Familicide Mega-Thread

[Bastian Weaver]

Actually, yeah, Eugene was a way tough Illusionist. He managed to fool the Sapphire Guard from beyond the grave - something Girard would love to achieve but didn't.
To be bested by a dead Lawful Illusionist. Aww, poor Draketooth.

[Gift Jeraff]

Wait, I thought everything since Girard's explosion has been an illusion to test the Order's intent and inner character.

[rgrekejin]

Actually, yeah, Eugene was a way tough Illusionist. He managed to fool the Sapphire Guard from beyond the grave - something Girard would love to achieve but didn't.
To be bested by a dead Lawful Illusionist. Aww, poor Draketooth.

You know, now I kind of wonder which of the two was the superior illusionist, in that morbidly curious, who-would-win-in-a-fight-between-a-tiger-and-a-bear sort of way. My gut instinct tells me that it would be Girard by a fair margin, but do we actually have any solid evidence regarding how powerful Eugene Greenhilt was in life?

[factotum]

The evidence is that Eugene stopped adventuring and started sitting at home doing experiments many years before he died, and as Haley points out to Vaarsuvius in On the Origin of PCs, you level up a lot faster by adventuring than you do by sitting in a room reading! Otherwise we have no evidence whatsoever of Eugene's level when he died--I don't think we've even seen him cast a named spell at any point (apart from "Summon Boot" in strip #525, of course ).

[Bastian Weaver]

You know, now I kind of wonder which of the two was the superior illusionist, in that morbidly curious, who-would-win-in-a-fight-between-a-tiger-and-a-bear sort of way. My gut instinct tells me that it would be Girard, but do we actually have any solid evidence regarding how powerful Eugene Greenhilt was in life?

Well, Girard multiclassed to Ranger, right? And if we know anything about Eugene, it's that he would sooner die than take a level in non-caster class. Actually, that's just what he did.
So I think Eugene would be superior in illusions, while combat-wise, Girard would be more efficient...

[Vulkos]

Conspiracies are easy to imagine. You just say "everything that's happened so far has been manipulated by the conspiracy for reasons we don't understand."
They're harder to justify

I totally agree with you on that.
In real life.
When I'm not at a Houdini show.

i cant wait for this arc to be over so everyone stops say "well i know we see something in the comic, but tis probably jsut an illusion"

Agree with you, too.
Anyway for now we're on this story arc, dealing with illusions and armies of illusionists.

Problem One: Why lower all of your defenses to have Team OotS run across your base when you can, you know, just capture them.

The fact is that I do not think the ziggurat is any real QG of the Draketooths.
It's more or less my only point, in fact. :)

Fact is, if you wanted to create an illusion of a room of dead people that would encourage intruders to leave, you'd make them all have died of some immediately-identifiable and extremely infectious disease. Why would you put an illusion of a family tree up on the wall? It just encourages more investigation.

I was thinking more of something like: "hey, there are this guys at our explosive trap, let's see who they are. We're an entire House of wizards, let's try some divination. Whoo, in the group there is a guy who, alone, killed 1/3 of the black dragons in the world could we survive his/her attack? i do not think so, let's pretend we're dead and start Plan B."

I'd say the official death knell for the "Familicide is an illusion" theorey is when Rich came into the Familicide thread and explicitly explained how it worked. If the idea that Familicide did this was to be negated, why would he do that?

That's a weak point, for me, for several reasons, among which:
- Familicide is a real fact, it has worked the way Rich said either the Draketooths have been target or not.
- If twist will be, it will have to be a surprise, and, honestly, if I were Rich I would have had a lot of fun in leaving misleading clues like that. (Please, understand me, it's not like: "Rich lies to us because he's evil" but much more like "I would have had fun doing the same thing if I were to prepare a coup de theatre like that"

No, I don't believe that the biggest, most dramatic, most heart-wrenching moment for one of our characters will be erased.

...and all other comments about "it can't be all an illusion because of the precious moment in which V realizes the consequences of his/her deeds.
Again, a weak point in my humble opinion: V has had his/her epiphany, he/she realized the evil of the spell and that's true either it will turn the Draketooths are still alive or not.
It's not that - if ever we'll turn out it was all an illusion - V could go like
"Oh, well, I have killed thousands of dragons, dragonborns and humans but the Draketooths weren't among them. Phew, I almost got scared".

