39 KiB
The Two Year Emperor, Ch63 - A Transhumanist Discussion
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Author: u/eaglejarl *
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9669819/63/The-Two-Year-Emperor
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Score: 29
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Created: 2014-09-28T03:04:57
Post:
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+7] Time flies like an arrow (36 minutes later)
I am curious how they plan to kill a god, which is one of the hardest things to do in D&D - orders of magnitude more difficult than killing a Tarrasque. I halfway think that they're going to try some version of Mindscrape on him, but I don't know for sure.
u/ulyssessword [+4] (2 hours later)
It wouldn't be easy. Here is a list of the traits of a D&D deity, with Neklos probably being rank 16-20.
The only way I can think of is tens (or hundreds) of thousands of readied actions, each chipping away at his thousands of hitpoints, and carefully chosen to avoid his immunities and get enough natural 20's by sheer statistics to overcome his saves, AC, and/or spell resistance.
If Flobovia contains Complete Arcane content, I'd say Orb of Force is perfect, 10d6 damage with no save or SR. 1/20 casters would automatically hit the ranged touch attack, meaning that 10,000 castings (the most that fits in a 300' radius) would deal about 17k damage, enough to kill most gods.
u/eaglejarl [+4] (3 hours later)
It wouldn't be easy. Here is a list of the traits of a D&D deity, with Neklos probably being rank 16-20.
"Rank 16-20: Called greater deities, these entities may have millions of mortal worshipers,..."
Neklos has a billion worshippers in Anundjå alone. He is most definitely a rank 20 greater god.
[Orb of Force] Wow. That's an option I hadn't considered. Thanks for the pointer.
u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (5 hours later)
Would the PAO engine trick for mass producing worshippers work for any other god?
u/eaglejarl [+2] (5 hours later)
I don't think so. PAO will certainly allow you to specify the physical characteristics of a created person. I would even believe that it could let you specify the physical characteristics, so long as they were within the norms of the species. I can't see any RAW evidence that it would allow you to specify specific details of their mental state, such as which deity they worship.
It works for Neklos because he's not creating worshippers via PAO -- he's creating humans, who can then be immediately eaten by undead in order to convert the PAO'd humans into more undead. Undead generally count as worshippers of Neklos (or, at least, they feed power to him, even if they are clerics of another deity or such), so this gives him a straight powerboost.
u/Zephyr1011 [+3] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (5 hours later)
PAO followed by Mindscrape? Can a spell engine even cast Mindscrape?
Alternately, since being a god means they can evade the edict, could they make up a custom item which, say, creates magic items within a mile radius which then creates tiny sentient pebbles which worship them within a 2 mile radius?
u/eaglejarl [+3] (6 hours later)
Pretty sure the other gods would straight up kill any god that tried that. Right now the gods are being polite, keeping it to a proxy war. They don't want to actually go after each other directly, because that could actually lead to fatalities and who wants to risk that? Much better to just jockey up and down the rank ladder.
u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (6 hours later)
Why would a god doing that be any worse than Neklos getting followers with a PAO engine?
u/eaglejarl [+3] (15 hours later)
There's something of a Geneva Convention among the gods that limits how they are permitted to act against each other and in the world. As a god, your worshipers have a lot more leeway than you do. For Neklos to directly create worshipers would get him squished. Allowing his worshipers to directly create worshipers for him would either get them squished or him squished, depending. Creating humans who can then immediately be turned into worshipers...that's a bit of a grey area.
tl;dr -- he found something of a loophole in the rules of the gods and is Munchkining for all it's worth.
u/alexeyr [+1] Steersman (17 hours later)
How fast would they learn about it?
u/eaglejarl [+1] (18 hours later)
Within a few rounds...more that two, less than ten, I'd say.
u/Gurkenglas [+4] (a day later)
"I am imagining a magic item that shall be called Neumann's Priest. It looks like a Pope Hat with its tip flattened into the form and substance of a clock. Upon activation it releases the Time Stop spell stored within. In the first round of the Time Stop spell effect, it casts Quickened Greater Teleport to increase its distance from me by a billion miles, and Wishes into existence a Neumann's Priest into the cavity one might expect to accept a head. In the second round, it activates it. Over its next three subjective rounds, it uses True Conjuration, Polymorph Any Object and Mindscrape to create from scratch a worshipper for me. I Wish to wear a Neumann's Priest."
Then use the infinite worshippers to crush the other Gods like bugs.
