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I'd kill for a First Law CKIII mod...
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# ? Oct 2, 2020 20:15 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 15:19 |
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Paddyo posted:I'd kill for a First Law CKIII mod... You work you rear end off for 100 years to establish a dynasty and your win condition is that Bayaz comes in and installs someone to control it.
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# ? Oct 2, 2020 20:40 |
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:You work you rear end off for 100 years to establish a dynasty and your win condition is that Bayaz comes in and installs someone to control it. I'd love to be able to play as Bayaz.
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# ? Oct 2, 2020 21:32 |
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Vichan posted:I'd love to be able to play as Bayaz. Isn't that essentially just EU4, some immortal background force guiding the country with no regard for the people in it?
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# ? Oct 2, 2020 21:48 |
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Well Bayaz is unaging but he's hardly immortal. Feel like ten dudes with guns ambushing him would probably be enough to kill him. It's mostly that he's knowledgeable and if he sees you coming you're very dead. Plus he'd probably kill your entire family because he's ruthless to a fault.
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# ? Oct 2, 2020 22:05 |
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Vichan posted:I'd love to be able to play as Bayaz. I think Bayaz would be the Pope in this situation. Only his dread is permanently 100 and if you piss him off he feeds you to the eaters and confiscates your titles. I'm mostly looking forward to having Collem West be my Marshal and Glokta my Spymaster and inviting them all to a nice feast Anyway, I think TBI was better than the first book of the new trilogy but the 2nd was better than BTAH. I'm having a hard time seeing how the 3rd could top TLAK. I see that it's building to something big, but I don't see how it can really top Logan fighting the Feared and Bayaz destroying the Agriont and giving my favorite character magic cancer. There's just not enough oomph in the big conflict they're setting up and there aren't enough big shoes waiting to drop. The biggest things I'm worried about now is what happened to Broad and what happens when Bayaz comes home and finally reasserts himself properly.
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# ? Oct 3, 2020 00:11 |
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It seems like they are starting to lean on magic having more of an impact on events in this latest book too, so I think it's fair to say that the plot is going to take a hard turn away from coups and class warfare.
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# ? Oct 3, 2020 01:07 |
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Relevant Tangent posted:Well Bayaz is unaging but he's hardly immortal. Feel like ten dudes with guns ambushing him would probably be enough to kill him. It's mostly that he's knowledgeable and if he sees you coming you're very dead. Plus he'd probably kill your entire family because he's ruthless to a fault. As seen in the previous trilogy non-eater magic users seem to be easily overwhelmed/tired. I loved how in the last book Sulfur pointed out that he wouldn't be of that much use in a large-scale battle. He might be a very powerful eater but I think a crossbow bolt to the head would still finish him off.
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# ? Oct 3, 2020 12:15 |
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Vichan posted:As seen in the previous trilogy non-eater magic users seem to be easily overwhelmed/tired. Yulwei didn't seem to, imo. Bayaz just wastes his energy on big displays
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# ? Oct 3, 2020 13:31 |
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So this book had the first artillery duel. We’re due some muskets soon aren’t we?
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# ? Oct 3, 2020 14:48 |
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Vichan posted:As seen in the previous trilogy non-eater magic users seem to be easily overwhelmed/tired. He could probably take alot more damage than that. In the first trilogy Glokta caught an eater and tortured it without much effect.
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# ? Oct 3, 2020 18:58 |
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Destro posted:He could probably take alot more damage than that. In the first trilogy Glokta caught an eater and tortured it without much effect. Torture is designed to kill slowly or not at all. I would imagine an axe taking off a head would still end an eater. Though some definitely have crazy regeneration, as we’ve seen. However, they all seem to kind of get random powers, so Yoru may have the speed and skin taking, but a cannon through the torso could still put him back to the mud double time.
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# ? Oct 3, 2020 19:48 |
Crespolini posted:Yulwei didn't seem to, imo. Bayaz just wastes his energy on big displays Bayaz is kind of endearing because he’s always just so pumped whenever he does something visually or technically impressive using magic and he doesn’t care that nobody around him has any context for understanding it. Like in the original trilogy when he blows the hell out of a place and everyone around him is like “Tis magic, will we now die?” and he’s all like “hahahaha, love to see what those fuckers at the academy would say now, conservation of energy my rear end, drat I’m good.”
