Grrl Power #1177 – Stupefy a succubus
It’s always fun when you stump the smartest person in the room. Or at least one of the smartest people in the room. We don’t know how Dabbler’s intelligence compares to Deus’s. But in this instance, she’s got 130-is years of experience on him, and as far as we know he’s never gone Delving, so on this topic she’s probably the expert-est.
Of course, then you’re tempted to keep it rolling so you try and ask her a seemingly complicated question like “How old is time?” and she’s all “Same age as the universe.” and you’re like “Whaaaa?” and she shrugs and is all “Before the universe existed there was no time in which an absence of time could exist, so obviously time started once time started existing.” and then you’re like “But… how… when did… how did the Big Bang happen if there was no time before the Big Bang happened?” and she puts her finger to the side of her nose. “You gotta figure that one out yourself.”
I know “bespoke” isn’t a verb, but then, anything is a verb if you try hard enough.
If you’re trying to view the Patreon double res version, check your pledge and billing, Patreon did something… I don’t know, they temporarily routed billing through Tuvalu or something and it broke some stuff.
So I’m still sick, but I think I’m over the hump. Like I said, colds seems to take a long ass time to burn through me these days. I had one bad feverish night, and now I just have a sporadic cough and some minor lung rattle. I managed to get the comic pages I was working on last week done, but I did have to skip shading them. That probably saved me two days at the pace I had been going. Spent yesterday working on the vote incentive, made some good progress, but it’ll still probably next Monday before I have that done. I guess the next incentive will have to be a simpler piece so I can make up for getting behind on them. (The current one involves 4 participants because I’m dumb and keep underestimating how long that will take me to color.)
But I have been taking it kind of easy. Not like, actual time off, but I’ve been dedicating my evenings to relaxing and playing some video games instead of getting back to drawing after dinner, which I don’t spend a lot of time on these days. Been replaying Mass Effect via the Legendary edition. That game is so good and I wish someone would make something else like it. Been playing on Legendary difficulty, but it don’t matter, because my Shepherd was a sniper on my first playthrough, and she’s a sniper this time around, and I am a one-shot machine. “Oh, some Geth took over one of your flotilla ships and you sent your own “special forces” in and they all got killed? Yeah, Imma take care of that for you right quick.” – One absolute massacre later… – “Yeah, no worries, got your ship back. So… those Geth really kicked you off your own planet huh? Yikes. What? I didn’t say you Quarians are a bunch of ninnies. Out loud. Oh by the way, know you’re a race of refugees, but I still looted the unholy fuck out of that ship, so… no need to thank me I guess.”
I kid the Quarians. I actually really like their post-exodus culture with their resource gathering pilgrimages and how each ship is sort of its own city state but still dedicated to the fleet. I wish they were in some form of media that extended beyond a single video game series. Really all you get to hear about them in the game is a dozen conversations with Tali, her loyalty mission in ME2, and a half dozen other miscellaneous Quarian encounters in the series in the game. And that’s kind of it.
The June vote incentive is finally up! Maxima is prepping for her night out.
And in the Patreon variants, she gets (un)dressed and takes a look through all the makeup options.
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Good question Kat. I’m currently reading several stories where the dungeons were good:
Dungeon Life
Dungeon Tour Guide
Accidentally a Dungeon
There is no Epic Loot here, Only Puns
and The Heart Grows
“There is no Epic Loot here, Only Puns”
Then the dungeons were not good and were actually unspeakably evil.
Ah, that one must have been written by アンソニー・ピアーズ.
It’s about alignment, not class.
I’m sure it is plenty classy, for my tastes anyway.
You’re a lawyer, Pander, you have no room to talk.
Under each lawyer office there is a secret evil dungeon library with evil law tomes.
Who told you about that?!
I mean…. that’s just silly. Stop being silly.
Yes be a shame if some teleported a bunch of giant silverfish, muck molds, and echo mice into a Sophian labyrinth.
in law, the word is all, i can completely understand why a lawyer would eschew puns. They’re too rubbery. Kind of like squid.
She’s tough though, as likely to be eschewing snails as not.
*shakes fist*
Wait! You’re a lawyer?
