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Thread: Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
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10-03-1998, 07:10 PM #1Taragin@sprintmail.coGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
Pieter A de Jong wrote:
>
> …If the original elves were created from an amalgamation of the 4 elements (tuarhievel sourcebook, elven creation myth/history), would it be possible for a high level elementalist to duplicate this creation process, and pull a Frankenstein. This also raises questions about how elves interract with resurrection magics, and clones.
Foolish mortals! Frankenstein was one of us Necromancers (an Anatomist
to be exact), and every wizard worth his little pointy hat knows that
resurrection and clone-magics are necromantic. An elementalist or
transmuter is not going to be able to create life (much lesss ELVEN
life) without a necromancer to assist.
If you are interested in such magics, may I suggest ALTER BEAST,
DISTORT LIFE I, II, & III; EVOLVE, or LIFEBLEND, all of which can be
found in the WIZARD'S SPELL COMPENDIUMs. If you are asking whether or
not CLONE will work on an elf, I'd have to say yes, as they are living
creatures (though some DM's may want to use the Dungeons & Dragons
Immortal level rule that says a clone made from immortal flesh becomes a
1st-level character with no memories of its original).
Alexander
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10-05-1998, 06:48 PM #2Pieter A de JongGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
Taragin@sprintmail.com wrote:
>
> Pieter A de Jong wrote:
> >
> > …If the original elves were created from an amalgamation of the 4 elements (tuarhievel sourcebook, elven creation myth/history), would it be possible for a high level elementalist to duplicate this creation process, and pull a Frankenstein. This also raises questions about how elves interract with resurrection magics, and clones.
>
> Foolish mortals! Frankenstein was one of us Necromancers (an Anatomist
> to be exact), and every wizard worth his little pointy hat knows that
> resurrection and clone-magics are necromantic. An elementalist or
> transmuter is not going to be able to create life (much lesss ELVEN
> life) without a necromancer to assist.
> If you are interested in such magics, may I suggest ALTER BEAST,
> DISTORT LIFE I, II, & III; EVOLVE, or LIFEBLEND, all of which can be
> found in the WIZARD'S SPELL COMPENDIUMs. If you are asking whether or
> not CLONE will work on an elf, I'd have to say yes, as they are living
> creatures (though some DM's may want to use the Dungeons & Dragons
> Immortal level rule that says a clone made from immortal flesh becomes a
> 1st-level character with no memories of its original).
>
My dear puny mortal, these are elven lands and elven concerns. Get your
stinking necromancy away from here or be destroyed.
More seriously, you suggest that it would be neccesary to combine
necromancy with elemental magic to duplicate the original creation of
the elves? I would question this suggestion as where would such forces
have come from at the original creation of the elves.
Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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10-05-1998, 10:16 PM #3Mark A VandermeulenGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
On Sat, 3 Oct 1998 Taragin@sprintmail.com wrote:
> Foolish mortals! Frankenstein was one of us Necromancers (an Anatomist
> to be exact), and every wizard worth his little pointy hat knows that
> resurrection and clone-magics are necromantic. An elementalist or
> transmuter is not going to be able to create life (much lesss ELVEN
> life) without a necromancer to assist.
Well, aside from the fact that Alexander is obviously a FREAK :) I would
have to agree with him. I would say that said elementalist would have to
be able to cast and understant the fundamentals of high-powered
necromantic spells before he would devise a spell that would recombine the
elements in the correct way. As they say, entropy is easy.
Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu
> If you are interested in such magics, may I suggest ALTER BEAST,
> DISTORT LIFE I, II, & III; EVOLVE, or LIFEBLEND, all of which can be
> found in the WIZARD'S SPELL COMPENDIUMs. If you are asking whether or
> not CLONE will work on an elf, I'd have to say yes, as they are living
> creatures (though some DM's may want to use the Dungeons & Dragons
> Immortal level rule that says a clone made from immortal flesh becomes a
> 1st-level character with no memories of its original).
>
> Alexander
> ************************************************** *************************
> > 'unsubscribe birthright' as the body of the message.