Problem Two: You are falling into the classic trap of "Well if I am dealing with a well known liar and plotter, I can't ever believe anything I ever see. It's just another layer of the conspiracy." Sorry, but that way madness lies. Sooner or later you have to make presunptions about what is true and isn't true and move from there.

You're absolutely right on that.
Only, in a situation like this I do feel comfortable with making presumptions different from yours ^^
I think the whole argument is here: I'm not saying I'm sure that Draketooths death is not real, but it seems to me like you're saying you're sure it's not.
I totally agree, we have to choose some facts, hypotize they're real and incorporate them in our model, and since the model in which Draketooths are actually all dead is being considerating in every other thread on the board, I would have loved to use this thread for discussing another model based on different assumptions.

But, hey, if I'm the only here supporting this alternative model (maybe wrong but, I think, as valid as the "official" other) a discussion would have no point so just ignore me and let's consider this thread like a Ad Memoriam I've made with which I could - in a month or two - come and say "I told you so" :p

[Mr. Pants]

Could be...Durkon was capable of casting Speak with Dead on the corpses though...

[Math_Mage]

It's not an illusion. It would be narratively nonsensical for the Giant to have the Order piddling around in a ziggurat that has nothing to do with Girard's actual location, and it would be completely implausible as a defensive strategy if this IS the actual site of the gate.

[Gilphon]

If the idea was to hide from the guy capable of wiping out a good percentage of the black dragons, why bother with… any of this? Why bother making a big illusionary ziggurat full of illusionary corpses when you could just have a pile of nothing in it's place?

I mean, creating an illusion introduces the risk of having the illusion be seen through. And if you feel your illusions are strong enough for that not to be an issue, there are far nastier and more effective illusions you could create. Like, for example, instead of making the gate seem undefended, and therefore encourage intruders to investigate further, you could make it seem much more defended than it actually is, by, just off the top of my head, putting obscenely powerful epic-level illusions on that casting schedule, along with descriptions of what those spells do, so ignorance won't be a factor.

[term3186]

I mean, they had clues of their dragon genealogy painted on the wall of the hall in which they were all found dead!
Why should they if not to mislead?

And if the ziggurat itself was really meant not to be even seen, why should it have traps inside?

A couple of major problems with this. Keep in mind that multiple generations of Draketooths have been brought up believing the only thing they can trust is family. Quite frankly, I would be more surprised if there wasn't some sort of family tree someplace. And where better to put it than the dining hall, a place the entire clan visits multiple times per day?

And as for why the ziggurat should have traps inside..... I mean you're guarding one of the five gates of the Snarl, a creature that can negate all existence, are you going to rely on one layer of defenses? Of course not. You're going to have layer after layer after layer after layer. Contingency after contingency after contingency. You can't simply cover yourself with a couple of illusions and twiddle your thumbs hoping that no one ever finds you. After all, all someone has to do to figure out the location of your gate is visit an Oracle.

[Kish]

Well, Girard multiclassed to Ranger, right? And if we know anything about Eugene, it's that he would sooner die than take a level in non-caster class. Actually, that's just what he did.
So I think Eugene would be superior in illusions, while combat-wise, Girard would be more efficient...

I doubt very much if Eugene was ever epic level.

Girard would have swatted him like a bug.

[Fish]

I totally agree with you on that.
In real life.
When I'm not at a Houdini show.

You make a very good point ... against your case. Houdini was trying to fool an audience.

You have, by advocating that this is all an illusion, confused or conflated the two ideas of a trick by the clan to fool intruders, and a trick by Rich to fool the reader.

We cannot know why Rich might try to set up this grand illusion to fool us (the reader), so in that you could be right ... but meanwhile, the audience of the trick is Roy and Haley and company — not us. What reason do the Draketooths have to present a conspiracy designed to fool US in this way?

[Vulkos]

You make a very good point ... against your case. Houdini was trying to fool an audience.

You have, by advocating that this is all an illusion, confused or conflated the two ideas of a trick by the clan to fool intruders, and a trick by Rich to fool the reader.