Edit: Or just make a magic item that allows you to cast Time Stop at will and take all the time you need to create worshippers. Or have Jake come up with infinite plans, which is probably worse.
u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
You don't need a magic item to cast Time Stop at will, since deities can do that anyway, as much as they want. There's actually nothing in the rules that indicates that a deity can't stop time for arbitrary amounts of time and exclude himself from the influence of other gods while he does his dirty work. (Well, there's portfolio sense, I guess, and other ways of seeing the future.)
u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (a day later)
Even if the god did it on a distant planet, or another plane?
u/alexeyr [+1] Steersman (2 days later)
Would being a goddess of secrets allow one to keep it a secret from them?
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
...interesting question. I think it would depend on the power level of the goddess in question. If she had more worshippers than anyone else (or at least nearly as many) then maybe. Given that she will have a few million (the Grofhamrites) and Neklos has over a billion, I don't think she could pull it off.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (8 hours later)
Maximized orbs of force. Every caster they have has the spellslots to do that.
u/ulyssessword [+1] (12 hours later)
There's no metamagic in 2YE, though.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (15 hours later)
Correct, which just means that they'd be doing average damage instead of maximum damage. That means 35 points per shot instead of 60. Still, multiply that by several hundred thousand (maybe a million? I need to do the math to see how many people have gone through the FLEAs so far) and you'd have enough damage to kill a god.
Except that it wouldn't work, for reasons discussed above re: celerity, foresight, readied actions, portfolio sense. :/
u/ulyssessword [+1] (18 hours later)
Yup, I had accounted for average damage in my calculations.
I assumed that they had access to enough level 20 Wizards or Sorcerers that it isn't relevant anymore, so they're all casting it at caster level 20.
Next, I calculated how many can fit in range (300' (60 squares) at caster level 20) using pi * r^2, which is 11310 people, rounded down to 10k for easy numbers. This can be increased to ~900k casters by making it a sphere (4/3 * pi * r^3) instead of a circle, but there's no need to go crazy (yet). This also assumes that casting past teammates is allowed.
10d6 averages out to 35 damage, with no resistance blocking it out, so that's simple.
Orb of Force is a ranged touch attack, which always succeeds on a natural 20, so 1/20 attacks will hit. Neklos' touch AC is likely in the 60's to 80's, so none will hit on a 19 or lower. There is no save and no SR, so there's no need to worry about that.
The final damage calculation looks like this: 10k people * 35 damage per hit * 0.05 chance to hit = 17500 damage.
A deity with 100d10 hit dice and a constitution score of 100 would have 5500 HP.
Of course, readied actions, foresight, celerity, timestop and other things make this more of an academic exercise than practical advice, but it's a nice thought experiment.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (18 hours later)
Yep, I had followed that. And it is a very nice thought exercise. :)
u/alexeyr [+1] Steersman (17 hours later)
What stops "PAO (e.g. god's throne) to anti-matter"?
Edit: this does https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2ho385/the_two_year_emperor_ch63_a_transhumanist/ckuiua6
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 hours later)
Mindscrape has a Will save. I pretty much figure that any god, especially one as powerful as Neklos, will make a Will save.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
Well, Mindscrape is Mind-Affecting, and deities are immune to those anyway. I was thinking that perhaps they were going to make a new version of Mindscrape that only affected the spiritual component in order to flip his alignment, but you're right that this would create a number of problems with regards to his saves. I had also been thinking that they could just fire on him en masse in the hopes that he would roll of 1, but on rereading the rules for divine ranks, apparently deities aren't subject to automatic failure on a 1 when making saves. And if he's divine rank 16 or higher, he's assumed to be taking 20 on the save, which makes it even more difficult. All that could potentially be overcome through incredible feats of optimization, but Mindscrape is still Mind-Affecting, so they'd have to make a new version that only held the spiritual component anyway.
So I'm not sure what's going to happen now - I have no idea what kind of plan Jake has come up with that he's so sure will work.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (a minute later)
Today's chapter brought to you in spite of 17 hours of jetlag and a highly addictive series of books, "The Council Wars" series by John Ringo.
Enjoy!
