Sometimes a named vest is just a named vest.
Again, I’m just speculating here (and doing so with a minimal knowledge of D&D rules). But I think most vampires are generally free-willed. Malack was not bound to Nergal in the same way that Durkula is bound to Hel. Malack served Nergal but he did it by choice just as Durkon served Thor by choice.
Malack was a vampire and he knew what becoming a vampire involved. He knew he was killing Durkon not transforming him. He knew that a new vampire spirit would move into Durkon’s body and take it over. Malack placed it in thrall while the new spirit worked through its initial uncontrolled stage. But once the vampire spirit was in full control, Malack would release his thrall and befriend the new vampire, which he expected would be free-willed like himself.
My theory is that there is something unusual about Durkula. He’s a vampire spirit but not a normal one. He was somehow bound to Hel from the moment he was created and Hel was able to sneak him into Durkon’s body when Malack turned Durkon into a vampire. Which is why I think Hel could have done the same thing if Malack had killed Haley or Roy. Hel would have used the opportunity to put the same bound spirit into them and now they would be her vampire agent.
I don’t see any indication that Durkula isn’t free-willed. I think that it’s just as he says: He serves Hel, and is loyal to her, because he chooses to be. Yes, there’s a strong bond there, but it’s the same strong bond as between any deity and their high priest.
And V is either 15th or 16th (depending on Int score), not 17th, to be preparing two Mind Blanks (consensus on the GITP board is 16th, with a 24 Int). E does have an evocation slot as well, which e presumably is in fact filling with Sunburst, it being such a potent spell against vampires (though, to be fair, we don’t actually know that e has Sunburst in es book).
Durkula became free-willed in the moment Malack was destroyed. Before that he was in thrall to Malack. However, being in thrall to Malack doesn’t preclude Hel from having inserted her spirit into Durkon’s body. Some people seem to think this is the case and I don’t know why.
Being 16th won’t let him (I’m afraid I always think of V as male) cast 3 8th level spells as he did in strip 946. I brought this up in the Geekery thread. Their response was that he could have cast one the night before and then cast the other two that morning. That’s only plausible if you don’t think about it too hard.
Why would he have prepared Dimensional Lock for a day that he didn’t have a specific need for it? The morning that he supposedly prepared DL, they hadn’t reached the gate or even had more than the vaguest idea where it was. I don’t see why he would prepare it when it woufd be better to prepare a spell that could be used in battle. Does not make sense.
You’re right. I got my spell charts/level confused with the learned spells one for Sorcs. (I was wondering why 2n-1 = level required for ‘n’ level spell wasn’t working…)
Of course, if Dtilque’s right, and V’s 17th, that opens up 9s. Even if Burlew hates Wish et al, there’s still a lot of heavyweights available at that level. I think someone here brought up before, “What if V tries to Disjoin the Crimson Mantle?”
It’s possible that V has a big hangup involving teleportation magic, and never misses a chance to counter it by showing that conjuration is totally stupid you guys.
That’s okay, I always think of V as female. It drives my kids nuts when I talk about “her” since it’s supposed to be ambiguous.
I’m certain that Burlew intended the character to be male, and just rolled with it when readers weren’t sure. But V looked female to me from the start.
Someday, at some crucial plot point, when Bugsby’s tools of Embroidery fails because it only works on anonymous garments, you’ll see just how wrong you are.
In my opinion, Hel wouldn’t have worked out a plan like this on the basis that the vampire spirit might choose to work for her. She’d want a vampire that she knew was under her control.
Part of that is this an enormous plan with the fate of the universe literally riding on it and that’s not something where you want to have a random element. The other part of it is Hel’s nature; we’ve seen several examples of what a control freak she is and how angry she gets when anything doesn’t go the way she wants.
Heh. One of the possible results would be V losing all spellcasting ability.
Which is why she put that spirit in a very lawful good cleric. It’s not that she has control over him so much as it is that Durkula is intensely loyal to Hel in the same way that Durkon was intensely loyal to Thor.
