Worldbuilding and Thief

jtr7 on 4/12/2007 at 05:55

Ah yes. Hell too.

TDS Pagan necromancy would be last resort, yes, but they are pretty casual about it. One could say they are simply resolute and willing to do whatever it takes, but a little acknowledgement of how sick or dangerous undeath is would've humanized them some.

By the way, the Pagans haven/heaven is called "the Green." It's mentioned several times, sometimes as a place of peace among plantlife, sometimes as a destination after death (which could still mean they return to the earth and are taken up by plantlife).

Baalak on 4/12/2007 at 06:01

You make the Pagans out to be extremely callous. Then again, they aspire to be, I suppose. The power which they follow and the natural world which he represents is callous, but they still view their own as important, and would gladly die to defend their families and way of life. Very human, when I think of it.

Good call, Solabusca! I do seem to remember mention of Hell in the game. Now, the question is, what sort of Hell could they be referring to? I somehow doubt it's the Gehennom-inspired Judeo-Christian fire and brimstone with a devil holding a pitchfork Hell common in western cultures, and the thought that it was just the writers being sloppy and not thinking their dialog through carefully comes to mind, but I would love to run with it, given how it is canonical.

The Hammerites suggest that the builder destroys the unrighteous, do they not? Separate the steel from the dross, as it were. The guilty are punished, but is that punishment eternal, or merely corporal? If the liars are made th eat the hands of the thieves, and the thieves the tongues of their liar brethren, what happens when the eating is over? That strikes me as a less spiritual punishment and more of a torturous way to die. What do you guys think?

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Hellish.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]

Baalak on 4/12/2007 at 06:08

I find myself wondering, what is undeath like in the Thief Universe? We see three forms of undead (right? only three?) and each of them seems dead-set, if you'll mind the pun, on forcing you to join them now! There is locomotion, and perhaps even speech and intelligent behavior (at least in non-zombies), but how much of the original mind remains?

Take Haunts. Are the souls of the dead trapped within their corporeal form, struggling against the dark madness animating their limbs, forcing them to thirst for death and destruction against their will? Do they remain themselves, but are filled with an all-consuming hatred for the living? Does slaughtering the innocent ease their own suffering? Would they, if they could, thank you for rending their souls from their bodies and setting them free?

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Dark.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]

Baalak on 4/12/2007 at 06:20

Quote Posted by Solabusca

I'd suggest that they see their own afterlife as related to the Trickster (thinking the ghost of the little girl, and the mother that calls her away after she hands over her doll), perhaps even a death/rebirth cycle to go along with nature (pure speculation, on my part).

Quote Posted by jtr7

By the way, the Pagans haven/heaven is called "the Green." It's mentioned several times, sometimes as a place of peace among plantlife, sometimes as a destination after death (which could still mean they return to the earth and are taken up by plantlife).

I think there is something to this. Returning to the green speaks to me of reincarnation, or at least the energy of one's life returning to a greater whole.

Quote Posted by Solabusca

I'd suggest that the pagan Necromancy in TDS was a sort of 'last resort' action - they're using a specific item (a Necromancer's wand) that suggests that it's not an inherent practice. Notes for the T2G missions suggest that Pagans find necromancy just as abhorrent as Hammerites do (especially since it operates outside of the "natural" cycle).

Interesting ideas. I'm interested in looking at the properties of Life and Death energies, unbiased by human beliefs. Is Necromancy subverting the natural order of things? If undead generate spontaneously where such energies are allowed to collect, are we not to believe that such a process is natural? Even the undead (at least corporeal ones) have a physical form which will eventually break down, and can be slain through fairly mundane means. This suggests that there is a cycle of Death energy as well, and that while it borrows from the energy cycle of Life, it may not be wholly apart from it.

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Biased.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]

jtr7 on 4/12/2007 at 06:41

As natural as uranium! And when people (or gods) concentrate it, change it's natural state into some bastardized form for questionable reasons, it's murder on the body!

Quote:

You make the Pagans out to be extremely callous. Then again, they aspire to be, I suppose.

Actually, the writers for the games did!

It's yet unknown how many of the game files for TDS were NOT implemented, but all the voice-work was done, a lot of time and money spent, and the pattern is clear. Them Pagans is blood-thirsty, and they DO express glee at the bloodshed! Genocide can do that to a people.

