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2020-06-26, 06:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
SpoilerAgreed there. Mirror Knight is shaping up to be a Player if he can get his head on straight. No one else can wield the Severity (which he might just absorb into his own Name over time) and he is nearly indestructible. Killing a mess of demons puts him at the top in power, his brain puts him at the bottom of usefulness.
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2020-06-27, 08:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-06-28, 01:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
The Gnomes don't have a superweapon. That's what makes them so powerful. From the (admittedly very limited) information we have on them, they're just using technology and winning off the back of that, which fits with the superiority of the Dwarves and the way that instituting meaningful reforms and using good tactics allowed Black to turn Praes from a laughingstock to a real power.
The bits of Hanno's POV we get seem to indicate that he's pulled so much in from past lives that he almost doesn't know which parts are him and which parts are old heroes anymore. Which is priming him for a hell of a fall at some point, though the exact shape that'll take is unclear as yet.
I would expect Tariq and Laurence to train the Heroes under their wings but very little learning of any sort seems to have stuck with Christophe if they did. I think Catherine's training under Amadeus must have been an unusual confluence of superb teacher and exceptional pupil as it doesn't seem to be replicated elsewhere.
Spoiler: New ChapterThat's true, but remember that Cat is on one side, and one of her signature moves is taking a Pattern of Three that's aligned against her to the face and winning anyway (Lone Swordsman and Heiress at First Liesse, Pilgrim at the Prince's Graveyard). I tentatively expect that if this does count as a Pattern, Cat will figure out some way to win regardless.Last edited by NigelWalmsley; 2020-06-28 at 01:11 AM.
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2020-06-28, 02:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
Spoiler: New ChapterNo, she does still lose, she just manages to control the loss so it's not so devastating, and then immediately follows it up with a win to make up for it. For example, the Lone Swordsmen did kill her.
She might be able to do the same here, but I don't think she realizes that she has to.Spoiler: I'm a writer!Spoiler: Check out my fanfiction[URL="https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7493788/Forum-Explorer"here[/URL]
]Fate Stay Nano: Fate Stay Night x Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
I Fell in Love with a Storm: MLP
Procrastination: MLP
Spoiler: Original FictionThe Lost Dragon: A story about a priest who finds a baby dragon in his church and decides to protect them.
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2020-06-28, 04:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
The Gnomes don't have a superweapon. That's what makes them so powerful. From the (admittedly very limited) information we have on them, they're just using technology and winning off the back of that, which fits with the superiority of the Dwarves and the way that instituting meaningful reforms and using good tactics allowed Black to turn Praes from a laughingstock to a real power.
But you have absolutely misunderstood them if you think reforms or tactics have anything to do here. The Gnomes are as previously mentioned a plot device.
They are an explanation for the technological stagnation, thats it. Nothing more should be read into what they do, or how they do it.
It's more that Black is basically the only person in the setting who seems to really care about competent professionalism instead of story-powered grandstanding. He managed to conquer Callow basically by just "having a professional army" and "not behaving like the antagonist of a cheap novel". One of the big themes the series hammers on is the effectiveness of that kind of competence and training (particularly in war). If you look at the Tenth Crusade, basically the only reason the crusaders got anywhere against Black was Name cheating. In a straight fight, he would have held against them with close to 0 losses.
For a start, the entire Proccer civil war was fought without named on any side. That was pure tactics.
And Black got just as far by having a team of absurdly powerful named behind him. Warlock alone is a walking, army wrecking doomsday device.
While as for the 10th Crusade, its funny you call it name cheating. While completely neglegting the BS it is, that we got 1 side who is a regular medieval army.
And another side who better than real world grade explosives, as well as engineers who see in the dark...thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2020-06-28, 12:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
They have nukes, or maybe just really big bombs. The point is that they're not relying on big rituals or narrative crutches, which Black points out can turn on you. For an example that actually happens on screen, look at the Dwarves versus the Drow. The Drow are basically all Shonen Anime characters, while the Dwarves just show up with infantry formations with crossbow and siege support. And yet they beat the Drow like rented mules. Or look at the Dead King. His whole shtick is that he's the longest-lived and most powerful villain on the continent precisely because he doesn't lean on villainous tropes to beat people. When he wants to bring down a castle, he doesn't use a ritual that breaks open the sky, he uses (admittedly creepy and undead) siege towers.
For a start, the entire Proccer civil war was fought without named on any side. That was pure tactics.
