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[Evil Lincoln]

Turn 33: Lessons.

A lesson about the gods:

According to legend and the accounts of the gods many many years ago there were only the goblins and the humans. Humans and goblins were constantly fighting, much like today, only unlike today the goblins had the upper hand. They burned, murdered and pillaged humans to the point of extinction. As the last human city fell to the goblin armies the three gods Calen(god of Cloth), Arden(God of fire) and Graven(God of Masonry) appeared before our leaders. They had seen our plight and vowed to help humanity to the best of their abilites. Arden set the groud ablaze and burnt scoures of the goblins, sending them away with their tails between their legs. Graven built massive walls to keep the goblins at bay and Calen repaired the banners and clothes of the humans, inspiring them to fight once more. On that day the empire of Tir was created, and it has remained since then. The gods, their work done had planned to leave this changed once they realised they had grown stronger. By helping the humans they had gained their faith, and so gained power. Gavin, Arden and Calen were the only gods to have ever helped a mortal race, and were the first to discover that faith in them gave them power.

The rise to power of the three gods was caused great upheaval in the heavens, they had gone from some of the weakest gods to the strongest with the help of the mortals. Other gods sought to emulate them, the stronger gods, such as Oor(God of Mud and Pride) and Jutare(God of Justice and Industry) created their own mortal races, instilling their beliefs upon them and instructing them to make sacrifices and offerings to them. The lesser gods who did not have the power to create their own races, such as Palaeu(God of enjoyment) took mortals and started cults to gain power. These cults were tolerated as long as they did not undermine the authority of the gods who created the mortals.

There are other gods as well, gods who did not wish to rule or own mortals due to either fear, disgust or their own ideals. Three of these were Starvin(God of rebirth), Ungnor(God of flesh) and Dein(God of death). Starvin, though he did not direclty influence the world still changed it greatly. Starvin is in fact the creator of necromancy. Necromancy was a failed attempt to bring back the dead by Starvin. He deemed Necromancy a failure as it only brought back the body and cast it aside where it eventually found it's way into mortal hands. Dein and Ugnor are unlike the other gods in that they gain power purely from offerings. Dein makes pacts with mortals, they sacrifice other mortals to him and he gives them gifts. Greed compels the mortals to keep killing and most eventually go insane. Ungnor makes different deals with mortals, he requests that the mortals perform tasks for him murder, theft and pilgrimage being common in exchange for these acts he creates abominations of flesh and binds them to serving the mortal.

Panel 1:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You learn Crystaline magic, Skeletal Muscle and Skeletal Magic. You have unlocked the Magic attribute and the skeletal muscle ability for your skeletons!

By putting points into a skeleton's magic skill you will allow them to use magical abilities.
By spending 5 points of spirirual energy you can unlock the skeletal muscle ability for your skeletons.

You tell Shelby to use the large axe as a weapon now instead of the shovel. Shelby is just strong enough to use the axe.

Then you get everyone to move downstairsladder. You unpack the contents of the chest so you can view them better.

You explain to Gurdy the basic concepts of necromancy to try and make her understand your not that evil. You think she is a bit less scared now that she knows that you aren't actually binding the dead to you. Just using spirits to inhabit their bones.

Author Notes:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So basically there is now the magic stat in edition to the endurance dexterity and speed stats. The higher that attribute the better magicky abilities they can use. You can also spend 5 points of energy on a skeleton to give it the skeletal muscle ability (these 5 points go towards the skeleton's total so if you give a skeleton skeletal muscle it will take another 5 to keep under control). These can be used on already animated skeletons so you can give shelby muslces and magic if you want.

You have two bodies now so you might want to animate/golemate them before you buff Shelby up super high. Unless you only want one stronger skeleton as opposed to a few weaker ones.

I'll answer any questions about the gods that you have.

[RAM]

The advantage to buffing shelby up super-high is that shelby might then be able to overpower the scary demon spirits that we can get without spending spirit energy...

[Zako]

Indeed! Buff up Shelby. This will make him better in all reguards and a lot more useful. Also, store some energy from the necklace in crystal form to get an idea of how much room it will take up in crystal form. Ask our teacher to scout for the supplies needed for the ritual, so we know where to get them.

