I’m still saying it’s (partly) divine, in that it is your god granting you the power. But I’m saying the knowledge on how to actually cast the spells is not. It’s just in the brain.
The knowledge by itself would not be enough to cast the spells. You could do every part of the spell correctly, and it would do nothing. You’d still need some divine power to cast anything. And Hel is granting that power to her cleric.
If clerical magic was purely the will of the God, there wouldn’t be cleric levels. Clerics of more powerful gods would be more powerful. There’s clearly an element of skill or knowledge involved.
Not necessarily. Gods could be seeking (or require) tested advocates. People who have done works in their name. Those whose spirits had proven worthy of the extra blessings, etc. For that matter, the conduit could be the spirit itself rather than the pile of neurons in your brain since we’re speaking of theological matters. After all, gods derive their power from the souls of their followers, not from the skills of their corporeal form. In which case, the testing and resolve of said spirit is what allows for more powerful divine magic to channel through them.
Anyway, none of this is especially important in terms of the comic since it’s made clear how it all works in terms for purposes of the story.
I agree it’s not the only way. Just that I think it’s a way that makes sense, allowing it to work as the rules indicate in a world where the vampire spirit is a different entity, while maintaining the divine aspect.
I think that, in a D&D world, class abilities all work the same way. We’re discussing how it works for clerics because Durkon’s a cleric, but if it had been Roy who got vamped instead, the vampire would have had all of his combat training, and if it’d been Vaarsuvius, the vampire would have all of es ability to manipulate arcane forces, and if it’d be Elan, the vampire would have had all of his singing skill and genre savvy. Whatever it is about a person that determines how powerful a cleric you are is also what determines how powerful you are in any other class you might have.
Agreed. And I think the explanation that makes the most sense is that this occurs because they share the same brain and body: the knowledge of how to do it and the body conditioned to do it.
It could also be that class abilities are contained within the soul, but that the new vampire soul is created as a sort of corrupted copy of the original soul. Effects like Magic Jar, where a soul takes over a new body, still retain the soul’s class abilities, for instance.
That would make sense. After all, the incorporeal forms of Roy and his grandfather killed the evil adventuring party in Celestia so obviously Roy wasn’t relying on the physical bundle of brain nerves to fight. Plus he was able to learn new skills while being purely a soul.
A new vampire is the host on his worst day.
You mean 1086
I have to say, I’m getting a good laugh out of the frustrated vampire trying to convince the door to realize its potential.
The strip raises a point I’ve said before, on the OOTS forum. The five rifts were protected with gates. Why a gate? Gates open and close sometimes. They should have used a wall, seal or plug which stays shut permanently.
I seem to remember that question was asked at some point: Why not just try to eliminate the gates rather than seal them up? The answer was that if the five known gates were destroyed, other gates would just appear at some other unknown locations. So it was safer to close up and defend the known gates.
Yeah, I liked that.
Someone didn’t seem too happy about Durkon becoming a priest. I wonder if the vampire will work off that.
I don’t think so. There are several people looking disapprovingly, but I think they are just objecting to the noise made by Durkon’s friends and family.
Yeah, the frowners are all in robes and the rowdy people are the family. I guess it’ll be revealed by Durkon chose this specific memory since it was obviously to mess with the vampire spirit. Otherwise any memory of the interior would have worked (including showing the wards).
I took them as being stereotypical grumpy grizzled dwarfs, not actually displeased.
If you look at the back row, you can see a priestess shushing then.