235 - Better Than One
Time was rapidly running out.
By Lex’s estimation, it had been a half-hour since he’d awoken, which meant that there was roughly thirty minutes left before the undead ponies arrived at the camp. Even knowing that he could now bring the totality of Severance’s might to bear, Lex couldn’t help but feel more and more tense. I should have confronted Severance sooner, he berated himself silently. If I had, there’d be time to properly test the full scope of what it can do. But with so little time left, that wasn’t possible now, not if he wanted to engage in any other planning, which he knew was going to be absolutely necessary. “Sonata.”
“Huh?” She looked over at him, dragging her eyes down from where she’d been looking at the sky, apparently having gotten bored while he’d reached an understanding with Severance. “Hey, I think I spotted Orion’s belt buckle! See that one star?” She turned her gaze upward again, point a hoof. “The one that’s twinkling? It’s-”
“Sonata!” Her carefree attitude was making his anxiety worse, worried that her lack of concern would lead to her making a mistake at a critical moment. The thought of that was enough to remind him of the ghouls he’d butchered earlier in the day, recalling how they’d laughed and rhymed at having eaten the bodies of the ponies he’d sent into Vanhoover. If that happened to Sonata… Fighting down a shudder, he couldn’t make his voice entirely free of tension when he spoke again. “We need to go over battle strategies!”
“For realsies?” She looked back at him with a quizzical expression. “But I thought we talked about this already. The ghouls will show up, we’ll kick their flanks, do a victory dance, and everypony here will adore us. Easy as peasy-squeezy lemon pie.” She wasn’t sure what kind of pie that was, but it sounded delicious! Speaking of which… “By the way, after we’re done here can I have my sense of taste back? I’m pretty hungry and you’re totes gonna spend those bits you got so that we can chow down after this, right?”
Letting out a slow breath, Lex forced himself to remain calm and ignore her rambling, instead focusing on explaining things in a manner that she would hopefully be able to comprehend. “Sonata, I know you think that the ghouls aren’t a threat to us, and in terms of their individual capabilities, that’s a fairly accurate assessment.”
“Cool! So what’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that there are going to be, at the very least, several hundred of them. We need to not only wipe them all out, but do so without letting any of them get past us.” He nodded his head back at he spoke, indicating the camp ponies. Now that the medical tent had been cut down, there was nothing between the two of them and the large crowd. Although they were far enough away that speech conducted at normal volume wouldn’t be overheard, Lex was still cognizant of the crowd’s eyes being firmly locked onto them.
“Oh.” Sonata’s brow wrinkled as she digested that, and her head swiveled back and forth as she looked between him and the crowd of ponies. After repeating the gesture a half-dozen times, she seemed to reach a conclusion. “Huh…you know, that sounds kinda hard.”
“Precisely,” uttered Lex with a sigh of relief. Hopefully now she’d listen. “That’s why we need to coordinate our efforts ahead of time.”
“What does ‘coordinate’ mea-, oh, I get it now!” Her grin suddenly returned in force. “This is where you tell me my part in your super-awesome master plan, right?” She practically bounced in place, almost shivering with excitement. “I knew you had one! So, what do I do?”
It was all he could do not to wince at that. Before he’d met her, he had thought that not living up to the expectations he had for himself was painful. But it was nothing compared to letting down the girl he loved. “Sonata, I-”
“Wait! Don’t tell me! I wanna guess!” Almost squealing in delight, she put a hoof to her chin for a moment, before gasping as inspiration struck. “I’ve got it! When the ghouls show up, I’ll sing and make them all fall asleep, and then you can go around with Severance and whack ‘em all one at a time!” Her smile somehow grew wider. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before! Like, duh!”
“What-, no, that won’t work!” The words came our harsher than he’d intended them to, alarmed at having discovered a critical gap in her knowledge. “You can’t enchant an undead creature’s mind.”
Letting out a groan, Sonata rolled her eyes. “Oh come on! If you were fine with me using my magic on everypony in camp just now, why’s it such a big deal if I use it on a bunch of ghouls?”
“I didn’t say you musn’t,” hissed Lex. For an instant, he felt certain that she was misunderstanding him on purpose, but he pushed that thought away, recognizing that it was borne of tension and frustration. “I said you can’t! It won’t work! Undeath is a state that warps the minds of those it afflicts, and makes their mentality impossible to affect with magic.” He moved closer to her, until his face was inches away from her, wanting to make absolutely sure she understood what he was telling her. “Enchantments won’t work on the ghouls. You need to focus on other types of magic. Do you understand?”
