: Actually, "minions of the Fallen" is used to
: describe Fetch, not Thrall or Shades. Which would make
: sense, because Fetch are like Ghτls or Mauls--living
: creatures not directly bound to the Dark. As for the
: definition of "Fallen" itself: "Having
: no loyalties, [Cave Spiders] will also attack the
: Fallen."
in a general and broad sense, the word Fallen deals with anything that is a part of the Fallen Lords' armies.
: "[Alric] learned by chance that Balor had bound each
: of The Fallen to himself, to ensure their obedience to
: his will. The Fallen draw their power through these
: links, and were Balor to be killed they would all be
: powerless. The armies of the Dark would
: collapse."
this quote above seems actually to back me up, because Balor bound each of the Six Fallen Lords to his will, the shades appear to be bound to the six Fallen Lords themselves, acting as channels of their power. in this quote "Fallen" is meant as the Six Fallen Lords themselves, as there is no solid evidence that Balor also bound the shades which were subordinate to specific Fallen Lords.
: "These men are all that remains of the Empire of the
: Cath Bruig. Formerly the guards of the Emperor, they
: disbanded and wandered the earth in self-imposed exile
: after the Fallen destroyed Muirthemne and everyone in
: it."
Fallen in general, yup
: "Travelling across the continent, [the Legion] broke
: through the Fallen lines..."
same
: The implication of these quotes is that
: "Fallen" encompasses many Dark units in low
: and high ranks, and possibly also Balor himself (since
: it was he who destroyed Muirthemne.) I think that
: "Fallen" is casually used to describe *all*
: of Balor's and Soulblighter's forces, from Balor
: himself on down to Thrall and Fetch. In its stricter
: sense, it refers only to those beings who are Fallen
: by nature--the undead and others who are bound to dark
: magics.
and finally in the strictest sense of all, Fallen refers to 'only the Six Fallen Lords whose names are Soulblighter, Shiver, the Deceiver, the Watcher, and unknown other two'. in the sense described above, Fallen doesn't include anything other than the six Fallen Lords. not shades, not Balor, not thrall nor ghols etc, only the six.
: Well, you torture a rival Fallen Lord because you hate
: him and care nothing for his assistance...and you
: torture a Ghτl because you've got some sadism to work
: out and it doesn't really matter if your army's one
: Ghτl less...but if you take the time and trouble to
: make a Shade in the first place, you must at least
: want him as a useful tool. Creating a Shade just so
: you can waste your time and his by torturing him
: periodically is hardly practical. :-) And if they
: promised that kind of ill-treatment, then the whole
: revenge thing would be futile anyway. I mean, can you
: imagine a Fallen Lord telling you "Well, I'll
: make you into a Shade, and I'll work you to
: metaphorical death and torture you horribly...but I
: can promise that I'll be perfectly kind and
: conscientious about letting you run off and get
: revenge on your disloyal subjects!" Anyone who
: agreed to that would be too stupid to be worth
: Shadifying.
again, shades exist in a torturous, evil state of existence, which is, when you look at the big picture, handed out by the Fallen Lords. so by becoming a shade, the wizard endures the direct and indirect tortures which the Fallen put their way ("of the Fallen").
: Many Shades have been Shades for an awful long time.
: Phelot has. Mazzarin (if it's the same Mazzarin)
: certainly has. Even if they were rebuilt perfectly
: intact at the moment of Shadification, they should
: still be rotting to bits after a few months. Some sort
: of magic is keeping their bodies preserved for decades
: or centuries--as it is for all the other
: undead/unliving creatures. Soulblighter's preservation
: perks are just higher-quality, that's all. Probably
: assisted by his limited shape-shifting abilities; if
: you can turn into a flock of crows and back again, you
: can probably fix minor things like a missing finger or
: two.
first i think nothing undead is more powerful than a shade can be, due to the simple fact this hasn't been proven in game. if that is true, you can see why i cannot believe that soulblighter is un-something. his abilities tower above those of a shade's, in the same way Alric's do. and alric is alive. it just makes perfect sense to me to equate the power irregularity to the fact that he is either alive or in a unique limbo state which i proposed that no one on this forum is willing to take a second look at :(
: We don't actually know what other necromantic processes
: require--for all we know, you have to mutilate every
: creature in some fashion before making it
: undead/unliving, and you always have to kill a few
: extra people. Probably not, but there's no evidence
: either way.
true there is no evidence. but remember this was "self-mutiliation", not the mutilation of the thing you are trying to reanimate. so if doesn't fit; soulblighter's process cannot be a necromantic ritual as it seems.
: We do know that Thrall have to be made from damaged, old
: corpses; Soulless obviously get their legs taken off
: at some point; and Wights have to have lots of
: stitches put in (though by that time they're already
: so ugly that it's debatable whether you'd call it
: mutilation or not.) So mutilation is required for at
: least some kinds of un-making.
but again, the mutilation of the self, not that of the 3rd party, plus the other sacrifices makes it different. besides, mutilation is *specifically* the removal of the heart and majority of the face, which is not evident at all in any other kind of un-creature. not alive, not dead, not un-something to me = something new and not explored before, something at least similar to a limbo-existence.
