Familicide Mega-Thread

[SavageWombat]

You know what Familicide couldn't kill?

This thread.

[Math_Mage]

You know what Familicide couldn't kill?

This thread.

This thread has a built-in fatality condition. Doesn't need anything else.

[factotum]

You know what Familicide couldn't kill?

This thread.

Neither can Word of God, apparently, given that Rich has come in and explained exactly what Familicide does...

[Quild]

By what definition of genetics are you not related by blood to your brother?

My brother and I got our blood from the same persons (our parents obviously).
Many peoples can't get blood transfusion or organs from their own parents. So a brother...

While being highly unlikely, it is possible for someone to share not a single common gene with his brother or sister.
You just have to see your genetic as thousands of characteristics. For each of those characteristics, you got an "item" by your father, and one by your mother. Sometimes, one item is stronger than the other one, and the weakest item won't be visible on your phenotype. Other times, both are taken into account (like for crossbreeds on previous strip). When you will have your own child, you will give him only one of those two items you have. Either your father's one, either your mother's one.
So when you have a second child, he can be completely different .

That's why I don't assume my brother and me are "blood-related", but I see why I was wrong. "blood-related" has nothing to see with science, and I have overthought it, thinking you're only blood related to your ancestors (which is not necessarily true) and descendants.

As I said, I have a very poor sense of family.

[Shawnis]

I haven't read much in this thread already,so pardon me,if I am repeating a question already asked and answered. Would the familicide spell allow for a saving throw by any that were hit by it? Also,what type damage is familicide? Is it elemental in nature?

[Xiander]

I haven't read much in this thread already,so pardon me,if I am repeating a question already asked and answered. Would the familicide spell allow for a saving throw by any that were hit by it? Also,what type damage is familicide? Is it elemental in nature?

We don't know.

Though, If there was a saving throw (which seems likely), It was probably obscenely high when V cast it while linked up with three epic casters.

I probably doesn't do damage, it just outright kills.

But that is just me guessing.

[Shawnis]

We don't know.

Though, If there was a saving throw (which seems likely), It was probably obscenely high when V cast it while linked up with three epic casters.

I probably doesn't do damage, it just outright kills.

But that is just me guessing.

That's cool. To me,familicide looks like a massive chain lightning. Which makes me think it is a lightning (energy) element type of attack.

[BaronOfHell]

Essentially, the second clause is the same as Clause 1.

Clause 2 have a limit regarding ancestors, which Clause 1 doesn't have though.

It goes up through the ancestors, and down through the descendants. But it only goes up twice and down twice. [...]

So, the target was ABD. It goes up through her ancestors, killing her parehnts and grandparewnts.

Her parents and grandparents had other offspring. One of which was the sire of the Draketooth clan.

I don't understand why you insist on maintaining the "only going up twice and down twice" limit. This limit is something made up as a way of understanding why the spell did not destroy the entire world. It's completely unnecessary to limit the amount of generations at an arbitrary number now that the giant has both explained how the spell is actually limited, and even flat out told that there's no only going up two generations, going down two generations limitation of the spell.

Clause 1:

Step 1: Kill everyone with the original target's blood. [...] Number of generations or percentage of blood or direction doesn't matter.

Clause 2:

Step 2: Kill everyone who shares blood with any of the people killed in Step 1. Think of it as killing everyone descended from (or siblings to) any and all still-living ancestors of each secondary target. So if Penelope had a grandfather on one side and a great-grandmother on the other side who were still alive, every person who could trace their blood back to either of those people would be dead, because Penelope's daughter carries both of their bloods.

Wait, it only stops at dead ancestors for step 2. Step 1 does not stop at dead ancestors (although it did not kill Tiamat - presumably she does not share blood with her creations)

Or you know.. she's a god could have had something to do with it.

"If a person can only trace their blood through (say) Penelope's already-dead great-great-great-grandfather, then they're safe." Thus says the Giant. So it does stop at dead ancestors, doesn't it?

Only clause 2 does, I believe.

With the new insight on the spell definition, I think it's easier to understand the spell if it's described in three steps, rather than two.