“Yeah.” Her ears folded back as she gave a pout. “But that hardly seems fair.” Sighing, she scratched her head as she tried to think of something else.
Lex could already feel what little patience he had left ebbing, the combination of stress about their situation and embarrassment that she had more faith in him than he deserved eating away at what little energy he had remaining. Fighting off the urge to sink to the ground, he tried again. “When the ghouls arrive-”
“Aw, c’mon! One more guess?” she pleaded. “I promise this’ll be the last one, and if I don’t get it right you can tell me, okay?” Not having the strength to argue with her, Lex didn’t protest, and she bit her lip in concentration. “Alright…you did the whole male bonding thing with Severance just a second ago, so it’s not that.” Lex closed his eyes, a pained look crossing his face at her characterization of what had just happened. “And it’s not some big new spell or something, ‘cuz you were fighting a little while ago and would’ve used it then.” That was enough to make Lex’s eyes flit toward his shadow, wondering if maybe it would come to his aid again now the way it had when he’d fought Xiriel. “Sooo…those floaty gems, right?”
“What?” It took Lex a moment to realize what she meant, and as he did he glanced back at his saddlebag. After the scroll had exploded, and he’d pieced it back together in vain, he’d very briefly checked the gems for damage, grabbing each of them in turn to look them over. It had been habit more than anything else that had made him put them away, just before Sonata had convinced him to address the camp ponies. Taking them out again now, Lex held them aloft telekinetically. “What about them?”
Unable to help but chuckle at the sight of the gems – chasing that one that had been circling her head had been a lot of fun! – Sonata puffed up her chest. “You’re gonna do something awesome with those, right? Like, um, that thing where you super-charged that spell to make food so that you made enough for everyone. Without frying yourself from the inside out, I mean,” she added hastily. “You can boost these things so that they’ll spin around you super fast and chop up any ghouls that get to close to you, right?”
“That…” The rebuke was halfway to his mouth, only to die on his tongue as he thought her idea through. Why couldn’t he charge the magic items in his possession? They all had stable magical pathways built into them, after all. In theory, if he channeled additional magic through his body and into them rather than into a spell he was casting, it should amplify them just the same. It’s not even that different from what I’ve done before, he realized with growing intrigue. Back when he and Sonata had been journeying on hoof to Tall Tale, he had used a similar procedure to tweak his haversack’s functionality so that he could bring its extradimensional space into another such space of his own creation.
“So?” asked Sonata, her tail practically wagging in eagerness. “Did I get it right?”
“…close enough,” muttered Lex, already tuning her out (and missing the cheer and subsequent dance she performed) in order to concentrate on the idea she’d given him.
In all likelihood, the gemstones wouldn’t fly any faster if he channeled additional power into them. But their core functionality, the magical effects that they granted their wielder, should experience some sort of augmentation. It wouldn’t be permanent; the additional energy poured into them would be expended, in all likelihood, in a matter of minutes…and it would need to be done very carefully. Flooding them with power in an uncontrolled rush would most likely damage, or perhaps even destroy, them. But if he did it correctly, timing it so that they kicked in just before the ghouls arrived…there was no way of knowing if it would be enough to salvage the situation, but it might.
It's not just the gemstones, either, Lex realized with a jolt. He was wearing several other magic items already; his circlet, with small reservoir of magical energy and ability to let him visualize magical auras. His amulet was designed to mildly toughen the dermal layer of skin, while his cloak helped to resist dangerous or debilitating circumstances. The ring around his right foreleg protected against weak divinations, defeating attempts to read his thoughts or scan his personal aura. Any one of them, if infused with additional power, could theoretically be enhanced. Nor were those everything.
Looking at his saddlebags again, Lex immediately discarded any thoughts of augmenting the spell-imbued ruby that the Night Mare had given him. The resurrection magic it contained wasn’t something he understood very well, and feeding more power into it without comprehending its underlying structure would, at best, destroy the spell it contained. More likely it would be miscast, with no way of predicting what would happen.
