Familicide Mega-Thread

[Roland Itiative]

However, the problem you're strugglign with doesn't exist. Read the comic again. V never said the spell would kill Tarquin, only that it would kill the hypothetical child.

Oh yeah... I somehow read "it", refering to the hypothetical child, as "him", refering to Tarquin himself My bad, that's what I get for reading the comic as soon as I woke up.

In that case, all is well... I mean, as "well" as genocidal spells can be.

[t209]

What if Draketooth married a stranger, got pregnant but got miscarried? DOes the stranger still count as relative?

[Emperor Flumph]

Oh yeah... I somehow read "it", referring to the hypothetical child, as "him", referring to Tarquin himself My bad, that's what I get for reading the comic as soon as I woke up.

In that case, all is well... I mean, as "well" as genocidal spells can be.

Indeed. It's perfectly cut and dry how the spell works: two iterations. That's all we've seen, and all that have been mentioned.

[Iruka]

The problem is not the spell killing Penelope, which I agree is part of a single iteration of "kill everyone related to the people killed in the last iteration", the problem is V saying it would have killed Tarquin in case they have had a child.

But V doesn't say that.

And had she borne him a child, I would have slain it as well.

So if V's knowledge about the spell is accurate and didn't just neglect to mention that Tarquin would be killed as well, this should be where Familicide stops. If the spell included Tarquin, Elan would be dead as well. V would mention that, if it were the case.

[choken1]

Regarding the chart with Tarquin/Penelope's hypothetical child.

Tarquin specifically mentioned that he's been avoiding having any more children, ever since he divorced Elan/Nale's mom, right here.

Even if the spell would continue to target blood relatives, Tarquin would be spared, since he never had children with Penelope.

P.S.
The way V explained the spell originally went like this:
"Every living creature that is directly shares your bloodline is dead.
Every living creature that is directly related to any of those creatures is also dead."
Based on this description, the familicide would have the potential to travel up the family tree, indefinitely, taking out every single being that has a common ancestor to the target. It should stop at some point and thus I find the theory that it stops traveling up the tree, once it no longer finds any living relatives.

[EeTee]

Okay, since nobody seems to have defined what it means in this discussion if somebody is "related" to another, I try to do it here. First you have to think of family trees, where you can move "up" to your parents and "down" to your children.

Definition: Person B is related to person A if and only if you can travel in a family tree from A to B by first taking any number of steps directly up in the family tree and then taking any number of steps directly down in the family tree.

...where "any number" can also mean zero. This should make clear what "related to somebody who shares your bloodline", or "related to somebody who is related to you" means and be in accordance with who is dead and who isn't. (And yes, by this logic, Tarquin wouldn't be dead even if he had a child with Penelope - but the child would be.)

(Oh yes, and you also must include some kind of "you cannot jump over dead relatives" clause to prevent all black dragons and humans from being killed.)

[Quild]

I simplified the Draketooth family tree for simplicity's sake, since we're looking only to the region close to Penelope. The first condition of Familicide would have killed everyone in blue (who are blood-relatives of the ABD). The second condition would have killed everyone in red (blood related to people killed in the first condition), including Tarquin's hypothetical child with Penelope. But for the people in yellow to die, there should be a third loop, which was not mentioned before. I see this to mean the second loop actually repeats until there's no one else to kill. We could also assume V was simply wrong in assuming he could have killed Tarquin, but I'd expect him to know how the spell works, since he used it (he simply never thought of the full repercussions before)

For this hypothesis to be true (only blue and red dots dying), we need :
- ABD to be Girard's greatfather (yeah... Shapechange)... and not being aware or not talking about her three childs....
- ABD's son to be Girard's greatfather, ABD not being aware.
- Another ABD's child (or descendant) even if ABD says she only had her son left.

Or we can simply assume that Penelope wasn't killed by Familicide, even if the timing matches.

[Math_Mage]

Clause 1: "Anyone who shares your bloodline is dead."
Clause 2: "Anyone who is directly related to someone who shares your bloodline is also dead."

Penelope's son was a Draketooth, hence someone who fit under Clause 1. As such, Penelope, being directly related to her son, fit under Clause 2. Any blood relatives of Penelope also died.

I was talking about my interperetaion of how familicide worked. (And I was right about the only way it could have worked without killing tons of people, it just apperently didn't happen that way.)