Hammer Haunts (TDP/Gold):
MURHAU1.wav: "Now I must ask thee for one last thing: These haunts who inhabit the bodies of my brethren--they must all be killed."
Hammer Haunts (TDS):
T_LoadingHelp54: "Tip: Hammer Haunts are undead Hammerites whose burial site was desecrated."

Peanuckle on 4/12/2007 at 19:09

Quote Posted by Baalak

Take Haunts. Are the souls of the dead trapped within their corporeal form, struggling against the dark madness animating their limbs, forcing them to thirst for death and destruction against their will? Do they remain themselves, but are filled with an all-consuming hatred for the living? Does slaughtering the innocent ease their own suffering? Would they, if they could, thank you for rending their souls from their bodies and setting them free?

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Dark.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]

The gibbering that the Haunts speak sounds to me like its one person speaking to a listener, so I think that there is a dark magic or spirit that is forcibly animating their body against the Hammerite's will. For instance, how they constantly mutter "flames around you, flames nothing but flames...", that could be the possessing spirit taunting the Hammerite about his sins while it goes around murdering people with his body. So they probably would thank you for their re-death, much like the T2 servants do.

Snakeskin on 4/12/2007 at 20:53

@Balaak
Nope, you did not get through.
Use the email i posted and send it from yours! We have a lot to discuss i think. :D

@Solabusca
Only partly.
Yours are differing from mine as well, and the main poster in those threads is you. You like the 7 element thing. I like the 6 elements+aether as a binding force thing.

Solabusca on 4/12/2007 at 22:38

Quote Posted by Snakeskin

Except that seven elements are mentioned by name in the Ritual that the Trickster uses. I figure a God would know better, right?

.j.

jtr7 on 5/12/2007 at 00:05

Looking through the transcripts within the schemas, the Pagans, in general, don't like zombies, and don't know how to kill them. So there's a change of perspective.

Aside from the usual, expected, typical Pagan sayings that taffers think of:

p2_idle4: "Mes hopes I seesy a cityhead tonight...I bes want to feeders a fleshy fat corpse to them sycamores and leafy ones...."

p2_idle7: "City fools, buildering badness, foe of the Pagan, if I be seesy you, I bes sapping your bloods into them earths 'til you bes dead, deaded, deadings...ha...."

p4_idle6: "I knows a way to kill many Hammermakers in just one days...put hemlocks or scarletbean in they breads...that bes kills them all at once...."

m03c020: "How bes it done?"
m03c0202: "First, Dyan, Priestess of Wood, givers enchantment, and beset them minds...."
m03c0203: "Yes?"
m03c0204: "Then the manfools, thinker they bes acting of them own free will, does whatever we wants...."
m03c0205: "Ha, stupid weaksy manfools. And then?"
m03c0206: "Then, after the magics wear off, the damage bes done, and if there bes a problem...."
m03c0207: "Larkspur seals them deal with more other...persuasions...."
m03c0208: "Yeah, or he bes just kills them."

Texts:
PAGcurses: "Cursings on the Manfools Oh Woodsie Lord, oh Trickster, oh Greens and Leafy King, bes you giver my curses them power of them woods and the speed of them winds. Giver you my curses them potent of the seas. For the cityman who beated his horse. Be cursing him with them blackening sickness. I bes burn them cornsilks on that fullsy moon - and whisper them words that bringers on them bruising. He bes dead by next moon. For the cityman who choppered them trees. Be cursing him with them itchings. I bes offered them mice to the itch ivy patch - and they spirits be finders the cityman. First he bes itch and itch. Then soon the madness bes follow. Bes I thanker you, Trickster, greensy father of us all."

AULgardeningtip: "Leafers and vines grower more quicksy bes you feeder them with the saps and bones of manfools."

Which I'll use to segue into the middle of (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1538335#post1538335) this past discussion.

Snakeskin on 5/12/2007 at 13:39

Quote Posted by Solabusca

Except that seven elements are mentioned by name in the Ritual that the Trickster uses. I figure a God would know better, right?

.j.

Except that we do not even know that he reads a verse from that element, also that he starts the ritual from that point in the star-shape.

It seems logical that he would begin with the tip for "borning", that is aether, the force allowing the six elements to function, and then go on summoning the six.

However, this discussion is OT and i do not feel like waking an old thread.