Familicide Mega-Thread

[Kish]

Well, duh. But honestly, sometimes smart people can be really very stupid.

Yes, this.

Vaarsuvius put out a fire with rocket fuel. His/her feeble, transparent excuse for his/her actions (torturing the ancient black dragon in the most horrible way s/he could think of) was always a feeble, transparent excuse. This is news?

[Math_Mage]

Hmmmm.....

Seems a bit, well, weird mechanically. I mean, you target a numpty egg, and then the Great Wyrm demi-god sire of the family line drops dead without a saving throw? o.O

But I guess that's what epic spells and plot points are for :)

Cheers all, appreciate the clarification....

He might have gotten a saving throw, but plainly the DC was horrifically high.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Query...I've skimmed the thread but may have missed it:

A) OOTS 842 has an unidentified black dragon as the head of the family tree
B) OOTS 628 the great dragon that Soul-Splice-Varsuvius (aka SSV) killed-via Familicide only had one child
C) OOTS 188 in curent OOTS time, that dragon-son was a young adult
D) OOTS Girard Draketooth was born over 60 years ago. Including another two generations (maybe 20 years) the original mating on the family tree was 80'ish years ago.
E) A young Adult dragon age is 51-100 years (from memory). Minus 80 years put it at 20, making it young (ie, a Child) and thus couldn't be mated with.
F) Ergo, the head of Girard's family was not directly related to the Great Dragon, and it was some other dragon who by my understanding shouldn't have been affected by Familicide....

So why the hell are all these humans dying?

What am I missing here?

I was about to ask the same question, but while waiting for the text box to open up, I think I came up with an answer. The Familicide Spell doesn't just go down from the ABD momma, it also went across to her brothers and sisters, and then down through all those family trees.

[Dungeonstone]

Hmmmm.....

Seems a bit, well, weird mechanically. I mean, you target a numpty egg, and then the Great Wyrm demi-god sire of the family line drops dead without a saving throw? o.O

But I guess that's what epic spells and plot points are for :)

Cheers all, appreciate the clarification....

The spell likely does not seem to have a saving throw as it is after all designed to eliminate an entire family line, not just most of it (and even ridiculously high DCs can be saved against with a "20").

However, we have no indications that the spell is capable of killing divine creatures so a Demi-god is almost certainly out of the spell's reach.

On the other hand, using the spell on a distant (much weaker) relative than your true intended target may in fact be exactly what this spell's original purpose was. After all, why bother confronting an arch-mage or spend decades hunting down your nemesis when all you have to do is find his distant cousin; a blacksmith in a small village, and cast it on him instead?

Same results, less fuss and bother.

[Dungeonstone]

He might have gotten a saving throw, but plainly the DC was horrifically high.

Unlikely or else the spell basically leaves at least 5% of the target's family alive due to the Natural 20 rule which runs contrary to the spell's stated purpose of killing everyone related to the target... Period.

[Smolder]

Familicide increases the chance of the caster to be killed by revenge.

Familicide increases the chance of the caster to be killed by herself.

I'd bet that's how Haerta bit it... Someone found her distant half-cousins and tricked them into mugging her. She destroys them with a thought, then tosses on a Familicide for good measure.

[lio45]

The dragon at the head of Girard's family was the brother, or uncle, or cousin, or other male relative that happened to share the same bloodline as the ABD.

In fact, the Draketooth Black Dragon could also be Mama Dragon's father...

In any case, yes, we have to allow a looser interpretation of "direct" bloodline, so that part of the discussion has been put to rest now.

[John Cribati]

Query...I've skimmed the thread but may have missed it:

A) OOTS 842 has an unidentified black dragon as the head of the family tree
B) OOTS 628 the great dragon that Soul-Splice-Varsuvius (aka SSV) killed-via Familicide only had one child
C) OOTS 188 in curent OOTS time, that dragon-son was a young adult
D) OOTS Girard Draketooth was born over 60 years ago. Including another two generations (maybe 20 years) the original mating on the family tree was 80'ish years ago.
E) A young Adult dragon age is 51-100 years (from memory). Minus 80 years put it at 20, making it young (ie, a Child) and thus couldn't be mated with.
F) Ergo, the head of Girard's family was not directly related to the Great Dragon, and it was some other dragon who by my understanding shouldn't have been affected by Familicide....

So why the hell are all these humans dying?

What am I missing here?

Look at the comic where the Familicide happened. I see at least 22 dragons (not half-dragons, or what-have-you) that match the dragon drawn on the family tree wall (IE: purple wings) getting offed, before the panels get too small for me to count. Statistically speaking, 11 of them could be male, and thus eligible to be be the progenitor of the Draketooth clan. As said Draketooth clan would be blood relatives, they all get offed as well, still under clause 1. Since Penelope is related to someone with the last name Draketooth, she is killed. Then, see my previous post about the transitive property.