So, "I was wrong, but I'm going to take refuge in my opinion that V's own interpretation of the spell he cast is implausible" would be a better description of your current state. Okay, then.

For this hypothesis to be true (only blue and red dots dying), we need :
- ABD to be Girard's greatfather (yeah... Shapechange)... and not being aware or not talking about her three childs....
- ABD's son to be Girard's greatfather, ABD not being aware.
- Another ABD's child (or descendant) even if ABD says she only had her son left.

Or we can simply assume that Penelope wasn't killed by Familicide, even if the timing matches.

Uh, Girard's grandfather was a blood relative of ABD (shared a common ancestor). Hence Girard was too, and was wiped out under Clause 1. Penelope's blood relatives were wiped out in Clause 2. It's right there in the comic.

[androkguz]

You're free to do what you wish.

If the spell works that way, then it also targets every spouse of everyone in the main bloodline through their children. Then it targets the entire bloodline of all those spouses. So let's say we have 100 living descendants of the dragon, and 30 of those have spouses and children.

That's a pretty low estimate, but that alone brings in 30 new bloodlines through spouses. Even if some of those bloodlines are very small, you're still talking about adding hundreds of people. Each of those new people then bring in their spouses through their children. So we're talking about adding over 100 new spouses, and a 100 new bloodlines to the targets.

Then the people in those 100 bloodlines have hundreds or thousands of spouses from new bloodlines, and all of those thousands of bloodlines too will get targeted. So yes, it's extremely unlike the effect would be contained in any way when you add spouses to the mix.

I am really amazed that this threat is still alive. Therefore, I think I have to make my part as one of the readers that gets it, and correct the last mistaken post I see (that has not been already corrected)

I have bolded your mistake. That sentence is wrong. Familicide is cast on two waves, the first one kills everyone related by blood to the original target. The second one kills everyone related by blood to anyone killed in the first wave.

Take this hipothetical spell:
Lesser Familicide:
Target: One undead creature
Effect: Every creature in the planet that is blood related to the target dies. None of those people get a saving throw. (Remember that Oots verse is young, about 1200 years old, and species were created by the gods in big numbers at once)

Then you could interpret the known epic necromancy spell as...
Familicide
Target: One undead creature
Effect: First do Lesser Familicide on the target. Then cast Lesser Familicide inmediately on everyone who died from the original Lesser Familicide. Nothing more

In this way, spouses die in the second wave, along with their respective blood relatives, but not the spouses of those blood relatives.

[rrgg]

So, "I was wrong, but I'm going to take refuge in my opinion that V's own interpretation of the spell he cast is implausible" would be a better description of your current state. Okay, then.

This is me:

Awww Yeah!

(From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

[Grey Watcher]

What if we looked at this spell as, essentially, a program? In the main discussion thread, I tried breaking down my understanding of how the spell works into pseudocode.

My understanding, confirmed, in my eyes, by both Vaarsuvius's text and the images (such as the spell coming into the tent, killing the bald guy, and then seeming to bounce around the table, or killing the random sultan and then going on to his family) in the first half of the second page is that Familicide's pseudocode works thusly:

-While any targets are still alive, repeat the following
-Step 1: Kill current target(s)
-Step 2: Identify any biological parents or children of those targets and designate them as targets

By this logic, had Tarquin and Penelope had a child together, Tarquin, Elan, and Nale would all have died when V cast Familicide (not to mention Elan's mom and anyone SHE was related to).

Even if this interpretation is correct, there is some ambiguity still remaining. If the only biological connection between you and a legitimate target of Familicide is already dead (say, of old age some years before), does that protect you? Can the spell jump directly to siblings or cousins without having to work backwards through a common ancestor? Is the initial target always spared (for maximum emotional impact), or did Mama Black Dragon only "survive" because she was undead at the time, and therefore not a valid target for the spell? (If the latter is true, then undead are apparently immune to being "killed" but can still be used to as a reference point for acquiring new targets.)

[Blas_de_Lezo]

Familicide kills so many people that it actually INCREASES the chance of one or more persons to seek revenge. As the people dead are ALWAYS related to more people some way or another, the more people you kill, the more people you may have chasing you. For example Tarquin could have researched about Penelope's death if he was eager to avenge her. The same with the hundred/thousands of people killed. The dead will always be part of a family or related to someone that will survive.

Familicide increases the chance of the caster to be killed by revenge.

