[Retrospective] OOTS #602 missed opportunity

[Halae]

I agree with slii

[Kalrany]

I was always warned that sanity was overrated...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

"GIANT IN THE PLAYGROUND: On a saner forum, there wouldn't have been such speculation."

I am so sig'ing that.

GW

[willpell]

There is at least one other evil deity in the Northern pantheon (Hel.) And beings like Surtr might be able to grant domains as well. (Isn't he Loki's boss in the mythology, sometimes? I'm rusty on Norse.)

Deities and Demigods lists Surtur as a god; even if he didn't technically qualify as a god, there are numerous cases of ultra-powerful beings such as demon lords being able to grant spells to those who worship them (the ur-example being Orcus).

[PhantomDennis]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Rich would not want to imply--much less outright state--that all Northerner religious beliefs are divided "six alignments to Loki, three to all the non-Loki gods."

Hela would be an appropriate God for Lawful Evil, at least, perhaps Neutral Evil or True Neutral as well.

[PhantomDennis]

To avoid conversations like the one we're having. People see patterns where there shouldn't be any, and when they do, it distracts from the intended effect of the scene.

Maybe the Eighth Doctor should be the Mascot of the Forum boards. I personaly wasn't expecting Hilgya because it was the wrong place in the narrative to bring her back especially with Durkon seperated from the party, Personally, as a non-RPGer, I was amused by the person who said they were thinking like a dungeonmaster. Apparently thinking in a RPG rules, skews some people's views of narrative causality. I am reminded of those trying to build the Monster-in-the-Dark from scratch with about 30 templates without explaining how something that is more than 3 halves-anything makes story sense.

Then again, until Tarquin removed his helmet, I was reasonably sure that Julio Scoundrel was Elan's Biological Father. And this theory still makes more sense than Hilgya being the Empress

[Emperordaniel]

And this theory still makes more sense than Hilgya being the Empress

Ah, those "Hilgya is the Empress of Blood!" theories. They died out pretty quickly once the actual Empress was revealed.

[willpell]

I am reminded of those trying to build the Monster-in-the-Dark from scratch with about 30 templates without explaining how something that is more than 3 halves-anything makes story sense.

The Giant has lampooned this one too, both with Enor the Half-Dragon Half-Ogre and with the titular snail from SSDT, who is something like half-troll, half-dragon, and I think half-fiend (or maybe it was just Phiendish - that was a typo but I'm leaving it in for teh phunnay). It's not as silly as it sounds, of course; "half-X" is used because it's a punchy-sounding name, but it may not be accurate, "half-fiend" really just means "fiend-blooded with a more dominant strain than tieflings or creatures with Fiendish Heritage". Still, the joke works.

[Kish]

It's not as silly as it sounds, of course; "half-X" is used because it's a punchy-sounding name, but it may not be accurate, "half-fiend" really just means "fiend-blooded with a more dominant strain than tieflings or creatures with Fiendish Heritage".

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Er. Which came first, the player who wanted to play a half-celestial half-fiend who somehow also had human (and possibly dragon) in there despite 100% being accounted for, or the idea that "half-fiend" doesn't mean what it says on the can?

[willpell]

I figure it's an obvious consequence of the fact that the various half-templates don't forbid you from taking others, or that any races are described as "half-X" despite there also being templates like that. In other words, if the writers had wanted these names to be geneologically precise, they would have written specific exemptions. Imprecise nomenclature is nothing new; they're just being poetic by describing someone as a "half-celestial half-dragon half-ogre" then that person is really a "half-celestial, 3/8 dragon, 1/16th ogre, with a tiny bit of elf blood twelve generations back which means he's more ogre than human."

[JennTora]

To avoid conversations like the one we're having. People see patterns where there shouldn't be any, and when they do, it distracts from the intended effect of the scene. Clarity trumps verisimilitude.

That said, it's not really a problem that I didn't change it, as you're right—it makes perfect sense the way it is. It's just that in retrospect, the announcement of a Cleric of Loki (followed by a gap before that cleric appeared on-panel) created an expectation in the some segments of the audience that I did not want. And that expectation is obviously still there, years after the fact, or else this thread would never have been posted.

Uh... wouldn't it be simpler to just not mention that he worshipped loki until he was on screen? Or explicitly define him as a male character prior to showing him?

I'm just saying.

[Psyren]

Uh... wouldn't it be simpler to just not mention that he worshipped loki until he was on screen? Or explicitly define him as a male character prior to showing him?

I'm just saying.

He did.

"I'll get a message to him in the morning, then."

[ti'esar]

The Giant has lampooned this one too, both with Enor the Half-Dragon Half-Ogre and with the titular snail from SSDT, who is something like half-troll, half-dragon, and I think half-fiend (or maybe it was just Phiendish - that was a typo but I'm leaving it in for teh phunnay). It's not as silly as it sounds, of course; "half-X" is used because it's a punchy-sounding name, but it may not be accurate, "half-fiend" really just means "fiend-blooded with a more dominant strain than tieflings or creatures with Fiendish Heritage". Still, the joke works.

Technically, I think half-ogres (at least in some settings) are a true-breeding race, so Enor's not quite as implausible as it sounds.

[willpell]

Technically, I think half-ogres (at least in some settings) are a true-breeding race, so Enor's not quite as implausible as it sounds.

If that's true then calling them "half-ogres" is an inaccuracy. Just as the child of two half-fiends is generally not a half-fiend, but a tiefling (or an ordinary human whose descendants might randomly be tieflings or have Fiendish heritage).

[Kish]

If that's true then calling them "half-ogres" is an inaccuracy. Just as the child of two half-fiends is generally not a half-fiend, but a tiefling (or an ordinary human whose descendants might randomly be tieflings or have Fiendish heritage).

*blinks* Citation needed for your claim about the child of two half-fiends.

Claiming that using the word "half-ogre" to denote actually, biologically being half ogre and half human is an "inaccuracy" is just...I have no words. Even if I thought the things you were saying about "half" being blurred into just meaning "some significant part of" were accurate, I'd still have no words for then proceeding to claim that meaning "half" to actually mean "half" was inaccurate.

As for the "half-ogre" thing, the whole point of that reference was that it was ambiguous whether Enor saying he was a "half-dragon half-ogre" meant he was half-dragon and half-ogre--or half-dragon, quarter-ogre, and quarter-human. This does not, most definitely not, mean that he was being inaccurate if it meant the former.

[willpell]

To me, "half-ogre" connotes "one ogre parent" (with an implied "and one ogre parent". The child of two half-ogres has zero ogre parents (and zero human parents). He's a member of a new race which ought to have a distinct name; saying he's still "half-ogre" because he's 50% ogre blood, while perhaps technically accurate (perhaps I misspoke before from your perspective, though I still think what I said was valid), is certainly misleading.

As to the half-fiends, well, the child does not automatically receive the template according to any game mechanism I know of...do you know of any ECL 4 babies which can fly, use spell-like abilities, and have +4 Strength, +4 Intelligence, etc? I suppose there's no official answer, but this is what seems most reasonable to me....the effects of an extraplanar bloodline probably dilute quickly, even if reinforced with another bloodline from the same plane (and breeding true is probably even less likely in the case of a half-devil and a half-demon, even though the template doesn't distinguish).

[Kish]

As to the half-fiends, well, the child does not automatically receive the template according to any game mechanism I know of...do you know of any ECL 4 babies which can fly, use spell-like abilities, and have +4 Strength, +4 Intelligence, etc?

...You mean other than half-fiends? What on earth are you even trying to say now?

If "half-fiend" means 50%, 90%, or 1% fiendish blood, it still results in a baby with the half-fiend template at some point.

[willpell]

...You mean other than half-fiends? What on earth are you even trying to say now?

If "half-fiend" means 50%, 90%, or 1% fiendish blood, it still results in a baby with the half-fiend template at some point.

Sigh...I don't even know, I guess it's just a subjective impression, but I don't buy that an individual without exactly one full-blooded X parent ought to come out as a Half-X. After that it's either the blood being diluted or a new species being founded from what were previously hybrids, but perhaps that's only the way it seems to me.

(All of this, of course, is entirely aside from the "Half-Illithid" and "Half-Golem" templates, which ought to serve as sufficient proof that tossing the word "half" into a template is not something Wotco did with any sort of scientific rigor.)

[Kish]

Sigh...I don't even know, I guess it's just a subjective impression, but I don't buy that an individual without exactly one full-blooded X parent ought to come out as a Half-X. After that it's either the blood being diluted or a new species being founded from what were previously hybrids, but perhaps that's only the way it seems to me.

At which point, your argument is entirely, "Half-X is used because it's a punchy-sounding name, but may not be accurate, because I, willpell, don't like it if it means exactly what it says." You kind of need support from D&D books, not personal feelings, if you wish to make claims about D&D.

[willpell]

You kind of need support from D&D books, not personal feelings, if you wish to make claims about D&D.

What a strange perspective.

[Kish]

Yeah, I know, right? Most of the forum would grind to a halt if people didn't feel comfortable blithely asserting whatever they wanted with no interest in such bizarre concepts as evidence.

[titan_monarch]

Gonna show off my geekitude here (yes we're all geeks! but in a different manner) by invoking Tolkien (who, as with most modern fantasy tropes, did the half- thing first). There was only one known case in all of his works where "half-elven" literally meant half-elven - Earendil. All the others had Maia (minor angel) blood in them somewhere and were actually half-human quarter-elf quarter-Maia, quarter-human-five-eighths-elf-quarter-Maia, three-eighths-human-nine-sixteenths-elf-one-sixteenth-Maia, and so on. But they were all known as the Half-elven.

So yeah. It seems that D&D followed his trend (like with everything else, not that that's bad at all!) and as long as you have some [species] blood somewhere, you get to be "half-[species]" regardless of whether that's strictly accurate or not.

[Kish]

So yeah. It seems that D&D followed his trend (like with everything else, not that that's bad at all!) and as long as you have some [species] blood somewhere, you get to be "half-[species]" regardless of whether that's strictly accurate or not.

The problem with that idea, is that:
1) Tieflings are described as Primes (natives of the Prime Material Plane) with some (less than half) fiendish blood. They're quite separate from half-fiends.
2) Aasimar are described as Primes with some (less than half) celestial blood. They're quite separate from half-celestials.
3) One theory about the origin of sorcery is that all sorcerers have at least a bit of dragon ancestry somewhere. Part of the support for this theory is that every half-dragon has the favored class "sorcerer," and dragons cast as sorcerers. No one has ever disproven the theory by saying, "Samantha obviously isn't a half-dragon, look at her."

[rgrekejin]

Sometimes half actually means half and sometimes it doesn't. Is DnD inconsistent in its usage of the term? Sure. Does that bother me? Not really, no, knowing the numerous and disparate sources from which DnD has cribbed ideas in the past.

[Psyren]

What a strange perspective.

There's nothing strange about it. Without it, we'd be discussing "Willpell's Fabulous Houseruled Fantasy Role-Playing Game" not D&D.