[skaddix]

I count around 60 dead Dragons.

[John Cribati]

I count around 60 dead Dragons.

I only counted the ones with purple wings, since the dragon on the family tree had them.

[SaintRidley]

Look at the comic where the Familicide happened. I see at least 22 dragons (not half-dragons, or what-have-you) that match the dragon drawn on the family tree wall (IE: purple wings) getting offed, before the panels get too small for me to count. Statistically speaking, 11 of them could be male, and thus eligible to be be the progenitor of the Draketooth clan. As said Draketooth clan would be blood relatives, they all get offed as well, still under clause 1. Since Penelope is related to someone with the last name Draketooth, she is killed. Then, see my previous post about the transitive property.

Statistically speaking, I count 22 dragons matching the dragon drawn on the wall that could have been Girard's grandfather, male or female, given draconic propensity to shapechange into other creatures and mate with them. Genderbending is not infrequent when shapeshifting is on the table in the first place.

Otherwise, you seem pretty good to go there.

[Winter Light]

Just a thought...

There's a lot of assumption going around that Familicide was a pretty Evil act, but as mentioned in 843,
"[V] scoured the Western Continent of humans whose only sin was falling in love with a mysterious scarlet-tressed stranger."

While a throwaway line at a glance, I believe this is deeply significant.

Familicide put a significant dent in the population of gingers--not only by wiping out the Draketooths, but by wiping out people who might be predisposed to becoming romantically involved with gingers. V may have actually saved the western continent from an unprecedented outbreak of gingervitis.

Clearly this will be what V's judging deva uses to tip the scales in V's favor, keeping him/her out of an Evil afterlife in the comic's epilogue.

Or something like that, anyway.

[hrak]

I am really amazed that this threat is still alive. Therefore, I think I have to make my part as one of the readers that gets it, and correct the last mistaken post I see (that has not been already corrected)

I have bolded your mistake. That sentence is wrong. Familicide is cast on two waves, the first one kills everyone related by blood to the original target. The second one kills everyone related by blood to anyone killed in the first wave.

Take this hipothetical spell:
Lesser Familicide:
Target: One undead creature
Effect: Every creature in the planet that is blood related to the target dies. None of those people get a saving throw. (Remember that Oots verse is young, about 1200 years old, and species were created by the gods in big numbers at once)

Then you could interpret the known epic necromancy spell as...
Familicide
Target: One undead creature
Effect: First do Lesser Familicide on the target. Then cast Lesser Familicide inmediately on everyone who died from the original Lesser Familicide. Nothing more

In this way, spouses die in the second wave, along with their respective blood relatives, but not the spouses of those blood relatives.

Yes, this is exactly as I see it. Well put. My only question is how far up the family tree does the spells "first wave" go? Because no one below the ABD could be the dragon on the wall family tree. So it must be either her brothers or some one higher... so how high does this spell go? It cant go on all the way up because that would make all the black dragons extinct... This is what I am confused about. For now I am assuming it hits her parents and all her siblings and their respective children. That would make sense. So the dragon on the wall is either her brother, father or one of her siblings descendents. Because the dragon on the wall must be effected by the first wave in order for Penelope to be effected.

[SaintRidley]

So it must be either her brothers or some one higher... so how high does this spell go? It cant go on all the way up because that would make all the black dragons extinct... This is what I am confused about.

Not all black dragons are related. There is no ultimate ancestor dragon to all black dragons. A number of black dragons were created at once at the beginning of the world. Their bloodlines have not intermingled enough yet to result in Familicide being able to kill off more than 1/4 of the population.

[kingshivan]

This may seem off-topic at first, but bear with me.

in the Vaasuvius' alignment thread, this post I believe makes the best point that V started off as Neutral.

In the case of V, I'll argue that V was always neutral.

Why?

1. V isn't on the quest to stop Xykon. S/he is on the quest to level up. (See the Origin of PCs)

2. V shows little concern about the rule of law (blasting Kubota to ashes and then blowing away the evidence)

3. V lacks all of Belkar's psychotic murderous rampaging behavior.

4. V shows a significant loyalty to Haley and other friends but none for complete strangers.

5. V ignores the Farmers in need of aid.

6. V is an insufferable know it all and extraordinarily prideful.

If your definition of Neutral is people who look after friends, family, and themselves with everyone else being able to go Ork themselves then V is a classic example.

Now, obviously there is debate about how casting the familicide spell would change one's alignment, but that's not what I'm interested in.

Instead, I think that since her change in attitude (somewhat) after her power trip, while she may not have yet done anything major to redeem herself, I feel she seems to be trying to redeem herself which is very important.