And Black got just as far by having a team of absurdly powerful named behind him. Warlock alone is a walking, army wrecking doomsday device.
While as for the 10th Crusade, its funny you call it name cheating. While completely neglegting the BS it is, that we got 1 side who is a regular medieval army.
And another side who better than real world grade explosives, as well as engineers who see in the dark...
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2020-06-28, 01:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
Spoiler: ”Mirror Knight’s future after Chapter 38“Interesting point here that I doubt the Grand Alliance will have one year to spare so it is almost given (story wise) that Mirror Knight’s apprenticeship will be interrupted. The monthly reports open the possibility that he will actually start his time, but doubt we will see more than one or two reports before Tariq and/or Mirror Knight is dragged back to the front.
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2020-06-28, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
They have nukes, or maybe just really big bombs. The point is that they're not relying on big rituals or narrative crutches, which Black points out can turn on you. For an example that actually happens on screen, look at the Dwarves versus the Drow. The Drow are basically all Shonen Anime characters, while the Dwarves just show up with infantry formations with crossbow and siege support. And yet they beat the Drow like rented mules. Or look at the Dead King. His whole shtick is that he's the longest-lived and most powerful villain on the continent precisely because he doesn't lean on villainous tropes to beat people. When he wants to bring down a castle, he doesn't use a ritual that breaks open the sky, he uses (admittedly creepy and undead) siege towers.
Because its -not- infantry formations or siege support that allows the Dwarfes to win that fight. Its superiosity in magic, lava golems, magic dampening runes. All those things.
In short stuff that would get called a narrative crutch if someone else relied on it.
Samt with the Dead King. Undead Siege towers is about as Necromancer trope as you can get. And it works because of overwhelming power.
For most of the war it was throwing bodies at each other, backed by Malicia's willingness to fund anyone who wanted to keep fighting. What ultimately ended the war was the intervention of a side with Named backing in the Augur. At no point did Procer develop anything like the professional military or War College Black instituted in Praes.
And no what the Augur mainly did was another named, Malicia, from screwing stuff up to badly.
What ended the civil war was Codelia being both a brilliant diplomat and strategist.
Also how the heck do you want Procer to reform their military during a civil war?
Who very rarely gets taken off the leash. In the Vales, Black largely held him back until he was needed to counter the Witch.
He got that by wrecking armies.
Yeah, that's the point. One side is relying on story, the other side is relying on superior technology and tactics. There's nothing stopping Procer from training their troops more effectively, or learning to build their own siege, or developing their own answers to goblinfire. They just happen to rely on the power granted by the heavens instead.
The point being that one side does not as such have superior tactics. Or troops that are that much better. They just have BS explosives that happens to be impossible to replicate.
You seriously think no other nation has thrown major fortunes after alchemists the first time a munition blew up a unit of infantry?
So yeah.. its very easy to have "superior" tactics. When you got landmines, hand grenades and phosphorus bombs. Oh and a undead dragon.
The 10th crusade isnt relying on a story. Or stories. They are just using them to counter the BS advantages the other side has.Last edited by lord_khaine; 2020-06-28 at 01:21 PM.
thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2020-06-28, 02:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
The lava golems are explicitly just a piece of Dwarven infrastructure. They use them to power their forges. It's the difference between power that relies on a single Named individual, and power that comes from your society's technical or magical developments. The narrative crutch is an explicit, specific thing. It's relying on a Name or an Aspect or an extravagant ritual to try to turn the tide of a war in one stroke. It's not just "having stuff that is way better than the other guy's stuff".
Samt with the Dead King. Undead Siege towers is about as Necromancer trope as you can get. And it works because of overwhelming power.
What ended the civil war was Codelia being both a brilliant diplomat and strategist.
Also how the heck do you want Procer to reform their military during a civil war?
The point being that one side does not as such have superior tactics. Or troops that are that much better. They just have BS explosives that happens to be impossible to replicate.
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2020-06-29, 06:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
The author is overall pretty inconsistent with his story vs organization thing. During the first few books organization is king, now story is.
It was never explained how the dwarves could win against drow, who can basically solo armies. And those werent even top tier drow.
Its never explained how black could win a war against callow when hanno alone can turn a loosing fight into a massacre of a fifth of blacks troops and get away. Cavalry charge through mountainous choke+minefield into prepared infantry and crossbowmen, no less.
The story just isnt very solid in those aspects. It does gloss over too many things.
