: Couldn't the first betrayal she referred to be his
: defection from the Avatara (perhaps partly forced) to
: Balor's side? GURPS gives no mention of any other
: side-switching, other than his return to the Light.
You totally misinterpreted what I said here. She doesn't mention betrayal. She's basically calling him a goody two-shoes.
: Further, The Deceiver's relation to Alric doesn't bear
: *that* much on his relations to earlier emperors;
: Alric a) is neither a legal candidate for emperor nor
: the popular choice of the people of the Cath Bruig,
: and b) grew up knowing The Deceiver as evil.
The Heron are following him, which I think would make it official.
: It wasn't strange that The Deceiver served the lawfully-
: ruling emperors, back when he was an Avatara; it *was*
: strange that he would go out of his way to validate a
: Light hero as emperor when he's spent the last few
: centuries as a Fallen Lord. That's all the
: "strange bedfellows" comment means in
: reference to The Deceiver, IMO. It doesn't necessarily
: imply that his relationship with earlier emperors was
: self-serving (although you certainly can legitimately
: suspect that simply from observing his personality).
She makes referenence to his long association with the Cath Bruig, he responds by saying that the path for retribution makes for strange bedfellows. I would think this would imply his relationship with the Cath Bruig was odd, but served his purposes. I will concede that all it necessarily means is that he's now allied with a former enemy.
: But Damas is also an ancient evil. I realize that the
: pregame info is somewhat suspect these days, but I'd
: note that Soulblighter's being a
: "reincarnation" of Damas is given as fact,
: but as a theory Alric's developed after noting that
: they seem to be the same person. Since he only knows
: of the tales of Damas in Connacht's time, and of the
: current Soulblighter, he'd naturally believe that
: Damas was born as a good guy around Connacht's time,
: and was later reborn as a bad guy, just like Connacht.
: The Deceiver, however, is old enough to know Damas
: personally from Connacht's time and before it, so if
: Damas was covertly evil even then he'd know about it.
Even if he was covertly evil (which I'm pretty sure he was), they probably still would have been enemies. If they were allied then, then that would also be strange. However, you've convinced me it's just as likely he was refering to her relationship with Balor.
: The behavior of Damas when searching for the artifacts of
: power certainly seems to suggest that he was a baddie.
: Are we really to believe that the Total Codex and
: Tramist's Mirror--a book and a mirror, of all
: things--could not be destroyed? And that, if he really
: wanted to destroy them and failed, he'd hide them away
: instead of bringing them back to the far more powerful
: Connacht so *he* could try to destroy them? It seems
: likely to me that Damas was already secretly
: augmenting his personal power, preparing to rise as a
: Fallen Lord in the coming Dark age.
Agreed. That's not what I meant at all. Whether he was really bad or not, it would still make for a strange alliance.
: So I take the Deceiver's comment as (surprise, surprise)
: supporting my theory that Shiver and Ravanna are
: different people. Damas was always bad, and his
: interest in bringing Shiver back indicates that they
: were always allies. But he had some long-standing feud
: with Ravanna (you can certainly imagine Balor's
: devoted lieutenant being suspicious of Ravanna, who
: supposedly served Balor but was so secretive and
: independent) and so the two of them make "strange
: bedfellows".
Why would two former Fallen who have no other history (Ravanna most likely died before Damas's birth if he was Culwyen contemporary) make strange allies?
: I can't decide one way or the other, but I'd lean (again,
: big surprise) toward her being mad about him saying
: "Ravanna" again. After all, if saying it
: once made her mad, why wouldn't saying it twice make
: her *really* mad?
We have no evidence that Ravanna had some kind of weakness like Shiver did. She couldn't stand people to learn her secrets or something?
: Why should she have such sense, even if she isn't really
: Shiver? The Deceiver is *good* at what he does. She's
: a fellow Fallen Lord, and she's packing a Shade and a
: big pile of Myrkridia. How could she know that Phelot
: had been converted? Conversely, I don't know that
: Shiver's vanity would make her more vulnerable to The
: Deceiver's wiles. As far as I can tell it's centered
: around her appearance, not her abilities. She'd enter
: a beauty contest completely assured that she'd win,
: but she might not enter a battle with the same
: assurance.
If she's tangled with Myrdred before, she knows how powerful he is. She also knows that she's not very powerful this time around. I think it would follow that she can't win.
: Or Phelot might simply have agreed to betray Damas and
: Ravanna because The Deceiver convinced him that the
: Light was going to win, or because The Deceiver
: pointed out that Damas was planning to destroy all
: life, which Phelot, a would-be dictator like most
: Shades, didn't really want. It might have been
: persuasion rather than forcible conversion.
He never had a chance to do that. The other dark would have seen. What we're told is that he attacked Phelot and seriously injured him. I'm guessing he bound him while he was weak.
: I still (this isn't an argument to anything you say, just
: a comment) don't get why GURPS basically ignores this.
: Did The Deceiver simply reform his body and say
: "Surprise!" Did the heroes leave his
: remains, only to discover later that an unharmed
: Deceiver had reappeared, refusing to answer any
: questions about how he survived?
I've remarked on that too. Matt Soell doesn't answer my e-mail on the question.
: I agree that he's loyal, though not really for this
: reason. Shiver's (or Ravanna's, it doesn't matter what
: theory is correct here) comment of "I've said
: this before, Myrdred," suggests that they've
: openly sparred in the past, as he may not have with
: Soulblighter. I think he and Soulblighter basically
: just ignored each other (with a bit of mutual
: contempt), he and Shiver/Ravanna didn't like each
: other, and he and the Watcher hated each other. So
: he'll let Alric kill Soulblighter, he wants to kill
: Shiver himself, and he'll go out of his way to kill
: the Watcher even when they're on the same side and in
: the middle of a war.
That's certainly possible, and he may need Alric alive so that he can kill Soulblighter.