But Lex’s thoughts froze as he turned his attention to the other item he was carrying. The scroll! Moving slowly despite his quickening pulse, Lex pulled the roll of parchment out of his saddlebag, looking it over again. Just a few minutes ago, he had been enraged that it was just ink on paper, with no imbued energy waiting to be released. But now…now that didn’t matter, because he could feed more energy into it! The channels themselves were the writing, which was completely intact thanks to his repair spell; if he just poured the right amount of energy into them, then the spells should take effect as if the scroll had never been damaged! It could work!
It could work…if he could channel sufficient power. But that was a very large “if” in his current condition. With the damage he’d sustained in his disastrous attempt to create enough food for everypony yesterday, compounded by how much he’d exerted himself fighting Xiriel earlier today, he had very little strength left now. With what it would likely take to empower even a single item, let alone fuel the powerful spells that had been in the scroll…
Performing some quick mental calculations, Lex grimaced at the results. He’d been thinking of augmenting all of his magic items, but that had been wildly optimistic. Even if he didn’t bother with the scroll, pouring that much power into everything else would have been exceptionally trying under the best of circumstances. In his current condition, it would kill him for certain. I’m only going to be able to do this a few times, he realized. Probably less than that, considering how badly depleted he already was.
But what other choice was there now?
“Sonata,” he called, releasing all five gems to orbit him again. “Come here.”
“I guessed right!” she sang, somehow making “right” into a two-syllable word. Practically skipping over to him, her eyes were almost glittering with how pleased she was. “Praise me!”
“We need to go over-”
“Praise me!”
Huffing, Lex found that he couldn’t work up his usual ire at her behavior. He was too exhausted, and besides, it was because of her that he had a plan at all now. “Your idea was brilliant,” he admitted, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips for some reason. “Shockingly so.”
“Woo hoo!” she hollered. Rearing up on her hind legs, she threw her fore-hooves into the air as she turned to face the camp ponies. “Didja hear that?! I’m brilliant!” she cackled, throwing herself back onto all fours as she turned and lunged at Lex, giving him a hug that knocked him down. “I am so gonna write this down later! In fact, I’m signing all my autographs ‘Sonata Brilliant Dusk’ from now on!”
“Sonata, we need to discuss the specifics regarding what’s about to happen.”
“Right!” She bounded off him, still buzzing with joyous energy. “Explain away! Your brilliant girlfriend is totes paying one hundred-ten percent attention!”
Sighing, Lex climbed to his hooves, hoping no one noticed that he needed to lean on Severance to do it. “Now, listen to me very carefully…”
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How the heck does a story with over 500k words have barely over 50 likes/dislikes total? You'd think it'd have accumulated at least four times that at the very bare minimum.
8920172 That seems weird to you too, huh?
(Though, to be fair, I suspect that being a sequel to a sequel doesn't help. I really should have put a notice front-and-center that I tried to write this story so that it would be accessible even if you haven't read the preceding works.)
So much wonderful Sonata goodness. Praise her!
This gal's just saying what we're all thinking!
Wait, if Lex charges up the scrolls and casts the spells, will he lose the chance to permanently learn those spells?
8920172
My guess is that its because this story is a spin-off sequal to another persons sequal.
Also... I dont know if all who reads the stories here actually clicks the like/dislike buttons.
8920225
It is not too late to add such a thing.
Copy Scroll is a simple spell? After all he is just copying text so there shouldnt be a magical requirement until he reactivates the energization?
Which is what feat, ability, spell in its own right, do I remmeber Lex using Overdrive on the KRaken before, bumping up a spell a couple levels in effective power at a lot more spell slots used?
Lex's situation seems to be improving though it still doesn't guarantee that everything will turn out the way he intends to, especially when it comes to a large number of ghouls starving for flesh of the living and Lex likely knows that too. Still, given the situation, he has far more options than he did before to deal with the ghouls.
I'm eager to see how he'll implement Sonata's suggestion into his strategy...well, minus the ones that apply to the rule of funny that is.
Quite frankly, unless there is an actual spell/feat/ability that actually lets you recharge/supercharge magic items (and it wouldn't surprise me if there is) if I were DMing this campaign, I'd let Lex do it, but at the cost of burning out, either permanently or temporarily, the item in question.
