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Author Topic: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-36 Decisions, Decisions  (Read 685606 times)

Parisbre56

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1605 on: May 09, 2013, 05:45:11 pm »

You can't see vitality with a zombie. You can't command undead with a zombie. You can't see the vitality network of the undead with a zombie. You can't use detect magic with a zombie. If we want to examine the forest snd the creature that lives in it we'll have to do it ourselves.

Besides, even if we leave the forest alone for now, where are we going to go? Nightroar is in the northern part of the forest with his army. Even more north the goblins and the beast people are raiding the villages.

And leaving these children here means certain death for them. If the necromancer strikes again the village will be evacuated and they will be left behind. It may not seem like it but we're pressed for time. And I won't let them die if I can help it. That's just my personal opinion.

Felius

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1606 on: May 09, 2013, 06:22:50 pm »

We don't even know if we can do anything for the children. And you want us to go brave the forest that no one returned before us, and even we just barely made it out without getting ambushed by an enemy that we might or might not have been able to fight off.

It sucks for these kids, but all we are going to be doing if we go to the forest is most likely adding to the casualty list. I can't support an insane risk for the offchance that we might find something that could eventually lead to a cure. The whole "soul sucking" thing is all supposition on our part, we don't know for sure, and even if true, we don't know if their souls haven't been destroyed or gone to the afterlife, and even assuming that they were still there, accessible, thinking that we could manage sticking them back on their bodies on the time scale that we'd have, without both revealing ourselves and resorting to some really unethical experimentation is far bet, at best.

Let's be honest here. The kids are already gone, their bodies just didn't caught up with it yet. If the village evacuates and they don't take the kids with them, the best we can do for the kids is taking them with us on the off-chance we find a cure, sustaining them with drain vitality as needed, or ideally until we can hand them off for a life mage who might actually be able to take better care of them.
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kilakan

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1607 on: May 09, 2013, 06:35:50 pm »

Or we could go the semi-evil route and try making half-living constructs out of the children...
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Felius

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1608 on: May 09, 2013, 06:38:28 pm »

Or we could go the semi-evil route and try making half-living constructs out of the children...
That's... A possibility. Not really the style of our character here, but we probably could. Don't really support it, specially since if we go the semi-evil route the kids are more valuable as research material. :P
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"Why? We're the Good Guys, aren't we?"
"Yes, but that rather hinges on doing certain things and not doing others." - Paraphrased from Discworld.

kilakan

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1609 on: May 09, 2013, 06:40:19 pm »

Well like, try recreating the soul network in them with vitality or what not... and if they end up sentient and back great, if they end up mostly mindless and under our controll.... oh well.
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Felius

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1610 on: May 09, 2013, 06:45:40 pm »

Well like, try recreating the soul network in them with vitality or what not... and if they end up sentient and back great, if they end up mostly mindless and under our controll.... oh well.

Hmmm... It's not that bad idea if we don't find reasonable alternatives. At least we should see if we can find a life mage and check if they can heal it. And if nothing else, this might better done when we are more experienced instead of still exploring the basics of what we can do.
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Angle

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1611 on: May 09, 2013, 06:47:51 pm »

Spoiler: Parisbre (click to show/hide)

That's a good point.

Spoiler: Felius (click to show/hide)

Hmm. Well, we are supposed to be a hero, yes? So maybe it's time we do something heroic. Andi if we can pull this off, it might be a good way to get the villagers on our side.
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Parisbre56

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1612 on: May 09, 2013, 06:48:26 pm »

@Felius: The creature in the forest was never ment to fight necromancers or any other kind of mage. It was made by Bal... what's-his-name to take care of a guerrilla force that possessed no mages with which to defend themselves. And that's exactly what it has been doing. Preying on those that accidentally wander into the forest. No mage has made a serious effort to study or destroy that creature. The only people who have looked at its effects were order mages who know nothing about the intricacies of vitality networks. They regard that creature with almost superstitious fear, seeking to ward themselves from it instead of ridding the world from it. Yes, they SAY that all the people who entered the forest died, but none of those people was a necromancer.

And we can't give up without a fight. Would you look those children in the eye, shrug and say "Hey, I made a small effort. I was just too scared to continue. Sorry, but I value my life and yours just didn't seem worth the risk."

Besides, you haven't answered the question of where are we going to go. Nightroar is a few days away from us, maybe less. His forces and the beast men block the northern route. The southern route is too long. By the time we go through it, it may be too late. We've got our backs against the river here. We're forced to jump in and learn how to swim, just like we did when escaping the Vale. We didn't give up then, we shouldn't give up now.

