With his enemy finally slain, Lex turned his attention to the next most pressing matter: Nosey.
A glance to the side showed him that the blonde mare was still inside the force field he’d raised, cradling her mangled foreleg and looking at him with a worried expression. Turning his back on the scorch mark that was all that remained of Xiriel, Lex dismissed the force field with a word, making his way over to her. “Nosey, give m-”
“Is it dead?!” she snapped, looking around anxiously. “Did you kill it?!”
Taken aback by the abrupt question, Lex nodded. “It’s dead. I checked-”
“Are you sure?!” His reassurance hadn’t calmed her. If anything she looked more nervous, her breath quickening. “That monster can teleport! It might have gotten away! Or…or maybe used some sort of illusion! It can do that, you know!”
Lex shook his head. “I checked for magical auras-”
“You tried that before, back at the train station, and it fooled you then!” She half-shouted the words, a hysterical note entering her voice. “It might have done it again now!”
Wincing internally at the reminder of his having been deceived, Lex momentarily considered her words. Twice in the course of that fight he’d thought he’d defeated Xiriel, only for it to come back mere moments later and continue the battle. Could it happen a third time? But a moment later he shook his head, forcing confidence into his voice as he answered her. “Listen to me. That thing slipped past my notice because it shut down my circlet,” he pointed to the small ring of metal around his head, “without my notice, preventing me from seeing into the magical spectrum. This time I’ve confirmed that it’s operational, and the only auras in the area are from the magical items still here and the spells that were cast during the battle. There are none from when Xiriel-”
But hearing the creature’s name seemed to make Nosey’s condition worse, and she stepped away from him, shaking her head in denial. “You don’t know that thing!” she shrieked. “This is exactly the sort of game it’d play! Letting us think we’re safe now only to come back and get us later!” She was shaking as she looked around again, breathing heavier as she descended into a panic. “It’ll come back, and when it does it’ll kill you and take me again! It’ll slip ins-inside me and make me do things, horrible things while I can’t do anything but watch and there’ll be no one to save me and-”
“NOSEY!” bellowed Lex. That seemed to do the trick, making her whip her head back around to look at him. Rearing up onto his hind legs, he reached out to take her face in his hooves. “Listen to me very carefully,” he said slowly, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “I killed it, it’s dead, and it’s not coming back.”
“But-”
“I killed it, it’s dead, and it’s not coming back.”
It was obvious, even to him, that Nosey was experiencing some sort of traumatic breakdown over what had happened, and the sight of it tore at Lex. It was a vivid reminder of just how badly he’d failed her. She, like everypony here, was under his protection, and yet he’d not only let that monster possess her, but also fallen for its subterfuge when he’d checked on her, allowing it to maintain its hold on her. Worse, he hadn’t been able to remove her from the battlefield when he’d finally confronted it, letting Xiriel casually torture her in order to lure him out.
If anypony else (other than Sonata) had been victimized so badly, Lex’s only reaction would have been to castigate himself for allowing such a thing to happen on his watch. After all, with the pony in question having been rescued, his only remaining responsibility to them was to mend their wounds. Unless it drove them to cause some sort of public upset, any lingering stress they felt over what happened to them wasn’t something that concerned his administration.
But this wasn’t some random pony. This was Nosey, one of his only friends, and Lex couldn’t stand to see her like this. It wasn’t just revulsion at the prospect of having one’s spirit broken; the contrast with how vivacious and outgoing Nosey normally was with the terrified wreck of a pony in front of him was somehow painful for him to witness, driving him to try and restore her peace of mind. He had no idea what he was doing, of course, and had he not been physically and mentally exhausted from the fight he’d just had he probably would have thought to turn her over to Sonata – whose social acumen and mind-affecting magic would doubtlessly have be much more helpful in aiding the wounded unicorn’s troubled mind – but at the moment the only thing Lex could think of was to look Nosey in the eyes and try to make her understand that the danger had passed.
“I killed it, it’s dead, and it’s not coming back,” he repeated again. “Say it.”