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (7 minutes later)
I really liked The Council Wars series, even if it's incredibly pulpy and has some of Ringo's personal neuroses brought into it.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 hours later)
Some? chuckle
There's large chunks of complete crap in here. If I run into one more female character with "high, firm breasts", I may yarf. I find it fairly squicky that Herzer spent three books boinking Bast who (it took me a while to realize) looks like she's 14 even though she's over 2000...no, wait, 1000, no, wait...oh hell, Ringo, get it right! Also, the "Elves are better! And defy physics! And get new powers as the plot demands!" is a bit annoying.
Despite all of that, these things are big-time page turners. I'm crashing through the last one this evening and it's hard to put down.
u/Chronophilia [+3] sci-fi ≠ futurology (41 minutes later)
Polymorph Any Object can be cast twice to make it permanent? I think it just edged into the lead as Most Broken Spell in D&D.
Jake's strategy is interesting. I see why he leapt to the "let's kill Death" plan: if Afi ever succeeds at getting his shard removed, Neklos is going to be pissed beyond pissed. Annoying the gods is never a good idea, so Afi can expect to be obliterated shortly afterwards... unless something happens to prevent Neklos from ever doing that. Killing him isn't the only way, but it is the most obvious.
Also Mindscrape 2.0 would be useful for purging Fragment, if Jake can get a copy.
It's getting hard to keep track of whose side we're on. Jake would like Afi to become a true puppet of Neklos, because then he'd only have to deal with an invincible god of death instead of that plus the greatest military mind of the last thousand years. Jake would prefer Neklos be killed and Afi be free of his influence, so Afi can dedicate himself to research and not scouring the living from the world. On the other hand, killing Afi is as simple a matter as yelling "Hey Neklos, guess what your avatar's been doing behind your back!", while killing Neklos is... rather more difficult.
Summoning him into a canyon full of level 60 casters under your command is probably a good place to start, though.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (2 hours later)
Polymorph Any Object can be cast twice to make it permanent? I think it just edged into the lead as Most Broken Spell in D&D.
Yep. If you, say, PAO a pebble into a human then it lasts for 20 minutes...but if you PAO a human into a human, it's permanent. So, PAO the pebble into a human, then PAO that human into itself. Boom, permanent.
On the other hand, killing Afi is as simple a matter as yelling "Hey Neklos, guess what your avatar's been doing behind your back!",
Indeed. The problem with that is that doing it means giving away your position to Neklos, which tends to result in squishage. (Currently Shailos, Arros, and a few other gods are working together to keep Our Heroes out of Neklos's sight.)
The heroes actually have several ways to win, or at least better their position, at this point:
- Remove Neklos. Afi will then probably go back to doing research instead of trying to conquer the world.
- Remove Afi. Now the other Lich Kings become much less engaged (except when Neklos is directly supervising), and Neklos is in charge directly. Good thing, because he'd be a crappy general.
- Reduce Neklos's power enough that the Team Good gods beat him.
- Cause enough dissension in the ranks that Afi gets tied down fighting internal battles instead of fighting our heroes.
Summoning [Neklos] into a canyon full of level 60 casters under your command is probably a good place to start, though.
Heh. Yeah. Although, you'd probably still lose. Neklos would use his Alter Reality power to simulate a Celerity, giving him a standard action before anyone else, even if it's a surprise round. He then casts Time Stop, giving him 2-5 rounds. He spends the first round of the Time Stop being dazed from the Celerity, then uses the second round to cast another Time Stop, which resets the counter to "2-5 rounds". He uses the first round to do something, then Time Stops again. Lather, rinse, repeat until you're all dead.
Although...if you got a surprise round on him and had enough firepower, MAYBE you could get it done.
u/None [+3] (4 hours later)
[deleted]
u/eaglejarl [+3] (5 hours later)
Hm.
Celerity: "This spell works like lesser celerity, except that you pull even more time into the present. When you cast this spell, you can immediately take a standard action, as if you had readied an action. You can even interrupt another creature's turn when you cast this spell. However, after you take the standard action granted by this spell, you are dazed until the end of your next turn."
It's an immediate action to cast. "An immediate action is a swift action that can be performed at any time—even if it’s not your turn."
The way it reads to me is:
- Casters ready an action: "Shoot Neklos as soon as he appears."
- Neklos appears.
- Casters readied actions trigger.
- Neklos takes an immediate action (which can be done at any time, even on not-your-turn) to pre-empt the casters and cast Celerity, giving him a standard action.
- Neklos uses that action to cast Time Stop. Neklos wins.
...unless, of course, it's a surprise round and Neklos were not aware of his attackers, then he would not be able to act, at all. Hence he couldn't use an immediate action to cast Celerity, and therefore he would lose.
