OOTS #874 - The Discussion Thread

[Emmit Svenson]

If Durkon gets vamped, doesn't he lose his cleric abilities? The game rules don't call for it, but I'm unsure whether Thor would approve of it.!

He would no longer be able to pray to Thor for spells. One would expect Malack to convert him to worship Nergal, yes.

[TheYell]

>>The only strong option I can come up with is to take a lesson from the scene with Thanh in Book IV and engineer a situation in which obeying Malack's commands requires Belkar to harm Mr. Scruffy, and hope that's sufficiently contrary to Belkar's nature that it throws off the spell (and makes him really mad at Malack). <<

Trip Belkar, put Mr. Scruffy over his eyes, and dismiss Hold Person.

[Gurgeh]

I sincerely hope that's a joke. I don't remember it appearing in Nosferatu, but it certainly did in Carmilla/Mircalla/Millarca

At the risk of appearing needlessly pedantic, I was referring to the specific case of an exact backwards name, even when it's one that has no feasible pronunciation like "Kcalam" - the anagrams are an old one but not specifically vampire-related, more of a common device in mysteries to shroud the identity of a villain while dangling it in front of the reader's nose. The vampire association is so strong mostly because of the paucity of literature - Carmilla does after all represent half of all the significant vampire-based novels written prior to the twentieth century.

[Burner28]

I have this memory of someone, who was arguing that Tarquin was Lawful Neutral (before we found out about the entire scheme), suggesting that Malack was responsible for most of the evil in the Empire of Blood while friendly, smiles-like-Elan Tarquin just wasn't involved.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Interesting irony.

That said, how Evil is Malack?

[hamishspence]

At the risk of appearing needlessly pedantic, I was referring to the specific case of an exact backwards name, even when it's one that has no feasible pronunciation like "Kcalam" - the anagrams are an old one but not specifically vampire-related, more of a common device in mysteries to shroud the identity of a villain while dangling it in front of the reader's nose. The vampire association is so strong mostly because of the paucity of literature - Carmilla does after all represent half of all the significant vampire-based novels written prior to the twentieth century.

Just how many vampire novels (as opposed to penny dreadfuls) were there back then anyway?

[zimmerwald1915]

even when it's one that has no feasible pronunciation like "Kcalam"

I realize this is nit-picking and doesn't touch the actual point you were making, but "Kcalam" is perfectly pronounceable. Either condense the "Kc" into a single "k" sound, or put a glottal stop in between the "k" and the "c" to end up with two "k" sounds.

[Feddlefew]

It's more overt between coyotes and dogs- with the aforementioned experiments you've mentioned.

By contrast, there's some evidence suggesting that the Red Wolf is basically a coywolf, many generations down the line- with it having coyote and gray wolf ancestry.

Golden jackals are a bit further removed from the wolf/dog/coyote grouping, and other species of jackal are further still- having a different number of chromosomes.

Hybridization in the D&D verse could work like plants hybridization does. Plants we quite happily double up on chromosomes (go from two sets to four or more) for a few generations until the extra matching chromosomes are eliminated. This creates a healthy population of fertile hybrids, which can then go on to hybridize again.

This only works if the hybrid isn't left with an odd number of chromosome sets, (Parent a with 2 sets and parent b with 4 sets would create offspring with three sets of chromosomes) because that stops the hybrid from forming gametes. Seedless watermelons, for instance.

[allenw]

Re: Lizard Men as Cannibals - I'm pretty sure that they *do* eat other Lizard Men from time to time, so the initial description is accurate.
On the other hand, Malack is looking more and more like something less lizardy and more snakey.

[Peelee]

I also like the homosexual innuendo; the insinuation that Malack's vampirism is equivalent to homosexuality and that Durkon wants to turn Malack straight or vice versa.
*snip*

I think Kish put it best...

...

What.

The.

Hell.

[Raineh Daze]

I think Kish put it best...

Seconding that sentiment.

[Feddlefew]

You know I missed those posts because I was distracted by the cannibalism discussion.

I'm going to add my "nnnnoooooooooooo....." and not get mad about the comparing of a sexual orientation to having a contagious supernatural disease, mkay?

