By the way, that's the reference to Orion I asked permission to make about three weeks ago. This chapter is actually the FIRST one I wrote, it just needed a few touchups because there was one passage I was having trouble writing.Eternal_Freedom wrote:I had considered that, and I do like your reference to Orion in the latest story post.
By contrast, the reference to Xazonar stopping and being distracted by feeling like it was being spied upon
Ahem:A question, are we accepting that "silver bullets are highly effective against magical targets" as a general game convention? Or was it just against Shadow-Lords? A my last story post indicated, I am working on anti-magical ammunition, so if its just silver I have to use that makes it easier.
[Deputy modhat on]
The use of silver as a counter to magical threats is NOT a general game convention. At least not as far as I am concerned. Not unless everyone else agrees that it is.
More generally, I will NEVER make any general claim about how magic works for other people in story posts and expect other people to honor it. Not without soliciting their explicit consent in writing in advance.
If the claim affects only one other person (e.g. a claim about how Jub's spirit totems work) I will seek only their consent.
If it affects all of us (e.g. silver bullets being uniquely effective against magical creatures), I would logically have to seek ALL players' consent and will not proceed without unanimous agreement. Since the nature of play-by-post games makes such unanimity nearly impossible to achieve, I will NOT seek such consent and will therefore NOT presume to make binding claims about the universal nature of magic.
I feel that it would be good if all the rest of us adhered to the same principle. Pending TRR's agreement, I suggest that we make this a rule if we have not already done so.
So basically, NO, I am not attempting to create a precedent for silver weapons being a special, automatic antimagic weapon. That said, there is ample mythological precedent for various metals being especially useful at neutralizing, countering, or resisting magic, or being particularly baneful to certain supernatural creatures (e.g. iron and fairies, silver and werewolves).
[Deputy modhat off]
Now, more specifically.
Shadow-lords are among the greater, but not the greatest, entities of the Eighth Plane, which they are native to. They are immortal unless killed by sorcery or violence. They possess great magical abilities, vastly superhuman strength, stamina, and senses, superhuman durability, and great intelligence. Note that Xazonar, unlike a lot of stereotypical summoned monsters, is a competent tactician, although unfamiliar with gunpowder weapons.
A shadow-lord's point value on the field of battle will vary widely depending on that shadow-lord's own experience, skills, resources, and ability to prepare for contingencies in advance. I leave it up to other players to establish (if they wish) whether Xazonar is an unusually powerful shadow-lord, an unusually weak one, or an average one- by comparison to other shadow-lords.
Shadow-lords, and many other creatures native to their plane of existence, are resistant to base metals, as we have seen. Specifically, weapons made out of iron, bronze, lead, and so on will strike a barrier of force a short distance from their skin and will rapidly lose forward momentum. Lesser beings from that plane have lesser immunity.
Shadow-lords, being exceptionally empowered, are practically immune. A weapon forged out of base metal will basically never hurt them at all except by sheer momentum transfer, and their strength and durability is such that it takes a LOT of momentum transfer to actually hurt them.
Metals of the platinum group, as well as gold, can partially bypass this effect. Stone, likewise, is affected but to a lesser extent.
Silver ignores the effect entirely, as do objects made out of living matter, or matter that was living in the recent past.
In addition, silver (and possibly other substances I have not mentioned, which may or may not exist on Earth) burn the flesh of creatures of the Eighth Plane on contact.
...
Given their physical size and durability, being shot by an 18th century pistol would be about as bad for a shadow-lord as being hit by a single ball of, oh... high speed birdshot... would be for a human- a potentially serious injury but unlikely to be fatal in and of itself. Given their superior regenerative abilities, survival would be nearly certain. And that is IF that pistol-ball could bypass the entity's immunity.
However, a silver bullet is uniquely suitable to defeating shadow-lords and other entities of the Eighth Plane, because it bypasses their wards entirely, then catches fire inside their flesh. The effect is similar to what might happen if you shot earthly creatures with a bullet made out of, oh, sodium or white phosphorus. If anything the effect is worse because the silver is not consumed in the process of burning the flesh of an Eighth Plane creature, though it may be melted by the heat thus generated.
...
Other practical means of defeating a shadow-lord in pitched battle include:
-Weapons specifically enchanted by powerful wizards or godlike beings to bypass the creature's immunity, or enchanted so highly that they can bypass it on general principles (e.g. Excalibur). Ohio either doesn't have any such weapons, or doesn't have any anywhere near where it needed them on Frostbringer 20.
-Attacking the entity with weapons made out of stone (adequate), wood (better) or other organic materials. Hardwoods are recommended, as shadow-lords are expert in the manipulation of fire, and you want something that will take long enough to burn up that you can finish killing it. Ohio does not have such weapons, although they do occasionally use polished stone cannonballs under special circumstances totally unrelated to this.
