massimilianogoi on 24/3/2009 at 18:30

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If I recall correct, the Cradle was her/its previous hiding place.

ManicMan on 24/3/2009 at 19:10

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.... The Necromancer who you find dead there is from the Hand Brotherhood but left to go into Necromancy and to find the Book of Ash against the Will of the Brotherhood (See 'The Mage Towers' in Gold). As you say, it 'Summons' the dead. It doesn't create the dead, or more, it isn't shown to create the dead. It is unknown about the sufficient skill bit since it isn't stated in the game and the Necromancer is found dead (second floor.. though we could guess they are someone else's bones). Though we shouldn't use the TRUE meaning of Necromancer in thief (It's true meaning is a person that uses the dead to tell the future) we can say he might be able to create the dead but there is no sign that this does happened there. Summoning and Creating are two completely different things.



I'm pretty sure nothing says how it happened. It is BELIEVED to have been created by the Eye, though an interesting note is that other then this and being able to talk, the eye doesn't seam to have any 'power' itself. It has tempted people with it's talking, and the Trickster tried to use it as PART of a Spell, but we don't see it really doing anything. The Closest we get to knowing what happened is part of a keeper letter saying:



while this seams to be saying it wasn't the trickster, cause he is opposed to destroying the city, it might say he had something to do with it. The only thing that goes against the idea he might have had a hand in it, is that he doesn't seam to show any interest or link to the undead in the game and it would mean he had tried to use it in the past (in which case, why wasn't there a real eye there already or didn't he get that far... which leaves the question why use the undead, not his own army?).

massimilianogoi on 24/3/2009 at 23:14

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You are wrong my friend, anyway this isn't a proper place to discuss about this. I know very well that part of history, and I'm sure about what I'm speaking of.

Meisterdieb on 25/3/2009 at 12:14

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WTF! Please read up some history, too, because Hitler isn't getting "bad press", it's just the facts. But this isn't the proper place to discuss that.


Agreed.

You can argue all that you want, but magic is more or less all-pervasive in the Thief world. Wether you take the elemental mages, the Hammerites/ Mechanists, the pagans, the undead, the elemental crystals, the magic beasts etc it's all magic. You may choose to categorize and divide different "schools of magic" or call it "divine magic", but that's not an argument against magic being everywhere, it's one proving that magic is everywhere.
(jtr7 listed all the magical stuff in some other thread)

Karras mentioned the Servants being "living worker" in a context where IIRC he didn't need to lie. Karras despised the pagans and low-lifes because they weren't as rightous and productive as he himself.
And I'm pretty sure Karras wouldn't build zombie slaves - undeads would be even worse than living pagans. What Karras did, was give those- in his eyes- hopeless or "chaotic" people a meaningful life. To Karras who sees machines(robots) as the ultimate worship(pers) for the builder, turning useless scum into useful machine-men is clearly an improvement.

As to wether they need to sleep or feed. I know that Karras advertised them as being able to "work tirelessly". Fully realizing that it implies more than it actually has to mean. "Working tirelessly" could just mean that they will do their chores fast and efficient without all the "wasteful" activities that a normal servant would indulge in. Even in RL, you could say that certain machines can "work tirelessly" but that doesn't mean that you don't need to have maintenance for them and change oil/ coolant/ wiring etc

So there might be magic involved or not - we don't really get any infos about that. There certainly is enough pseudo scientific technobabble going on, or theories that even in RL were once believed but have since been disproven (Phrenology, Tesla, aether etc)

ManicMan on 25/3/2009 at 15:22

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I didn't think my grammar was that amazingly bad but i do run off on a tangent too often.



In the Necromancer's Tower, you find a set of bones by the bed (if I remember right) which appear to be the Necromancer himself. This Necromancer was originally a member of the Hand Brotherhood who started to deal with Necromancy, against the will of the Inner Circle (as stated in 'The Mage Towers' Level of Thief Gold). This is no comment about the user of the book needed high enough skill to use it. That idea might be taken from the Necromancer's final notes in his letter saying:



But the 'truth is hidden from the unworthy' is far from saying 'only very skilled users can see the truth'.

Now, since we are dealing with a world where the 'true' meanings of words aren't the same as in the real world (for example, their meaning of Zombie) then we can't take the word 'Necromancer' at face value (It means a person who can tell the future by conversing with the dead) so it is possible a Thief Necromancer can create zombies and such like, However, we don't ever see this action in-game.

The Book is shown to Summon two undead zombies. It is possible it is creating them, but you would need a corpse to bring back to life, this is even stated in TG when writing about Azaran:



Summoning a creature and creating one are two different things. Neither the Book of Ash nor the Necromancer Azaran are shown as being able to create the undead. Reanimation might lead to the undead but can be done in a number of ways BEFORE the use of Magic. There doesn't appear to be any sign of Zombies being creatures of Magic in Thief, Thief Gold or Thief 2. as for Thief: DS, I'm not 100% sure since i haven't played that one nearly as much as the first three.

I shall try to remember to spend more time on my typing and slow down my speed by a far bit and organize my thoughts first.