Well here’s an oldie but a goodie; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7QtRCGQmrc
Don’t judge too quickly, as I said before (on the wrong thread) it’s about alignment, not class – she’s lawful good! Someone must learn the dark arts in order to counteract them!
1) Wow that is an old youtube video. 15 years.
2) Is it just me or was one of the lawyers in that skit Bill Nye the Science Guy?
Yes, yes it was. It was from 1987.
Yup, he’s the main reason I remember that vid.
I like “Dungeon Builder: The Demon King’s Labyrinth is a Modern City!”
Dungeon Life was my first dungeon story, No Epic Loot was my third I think. Dungeon Without a System was my second one I think.
<..>
You should try “No Need for a Core?” *cough* No particular bias on my part, really.
The difference between a farm cow and a feral cow that kills people is down to how it’s being treated, raised, etc. In most cases a dungeon like you’d see in DnD is a once livable area that’s gone feral. In the case of Dungeon Core novels its how the dungeon chooses to get its meal, whether that’s violent or more benign focused, though some of the DC worlds have a rule in place that the only way dungeons can get fed is by killing something. Even there I suppose the dungeon could make a deal with a city where only criminals are sent in or maybe animals are sent down as monster feed. So like others have said, a dungeon isn’t necessarily going to be good or evil. It’s going to exist and depending how its handled is going to build whatever good or evil comes out of it. As much as Dave is into the Dungeon Core genre I expect he’s got something pretty interesting up his sleeve for the upcoming story line.
I feel like a dungeon cow would be a lot more dangerous than just having a resentful attitude. Especially as they evolved over many generations.
so there is a Cow Level…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=QkGXPSavzhg
Cow levels galore
So you set up your dungeon as a type of zoo. In one zoo near me, they feed live rodents to the vipers as enrichment and the snakes like to target moving heat sources.
My thoughts are that the magic being concentrated in an area puts evolution on steriods and causes a growth of species and powers in effect. Both producing a wide variety of species and resources in play.
You know, it’s funny. One might make comparison to dungeons and the super-human field Deus discoverd making super-humans on earth.
THAT is a scary thought. Well done.
It would explain why SuperHeros are so far found only on Earth (barring Maxima and Halo). The SuperGene is artificial, something injected into the populace at some point. Is it also responsible for the Magical Beings on Earth? The Magical Beings came first, then the gene mutated at some point and TADA — Supers!
And, if the Earth is a Dungeon Core-world already — who did it?
Max is a super naturally, she just also got her symbiote.
Max was never a super, until she opened that rock.
No, Dave has listed that she has baseline super stats that are boosted by the gold symbiote.
I was thinking the same thing. That the dungeon core was like dumping a load of fertilizer in a room and nature kicks in and naturally produces life. Not guided, just inevitable evolution which inevetably causes prey / predator fighiting. Snakes, dinosaurs, bears, spiders, etc.
Which, generally speaking, objects to having its skins ripped off by passing weirdos.
There’s a series of Mass Effect novels that touch tangentially on the games but at least one of the delves a bit deeper into the Quarians’ current lifestyle
I may have to check those out.
They also give some form of backstory to Kai Leng.
Honestly, the books aren’t really that good… But they’re the only source of in-universe canon we have on Quarian and their daily life.
In french Dungeon was a cachot or geôle … Oubliette is a bottle dungeon…
In french donjon is the castle keep…
Dungeons&Dragons as a different meaning than Donjons&Dragons… a more Arthurian one for the later…
I consider a Saturday’s Market to be a “good” dungeon.
Oh man, I have some really good darwinian-based explanations to this if you ever need it. But I’d bet you probably already have an explanation in mind.
Funny enough RuneScape has a “curses” prayer book which is essentially a high level version of the normal. Things like “reduce 50% damage and reflect half of the damaged reduced back at the attacker” and “your stats are now my stats”. There are also a few games with “bad healing spells” like Retrograde from the Sonny series (swaps healing and hurting on target, ally or enemy). Although she does have a point. A farmer’s market themed dungeon logically would make sense.