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2020-06-29, 06:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
The lava golems are explicitly just a piece of Dwarven infrastructure. They use them to power their forges. It's the difference between power that relies on a single Named individual, and power that comes from your society's technical or magical developments. The narrative crutch is an explicit, specific thing. It's relying on a Name or an Aspect or an extravagant ritual to try to turn the tide of a war in one stroke. It's not just "having stuff that is way better than the other guy's stuff".
No, it doesn't. If the Dead King relied on overwhelming power, Calernia wouldn't be in the mess it's in, because the nature of Heroes is that overwhelming power doesn't work against them. The Dead King is successful not because of overwhelming power, but overwhelming caution. In the Arcadian echoes, his rise to power was not the swiftest path, or the easiest path, or the strongest path. It was the path that gave the Intercessor absolutely no foothold to intervene. In his talks with Cat, he says that he could drown the continent in corpses if he so choose. But he chooses not to do that, because doing so would only result in his eventual unmaking.
But Callow is filled with graves that show, that there is a level of power that overwhelms that edge. Some were filled by Cat. Most by Black.
And seriously. You call vomiting out hordes, and hordes and hordes, and hordes of undead caution?
Because thats the reason Calernia is screwed. Not because he is cautious. But because he is powerful.
Cordelia definitely comes the closest to Black. But by her nature, she's a bureaucrat and a diplomat, not a warrior. She ends the Proceran civil war not by fielding a structurally superior army (which is how Black conquered Callow), but by outmaneuvering the other players.
And yes she outmaneuvered the other players. That is my entire point. She showed strategic superiosity, while her uncle displayed tactical superiosity.
That's exactly what Black did. The core of the new legions was forged in the Praesi civil war that lead to his and Malicia's rise.
But Black did not go directly from Civil war to invading.
Their troops are better. Proceran armies are comprised of the house troops of the Princes (I think there's a specific term, but I forget it), fantassin mercenaries, and peasant levies. They lack overall cohesion and centralized leadership. Whereas the Legions are trained in tactics as a unit, including a combined-arms approach to warfare that leverages Praesi mages, crossbowmen, and Goblin siege and explosives to support their infantry. It's emphatically not just "BS explosives". They have an overall approach to war that is more sophisticated and more modern. Plus, in the Vales they were holding a superior defensive position with siege superiority and no logistical concerns. If you take Named out of the equation, Praes wins that 10/10.
Certainly none that were meaningful.
And well. Yes the combined arms thing is nice. Though not that special. Proccer does the same thing, combining priests, infantry and siege.
So it most definitly is the BS explosives that makes the actual difference. Its very easy being more modern, when you have access to modern tools.
But its those who does the actual difference. Had munition been taken out of the equation as well. Then Praes would be screwed.
So as such. Thats just as much of a cruch as you accused heroic named of being.
Despite both sides having access to named. While its only 1 side who has hand grenades and phosphor bombs.
edit.
Well, it seemed like the Dwarfs won though a superior degree of magic. I do agree it really does not make sense the Dwarfs had any chance at all.
When the stronger Drows could give Winter Cat a run. But i guess drow slaying crossbow bolts?
As for why Black could win against Callow. The Calamities. They directly got their fame from the fights there.
Warlock personally killed the Wizard of the West. Captain will shred small armies though attrition in the night.
Assasin, well we have seen how effective it? is. Goodbye officers and mages.
And Black himself has aspects designed to argument an entire army.Last edited by lord_khaine; 2020-06-29 at 06:43 AM.
thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2020-06-29, 07:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
As for why Black could win against Callow. The Calamities. They directly got their fame from the fights there.
Warlock personally killed the Wizard of the West. Captain will shred small armies though attrition in the night.
Assasin, well we have seen how effective it? is. Goodbye officers and mages.
And Black himself has aspects designed to argument an entire army.
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2020-06-29, 07:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
It's always been both in equal measure. Even in the first few books Black is weaving a narrative. It's why he Chose Catherine at all.
Also, because dwarves are themselves ludicrously OP? Or have you forgotten the whole 'dwarves will destroy all of Callow over one drop of dwarvish blood being spilled'? Or the siege engines that shot volcano-balls? Or the lanterns that literally burn gold?
The dwarves are basically an insanely advanced magitech civilization.
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2020-06-29, 04:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
Maybe it's a Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing? Assassin is determined to fight the family curse, he will not fall into accountancy! But he keeps having these blackouts, and when he wakes up his hands are all covered in ink...