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 09:06 |
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:Torture is designed to kill slowly or not at all. I would imagine an axe taking off a head would still end an eater. Though some definitely have crazy regeneration, as we’ve seen. However, they all seem to kind of get random powers, so Yoru may have the speed and skin taking, but a cannon through the torso could still put him back to the mud double time. Yeah wasn't implying that a cannonball or the amount of men in a battle wouldn't kill one, just that one crossbow bolt to the head wouldn't.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 09:20 |
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Am I misremembering or at some point in the previous books did they explain that each eater gets a different power? Because Yoru and Shenkt seem to have essentially the same power of bullet time? As far as possible incoming twists in future books Without a doubt Zuri is something special, likely an important eater. The line about how her scripture teacher also taught her about head wounds and was a well learned man suggests her master is the 2nd of the Magi. The bandages might be a direct illusion that she is Ishri. Also a line in A little hatred specifically calling her absence at the solar society meeting. There's too many incidental lines of dialogue for it to not mean something at this point.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 18:39 |
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Megasabin posted:Am I misremembering or at some point in the previous books did they explain that each eater gets a different power? Because Yoru and Shenkt seem to have essentially the same power of bullet time? The original trilogy mentions that each Eater gets different abilities, though there are some things that are fairly universal it seems. Never really explains what determines these abilities, whether it’s something innate or if perhaps more advanced/older Eaters gain new abilities? We don’t see any of the 100 Words do anything really crazy when they face off Bayaz, but maybe he just nuked them too fast. Honestly, Yoru’s bullet time seems like it got kind of added in later. He never used it and it wasn’t mentioned until The Heroes where he used it to defend Bayaz against an exploding cannon, which was the book after Shenkt was introduced. My sense is that after Shenkt was introduced Abercrombie was like “you know it really doesn’t make sense why Shenkt hasn’t just murdered Bayaz at light speed, so let’s give Yoru it as well”.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 19:43 |
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Can people even become true magi anymore without being eaters? Was Bayaz’s apprentice in the first book of the OT the last one who would have actually been able to do that. Although I think it’s ambiguous as to whether Bayaz himself is an eater.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 20:13 |
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Megasabin posted:Bayaz’s apprentice in the first book of the OT Poor guy.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 20:29 |
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I think the point is Eaters are just way easier to make them Magi, because the line between “High Art” and “Eater Magic” is kind of blurred. Plus it takes probably 50 years to teach someone the basics of High Art, so why not just find a bunch of adepts and turn them into Eaters, a few are bound to have useful gifts.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 20:37 |
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:The original trilogy mentions that each Eater gets different abilities, though there are some things that are fairly universal it seems. Never really explains what determines these abilities, whether it’s something innate or if perhaps more advanced/older Eaters gain new abilities? We don’t see any of the 100 Words do anything really crazy when they face off Bayaz, but maybe he just nuked them too fast. I thought so too, but he is actually described as moving with "impossible speed" at the end of LAoK, when he just chumps a pair of eaters with the divider. It's when he's disguised as Morovia. I do think it'd be neater if his thing was "only" the shapeshifting stuff and maybe a little general magic on top of that, so he'd seem more distinct from other eaters.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 22:28 |