In the Steam game, Darkest Dungeon, about half the classes have a healing ability they can learn (a few can learn multiple). These range from standard heal, healing multiple targets for a little, heal just yourself, heal and remove conditions, etc.
But one character, the Occultist, has what I believe was called Wyrd Healing, which had the widest healing potential (like it could heal between 0-20 Health in a game where most characters had 40 Health at best). But the kicker was that after you healed, you gained the Bleeding condition for a few turns. So I suppose it was like stitched up the wounds…but not entirely closing them up.
A good curse is a blessing, and a bad healing spell is… necromancy. In one of my books, I’ve got a healer whose magic is corrupted when they try to ‘heal’ the dead. Not an original idea, but I’m still proud of it.
Neutral genocide… I guess wiping out the Daleks would count?
For neutral genocide, how about driving the dodos extinct simply by eating all of them?
It was much more due to introducing rats to the island
Dodo’s weren’t that attractive a food source to humans
So the rats committed neutral genocide. ;)
There was also how it was the early days of science and a after they were endangered there was a bounty put out for specimens. Seem to recall hearing somewhere the last one was strangled to death and its nest smashed.
You don’t even need necromancy.
The Elder Scrolls canonically has evil uses of healing magic. In Skyrim I think, there is some lore describing the use of alternating destruction and restoration magic for torture for instance.
And then there’s the manga “Redo of Healer”, where the main characters ability is healing, only he figures out ways to twist it more into “manipulation of the flesh”. (Beware: This might be one of the most NSFW series I’ve ever seen.)
As for necromancy, there are also settings where it isn’t evil. Though I admit, that the lore of Dragon Age: Inquisition seems more like an excuse to allow the player character to learn necromancy without being evil.
Bottom line: It is not the tool that is evil, but how it is used. (And no, I am an European. I don’t mean that in the NRA sense.)
Good old infernal healing in pathfinder for some evil healing.
Particularly nice with Extend Spell
Either the feat or a metamagic rod…
I know the reason, and it’s linked to entropy. We typically perceive ‘evil’ as a destructive force, a disordered force (though it CAN be quite orderly).
Simply put, it’s not only easier to destroy than create, but it’s also easier to create weapons and engines of destruction, than it is to create things that create other things (aside from weapons). It takes less ‘energy’ to create a malificent being, than to raise/create one that is benevolent.
Thus, the Dungeon is ‘neutral’, but it’s following the path of least resistance in terms of energy expended for production.
Except that a creature being good or evil is entirely a matter of how their brain is wired.
If nothing created was intelligent, the easy and obvious answer would be “they’re just wild animals; because of hunger, fear, territoriality, etc wild animals tend to be dangerous, especially powerful ones,” but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
In which case the dungeon is creating people for the purpose of being killed for their body parts, which… kind of a huge ethics red flag? Sure, they’re evil, but… they’re evil because the dungeon you created made them that way; killing evil people is only justified insofar as it prevents them from hurting others, but by creating the dungeon you’re the one creating the situation.
(this in turn answers the question of why dungeons only create evil creatures; so you can handwave at the ethics of creating a magic thing that creates people so you can murder them for their body parts and hope noone stops to think about it)
Yes. Magic has a bias toward evil. So does nature. For the most part, “evil” is just another word for selfish, and “good” is just another word for altruistic. Both attitudes serve to accomplish the same goal: surviving long enough to reproduce and ensuring the next generation also survives long enough to have kids of its own.
What we call “evil” is just a focus on fulfilling Natural Selection by focusing on self, family, and tribe. The natural result is xenophobia and selfishness, as an entity attempts to gather resources to protect itself and propagate the family line.
What we call “good” is simply a different way of accomplishing the same goal: by creating a society where all people are protected, an entity also establishes protection for itself and its children.
So why is “evil” more common? It’s simpler. The mind of a wolf or a squirrel can understand “protect yourself” and “gather food.” These creatures can’t comprehend “if you create a system of government where all people are provided for, your children will grow up in a world where they are freed from physical need and can thrive and reach heights your generation could not conceive of.”
So while we use the word “Evil” to describe dungeons, a better term for it is just “selfish.” The dungeon and its denizens simply seek to survive through the simplest possible method: flooding the ecosystem with creatures that prioritize their self-survival above all else.
