Familicide Mega-Thread

[ref]

It seems to be you who is using a non-English billion, since that's 10^12 or approximately 2^40

EDIT: I didn't see Page 2 before posting. Perfectly explained.

[lio45]

It seems to be you who is using a non-English billion, since that's 10^12 or approximately 2^40

American billion = 10^9
Old British billion = 10^12

"English" billion, depends what you mean by that...

[Porthos]

Ever since 1974, a "British Billion" techincally doesn't exist. Even if there are legacy bits here and there.

For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the United Kingdom uniformly used the long scale,[3] while the United States of America used the short scale,[3] so that the two systems were often referred to as British and American in the English language. In 1974, the government of the UK switched to the short scale, a change that is reflected in its mass media and official usage.[4][5][6][7][8][9] Although some residual usage of the long scale continues in the UK,[10][11] the phrases British usage and American usage are no longer accurate characterisations.

The only reason I even knew there was such a thing as a "British Billion" is that I once had a dictionary/reference book from the 50s and it had seperate charts for the US and UK when it came to numbers.

[ref]

Meh, have your system where a billion equals 10^3*3, a trillion equals 10^3*4, and so on if you wish.

[dtilque]

2^10=1024
2^30=(2^10)^3=1024^3 = ~ a billion.

Unless you use a non-english "billion"..

I expect that ref in fact uses an English billion. What he doesn't use is an American billion.

If you're still confused, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

[The_Weirdo]

The really important question is: How much XP does V get for that?

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

Even including the ABD, seeing as V was AT LEAST Level 75 at that time, V gets... Zero.

[Dungeonstone]

Yes, I understand that, but what about the hypothetical son of Penelope and Tarquin, how would this baby be killed by Familicide?

The child would be a blood relative of Penelope (clause 2), Tarquin however is still NOT a blood relative of Penelope (just the child) and so is still safe.

For Tarquin to be a target in the above example the description would have to have been:

(Clause 1) Every living creature that shares your bloodline is dead. (This includes the entire Draketooth line).

(Clause 2) Any living creature that is directly related to any of those creatures is also dead. (Kills Penelope through the child with Orrin and would kill any child that she could have had with Tarquin but not Tarquin himself).

(Hypothetical Clause 3) Any living creature that is directly related to any of those creatures is also dead. (If this clause had been added then if Tarquin and Penelope had a child Tarquin, Elan and Nale would also be killed as would a theoretical child that Nale might have had with some previous lover but NOT the lover herself)

Fortunately the spell limited itself to the first two clauses and thereby reduced the collateral damage considerably.

[Hardcore]

BTW, the timeline is no indication of the age of the world.

[Jay R]

I have a very simple explanation for it: non-native English speaker.

For example, in my native language, a billion is 1 000 000 000 000.

1 000 000 000, which is a "billion" in English, is a "milliard".

It can be confusing, yes, but should be so only on one level. :-P

Cool. I'm kind of an amateur language buff. If you don't mind my asking, in what language does one billion still equal a million million?

[ref]

In several of the European languages it is a billion with twelve zeros.

[Math_Mage]

BTW, the timeline is no indication of the age of the world.

However, it can be weakly corroborated by both Shojo's description of the age of the world as "a thousand years and more" in his Crayon exposition and

Spoiler

Show

Redcloak's description of world history as "a few years" followed by "centuries" followed by "centuries" again.

It's not a stretch to establish that OotSworld is less than two millennia old based on this evidence.

[factotum]

On the whole of it, there simply may not be that many humans who have gone out of their way to have children with a dragon (a black dragon no less) in the 1000 or so years that the Stick-verse has been around.

Humans have probably NEVER gone out of their way to do that. A dragon shapeshifted into a human and after some (for them) kinky stuff, though, that's far more likely!

[King of Nowhere]

I wonder..what is a Death effect in D&D. Heart Attack like in Death Note? Stroke? Freak Annuerism? It would have to be some bodily failure that hits without warning and is untraceable by non-magical means... Oh well I will puzzle this for a few hours.