: As for ritual sacrifice--well, come on, this is a fantasy
: world. Every outstanding work of Black Magic requires
: human sacrifice. Making a Soulblighter is a big job,
: and doubtless requires more energy and knowledge than
: most necromantic undertakings. Human sacrifice could
: provide power in the form of life energy, or it could
: propitiate dark gods or demons that would then enable
: the process. That seems as or more plausible to me
: than that killing a bunch of people somehow allows you
: to disinfect your body really well. :-)
the leveler doesn't appear to seek specific sacrifices to his name, just death and general destruction. he trusts no one. and knowing that SB pledges his allegiance to the Leveler, it appears he sacrifices to another spirit, most possibly b'y'laggo (sp?). and that particular spirit doesn't have connections to undeath/unlife, which must mean something different.
i dont remember saying about anything similar to the last sentence in your reply above, i have always thought the sacrifices were to a dark god (b'y'laggo probably) which validated his search for his twice-born state of being. therefore the removal of the heart and the face finally preserved him, leaving him frozen as he was, thus preserved in a limbo-like state.
: She could die anywhere up until TFL...she doesn't have to
: die in Myth III.
on this one, we just have to wait and see for MWA since it most likely will be solved. if GURPS *is* proven correct and ravanna does die, it still doesn't validate anything else said about her in GURPS. someone once proposed that Myth 3 will solve this question:
Is she Ravanna, the loveless child of the unwed dawn, or Shiver, mother of plagues who first created the Wights
this question is asked assuming the statements in GURPS are true, but ravanna is light in mwa. she cannot be either of those, just a female light archmage. if ravanna was a normal light archmage in Myth 3 then most of the things said about shiver in GURPS must be wrong. especially the made-up-on-the-spot names like "loveless child of the unwed dawn" and "mother of plagues".
: Ah, I see...she's very old *and* a victim of botched
: plastic surgery. Well...um...okay. I won't try to
: argue with that. :-)
good :D
: Why wouldn't an unliving person care about their looks,
: if they retain their original memories and
: personality? Myrmidons can't help being ugly, and
: that's half the reason they're totally insane. Shades
: care enough to dress themselves more classily than,
: say, Myrdred does. I see no reason why Shiver wouldn't
: care about it--particularly when she doesn't know how
: she really looks, thanks to the glamour clouding her
: eyes. Even Myth II Shiver, who was basically a
: souped-up Shade and perfectly aware of her own
: ugliness, still retained her old vanity.
she wouldn't undergo the un- process willingly, knowing that she would become hideous. this would mean, that if she was undead, she would have had to have been killed before. but she wasn't killed in TFL because the Head didn't tell Rabican something, instead her spirit was casted upon the ether. when soulblighter brought her back using tramist's mirror, it does not appear to be any kind of necromantic magic, but something totally different with a different purpose. this is why her corpse remains don't slump to the floor when Myrdred kills her, rather all kinds of *other* magics fling upward then sink down, which is totally unlike any kind of un-something demise ever seen before. so in essence, rabican defeated her but did not kill her fully, when finally Myrdred did.
: Because Mazzarin was the greatest Avatara in history!
: That's like an American not knowing about George
: Washington. No one knew about Connacht/Balor because
: no one was there to see Connacht wander off and get
: Leveller-possessed. But they still knew who Connacht
: was, quite well. And the narrator knew quite a few of
: the major Wind Age facts.
not really. these people only know about recent things, not many unknown generations ago. washington wasn't that long ago, he is in Only the Relative past, because we personally are a few hundred years older. but hundreds of hundreds, and thousands! how can we expect Any Normal man in the Legion to know even their basic ancient history! these are shockingly uneducated people! they just know they have to fight to survive, and little else other than warped legends and campfire stories. think about it: the name Soulblighter was just a childhood legend.... Only Sixty Years Later! how can mazzarin be known to any normal person... hundreds of years later!
: And I do believe that a confrontation with Mazzarin was
: initially planned, so his name would have been left on
: the Shade list after it was pruned. I just think they
: switched plans later. Personally, amusing "Alric
: was someone else in a previous life" theories
: aside, the Alric-Sinis conversation is clearly another
: example of a halfway-completed story change.
the conversation happened because alric must have read that Mazzarin killed Sinis way back in the day. now the Sinis shade is here, and Alric is now Living a legend which he read about in a scholars dusty tome or scroll. Alric was Not present when Mazz killed Sinis because of the time differences. nor was he mazz. :) he just knew about that vague old story, like this:
you read in a history book that Hitler killed himself. then he comes into the US right now, today with an army, and you say to him
"hitler! i thought you died when you stuck i burning piece of steel in your brain!"
therefore, alric read about it (being the educated man he was unlike everyone else) and then all of a sudden he is introduced to his shade-form, and remembers reading about his death when sinis was alive.