We cannot know why Rich might try to set up this grand illusion to fool us (the reader), so in that you could be right ... but meanwhile, the audience of the trick is Roy and Haley and company — not us. What reason do the Draketooths have to present a conspiracy designed to fool US in this way?

I thought I had told more than once that in my little scenario, the Draketooth are trying to fool the Order, in order (pun not intended) to make them think there will be no resistance on their way to the gate.
We stumbled into the illusion just because, you'll see, in narrative readers are not always omniscient of what characters are planning.

[marcelopvf]

I don't know if anyone pointed it, but...

Durkon had to use True Seeing. If the ziggurat was an ilusion (decoy), it should be there for their bare eyes to see it. But no, it was invisible and well hidden and found only through Belkar's sense of smell;

I don't think the whole place is an ilusion =)

[Fish]

I thought I had told more than once that in my little scenario, the Draketooth are trying to fool the Order, in order (pun not intended) to make them think there will be no resistance on their way to the gate.
We stumbled into the illusion just because, you'll see, in narrative readers are not always omniscient of what characters are planning.

In your scenario it is the Draketooths who are omniscient. They know everything we know about the plot. Their "illusion" is sub-optimal for defending their gate (as far as we can tell) because it makes no sense as a strategy; it makes sense only as a means to bamboozle us.

I've asked you to explain why the Draketooths would choose this strategy for gate defense; its audience is the Order. You can only hand-wave and say "we don't know, but it is one."

[Math_Mage]

I thought I had told more than once that in my little scenario, the Draketooth are trying to fool the Order, in order (pun not intended) to make them think there will be no resistance on their way to the gate.
We stumbled into the illusion just because, you'll see, in narrative readers are not always omniscient of what characters are planning.

From an in-universe perspective, the illusion serves no purpose. In a "Sorry Mario, your princess is in another castle" illusion, you want to make it as hard as possible for the searcher to reach that conclusion. This illusion does not do that.

From a narrative perspective, the illusion serves no purpose. Having a development that triggers character epiphanies turn out to be an illusion betrays the readers' suspension of disbelief--it punishes us for accepting that the Draketooths actually were coincidentally related to ABD. And we've already had one "another castle" moment.

[Umbra]

So, maybe you're right but still I cannot comprehend why on earth the Draketooth should have painted their genealogy on the wall or set traps in a building that's intended not to be reached.

They're just proud of their draconic heritage! Stop oppressing their culture, you ethnocentric witch!

[Fish]

I wouldn't say an illusionary revelation never serves any purpose, Mage; I just can't imagine what it is, in this case, and neither can the proponent of the illusion theory.

What we are expected to believe is that this illusion
1. makes it look like the Order is guilty of having dismantled the Gate's defenses, yet
2. doesn't tell them they're responsible, because
3. the illusion separates out the only person who knows the connection, yet
4. the corpses are asked to speak and they tell the party nothing useful, while
5. doing nothing to discourage the invaders from leaving, and
6. chooses to blame the one party member whose connection is secret.

If the whole idea was to make the party feel responsible for the death of the Draketooths, the illusion could have make it look like it had been Nale. Or Tarquin. Or Xykon. Then the entire party would have known who was behind it.

But instead, it chooses to make V (and V alone) look responsible, and in such a way that only V (and nobody else) knows it. Therefore, this illusion is so powerful, it's behaving exactly like the plot we'd expect to see if it weren't an illusion. So why should we credit the theory? Whose purpose does this illusion serve and why?

[Vulkos]

Actually I think I've told more than once what is my theory about the "why".

They want to make the Order believe they're dead.
Why? because you can't kill the dead, beause they (OotS) are going to be taken by surprise when they'll be attacked by a whole horde of wizards, because they (Draketooths) need more time to enact a counterattack, because if the Order thinks there are no more illusionists to guard the gate they will not be careful of not fallin' into traps, because it's all part of a greater plan not yet revealed, because if a dead under speaking spell tells you something you will blindly trust him, because ...