I disagree with defining “evil” as “selfish”. There are MUCH worse things than selfishness.
My preferred example of evil is *tyranny*, specifically what the government of North Korea does to its people. Suppressing and degrading them to make them easier to control.
I’d say that magic, like all other forms of power, is highly susceptible to self-reinforcement and as such will destroy anything else that holds power. Life destroys rocks, wealth destroys markets, governments destroy organisations, and dungeons destroy adventurers. All of them are fine in moderation but they need to be kept small (possibly by playing them against each other).
Some examples of how it can go wrong:
Infectious diseases are a situation where you have too much life, so you take anti-life medication. It could even be argued that cancer is just your own cells being too good at living.
The Mississippi Company is an excellent example of wealth destroying a market. I read about it recently in ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’, a fascinating read I heartily recommend.
The government of Spain has been fighting Catalan independence and will fight that for as long as they can. I’m sure you can all think of other organisations that have been crushed or at least kept small by governments. The more authoritarian governments are especially known to ban organisations like opposing political parties.
Problem being, you’re viewing the physical outcome while ignoring the thinking behind it. Ask a North Korean Government official, and that suppression is NECESSARY to do GOOD for their people.
the scary part is, we’ve got lots of that kind of thinking here in the West as well, it’s based on the idea that “The intended ends justify any means” (short form: “The Ends Justify the Means”), which is a common philosophical basis for the activist set…even when the means guarantee those noble ends will be impossible (and can be demonstrated such with past use of the same means, hence, why “Progressive”, “Revolutionary” or just good old fashioned extremists HATE to study History so much as desiring to rewrite it whenever they can).
Thing is, it’s EASY to fall into “The ends justify the means”-it lets you take a short-cut and act on your emotions, instead of having to actually address the problem rationally (*whatever problem you’re addressing).
It’s much more difficult to find solutions when you recognize that the Means you use, decide what Ends you have to either live with, or die from-that reality takes a lot of visceral, emotional ‘solutions’ off the table (since those don’t actually solve, or largely address, the problem).
What is tyranny, but the use of murder, false imprisonment, and other selfish acts to attain and keep political power?
The evil in tyranny is not that someone is in charge; it’s the means that person uses to get there and stay there.
Think about a single act of evil: murder. Murder is evil, but not all killing is murder. If you see a man about to stab a woman, so he can steal her purse, and you kill that man – you have committed an act of good.
And why is that? The motive. The robber is “evil” because he was willing to kill to enrich himself. You are “good” because you acted to save a woman’s life.
Sometimes, the motives are unclear, and sometimes good leads to evil. The Russian Revolution started out with noble goals, but the Soviet Union never got the worker’s paradise that was promised, because what started out with a noble purpose in mind was corrupted by selfish people.
Why are you calling murder and false imprisonment selfish? How do the murderer and kidnapper benefit? Selfishness is putting yourself before others, not simply harming others.
Yes, the murderer and kidnapper can benefit by exterminating the competition, thus *eventually* benefitting from being a monopoly. That’s akin to genocide, and it’s necessarily a very intentional thing because it’s wasted effort unless you succeed at becoming a tyrant (at not merely acquiring political power, but *creating* political power).
that is an incredibly bad argument for evil. Neutral self-interest is self-interest. There’s nothing evil about the deeds that are involved with survival. Neutral is often uncaring, is basically selfish, and frequently does not care… but that is not the same as amoral, outright greedy or gluttonous to the point of harming others, or with active malicious intent and lack of restraint.
I think we can say that most Dungeons are inherently neutral when they are doing what they do to survive. If they take delight and glee in the slaughter, that’s actively malicious, and goes over the line.
You might find it interesting, someone converted the Mass Effect game to D&D 5e rules, you can find it by searching for “Mass Effect 5e”. Has quite a bit of background material, but since I haven’t played Mass Effect, I don’t know if there is anything new there.
