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Taciturn Tactician posted:I mean, the whole "you can't go to your afterlife until someone kills the drunk at the bar" bit is a bit of an issue. I mean, does the drunk dying of natural causes count as fulfilling the blood oath?  The issue with Xykon is that he's immortal, as long as you don't grudge against an elf or whatever you probably wouldn't have to chill in afterlife limbo for too long.
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Feb 17, 2020 22:25
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If you're a PC and you pick some random drunk at the bar to swear a blood oath against then there's maybe an 80% chance that drunk is secretly an Odin or the Devil.
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Feb 17, 2020 23:17
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Schwarzwald posted:If you're a PC and you pick some random drunk at the bar to swear a blood oath against then there's maybe an 80% chance that drunk is secretly an Odin or the Devil. Secret flame of the king.
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Feb 17, 2020 23:30
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Schwarzwald posted:If you're a PC and you pick some random drunk at the bar to swear a blood oath against then there's maybe an 80% chance that drunk is secretly an Odin or the Devil. The most important random drunk.  In my group, if the PCs start stuff with random non-plot-related NPCs, the DM is allowed to start laying on class levels with a trowel.
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Feb 18, 2020 02:53
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Schwarzwald posted:If you're a PC and you pick some random drunk at the bar to swear a blood oath against then there's maybe an 80% chance that drunk is secretly an Odin or the Devil. I've been playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker again, and looking into the backstory a bit during downtime. In Golarion there's a temple in the big city of the setting that has a stone at the center that mortals can use to become gods, and they've formed a test of challenge around it that thousands attempt every year but only 3 in history have finished to reach the stone and become gods. One of them was a drunk who did it on a dare, blitzed out of his mind to the point even he doesn't still know how he did it (the fact that he became a god of debauchery basically means that he's constantly drunk now, which probably doesn't help). If I were a DM and my players tried to pull that trick, in a homebrew setting, I'm ripping that bit of lore straight out of the backstory and making it so the players' drunken "nemesis" somehow managed to become a god in the meantime and thus is now, to them, pretty much unkillable.
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Feb 18, 2020 04:09
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Thinking from an Ebberon “magic as industry” perspective, even getting this far is a huge breakthrough, and if Julia can get it down even to it requiring both people to have some kind of magical symbol it would be huge in terms of mass communication going forward for the OotS world. Roy’s going to save the world, and Julia’s going to change it.
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Feb 18, 2020 04:12
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I wonder if he's going to mention 'yeah, if we fail you probably won't have a chance to talk to my dead body...'
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Feb 18, 2020 04:21
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Soup du Jour posted:Thinking from an Ebberon “magic as industry” perspective, even getting this far is a huge breakthrough, and if Julia can get it down even to it requiring both people to have some kind of magical symbol it would be huge in terms of mass communication Reminds me of the tabletop campaign, there were these paired magic mirrors that allow sound and sight to travel from one to the other. There were like a half-dozen pair in all I think, at least that we have found. Well we just set them up like an old telephone switchboard, centralizing one of each pair at a secure location with servant NPCs. You can call through a mirror, tell the servant to put the mirror in front of some other person's mirror, and there you go, instead of only allowing communications between two people, they allow communication between any mirror owner. We kept a couple for the party so it can occasionally be split, and gave the rest to select important NPCs (like the archivist at the royal library).
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Feb 18, 2020 10:45
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Soup du Jour posted:Thinking from an Ebberon “magic as industry” perspective, even getting this far is a huge breakthrough, and if Julia can get it down even to it requiring both people to have some kind of magical symbol it would be huge in terms of mass communication going forward for the OotS world. Roy’s going to save the world, and Julia’s going to change it. If nothing else, you could have a couple of people that are about the same age swear blood oaths against each other, accepting a few years waiting around in the afterlife lobby in exchange for perfect long distance communication.
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Feb 18, 2020 11:17
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"We've been adventuring together for almost 5 years now, and I can't imagine my life without you. Will you..." Gets down on one knee, "Swear a Blood Oath against me?"
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Feb 18, 2020 11:51
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If she can manage to do the same low level spell with marriage oaths or pure direct familial connection(like the genocide spell) instead of blood oaths, she sure will become a famous spell-caster thanks to the Greenhilt's Family Contact spell.
Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 11:55
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Soup du Jour posted:Thinking from an Ebberon “magic as industry” perspective, even getting this far is a huge breakthrough, and if Julia can get it down even to it requiring both people to have some kind of magical symbol it would be huge in terms of mass communication going forward for the OotS world. Roy’s going to save the world, and Julia’s going to change it. Julia's next stage will be to drop out of Wizarding school and go into private business with her new spell. Then she will start wearing black turtle necks all the time. Then she gets a board of directors made up of figures like Henry Kissenger. Then she will insist her spell works but nobody is allowed see the spell in action.
