy self-steem has a complex role in his perception of who's holding the strings in Team Evil.

But I don't think it will have any relation to Durkula. That will be just another enemy he'll destroy or be destroyed by. He doesn't have complex feelings about undead, just about Xykon.

[karkus]

Redcloak's opinion is based on the fact that his class allows him to control undead; he can actually Control Undead. Don't you think that an undead Enchanter would feel the exact opposite way?

That's what you've never really understood about living creatures, Tsukiko. You treat them like they're undead when they're nothing but bits of skin and bone and positive energy, glued together by magic (divine magic, anyway) into the shape of a man.

See, the living are tools. Powerful, dangerous tools. From the lowliest Commoner to Xykon himself, the living are just complex tools that we make and aim at other undead. All that differs is how direct or subtle our control of them is.

For your beloved mercenaries, one use of my Mass Charm Person spell when I walked into the room was more than up to the task. For our so-called master, more creative strategies are required.

[Anteros]

And when you say "almost always," you mean "the two weakest forms of undead, skeletons and zombies"?

Frankly, Rich's house rules make the vast, vast majority of undead substantially closer to "mindless" than they are in default D&D. No part of the D&D rules indicates that a standard vampire or wight is unable to reason until its creator dies or releases it--just unable to disobey, as would be the case for any living creature under similarly controlling enchantment.

We're talking about OOTS though, so that's what important to the discussion at hand. In the OOTS world non sentient undead are far, far more common from what we've seen. Maybe Wights and such are capable of becoming sentient by the rules...but if they never actually achieve such it's not really relevant.

Redcloak's opinion is based on the fact that his class allows him to control undead; he can actually Control Undead. Don't you think that an undead Enchanter would feel the exact opposite way?

I see what you're getting at...but charm person doesn't work that way.

[SaintRidley]

We're talking about OOTS though, so that's what important to the discussion at hand. In the OOTS world non sentient undead are far, far more common from what we've seen. Maybe Wights and such are capable of becoming sentient by the rules...but if they never actually achieve such it's not really relevant.

They're not "capable of becoming" sapient, they're sapient by default. The controlling magic, whether it's part of Tsukiko's Wight Making Spell or from her rebuking, suppresses that.

[Anteros]

Again, we're not talking about RAWverse, where everything is exactly as written in the SRD. We're talking about OOTS, where for all intents and purposes wights are not capable of making their own decisions. It doesn't matter if they're inherently free willed if they never actually get to access it due to the rules of the setting.

Besides, even if we included wights as free willed despite all evidence to the contrary...the number of non free willed undead would still vastly outweigh the free willed ones.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

Alright, I'm going to go ahead and play the devil's advocate here, since I've yet to notice Malack's own outlook regarding free will being pulled in.

He considers all beings, living or dead, to be rightfully enslaved to those who command them - Nergal, in his case. Further, he has nothing but disdain for his former, living way of thinking, whatever that might have been. He would probably agree with Redcloak's assessment, then delightedly offer Karkus' mad lib as an addendum.

Whether that's the result of a vampire's programming or just humanoid embarrassment with how stupid he was when he was younger... well, I guess the obvious answer is that it's probably the latter, and that his plan for destroying life stems more from his religion than anything else. Still, he wouldn't be the best example of an undead creature being free-willed and able to choose their alignment quite the way mortals do.

Xykon is a special case, but lichdom is an unusual sort of undead in that it's supposed to be self-inflicted. He has boatloads of charisma and self-direction, but has always been a slave to his ego, his vices, and his love of watching things die. He might not be a great example, either.

The best counterexample to undead planar-evilness that I can think of is the shade-like doctor from the Sunken Valley - the one who gives the Test of Heart to the Oracle's prospective clients. He seems like an alright guy, has no master to speak of save perhaps the Oracle, and has notably dedicated himself to preventing fear-related heart attacks, which are the sorts of things that you'd think a ghastly creature would fully support if they were shackled to a theme.

So, if Durkula needs a role model for coping with undeadness, he's already met one and completely forgotten about it.

[JCAll]

Does an intelligent undead like Xykon still possess the full range of emotions, self-awareness, and empathy as he did when alive, and if not to what degree do we consider those factors as being crucial components of sapience?

Xykon certainly has the same emotions, awareness, and empathy that Xykon had while alive. But since he was a complete monster even while alive, becoming literally made of evil wouldn't have changed him noticeably anyway.

[androkguz]

In my opinion, the phrase wasn't meant to establish Redcloak's overall opinion over undead but instead the point was that Redcloak was controlling (or thinks he is controlling) Xykon. And also that Tsukiko's viewpoint is sad, wrong and stupid.

Redcloak is very much aware that undead have feelings, fears, emotions, whims... he lives them every day with Xykon. However, for him they are probably tools in that no one should ever give a though to their wellbeing or justice for them or anything.

[karkus]

charm person doesn't work that way.

I'm going to have to disagree with that until you can further explain what you mean. I honestly don't see how you couldn't accomplish the same thing (up until devouring each other) by charming mercenaries...

[Killer Angel]

Remember Comic #830, where Redcloak killed Tsukiko? Remember how in the middle of it, he said that the undead are, "Nothing more than bits of skin and bone and dark energy, glued together in the shape of a man," and that Tsukiko's mistake was thinking they were like people?

Malack proved Redcloak wrong. And I think a part of Durkon's character development is going be to him, as a vampire, marching up to Redcloak and proving him wrong to his face.

Hypothesis n. 1: that speech is not what RC really thinks, but was made only to drive a point to Tsukiko, a sort of revenge for how many times RC was "humiliated" by her.

Hypotesis n. 2: RC really believes it, and he believes it despite living since years with Xikon, which is intelligent and free willed, so no way he'll change his mind. And if this will ever happen, it will be during a final confrontation, and RC will realize it before his death, so his "character development", will last very shortly.