...unless, of course, he had used his Alter Reality power to cast Foresight some time in the last few hours. In that case, he can't be surprised, so he would have the immediate action, so he would win.
...although, of course, even if he hadn't cast Foresight, his portfolio is still Death. Since he's divine rank 20, that means that his Portfolio Sense ability is: "Greater deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios, regardless of the number of people involved. In addition, their senses extend one week into the past and one week into the future for every divine rank they have." So, he's known for 20 weeks that he was going to be killed, and can therefore act to prevent himself from being killed. So, Neklos wins.
So, yeah. I think Neklos wins if you try to just ambush him and shoot him to death.
u/None [+3] (6 hours later)
[deleted]
u/eaglejarl [+2] (16 hours later)
snicker
I'd say you're right on all of this. Which just means that Neklos gets to freeze time and keep it frozen for as long as he'd like. So, Neklos wins.
Now, here's the interesting thing: two gods with Alter Reality. Both decide to use it to cast Celerity / Time Stop. What happens?
Note that I'm not entirely certain that Time Stop would freeze time re other gods. I think they would probably be able to enter the TS with you. Not sure if RAW supports that, but if not then I would houserule it in because otherwise it's too easy for one god to take out another.
u/None [+1] (17 hours later)
[deleted]
u/eaglejarl [+1] (17 hours later)
Hm. Can you interrupt your own action with an immediate action? For example, Al and Bob are both gods:
- Al attacks Bob (fireball, sword, whatever)
- Bob interrupts with a Celerity <- Time Stop
- Al...interrupts his own attack action to interrupt Bob's Celerity?
I'm not sure that works.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (19 hours later)
Hm, actually, it occurs to me that's it's easy to beat the "readied action goes off at the wrong time" problem.
Instead of readying the action: "Orb of Force as soon as Neklos appears" (which goes off BEFORE he appears and therefore self-spoils)...
...ready the action: "Orb of Force one attosecond after Neklos appears."
u/JackStargazer [+3] Primordial Apologist (a day later)
Also an option, since you 3x overkill him:
1/2 ready for "When Neklos appears(attosecond?)" 1/2 ready for "When Neklos uses Celerity"
(Optional, split a third for "When Neklos casts Time Stop")
If he uses Celerity, then the second group goes before the Celerity goes off via the rules for readied actions. If he does not, the first group waste him.
The thing is, an immediate action uses your swift action for the next round. You only get one of them per character per round. You can't double Celerity.
Thus, readied actions between high level characters become an elaborate double bluff: Do you ready against their actual actions or appearance, or against their celerity? Celerity beats the readied against basic actions, and basic actions beat readied against Celerity.
The side with the ability to simultaneously ready for more different potential scenarios will win.
This is sort of a continuation of D&D optimization at it's most basic: The Action Economy is a harsh mistress. It is very very difficult for a single +5 CR or so opponent to threaten 5-6 optimized PCs for that reason, they have 500% more actions.
It's also why 3.0 Haste, Time Stop, and Celerity are some of the top spells in D&D - they give you more actions or let you take your actions first.
u/Putnam3145 [+2] (3 hours later)
He then casts Time Stop, giving him 2-5 rounds.
No, it gives him 5 rounds; greater deities (16-20, which Neklos is definitely) get all of spell rolls maximized.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (4 hours later)
Ah, good point. Well, that makes it all easier.
u/Nepene [+2] (19 hours later)
How to kill a god. Cast statue on a person (or a PAO insect if you want to be sneaky). They can now, as a free action, turn into a living statue or back, and their equipment and garments change with them.
Use true creation or whatnot to create a sphere with anti matter inside. Have the person take said object and turn into a statue of granite. Have a companion then smash up the object that previously contained antimatter.
As a free action the person can turn back into a human and an object that is made of antimatter and is mixed with matter and make a big boom.
Suppose instead you want to just kill the god.
Cast crown of flame, a spell with an emanation effect of 2d6 damage to evil undead, on 2000 commoners. Use PAO to turn them into lice or some similar insect. Tell them to stand on a spell component and put them in your spell pouch, which blocks line of sight and the emanation. Find Neklos and get within ten feet. As a free action, faster than the immediate action of celerity, draw out your spell component and do a minimum of 2000 damage per round.