8920557
I believe the feat there would be either the empower or maximize spell metamagic feats. These normally only apply to spells the user personally casts, but, again, it wouldn't surprise me if there are feats or abilities that let you apply them to magic items.
i was behind 4 or 5 chapters do to the weather. as the saying is you have to farm when the sun is shining. or in this case fix things for later.
do to that i can not really comment as it is just way to early in the morning and i am running way low on caffeine.
any who, it looks as of Sonata in all her wisdom has given Lex a possible idea if he can pull it off.
but knowing the author i am wondering why the twinkling star was pointed out, i wont be surprised if this shows up some ware in the upcoming battle.
8920328 An excellent point. I've added such a disclaimer to the story's description.
8920274 I really let Sonata run wild this chapter. Which is understandable; she's buzzing with energy for what's about to happen, as well as happy at how things are suddenly going so well for her personally.
If you mean in terms of how spell scrolls burn themselves out if you cast the spells they contain, rather than transcribing them into your spellbook, then yes.
8920557
A penetrating statement, since you've caught a narrative disconnect between the game rules and what the game rules are supposed to represent.
Spell scrolls are essentially pre-cast spells contained within a textual medium. When someone comes along and unleashes the spell, that normally causes the writing to disappear as a consequence; presumably, the energy "burns out" the writing that was holding it as it's released. That part is fairly intuitive; everything described in the previous sentences seems to make sense unto itself. (The one possible exception being why the energy "burns out" the ink and causes it to disappear, and if that process could somehow be prevented; I'd say that it could, and that such things are why there are spell trigger items such as wands and staves, which hold the same spell or spells multiple times over.)
The problem here is that copying a spell scroll into a spellbook also causes the writing on the scroll to disappear, exactly the same as if the spell was discharged. This is unintuitive, because the energy is lost even though the spell isn't otherwise activated. While you'd think that the obvious answer would be "the energy was moved from the scroll to the spellbook," that doesn't work either, because spells copied from one spellbook to another don't disappear. This brings up a question as to why a spell scroll is effectively expended when the spell it contains is transmuted into a spellbook.
This isn't an academic problem, in the context of this story; Lex doesn't use a physical spellbook, keeping all of the thaumaturgical spells he's learned within his mind (even if he can't prepare them without a massive influx of energy), but is essentially operating under the same rules. That means that he shouldn't, under the game rules, be able to just cast some sort of "copy page" spell and be able to have his cake and eat it too (that is to say, be able to cast the spell on the original scroll by channeling energy from himself into it and then studying the copied pages later on to add the spells to his mental catalogue). But without having an in-game explanation for why that is, it's not something that can adequately be addressed within the context of the story.
Fortunately for me, I don't have to address the disparity here; there's no indication that Lex has any such copying spell prepared (and his stash of spell-stored gems, where such a niche spell would likely go, were lost during his fight with Xiriel). For that matter, there isn't even any excess paper around for him to copy them onto anyway. So for now, I'm safe from having to explain another bit of "blank space" between the rules and the narrative.
Lex has several ways of manipulating a spell, using mechanically-disparate abilities which I've defined here as his utilizing his body's natural magical channels in conjunction with the thought-forms where he's containing the spell energy for his "thaumaturgical" magic. He uses Amplify metamagic theorem (Eclipse: The Codex Persona, page 56), typically in conjunction with the Glory upgrade (p. 60) to boost the power of his spells. He can also cast spells that would otherwise be too strong for him to use via the Compact metamagical theorem (p. 57), though this has drawbacks that he typically pays via personal damage. That's similar to how he can retain a spell that he's cast but doesn't want to be expended via the Body Fuel ability (p. 26), which also does damage to him.
But all of that is slightly different from what Lex is planning on doing now...
8920601 The good news is that Lex has more in his proverbial arsenal than he did before. Severance will be more of an asset than he thought, now, and Sonata has given him the idea of not boosting his magic items, but also of using the scroll that he would otherwise have written off.
It's funny...it's almost as though working with other people, such as Sonata and Severance, is making Lex stronger, so that he doesn't have to solve each and every problem all by himself. Kind of like what the Night Mare said.
8922407
Well, yes and no. I'm not aware of any such feat, spell, or ability that lets you apply a metamagic feat you have to a magic item - though there surely must be one out there (heck, I might actually know about one and just not remember) - but since Lex is built using Eclipse, I don't have to. I can just build that effect into his character sheet. Except...the way you'd probably do that is by taking the metamagic feat(s) in question, which Lex has, in conjunction with the Blessing ability (p. 26), which he doesn't.