But, whereas Scribe is difficult to notice or think about, Assassin seems to work through expendable avatars. Malicia can do that as well, but she found that trick in a toy cupboard in the Tower.
Spoiler: You know who else uses expendable avatars?The Wandering Bard. Duh duh duh!
Well yes, Amadeus is the great institution builder of his generation [1] and the systematic leader of the greatest band of five for a long time. Additionally, when he was training Cat he was consciously training his successor.
But my point was mainly how disappointed I was with the training Heroes received, despite Tariq's presence for decades. This isn't entirely fair on Tariq, he can't train everybody: Hanno and Antigone were tutored in the Titanomachy, Hunter by the Lady of the Lake and Christophe by strange women lying in ponds handing out swords. But I don't think we've seen a student of Tariq's rise to the top tier.
I guess the Above rides most Heroes pretty hard, then discards them. In their short lives they are expected to rely on Providence and doing the right thing; they are definitely not there to plot and build power for themselves (the exact opposite of Villains of course [2]) so there is less strategy involved in being a Hero. Maybe?
Edit: I was particularly thinking of the training in story-fu and name fights, although I suppose that Amadeus's signature is a 'combined arms' approach to everything, including name fights. The Above have thrown a lot of heroes at the Calamities who had no hope of success and Tariq has already admitted his failure to intervene in Callow.
[1] Cordelia and Catherine are perhaps even more ambitious.
[2] Below directly shapes societies by empowering Villains to rule; the Above shapes societies by their teachings, and by slapping down Villains when they pop up?
While we're talking about the organisation of armies, do people here follow the excellent blog by Bret Devereaux? https://acoup.blog/ He's a historian writing about military history and popular culture.
As part of a series on the Battle of Helm's Deep (The Lord of the Rings) he wrote about the connection between societies and the militaries drawn from them:
https://acoup.blog/2020/05/15/collec...st-of-saruman/
https://acoup.blog/2020/05/22/collec...-men-of-rohan/
He makes the point that there has to be a fit between relationships in society and in the military for it to work. A 'modern' army grafted onto a society with different relationships is probably a paper army.
That and the discussion here made me think: The legions could be the Roundheads to the highborn's Cavaliers but we don't get to see much of the social changes that would accompany that in Praes. The social, political, philosophical and religious revolutions that drove and were driven by the wars of the three kingdoms and the creation of the Roundheads turned Britain upside down.Last edited by aguaracu; 2020-06-29 at 05:00 PM.
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2020-06-29, 05:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
I thought that was actually pretty well-explained, actually. It's a backlash thing. The way Creation is set up, Villains are supposed to eventually lose. So if you keep winning, more powerful (and more specifically-anti-you) heroes get thrown at you. As a result, Black was able to win on pure competence at first, but as he kept winning, the Above put a heavier and heavier hand on the scales. The conversation between Black and Tariq spells out the opposite effect as well: because Pilgrim and Saint kept squashing any villain before they rose, he was able to put a big win on the board in compensation.
Depends which time. The first time, they lost because they were weaker. The Dwarves are just a stronger power than everyone else. The second time, they lost because they were relying on individual Mighty (which, yes, not Named, but fall into the same narrative pattern). The general principle is that individual power eventually fails, while institutional power does not.
But Callow is filled with graves that show, that there is a level of power that overwhelms that edge. Some were filled by Cat. Most by Black.
And seriously. You call vomiting out hordes, and hordes and hordes, and hordes of undead caution?
Originally Posted by "Interlude: Set Them Up
Yes. Proccer's armies are build the way your forced to build an army when combining several semi-independent forces. But they showed no signs of lacking cohesion or leadership in the vale fight.
So it most definitly is the BS explosives that makes the actual difference. Its very easy being more modern, when you have access to modern tools.
Yeah. Remember that for the last couple of decades, there haven't been any major villains outside of Callow (exactly where Pilgrim and Saint didn't operate). None of the heroes currently alive have been in any kind of major confrontation, and Above is not really the side of careful preparation.
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2020-06-29, 08:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
To be fair, neither is Below. Preparation, yes. Careful preparation, no.
"When using tigers you don’t have enough time to gloat, when using rats you risk awkwardly running out of gloat before the end: true equilibrium is found in a pit of humble man-eating tapirs, beasts that have never once failed me.”
