Phoenix sounds fine, except that flaming wings would ruin woodcraft.
Maybe Inferno's Embrace? Geez, we really do have crappy gifts for Alice. We ought to take 20 on Plant Empathy or something...
Yeah, I mean it doesn't go very well, but it would help us against Elves, and would let her fly.
I mean, we could gifts that would better suit her, but she's human, and less likely to object burning trees down than those Elves.
Still doesn't cover practical issues, like burning a forest she's sneaking through. Plant empathy other than intimidation would be impossible too.
"Hello there, Old Mr. Oak. Could you please--" "OH GODS YOUR WINGS ARE BURNING MY BRANCHES STOPIT STOPIT PLEEEEEEASE!!!" Etc.
I'd rather save it for someone whose main strengths aren't nature-related. Or at least not so useful in a forest. Or at least until we aren't in a highly flammable area.
Divide and conquer. Let's trap the invaders somehow (in the barn, in the trees, in a ring of fire, it doesn't matter), make sure they can't escape quickly, and use our dark manipulation, face, and other tricks to terrify and drive them into attacking each other.
Daytime is coming, our dark manipulation won't be useful.
It'll probably be darker inside, but let's not base a dawntime plan on darkness.
Left Stone Gift is not useful for combat. We need a combat-useful gift. Even if we decide Alice deserves to be the first female Night Troll, now is not the time to use the Left Stone.
while converting now is a bad idea... the Left Stone is most likely will boost combat abilities of many females. It gives traits on based some unknown properties of female. Probably it includes skills
The night troll created may have more then one traits, I think something like 3 to 5.
It's a strong immediately ally and if supplied by nice skills may be stronger then we currently are.
Biggest benefit is the female night troll bit. If Alice isn't willing to have plenty of kids, we shouldn't give it to her.
I should explain my view on the left stone gift, once again, when I am in a better mood (I was pissed me all that real world ethics discussion into a game and got a little inadequate, sorry. Strategy discussions are good, but I dislike when RPGs played like pure strategy)
I am putting all role-play and my hopes for story development aside and will talk about it like it a strategy game. Strategy that based on quality not quantity
Quantity has a quality all its own.
Play a strategy game and send a single tank against a nation full of swordsmen. It'll take out a ton, but the tank will eventually fall. Probably. Depends on how the game is programmed. Point is, numbers do matter.
1) I prefer to not base our survival on numbers. Numbers are good, but that didn't help night trolls before, we know that
Neither did their power...just sayin'.
2) another way is to become a powerful wizard with some nice allies who is capable to defend his small, but advanced and united family-race. (loyal consorts, few children that get proper education from the patriarch(us), allies from other races. I think only elves are our true enemies, any other race may become an ally. That's what our diplomacy skill for)
Potentially, but it'd be an uphill battle. We're still night trolls.
3) It would be great to learn to extract fear and feed without the need to kill\draw insane and making enemies
It might be possible with a small group, but it will not if we create a huge subrace, especially if it will follow Nocteclaw zealously
'Twould be nice. Maybe we could become therapists. "Don't worry, it's okay. Just let me draw away your fear..."
Assuming it's possible.
(BTW Gift of Amnesia gives a fun way to feed - scare, erase memory, scare, erase memory, scary, erase memory. We get alive, sane pray and well fed troll)
If it's possible to get fear without eating physical flesh, yes.
4) The faster we multiply, the faster we'll get attention, the more night trolls exist, the more food we need
Think of it, again, like a strategy game. Say Civilization.
Civs which expand have issues like corruption to deal with, and have bigger borders, and are less-liked by NPCs. A balance is indeed needed.
Getting attention is good if we can conceal our hideouts. Adding a new night troll isn't going to impair our ability to do so. Worst comes to worst, split our night family down the middle and one of us gets to find a new lair.
Also bear in mind that we're supposed to repopulate our race.
5) I'd like to have full control over every birth\conversion as we have now. It's like vampiric laws in many settings - create vampire without a permission of council\Prince and you'll get killed. Sentient predators MUST limit their own numbers. That's why I prefer to not spent the left stone gift at all to giving it to any female (especially not loyal enough) and sending her away. I'd rather see female night troll as picky in making babies as we are. And Alice (yep, I bring that, again) is ideal in that role, because she'll not lie under every male she meet. If she choose to have a baby it will be a well thought decision. Even if she'll have no babies at all, that's not a tragedy for our race, we are still making sons
Discuss this with our son and whoever we give the Left Stone to, and what we'll do when we die, but good idea. Although the idea that a night troll without babies isn't a tragedy...it is. That's an almost completely wasted gift. The biggest point of that gift was that there would be more fruitful and abundant night troops, and female night trolls. If whoever we give it to doesn't even have one kid, it's wasted...
6) For me, the left stone gift is not a way to get a baby making machine , but a way to get a strong ally with several good traits, now. Infants are more liability than asset in our situation
Disagree. Short-term, but thinking strictly short-term is dumb. Infants are going to be a boon to our race sooner than you think, especially if child growth follows the same rules postnatal as pre.
while discussing alice's conversion sounds a fair bit more sensible now, i still think it would be more interesting storywise to have her remain human and eventually reunite her with the tigress of her heart, even if it meant her leaving our party. i also still thing that lefstoning the mermaid would be a better idea than to leftstone alice, though
Sensible overall.
And finally, a suggestion for the left stone: Once we're safe, pray for guidance. It was given by Nocteclaw (right?), s/he should be able to offer advice on how to use it. If nothing else, it gives us more brownie points with the deity of choice for the only race who won't hate us on sight.
Author
Topic: The Last Night Troll (Read 230484 times)