Actually, we can also use this dead body to make a brand new skeleton! Make a magic using skeleton using the dead body.

[Koliup]

Ask Olof if we can use his partly decomposed body as a new skeleton. If he says no, don't press the issue.
Also, ask Olof if the imps are under our skeleton control cap, or if they're essentially 'free' minions.
And yeah, buff Shelby. We need a beef skeleton.
We can grow imps in our basement, too.
Oh, and ask Olof why undead can hear and speak apparently any and all languages.

[Chink]

Give Shelby the skeletal muscle ability, then create another skeleton with magic abilities, to serve as a ranged attacker. Stuff as much spiritual energy into this new skeleton as possible.

[Evil Lincoln]

How about you make a new skeleton and use whatever energy you don't use to buff Shelby? If so i need to know if you are going to use Olof's skeleton (he's fine with that) or the grouge's.

Also, ask Olof if the imps are under our skeleton control cap, or if they're essentially 'free' minions.

Imps take about 5 of your cap and would be about half shelby's strength right now. But they do have to eat meat once every few days.

The advantage to buffing shelby up super-high is that shelby might then be able to overpower the scary demon spirits that we can get without spending spirit energy...

It doesn't quite work that way. Sure if you buffed Shelby to be really strong she could over power any weaker scary demon spirits you can summon but just because she can overpower them doesn't mean that they'd have to do what you say (unless you want Shelby to look over their shoulder 24/7).

[RAM]

I am more concerned with the immediate "I shall rend the fool who summoned me into a thousand tiny pieced and feast upon their soul!" than issues with a poor work ethic... On matters of loyalty, a summoned spirit is more likely to stab you in the back and claim the Amulet of Yendor for itself than a created spirit, but even then, having someone bigger than them around would help to keep them from open revolt...

I vote Olof's corpse for a magic skeleton. Its bones should already be attuned to carrying magic...

Ask Olof about combining golem magic with pure skeleton magic. If you use an animate skeleton as the core of a golem, what happens?

Discuss the 'presence' of a spirit. Can a spirit be bound to multiple skeletons to create a giant, many-armed skeleton? Can a spirit animate a skeleton that isn't properly assembled, maybe two sets of legs with a head on top of them to jump at things and bite them? Could a single spirit be spread over two separate skeletons, and how much could such a pair of skeletons separate without straining the spirit?

Ask Gurdy to stay hidden until the human/grouge conflict has subsided.

[CuRiSeeechun]

I am more concerned with the immediate "I shall rend the fool who summoned me into a thousand tiny pieced and feast upon their soul!" than issues with a poor work ethic... On matters of loyalty, a summoned spirit is more likely to stab you in the back and claim the Amulet of Yendor for itself than a created spirit, but even then, having someone bigger than them around would help to keep them from open revolt...

I vote Olof's corpse for a magic skeleton. Its bones should already be attuned to carrying magic...

Ask Olof about combining golem magic with pure skeleton magic. If you use an animate skeleton as the core of a golem, what happens?

Discuss the 'presence' of a spirit. Can a spirit be bound to multiple skeletons to create a giant, many-armed skeleton? Can a spirit animate a skeleton that isn't properly assembled, maybe two sets of legs with a head on top of them to jump at things and bite them? Could a single spirit be spread over two separate skeletons, and how much could such a pair of skeletons separate without straining the spirit?

Ask Gurdy to stay hidden until the human/grouge conflict has subsided.

Pretty much all of this. +as many pluses as I can give. If the giant super-skeleton can be constructed, I vote we just start stockpiling as many corpses as we can, for the assembly of the monstrosity.

[Chink]

If we created a golem, could it cast spells, now that we have the skeletal magic, or does that only apply to skeletons?

[Milon]

I am more concerned with the immediate "I shall rend the fool who summoned me into a thousand tiny pieced and feast upon their soul!" than issues with a poor work ethic... On matters of loyalty, a summoned spirit is more likely to stab you in the back and claim the Amulet of Yendor for itself than a created spirit, but even then, having someone bigger than them around would help to keep them from open revolt...

I vote Olof's corpse for a magic skeleton. Its bones should already be attuned to carrying magic...

Ask Olof about combining golem magic with pure skeleton magic. If you use an animate skeleton as the core of a golem, what happens?