Seriously, guys, one thing is saying "I really do not think this is an illusion, I totally disagree with you and I found it highly unlikely for this and that reason", and I could accept it, another one si saying "I really couldn't think a way of take advantage of the fact that my enemy thinks I don't even exist anymore".

[Math_Mage]

Actually I think I've told more than once what is my theory about the "why".

They want to make the Order believe they're dead.
Why? because you can't kill the dead, beause they (OotS) are going to be taken by surprise when they'll be attacked by a whole horde of wizards, because they (Draketooths) need more time to enact a counterattack, because if the Order thinks there are no more illusionists to guard the gate they will not be careful of not fallin' into traps, because it's all part of a greater plan not yet revealed, because if a dead under speaking spell tells you something you will blindly trust him, because ...

Seriously, guys, one thing is saying "I really do not think this is an illusion, I totally disagree with you and I found it highly unlikely for this and that reason", and I could accept it, another one si saying "I really couldn't think a way of take advantage of the fact that my enemy thinks I don't even exist anymore".

I certainly don't see an advantage compared to, oh, not letting them get through in the first place.

That said, my position is primarily that this is nonsensical for the narrative. The tactical unsoundness and in-universe implausibility are a whole different dimension.

[thereaper]

Why would they need more time to attack? You are positing that the Draketooths effectively know everything about the order. They should have been prepared a long time ago. They've had plenty of time.

Heck, why would they want to attack? Their primary method of defending the gate is to not let it be found. An illusion that encourages the subject to keep searching for the gate is counterproductive to their entire defensive strategy. It's the equivalent of Tarquin trying to conquer another nation by revealing himself as the secret emperor and intimidating them into submission.

But let's assume for a moment that the Draketooths do want to attack our heroes. You must now answer the following question for your idea to be taken seriously: Why haven't they done so already? They've had plenty of time to prepare. Why allow them to get this far, when they could have attacked when they were separated?

Everything we know about the Draketooths says that there is no advantage in all of this being an illusion. Could one concieve of a way that it could be an advantage? Perhaps. But I could also concieve of a way for the entire story thus far to be an illusion planted in Roy's head by Eugene. See, he's an Illusionist, too. And maybe he was Epic. So maybe he developed an epic spell that does this, and used it for some plan that we don't know yet (or just because he's a jerk, which is more motive than you've given). What is wrong with this idea? It is certainly possible, right? Perhaps, but it's also completely speculative. Speculation alone is not enough.

And this is without even touching the narrative aspects of why this idea reeks to high heaven.

[Lissou]

Then remains the little point that casting the spell directly on a human would have wiped out humanity

Wait, why? Just like casting it on a dragon didn't wipe out dragons, there is no reason for it to wipe out humanity. It's not like humans all have one common ancestor at the top. The gods probably put a bunch of humans there to begin with.

[Lissou]

There is no way for "someone to share not a single common gene with his brother or sister."

I'm pretty sure they meant that it's possible for two siblings to have been passed genes without any overlap, that is sibling 1 got half 1 of every pair from their dad and half 1 of every pair from their mom, while sibling two got halves 2. Of course it's also possible to be passed exactly the same thing so it doesn't mean anything.

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".

It's good that it's not his argument at all, then. "Twice" refers to how many times the process happens, not how many generations it applies to.

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

If the Giant wanted, they could all have failed. Or all expect the one person he wants to survive, or whatever. It's not an actual campaign, it's a story, he'll use whichever numbers he wants to, and in theory, it's possible for 100% of the people to fail their save (it would also be possible, though unlikely and anticlimactic, for all of them to make their save. Of course we know that didn't happen).

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...

I think you misunderstand the Giant's post. He said it would go up, and then down from the last living ancestor. But Girard wasn't the last living ancestor, the spell was going down from above him, from dragon blood. Even if it stopped at dead people, as it does in step 2, it wouldn't have for Girard. Girard's descendants would still be related to his ancestors.
Similarly, the great-grandmother the giant mention could very well have no living children left, yet her grandchildren and great-grandchildren would die anyways, because they're related to her.
The Giant never said "one dead relative stops it from going up the chain". It said "it traces back the oldest living relative, and goes down from there". It can most definitely skip generations.