Step 1: Target all living blood relatives of the initial target. That means anyone who shares a common ancestor, living or dead, with ABD. All living members of the Draketooth clan are targeted by this step.
Step 2: For each person targeted in Step 1, target all their living ancestors that haven't already been targeted. For example, for Penelope and Orrin's child (targeted by Step 1), Penelope and her living ancestors (parents, maybe grandparents) are targeted by this step. However, targeting Orrin again would be redundant.
Step 3: For each person targeted in Step 2, target all their living siblings and descendants. This includes a hypothetical child of Penelope and Tarquin. There's some redundancy in this step as described, but I think it's plain enough.

Notably, Step 2 stops at dead ancestors, but Step 3 does NOT stop at dead descendants. For example, if Penelope had living parents, a dead sibling, and a live nephew, Penelope's parents would be targeted in Step 2 and her nephew targeted in Step 3. This is because, per the Giant, Step 3 would target "Every person who could trace their blood back to [one of Penelope's living ancestors]." No mention is made of whether the intermediaries are dead or alive.

Step 1, of course, stops neither at dead ancestors nor at dead descendants. All relatives are targeted.

Sorry for quoting the post entirely, but it's really nicely put and I thought it deserved to be shown completely. I'd however like to point out that if you tried to simulate this spell on a computer using only the description you've written, the computer would not let the spell affect everyone descendent from the very first step 1 ancestor of the world (i.e. created by the gods),
should such an ancestor still be living.

I'll assume a dragon is once again targeted and that at least one of the very first dragons created is existing. This dragon have no ancestors. Now step 1 targets this dragon. Then step 2 targets all living ancestors which haven't already been targeted, which is none. Finally, step 3 only targets those affected by step 2, which was none.

However this first dragon of the world could have mated with another species, which would then not share blood with the dragon targeted by familicide, but with the ancestral dragon.

As far as I can see, it works well as long as everything is assumed to have ancestors, because the descendents of a descendent will always be descendents of said descendents ancestor.

My brother and I got our blood from the same persons (our parents obviously).
Many peoples can't get blood transfusion or organs from their own parents. So a brother...

Two people can have a different blood type (whereby blood transfusions might be required), and still be related.

Beside, when you're trying to explain how unrelated you're to your brother in "worst case circumstances", you should at least take into consideration how likely it's for the packages to be similar due to being from the same individual.

"blood-related" has nothing to see with science

*cough* it has nothing to do with genetics. You can easily put a science stamp on it, because it's well defined, measureable and predictable through those measurements, if you want to.

but Penelope's siblings would be dead (even if her parents were dead, due to being the 'siblings or children' of the last-living ancestor)

I'm not certain Penelope's siblings would. I mean you're probably right, but from the step 2 example, I don't get why there should be a difference between parent-child or grand parents-grand children. Just because we usually would find the family values easily distinctable, does not mean such can be applied to a "blood" definition of a spell.

I just want to make sure I'm understanding the explanation The Giant took the time to write for us.

I think you're. At least I understood it likewise.

Tarqin's wife - Their imaginary child -/- Tarquin - Elan & Nale - Their mother - Her family - etc.

No?

No. But I fixed it for ya.
Penelope is affected because of her child being blood related to the ABD.
Everyone blood related to that child up to the last living ancestor and all descendents from there is affected. Since Tarquin does not descend from Penelope's child's last living ancestor as far as we know, he'd not be affected.

If Tarquin should be affected through a child with Penelope, it'd mean the spell had jumped one bloodline too far compared to its definition.

[Ron Miel]

I don't understand why you insist on maintaining the "only going up twice and down twice" limit. This limit is something made up as a way of understanding why the spell did not destroy the entire world. It's completely unnecessary to limit the amount of generations at an arbitrary number now that the giant has both explained how the spell is actually limited, and even flat out told that there's no only going up two generations, going down two generations limitation of the spell.

You misunderstand. It isn't that it goes up 2 generations. It's that it goes up twice, and down twice.



So from the original target, ABD it goes up to her father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc.

From, say, her great grandfather it goes down through many generations. One of them (e.g. her uncle) was the sire of the Draketooth clan. It continues going down through his descendants, several generations, to Orrin Draketooth and his daughter. Lets call her Orrina.