[hamishspence]

Hybridization in the D&D verse could work like plants hybridization does. Plants we quite happily double up on chromosomes (go from two sets to four or more) for a few generations until the extra matching chromosomes are eliminated. This creates a healthy population of fertile hybrids, which can then go on to hybridize again.

That said, as a fantasy-verse, genes may not exist, or work very differently. Creatures might even be made of different particles.

As someone humorously pointed out a while back (maybe a few years)- fiends may be made of malecules and cruelectrons.

[Feddlefew]

That said, as a fantasy-verse, genes may not exist, or work very differently. Creatures might even be made of different particles.

As someone humorously pointed out a while back (maybe a few years)- fiends may be made of malecules and cruelectrons.

hehehehe

I'm wondering because, you know, where is the line between cannibalism and eating other sentients?

And I want to know how V didn't kill everyone with Famliacide*, given how many hybrids exist in the OoTS universe. Was it ever confirmed how far it traveled back up the family line?[/nopenotrestartingthatdebate]

*too lazy to look up the spelling.

[hamishspence]

hehehehe

I'm wondering because, you know, where is the line between cannibalism and eating other sentients?

And I want to know how V didn't kill everyone with Famliacide*, given how many hybrids exist in the OoTS universe. Was it ever confirmed how far it traveled back up the family line?[/nopenotrestartingthatdebate]

*too lazy to look up the spelling.

BoVD approach is that if it's eating other sentients "for pleasure and power" it's the Evil form of cannibalism.

Familicide

Spoiler

Show

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™.

[Feddlefew]

Ah, that clears things up.

[TheYell]

so...doing Atkins to prep for Olympic gold is...eevil XD

[hamishspence]

Sentient in the D&D sense- which would better be called sapient.

[Peelee]

Sentient in the D&D sense- which would better be called sapient.

According to dictionary.com:

sa·pi·ent [sey-pee-uhnt] Show IPA
adjective
having or showing great wisdom or sound judgment.

sen·tient [sen-shuhnt] Show IPA
adjective
1.
having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.
2.
characterized by sensation and consciousness.
noun
3.
a person or thing that is sentient.
4.
Archaic. the conscious mind.

It would appear that much of life in general (pretty much all animals and magical beasts, aberrations, etc.) would be considered "sentient" under this description, while Intelligent (Int 3+) beings would be "sapient." Would that be accurate?

[jere7my]

At the risk of appearing needlessly pedantic, I was referring to the specific case of an exact backwards name, even when it's one that has no feasible pronunciation like "Kcalam" - the anagrams are an old one but not specifically vampire-related, more of a common device in mysteries to shroud the identity of a villain while dangling it in front of the reader's nose. The vampire association is so strong mostly because of the paucity of literature - Carmilla does after all represent half of all the significant vampire-based novels written prior to the twentieth century.

Alucard as an alias for Dracula dates back to 1943 and Lon Chaney, Jr.'s Son of Dracula, and many times since. I expect Pratchett was riffing on that.

[hamishspence]

It would appear that much of life in general (pretty much all animals and magical beasts, aberrations, etc.) would be considered "sentient" under this description, while Intelligent (Int 3+) beings would be "sapient." Would that be accurate?

It would. However, informally, a great deal of sci-fi uses "sentient" where it should be using "sapient".

It's H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy that first gave me the idea that sapient is a better term to use.

[Threeshades]

I had the suspicion for a while that malack actually is a member of

Spoiler

Show

Start of Darkness spoiler

Spoiler

Show

The lizardfolk tribe that competed with redcloak's tribe for Xykons leadership.

[NerdyKris]

Doubtful as the story is only about halfway through IIRC. I don't think a major character will die at this point and we already had a resurrection plot.

We're way, WAY past the halfway point. You're recalling a statement from years ago. Most recently, in one of the interviews for the kickstarter, he said there's this book plus two more.

[Kish]

I had the suspicion for a while that malack actually is a member of

Spoiler

Show

Start of Darkness spoiler

Spoiler

Show

The lizardfolk tribe that competed with redcloak's tribe for Xykons leadership.

No good. Aside from the time frame not working, those were troglodytes.

[Sir_Leorik]

Actually, the Alucard alias doesn't come from Bram Stoker's novel; the count travels under his own name and generally gets away with it (since nobody knows that he's a vampire for quite some time - well over half the book passes before his true nature is revealed to the characters). "Alucard" was invented by later adaptations, generally ones that took the count being outed as a vampire for granted, and use the alias to preserve some mystery.