Discuss the 'presence' of a spirit. Can a spirit be bound to multiple skeletons to create a giant, many-armed skeleton? Can a spirit animate a skeleton that isn't properly assembled, maybe two sets of legs with a head on top of them to jump at things and bite them? Could a single spirit be spread over two separate skeletons, and how much could such a pair of skeletons separate without straining the spirit?

Ask Gurdy to stay hidden until the human/grouge conflict has subsided.

+1, all of this is good.
We want something to carry that longsword though, so maybe not a head-leg-death-cricket thing.
Also, as Koliup said, definitely ask Olof about Shelby's multilingualicism.

[Evil Lincoln]

Turn 34:

Panel 1:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After securing Olof's permission to use his old body you send Shelby and Gurdy up the ladder so they cannot listen in on the ritual.

While you remove the decaying flesh from Olof's skeleton and prepare the circle using the grouges blood you have a disscusion with Olof about the nature of spirits and skeletons.

Mayard: "Olof, would it be possible for one spirit to inhabit two skeletons?"
Olof: "At the same time?"
Mayard: "Yes"
Olof: "Hmm. Possibley, I have never seen it of heard of such a thing happening but it might be possible. Very powerful spirits can survive outside a vessel so it could be possible for a very powerful spirit to maintain a permanent connection between two vessels. Of course the two bodies would have to be close together, for the bodies to be kept apart over large distances it would require an exeptionaly powerful spirit to maintain the link."
Mayard: "I see, what about skeletons that aren't, well arranged properly?"
Olof: "It depends what you mean."
Mayard: "Say a skull with legs attached. Could a spirit inhabit something like that?"
Olof: "Oh no no no. You can replaced a human skull with a grouge skull and give a skeleton hooves instead of hands but nothing like that. If you really want a creature like that you would have to make a deal with Ungor, the god of flesh. His prices are a bit high sometimes however. On one occasion I wanted a mating pair of six legged bjornes, to breed you see, I was going to slaughter them and use the bones to get 4 armed skeletons. But I digress, for those two I had to steal the Governor of Turst's favorite cat and sacrifice it. It was no easy task I assure you."
Mayard: "How could stealing a cat be that hard. Couldn't you just walk in, stick it in a sack, and walk out?"
Olof: "Well you see, the governor had the great idea of enlarging his cat to be twice the size of a man."
Mayard: "That seems... unusual."
Olof: "Yes, Governor Frin was a bit of a mad hat. The current governor is a bit more level headed."

Mayard: "So why can Shelby understand the grouge, and it understand her, and all of that?"
Olof: "Simple really, skeleton's and other spirits don't actually talk."
Mayard: "What? That makes even less sense."
Olof: "No no, it makes perfect sense. Skeleton's don't talk, and they don't hear. How could they? No mouth, no ears. They understand what mortals say by sensing intention, not understanding words. When they communicate back they only appear to be talking to us, the message is sent by their mind, skeletons understanding words and talking is merely an illusion."

Panel 2:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You place Olof's body in the circle.

Choosing stats now has a swish picture:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Author Notes:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If we created a golem, could it cast spells, now that we have the skeletal magic, or does that only apply to skeletons?

Couldn't think of a way to work this into conversation so i'll put it here. Golems should be able to use magic, but it will be weaker then a skeleton using magic. That is mostly for balance so you have a reason to make skeletons and not just have all golems. But if you want an in-universe reason it's because the magic has to pass through the material the golem is made out of, there, that will stand up to scrutiny.

Also due to a grave oversight I forgot to ask for a name in the raising picture, I do need one for the skeleton.
(no bolding/proofreading since I should really get to bed)

[NRDL]

Since Shelby's already our tank, we should include a caster in our party.

20 magic, 10 dexterity, 5 strength, 5 endurance.  The words shall be Observant and Loyal.

Yeah, Shelby has abandonment issues ( in my mind ) hence all the emphasis on loyalty.  Observant because, hey, we're gonna have a magic-using skeleton. 

[RAM]

22 magic, 8 dexterity, 4 strength, 6 endurance.  The words shall be Observant and Mellow.

[NRDL]

...A hippie skeletal mage? 

[RAM]

Well, I admit that the lack of functional brain chemistry would be an obstacle, but there are bound to be magical substitutes...