– Dread Empress Atrocious, later devoured by man-eating tapirs
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2020-06-30, 10:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
Its not really explained, just handwaved and it doesn't add up. I don't mind, its well written. If Hanno can take a few riders and kill troops in the thousands, what is the meaning of troops and preparation anyway. There are too many points where its not equal measure. Namely in that fight it is explicitly stated that without Named, procer would have lost all troops and the legions none. So organization did not count one bit. Named were there in equal strength for both sides and it wasnt a clear victory but a phyrric one for the legions. Hannos charge was beyond stupid from a military point of view and worked nontheless, despite previous assertions that stupid actions from named still get them killed. So, organization is useless.
The real reason is of course that story takes precedence over details like these for the author. And thats okay.
As for the dwarves, yes they are strong as a community, but the expedition force had only so many priests/mages to do hax. And even upper-tier mighty can solo mundane armies. They should have been reasonably weak to a coordinated ambush to their mage lines, something that sve nocs cabal was more than capable of. The drow were really only loosing because Cat needed a new flavor of powers.
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2020-06-30, 10:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
Highlighted the part that the Drow, at that time, did not do. They were not a functioning society. There was no coordinated response to either Cat or the Dwarves. It is quite possible the Dwarves would have run into a nasty surprise when they started trying to advance on the center of the Drow territory where the real old monsters lived, but by that point the Dwarves would already be holding something like half of the area they wanted.. but then again, they might have just continued reducing the strongholds of individual Mighty one by one while the other Mighty looked on and laughed about how their rivals were too pathetic and worthless to fend off the Dwarves.
Neither Sve Noc nor the really powerful Mighty cared about the lives of 'lesser' Drow enough to respond. Although for Sve Noc, at least, it could be argued that they considered Catherine as the more valuable prize, and were willing to ignore the Dwarves in order to try to bait Catherine into a place where they could get at Winter - after all, once they consumed Winter and solidified their apotheosis, surely they would have power sufficient to deal with the Dwarves. (They probably were not wrong.)
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2020-06-30, 04:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
Spoiler: TransliterationI should have seen that coming. We had hints that undead who are aware are fit enough to stand trial.
And yet I didn't see this coming at all. But that is how you get two death sentences to work. You raise them and kill them again.
I do worry that if the Red Axe becomes undead, doesn't that mean the Dead King has a claim on her? Or will Cat do some Night trickery that is like but not completely identical to, standard necromancy?
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2020-06-30, 05:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-06-30, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
SpoilerI'm pretty sure that was a one-time deal. Cat's stolen tricks seem to be fire-and-forget. I expect she's probably just going to be puppeting the corpse via Night, and that's either sufficiently not necromancy to not be concerned about the Dead King, or the Dead King's power is limited enough that him grabbing a random zombie in the middle of Procer isn't a real concern. Which seems semi-likely. There are other necromancer villains, and they don't seem concerned about randomly getting their minions stolen.Last edited by NigelWalmsley; 2020-06-30 at 05:28 PM.
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2020-06-30, 05:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
SpoilerI don't think we've seen the Dead King just randomly claim an undead; he's always had an agent or existing undead of his on the scene to work through. Should he manage to infiltrate the security around the Red Axe and gain access to her after being revived he could almost certainly hijack the body, tho.
But.. I doubt that would do him much good. Catherine isn't going to raise Red Axe as a Revenant-grade creature if she can help it - there's no reason to leave her Aspects and Name strength intact. She just has to be conscious enough to stand up before the Highest Assembly and tell them "Yes, I tried to kill him, and I'd do it again." so they can sentence her to destruction under Procer's laws. Catherine will probably extract her Aspects before/while raising her, if possible.
..it would be wonderfully ironic of Red Axe's Aspect/trait/whatever that makes her immune to magical enchantment and deception got turned into an artifact that played a key role in solving some of Catherine's more pressing problems.
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2020-06-30, 08:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
SpoilerCat doesn't have to raise her at all. She could just puppet the body around. Among the whole of the assembly, there's going to be all of one person who isn't in on the ruse and ever met the Axe at all.Last edited by NigelWalmsley; 2020-06-30 at 08:54 PM.
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2020-06-30, 10:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
Spoiler: TransliterationThat's hilarious, and I didn't see that coming. I feel like this idea comes from Cat's exposure to Praes who would totally raise someone as an undead so they can experience every single death sentence they've earned.