“I…” She trailed off uncomfortably, dropping her gaze from his.
He felt her shift, trying to pull away from him, but he refused to release her, keeping his hooves on her face. “Look at me,” he ordered her. She reluctantly obeyed, and he didn’t blink as he repeated his earlier command. “Say it.”
“You…” She swallowed, but didn’t look away this time. “You k-killed it…” She paused then, and he nodded at her expectantly. “It's dead…” she continued, and he felt a shudder run through her as she spoke the last part. “And it’s not coming back…”
“Good,” replied Lex, not realizing that was the closest he’d ever come to paying her a compliment. “Now, again.”
For a moment, she looked like she was going to protest, biting her lip, but then her reluctance seemed to melt away. “You killed it…it’s dead, and it’s not coming back.”
“Again.”
Nosey began to cry then. She didn’t sob or sniffle; her eyes simply filled with tears, cascading down her cheeks as she looked at him, the words coming more steadily now. “You killed it. It’s dead, and it’s not coming back.”
For a moment, Lex considered her demeanor. Despite the tears she seemed calmer now, and he reluctantly released her face, lowering himself back down onto all fours. Nosey regarded him silently as he did, taking deep breaths but otherwise not moving, and Lex turned his attention to what he had originally tried to say to her before she’d descended into hysterics. “Now, give me your hoof.”
She cringed slightly, but held out her left foreleg, and it was all Lex could do not to wince at the sight. The acid cloud had damaged her leg severely, and everything below the knee was red and raw and dripping blood, the flesh having melted off in large patches. What looked like bone was visible in a few areas. She has to be in incredible pain, he knew. Fortunately, he still had the healing magic that the Night Mare had given him. Feeble and imperfect though it was, it would still be able to alleviate her wound; fortunately, he’d had the foresight to use the reservoir of magic in his circlet when he’d healed Aria earlier, so the spell was ready to be used agai-
Biting back a curse, Lex realized that he couldn’t use the spell again. Unlike most of the magic that he knew, that one required a material component to activate, specifically a small quantity of water that he’d imbued with the Night Mare’s power. He’d kept several vials of the stuff in his haversack…but that receptacle and all of its contents were gone now, sacrificed in a failed bid to defeat Xiriel. Glancing behind him, Lex regarded the river in the distance. It wasn’t prohibitively far away, but in his exhausted state getting there and back would take some time, and Nosey would have a hard time limping over there with him. The better alternative would have been to use a substitute component, but the only one Lex knew of was…
Devil’s blood.
Snorting at the coincidence, Lex used his telekinesis to gather a drop of the black ichor that Xiriel had spat up after its organs had been disintegrated. Bringing it over to Nosey, she shifted uneasily at the sight, but didn’t pull her hoof away. Letting the foul substance splatter against her side, Lex chanted the words to the spell, making the requisite gestures before touching his hoof to her chest. It was fortunate that the spell simply required him to touch the recipient, rather than their wound specifically. A moment later, she gasped as she felt the spell take effect, her leg starting to scab over. Slowly, over the next minute, the ugly tissue began to thicken and spread, until eventually her entire leg was covered with a single large scar. When the process finished, Lex nodded perfunctorily. “That should do until you can see Cozy.” Normally, referring to the Lashtadan priestess’s command of more efficacious healing magic would have irritated him, but Nosey’s well-being came first. “Are you able to walk on it until then?”
Gingerly, Nosey touched her hoof to the ground, and when that didn’t seem to produce any pain she put more of her weight on it. “I think so.” Her voice was subdued, speaking in a monotone that was quite unlike her usual self. “It feels a little numb, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Good.” Lex was already looking around the area, cognizant of the remaining thing that needed to be attended to before they left: Xiriel’s magic items. While three of its magical gemstones were still orbiting Lex’s head, courtesy of Nosey’s timely intervention – he glanced sidelong at her for a moment, wondering if he should say something about that before deciding that it could wait – the other two had been flung aside by the belier in a rage after Lex had destroyed one of its heads. Fortunately, their auras made them easy to spot with his circlet, and it took Lex only a few moments to telekinetically gather them up, along with the ones still in his possession, and put them in a saddlebag.