That said, I feel that the realization of the full effects of familicide will cause V to completely change as a person, to the extent that she will change her alignment to good, in an attempt to redeem the enormous crimes weighing upon her soul. I mean, this is a mind shattering realization, that you've slaughtered potentially thousands or millions of unintended victims (especially those that may have directly contributed to keeping the universe from being wiped out of existence).

Or I guess she could collapse into despair and give up all hope, thus in all likelihood sealing her soul's fate. But I think V is stronger than that and will inevitably become a paragon of Good as a result.

[B. Dandelion]

So 26 pages and one strip later there are still people claiming all people on the planet are related to each other through living ones.

I must have missed the line in #843 about how everyone knows there isn't a common human ancestor.

When some number is very big, it still does not need to be infinity. The spell could have easily killed 30k people . . . still not entire planet.

And Rich now just confirmed it is recursive with multiple iterations -
it kills targets related to first one (black dragons), to second wave (more dragons, Draketooths), to third wave (Penelope and other humans falling in love with Draketooths), forth wave ("their own family lines as well") . . .

That isn't confirmation. That's your spin on it. The Targaryens--I'm sorry, the Draketooths were "blood of the dragon" and killed under the first wave, the relatives of the Draketooths were killed under the second. It wiped out their family lines by virtue of the fact that everyone in that family would have been directly related to someone with the dragon blood.

If it had indeed made recursive jumps, the spell would not only have killed Penelope's child with Tarquin, but Tarquin himself, Nale and Elan. It is quite peculiar that the strip which apparently confirms Tarquin would have been killed fails to mention it at all, despite bringing up the specific hypothetical that should have allowed that to happen.

I see 4 iterations right there, proved by canon. I don't see why should it stop (Rich doesn't care for Spellcraft DCs). Only thing possible is some save appearing at some point and being easier and easier to get by, but even that's just an assumption.

But hey, Belkar is not evil and Familicide is not evil as well, right? So this might actually be hard to grasp for some people . . . lol

Yes, not agreeing with your mechanical outline of how the spell works is in exactly the same category as thinking Belkar or Familicide isn't evil. Which I guess would suggest people who disagree with you about anything do it because they don't understand the difference between good and evil...?

Or maybe we should keep those categories separate.

[Winter Light]

Deserves to be reposted for merit of being a non-absurd, easily understandable explanation of how Familicide works.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...&postcount=422

[KrytenKoro]

Nowhere are additional iterations even implied. 'Living' has no conflict with the first interpretation if written properly. 'Direct relations' has no conflict with the first interpretation. Basically, all the points you made that would lead to ambiguity in interpretation are false.

V went on to say "And I have extinguished their own family lines as well! Countless parents, siblings, and children, dead--down to the last cousin!" This, after we've already gone through all the relatives of the ABD. The issue with this is that the original description of the spell makes sure to say "directly related" and "living creature" several times; "directly related" seems incongruous with this, the widest possible relation, and is completely redundant, and "living creature" is totally useless if it has no effect on the effects of the spell. "Directly related" by the common definition (source, means the direct line of descent, not "any being that shares any ancestors with you".

If we don't take V's original gloating as the absolute definition of the spell, there's no problems with that, but it also allows for the second idea. The Tarquin-Nale-Elan claim relies on taking something not very likely to be mentioned as definite proof that isn't relevant...so the "directly related" and "living creature" wording used several times should have more relevance to how the spell works, if anything.

[Silverain]

I think either V or Rich made an error counting, unless I made one myself. The Familicide spell only affects people within 2 degrees of the target, right?

Degree 0: the female ancient black dragon V nuked (for the sake of argument, let's call her Maleficent -- a cookie if you get the reference).

Degree 1: the male black dragon who sired the Draketooth clan (let's call him Ancalagon; a lembas wafer if you get the ref). He must be a relative of Maleficent's, or the spell would not have affected him. He can't be her descendant, because Maleficent said the young starmetal guardian (let's call him Nox) was her "only child." All other relatives of Maleficent also die.

Degree 2: the Draketooth clan dies. All other relatives of anyone in Maleficent's family die. And the spell should stop there.

So why should it have affected anyone who parented a Draketooth kid? That'd be 3 degrees away, unless I've missed something...

p.s. I suppose it's possible Haerta just lied to V about what the spell does. That's be an easy way out of this puzzle.

[John Cribati]

I think either V or Rich made an error counting, unless I made one myself. The Familicide spell only affects people within 2 degrees of the target, right?

Degree 0: the female ancient black dragon V nuked (for the sake of argument, let's call her Maleficent -- a cookie if you get the reference).

Degree 1: the male black dragon who sired the Draketooth clan (let's call him Ancalagon; a lembas wafer if you get the ref). He must be a relative of Maleficent's, or the spell would not have affected him. He can't be her descendant, because Maleficent said the young starmetal guardian (let's call him Nox) was her "only child." All other relatives of Maleficent also die.