From Orrina, it goes up a second time, to her mother, grandparents, great grandparents, etc. Any number of generations, as long as they are still alive.

And finally, from Orrina's Grandfather, it goes down again, killing Penelope's uncle, cousin, and cousin's children. The cousin's grandchildren too, if any.

And that is the second 'down' at which point the spell effect stops.

[factotum]

And that is the second 'down' at which point the spell effect stops.

Except it doesn't stop, because the Giant said it didn't two pages back.

[B. Dandelion]

Although Familicide works more or less as I had thought, I am slightly surprised to hear there is never a point at which two people with a common ancestor could be considered too distantly related for the first clause of the spell not to work. I had had the impression, when V trotted out the 25% figure, that she was emphasizing what a horrifically high percentage it was and thus implying it would have been lower if dragons had bred more often. (Even if it made the actual body count higher, the percentage would have gone down.) If we assume there's only been a handful of dragon generations since creation, then any two dragons are either not related or related no more distantly than 3rd or 4th cousins -- but if they had bred more and earlier, we could be talking 12th, 13th, etc cousins out.

But I guess not. In any case, the clarification is much appreciated.

[Ron Miel]

Except it doesn't stop, because the Giant said it didn't two pages back.

On the contrary. His description makes it clear that this is where it stops. See his description of the second up and down.

Think of it as killing everyone descended from (or siblings to) any and all still-living ancestors of each secondary target. So if Penelope had a grandfather on one side and a great-grandmother on the other side who were still alive, every person who could trace their blood back to either of those people would be dead, because Penelope's daughter carries both of their bloods.


No mention of it carrying on after that.

[Particle_Man]

I haven't read much in this thread already,so pardon me,if I am repeating a question already asked and answered. Would the familicide spell allow for a saving throw by any that were hit by it?

There is no record of anyone making their saving throw vs. it, and you think that there would be even with a high DC since natural 20s always save if a saving throw is allowed.

[BaronOfHell]

I heard some spells have an effect even if you save. Maybe it's something alike "if you save, you die".

You misunderstand.

Okay. Sorry about misunderstanding you then. Thank you for clarifying.

I'd just like to point out, it was easy to think you were refering to generations when talking about "going up and down" when you wrote:

It goes up through the ancestors, and down through the descendants. But it only goes up twice and down twice.

Two times up an ancestor, I'd understand as grandparents and two times down a descendant, I'd understand as grand children, but now I know what you meant.

[Smolder]

My brother and I got our blood from the same persons (our parents obviously).
Many peoples can't get blood transfusion or organs from their own parents. So a brother...

While being highly unlikely, it is possible for someone to share not a single common gene with his brother or sister.
You just have to see your genetic as thousands of characteristics. For each of those characteristics, you got an "item" by your father, and one by your mother. Sometimes, one item is stronger than the other one, and the weakest item won't be visible on your phenotype. Other times, both are taken into account (like for crossbreeds on previous strip). When you will have your own child, you will give him only one of those two items you have. Either your father's one, either your mother's one.
So when you have a second child, he can be completely different .

That's why I don't assume my brother and me are "blood-related", but I see why I was wrong. "blood-related" has nothing to see with science, and I have overthought it, thinking you're only blood related to your ancestors (which is not necessarily true) and descendants.

As I said, I have a very poor sense of family.

There is no way for "someone to share not a single common gene with his brother or sister." First off, every human shares 98% of their genes in common with every other human. Second, if your brother is an identical twin, then you are going to be closer genetically to him then to either your mother or father, because you are essentially clones.

You are confusing traits with genes. It is possible not to share any traits with a sibling (like hair or eye color) but that has no effect on how close you are genetically. Blood type and organ compatibility are traits. Which traits you inherited from which parent is irrelevant.

That's the difference between phenotype and genotype. Genotype is hereditary, phenotype is observable traits that may be influenced by the environment. I could be 200 lbs heavier than my brother, but that's just my phenotype, not my genotype. And I haven't even gotten into epigenetics (some genes are more active than others).