Personally, I made death effects as your body still being perfectly functional, but your sould being torn away from your body. When a character was subjected to a death effect, he felt a vvery short but very extreme pain "as if every cell of your body was being ripped apart from any other cell", and that's the pain of the soul being ripped away from the body.

Humans have probably NEVER gone out of their way to do that. A dragon shapeshifted into a human and after some (for them) kinky stuff, though, that's far more likely!

I suppose you don't know enough about fetishes then.
I condensed my knowledge of the matter in two laws.
First law: if you can think about it, then it's someone's fetish.
Second law: if you can't think about it, then it's probably still someone's fetish.
I expect there would be plenty of humans wanting to mate with dragons. Without shapeshifting involved.

[Onyavar]

I'm sure someone posted this before somewhere in this thread, but I have a rather sure guess why Haerta Bloodsoak didn't "stay in the game", as Xykon calls it.

She used Familicide.
Once.

[Autolykos]

I wonder..what is a Death effect in D&D. Heart Attack like in Death Note? Stroke? Freak Annuerism? It would have to be some bodily failure that hits without warning and is untraceable by non-magical means... Oh well I will puzzle this for a few hours.

I'd go for the "Harry Potter" route (same way as I describe Mana Bolt in Shadowrun): You're perfectly healthy except for the fact that you are, you know, dead.

Humans have probably NEVER gone out of their way to do that. A dragon shapeshifted into a human and after some (for them) kinky stuff, though, that's far more likely!

Well, there's that old joke floating around in the Forums:

Human: Hey elf, you look like a girl.
Elf: To a human, everything must look like a girl.
Human: What?
Elf: Half-orcs, half-ogres...
Human: ... shut up.
Dwarf: Half-dragons, half-kobolds.
Human: I said shut up!
Elf: ...
Dwarf: ...
Human: ...
Elf: Centaurs.

[Chess Tyrant]

I'm guessing the biggest reason is that the deaths were spread around so much - no more than one or two, or one family, in a single city or village. If a thousand people in one area were all wiped out, we'd hear of it, but considering how apparently random the victims were, it's possible nobody's yet pieced together the fact that a thousand people all dropped dead at the same time for no visible reason.

On the other hand, I definitely agree that the Reptilian ambassador was telling the Empress something about Familicide. How much Reptilia has figured out (they're the most likely to have even noticed that something happened, and its possible entire villages or cities - or a lot of very important people - simply dropped dead) will be left to speculation for a while, but they might have had enough time to divine the cause.

[Autolykos]

Cool. I'm kind of an amateur language buff. If you don't mind my asking, in what language does one billion still equal a million million?

German is one of them, as well as pretty much any other European language except for English (I'm sure for French, and Wiki says it's also in Italian, Polish, Portugese and Spanish). EDIT: Browsing through the articles for "Billion" in the languages I can sort of understand, it seems to be the case for Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian as well.

On V's effective level: If you have a logarihmic scale, "one more than the highest current level in the Soulmeld" should be a good approximation.

[Quild]

The Draketooth baby is a blood relative of ABD (clause 1).

Penelope is "directly related" to her baby (clause 2).

How can he be blood relative to ABD since he's not one of her descendant.

He could be a blood relative only if :
- ABD was Girard's greatfather.
- ABD's son was Girard greatfather.
- Another of ABD's child (or grandchild) was Girard's greatfather.

[Hardcore]

Still, there is no direct link between age and history. History is after all a human (and goblin) concept about recording what people have done in the past.
Or to put it another way; history start with the advent of the first civilisation with interest in recording the present, and past, with accuracy. The Romans for example were less interested in precision in this area, and took liberties in their written works for various reason.

Otoh, the rocks and lavaflows of the early years in a planets forming never bothered with such things as history:) Millions of years pass with not even a footnote in a book of stone.