The more general application of vampires spelling their names backwards is most often put forward by Terry Pratchett (there's certainly no evidence of it in earlier vampire works like Carmilla or Nosferatu). Not that it's a bad thing, mind.

Dracula was operating under a pseudonym in the Bram Stoker Novel, just a very subtle one. His real name is Vlad III Dracula of House Draculesti, Voivode of Wallachia; he was only pretending to be a minor count as part of whatever scheme he was planning in London that the Harkers, van Helsing and the rest disrupted. Dracula was hiding his true identity in plain sight, counting on his foes not to know the history of his people. (Pun intended. )

[Sir_Leorik]

No good. Aside from the time frame not working, those were troglodytes.

No they were Lizardfolk. The Troglodytes were in "OtooPCs"; Sir Francois was trying to negoitate with them, but Elan offended them with comments about their odor.

Spoiler

Show

Malack can not have belonged to the group of Lizardfolk competing for Xykon's help, since not only was that much less than two hundred years ago, they lived in a swamp on the Northern Continent.

[Kish]

Ah? My mistake.

I'll stick with the time frame objection then.

[Inst]

I think in a LGBT (and whatever other bizarre abbreviations they've added onto it) context Malack's situation seems to some extent comparable, although I agree with you that I doubt that Rich intended Malack's vampirism to be a direct metaphor for something else; I think, at most, he might have adopted the structure of certain LGBT experiences to help flesh out an interesting encounter.

"I decide ta help me leader an' come after our teammate, an THIS is wha I find? A vampire?!?" Substitute homosexual or transsexual in this situation.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0871.html

Note certain lines with the possibility of swapping terms: "Frankly, I thought my lack of body heat would have given it away before this point." Swap it to say, that Malack is actually a transman or transwoman.

"Brother Thundershield, I understand that this can be upsetting for the living. That's why I prefer to keep my condition private. But nothing has really changed since our engaging discussions. I am still the same man who offered you guidance and friendship."

"Are ye mad??? Ev'rything's changed! Yer an undead monster tha drinks the blood o' tha innocent!"

Replace with buggers men or dresses as a woman/man.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0874.html

"Surrender, Malack!"
"So you can destroy me?"
"So I can resurrect ye! I'm sure the livin' Malack would--"

Seems awfully similar to trying to fix someone's gender identity / sexual orientation issue, no?

===

I think if you argue that Rich intended Malack to be a homosexual allegory you'd be stretching the evidence, as others have stated, the evidence is not really there. However, I think if you try to read a LGBT subtext into Malack's experience you can have some success and hopefully some pleasure.

[Raineh Daze]

I think in a LGBT (and whatever other bizarre abbreviations they've added onto it) context Malack's situation seems to some extent comparable, although I agree with you that I doubt that Rich intended Malack's vampirism to be a direct metaphor for something else; I think, at most, he might have adopted the structure of certain LGBT experiences to help flesh out an interesting encounter.

"I decide ta help me leader an' come after our teammate, an THIS is wha I find? A vampire?!?" Substitute homosexual or transsexual in this situation.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0871.html

Note certain lines with the possibility of swapping terms: "Frankly, I thought my lack of body heat would have given it away before this point." Swap it to say, that Malack is actually a transman or transwoman.

"Brother Thundershield, I understand that this can be upsetting for the living. That's why I prefer to keep my condition private. But nothing has really changed since our engaging discussions. I am still the same man who offered you guidance and friendship."

"Are ye mad??? Ev'rything's changed! Yer an undead monster tha drinks the blood o' tha innocent!"

Replace with buggers men or dresses as a woman/man.

===

I think if you argue that Rich intended Malack to be a homosexual allegory you'd be stretching the evidence, as others have stated, the evidence is not really there. However, I think if you try to read a LGBT subtext into Malack's experience you can have some success and hopefully some pleasure.

Reading things like that into it just messes things up. Not everything has to be turned into an allegory.

[Tragak]

This is going to get locked soon, isn't it?

[Sir_Leorik]

This is going to get locked soon, isn't it?

Maybe we can discuss the text itself, and leave discussing the subtext to the fan fiction writers?