That left only the scroll case that it had extracted, lying near where the belier had died. Xiriel had said that it contained a spell to create undead, but looking at it with his circlet, there were multiple magic auras there, not just necromancy. That was enough to make Lex narrow his eyes in suspicion. Did the scroll inside the container have more than one spell on it? Or was the container itself trapped somehow? Examining it would take some time, and right now he needed to get Nosey back…but leaving it there was just asking for trouble. Reluctantly, Lex lifted the scroll tube in his telekinesis, placing it in a separate saddlebag.
“Can we go?” Nosey’s voice was still restrained, lacking any of her usual vitality as she ran her good hoof across her eyes. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Lex started to turn back to her when something caught his eye, and he paused to peer at the small object a few dozen feet away. It took him a moment to recognize the small, mangled piece of metal and shards of broken glass as being what was left of Nosey’s glasses, knocked from her face at some point during the fight. For some reason the sight bothered him, and he found himself telekinetically lifting them up, bringing them closer.
“Lex, c’mon. I wanna leave.” The sight of her broken glasses seemed to make Nosey uncomfortable, folding her ears back and looking away from them.
But Lex didn’t acknowledge her complaint. Instead, he started to cast another of the spells that the Night Mare had given him, calling on the remaining reservoir of magic in his circlet so that the spell wouldn’t be expended. It took a long time to cast, with minutes ticking by as he gestured and chanted, but as he finished the shards of glass came together to form intact lenses, setting themselves into a frame that was no longer mangled and ruined. With the repair spell finished, Lex turned and placed the glasses on Nosey’s face, giving a satisfied nod.
Nosey, however, had a very different reaction. A shocked look crossed her face, her mouth opening and then closing soundlessly. Slowly, she reached up and pushed her glasses further up her muzzle, and the action seemed to trigger something in her, because she began to tear up again, shaking as her expression started to crumple.
Confused at how her composure was breaking down, Lex silently cursed himself. Once again he’d done the wrong thing! He was about to snatch the glasses from her and toss them away, when Nosey let out a wordless cry and flung herself at him, crossing the few feet between them in an instant. Her undamaged foreleg wrapped around him as she buried her face in his chest, holding him close as she started to cry. This time her tears were accompanied by sobs, heavy ones that wracked her body as she wailed.
Her complete breakdown was enough to stun Lex, and he reflexively tried to pull away, but Nosey refused to relinquish her grip on him. With no other choice, Lex stood there awkwardly, letting Nosey cry her eyes out, not sure what to do. This situation was too far outside of his range of experience for him to have any parameters regarding what response to formulate. Frowning in uncertainty, he went with the next-best line of inquiry that he could come up with: What would Sonata do if she were here?
Slowly, tentatively, Lex wrapped his foreleg around Nosey and hugged her back.
If Nosey's feelings for Lex was a crush before, it's definitely jumped up above the hero worship that Thermal Draft had for Lex.
After what she's been through and what she witnessed, I can't blame Nosey for being terrified at the prospect of Xiriel somehow returning to kill Lex and possess Nosey again. It's safe to say that she isn't going to want to be alone for a while, or away from Lex for that matter. I feel like there's going to be a scene(likely in the medical tent) where she's going to beg Lex to stay by her side when he's called away by his duties.
While it is unfortunate that Lex lost his haversack of supplies, the loun stones could prove to be quite a boon in future encounters... provided no one pulls them out of orbit like Xiriel did. Though the scroll could prove to be problematic if someone rummages through Lex's belongings and triggers it by mistake. Then again, since this is Lex we're talking about, he'd probably take the necessary precautions, especially more so due to the additional magic around it and the container.