In Order of the Stick, the bad guys went back to a dungeon they had ignored for a long time. They noted that it was now overrun by good creatures, but that there was also not much variety of monsters in there because there weren’t very many good monsters. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0193.html
what a friendly dungeon might look like “Ok. be prepared for anything. now let’s enter the dung…” *opens door. a sea of giant purple figures turn and as one start singing* “I love you you love me” later “Would you mind telling me why the eastern seaboard is pink fluff instead of standard ocean sea foam?” Maxima stares blankly “They asked for it”
The humans greatest ability will always be the power of “why not?”
Imagine you grew up in a hole in the ground. Periodically a bunch of people come in and take a bunch of stuff. Stuff that you have gotten used to relying on them.
You’re going to get rather bothered by this, aren’t you?
People pay to set up these dungeons and they expect to get a return on that. The people who then move into the space they created, well they seem to be in the way. They didn’t contribute to the resources to build the place, they aren’t paying rent. The sorts of people who set these things expect a return on their investments and negotiating with these squatters just doesn’t feel like the right way to do that.
It’s probably totally the right way to do that. They’re fundamentally part of the mana generation process. Do you understand how that works? *Really*? Honestly now? Ok, that’s what I thought. So it’s probably better to talk with them rather than duking it out. There’s probably some of them who aren’t really open to negotiations, or are going to want in their negotiations some things you feel are totally nonstarters. But you don’t know before you actually *have* the conversation.
reminds me of an old joke meme about a standard farmer always having people roaming by taking his crap. so he starts laying traps. then more intricate ones. starts fortifying. next thing he knows he’s a major boss threat (there was a lot more in it but I can’t remember where to find the meme now)
Tír na nÓg, Oz, Auðumbla’s edge of Ginnungagap, Lord Dunsany’s Elfland, Poictesme
Good point. I know why my dungeons always produce monsters, because they are actually backdoor entrances or linking to same program of a fantasy world style pocket universe that is actually the equivalent of an immersive video game created by higher dimension beings. The monster producing program runs through the same multiverse architecture as their magic producing system providing for both the Inferverse game and various worlds they provide magic for. However this can cause glitches resulting in the monsters from the game also manifesting on those worlds or someone trying to harvest more magic power accessing the monster spawn codes as well without realizing it but are tied to the dense mana wells they were after, which are also the types of things that make dungeons and spawn areas in the game world as well.
Seems simple to me. If a place did, somehow, manage to produce monks that were all too eager to share their herbs peacefully then it wouldn’t be a dungeon. Plus the specific mats they need might only be capable of being farmed within a dungeon and not ‘peacefully’. So building a magical grove, while it might be nice and relaxing, wouldn’t help with the goal of producing healing potions.
there ARE good dungeons – called Temples ;p they tend to be smaller and oft more powerful – cuz the opponents inside don’t often eat each other.
that said, evil dungeons force evolution better – growing stronger and better at survival vs combat. and inhabitants also receive influxes of new gear on a regular basis as party after party of adventurers get mutilated within.
nobody donates “the good stuff” to a temple when they can sell it during an upgrade to their next “top tier” battle item.
When did “bespoke” start being used, and how is it different than “customized”? For instance: We offer ready-made dungeons, or we have custom-made dungeons as well. “Bespoke” makes it sound like it looks like a bicycle wheel.
“Bespoke” started being used about two hundred years ago, though it is more common in usage in the UK than the US
It is throwing me off but only because the only people I know of who regularly use bespoke instead of customized are tailors. A bespoke suit as opposed to saying a customized computer.
Bespoke sort of implies a personal relationship with the tailor, like you both know each other, and they have your measurements, or are willing to make you something specifically for you. Customized doesn’t really say it’s made for YOU in particular, just according to your input and needs.
The term ‘bespoke’ implies that there is a verbal contract for the goods to be made. The concept was widely used before the common rise of litteracy and written contracts, so it’s not too suprising that there is a word for it. This happened about the same time as the start of the industrial revolution so it probably changed meanings then, to mean that something was not massed produced in a factory.
In the Threadbare litRPG series, dungeon cores are actually dragon eggs, feeding on the pain and suffering that go on in the dungeon on top of collecting a starter hoard for when they hatch. Some dungeons get manipulated into being good thanks to some people understanding them enough, though.