No, I don't think the Dead King automatically has a claim on any undead. If an agent of his gets access to an undead, he can probably hijack them without too much difficulty, but I don't think that would matter for the Red Axe. She'll still be imprisoned and bound, so hijacking them would give him a Reverant that's almost guaranteed to be destroyed immediately anyways. Seems like a waste of resources to me.Spoiler: I'm a writer!Spoiler: Check out my fanfiction[URL="https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7493788/Forum-Explorer"here[/URL]
]Fate Stay Nano: Fate Stay Night x Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
I Fell in Love with a Storm: MLP
Procrastination: MLP
Spoiler: Original FictionThe Lost Dragon: A story about a priest who finds a baby dragon in his church and decides to protect them.
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2020-07-01, 06:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
Depends which time. The first time, they lost because they were weaker. The Dwarves are just a stronger power than everyone else. The second time, they lost because they were relying on individual Mighty (which, yes, not Named, but fall into the same narrative pattern). The general principle is that individual power eventually fails, while institutional power does not.
Power is power. If you lose its because you dont have enough of it. In this case the initial solitary Mighty were not enough to handle focused dwarfen magitech.
In the short run, yes. But in the long run, if you rely on pure power, eventually someone will come along who's perfectly tuned to beat you. Again, the Dead King says as much to Cat when hosting her in Keter. He could take Calernia. But if he did, some hero would arise to take it back.
The Dead King is not relying on overwhelming force. He could bring more firepower to bear. After all, we know from Catherine's conversation with the Herald that the Dwarves take him seriously as an enemy ("The dead will return to the depths soon enough."), and they outstrip the firepower of even the Grand Alliance. You can even see a smaller-scale version of this in the difference between the northern and southern fronts. Fighting the Drow, he can let loose more, because he doesn't need to worry about Above's meddling. Always and everywhere, from the very beginning of his rise, his path has been the path of caution, the path of patience. Because he can afford to wait. He's immortal, and with the Serenity churning out people who will leave behind more bodies for him to work with, his forces only ever grow.
Waves and waves and waves of Undeads already does the job of winning for him. He is already winning though overwhelming force. He dont need to use more of it.
They showed plenty of signs of it against Catherine.
And the superior siege. And the superior training. And the superior tactics. And, yes, they have access to more modern resources. That's not BS. You're missing the key distinction between "this is a thing we can do because we have Some Named Guy on our side" and "this is a thing we can do because we are a more sophisticated civilization". Goblin munitions are a thing you can manufacture. That is categorically different from Names, which is very much the point of the story. Black says over and over again that the reason Above's crowd wins is that they get to cheat away any advantages other people have.
Proccer is the least. They rely on massed human regiments. Thats it. Sometimes heroes are along. And thats nice. But its not something thats intergrated into their forces.
The heroes act as independent support. Proccer is the least name dependent army. It has directly been said a few times.
Praes meanwhile is likely the most cructh dependent army. We got the awesome power of warlock, who is a walking army-killer, and for a time were likely the strongest mage on the continent.
We have Black, who directly has 2 Aspects dedicated to empower the army he leads.
And we got impossible to replicate, BS magical explosives. Thats 3 cruches, 2 of whom litteraly are "Some Named Guy".
While the last is something only Goblings can manufacture. When noone else has gunpowder, despite rich alchemical traditions, then i call BS on that.
As for Black, he is likely the biggest hipocrite in the story. i ABSOLUTELY dont want to hear anything about cheating from him.
And so, i cant think of cases where Praes has done that well denied their crutches. So i dont think their training is as superior as you make it.thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2020-07-01, 07:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-07-01, 01:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
SpoilerI suspect that is Winter power. However, it's been two years for the Sisters to consolidate their power, so I wonder if that would have changed how Night approaches necromancy. Especially since it already takes Secrets.
While I am sure there are limits to what can be retained by Night, could Cat sacrifice Aspect artefacts to add knowledge to Night? I could see some things like Forgive being out of the domain of the Sisters, but the Red Axe's mage killer could be useful for the drow army as a whole.
Kill one Hero, and replicate their power across an entire front.
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2020-07-01, 07:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
SpoilerIt's a Revenant that's guaranteed to be destroyed, but right in the middle of the Highest Assembly. It's not a military threat, but I'm sure giving the Dead King the opportunity to say whatever he wants to all the Princes of Procer, with them potentially not knowing it's him, in a situation that's politically sensitive to begin with, would go at least pretty badly. That said, it's an outside risk.