[lorddrake]

German is one of them, as well as pretty much any other European language except for English (I'm sure for French, and Wiki says it's also in Italian, Polish, Portugese and Spanish). EDIT: Browsing through the articles for "Billion" in the languages I can sort of understand, it seems to be the case for Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian as well.

On V's effective level: If you have a logarihmic scale, "one more than the highest current level in the Soulmeld" should be a good approximation.

Ow... I'm sorry but I'm expert on that one and in Portuguese it is not.

[ManuelSacha]

Well,

1) The world isn't much over a thousand years old. It's possible the gods created several tens of thousands of each race at the beginning of the world, and while V wiped out a few of them, even at the furthest definition of 'blood relative,' s/he only killed a few thousands of tens of thousands of people, scattered all across the world. Unfortunate, but by no means cataclysmic (except to the black dragons).

2) V mentions in the spell description that it only targets living relatives of the main target, and then only targets living relatives of those people. To an immortal race such as dragons, this could be apocalyptic; to short-lived races, humans in particular, it's not as much of a problem.

3) Combine this with the fact that it only affects two sets of targets - the primary target, and all the people killed when it was cast on the primary target - and we can see that it wouldn't annihilate anyone vaguely related to anyone vaguely related to anyone vaguely related to the ABD. For example, even if Penelope had borne Tarquin a son, Tarquin wouldn't have died, because the Familicide effect was only recast on Orrin and Penelope's daughter, and Tarquin doesn't share any blood with that child. Penelope/Tarquin's hypothetical child does, and would die, but Elan would be safe.

This.
It says "everyone who shares blood with the dragon, and then everyone who shares blood with them". Full stop.
It doesn't say "everyone who shares blood with the dragon, and then everyone who shares blood with them, and then everyone who shares blood with THOSE LAST ONES, and then everyone who shares blood with THOSE OTHERS, etc. etc..." for ever and ever.

Also, yeah... if it only targets living people, it doesn't go back several generations, and there isn't even need to track back to the creation of the world (although point #1 is valid as well).

/thread, yes?

[Fish]

I don't know how we got to this tangent, but in Spanish "millón" is 10^6, and "billón" is 10^12. For 10^9, the Spanish say "mil millones," or "a thousand million." Interesting that Portuguese does not.

(Taking college-level Spanish at the moment.)

[doodthedud]

That poor Weepie solider... Already living in an Empire of sadness, only to be charmed by a Draketooth for the sole purpose of conceiving a child, only THEN to be innocently killed for being related to them.

He lived and died a life of sadness

What shall we call this Weepie soldier?

I wish to commemorate him.

We will remember, Weepie Soldier. :(

[rbetieh]

What shall we call this Weepie soldier?

I wish to commemorate him.

We will remember, Weepie Soldier. :(

The Blue Guardian of Sorrow? And there will be sorrow no more...

[XxXU2XxX]

His life was filled with sadness, his afterlife now with joy for we understand his pain and pay homage to his memory.

[Procyonpi]

This couldn't go in the main thread because...

[rewinn]

What shall we call this Weepie soldier?

I wish to commemorate him.

We will remember, Weepie Soldier. :(

Under his armor, he wears a T-tunic that says:

"My Daddy cheated on my mommy with a red-haired hussy, and all I got out of it was death"

[Porthos]

Interesting that Portuguese does not.

I saw that the poster who said Portuguese does not was from Brazil. Maybe a difference between European Portuguese and Brazillian Portuguese?

The aforementioned Wikipedia article (I know, I know) seemed to say that Brazil uses short scale while Portugal uses long scale.

[Somewhere]

What shall we call this Weepie soldier?

I wish to commemorate him.

We will remember, Weepie Soldier. :(

That Guy with a Spear.

[Umbra]

I think it'd be more along the lines of:

"We're going to try and conquer another nation huh... We'll probably fail..."

So they're basically all Eeyores, huh?