When Devils, Demons etc are defeated physically, they get banished back to their Plane, at the superiors displeasure, giving a time ut period before they can return. Otherwise they can just reappear until sealed?
With the various planes of form and though possible, can it be said that the definition of a god is something that can only be stopped or held by equivalents who can pass realities at a whim, or Level 40 Mages?
Props to Lex for gathering up most of the loot, but he forgot a vital portion of it: The rest of Xiriel's blood. If he gathers up a gallon or two that could power up his Infernal Healing almost indefinitely.
8773991 In Pathfinder, unless an outsider is on the material plane because of a summon monster spell, when they die they leave a body. (Except for Demon Lords and other demigod-level outsiders).
8773873 We don't quite know how Nosey feels about Lex at the moment, but yeah, at this point it seems like whatever feelings she has for him have probably deepened considerably. It's almost like he has some sort of magnetic aura where love is concerned, despite his unpleasant personality.
Even so, Nosey is quite clearly in a bad state, and it's uncertain how well she'll be able to recover. Ironically, there are healing spells that can remove mental trauma, but there's no one here with the ability to cast them, so that's little more than an academic point. I suspect that Lex doesn't even know that such a thing exists. Which is unfortunate, since it means that Nosey will have to heal the old-fashioned way, and that can be very difficult, particularly since I don't see Equestria as having much in the way of mental healthcare; it simply never needed it, since what we see in the show has almost no demonstration of mental illness.
As for the magic items, they do help to offset what Lex lost. In point of fact, he gained a lot more than he sacrificed, in terms of raw gp value. The ioun stones will be helpful, though at least one of them won't benefit Lex at all (that being the scarlet and blue sphere; Lex already has a permanent +2 enhancement bonus to his Intelligence score, and he also has maximum ranks in Use Magic Device, which is the skill it grants. I wonder if anyone figured out that was how Xiriel was able to use scrolls in the first place, explaining how it was able to create ghouls to begin with?), and the other one will only be of modest use to him (the iridescent spindle; Lex doesn't need air when he turns into shadow-form, so its power is only moderately helpful, though as we saw in chapter 210, sometimes it can make all the difference!). Maybe he should give them to Sonata?
As for what spells (or traps) are on that scroll...I guess we'll find out!
8773991 Well, it should be noted that killing an Outsider on its native plane is one way to guarantee it stays dead, regardless of whether or not they can survive being killed elsewhere. Clearly, Lex should have kicked Xiriel back to Hell, followed along, and then killed it there!
8774372 The issue with gathering up more devil's blood is simply that Lex didn't have a container in which to store it. All of his equipment was in the haversack, and it's gone now, leaving him with just a few non-magical saddlebags that can't really hold liquids very well. It's something of a moot point though, since he can just blast a vial of water with the Night Mare's power and instantly make it into unholy water. We saw him do exactly that back in chapter 62, after all.
I should mention that I had Xiriel's body immolate automatically because that seemed rather dramatic, and because I've seen one or two old D&D products that talked about having Outsiders bodies break down like that for dramatic purposes (I think one even had a table of ways they could vanish). Of course, that means you can't use dead-body spells on them, but that's something of a corner-case anyway (since basic resurrection doesn't work, and no one really thinks much about undead Outsiders anyway).
8774636
in d&d outsider are indeed banished when killed in the material plan....But not in pathfinder. Xiriel is dead, and will stay dead unless someone cast a true resurrection.
I hope doesn't happen because afterward it will come back to the fact that assuring someone stay dead in pathfinder is a pain in the ass.
That being said here should be an limit of how many time a character can be ressurected in general. It breaks drama. I still can't help but think that the donkey paladin that followed Twillight in equestria is still dead when a rise dead should have got him back. It is extremly weird that none of those that have knowledge of both him and Twillight's death didn't notice his disparition or did think of make a trip to everglow to get him back, especially Rarity. Idem i wonder if Xiriel didn't have allies bound by contract to ressurect him. It is the kind of contigency a powerful devil would have
8776295 Well, it depends on which edition of D&D (and often on how powerful that particular Outsider is), but in general you're correct: D&D lends itself to fiends and similar creatures surviving if killed off of their native plane, typically with some sort of penalty and/or time-lag before they can leave again, whereas Pathfinder doesn't have any similar mechanics (at least so far).