Maybe you're proposing that the spell ignores people with different blood types from the target, in which your brother might possibly survive, but that's not what they mean by blood-related, because then it could jump to people who are not related, but happen to have the same blood type.

I don't know why I feel the need to correct this, but I do. You must be referencing Mendel's theory of plant genetics, often taught in high school as an introduction to genetics, but his version is centuries old and based on observations, not blood tests. He was selecting for certain traits and ignoring the rest. He didn't feel the need to document the traits that didn't change over generations. Humans are not pea-plants either, for that matter.

[Xapi]

Edit: I qouted wrong, ment to be The Giant's post.

Please imagine the quote being here now

The main confusion for me was the fact that I expected both steps to work roughly the same.

But this is quite clear.

[oppyu]

It's impressive that you guys are still debating this. I contented myself with 'Familicide kills a lot of people according to restrictions and rules I don't fully understand, and it's really evil' a long time ago.

[factotum]

On the contrary. His description makes it clear that this is where it stops. See his description of the second up and down.

Think of it as killing everyone descended from (or siblings to) any and all still-living ancestors of each secondary target. So if Penelope had a grandfather on one side and a great-grandmother on the other side who were still alive, every person who could trace their blood back to either of those people would be dead, because Penelope's daughter carries both of their bloods.


No mention of it carrying on after that.

He just gave those as examples, and even then, they disprove what you're saying because a great-grandmother is THREE generations back, not two! Re-read the first part of what he said--he says quite clearly that it kills everyone descended from, or sibling to, *any and all still-living ancestors of each secondary target*. The only limiting factor there is that the ancestors in question have to be still alive--there is no artificial "it only slips back 2 generations and no further".

[BaronOfHell]

I think you misread the Ron Miel, like I did. I don't think anyone anymore is saying familicide limited to a two generation jump.

It's impressive that you guys are still debating this. I contented myself with 'Familicide kills a lot of people according to restrictions and rules I don't fully understand, and it's really evil' a long time ago.

You think it's impressive that people are not content with not understanding how a major component of how a plot-driven spell works?

Anyway, I don't think one can say people are really debating what the spell does anymore. A general consenus has been arrived and now it's merely people trying to correct "silly misunderstandings" or explaining for new people who still haven't figured it out. Any debate would require an actual disagreement about how the spell actually worked.

[ref]

Aha, so my formal definition in post 979 was right. Cool :)

[Particle_Man]

If I understand things right, if a very distant ancestor (say near the recreation of the world in time) was petrified and then "stone to fleshed" just before familicide hit and went up the line a la step 2, that would have been absolutely devastating.

Luckily that didn't happen.

[SavageWombat]

If Familicide allows a saving throw, then 5% of the creatures targetted, at minimum, survived. A 20 always saves, after all.

I suspect it's a no-save spell, and that (as we've seen) Rich isn't concerned with calculating the actual difficulty of epic-level magic.

[lio45]

It's impressive that you guys are still debating this. I contented myself with 'Familicide kills a lot of people according to restrictions and rules I don't fully understand, and it's really evil' a long time ago.

That's because you're part of the Silent 99% of Rich's readership... who will content themselves with thinking things like 'Familicide kills a lot of people according to restrictions and rules I don't fully understand, and it's really evil'.

We're the 1% who log onto the forums...

:-P

[Critias]

If Familicide allows a saving throw, then 5% of the creatures targetted, at minimum, survived. A 20 always saves, after all.

I suspect it's a no-save spell, and that (as we've seen) Rich isn't concerned with calculating the actual difficulty of epic-level magic.

Or, more likely, it's a spell that allows a save, but on a successful save does a hojillion d6 of damage, or something. Plenty of folks could have made their saving throws, but still been butchered by just plain old hit point loss.

[Smolder]

Or, more likely, it's a spell that allows a save, but on a successful save does a hojillion d6 of damage, or something. Plenty of folks could have made their saving throws, but still been butchered by just plain old hit point loss.

That's what I think too. Something like "save and take 20d6 lightning damage."

However, if that is the case, then the people who saved will be raisable, because they don't have death effects on them.

