: No, but they do "endure the indescribable tortures
: of the Fallen," which suggests that there's some
: sort of basic physical makeup which is shared by
: Shades and at least a few of the Fallen Lords.
you interpret that quote like this: the shades had to endure the same tortures that the fallen lords endured.
i interpret it like this: the shades endured the tortures that the fallen lords put onto them.
"of the Fallen" leads me to think the statement means that the fallen were torturing them in some sense, as with difficult missions and terrible locations (marshes sometimes and other places with water etc.)
it might take a minute, but try to see my interpretation of the phrase. because it took me a minute to understand yours :^D
: But Shades don't have the healing vulnerability either.
i've always believed this was due to the nature of the corpse being reanimated. because the former avatar or dark avatar had such immense strength, when his body is reanimated, it simply lacks some of the weak points of the lesser un- creatures like thrall wights soulless etc. but the idea that it is an altered form of undeath is possible too, but it is becoming clear we probably will never know as MWA will most likely not answer such trivial things.
: Which could mean that they also fall into a separate
: category...but I think it's more likely that they
: simply use defensive and regenerative magics to combat
: that particular vulnerability. Just as root rituals or
: other powerful spells turn Alric or a Heron Guard into
: a "human Plus", resistant or immune to many
: things which hurt ordinary humans, archmage-level
: magics can turn an unliving Soulblighter or Shade into
: "unliving Plus."
ah but what I am saying is that Soulblighter is some vague unknown form of "human plus" (or should i say "human negative"?) while the shades would seem to fall into the "unliving plus" category.
: In other words, anyone who reaches archmage level can
: basically custom-create their own subcategory to be
: in, but I think they still fundamentally fall into
: "Living plus improvements" or "Unliving
: plus improvements" or so forth.
right. but we differ in which improvement category we believe that the Fallen themselves fall into: living or unliving plus. then of course there is that crazy deal with negative we can consider. :D
: GURPS is pretty much the only source which says she was
: beautiful, and it describes her appearance as
: "gauzy." Hence, her beauty was the product
: of magical glamour. If you get a close look at her--as
: in the TFL postgame pics, or in the Tales of the
: Fallen Lords Comic--her true form is wizened and
: almost Myrmidon-like. Rabican apparently defeated her
: (as you can see in Tales) by tearing the glamour from
: her eyes so that she could see herself as she really
: was. With her vanity mortally wounded, she froze and
: let herself get nuked.
if GURPS happens to be right that her beauty was actually the product of magic then it is clear how rabican could have lifted that veil and made her see herself. but let's consider this: in Myth 3 i think that shiver will be hot. why would they make hideous? now, in M3 she is obviously Light, which would mean that the guys over at MJ would most likely make her attractive. a hideous female Light archmage? it doesn't mix.
so far, almost everything GURPS says about shiver is mixed up and moot. everyone knows Shiver and Ravanna are the same, because it so clearly, and obviously, states it in-game. yet in GURPS, it becomes evident that seabolt is ignorant to this fact. and yes, i know the story why :^D
the "loveless child of unwed dawn" and all the other nicknames mentioned in GURPS and not heard of previously, have to be looked at like this:
they are seabolt's conjecture, and could be just as far from the truth as saying "Twice Born" and "Soulblighter" are two different people, when we know that in the spelling and names of the character in Myth he is the same.
if shiver is Light in M3, she is Living. if she gets bagged at the end of the game or during some point, then i could see how the GURPS statement that she was resurrected before TFL was correct. but she could not have been ressurected before that point, because she was alive during M3.
which means that she was might not be on her second and third lives during TFL and M3 respectively. she in fact could have been on her first life throughout all the games, because if we assume she isn't faded at the end of M3, she is still alive in TFL for Balor to come and take her to the Dark. whether rabican killed her is questionable too: it is obvious he defeated her and destroyed much or all of her body, but whatever "afterlife" myth people go to was plainly not the path she followed, b/c she went to the ether region, and thus was able to be gathered by Tramist's Mirror (which GURPS calls 'Trabist's'... go figure.
The only valid names for Shiver are: Shiver, Ravanna, and most likely Culwyeh. the name "the voiceless one" appears to be a name that was supposed to be used for TFL, but Bungie just dropped it. and nicknames like "mother of plagues" and "loveless child of unwed dawn" simply cannot be validated yet.
: Also, GURPS suggests that Shiver was revived from death
: by Balor prior to TFL; he could have raised her as an
: Undead at that point.
although that is conceivable, personally i can't agree that she was killed prior to TFL, because we have to wait for MWA to see. but if she was killed, i don't think Balor used unlife to bring her back, instead he used Tramist Mirror magics, which so far we know almost nothing about.
: Well, it's still up in the air whether that Shade was
: truly Mazzarin--and if he was, whether he was as much
: Mazzarin as was originally intended. And even if that
: was Mazzarin, one might expect The Watcher and Balor
: to rein in his power as punishment and protection. For
: less illustrious Shades, the power to raise mass
: undead and wield a Dream is quite impressive--Shades
: perform almost as well as Alric, at least in-game. And
: Turqine apparently sought to become a Shade so that he
: might have the power to take revenge on his foes. So
: one might suspect that some mages actually experience
: a power boost when Shadified.
that shade had to have been mazzarin, because Bungie wouldn't have been as lame as to use that name more than once for different characters. it just doesn't make sense for such an error to get in the game.
the power boost might just be a chance to stay around. living mages would be killed unless allied with the Fallen, whether or not they were Light, because the Fallen had no greta love for each other, why would they trust other Dark sorcerors who are much more "loosely" allies? therefore these mages, like Turquine, underwent the tortures that the Fallen inflicted on him to become a Shade, rather than be killed outright and be dead. Shadehood > death is their mindframe.
: Plus, of course, the Fallen Lords had Balor backing them
: up; it's possible that The Watcher wouldn't have been
: nearly so impressive without the Leveller as a power
: source.
but who says Balor would not have backed him if he wasn't undead?
: Both Shiver and The Deceiver seem to have
: taken a power hit between games; Soulblighter didn't,
: but then he had 60 years to regain his strength.
during TFL, the six Fallen used the Leveler as an almost endless supply of magic energy it seems, and his demise kind of gave them an "energy shock" that allowed the Light survivors to come and negate Myrdred, and also most likely kill the 2 unnamed Fallen who were the weakest and thus most likely to be the most vulnerable of the remaining Fallen after Balor's demise.
: --SiliconDream
-Welly