I'm inclined to agree with you that resurrecting someone, in Pathfinder (and D&D Third Edition in general) is too easy, with no real risk of failure and no lasting consequences for being brought back to life, let alone a limit on how often they can be restored. Although Outsiders such as Xiriel are somewhat harder to restore, they're far from impossible to bring back if enough resources are brought to bear (typically 9th-level spells, such as true resurrection, miracle, or wish...though according to the listing for their creature type, even a limited wish could do it). The only real prohibition is the hand-wavey issue of "they don't want to come back" which shuts down all forms of resurrection, bar none (though I once saw one third-party product for D&D 3.5 that had a method of allowing for an unwilling resurrection), leaving undeath as the only option...and that's thematically awkward for Outsiders.
That said, you're correct that the issue of having such comparatively easy resurrection options (for mortals, at least) creates issues of plotline (and drama) where fallen allies are concerned. Long Road (the aforementioned donkey paladin from A Dangerous Sparkle) died heroically, albeit off-screen, and it felt awkward that no one seemed to think about trying to resurrect him, despite the fact that Twilight herself had previously died and been brought back, which all of her friends knew about. Surely heartbroken Rarity would push for the same thing for her lost love? It was a bit of a plothole that she didn't.
In Xiriel's case, though, I wonder if any possible contingencies would necessarily come through. Hell is a backbiting place, where advancing yourself typically means taking advantage of someone else. It strikes me as not only possible, but likely, that another devil who learned that Xiriel had died would consider the news solely in terms of how it benefited them, and given that all devils are continually jockeying for position and influence, they'd probably be content to let it stay dead.
8774612
i have seen your calculation of the elements of harmony power. I admit i do prefer the idea of them overpowered, just to balance with the kind of force evil can field in the objective to increase it's influence on equestria.
By the way, can you calculate a sonic rainboom power ?
P.S : just something i noticed : isn't the night mare ruling upon devils ? If so isn't allowing Xiriel to wreck equestria the equivalent of shooting itself in the foot ? On what kind of outsider does she rule ?
8776647 Okay, let's take these one at a time.
The idea of the Elements of Harmony unleashing a greater power than the various bad guys (i.e. Nightmare Moon, Discord, The Pony of Shadows, etc.) can withstand does make sense, in terms of having game mechanics for them match up with what we see in the show. Essentially, the Elements of Harmony one-shot every foe they're used against, but the d20 System doesn't lend itself very well to that sort of instant-kill method between foes who are relatively evenly matched. Such powers are there, of course, but virtually all of them have some sort of failure-mode built into them (typically saving throws, and even where those are outmatched there's always a 5% chance for success).
Notwithstanding exploits, the only way to leverage the system to maximize the chances of one-shotting an enemy is to be bringing a power that's level-inappropriate for the foe you're facing, since a Challenge Rating 12 creature (to pull a number out of thin air) is going to have a hard time withstanding a 9th-level spell, for instance. Given that, the Elements of Harmony seem to be bringing in a major level of power that's simply beyond what we normally see in the show...which makes sense, given that Celestia herself doesn't seem to be higher than 9th-level, by my reckoning.
That's a bit tricky, because if we're being technical the rainboom itself doesn't have any "power" per se; it's just a cosmetic effect that happens whenever somepony (and presumably anything else) breaks the sound barrier. We're told that directly in the episode Sonic Rainboom, so it's not like it can be used as some sort of attack, at least anymore than anything else related to moving as such incredible speeds (such as crashing into something, like we saw in Lesson Zero, or issues of things being caught in the resulting slipstream).