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Feb 18, 2020 12:32
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I wonder if Bigby gets royalty every time a wizard conjures a giant hand
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Feb 18, 2020 12:48
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The Question IRL posted:Julia's next stage will be to drop out of Wizarding school and go into private business with her new spell. Please, this one conversation is more functional than anything about Theranos
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Feb 18, 2020 13:03
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Shugojin posted:Please, this one conversation is more functional than anything about Theranos I am sure to her dying day that Elizabeth Holmes will scream that it would work, just so long as she is given more time...and money, to fix it.
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Feb 18, 2020 13:19
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AnoHito posted:If nothing else, you could have a couple of people that are about the same age swear blood oaths against each other, accepting a few years waiting around in the afterlife lobby in exchange for perfect long distance communication. Why not swear a Blood Oath against yourself? It is fulfilled as soon as you die.
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Feb 18, 2020 13:30
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only if you commit suicide though? (or, I guess, if you get killed by one of your children)
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Feb 18, 2020 13:45
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You have to share the Blood Oath to have a link between you. So everyone swearing against themselves isn't really going to work. Plus if you swear against something easy to fulfill everyone will need to be getting new Blood Oaths all the time. It should probably be something like a decade long thing that gets ritually destroyed to let people pass on to the afterlife while allowing for long term communications.
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Feb 18, 2020 14:20
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a computing pun posted:only if you commit suicide though? I assumed it just had to be fulfilled. If Soon had successfully killed Xykon that one time would Roy's dad be stuck in the clouds forever?
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Feb 18, 2020 14:46
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Ha, I just realized its a good dig at startup culture.
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Feb 18, 2020 16:19
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nimby posted:You have to share the Blood Oath to have a link between you. So everyone swearing against themselves isn't really going to work. Plus if you swear against something easy to fulfill everyone will need to be getting new Blood Oaths all the time. Dwarves could swear blood oaths against trees and cut it down before they head off to get themselves killed in battle. They already have a whole culture built around afterlife technicalities anyways.
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Feb 18, 2020 16:31
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It's an interesting question putting your own afterlife at risk in order to have a cell phone. I guess it's just a long delay if you don't honestly try to fulfill it, as opposed to the eternal damnation we are all assured by using the internet . One of the things that really bothers me about most fantasy settings is how so many of them get locked in this eternal stasis where they'll throw in time periods like thousands of years and you'll still have the same pseudo-medieval level of technology and organization on both ends, which is just antithetical to everything I know about real history. Especially if you've got serious academic institutions like wizards are portrayed as, either there should be non-magical academics figuring things out or wizards should be constantly probing the realm of the magically possible. Of course, the world of the comic should probably be way more mathematically developed than the real world, since everybody is intimately familiar with probability distribution and complex record keeping.
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Feb 18, 2020 17:08
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ikanreed posted:Dwarves could swear blood oaths against trees and cut it down before they head off to get themselves killed in battle. I mean, that would involve facing down a terrifying tree. There's every chance the tree would defeat you.
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Feb 18, 2020 17:16
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a computing pun posted:only if you commit suicide though? If you get killed in a fight with something else, you could argue that by putting yourself in that position, you directly caused your own death, thereby fulfilling the Blood Oath against yourself.
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Feb 18, 2020 17:17
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Android Blues posted:I mean, that would involve facing down a terrifying tree. There's every chance the tree would defeat you. Uh... Win win? You die in pursuit of your blood oath like Roy, and you die in battle.
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Feb 18, 2020 17:33
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SlothfulCobra posted:One of the things that really bothers me about most fantasy settings is how so many of them get locked in this eternal stasis where they'll throw in time periods like thousands of years and you'll still have the same pseudo-medieval level of technology and organization on both ends, which is just antithetical to everything I know about real history. Especially if you've got serious academic institutions like wizards are portrayed as, either there should be non-magical academics figuring things out or wizards should be constantly probing the realm of the magically possible. You need to read Max Gladstone's "Craft" novels, starting with "Three Parts Dead". and maybe Melissa Scott's "Five-Twelfths of Heaven".
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Feb 18, 2020 18:16
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SlothfulCobra posted:One of the things that really bothers me about most fantasy settings is how so many of them get locked in this eternal stasis where they'll throw in time periods like thousands of years and you'll still have the same pseudo-medieval level of technology and organization on both ends, which is just antithetical to everything I know about real history. Especially if you've got serious academic institutions like wizards are portrayed as, either there should be non-magical academics figuring things out or wizards should be constantly probing the realm of the magically possible. I blame elves. Just look at all the progress that was long-suppressed by reactionaries, and only made finally possible once all the old assholes died out. Now imagine how stagnant society would be if the old assholes could live to be a thousand years instead of a hundred.
