: by binding the six Fallen Lords to himself directly, he
: binds the armies and the other undead/unliving
: creatures in a more indirect way because they are in
: turn bound to the Fallen Lords directly. i doubt even
: the leveler could hold such a close range on countless
: hundreds of thousands... if he could, why have fallen
: lords to lead them in the first place? by binding the
: six, whom he gives the armies to, he has bound them
: all, but in different levels.
No, he can't directly control what all of his creatures are doing--but the nature of his binding is stated as "without him, they would be powerless." Which, it turns out, the Light was wrong about--but anyway, this form of binding doesn't require him to hold all their minds closely--he can just shut down the power to anyone he sees obviously disobeying him.
: of course i am not saying he hasn't bound the shades and
: the wights and everything else... he has, but not in
: the same way or on the same level as when he bound the
: six Fallen Lords.
Sure. The Fallen Lords he "bent to his will." Everyone else he just empowered.
: neither is there a quote that determines the levels of
: his binding, the main idea of which I am trying to
: convey.
: I never said that shades draw their energy from the
: Fallen Lords, instead their Loyalty is bound to them..
: not energy. you can see now that we both agree shades
: do not necessarily draw their strength from the six
: Fallen Lords directly, but they are 'bound' in the
: sense of loyalty. The six Fallen Lords are, however,
: bound in loyalty *and* in many ways energy-wise as
: well to the Leveler.
Nonetheless, if Balor has bound many creatures besides the Fallen Lords, then when Alric discovers that "Balor has bound each of the Fallen to himself," it's most likely that he's referring to all those creatures. The Fallen Lords in particular are, as you say, possessed of a unique mental slavery as well.
: that's not true. here's a quote that equates
: "Fallen" with "Fallen Lords".
: "The battle for Madrigal lasted four days without
: pause. Shiver fell on the first night in a spectacular
: dream duel with Rabican, one of the Nine. No one
: expected this. We have never before challenged one of
: The Fallen and won."
: one can see how similar the phrases are (the simple fact
: that the former is *half* the latter) and how though
: they are not interchangable, Fallen can certainly
: pertain to the Fallen Lords. it's just a shortened
: form.
That's true--I overlooked that quote. Still, "Fallen" can refer to Shades as well and I think that makes more sense in the context of the Turquine flavor. But we've hashed that out ad infinitum.
: but this 'more powerful' unliving state you speak of has
: never been found before in any other examples. surely
: if soulblighter is unliving, he would make his
: shadesin a similar state as well. but he hasn't,
: because it's not unlife, but something different.
Conversely, if Soulblighter is in living limbo, he would make his human flunkies into a similar state. Or would he? Maybe he doesn't want his servants to be as powerful as he is. Maybe he can't make them like him because he was an exceptional being to start with. Either of these would explain his in-game uniqueness, no matter what his precise nature is.
Postulating the existence of somewhat tougher but still unliving creatures (especially when much of Soulblighter's toughness could be explained by the fact that he was a legendary hero to begin with) is simpler than postulating an entirely new "limbo" form of existence.
: I didn't complicate things by proposing the preserved
: state of his life, i made them simpler. i guess i
: could say you complicated things by proposing the
: Tain/Time/Space spells which the summoner used to
: ressurrect the Krids. but you didn't complicate
: things, you made them simpler with that proposal
: because you believed at that time the dream of unlife
: wasn't discovered. therefore your proposal made more
: sense assuming that the dream wasn't found and
: therefore the Summoner was in fact not using
: Necromantic abilities at all but something different
: and unique to him.
I wouldn't have proposed time/space magic if we didn't already know that they existed from seeing teleport spells and the Tain's accelerated timeframe. And I wouldn't have opposed a necromantic explanation if the Myrkridia weren't conspicuously Living creatures.
: same way I say soulblighter is using something different
: and unique to him.
: but there has never been such a specific ritual to
: anything un-made before, and i do not think undead
: creatures require rituals to be made... in the Myth II
: intro, the thrall just pops out of the ground in front
: of the bowman that tripped... no mutilation or rituals
: or anything.
a) We've seen Thrall pop out of the ground before--that doesn't mean they were made on the spot, simply that they buried themselves for an ambush.
b) We've never actually seen any undead being created, but obviously they require *some* sort of ritual. They don't just arise spontaneously. A "ritual" can refer to whatever casting a necromantic spell requires.
c) That was a dream! That was Alric's fevered vision re-encapsulating all of TFL in thirty seconds! That has no bearing on Mythworld reality whatsoever! :-)
: ahhh but tell me... what can *not* be harmed by swords
: and lightning and lava?
