From: Robert Stancliff (stancliff@ccgnv.net)
Date: Thu 03 Feb 2000 - 18:03:59 EET
Martin Laurie:
> As for limits to heroic ability, there are limits. Onslaught is himself
> totally two dimensional as a hero.
Alex:
>Well, there's "Kills things", with the other dimension being...?
My argument was much closer to the "which comic company is better: Marvel
or DC" argument. DC allowed absurd characters who could run or fly at the
speed of light, breath and talk in space, etc., the "let's do three
impossible things before lunch" group. I see Onslaught firmly in this
group, at least as far as the narration of the stories goes.
I strongly prefer the defined "limits for heroes within the world" concept
developed by Marvel to say that even the best hero can't exceed some
believability threshold. You only get so many actions in ten seconds,
people see you coming and only very 'weak' or surprised characters can't
avoid you, if you are good at one skill you must be weaker at others to
compensate, etc.
Marvel did allow the occasional all-powerful character, but only to trigger
stories about the heroes. Then the 'special' character goes away.
Your last answer to me was that you wrote this absurdly short combat into
the story to emphasize that Onslaught was unbeatable and that was the only
important part. My response is that if the character must have absurd or
unbelievable powers to prove your point, then your point is flawed beyond
redemption and doesn't deserve to be made, especially as written.
You asked if I thought the fight should have been written to be longer...
The narration of a two or three round fight which drove the warriors from
the room and left Onslaught standing over several maimed bodies would have
had much more validity without needing much more text. You can take that as
a yes.
>I see a whole series of styles in question. Is he ruthless, is he
>economical, does he go berserk, does his fly through the air, does he have
>weird magical effects, does he use two weapons etc? These things interest
>me as much as things like the penetration ability of an 120mm APFSDSDU
>round fired at the glacis of a T-72.
Those aren't dimensions, they are tick mark on the straight line.
>Argrath is NOT that good at fighting.
Funny, twice he fights Harrak to a standstill, the second was practically a
divine battle.
- ---------------
Guy wrote:
>Idle curiosity is my only motivation here. Is there
>a Cult of Kero Fin, separate from her worship as
>Orlanth's mother? I presume that she has some
>kind of control over sylphs
Kero Fin would probably be more of a Spirit Cult or a sub-Cult since there
are not enough worshippers for her to have a full temple or multi-national
following.
She is no air goddess, but a temple of Orlanth is there, so they would
command sylphs, not her.
>Are there intimate ties to the Earthshaker cult,
>or is that just "coincidental"?
The mountains came after the earth, right? Lodril spread stone seeds, or
something? Kero Fin should be moderately linked to Ernalda who is strongly
linked to Maran Gor, especially through sub-cults.
>What would the function of such a cult be in Glorantha?
While you could say Kero Fin has the Earth rune, especially as the mother
of a race. I would consider mountains to be tied to stone/stasis and be
copies of the spike/first mountain/law rune association. So runes of Earth
and/or Stone would make sense, or is making sense god-learnerish?
Stancliff
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