[RMS Oceanic]

Indeed. Familicide as pre-emptive protection also assumes its targets don't have vengeful people who cared about them but aren't related to them. In Don't Split The Party Rich even says that V's thinking was flawed and compounded the matter.

[ellindsey]

Agreed. Despite how V tried to justify it, Familicide is not a defensive spell. Familicide is a spell of vengeance, intended to punish the target by killing their entire family. Haerta Bloodsoak didn't design that spell to protect herself, she designed it because she really, really likes killing people.

[Math_Mage]

What if we looked at this spell as, essentially, a program? In the main discussion thread, I tried breaking down my understanding of how the spell works into pseudocode.

Except there's nothing in the spell to suggest that sort of indefinite iteration, nor is there anything to suggest that the spell stops at dead relatives, nor has Tarquin ever been suggested in-comic to be even hypothetically vulnerable to a Familicide cast on ABD. This would also require an unbroken chain of living dragons between ABD and Girard's grandfather.

[Blas_de_Lezo]

So, when Haerta researched the spell, she did it for another purpose rather than blocking revenge? (maybe just for joy?) And V totally misunderstood the purpose of the spell in the heat of the moment?

EDIT: ninja'd

[Math_Mage]

The thing about Familicide is, it casts such a wide swath of destruction that the people looking to avenge their loved ones wouldn't know where to begin.

...Except this world has an Oracle in it. So yeah.

This is the fundamental flaw of mass murder as a way to avoid revenge-motivated relatives: you pretty much have to kill everyone, or you're just gonna have more coming after you.

(To be fair, Familicide did stand a passable chance of killing everyone.)

[ellindsey]

The one way Familicide could work to protect the caster is as a deterrent. If people know that attacking a particular epic necromancer could get their entire family wiped out, they'd think twice before doing so, right? Except this is a world where heroes deliberately go on epic quests against evil on a regular basis, and 'kill the wizard who wiped out a thousand innocent lives with a single spell' is prime epic quest material.

[Shale]

And also for Girard himself to have been alive and a valid Familicide target at the time of casting.

[Grey Watcher]

Except there's nothing in the spell to suggest that sort of indefinite iteration, nor is there anything to suggest that the spell stops at dead relatives, nor has Tarquin ever been suggested in-comic to be even hypothetically vulnerable to a Familicide cast on ABD. This would also require an unbroken chain of living dragons between ABD and Girard's grandfather.

I dunno, there isn't anything to suggest that the spell isn't a loop.

I listed whether dead people (and dragons) could be used to acquire new targets as still ambiguous. It does help reconcile my While Loop version of the spell with the (apparently) relatively small scope of the destruction. Still, it's also possible that the Draketooth patriarch really is the only relative of Mama Black Dragon to ever breed with a human? Or maybe other lines got cut short by adventurers or something? I mean, we have, from V's own lips statements both that dragons have a propensity for interbreeding with other species AND that they have a low rate of reproduction overall. So just how common are Half-Dragons? And half-black dragons specifically?

As for Tarquin's hypothetical vulnerability, it would seem very strange to me that the spell could bounce to Penelope off of her child, but not onto Tarquin from his. But then I also misread V's statement about Penelope on the first read (as explicitly naming Tarquin as a potential victim), so I may be mistaken.

I really wish Burlew would Word of God this particular issue.

[Baphomet]

Augh, why did I write so many words about this previously? Now I have to eat them all. I am stuffed.

[Math_Mage]

I dunno, there isn't anything to suggest that the spell isn't a loop.

How about the fact that the spell has some fairly specific and unambiguous definitions about who's targeted and who isn't?

As for Tarquin's hypothetical vulnerability, it would seem very strange to me that the spell could bounce to Penelope off of her child, but not onto Tarquin from his. But then I also misread V's statement about Penelope on the first read (as explicitly naming Tarquin as a potential victim), so I may be mistaken.

Tarquin is not a blood relative of ABD. Hence he is not covered under Clause 1.

Tarquin is not a blood relative of one of ABD's living blood relatives. Hence he is not covered under Clause 2, either.

In order for Tarquin to become a target, he would need to be seduced by a female Draketooth who subsequently ran off with the kid. IOW, he would need to become Penelope.

I really wish Burlew would Word of God this particular issue.

I'll be honest, I think the most recent comic just did. "The Familicide spell I cast killed everyone of the black dragon's blood--and then killed everyone who shared blood with any of the black dragon's blood." Not much wiggle room there.