: crappy limbo? in fact, his limbo is the best (besides
: only) we've ever seen! he cannot be harmed by arrows
: at All, swords do almost no damage on virtually any
: realistic level, it takes unrealistic amounts of
: Lightning to affect him... crappy? this is certainly
: unlike Any un-being ever encountered before :^)
But "limbo" is having your body frozen in time, right? You should be totally immune to any sort of damage or alteration without first disrupting the spell. And once damage is done, it should be equally difficult to repair. What does it mean to be only "kinda" frozen in time? Much simpler to consider him an exceptional hero (Alric's also heavily resistant, particularly to lightning) who has the additional benefits of Unbeing.
: the only trade off for such an incredible and towering
: immunity to such fantastic amounts of battle damage
: was his healing weakness... which was *completely*
: overcome by the time of Myth II. think about it.. if
: he was Unliving, why not just remove the healing
: weakness in the first place like with shades? why wait
: over sixty years? the only explanation can be that he
: is not unliving or undead... but instead simply
: something else.. alive, but warped into a preserved
: limbo.
We have a clear explanation for why it took a while to fix. He left TFL a magically-enhanced warrior; he returned to Myth II as a highly talented mage. Once he reached and excelled the magical talents that Shades possess, he was able to eliminate his healing vulnerability just as they can.
On the other hand, why would putting himself in "limbo" give him a healing weakness he could then fix centuries later?
: but GURPS successes are mostly just mere quotes from the
: games or just a rehash of stuff we know, on the other
: hand, somewhat wild speculation is it's faults.
Only if you classify "successes" as things we "know" to be true because the game already said it. If you don't believe GURPS unless the game confirms it, then you've already closed your mind to the possibilities of its "wild speculation."
: perhaps if Myth III doesn't go by the Bungie papers, it
: is "wrong" in a sense... but we will just
: have to make it "right" because, like it or
: not, Bungie sold Myth to them and they can do anything
: they like (which is a scary prospect but unfortunately
: is true). you had said that we must think of a way for
: the Soulless to be in Myth III even though they
: shouldn't... well know we must think of a way for
: this.
I said that from the point of view of story analysis of *Myth III,* not the analysis of the original Bungie story underlying TFL and Myth II. As a matter of fact, I *don't* think Moagim "really" had Soulless, or Forsaken; I think it's pretty clear that MJ knew that Soulless and Myrms are well-liked and gameplay-important units, so they shoehorned them in to make the game more fun. Which is perfectly commendable for game designers to do, of course.
Once you bring in Myth III, you're talking about two different conceptual worlds. One, the world imagined jointly by the Bungie team; the other, the world imagined jointly by the MJ team. They overlap, because MJ tries as far as other considerations will allow to remain consistent with the first two games. But new information brought by Myth III has no bearing on the original Bungie world--unless, that is, we find out that it was based faithfully on the TFL/Myth II design documents. Even then, Myth III would be slightly less reliable than, say, GURPS: both its creators and those of GURPS would have had direct access to info from Bungie, but only GURPS would have been edited, playtested and authorized by Bungie.
Naturally this has no bearing on the *quality* of Myth III's story.
: So Myrdred walks like an old man, looks like an old man,
: sounds like one too.. so he must be an old man. But
: wait! Alric fits all those things too! and Alric is an
: Emperor, the last of the Nine Avatara.... so therefore
: Myrdred, being an old man just like alric, must be an
: emperor too, and a light avatar.
And whaddyaknow, he is an Avatara. :P Which is actually relevant, since most comparatively unassuming-looking high-class Mages are Light and therefore probably Avatara.
Of course, there are thousands of old men walking around who are definitely not Emperors or Avatara. Whereas we have yet to see floating shadow-casting mummies with sepulchral voices who are definitely not Shades.
: at least we agree that Rabican didn't kill her that day.
: Tramist's mirror makes spirits from the ether region
: corporeal again... not Unlife as we have been defining
: it at all.
Unlife as we have been defining it makes no reference to where the spirit comes from--it's merely a set of physical and mental characteristics. But there must *be* a spirit, or it wouldn't be Unlife; it would be Undeath. If Rabican had truly killed her and left the body, it could be raised as an mindless undead creature; if he had truly killed her and destroyed the body, nothing could be recovered.
True, so little is known about Tramist's mirror that we can't offhand say whether its products are living or unliving. But consider that Tramist's mirror took a disembodied spirit, created (in some fashion) a vacant body, and implanted one in the other. There are Unliving disembodied spirits: Mahir. And there are Undead vacant-but-functioning bodies: Thrall, Wights, and so forth. Thus both the components of the Shiver-to-be were very likely to be Un, which points to the final product being unliving.