>
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10-05-1998, 10:16 PM #4Pieter A de JongGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
Taragin@sprintmail.com wrote:
>
> Pieter A de Jong wrote:
months ago, so you could check the archives or Darkstar's Domaign. But I
> firmly assert that in order to create a living race from scratch you
> would definitely need a Necromancer, because Necromancy is the magic of
> Life AND Death.
>
No, it is known(in concept) how the elves were originally created. As
described in the Tuarhievel sourcebook, cerilian elves were created from
an amalgamation of the 4 (earth, air, water, fire) elemental forces.
The question I am asking is would a high level elementalist be able to
duplicate this amalgamation of the 4 elemental forces to create a new
being (ie. not a clone/simalucrum, but rather a whole new person,
complete with soul/spirit).
Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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10-06-1998, 01:57 AM #5Gary V. FossGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
Pieter A de Jong wrote:
> No, it is known(in concept) how the elves were originally created. As
> described in the Tuarhievel sourcebook, cerilian elves were created from
> an amalgamation of the 4 (earth, air, water, fire) elemental forces.
> The question I am asking is would a high level elementalist be able to
> duplicate this amalgamation of the 4 elemental forces to create a new
> being (ie. not a clone/simalucrum, but rather a whole new person,
> complete with soul/spirit).
Well, I think the short answer to this question is no. Here are my arguments:
There seems to be an unspoken rule in the game that PC's cannot truly create
life. Oh, they can animate things that are very similar to living creatures;
golems, simulacra or homunculi (is that the plural of homunculus?) or they can
reanimate previously living creatures with Animate Dead, Raise Dead, Resurrection
or cloning magics, but actually creating a living creature from scratch is
generally outside the capacity of PCs in the context of the game.
There is the example of the Binman from the Blood Enemies book as a Frankenstein
type experiment, but I'd suggest that even a Frankenstein creation is not really
a newly created creature, but one pieced together from bits and pieces of
previously animated materials. That's quite different from whipping up an
entirely new creature from elemental ingredients. I'd suggest that is a one-time
type of experiment (kind of like in Mary Shelley's novel) in which madness and
creation entwine resulting in a horribly warped creature that is more a parody of
life than a recreation of it.
The key words in the creation of a new creature that you note above are
"soul/spirit" that are required in the game for a creature to be an independant
creature. Wizards can certainly animate things. Technically, they could animate
a rock and have it roll around obeying their every command, but it would not be
an independent creature with a soul or spirit. This obviously has religious
connotations, which leads me to suspect it is outside the ability of a mage.
Whether it is within the capacity of a priest is up for debate, as the magics
that they use are also generally reserved to the healing and reanimation of
living creatures rather than the recreation of souls.
Gary
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10-06-1998, 01:16 PM #6DKEvermore@aol.coGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
In a message dated 10-05-1998 8:14:24 PM Central Daylight Time,
shodgson@voicenet.com.au writes:
> >I think that you my need to rephrase the question again, without the
> >assumption
> >that elves have a soul/spirit. This has not yet been proven to my
> >satisfaction yet.
> >
> >Shaun Hodgson.
>
Oh for pete's sake. This is fiction! No work of fiction has a "soul".
::sigh::
No one's gonna presume to go into YOUR game world and PROVE to you which of
your fantasy races has a soul or not. Those who try are silly.
More to the point of the question, I would point out that in many game systems
Elementalists can create elementals which seem alive in every game sense.
Necromancers can do so as well. I don't see a problem in both wizard types
coming up with ways to do the same job. Just don't let this power fall into
PC hands--you'll really be askin' for it then!
- -DKE
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10-06-1998, 03:19 PM #7Pieter A de JongGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
DKEvermore@aol.com wrote:
>
>
> More to the point of the question, I would point out that in many game systems
> Elementalists can create elementals which seem alive in every game sense.
> Necromancers can do so as well. I don't see a problem in both wizard types
> coming up with ways to do the same job. Just don't let this power fall into
> PC hands--you'll really be askin' for it then!
>
Why do you think this came up? I have a PC IMC who is getting a little
strange.
Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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10-06-1998, 03:23 PM #8Pieter A de JongGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
Shaun Hodgson wrote:
>
>
>I think that you my need to rephrase the question again, without the
>assumption
>that elves have a soul/spirit. This has not yet been proven to my
>satisfaction yet.
>
>Shaun Hodgson.
Aren't they a) alive, b) sentient, and c) free willed beings able to
make their own decisions without external control. They certainly are
in my game.
- --
Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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10-06-1998, 04:29 PM #9Gary V. FossGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
DKEvermore@aol.com wrote:
> Oh for pete's sake. This is fiction! No work of fiction has a "soul".
> ::sigh::
>
> No one's gonna presume to go into YOUR game world and PROVE to you which of
> your fantasy races has a soul or not. Those who try are silly.
>
> More to the point of the question, I would point out that in many game systems
> Elementalists can create elementals which seem alive in every game sense.
> Necromancers can do so as well. I don't see a problem in both wizard types
> coming up with ways to do the same job. Just don't let this power fall into
> PC hands--you'll really be askin' for it then!
Actually there is a legit reason for trying to determine if elves have a soul.
The Raise Dead spell only works on elves at the DM's option, for instance, while
the Resurrection spell works on any living creature. If memory serves, this is
because of a Tolkienesque description of elves as creatures that have spirits,
while humans, dwarves, gnomes, etc. have souls. A Raise Dead spell will
supposedly only work on beings with a soul, so it won't work on any creature other
than humans and most demi-humans.
While this is not a terribly huge gaming effect, it does point out the difference
between a magically created "living" creature like a homunculus and humans who
supposedly have souls in game terms. This could also influence other areas of the
game if one were to continue the same logic. Could one cast a Speak with Dead
spell to talk to a creature that did not have a soul or spirit? Could one be
Reincarnated?
If you expand this thinking in BR terms, it might be a good explanation for why
there are no elven priests. If elves have spirits rather than souls you could
rule that a soul is required to cast priestly spells and that's why elves are
excluded. Though it might still cause a problem in the case of the priestly
spells that elven rangers are allowed... but I kind of like the explanation, so I
might just go with it in my campaign....
Lastly, the difference between a spirit and a soul could also be the explanation
of elven immortality. A creature with a spirit is immortal, while one with a soul
is not, but one with a soul has certain benefits in the afterlife to look forward
to that a spirit does not.
Gary
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10-06-1998, 11:23 PM #10Pieter A de JongGuest
Re:[Birthright] - Stupid Elf Qu
Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
the Resurrection spell works on any living creature. If memory serves, this is
> because of a Tolkienesque description of elves as creatures that have spirits,
> while humans, dwarves, gnomes, etc. have souls. A Raise Dead spell will
> supposedly only work on beings with a soul, so it won't work on any creature other
> than humans and most demi-humans.
>
> While this is not a terribly huge gaming effect, it does point out the difference
> between a magically created "living" creature like a homunculus and humans who
> supposedly have souls in game terms. This could also influence other areas of the
> game if one were to continue the same logic. Could one cast a Speak with Dead
> spell to talk to a creature that did not have a soul or spirit? Could one be
> Reincarnated?
>
> If you expand this thinking in BR terms, it might be a good explanation for why
> there are no elven priests. If elves have spirits rather than souls you could
> rule that a soul is required to cast priestly spells and that's why elves are
> excluded. Though it might still cause a problem in the case of the priestly
> spells that elven rangers are allowed... but I kind of like the explanation, so I
> might just go with it in my campaign....
>
> Lastly, the difference between a spirit and a soul could also be the explanation
> of elven immortality. A creature with a spirit is immortal, while one with a soul
> is not, but one with a soul has certain benefits in the afterlife to look forward
> to that a spirit does not.
>
All right, this is another approach. However, I believe it is possible
to summon spirits through conjuration magic. Is it possible to conjure
forth a cerilian elf? Also, spirits that die usually reform given
time. Eg. all devils, demons, the like reform on their home plane when
they die (it does take many years). Does this happen to elves, and is
this the limiting factor on their population (there are so many elf
spirits to go around and no more)
- --
Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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