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
Your second plan is banking rather a lot on the assumption that "drawing a spell component" actually means "taking something out of your spell components pouch". I suppose you might research a spell that requires holy lice.
u/Nepene [+2] (a day later)
It is assumed that you have all your ingredients in there and should be possible to put something in and draw it out. If it's a particular issue you could just do an ice assassin spell and have a particular aspect of flesh from a creature that you use or diamond dust. Presumably whatever component of flesh or diamond you use exists independently of the pouch.
u/Prezombie [+1] (7 hours later)
Polymorph Any Object
from the SRD: This spell functions like polymorph, except that it changes one object or creature into another. The duration of the spell depends on how radical a change is made from the original state to its enchanted state. The duration is determined by using the following guidelines.
That's fairly clear cut to me. PAO causes an object to have two states, the original form, and the enchanted form. When you cast PAO a second time, you don't get a different original form, you're just changing the enchanted form.
A much more sensible spell to use would be Reduce Person. It can be permanencied, and each time you cast it explicitly halves the affected target's size. No mention of limits regarding original form or multiple use. Thirteen halvings reduces 2m to a quarter of a mm, and the only real restriction is that each casting reduces your STR by 2.
Getting 27 Strength to survive the 13 castings is possible in many ways, or using some other method to become 6 inches tall, which would reduce your need to only 9 castings and thus 19 STR.
But yeah, try not to overuse PAO, it's broken enough without skipping around that restriction by fast-talking the DM. It's much more fun to see the "useless" spells being cheesed.
u/gumballhassassin [+1] (9 hours later)
It seems to me that "original state" refers to the state that you're casting the spell on. So you could polymorph a pebble to human to produce a "polymorphed human", then cast it again to polymorph the "polymorphed human" to "human" which would be permanent
u/Prezombie [+1] (10 hours later)
Even if I did accept that casting PAO twice did stack, the first casting's duration is still finite, and when it wore out, it should invalidate the permanent state of the second spell.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (15 hours later)
If you cast Time Stop while inside a Time Stop, it simply resets the duration instead of nesting the spells. I am pretty certain that this is a general rule--that a second application overwrites the first--although I can't think where it is at the moment.
If, as I believe, that's true, then the second casting of PAO would overwrite the first and reset the duration to "Permanent."
In any case, I'm not aware of any RAW that says a spell stops working if the target becomes invalid. It might be there is, but I'm not aware of it.
EDIT: AHA! I found it off of pareus's 'Combining Magical Effects' link:
Same Effect with Differing Results
The same spell can sometimes produce varying effects if applied to the same recipient more than once. Usually the last spell in the series trumps the others. None of the previous spells are actually removed or dispelled, but their effects become irrelevant while the final spell in the series lasts.
So, clearly, a second casting of PAO trumps the first casting.
u/alexeyr [+1] Steersman (17 hours later)
Given
while the final spell in the series lasts
does this mean that dispelling the second PAO will revert duration to the first one? And is the duration spent in second form counted for the first one?
u/eaglejarl [+1] (14 hours later)
From the SRD, Reduce Person description:
Multiple magical effects that reduce size do not stack.
u/Prezombie [+1] (15 hours later)
Blah, I'm a dummy. I must have rolled a 2 on my Comprehend Languages check.
u/drageuth2 [+1] (11 hours later)
Heh. Yeah. Although, you'd probably still lose. Neklos would use his Alter Reality power to simulate a Celerity, giving him a standard action before anyone else, even if it's a surprise round. He then casts Time Stop, giving him 2-5 rounds. He spends the first round of the Time Stop being dazed from the Celerity, then uses the second round to cast another Time Stop, which resets the counter to "2-5 rounds". He uses the first round to do something, then Time Stops again. Lather, rinse, repeat until you're all dead.
Could you beat that with readied actions?
Like, say you have a custom magic item that casts PAO, turning itself into antimatter, or something. (Maybe make it turn into anti-water and put it in a sacred vessel, just to see if you can get a holy antimatter explosion) You have one person ready an action to push the button upon Neklos performing any action. Then even if Neklos uses alter reality to subvert the surprise round, you stll have the bomb go off before he moves.