(Random alternative theory: if Tramist's mirror implants spirits in bodies, perhaps it's what the Leveller--or the A and B spirits--actually uses to inhabit its avatars.)
: How would the beserks recognize him and know his name...
: they wouldn't. if they didn't know his name, but
: killed him and then survived, how would anyone know
: what to call him when they got back? all that needs to
: be known was that the watcher was shattered. nothing
: was mentioned about him in the pregame texts or the
: pregame of the next level because he wasn't
: significant enough, like Cormorant wasn't. the shades
: aren't mentioned in the pregames of TFL as important
: (that is, if they are mentioned at All, i can't
: remember) no matter who they once were... you don't
: get a congrats every time you kill a shade, regardless
: who he once was... it doesn't matter who he was to
: these people, just as long as he is dead.
It matters to us, the players. And heck yeah, it matters to the TFL people. Like you said, it's a spit in the Light's eye to have an undead Mazzarin wandering around causing havoc. They'd care who he was and what happened to him.
: but maybe, for some odd and unknowable reason, the zerks
: Realized who he was and told alric they killed him.
: Was the watcher mentioned after you killed him? nope.
: why the heck would they mention one of his shades?
Because we spent a whole narration going "Hey, we're gonna kill the Watcher now," and then there was an entire level devoted to it. That issue was dealt with.
: that's not a story defect at all. in fact it fits
: perfectly with the tfl shade definition that he is
: there. and why does it matter that someone
: "has" to know him? isn't it enough that he
: is there and you get to kill him? no one
: "had" to know cormorant... but he was there.
: now, cormorant can't be a mistake too.
No one knows or cares who Cormorant was. He wasn't the greatest Avatara in history.
: You say that this reply is from some trashed story arc.
: obviously the story arc wasn't included in the final
: release, so therefore it is not canon. but the name
: "mazzarin" was included. we just have to
: interpret his reply in a way that makes sense to the
: 'actual' storyline, for example, like this: the word
: "seen" in Sinis's reply is the only thing
: that makes us believe that Alric must have been there
: when it happened. change the word to "read"
: or "heard" and we can understand that alric
: had just known about him from history or heard about
: it in legend (which is exactly the truth). take the
: original quote in this new context, and you can see
: how it makes sense if you look at in under this new
: light.
So it makes sense if you change it. Well then. :-)
: actually, we know what happened to myrdred after TFL. he
: wasn't killed, as the ignorant people believed he was,
: he was still "clinging" to life by
: preservation magics only: thus he wasn't killed. the
: dialog between the two ignorant zerks is at the
: beginning of The Ermine is null and void.
According to the Myth II manual, Alric, and pretty much everyone else before "The Stair of Grief", Myrdred disappeared after Seven Gates. According to TFL and the Journeyman who nailed him, he actually crossed back into the Province with his army after Seven Gates and waged war until Balor's death, at which point he was chased into the Cloudspine and deep-frozen. It is very very strange that all these latter events were forgotten (especially when Alric was told about part of them back in TFL), and that the Journeyman didn't see fit to remind anybody for sixty years...
: and i think it is clear what happened to him after
: Shiver: he got bagged. it even says he is dead in the
: scripting. they wouldn't blow him apart like that if
: he didn't die then and there and then not tell you
: anything. and yes, i am aware of the whole thing about
: there is a small chance he is living inside phelot,
: but i don't believe it, because if he could so easily
: travel between bodies, he could have done that during
: TFL to allow himself to flee, or even to kill the
: watcher by some elaborate scheme which he certainly
: could have pulled off: when you have a will, there is
: a way, which absolutely applies to Myrdred. Who is
: dead. :)
He survived TFL, didn't he? And body-switching would be a good explanation for all the TFL-to-Myth2 survival weirdness discussed above.
Anyway, if he died after Shiver, then there were mistakes in the later narrations, which is what I was talking about.
: the "avatars" of TFL were the only surviving
: ones, the Nine. but there were avatars before them.
: so, there were more than nine avatars at one point,
: and Myth II backed that up by revealing that Myrdred
: was one of them who happened to be dark.
But under the TFL definition the "Avatara" existed throughout the Four Ages, which we now know to be incorrect. And the TFL Shade definition states that Shades are "undead Avatara," not "undead Avatara plus some mean guys who volunteered." I think it's clear that TFL Avatara were any Light-oriented mages at any time, and that TFL Shades were all dead, reanimated Light-oriented mages. Because in the TFL view, there just aren't very many naturally Dark humans of any sort--you need someone like the Leveller to come along and twist everyone. Hence the Fallen Lords also being mostly former good guys. Once Myth II rolls around, you've got Brigands and nasty mages who volunteer to be Shades and guys like the Summoner who were apparently bad from the beginning. It's a greyer world.