So how is Lex actually planning on doing this, under the game rules, then? Well, this is one of those abilities that's written on his character sheet which I haven't really been able to use up until now (which is good, since it means that I still have narrative wiggle-room for things like this). Namely, that he has the Stunt ability (p. 44, under Skill Focus) for the Use Magic Device skill. That means that he can essentially propose a function for the skill that wouldn't normally be available - such as making a magic item temporarily function much more powerfully than it should, or making a reconstituted-but-powerless scroll be cast as normal - and potentially do it, though the DC of the skill check might very well be incredibly high.
Of course, since Lex has no Mana reserve (pg. 36-37), that means that each such Stunt he uses requires him to take 2 points of ability damage. That's a problem because he's already working with quite a bit of ability damage, both from Xiriel's blood drain and from the Body Fuel (p. 26) he used so that he could use create food and water a third time to feed everypony (the narrative here presented the reason as his boosting the spell too far, but under the game rules this was why it happened). So there's only so much further he can push himself before this becomes truly debilitating.
8922445 I'll let the cat out of the bag on that one right now: there's no particular significance to Sonata's pointing out a twinkling star. That was done because it highlighted how she's a bubbly airhead: every star twinkles, so her saying "look at the twinkling one" is no help whatsoever in identifying which one she meant.
8923532
Never heard of copy scroll.
8923652 Insofar as I'm aware there isn't a spell that will simply duplicate an actual spell scroll. That's fairly obvious, since unless that spell had very expensive material components (which would have to cost more than the price of making a scroll), it would be granting you free magic items.
What I think Booster Spice meant, however, was a spell to simply copy writing from one page to another, since Lex has openly noted that the scroll he took from Xiriel is, after he repaired it, just ink on paper, and nothing more. Ergo, the question was "why can't he just cast some spell that will basically Xerox the original, so that he can pour energy through the original scroll and re-activate its spells now, and use the copy to write the spells into his mental 'spellbook' later?" That was the question I was answering, at least.
Insofar as what spell would actually just copy a page of text onto another page...I don't recall any such spell in Pathfinder proper (though there's at least one third-party spell for it), though I can see arguments being made that prestidigitation or unseen servant could do it. Likewise, 3.5 had amanuensis.
8923718
Spell is more than casual ink on paper. You would get a copy that is perhaps a leg up on research, but could not be scribed directly.
8923789 That's basically what I said, albeit while highlighting the issues that go into trying to explain why that's the case, from an in-character standpoint.
8923422
Totally. After the works of Tolkien, HP Lovecraft is probably the single most influential author on D&D, and that was his biggest underlying theme.
Ah well. I hope you still have fun with their more casual play-style.
I remember the Archdruids, good times. Very interesting setting stuff, made the Moonshae Isles cooler. I remember thinking that it was impossible for a druid to go beyond 13th level because of this system.
Oh man, when they announced Pathfinder 2nd Edition Paladins would still be LG, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the forums.
Totally agree. I think it's influenced by whether you think of D&D combat as a team sport or not. If you're asking yourself "how am I helping my side win the fight?" It's ok if you try and fail something once in a while, especially if you fail at an action that would have significantly benefited the party. If you're asking yourself "what cool thing am I going to do this round?" Then you're more likely to pitch a fight when it feels like you did nothing.
That's quite true. What annoys me isn't that the guy is taking a different approach than I would, it's that he did not do the research. If he said something like "I don't want to make the witch overpowered, that ruins the excitement of the game. Therefore I won't use slumber or take Accursed Hex." I'd understand that logic. But as far as I can tell, he just hasn't actually looked into the capabilities of his character in the first place.
8923445
Yup. Good old Blaze, David Silver wrote a fantastic novel involving her cult, and I read it after we met Daybreaker, which makes it all the more interesting. Blaze recommends a pile of severed heads to impress the gal on a first date.
Noooooooooo!
8925330
Yeah...no.
This is kind of a thing for me. Over the last few years, I've gotten heavily into the history and development of D&D in particular and the tabletop RPG hobby in general. I've purchased and read all four volumes (and the appendix) of Designers & Dragons, as well as Playing at the World, Of Dice and Men, Empire of Imagination, Appendix N, and Dave Arneson's True Genius. Plus a "Collector's Edition" USB copy of the El Raja Key Archive. I bring all this up not to brag, but because I want to underline that I've done my homework where this particular question is concerned, and feel fairly confident in saying the following:
The works of J. R. R. Tolkien weren't that big of an influence on D&D.