[BaronOfHell]

If Familicide allows a saving throw, then 5% of the creatures targetted, at minimum, survived.

Only if it targetted an infinite amount of creatures.

Though the number was probably so high, that it won't really matter. Beside, when the author goes around to show that everyone affected so far doesn't make it, it's not unreasonable to assume there's no saving throw.

To be pendantic though.. let's say we've seen 70 not making it so far and let's say each had 5% chance of saving. Then each had 95% of not saving, whereby the chance of at least one of the 70 making it would be 1-(1-0.05)^70 = 97% (which should be the same as chance of rolling at least one (more than none) 20 in 70 attempts).

So in other words, it's not that unreasonable that no one of the 70 people displayed makes it.

Anyway, let's assume it actually ended up hitting ~300 people in stead. It's 1 out of a million times that you won't get at least one 20 in ~300 attempts.. meaning it's a sure thing!

Not that it really matters though. For all purpose, the giant could just have decided to only show us those who didn't make it.
Personally, I think we're supposed to believe there's no saving throw and also I think that Girard made it through some clever means (of general defense, not against familicide in specific).

[Ron Miel]

If I understand things right, if a very distant ancestor (say near the recreation of the world in time) was petrified and then "stone to fleshed" just before familicide hit and went up the line a la step 2, that would have been absolutely devastating.

Luckily that didn't happen.

No, I don't think so. By my understanding it has to be an unbroken chain of living ancestors. So, if there were three generations: grandfather, father, son, and father has died leaving grandfather and son alive, it wouldn't jump across the gap.

[Werewindlefr]

Neither can Word of God, apparently, given that Rich has come in and explained exactly what Familicide does...

There is one small thing that remains uncertain with major implications. Does the spell stop when reaching 'dead people' in the family tree in the first step, or is it just a 2nd-step thing? Because it might imply that Girard was still alive at the time the spell was cast...

[Tass]

There is one small thing that remains uncertain with major implications. Does the spell stop when reaching 'dead people' in the family tree in the first step, or is it just a 2nd-step thing? Because it might imply that Girard was still alive at the time the spell was cast...

The giant said quite clearly that it doesn't.

This way with having no limits on the first step, but a "through living" clause on the second really seems to be the only way to get just exactly the effect we did. Well done giant.

Then remains the little point that casting the spell directly on a human would have wiped out humanity, so what did Hearta develop it for? It is easily solved: Hearta lived a long time ago, if the world was only a few hundred years old then it could have easily been used on humans back then. Beautiful.

The two steps being different seems a bit contrived, but it makes it all work. I'm happy. Once again well done Giant.

[Math_Mage]

The two steps being different was heralded by the different wording on the two clauses in comic 640. It's just that nobody was really able to pin down how far beyond Penelope the latter part of the spell went, especially with the "blood of your blood" description in the most recent comic making the two steps appear the same.

Sorry for quoting the post entirely, but it's really nicely put and I thought it deserved to be shown completely. I'd however like to point out that if you tried to simulate this spell on a computer using only the description you've written, the computer would not let the spell affect everyone descendent from the very first step 1 ancestor of the world (i.e. created by the gods),
should such an ancestor still be living.

I'll assume a dragon is once again targeted and that at least one of the very first dragons created is existing. This dragon have no ancestors. Now step 1 targets this dragon. Then step 2 targets all living ancestors which haven't already been targeted, which is none. Finally, step 3 only targets those affected by step 2, which was none.

However this first dragon of the world could have mated with another species, which would then not share blood with the dragon targeted by familicide, but with the ancestral dragon.

As far as I can see, it works well as long as everything is assumed to have ancestors, because the descendents of a descendent will always be descendents of said descendents ancestor.

In your hypothetical scenario where a created dragon is still alive, Step 1 targets that dragon and all of its descendants via the 'blood relative' clause.

Or, more likely, it's a spell that allows a save, but on a successful save does a hojillion d6 of damage, or something. Plenty of folks could have made their saving throws, but still been butchered by just plain old hit point loss.

The issue with this interpretation is that you really DO need a hojillion d6 of damage, because the targets are black dragons with piles and piles of HP.