Degree 2: the Draketooth clan dies. All other relatives of anyone in Maleficent's family die. And the spell should stop there.

So why should it have affected anyone who parented a Draketooth kid? That'd be 3 degrees away, unless I've missed something...

That bolded part? That makes the Draketooths degree 1 as well.

[Blue_C.]

That isn't confirmation. That's your spin on it. The Targaryens--I'm sorry, the Draketooths were "blood of the dragon" and killed under the first wave, the relatives of the Draketooths were killed under the second. It wiped out their family lines by virtue of the fact that everyone in that family would have been directly related to someone with the dragon blood.

You're making a pretty big assumption that the Draketooth clan is, in fact, part of that first wave. I'm not sure I can agree, as the spell's first wave would have been Momma dragon's family line. Assuming that the Draketeeth are part of that takes some pretty creative defining of that pool of people. It's possible, but I don't find it likely.

Further, this comic DOES prove recursive jumps. Yes, both Penelope and her hypothetical child would have been the blood relative of a Draketooth, and so valid targets of the second wave. As would every other donor parent and their half-siblings. But would their cousins? Parents? Their siblings?

"And I have extinguished their own family lines as well! Countless parents, siblings, and children--down to the last cousin."

Also, as an aside, when you're trying to make an arguement about this comic, insulting the comic and it's creator is probably not the wisest way to go about it. The crack about the Draketooth being Targaryens was pretty uncalled for.

[Winter Light]

I think either V or Rich made an error counting, unless I made one myself. The Familicide spell only affects people within 2 degrees of the target, right?

Degree 0: the female ancient black dragon V nuked (for the sake of argument, let's call her Maleficent -- a cookie if you get the reference).

Degree 1: the male black dragon who sired the Draketooth clan (let's call him Ancalagon; a lembas wafer if you get the ref). He must be a relative of Maleficent's, or the spell would not have affected him. He can't be her descendant, because Maleficent said the young starmetal guardian (let's call him Nox) was her "only child." All other relatives of Maleficent also die.

Degree 2: the Draketooth clan dies. All other relatives of anyone in Maleficent's family die. And the spell should stop there.

So why should it have affected anyone who parented a Draketooth kid? That'd be 3 degrees away, unless I've missed something...

Say that Ancalagon (NO >=O) is her brother. Other relations work, too, but, for the sake of argument. Girard's father is now her nephew. I believe that most people would consider nephews to be "blood relatives", yes? Accordingly, it proceeds down the family tree (same bloodline) until all the Draketooths are dead.

And THEN it bounces along their own bloodlines.

Alternately the black dragon in question could be ABD's father. Or ABD, nothing a quick polymorph can't fix.

[Lissou]

I think either V or Rich made an error counting, unless I made one myself. The Familicide spell only affects people within 2 degrees of the target, right?

Degree 0: the female ancient black dragon V nuked (for the sake of argument, let's call her Maleficent -- a cookie if you get the reference).

Degree 1: the male black dragon who sired the Draketooth clan (let's call him Ancalagon; a lembas wafer if you get the ref). He must be a relative of Maleficent's, or the spell would not have affected him. He can't be her descendant, because Maleficent said the young starmetal guardian (let's call him Nox) was her "only child." All other relatives of Maleficent also die.

Degree 2: the Draketooth clan dies. All other relatives of anyone in Maleficent's family die. And the spell should stop there.

So why should it have affected anyone who parented a Draketooth kid? That'd be 3 degrees away, unless I've missed something...

No, it's:

Degree 1: The black dragon and everyone sharing her blood dies. The Draketooth clan is included as they share her blood, and that includes the kids they had with strangers. The strangers, being unrelated, are spared (at this time).

Degree 2: The people related to the dead die as well. That means the strangers who had kids with the Draketooth, as well as their siblings, parents, and any other kids they had. The spouses, being unrelated, are spared.

[XxXU2XxX]

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

[Goosefarble]

His colleagues look pretty sad about his death.

Oh, that's just their armour.

[XxXU2XxX]

Even the way his head is positioned as he's dying! It's almost as if he's somberly going "Ohhhh..."

[Goosefarble]

Man, I can just imagine life in the Empire of Tears.

"Siiiigh, are we going to conquer another city, again? Ugh, life is paaaain..."

[XxXU2XxX]

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

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

[Goosefarble]

Lokor the Chronically Insecure is a Weepie. This is now canon.

[ti'esar]

Not to be a killjoy here, but the only reason the Empire of Tears is... teary is thanks to the king. For all we know, this guy might have been happy as a clam up until his sudden demise.

Never understood that saying, by the way. Clams don't seem all that happy to me.