[Castamir]

She did it for the lulz.

[Edric O]

The more people you kill, the greater the chances that one of those people had a friend/lover/significant non-family member who is both powerful enough and vengeful enough to make it his/her life mission to track you down and make you pay.

And unless I'm mistaken, V was not protected by any anti-divination spells at the time when Familicide was cast. So you don't even need the Oracle to find out who was responsible for the Familicide, you just need a decent divination.

[Grey Watcher]

How about the fact that the spell has some fairly specific and unambiguous definitions about who's targeted and who isn't?



Tarquin is not a blood relative of ABD. Hence he is not covered under Clause 1.

Tarquin is not a blood relative of one of ABD's living blood relatives. Hence he is not covered under Clause 2, either.

In order for Tarquin to become a target, he would need to be seduced by a female Draketooth who subsequently ran off with the kid. IOW, he would need to become Penelope.



I'll be honest, I think the most recent comic just did. "The Familicide spell I cast killed everyone of the black dragon's blood--and then killed everyone who shared blood with any of the black dragon's blood." Not much wiggle room there.

Y'see, I find phrases like "shares your bloodline" or "of the black dragon's blood" to be pretty ambiguous. I mean, how closely related does someone have to be to me to be "of my blood"? Do my cousins count? 2nd cousins? 3rd? There's a theory that any two given humans are at least 50th cousins to each other. Does this till count as "sharing a bloodline"? Where does that line get drawn? I am now confused enough to concede that my algorithm may not be what Burlew had in mind, but at least it very specifically says what it means by "of your blood".

Plus, I dunno, especially with Haerta being, explicitly, the most powerful of the Three Damned Archmages, it just feels a little... lacking that an epic spell whose intent is to wipe out the target's entire family just sort of shrugs its shoulders, gives up, and says "close enough" after only a couple of iterations.

[arclight]

Doubtful. Though the revenge reasoning is sound, it seems like nobody knows what killed everyone aside from V (and those watching. It doesn't seem like a good move on their part to rat him out).

[Roland Itiative]

The original wording of the spell's effect say "direct bloodline", not just bloodline. I guess that means anyone on the "parent" or "child" lines (grandparents, great grandparents, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and so forth). Maybe siblings too.

The second clause would enter the "indirect" bloodline (cousins and uncles/aunts would be affected by a grandparent's death, etc), as well as people who do not share blood, but have a child with someone on the direct line (the "in-laws", as long as the relationship generated a child).

This would only require the Black Dragon on Girard's family tree to be either a "child" or "parent" of the ABD for the known effect of the spell to work perfectly.

[Conuly]

Well, duh. But honestly, sometimes smart people can be really very stupid.

[Cirin]

The more people you kill, the greater the chances that one of those people had a friend/lover/significant non-family member who is both powerful enough and vengeful enough to make it his/her life mission to track you down and make you pay.

And unless I'm mistaken, V was not protected by any anti-divination spells at the time when Familicide was cast. So you don't even need the Oracle to find out who was responsible for the Familicide, you just need a decent divination.

Would the divination return V as the caster, or Haerta? The spell came from her spirit, just using V as a conduit.

If somebody asked "Who was responsible for the death of my friend Bob". . .the spell could return. . .

"Haerta Bloodsoak" or it could return "The Inter-fiend Cooperation Council" or it could return "Varsuuvius", depending on how the spell or the deity answering the spell interpreted things.

Tiamat didn't immediately go after V or send minions. . .she went after the IFCC for orchestrating the whole thing and giving an mid-level wizard in the middle of a mental & emotional breakdown complete access to the casting power of the most powerful Epic-level necromancer in history.

Give a crazy person a nuke and he pushes the button, who do you get upset at, the lunatic who didn't know better, or the person who knowingly gave him the nuclear bomb?

It looks like if anybody casts Contact Other Plane or Commune, asking for details, if Tiamat is the deity answering (or if anybody goes to The Oracle, since she answers his questions) she'll probably point them at Haerta Bloodsoak. . .since the spell came from her spirit (and since Tiamat has achieved a tenuous acceptance of the IFCC doing that as part of a master plan).

[Dr.Epic]

How are they going to track you down? A mysterious lightning bolt just killed your friend. The person responsible could be thousands of miles away and has no motive to killing that exact person other than a connection to someone that they are potentially very distantly related to. How do you go about finding answers?