I mean, overwhelming force prolly isn't the way you kill a god, but if you figure out something that does work, then could you use a setup like that to get them before they could react?
u/INeedAUsernameToo [+2] (2 hours later)
The plan: Kill god of death, promote the newly Good resurrected god of secrets to the position. Easy peasy.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (7 hours later)
Currently it looks like the god of secrets will almost certainly be Evil. Much more friendly to humans, though.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (20 hours later)
She'll make death itself a secret. All but the most inquisitive people will live forever.
u/None [+2] (3 hours later)
[deleted]
u/eaglejarl [+3] (4 hours later)
That, of course, assumes that Jake intends to kill him. I never said that was the plan, and neither did Jake. :)
u/tilkau [+2] (4 hours later)
Amusing chapter.
One error I spotted:
First we made ourselves amulets of Mind Blank so we couldn't be detected via divinations, then we set up Permanent Telephatic Bonds connecting each member of the group to each other member
.. enabling the instant transmission of cellulose.. with your MIND.
Oh wait, liches don't get cellulose. I guess they'll have to go for a different plan.
u/eaglejarl [+4] (5 hours later)
"instant transmission of cellulose"???
I would think that "telephatic" would be "the ability to, at range, use spoken language that is intended for satisfying social tasks instead of communication or inquiry." So, without even being present they can say, "Hi, how are you?"
u/tilkau [+2] (5 hours later)
Heh. I have to confess that I was totally ignorant that phatic was actually a word, so have an upvote.
(The idea that came to mind when I read it was actually 'instant transmission of bass'.)
u/drageuth2 [+2] (5 hours later)
The two liches re-pao from mite to humanoid somewhere private. One takes off the amulet and hands it to its partner. It then sends its messages and immediately begins tapdancing. The other lich has a readied action, to put the amulet back on its partner upon them tapdancing. Since readied actions always happen immediately before the trigger, the lich will only be vulnerable for the brief fraction of a turn that it takes to send the message. Probability of detection by anything short of a god is pretty dang low.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (5 hours later)
Actually, they don't even have to re-PAO. They just had to have made the amulets while they were in dust mite form so that the amulets are sized for dust mites.
u/drageuth2 [+6] (8 hours later)
Now you have me picturing tapdancing dust mites.
"Hello mah baby, hello mah honey, hello my ragtime gaaaaal!'
u/eaglejarl [+2] (15 hours later)
This made me laugh out loud. Thank you. :)
Ah, looney tunes. You were the greatest.
u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (5 hours later)
It took me an embarrassingly long time to notice that it was called transhumanist because they discuss killing death. And should Jake not POPE himself before making such adventurous plans? He doesn't know it will fail, and a plan to kill a god requires as high mental stats as he can acquire
I have absolutely no idea how Jake plans to kill Deathboy, but given that the gods appear to have insanely OP abilities, i doubt it will be anything to do with causing damage in a direct fight. Having an audience itself seems quite risky, unless he gets a guarantee of safety beforehand.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (6 hours later)
It took me an embarrassingly long time to notice that it was called transhumanist because they discuss killing death.
:)
And should Jake not POPE himself before making such adventurous plans?
They just created the POPEs today. Thomas forbade Jake from using them until tomorrow, once at least a hundred people have gone through them with no ill effects.
He doesn't know it will fail, and a plan to kill a god requires as high mental stats as he can acquire
The POPEs actually can't help his INT; that's already maxed out as far as Wish is concerned. They could affect his WIS and CHA though.
I have absolutely no idea how Jake plans to kill Deathboy,
Are you sure he plans to? ;)
(Go back and read carefully.)
u/tilkau [+3] (6 hours later)
Are you sure he plans to? ;)
My only conclusion here is that he intends to convince Neklos that getting lost is a superior option. Not sure how you'd accomplish that, but I did notice that involuntary banishment is explicitly impossible.
Actually, the other option I can think of is to convince the pantheon at large that it is optimal to put Neklos down right now . But that seems very difficult (getting any of their attention for a brief period seems reasonably easy, actually getting enough attention to convince them without being smited does not. Also IMO Jake and co. do not have any resources of a type that they would regard as a meaningful bribe, and finally, Neklos' rank implies that it would be very hard to do this organization without inadvertantly warning Neklos of it.)
u/eaglejarl [+1] (16 hours later)
Not sure how you'd accomplish that, but I did notice that involuntary banishment is explicitly impossible.
Where did you see that?
u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (18 hours later)
Deities of rank 6 or higher are immune to effects that imprison or banish them. Such effects include banishment, binding, dimensional anchor, dismissal, imprisonment, repulsion, soul bind, temporal stasis, trap the soul, and turning and rebuking.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (19 hours later)
Ah, good. Thanks for the reference.
u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (6 hours later)
WIS seems pretty useful for a plan of this nature. I had meant that shouldn't Jake wait a day to POPE himself before making such plans? And has Jake tried asking fragment about making custom items capable of granting more stat points?