Even on his worst day, Durkon refused to curse Thor. He cursed everyone else, but not Thor. He held on to his faith that Thor wanted him to be with the humans for years.
Or, at least, that’s how I’ve always thought of it. Hel isn’t controlling Durkula. He is willingly intensely loyal to her. And Hel knows this.
Also, this is a last ditch attempt by Hel, not really something she planned until the opportunity arose. She could not have caused Durkon to be vampired. She only has power over disease. And the vampire who sired him isn’t even one of hers. And Hel is established as quite lazy.
Not sure where my reply to this went.
Narratively, I agree. That needs to come up again. But what’s in it for these guys to let Hel succeed? Their goal is just to maintain a sort of balance, where no one side wins. They want the conflict to continue indefinitely. But Hel’s solution ends the conflict and starts over.
I wonder if maybe they will take over, but, unlike last time, they actually help out. Rather than leaving V doing nothing, they control V’s body to do something that V Vself didn’t know about.
My take on Hel’s plans is that she’s been trying for a thousand years to get some real clerics, not for any specific plans, but just because you need a few to do pretty much anything as a god. But it’s been tough, since the only clerics she can have are undead, and there aren’t very many undead that can have class levels, and even those who can won’t necessarily be clerics, and even those who are will mostly be low-level, because high-level clerics are tough to undeadify, and it takes a long time for one that starts low to level up, because undead all have significant level adjustments.
So in that sense, she had plans already in place for getting a High Priest as soon as she could. But from her point of view, it was purely fortuitous that she got herself a High Priest just in time that she could finally vote in a Godsmoot, and that the Godsmoot in question happened to be deciding an issue that held so much importance to her.
It could make for some interesting character development. V casts Mage’s Disjunction in “the final fight”, destroying Xykon’s phylactery (opening up his permadeath to Roy’s sword), the Crimson Mantle (forcing the goblins into decline and neutering the Dark One), and a bunch of other magic items laying about (i imagine Xykon and Redcloak have plenty). But in doing so, V loses all spellcasting ability. V saves the world but at a cost of all magic ability, making the majority of those wizard class useless.
The best character development would be for Roy to talk to him about it afterwards, and have V point out that magic isn’t the end all, be all, and V has realized there is more to life than raw arcane power. Maybe V takes this opportunity to return to the Elven homelands and takes up an artisan profession, maybe reconnecting with a certain spouse and children. V could find true happiness in the place never expected - where there is a lack of magic.
The vampire spirit mentions that every time Hel grants cleric levels to a clever ghast or wight, some adventuring party just comes along and kills it as a low level dungeon boss.
Malack mentioned that it was hard to level up as a vampire cleric and, level adjustments aside, I’d guess that there’s logistics issues with a 2nd level Ghast cleric regularly humping it down to the local keep on the borderlands for kobold slaughtering.
Malack was EL 20 or so, wasn’t he? So gaining XP would indeed have been difficult.
They won’t take over V’s body. “That vessel is your rightful property. Putting another soul in it would be a gross violation of our contract.”
Hel’ s plan would not work if any other party member was vamped. She needed a high level cleric to be her high priest.
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I suppose that’s possible. More likely is that Burlew simply forgot what level of spell Dimensional Lock is. He knows the game quite well, but doesn’t check to make sure everything he writes follows the rules. For example, he recently had Elan cast Minor Confusion against the Furkini Menace, instead of the correct Lesser Confusion.
She had no control over the events leading up to Durkon’s vampirization. But once it happened, she could insert the spirit (born in her hall) as she’s allowed (or likely, required) to do and hope he gets released from thralldom in time for her plan. No doubt she had this plan worked out ahead of time, and was just waiting for a high level cleric. If she never got one, it would never be implemented.
But Durkula is not under her control; he’s just loyal to her. Not quite the same thing.
I think you’re onto something big here. V’s whole identity has been wrapped up in a quest for ultimate arcane power. V was chastened by the experience of the Soul Splice and started to realize the limitations of purely magical power, but to have V’s final magical act result in the sacrifice of V’s magical abilities forever would be a powerful, tragic, noble end to V’s character arc.