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:The original trilogy mentions that each Eater gets different abilities, though there are some things that are fairly universal it seems. Never really explains what determines these abilities, whether it’s something innate or if perhaps more advanced/older Eaters gain new abilities? We don’t see any of the 100 Words do anything really crazy when they face off Bayaz, but maybe he just nuked them too fast. Your moved pretty fast when he killed those two eaters with the magic weapon
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 22:32 |
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You’re both right, I completely forgot about that part. I wonder if Shenkt is faster then him, or if he just realizes that Shenkt at the very least nullifies his biggest advantage, and is in all other aspects a far superior killer.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 22:39 |
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:You’re both right, I completely forgot about that part. I wonder if Shenkt is faster then him, or if he just realizes that Shenkt at the very least nullifies his biggest advantage, and is in all other aspects a far superior killer. Eaters grow in strength as they age and as Crummock-i-Phail pointed out speed is the most dangerous of attributes in an enemy. Shenkt being the senior eater by however much time settles that debate. I'd surmise that they can only bullet-time so much until they need to rest or eat to regain their strength, which is why Yoru Sulfur wouldn't be much use in a battle. While they each have different gifts it seems like all eaters share at least some powers. Superhuman strength and regeneration seem to be universal. As they're presented I don't see one dying by an arrow through the brain, or even necessarily a cannonball through the torso. Or maybe just the stronger ones might survive the latter. Mamun as the oldest known eater in the original trilogy survived whatever Bayaz put him through while every other eater present was (presumably) ripped to shreds. Suxpool fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Oct 5, 2020 |
# ? Oct 5, 2020 04:28 |
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Suxpool posted:I'd surmise that they can only bullet-time so much until they need to rest or eat to regain their strength, which is why Yoru Sulfur wouldn't be much use in a battle. Makes sense. It was mentioned how before the battle at Adua in The Last Argument of Kings the Eaters were eating non-stop in preparation for the assault. Might've just been an intimidation tactic (they ate in full view of the city) but I suspect there's more going on.
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# ? Oct 5, 2020 06:55 |
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Megasabin posted:Can people even become true magi anymore without being eaters? Was Bayaz’s apprentice in the first book of the OT the last one who would have actually been able to do that. Although I think it’s ambiguous as to whether Bayaz himself is an eater. It really isn't, he's not. He's willing to be if he has to but it means giving up too much personal freedom (which ultimately is all Bayaz cares about). He built and maintains an entire kingdom so he could use it against Khalul specifically because he doesn't want to be an Eater.
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# ? Oct 5, 2020 12:08 |
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Relevant Tangent posted:It really isn't, he's not. He's willing to be if he has to but it means giving up too much personal freedom (which ultimately is all Bayaz cares about). He built and maintains an entire kingdom so he could use it against Khalul specifically because he doesn't want to be an Eater. Khalul is an also built a kingdom to fight Bayaz, and is probably an Eater himself. I agree that Bayaz is probably not an Eater, yet. But I also think that may be his last resort. We don’t really have any knowledge on what happens when a powerful Magi becomes an Eater. Does their High Art get supercharged? Do they get extra abilities beyond what even a normal Eater would get?
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# ? Oct 5, 2020 15:08 |
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Roughly 600 years ago around the time the Union was founded Khalul and Mamun broke the second law together and ate the flesh of men to gain power they could use to get vengeance on Bayaz. It's implicitly stated that Khalul is an Eater by any source we've so far had available to us. It's never been suggested, at least to my mind, that Bayaz himself is an Eater, though both of his apprentices we've met so far have been, presumably at his encouragement. (Malacus Quai doesn't count) If we agree that Eaters grow in strength over time, and Bayaz couldn't have been an Eater in the original trilogy, what perceived advantage over Khalul do we imagine he would gain by becoming one at this late juncture?