Felius

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1613 on: May 09, 2013, 07:23:17 pm »

Hmm. Well, we are supposed to be a hero, yes? So maybe it's time we do something heroic. Andi if we can pull this off, it might be a good way to get the villagers on our side.
No. We are supposed to be a necromancer. We choose to go nicely about it, but don't go expecting the narrative causality to help us being heroic.

@Felius: The creature in the forest was never ment to fight necromancers or any other kind of mage. It was made by Bal... what's-his-name to take care of a guerrilla force that possessed no mages with which to defend themselves. And that's exactly what it has been doing. Preying on those that accidentally wander into the forest. No mage has made a serious effort to study or destroy that creature. The only people who have looked at its effects were order mages who know nothing about the intricacies of vitality networks. They regard that creature with almost superstitious fear, seeking to ward themselves from it instead of ridding the world from it. Yes, they SAY that all the people who entered the forest died, but none of those people was a necromancer.
Semi-trained militia are still more skilled than us at fighting. Our only combat ability is drain vitality, and if that is disrupted, or we run out of mana, we are dead. If it start grappling with us, we are dead. And if we manage to fight, what then? Your plan seems to be "let's go off to the forest kill some creatures and randomly search around". We don't know anything about the theory behind it. All we have is some wild speculation and you want to take extreme risks based on that.
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And we can't give up without a fight. Would you look those children in the eye, shrug and say "Hey, I made a small effort. I was just too scared to continue. Sorry, but I value my life and yours just didn't seem worth the risk."
If that means we are still alive, yes. The kids are as good as dead. We are not some storybook hero who will always triumph. We are not in some fairy tale where everything will end well. Our good intentions and pure heart will not carry us to victory. Here, people die. Sometimes they are good. Sometimes they are bad. And a lot of the times the best that anyone can do is avoid adding to their numbers. Heroism has nothing to do with it.
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Besides, you haven't answered the question of where are we going to go. Nightroar is a few days away from us, maybe less. His forces and the beast men block the northern route. The southern route is too long. By the time we go through it, it may be too late. We've got our backs against the river here. We're forced to jump in and learn how to swim, just like we did when escaping the Vale. We didn't give up then, we shouldn't give up now.
Escaping the Vale was not something we had much choice. Staying there was even riskier in the long term. Here, well, two kids are dead. We are not in a position that we can really help. Getting killed won't actually help them.

And fucking hell, you want to go alone into the forest. A squishy mage that barely discovered her powers. And about meat shields, are you willing to sacrifice Omo's life for this? Are you willing to risk revealing ourselves and get some villagers to serve as disposable meat shields? Or to raise a cemetery for corpses for some meat shields, and not only risk reveal but run out of mana?

What do I propose we do? Either write off the kids, or if the village decides to leave them here, take them with us, to maybe see if we can discern anything more specific about them in the future, and/or find a life mage that also might be able to study them in more depth.
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racnor

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1614 on: May 09, 2013, 07:40:26 pm »

I suggest we scout a bit with some undead/golems before we have this argument. I say golem, just for experimental purposes.
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Felius

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1615 on: May 09, 2013, 07:43:20 pm »

I suggest we scout a bit with some undead/golems before we have this argument. I say golem, just for experimental purposes.
That I can support, although I do point that we don't know how to work with golems well enough for it to be feasible. Some small undead animal might be possible though. Maybe a rat or a rabbit. Also, we should both kill and animate it somewhere relatively away from the village, and out of the way. No need to particularly risk reveal.
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racnor

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1616 on: May 09, 2013, 07:46:55 pm »

I suggest we scout a bit with some undead/golems before we have this argument. I say golem, just for experimental purposes.
That I can support, although I do point that we don't know how to work with golems well enough for it to be feasible. Some small undead animal might be possible though. Maybe a rat or a rabbit. Also, we should both kill and animate it somewhere relatively away from the village, and out of the way. No need to particularly risk reveal.
That's really the main reason I want to try this (that, and I want to see if golems have souls). In terms of sheer efficiency, I would say a small bird would be best.
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Felius

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1617 on: May 09, 2013, 07:49:26 pm »