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Feb 18, 2020 20:43
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PMush Perfect posted:"We've been adventuring together for almost 5 years now, and I can't imagine my life without you. Will you..." Gets down on one knee, "Swear a Blood Oath against me?" real talk if you've been adventuring together that long and aren't willing to swear blood fealty and/or blood vengeance, you're doing it wrong
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Feb 18, 2020 21:45
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So the blood oath. Does it provide any actual benefits?
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Feb 18, 2020 22:03
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Parahexavoctal posted:and maybe Melissa Scott's "Five-Twelfths of Heaven". hell yes, that's a deep cut. The sequels were only ok, but the ideas in the first one were insanely good (the conceit is that the occult/alchemical notions of reality all work, so ships fly by resolving zodiacal charts and following symbolic correspondences)
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Feb 18, 2020 22:07
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ikanreed posted:So the blood oath. Does it provide any actual benefits? Lets you piggyback certain specially designed spells, apparently.
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Feb 18, 2020 22:08
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ikanreed posted:So the blood oath. Does it provide any actual benefits? Anchors your soul to the astral plane which you could use for extraplanat hijinks so far. I'm going to guess bonus damage too. Seems like it would be something the DM would allow.
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Feb 18, 2020 22:09
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It seems to be mainly something you'd swear to make sure your future self follows through on it. If you're the kind of person who can't motivate themselves without promise of reward or looming punishment. Obviously didn't work in this case, but hey.
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Feb 18, 2020 22:44
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it's basically a soul 
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Feb 18, 2020 23:07
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sebmojo posted:hell yes, that's a deep cut. The sequels were only ok, but the ideas in the first one were insanely good The loyalty geas annoyed me because I'd recently read Greg Egan's Quarantine, which does some interesting poo poo with the notion of enforced loyalty. Hyperspace being purgatory was amazing, though. edit: and, in keeping with the past few pages, I've been reading this thread since at least 2007. Probably earlier, but I started at the beginning and went all the way through until I caught up (which is why I haven't been posting in the Comic Strip Megathreads for a few years).
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Feb 18, 2020 23:23
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ikanreed posted:So the blood oath. Does it provide any actual benefits? If you know you’re set for damnation then an unfulfilled oath that keeps your soul trapped pre-judgement would be a big plus. Less risky than getting a Night Hag to make you immortal anyway.
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Feb 19, 2020 12:20
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If there are any benefits while the Oath is still ongoing we probably would've known about it already, so Rich actually plans for Roy (and maybe Julia too) to get anything out of it, it would be after Xykon is defeated. Maybe it'd be some sort of climatic power-up before the Order go on to deal with the Snarl.
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Feb 19, 2020 15:19
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I wonder if this Julia conversation will advance the plot or if it is just a convenient way to recap.
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Feb 19, 2020 15:47
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Society not advancing in fantasy settings makes more sense from a few perspectives, but not all perspectives are equal. 1. You have actual, real, gods who are watching things. Your religious institutions are probably even more powerful, deeply entrenched, and reactionary. 2. An addendum to (1) You also have evil gods, and Demon Lords and so on, constantly throwing the world into conflict. As much as we talk up WW2 and WW1 advancing scientific progress a whole lot and prompting a lot of innovation; remember that George Orwell posited that pointless conflict and struggle kept people stupid, kept destroying things and arresting human progress in the same permanent stasis. 3. Elves being nigh immortal probably doesn't help but that's probably mainly related to their society. It doesn't necessarily explain human society and most importantly humans especially in Faerun are nominally depicted as adaptable, energetic, and ambitious and thus aren't the sort to be held back just because elves are. 4. I actually mainly blame magic being real. Magic being real largely short circuits the need for innovation in many respects; which is a hilarious irony considering the opposite is true in Fate/Stay Night. Basically magic being a widespread and sometimes even institutional force is like the way oil and gas companies try to suppress climate or renewables. Any technological development that threatens them they might try to squash. Additionally the existance of mages makes the cost and expense of mechanical innovations probably discouraged if the economic incentives aren't there; and as long as wars act as a sort of "Small Filter" to technological development by wiping out any civilization that gets advanced enough you can see how the world might stay the same for a long time. This doesn't explain low magic settings, but in low magic settings like Dragonlance the world hasn't been around for all that long and there was a real major massive cataclysm that hard reset much of the world. ZearothK posted:I wonder if this Julia conversation will advance the plot or if it is just a convenient way to recap. Why not both!
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Feb 19, 2020 15:59
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My preferred answer is just to create settings where society is advancing and things haven't always been the same. In my current game magic is a new and exciting invention and over the past two hundred years people have gone from binding spirits in bits of bone tied together with string to drawing circles and runes on the ground to making weird orrery-type type adjustable spirit-traps that do the same job faster and more efficiently.
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Feb 19, 2020 16:14
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