-Just plain mauling the shit out of it with weapons of base metals, with such great velocity and mass that sheer momentum transfer beats it to a pulp. Ohioan infantry can't do this because their musketeers are not trained to fire concentrated, crisp vollies, and they do not have enough men with muskets in their hands to deliver adequate volume. Ohioan artillery can't do it either, because they're using popguns and their gunners don't shoot rapidly or accurately enough.
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Shadow-lords and other Eighth Plane creatures are, it is implied, not particularly common. So it's not necessarily a sensible precaution to hand out silver weapons to your troops on the off chance that you encounter one. Especially since, realistically, if you handed silver musket-balls or cannonballs to normal soldiers, the things would have gotten melted down for drinking money within a week at best. Certainly that would happen if you handed them out to Ohioan troops on a regular basis.
The Detroiter wizards are good at summoning Eighth Plane creatures, but they're also good at summoning plenty of other kinds of creatures from throughout the multiverse, all of them mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Xazonar just happened to be the only one that Guillory personally could think of, and knew how to summon, which was plausibly capable of defeating an entire regiment of angry, prepared Ohioan soldiers all by itself. Which, I hope you will agree... it is. Even now, Xazonar is still not someone you want to get close to.
As an example of what might have happened in some force substitution scenarios where a roughly 2000pt force went up against Xazonar in similar terrain and circumstances:
1) A Sylix warband of adequate size (i.e. adequate numbers of men and totems) might do very well, being as how their weapons are mostly enchanted and many of them are made out of wood and stone. Their arrows and spears would be injurious to Xazonar, and one of their larger totem creatures might very well defeat it in hand to hand combat. Xazonar, on the other hand, would know this, and would take considerable pains to avoid allowing such a warband to come to grips with it, instead using various magics to attack from long range while keeping its distance. Even so, it might actually do less harm to the Sylix force than to the Ohioan force. The Beasts of Bogazdan would be a challenge, but they're not really much worse all things considered than guys with muskets, which Sylix tribesmen can already handle.
2) Tarn possesses a number of wizards capable of besting Xazonar in a direct conflict of pure sorcerous might, which not many mortal wizards could do. They also possess forces of undead so large and/or capable that they could overwhelm anything Xazonar could summon in a reasonable amount of time. So they could probably beat it on its own terms- summoned minions cancelling summoned minions, and magic beating magic.
3) Aztecs would probably send in so many hardened badass crazy serpent-skull-whatever warriors that someone would manage to get close and hamstring Xazonar with a razor-sharp obsidian knife (since stone weapons actually work on it, at least sort of), and proceed to drown the shadow-lord and its minions in the gore of hundreds of their soldiers. Their gods would be pleased both by the shedding of blood in their name, and by the distinct possibility of Xazonar itself being dragged to an altar and put to the knife itself (O_o). Except for a couple who are unhappy because they knew Xazonar in college or whatever, and feel kind of bad about the whole thing.
At least, that's how I picture the Aztecs working; I may not have things down quite right.
4) An Orion or Ottoman infantry force of adequate size would have mauled Xazonar with MASSED ARTILLERY. Ottoman guns are (frequently) holy weapons and would partially (though probably not entirely) bypass Xazonar's immunity. Orion guns are just plain ridiculously huge and would inflict massively more blunt force trauma to the point where Xazonar would get the snot beaten out of itself, and run for its life, partially concussed and covered in bruises.
On the other hand, the Beasts of Bogazdan would probably inflict more damage to Orion troops, in exchange for taking considerably heavier casualties on the approach. Ottomans against Beasts, dunno how that would go, adequately I'm sure but I can't say whether they'd fare better or worse than Ohioans.
4a) In other words, Xazonar getting into an artillery duel with the Ohioans was like a normal, able-bodied man getting into a boxing match with, say, me. I am neither small nor particularly weak in the arms, but I'm not exceptional in those respects either. I figure that most able-bodied men could take the punches I'd dish out fairly well, and make a good accounting of themselves. A trained boxer could take me on and be quite confident of victory.
But Xazonar getting into an artillery duel with an Orion force of comparable size would be like a normal man getting into a boxing match with Manny Pacquiao. No thanks!
5) By contrast, the Ohioans' means of defeating the same enemy revolve around their unique strengths: the magic resistance that is granted to them through their faith and prayers, and the supernatural sources of information and guidance they enjoy by virtue of their religion.
So basically what it comes down to is that everyone can rock in their respective ways, and it's just a question of whether your particular way of rocking involves ancestral spirits, overwhelming gunfire, overpowering feats of high magic, or staggering balls-out badassery with Stone Age weaponry.