: the pseudo-mind idea I proposed can only be applied to a
: body that could *previously* handle magics... the body
: of a powerful archmage or avatar. why do you think
: that it is a huge addition... we don't know anything
: about the process of avatar-reanimation... surely if
: you want the shade to handle the magics you give it,
: then you must give it the ability to do so. and that
: ability is some kind of pseudo-mind, which could very
: well be a part of the caster's spirit. there's no
: evidence to the contrary, and this backs up A) the
: appearance of the Mazzarin shade and B) the TFL
: definition of shades.
I think that it's a huge addition because it's creating new high-IQ minds, which we just haven't seen. If you want the Shade to handle the magics you give it, then you'd better make him out of a just-living mage who has the mind to deal with it. Which is why there aren't that many Shades. I don't see how it could have anything to do with the caster's body--why would someone's body determine whether or not they could cast spells? I mean, unless you have to have really tough skin to cast "Dump Razor Blades On Myself +23" or something.
And even TFL Shades seem to retain their original minds--Sinis obviously knew what Alric was talking about and responded appropriately. Unless he just acted like he knew because he didn't want to be embarrassed...
: both shade definitions can be correct; you just have to
: devise a way of accepting them, much like you devise
: ways of accepting your beliefs (e.g. the summoner's
: spells you proposed).
The TFL Shade definition says what Shades are. It doesn't say that "Some Shades are this and others can be made in different ways." It's wrong.
: but that depends if you look at it in a way that makes it
: contradictory, as you are. look at it my way and it is
: not. using my proposal, we can accept *both* game
: definitions for Both shades and avatars.
That way involves changing what the games actually say. :-)
: most if not all of the statements of the manual speaks to
: you as a third party, and the dark as one too. 'you
: are the light and you must battle the dark' is an idea
: - plainly objective - thoughout both the manuals.
: although it wasn't evident yet to the Light that all
: shades weren't corpses, they had to think of something
: to put in the manual to at least cover a percent of
: them (the other percent were volunteer dark mages).
Then they could say "Shades are undead mages, some former Avatara."
Alternatively, I could buy what you said and take it one step further--the Light thought Shades were undead Avatara, so they said so in the manual. They just happened to be wrong.
: I still cannot understand this need for introductions.
: where would this introduction fit in? it simply
: doesn't fit in. no one cares that the shade is dead,
: the big deal is the Watcher is dead. but did they
: mention it after you killed him? it's just the body of
: a guy you read about in a flavor, which 100 percent
: backs up the definition told to you in the manual
: about shades. also, you know mazzarin was killed,
: therefore it is 100% logic to know that what you see
: on The Watcher is his reanimated corpse.
It's a very important guy you read about in a flavor--and as I pointed out above, even TFL Shades still apparently retain their original minds. This isn't just Mazzarin's body; this is Mazzarin himself, returned as a Bastard. That merits discussion. Doesn't have to be a whole narration and level, like the Watcher himself--but someone should mention it.
: it is obvious it isn't canon when engine limitations and
: time deadlines affect the gameplay... this following
: is hard evidence: Take Phelot and pit him against
: Balor converted from TFL. eventually, after some time,
: phelot will win. But in Real Life balor would kick his
: ass. then why did he lose? because Phelot has an
: object tag that makes him invincible. thus: just
: because phelot can kill balor, doesn't mean it is
: canon.
Phelot never fought in any non-scripted scenes, and even then it was just a few Dispersals. We've seen both Alric and Shades fight on multiple levels--it's fair to base estimates of their "real" combat power on this. You can judge whether a Brigand would win or lose against a Myrkridia even though we never see them fight in-games.
: ahh but i thought you said shiver was a powerful shade
: :-P
She is, or something very close to it. So Shades can be more powerful than living mages. I win!
: how can you say that? it hasn't been proven any of them
: are unliving (which is what we are debating) nor has
: it been proven anything unliving is more powerful than
: a shade. therefore, if we assume nothing unliving is
: more powerful than a shade, the fallen lords cannot be
: unliving.
Because when it's unproven and you assume it, your argument dies. :-)
: PS: besides, it can also be assumed if you don't like
: taking Sinis's response in that context, that the
: shade-mazz killed Sinis for some reason (mb because he
: refused to become a volunterr shade) and someone
: reanimated his body into the Sinis-shade.
In which case Sinis *did* die and Alric's statement doesn't make sense. "Hey, undead guy! I thought you died once!" Furthermore, that would imply that Sinis was one of the good guys at the time--and one of Alric's former buddies, too--yet Alric seems to be fairly cheerful about his death and reanimation into an undead horror.
--SiliconDream