I know a lot of people think otherwise, but I'm of the opinion that this is due to a combination of Tolkien being held up as the gold standard of fantasy fiction and the fact that the things D&D did take from Tolkien are very "player-facing" in their appearance. The fact is, while the basic demihuman races are virtual carbon copies of what Tolkien envisioned, the original rules deliberately attempted to downplay them in favor of humanity. Gary Gygax openly admitted this in the AD&D First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide (quoted here), which is why they had level limits in the first place. But those - and the ranger class - are one of the first things players choose when making a character, so everyone saw them, and so they quickly thought of D&D as aping Tolkien's work.
In point of fact, if you look at the books that make up the recommended reading list in the DMG, you'll see that there were a lot of other authors that formed the basis for the game. The paladin class, as well as the idea of Law and Chaos, were from the works of Poul Anderson, for instance. The entire idea of "fire and forget" spellcasting is from the works of Jack Vance. Roger Zelazny's Jack of Shadows is quite clearly the archetype for the thief class. Margaret St. Clair's Sign of the Labrys is arguably the archetypal, D&D-esque dungeon, with its distinct (almost themed) levels and complicated devices that needed solving to advance through it. And of course, classic monsters are everywhere; heck, the original 1974 Dungeons and Dragons boxed set openly used creatures from Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter novels.
A lot of people think that Gary's own lack of appreciation for Tolkien (he famously called Lord of the Rings "boring") had to do with anti-litigation concerns, but there's evidence to suggest (compellingly, to my mind) that he was stating his honest feelings. He did admit to liking The Hobbit, after all, and he was surely cognizant of the fact that, by the early 1970's, Tolkien was already being regarded as the apex of fantasy fiction, despite there being a very rich catalogue of fantasy that, for devotees of the genre, went back decades. Based on what I've read, Gary (and Dave Arneson) envisioned D&D as being much closer to the pulps than to operatic "high" fantasy.
Looking at what adventure paths have given us today, I find myself more and more inclined to agree with them as I get older.
It's not bad for what it is; I just need to resign myself to the idea that I'm not going to get any more (at least from this particular group).
Well, 14th level, but yes. In AD&D First Edition, the druid class had only so many levels in it, unlike most other classes (assassins and monks also being level-limited), and once you became The Great Druid, there was nowhere else to go unless you wanted to dual-class. That changed as of Unearthed Arcana (1985), which introduced Hierophant druids of higher level (though I think they, like all UA material, had originally appeared in Dragon magazine).
Hm, I don't recall that announcement. Rather, I heard that they were only going to use Lawful Good paladins in the playtest, and otherwise hadn't announced a decision (though one of the playtest adventures featuring an antipaladin NPC may or may not be indicative of what they're thinking).
Hm, interesting point. Given that, I have to wonder if the people interested in making a team contribution (as opposed to being the star) would be more amenable to using buffs and healing (notwithstanding issues of efficiency) if they wanted to help everyone else out. Admittedly, debuffs are the metaphorical "one step removed" from that, since you're "attacking" an enemy in a way that makes them more susceptible to your party members (rather damaging your enemy directly).
Well, I can understand that being irritating. Of course, I blame part of that on the "pre-packaged" nature of character classes, as opposed to building your own character via a point-buy method, but it should be clear that I'm rather biased in that regard.
8925335 I read it too, and I found it enjoyable. That said, what I found most notable was continued focus (albeit only a minor one in that novel) on the collectivist nature of the pony pantheon in terms of their role in mortal society. While we hear about how the Night Mare and the Moon Princess are struggling for supremacy, for instance, or how Kara set up Lashtada's undoing, the ponies of Everglow don't seem to have any sort of major religious strife amongst themselves...at least not since Queen Iliana wiped out the Tribe of Bones. Even blatantly evil gods are openly worshiped and accepted as part of their society's religious identity, and most issues of religious violence seems to be an extension of racial tensions (i.e. Blaze's cleric saying "kill the humans!") rather than clashes of faith.
Contrast this with a lot of other fantasy worlds, where there's no collective reverence for the entire pantheon, to the point where openly revering an evil deity will typically incite a severe backlash (or even armed attacks) from the community.
Ya know, this whole not finding typos thing is starting to worry me.
9219870 Aw, well, I'm just glad to have you back and looking!