I suggest we scout a bit with some undead/golems before we have this argument. I say golem, just for experimental purposes.
That I can support, although I do point that we don't know how to work with golems well enough for it to be feasible. Some small undead animal might be possible though. Maybe a rat or a rabbit. Also, we should both kill and animate it somewhere relatively away from the village, and out of the way. No need to particularly risk reveal.
That's really the main reason I want to try this (that, and I want to see if golems have souls). In terms of sheer efficiency, I would say a small bird would be best.
The issue is that the best we managed to do thus far was a small animated rope from what I remember. Trying to go from there to making an effective scout is a job for more than a few days, let alone an afternoon. And that's assuming we can experiment without worrying about mana and discovery.
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Parisbre56

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1618 on: May 09, 2013, 08:29:26 pm »

@Felius: The creature in the forest was never ment to fight necromancers or any other kind of mage. It was made by Bal... what's-his-name to take care of a guerrilla force that possessed no mages with which to defend themselves. And that's exactly what it has been doing. Preying on those that accidentally wander into the forest. No mage has made a serious effort to study or destroy that creature. The only people who have looked at its effects were order mages who know nothing about the intricacies of vitality networks. They regard that creature with almost superstitious fear, seeking to ward themselves from it instead of ridding the world from it. Yes, they SAY that all the people who entered the forest died, but none of those people was a necromancer.
Semi-trained militia are still more skilled than us at fighting. Our only combat ability is drain vitality, and if that is disrupted, or we run out of mana, we are dead. If it start grappling with us, we are dead. And if we manage to fight, what then? Your plan seems to be "let's go off to the forest kill some creatures and randomly search around". We don't know anything about the theory behind it. All we have is some wild speculation and you want to take extreme risks based on that.
If that construct is made out of pure vitality, then even the largest army in the world would be defeated by it if it didn't have spellcasters. However it has only three vitality. We can kill it with two MP if we have to long before it gets dangerously close. And I'm not just saying "wander aimlessly in the forest". I have given a very specific course of action in one of my previous posts. In short it says carefully capture and study the creature and the area we found the children, or failing that kill it.
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Quote
And we can't give up without a fight. Would you look those children in the eye, shrug and say "Hey, I made a small effort. I was just too scared to continue. Sorry, but I value my life and yours just didn't seem worth the risk."
If that means we are still alive, yes. The kids are as good as dead. We are not some storybook hero who will always triumph. We are not in some fairy tale where everything will end well. Our good intentions and pure heart will not carry us to victory. Here, people die. Sometimes they are good. Sometimes they are bad. And a lot of the times the best that anyone can do is avoid adding to their numbers. Heroism has nothing to do with it.
Apparently I do not believe that things are so bad we should give up yet.
Quote
Quote
Besides, you haven't answered the question of where are we going to go. Nightroar is a few days away from us, maybe less. His forces and the beast men block the northern route. The southern route is too long. By the time we go through it, it may be too late. We've got our backs against the river here. We're forced to jump in and learn how to swim, just like we did when escaping the Vale. We didn't give up then, we shouldn't give up now.
Escaping the Vale was not something we had much choice. Staying there was even riskier in the long term. Here, well, two kids are dead. We are not in a position that we can really help. Getting killed won't actually help them.

And fucking hell, you want to go alone into the forest. A squishy mage that barely discovered her powers. And about meat shields, are you willing to sacrifice Omo's life for this? Are you willing to risk revealing ourselves and get some villagers to serve as disposable meat shields? Or to raise a cemetery for corpses for some meat shields, and not only risk reveal but run out of mana?

What do I propose we do? Either write off the kids, or if the village decides to leave them here, take them with us, to maybe see if we can discern anything more specific about them in the future, and/or find a life mage that also might be able to study them in more depth.
What choice do we have now? Where do we go from here if not through the forest? And we need no meatshield. Why would we? Physical shields are of no use against what lies there. Our powers are enough to handle this. You can't expect everything to be easy and risk free. Sometimes you have to take reasonable calculated risks.

And again, what use would a zombie scouting the forest be? Command undead has the same range as necromantic sight, so unless you find a way to boost its range the zombie can only scout the outskirts of the forest. And even then, the zombie would be incapable of something other then visual examination. If that thing is a ghost, it could pass right next to the zombie and we wouldn't even know it.

So I'm asking you again: If we don't go through the forest then where do we go? What is the course of action you are supporting besides a general "Run away"?
« Last Edit: May 09, 2013, 08:34:18 pm by Parisbre56 »
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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-17
« Reply #1619 on: May 09, 2013, 08:51:17 pm »

Let's stay out of the forest.
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