: Well there's a few things missing here. The game only
: mentions "his unwholesome trade in human
: remains" which can mean he simply hired thugs to
: dig up bodies and transport them to Soulblighter.
: This would be fine if not for the manual which says
: "Having learned Balor's greatest secret, the
: reanimation of the dead, Soulblighter passed on this
: knowledge to his evil human associates so they could
: build him an army".
: Since the time I read that quote, I understood it to
: mean: Soulblighter passed on the fact that he knew
: Balor's greatest secret to his human pals, so they
: could gather corpses for his army. I think you
: interpret it to mean Soulblighter actually taught that
: secret itself to the human pals and not just the fact
: that he had it.
That is correct. How else did SB build his army so fast? Balor took how long to build up his army of the dead for march on Muirthemne? We know he was out campaigning at least 300 years before, recruiting the Myrmidons. Balor's army took for-freaking-EVER to attack.
SB shows up gathering bodies in small outskirt towns, and a few weeks (months?) later we've got countless hordes of hundred of undead marching on the cities of the Light. You think SB personally spent all that time going around reanimating all those corpses himself?
: Although the following question isn't integral to my
: first theory: why would Soulblighter give his
: greatest , most puissant secret away to people like
: the Baron, who could stab him in the back, etc.? There
: is almost never any love between agents of the dark.
Because any of the little peons all on their own wouldn't stand a chance against Soulblighter. He could have singlehandedly hacked his way through all the Baron's defenses and cut the guy's head off.
But ALL of those little armies put together under Soulblighter and Shiver were powerfull enough to utterly crush the Light.
: You mention your belief that lesser necromantic spells
: animate the undead armies. Why would something so
: small be considered Balor's greatest of secrets?
: It's not even a dream, and it's being called his
: greatest secret? Surely the ability to summon
: thousands of priestess from a completely different
: plane or the power to call lightning from the sky is
: far greater than some simple necromatic spells that
: Jack and Jill could learn.
It's not an incredibly powerful spell, to make a corpse shamble around under your command. It's practically just telekinesis. But it's really really useful if you've got a lot of corpses to make shamble.
And it's not just Jack and Jill, it's less powerful, everyday run-of-the-mill mages. The Baron obviously had some magical abilities, because he animated the Stygian Knights with his own soul (that's why they collapse when you kill them).
Besides, someone already brought up the point that it couldn't REALLY be Balor's greatest secret, as there are lots of other secrets of his that are still secret. So maybe necromancy is just his most useful secret... why else make Thrall? It's a cheap easy spell, but you can create HUGE armies out of it. Same reason you buy all those 1-point Thrall in a net game; yeah they suck, but you can afford to get a ton of them.
: Balor, who razed the greatest human empire of the world.
: Balor who wears the mantle of a full-fledged diety.
: And his greatest secret is "lesser"
: necromantic magics? Imho, his greatest secret is the
: dream of unlife. Soulblighter learned this secret, and
: told his little buddies that he knew about it, who
: then scattered around looking for corpses to give to
: Soulblighter.
Mb. Mb nut.
: There is a second theory. For this one, I'm going to
: interpret the manual quote in my second paragraph
: similar to the way you do: Soulblighter learned the
: secret and actually taught how to execute it to the
: human counterparts. You mentioned your belief that
: lesser necromantic magics could be taught to these
: kind of people, but I explained my belief that it
: couldn't be lesser magics that would be called Balor's
: greatest secret. Which means for this second theory,
: I am stating that the Baron could actually execute the
: dream of unlife.
: Now. What do we know of the Baron's ability? training?
: history? Next to nothing, if not anything at all. For
: all we know, Soulblighter could have taught him how to
: work a single dream. There is nothing that states that
: the Baron could not have learned this. If he's got the
: money to maintain a keep and library like that, and
: such a significant personal army, he's got the time to
: do anything he wants, espcecially at the 'prodding'
: and with the 'encouragement' of someone like
: Soulblighter. And besides, he has a teacher, and not
: just some low-grade wizard. He's got Soulblighter to
: teach him. The same Soulblighter who outlived Balor.
: In my two theories, whether the Baron could wield the
: magics or not, there isn't a place for "lesser
: necromantic magics" which AFAIK is interestingly
: a phrase that never actually appears anywhere at all
: in the game itself.
They never mention food-creation spells, basic telekenisis, weather control, construction magics (like how they could build those huge castles at their tech level), etc, either. Most of the less flash stuff of the Myth world is never heard of. Only the big things. "OMG I saw a Fallen Lord she threw a big white ball of energy and it levelled a castle!" - when you're seeing stuff like this, you're not going to mention everyday events like "So this morning the magically replicated fried eggs were done sunny-side down instead of up, and so..."
: Yes, I needed this back again, like the old days.
: -Welly