No, it doesn't. At least, not inherently, the way it does with Names.
Waves and waves and waves of Undeads already does the job of winning for him. He is already winning though overwhelming force. He dont need to use more of it.
We got the awesome power of warlock, who is a walking army-killer, and for a time were likely the strongest mage on the continent.
And we got impossible to replicate, BS magical explosives. Thats 3 cruches, 2 of whom litteraly are "Some Named Guy".
When noone else has gunpowder, despite rich alchemical traditions, then i call BS on that.
And so, i cant think of cases where Praes has done that well denied their crutches. So i dont think their training is as superior as you make it.
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2020-07-01, 10:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
The legions regularly fight without either Warlock or Black. Even in the story itself.
I'm not sure why you're pressed about the Goblin Munitions. They explain why those aren't made by anyone but goblins, and it's because the Goblins use devils as ingredients. Do you think Good Nations are going to let you get away with summoning the legions of hell with the excuse 'But I wanted to chop them up and make them into explosives! Honest!'
Black is a lot of things, but a Hypocrite is not one of them.
Praes did well rather consistently throughout the books. Keeping in mind of course, that Proceran strategy is entirely dependent upon the Auger, making it, while directly speaking less reliant, from a top down view more reliant on named power than anyone but Cat.
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2020-07-03, 03:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault
No, it doesn't. At least, not inherently, the way it does with Names.
So? If he's about overwhelming force, why not use even more force to win faster? If his modus operandi is "Crush Them!", he has no reason to hold back. In fact, he has an incentive to end things as quickly as possible. The reason he's not is because he things "narrative shenanigans from pushing too hard" is a greater threat than anything the Grand Alliance can actually do.
Who largely does not get committed to the field. Because Black holds him in reserve for countering enemy named. In the Vales, he didn't win the fight on his own, he waited to counter the enemy Named.
In the Vales, Hanno had specifically pulled the Witch of the West out to be able to counter him.
Again, the explosives are not a crutch. Nor are they impossible to replicate. They're technology. They're technology other people don't have, but that's not remotely the same as Named.
They are a vital thing the entire operations of the legions of terror more or less runs on. If someone bombs goblings, or the bombs run out, it affects the way the legions operate.
If the named vanishes meanwhile, the armies of Proccer will not change its working.
And the are absolutely not a technology. They are a plot device. That in fact are impossible to replicate.
We have been told all such attempts end in "and then it exploded".
You understand that there was a first nation to develop gunpowder in actual history, right? It turns out that gave them some advantages.
Certainly not something that in any way can be compared to magical explosives.
The Legions regularly do well without Black or Warlock present.
Also i dont count Black as being absent if his pupil are present.
The legions regularly fight without either Warlock or Black. Even in the story itself.
I'm not sure why you're pressed about the Goblin Munitions. They explain why those aren't made by anyone but goblins, and it's because the Goblins use devils as ingredients. Do you think Good Nations are going to let you get away with summoning the legions of hell with the excuse 'But I wanted to chop them up and make them into explosives! Honest!'
It has directly been a point a few times, how big a problem were when munition supplies began to run low.
And so if it was just because devils are an ingredient, then Stygium should be mass producing them. Or that neutral capitalism town.
Else Gobling munition mostly annoy me. I do genuinly think they are BS in a fantasy world like this.
But i can mostly overlook it, because its extremely obvious that the author is drawing heavy inspiration from the Malazan Empire books.
Where alchemical munitions have a central part. But what mostly triggers me is someone having the audacity to claim Proccer is relying on a "cruch",
then the faction they hold up as a shinning example relies on impossible to replicate, modern technology. In a world where normal technological progress is choked.
Black is a lot of things, but a Hypocrite is not one of them.
He complains about the unfair advantages Above gets. While killing children who might become heroes that can threaten him.
Praes did well rather consistently throughout the books. Keeping in mind of course, that Proceran strategy is entirely dependent upon the Auger, making it, while directly speaking less reliant, from a top down view more reliant on named power than anyone but Cat.
Klaus and Cordelia already had a decent reputation before the Auger was discovered. And we can see she didnt do anything in either the Vale fight.
Or the Crusade into Callow. I think its pretty clear that its very random when she can see something or not. And so its more or less impossible to be reliant on her.
I think her main contribution has been to keep Cordelia or Klaus from just getting killed outright by Assasin.thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar