Results 1,051 to 1,080 of 1255
Thread: Familicide Mega-Thread
-
2012-03-07, 01:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
- Location
- Brazil
- Gender
Re: Varsuvius' Kill-Count: Familicide By The Numbers
Well, maybe. In Portugal it could be different...
I just wonder how come a thread about Vaarsuvius and Familicide went on to discuss linguistics...Last edited by lorddrake; 2012-03-07 at 01:33 PM.
"Evil is so passè, I prefer to be thought of as just a genius."
Homebrew - The awesome Tier 1 Fighter!
-
2012-03-07, 01:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Re: How many degrees of Consanguinity?
I think you may on the right track, there.
The spell, as described, targets living creatures directly sharing a bloodline. As a bloodline is basically a set of ancestors, that would include siblings (who have the same parents and grandparents and all other ancestors). Descendents of those siblings would also count, as they have the target's bloodline as a subset of their own bloodlines.
So if that were the case, and Girard's draconic grandfather happened to be a brother/nephew or descendent of such of the ABD, the entire Draketooth clan (including Penelope's child) would be part of the first "directly shares your bloodline" stage.
Now, in order to account for V's claim of Penelope's death and the presumed death of the hypothetical Tarquin-Penelope offset, I'm going to make two more assumptions:
- That it applies to the ancestors themselves as well (feasible since the ancestor's bloodlines are subsets of the target bloodline). This allows for ancestors of descendents (Penelope) to be affected during the "any creature directly related to those" stage.
- That maternal and paternal bloodlines are considered independently. This allows for half-siblings (such as those with the same mother (again, Penelope) but different fathers (Tarquin, Orrin)) to be affected because they share a bloodline (maternal, in this case).
With it working like that, cousins and more distant relatives of the target would be affected...but in the second stage, as descendents of living ancestors or as ancestors of living descendents. And so, V's casting of Familicide on ABD could cover wide swaths of black-dragon-kind, while only hitting small clusters outside black-dragon-kind (such as the Draketooth clan)...and with the two-step process the spell was described with.FeytouchedBanana eldritch disciple avatar by...me!
The Index of the Giant's Comments VI―Making Dogma from Zapped Bananas
-
2012-03-07, 01:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2006
- Location
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Gender
Re: How many degrees of Consanguinity?
You are massively underestimating how much genes spread. You are also somewhat contradicting your self. It should have killed many more people than there are in the world, therefore there must have been inbreeding, therefore it should not have killed so many. Well of course there is a lot of inbreeding on this scale, there has to be. That doesn't mean that there is not also a massive spread, with any realistic model it would decimate most of the population on all continents, even assuming earthly iron age setting, and this is a setting with magical transport.
Cast a thousand-years-limited familicide on a european in 1490 and you still decimate the native americans through the vikings.
Look up estimations of most recent universal ancestor and be surprised.
So it only targets cousins if their grandparrents is alive? Sorry, that would make it direct up-down line, but then it requires four steps. As you say only two is implied by V.
No.Last edited by Tass; 2012-03-07 at 01:42 PM.
-
2012-03-07, 01:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
Re: How many degrees of Consanguinity?
Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei, King Joffrey, The Tickler, The Hound, Ser Amory, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling, Weese, Dunsen, Nale, Ser Gregor Clegane and Chiswyck: Winter is coming!
-
2012-03-07, 02:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
- Gender
Re: Varsuvius' Kill-Count: Familicide By The Numbers
Never heard of blood relations such as "uncle", "brother", or "cousin" and similar?
If the Draketooth ancestor was ABD's brother, or her cousin, then he would be her blood relative, and all his descendants would be her blood relatives. That includes Orrin, and Orrin's daughter..
-.____________________
./___________________()-------Ron Miel
|...___________________--------sits down
|..| |_________________()-------and starts
|..|/__________________--------singing
| ___________________()-------about gold
.
-
2012-03-07, 02:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
Re: How many degrees of Consanguinity?
according to the description V gave it's only two steps, BUT that still has a large reach, depending on how you define a step.
my thoughts on how it worked is this.
first of remember that dragons hatched with several siblings, so the black dragon v cast familicide on had several siblings in that ONE clutch of eggs, plus more siblings in every other cluthc EITHER parents had (depending on whether dragons mate for life in this world.
second any decendents from these siblings are still in the first step.
the second step comes when you go back up the tree. so all of the dragons siblings are dead, and all of their children are dead in the first step, and and all of the children's OTHER parents are dead, and all of those parents siblings and children are dead.
so then for penelope to be kill in just two steps, the dragon pictured would just have to be any dragon in the first step, so that all the humans pictured are children, grandchildren, etc and therefore in the first step. this would make the dragon targeted by familicide girard's great-something-aunt. so then penelope's child by girard's descendent is still in that first step, and penelope is in the second step.
this would mean any other children of penelope would have died, but NOT their other parent, so if penelope and tarquin had had a child, the child would have died but not tarquin (and not elan).
tl;dr
siblings share your blood, descendents share your blood
therefore, descendents of siblings share your blood
penelope's child was a descendent of a sibling (or other very direct relative like uncle/aunt) of the dragon targeted by familicide
-
2012-03-07, 02:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
- Gender
Re: How many degrees of Consanguinity?
If this were the real world, I wouldn't bother using historical creation dates to begin with. To the best of our knowledge, OotSworld was created pretty much all at once, at least to the extent that there were clerics of all three pantheons within the first few years. It's also less than two thousand years old. In the absence of any information that contradicts this, I have no reason not to accept the information that HAS been provided.
V understood the spell he cast. What he didn't realize is that it would spread to humans.
-
2012-03-07, 03:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2006
- Location
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Gender
Re: How many degrees of Consanguinity?
Last edited by Tass; 2012-03-07 at 03:29 PM.
-
2012-03-07, 03:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
- Gender
Re: How many degrees of Consanguinity?
That's because it is. Twice now the spell has been described as "First it does X, then it does Y." We can argue about what X and Y really are, but the fact that it does X, then Y, then stops is really not disputable.
And no, nothing about V's dialogue then or now indicates that he doesn't understand the spell he cast.
-
2012-03-07, 03:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2006
- Location
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Gender
Re: How many degrees of Consanguinity?
Siblings share blood by virtue of having the same parents, therefore sharing half their genes.
Cousins share blood by virtue of having two of the same grandparents, therefore sharing a quarter of their genes.
None of them are in a direct line.
Allowing it to jump to siblings but not to cousins seems rather arbitrary.
Yeah well, even if V understood it fully the wording can technically still be interpreted as meaning X then Y and so on.
But yes, I do agree that two steps seems the most likely.Last edited by Tass; 2012-03-07 at 03:37 PM.
-
2012-03-07, 04:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2003
- Location
- Philadelphia, PA
- Gender
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
I really thought that last comic would end this debate, but it seems like there's still a lot of confusion. So here goes:
Step 1: Kill everyone with the original target's blood. This is a simple yes/no effect: Is a creature (the secondary target) related by blood to the original target at all, in any way? If yes, kill it. If no, move on. Number of generations or percentage of blood or direction doesn't matter.
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. If a person can only trace their blood through (say) Penelope's already-dead great-great-great-grandfather, then they're safe. Thus cousins and second-cousins and the like are all dead, but more distant genetic relations are not. It is possible for some cousins to survive if all older generations were already dead, yes, but Vaarsuvius wasn't really likely to take the time to make that distinction while sobbing on a dungeon hallway floor.
Now for some anticipated FAQs:
That's not exactly what Vaarsvuius said when the spell was cast, though.
First, Vaarsvuius is prone to poetic word choice and had no particular reason to include various exceptions or inclusions while in the middle of punishing the dragon. Second, as the author, I also had an interest in not necessarily giving away the twist that the Draketooths would be killed two years ahead of time (leading me to choose words that maybe implied one thing while allowing for another). In other words, don't try to parse the language too precisely.
Wouldn't that spell kill everyone of the original target's species?
In our world? Maybe. The OOTS world is not ours, though. It was created fully populated, even with black dragons. So there could be 100 original black dragons who (as V noted) breed slowly over the relatively-short span of time the current world has been in existence, leading to one-quarter of them being wiped out. If it had been cast on a human first, it may well have taken half or more of the population with it, depending on how many Original Humans there had been and how much interbreeding had occurred. Good thing that's not what happened, right?
But if it worked like that, it would have [insert obscure effect proven with math]!
Yeah, well, it didn't. Why? I don't know. But it didn't. I guess that makes me a crappy writer because I didn't think of whatever implication you just thought of, but there it is. I'm not a biologist or a mathematician. If it makes you feel better, just assume that all the laws of heredity and genetics work differently because It's Magic™.
I hope this will end the endless debates. It's really quite simple, and if you're getting to a point where it seems utterly complicated or recursive or whatever, you're probably thinking about it more than I did.Rich Burlew
Now Available: 2023 OOTS Holiday Ornament plus a big pile of new t-shirt designs (that you can also get on mugs and stuff)!
~~You can also support The Order of the Stick and the GITP forum at Patreon.~~
-
2012-03-07, 04:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Thank you Giant!
-
2012-03-07, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- Virginia
- Gender
-
2012-03-07, 04:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2010
-
2012-03-07, 04:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
- Gender
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Well, the 'still-living' clarification certainly resolves all the issues of potential genocide. Thanks Giant!
-
2012-03-07, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- New York
- Gender
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Thank you, Giant!
My webcomic!
Currently DMing:
Tales of Aequar: Runite's Rise IC
OOC Map
Playing Natalia Bolts,Jadeite Nocrius, and Soren Lowell
-
2012-03-07, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Location
- NYC
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
So... even through all this clarification, a thought occurred to me. Hopefully this doesn't make a thousand more posts.
Does the creature that the spell is cast on die as well?
Oh, don't look at me like that. The most satisfyingly evil application of this spell is to be able to tell someone that you literally wiped out everyone related to them; you can't do that if the spell killed them, too (Okay, Contact other Plane, but where's the fun in that?).
-
2012-03-07, 04:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
- Gender
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Last edited by Math_Mage; 2012-03-07 at 04:56 PM.
-
2012-03-07, 05:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
-
2012-03-07, 05:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2012
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
In our defense, it WAS totally clear to most of us from the last 2 comics. It's even a little embarassing that just leaving it at the mural wasn't enough! I thought it was pretty clear at that point. But the dialogue in the last comic was about as explicit as if you had shown a close up on an open spell book with Familicide written out.
That's not why we argue endlessly on your forums. We do it because we love it. We love arguing over the minutiae and researching spell components. Things like, if Familicide wasn't quickened by the soul splice with the sorcerer, how many rounds would it have take to cast? Why? It's a George Mallory thing. Because it's there.
-
2012-03-07, 05:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
-
2012-03-07, 05:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Concluded: The Stick Awards II: Second Edition
Ongoing: OOTS by Page Count
Coming Soon: OOTS by Final Post Count II: The Post Counts Always Chart Twice
Coming Later: The Stick Awards III: The Search for More Votes
__________________________
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style - Jhereg Proverb
-
2012-03-07, 05:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
- Location
- UK - North East
- Gender
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
<hums a happy tune as she starts to thump the ailing Familicide debate with a cricket bat and prepares it an acid bath>
The Theory of Narrative Causality rules!'~:. F5 Camper With Muscle-Memory Issues .:~'
-
2012-03-07, 05:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Location
- Gotham City
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Last edited by ThePhantasm; 2012-03-07 at 05:26 PM.
"And yet, will we ever come to an end of discussion and talk if we think we must always reply to replies? For replies come from those who either cannot understand what is said to them, or are so stubborn and contentious that they refuse to give in even if they do understand." - St. Augustine
The Index of the Giant's Comments | Thanks, Bradakhan, for the avatar!
-
2012-03-07, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2009
- Location
- Paris, France
- Gender
Re: Varsuvius' Kill-Count: Familicide By The Numbers
Well, that was were I seem to had it wrong. I don't consider that I share blood with my brother or my uncle. That's not how works genetics as far as I know, and I have a very poor sense of family.
But I see now how the Giant intended it to work, and I'm cool with that. Next strip please!Posting from France
Sorry for my accent.
Thanks to neoseph7 for my avatar (Allen Walker from D.Gray-Man)
-
2012-03-07, 05:34 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2012
-
2012-03-07, 06:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2010
- Location
- Chicagolandia
- Gender
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Thanks Giant. Clearing up the confusion is very kind of you. Here's more questions!
-
2012-03-07, 06:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Thank you for clearing the matter up for everyone.
-
2012-03-07, 06:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2005
- Location
- Vancouver, BC, Canada
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
Well if step 1 wouldn't kill the original target, step 2 would (although presumably *undead* targets don't get killed by familicide - a possible loophole Haerta built into the spell if she liched herself before casting it (pre-lower planes existence), just in case she hit a distant relative with it?)
-
2012-03-07, 06:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2004
Re: Familicide Mega-Thread
So, "sharing blood" means having a living common ancestor or descendant? It's gotta include common descendants for Penelope to have been hit at all, right? Am I understanding this correctly now?