[Math_Mage]

The thing about humans is, they've had a lot more generations to breed. A fiftieth- or seventieth-generation human has a lot more ancestors among the first humans than a fourth- or even fifth-generation black dragon. We don't even need a universal common ancestor (though we might get one), because there are so many ancestors to pick from. What are the odds that any two given OotS humans share NO common ancestors among the first humans? Unless there's pretty strict continental segregation, the odds are basically zero.

[Kish]

because you can't kill the dead,

Roy's quest is impossible?

[Haldir]

It is completely reasonable to build a decoy capable of eliminating potential threats to the Gate. Like the Paladin's who hunted the goblinoids in pursuit of the threat to Soon's gate, perhaps this Ziggurat is both a defensive and preventative measure.

Certainly there are illusions that can react to your mental state, and it's not impossible that the decoy is designed to specifically divide and conquer in any way it can. It's entirely possible that when Belkar looks at that same wall he will see something specifically tailored to him.

[Fish]

Actually I think I've told more than once what is my theory about the "why".

...

it's all part of a greater plan not yet revealed.

This is hardly evidence that a grand plan exists. You just wave your hand and say "it's all part of an illusion because it's all part of a plan we don't understand yet."

There are plenty of ways to spring an ambush on a group of people. And there are plenty of ways to lay in wait for an enemy, and attack with surprise, without their being aware you're about to do so. Nobody is saying that there's no advantage to surprise.

What I'm asking is why this specific way? Why make it look as if they're dead, because of a Familicide spell that only one party member knows about? If the illusion is produced by somebody so omniscient that he/it/they know about this spell, surely he/it/they also know that the Order doesn't all know about it, whereas the Order all knows about Xykon and Nale and Tarquin.

Also: for all the reasons you say an illusion of dead people is ideal — can't be killed, the Order would trust everything they say, wouldn't suspect an attack — an illusion of living people would be just as good. Better, in fact, if the goal is to make the Order go away. The Order is most definitely not going to simply pack their bags and say, "Gosh, I guess the Gate isn't defended, we'll move on to the next one."

Your illusion hypothesis requires the illusion to be created by a mastermind with perfect foresight who knows every person, personally, who is about to invade. The illusion has to know that the Order exists; it requires the illusion to know that the Order thinks the Draketooths exist (because Haley guessed there's a clan in the first place — if you're trying to say it's all a big illusion, you have to concede that you have no proof there IS a Draketooth clan). The illusion must know that Durkon prepared Speak With Dead that morning, and would cast it. It would have to know that Vaarsuvius's natural reaction upon seeing the Family Tree would be to flee the room and fall into an oubliette. The illusion has to be so brilliant that it can predict the Order is coming here because they're trying to head off both Xykon and Nale. It has to be able to predict the future, and the behavior of everybody, with perfect precision. And yet you say the illusion is still trying to sneak-attack the Order? Why?

It. Makes. No. Sense.

And all you have to back it up is "it's all part of a grand plan yet to be revealed."

[Steward]

I feel like such a scheme, apart from being farfetched and a little unfair, would deflate a lot of narrative tension from the Vaarsuvius / familicide subplot.

It's like if it turned out that Haley's aphasia was caused solely by wearing a too-tight choker, and she resolved it without growing as a character in any way. Deflating a major character moment by introducing a sudden, random swerve right before the moment of catharsis... well, it's not bad writing but whenever I see it it always feels like a letdown. Like the author wrote himself or herself into a corner and decided to just give up and bail out. That doesn't sound like something Rich Burlew would do, to be honest.

The Draketooths might have something else in the bag, but I think it would be a whole lot cooler than, "We arranged this whole thing, including details that would only make sense if we were trying to trick some audience!"

[Fish]

Let me state again for emphasis:

If it's not an illusion, it proves Haley's theory of a family clan is correct.

If it is all an illusion, it only proves someone wants us (and the Order) to think it's correct.

If you say "the Draketooths put up an illusion that they're all dead" you're using the illusion as concrete evidence the clan exists at all, which is a paradox.

[Studoku]

i cant wait for this arc to be over so everyone stops say "well i know we see something in the comic, but tis probably jsut an illusion"

There aren't any threads about it all being an illusion.

They're just an illusion.