: If there's no difference between them, then there's
: almost certainly no undead/unliving difference between
: them, as one would expect from looking at the other
: Un-units. Hence the Mazzarin Shade was a mistake.
a very huge (the biggest error), ridiculously obvious mistake unlike any other in both the games :)
: That's the old TFL Shade definition, same way there's an
: old Avatara definition. These are the mistakes that
: gamemakers make even when they're not normal. :-)
the old avatara definition was simply "the Nine." which is true... BUT the Myth II definition only Expanded (not recanted) on the older definition by saying there were Avatars before the Nine, and that the Nine simply were the Last Avatara. so both definitions can be taken as 100% truth, just the first one has to be looked upon with a new perspective (god forbid) :D
so why not consider Both old And new Shade definitions to be truth? it is evident that Light Avatars can be reanimated as thrall are reanimated, and they must given a new mind to "fill in the blank" so that they can speak, think, etc. just like volunteer shades do. the fill in the blank mind must be influenced by whoever made that shade. thus the Body of Mazzarin became a shade when the Watcher reanimated it, gave it the shade powers it could handle, and created a dark magic to be inside the body. changing it's name would lessen the effect and memory of such a great victory.
: There would be no reason to have two kinds of
: Shade-making. If you can kill mages, raise them and
: get exactly the same kind of Shade, who cares about
: bargains? Just smack down any middling-powerful mage
: you see (an easy task for a Fallen Lord), resurrect
: him and make him do what you want.
perhaps the bargain saves the Fallen Lord the trouble of having to fill in the blank mind so that it can be intelligent. what you're saying is that avatar corpses cannot be reanimated then. but they can be because it is said in TFL... and I am aware of the appearance of a difference in the old and new definitions, but they Both must be True because it is in the game! they have to be true because it wasn't omitted from TFL, therefore it is simply in-game canon, which should be undisputable in all senses.
we just have to think of a way to comprehend Both as Truth (since they are both in the game they have to be true). remember when you said that since soulless are in MWA we have to think of a way for them to be there since in essence they really shouldn't? now let's think of a way to accept both canonicle definitions of shadehood in the same way I found a way to accept both canonical (old And new) definitions of avatara.
the only way to accept both is this: A) shades can be reanimated from avatar corpses and given pseudo-minds by the Fallen who reanimated them, perhaps even the pseudo-mind is a part of the spirit of the Fallen who gives it (like stygian knights, who knows) and B) Shades can be made from the still living dark wizards who agree to it.
if you can understand the way that i presented to accept both Avatara definitions you can certainly understand the way i presented to explain both shade definitions. how can we just throw out the old TFL definition like it was trash? and the fact that mazzarin is in the shade names string simply backs up the TFL definition like a brick wall.
i mean, who knows? maybe cormorant was once a light avatar that was killed and reanimated too.
: You wouldn't call it anything. It would just be (Shade),
: same way the Thrall and Wights and Soulless are
: unnamed. The only named Un-units are those who retain
: their former personalities.
the pseudo-mind that has to be given to a renaimated avatar merely takes on the name of its previous owner; that would make 2 un-unit kinds who retain their names.
: Then there's no reason to have him there. If you have a
: story-significant character in a game--or someone who
: shares the same name and body as a story-significant
: character--then you either have him appear and treat
: it as appropriately significant, or you don't have him
: appear at all. That's part of making a good story, the
: sort of story that Exceptional Game Developers create.
: :-)
but just how relevant was mazz to the immediate TFL storyline, not just its past? besides, just because some shade shares the same name and body as a hero, doesn't mean he has to get an introduction or anything at all. the fact that he's there isn't even enough, who cares that you encounter the body of some long dead guy that did stuff you barely heard about?
: Shades certainly do stand a chance against Avatara, at
: least in-game. TFL Alric and a Shade are close to
: evenly matched, and Alric's a mid-range Avatara. I
: agree that the average Shade is less powerful than the
: average Avatara, but that's because most of those who
: became Shades were less powerful than most Avatara
: when they were alive--the Avatara-class dark mages get
: recruited to be Fallen Lords, either while they're
: alive like Myrdred or after they're reanimated like
: Shiver. And you can't say that the Fallen Lords must
: be living because they're powerful, unless you've
: *first* proved that none of them are unliving. :-)
in the game, alric kills the shade, in life, alric would have raped that shade, but time and engine limitations and other things made them fight similarly in game battles.
i say that the immense abilities of the fallen is one of the reasons that they cannot be undead, because it has not been proven that any of them are unliving :)
: Not that I can think of.
just wanted to check and make sure i didn't leave any out.
: --SiliconDream
-Welly