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 01:51 |
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Suxpool posted:
I mean, the dude has regular magic and even young eaters are pretty drat powerful, so while he wouldn’t be as strong of an eater as Khalul, he’d still be on equal or better footing. He’d be first of the Magi +an eater, which is a better way to face down Khalul than “just first of the Magi”
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 01:59 |
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I mean, the dude has regular magic and even young eaters are pretty drat powerful, so while he wouldn’t be as strong of an eater as Khalul, he’d still be on equal or better footing. He’d be first of the Magi +an eater, which is a better way to face down Khalul than “just first of the Magi” Khalul was the 2nd of the Magi, and seemed to be on par with Bayaz in strength as they were constant rivals while they were younger. He definitely did not become an Eater while studying under Juvens, so it seems like Khalul certainly became an Eater after already being a badass Magi.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 02:51 |
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I mean, the dude has regular magic and even young eaters are pretty drat powerful, so while he wouldnt be as strong of an eater as Khalul, hed still be on equal or better footing. Hed be first of the Magi +an eater, which is a better way to face down Khalul than just first of the Magi If Bayaz thought it was become an Eater or die he'd have done it already. The idea that he's one in secret or going to become one at the last minute to get a power boost is entirely against everything Abercrombie has ever shown us about how the world works. There's probably not going to be a climactic showdown between Bayaz and Khalul because so far that's not the kind of story Abercrombie is interested in telling.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 03:00 |
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Has Abercrombie mentioned any plans after this trilogy? I'd like to see him do another set stand alone novels in the universe again. On the topic of Bayaz something is obviously happening in the old empire and I'm convinced were going to get blinded side in the third book. Bayaz is normally hands off but it seems like things are dire enough in midland he would be at least a little more attentive instead of spending most of his time in the west.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 03:19 |
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Not disappointed with this new trilogy at all but still kinda missing Javre and Shev. He hasn't stated any plans (and why would he, there's still more trilogy to release) but I hope he drops a few more standalones as well, considering The Heroes is his best book by a good bit (fight me about it). Preferably he'd start with giving us a story about the aforementioned ladies.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 08:51 |
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Suxpool posted:It's never been suggested, at least to my mind, that Bayaz himself is an Eater, though both of his apprentices we've met so far have been, presumably at his encouragement. (Malacus Quai doesn't count) He does eat a bunch of raw meat next to a pile of human corpses in front of Calder. Also he says that the "real first law" is "might makes right" (paraphrasing). He definitely wasn't an eater on the journey to get the seed, if he didn't do it in between the first trilogy and The Heroes, he may have done it since then before the new trilogy, or do it in the next book. But if he doesn't do it, I don't think it's got anything to do with the laws, he just doesn't want the downsides that come with it. As for why, just desperation really, if he gets into a bad spot and his magic is fading all the time, he could end up in a situation where it's become an eater or die.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 09:32 |
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He's got the seed and knows how to use it, he's got the only thing which can let in more magic back in the world, so I don't think he'll drop dead from lack of magic.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 10:28 |
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Brendan Rodgers posted:He does eat a bunch of raw meat next to a pile of human corpses in front of Calder. Also he says that the "real first law" is "might makes right" (paraphrasing). The main reason why he didn't become an Eater and isn't very likely to become one are the other Magi. He managed to recruit them for his cause or at least assure their neutrality by portraying Khalul as a wicked lawbreaker who does everything for power. Becoming an Eater would ruin this. This is also the reason why he usually employs one Eater, instead of creating an entire army like his nemesis. Of course, with Khalul defeated and Zacharus apparently creating his own nation project with Emperor Goltus, the alliance may dissolve. It doesn't help that Yoru Sulfur whom everyone knows as Bayaz apprentice seems to be showing off his Eater powers. The future doesn't seem that bright for the First of the Magi and he may turn into an Eater out of sheer desperation.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 10:40 |
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Question about The Trouble With Peace ebook. It's really bothering me that there are no scene breaks when PoVs change. In my copy, there's not even an extra line return. Some of the chapters are hard to follow, especially the wedding scene, with the PoV hopping into different heads every couple hundred words. Its exasperated by Joe's habit of taking a leisurely time to establish the new viewpoint when a scene changes, and by the multiplicity of characters in this new series. I don't recall this being an issue with the OT or the other stand alones, but I read those in hardback. Are there scene breaks in the paper edition?
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 18:06 |
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I read the ebook and didnt have that problem. There are line breaks between each pov.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 19:00 |
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Yeah same, perhaps an ebook reading app/device issue?
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 19:35 |
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Shoot. I'm using ReadEra on an android phone. I'll try a different reader. Thanks for the help.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 20:40 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 15:19 |
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Something I noticed in The Trouble with Peace: there's a theme across several of the more antagonisty characters of red hair Seleste, the Judge, Shylo, and the Styrian spy who is clearly Shylo's kid all have red hair. Seleste might be wearing wig, since that's the style, but since she also name-drops being locked in the house of the maker I tend to think she's more important than she lays on. As for the others, I don't know what to make of it - I don't know if the Judge is actually Shylo, or if they're all her/Cas's kids, or if it's spurious, or what.
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# ? Oct 6, 2020 21:54 |