Jake asks what would happen if Deadboy wasn't around any more which, combined with your subtle hints, seems less of a euphemism and more of a plan to get him to leave their planet or plane alone. Which seems a lot more plausible for them to do. I might have guessed that Jake would suggest Neklos move everything to another planet so they can live in peace, but Jake forgot that and all similar plans. No other plans spring to mind.
u/tilkau [+4] (8 hours later)
WIS seems pretty useful for a plan of this nature. I had meant that shouldn't Jake wait a day to POPE himself before making such plans?
Going from previous trends in this fic, I suspect that Jake doesn't have enough WIS to realize that he needs more WIS.
u/Kawoomba [+1] (15 hours later)
I hope the scope of this arc isn't indicative of the story coming towards an end. These chapters always brighten up my day. Or rather, my darkest nights. When I should, you know, sleep.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (16 hours later)
Well, even once the drauga war is dealt with, I still have a few things that I could write about:
- What the other liches do once Afi / Neklos / both are out of the picture. Some of them would fade away, go back to research. Others would still try their hand at taking over the world now that they've gotten a taste of it. Not all of these would be straight up "kill everything" moves, either. cf Hammond's attempt at a mind-control plague.
- What the lower-level undead (vampires, etc) do once they don't have a cohesive structure imposed on them from above.
- The aftermath of the Drauga War -- how Anundjå pick up the pieces in terms of their population and economy.
- What it's like living in Anundjå after they aren't fighting for their lives, but they've been packed-cheek-to-jowl refugees for the past N years.
- What it was like living in Anundjå before the Drauga War.
- Things that happened during the Drauga War that happened offscreen -- for example, I have a great idea for a short story about Albrecht defending the Legion camp when it was first attacked (see chapter 39 for a summary description).
- The political scene in Flobovia -- Jake trying to administer the country now that Anundjå is part of it, and the Conclave of Lords has gotten used to running things without him.
- The end of Jake's reign, when it's time for him to go home, and what happens after. (I actually have some sketched-out plans for that.)
That said, 2YE has been a LOT of work. If I were going to continue it, I would move away from the D&D framework, convert the sequels to straight original fantasy, put it up with a Patreon or a Kickstarter, and eventually try to sell them on Kindle / Nook / iTunes / whatever.
I even have some ideas on the Patreon / Kickstarter thing -- letting readers help shape the story by voting with their dollars. I'd have final say, of course, but rewards at various levels would include cameos, addition of minor characters, introduction of plot points, etc.
I should add that I've done a test novella along these lines, which is available on GreenDogPress. It's called "One Hot Night", and it's a story about Anundjå before the Drauga War. It's on sale for $1 -- it was my MVP to see if people would buy my writing at any price. Sales have happened, which means I'm more comfortable with the idea of more writing.
Hm. Come to think of it, 2YE is very clearly satire, much like Order of the Stick. Rich Burlew has published compilations of OOTS, so I could probably publish 2YE as is. Hmm...
u/Kawoomba [+1] (16 hours later)
Thanks for the thorough answer! I, for one, would throw money at the screen if you did a Patreon or Kickstarter. Also, electronically.
Such talent and creativity needs to be tapped.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (16 hours later)
Cool, thank you!
I'm actually planning to move to Malaysia for a while so that I can spend some serious time trying to build passive income. Write prose and / or iPhone apps is the current plan, with a strong inclination towards prose. Knowing that there is at least one person willing to support that effort is reassuring. (The fact that a few people have bought One Hot Night (</repeated_shameless_plug) is also reassuring.)
u/Kawoomba [+1] (17 hours later)
(Would've bought it already if it didn't require a somewhat obscure payment processor. I assume there are at least some others for whom the same limiting factor applies (would be strange to have unique reasoning in that regard). The $1 is inconsequential as opposed to entering CC information (doesn't seem to allow me to just do it via PayPal, could be locality based or what have you). Ah well. No such caveats would apply with the Patreon/Kickstarter route.)
u/eaglejarl [+1] (17 hours later)
Obscure? Oh, you mean SendOwl.
SendOwl is just Stripe under the covers; when you put in your CC info, you're giving it to Stripe, not SendOwl. SendOwl's valueadd is that they handle the digital downloads / retries.