Really, the only thing to calculate there would be how fast Rainbow Dash is moving when she pulls that off. In that regard, Thoth handled that over on his Rainbow Dash write-up:
In other words, moving at that speed is the equivalent of teleporting, save that you have to take into account intervening physical barriers (and, to be fair, have an upper level on the total amount of distance that can be covered in a single action, albeit a very large amount), plus the cosmetic effect that happens when she pulls it off. That she was able to do that as a filly (a level 0 character) was, needless to say, rather impressive.
This is an excellent question, and something that used to be considered a lot more when writing information about deities in D&D. In fact, you can see some good examples of this if you look at the Monster Mythology Update project, a fan-work that takes official D&D deities and updates/rewrites their formatting to use the layout from the old Faiths & Avatars books in AD&D 2E. Each of those entries has a paragraph describing the sorts of creatures that serve each god.
The thing to remember, here, is that (with extremely few exceptions) no deity has dominion over an entire type of creature, Outsider or otherwise. So there is no particular monster entry that I can point to and say "these; these creatures all answer to the Night Mare."
Devils, to be fair, all ultimately answer to Asmodeus (who may or may not be a deity, depending on what edition of the game you look at; he is in Pathfinder), but then, Asmodeus has always been portrayed as exceptional: even in classic D&D, he's been literally the only being to control an entire plane of existence (i.e. Hell) by himself. Every other plane has no monolithic ruler (again, Pathfinder has strayed from this tradition somewhat, as Pharasma rules the Boneyard absolutely, from what I understand).
That said, what virtually every god has is a collection of servitors drawn from various races (planar and otherwise) who have elected to serve them for various personal reasons. So while the Night Mare doubtless has a few devils who've sword allegiance to her (and in doing so have either exiled themselves from the infernal hierarchy – if they weren't outcasts already – or are trying to juggle their religious allegiance to her with their allegiance to Hell, typically in the form of their immediate superiors. In most cases, only lower-ranked devils go this latter route, as entering the higher ranks of the infernal hierarchy means leaving behind external ties of servitude that could be viewed as making them unfit for their high-ranking positions. You don't give a prestigious position to someone who has ties to a foreign power, after all.) she'll only have comparatively few of them. Those will be mixed in with various legions of other creatures – probably all of them with an alignment within one step of hers – who devote themselves to her service (while also pursuing various schemes and agendas of their own).
So you could reasonably expect her to have, say, blue and green dragons, kolyarut and zelekhut inevitables, cauchemar nightmares, dark nagas, hell hounds, hellcats, (lower-ranked) devils, barghests, manticores, worgs, winter wolves, cerberi, (exiled) efreet, dromosphinxes, nogitsune, medusas, lava and spire drakes, and nuckelavees. Those are just some examples that I pulled out of nowhere, and there are probably others as well, in addition to mortals that worship her. You'll notice that these aren't just Outsiders; all sorts of creatures can have an interest in serving a deity, and given that the Night Mare is a goddess of monsters (among other things), it makes sense for her to have a wide array of monstrous servitors anyway. Plus, of course, legions of petitioners (i.e. the souls of dead mortals who worshiped her in life).
One thing you won't see too many of is other Outsiders that have expansive ranks of their own (e.g. kytons). Even if such creatures didn't have a history of antagonism towards divinities (rakshasas, for example, defy them outright), they tend to be more focused on climbing their own hierarchies. Much like with devils, they tend to go such a route only to try and secure an advantage when they're lowly creatures trying to gain an advantage, or see themselves as having been completely (and permanently) shut out of their societies, with no options for advancement.
That's how I see it, at least.
8776849
Wait, Asmodeus is present in ponyfinder ?
Plus inévitables are basically magical automatons, they don't quit their hierarchy, like at all. If the night mare command some, it is probably under contract, with the accord of said herarchy in exchange against a servic or toward a common goal
8776891
Ponyfinder, as a campaign, takes an agnostic view of the wider planar arrangement. It talks a fair amount about the Elemental Planes, which are cosmologically "close" to Everglow, but while it acknowledges that the Outer Planes exist, it has very little to say about them. The underlying presumption is that those planes, and their ruling denizens, exist (including various other gods).
To put it another way, I'm not assuming that the Ponyfinder gods are the only gods that exist.
Well, the Pathfinder write-up for Inevitables does say that they're living machines created by the axiomites to defend against chaos and impose order. But other than that it doesn't have much to say with regard to their overall society, personal outlook, or methodology (besides the type of law each Inevitable upholds). To that end, it's not inconceivable that some Inevitables have decided that the best way to uphold law is to devote themselves to the services of deities of order.
lex should go up in level no ? It would make him which level ?
Plus now that the main brain behind vanhoover state is gone, all what's left to do is cleanup the ghouls. I suppose that what's left of the story is cleanup and finallly lex concretise his plans for vanhoover
8777137
Correct! Well done on figuring that out. I'm planning on writing a blog post about this soon, but after defeating Xiriel, Lex – who had 10 levels and a template worth +2 more – has now gained an eleventh level, making him a level 13 character altogether.
Hm, I wonder if the story will come to an end there...
8777202
a template ? wich one ?
8777232 It's a custom template, designed (like all of his stats) with Eclipse: The Codex Persona (and a little with The Practical Enchanter) to represent the powers the Night Mare has given him. You can find it, along with his (slightly out-of-date) stats, over here.
aww such a sweet chapter.
8777923 Thanks! I thought so too.
by the way how did xiriel manage to block magical communication in vahoover ? I remember Lex being blocked from contacting the princesses
8778499 Was communication blocked, or did the spells fail for other reasons? Both scrying and sending have failure modes, so at the moment we don't know for certain why they didn't make it through back when Lex cast them in chapter 114.
8779044
5 percent chance of failure ? Lex was really unlucky. Damn rule of dama. By the way what is this spell that make astral construct ? I rememner that being a psionic power an it doesn't allow the construct to encase it's creator or share his spells casted on onself with it
8779246
Well, maybe it was that, or maybe it was something else. Maybe Severance's presence constituted fulfilling that "local conditions" clause. So far, we don't know for sure. Maybe we never will.
That's from The Practical Enchanter. Specifically, the summon construct spell (p. 85). The psychic construct tables themselves are on pages 230-232.
8774591
I mean, Iyachtu Xvim clearly had no idea what Bane's will was, since he probably would have tried to stop himself from popping like an egg shell otherwise. And he definitely had some of Bane's essence in him. I think being "dead" means Bane couldn't use his essence to actually communicate with the outside world.
Ah, Prince of Wolves is still the best one they've ever done. Shame.
I think they're afraid of unfortunate implications, power imbalance of extraplanar beings, etc.
It's why in Starfinder I love AbadarCorp so much. It's not just a job, it's a religion! ...But mostly it's a job. Dying just means you get transferred to the "home office."
8780562
Yeah, but I sort of saw Iyachtu's ignorance (leaving aside the meta-setting changes, since that quite clearly wasn't any sort of single, cohesive plan across the editions) as being by design. Bane deliberately didn't want the Godson to know its own true nature, since otherwise it probably would have tried to save itself or otherwise subvert the process. (Fun fact: according to, if I remember correctly, the novel Pools of Darkness, though it might have been Pool of Twilight, Bane knew about his death ahead of time.) Whereas that doesn't seem likely to be true for the banelich...or at least, that's how I thought of it.
Really? Wow, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Oh well, maybe there'll be more quality D&D books in the future since it seems like the licensing deal for publishing new novels is going to go through.
That strikes me as a really stupid thing to be afraid of. I mean, I understand their reasoning if that's the case, but I don't have much respect for it if they undercut the game's internal logic and self-consistency in favor of it.
I really need to get around to reading those Starfinder books that I bought. Maybe when my group decides to start playing it...
STOP THE PRESSES! LEX IS LEARNING SOCIAL CUES
9217615 Well, at the very least he's able to mimic what he thinks a more socially-aware person would do. That's something, I guess.