Hypothetical: Monsters and other destructive creatures are the only ones looking for places to move into, which is why dungeons attract only them.
That makes sense, they’re not welcome in polite society. In fact, they get shunned. Honestly, it is a discrimination issue. :P
A slight problem in panel 2: Sydney does not her orbs and she is not wearing her poster tube to hide them in. I guess the other option is that this is Kat’s imagination and she does not know how strongly attached the orbs are to Sydney.
third option, what if Kat can’t see the orbs and instead they look like a small pipe smoking dragon to her.
Has it been postulated that the orbs being Nth tech could pull a Galactus on the observer?
Looks like Dabbler doesn’t have an answer for that…!
It’s simple.
A dungeon exists for one reason: to provide a challenge to the adventurer. If it does not provide a challenge, then it’s not a dungeon.
Assuming that a dungeon is a place where wild magic is focused, and that the hordes of monsters are the result of that wild magic, it ought to be possible for a good wizard or coven to move in and harness that magic for productive use… but then, the place stops being a dungeon and starts being a Wizard’s Tower or Elven Capital… or something.
Puts me in mind of the Witch Tower from Hilda. It kind of was a dungeon with an eldritch horror below, and private chambers with tests and monsters. However witches had control over the majority of it and made it a library.
Sidney: Flips table “No, a dungeon is a jail. Not a playground or a magical fairy land. Its a cubicle with chains. You get thrown in there and forgotten. Its challenging to get out of, but easy to get brought into. I would know.”
Dabbler snaps fingers and guards start to drag Sidney out
Sidney: You weebs have ruined the honor of the American prison industrial complex!”
God, Dabbler doesn’t fail at looking hot. Really, just that sweater just is pure ‘cuddle me’ outfit right there. Professional but the outfit is just… mmmnf.
The dungeon itself is not ‘evil’ per say,I think it’s because the ‘wildlife’ of the dungeon are meant to be a challenge. That’s why a dungeon gets more progressively difficult as you go along. If it just wanted to kill you straight off you’d face the last level monsters right when you begin. Remember that it’s applied to whatever adventure party goes in. A ‘evil’ party will suffer the same experiences as a ‘good’ party.
Good curses?
There was that ‘Elsa Enchanted’ movie where she had a curse which was that she’d be constantly obedient, which wouldnt have been such a horrible curse if her stepfamily wasn’t so awful. Her father was a really good dad and she seemed happy with the curse before the re-marriage. Okay maybe it wasnt a ‘good curse’ but I think it was supposed to be meant as a gift by a really thoughtless fairy godmother who did not realize that it would SUCK for Elsa. Also a curse could always be used for a good purpose, like what Constantine often does in DC comics to fight evil.
Bad Healing spells?
Deadpool’s healing powers are sort of like that. :)
Also (and correct me if I’m wrong since I don’t really play D&D) but don’t healing spells hurt the undead and harm spells heal the undead? Would those be considered ‘bad healing’ spells?
Neutral genocides?
Well if we just mean death and not like… one group killing others…
The extinction of the dinosaurs. Mammals wouldnt have taken over the planet without that happening. Also the extinction of the other human species (sapien neanderthalensis, erectus, habilis, rudolfensis, heidelbergensis, floresiensis, naledi, and luzonensis). Homo sapien sapiens probably would not have become the dominant species on the planet if we had to compete with the other human species. So… bad for them – good for us = neutral.i
Also we could also probably use the Assassin’s Creed storyline of the Isu (The First Civilization, Those who Came Before, Homo Sapiens Divinus, Precursors) – who died off/were killed off (mostly) which gave humans the ability to take over the planet after being their slaves in the before-times. :)
Oh! Also the Goa’uld from Stargate or the Ori from Stargate. Or the Replicators, assuming they are considered living beings. Those would be a much more straightforward example of a ‘neutral genocide.’ And yes I know the Tok’Ra are technically also Goa’ulds and their deaths are more tragic since they are largely ‘good,’ but they do have some biological significant differences from Goa’uld after the 2 millenia they’ve been separated (sort of like how Daxamites and Kryptonians have differences despite a common ancestry in DC comics), plus by the time the show ends they are essentially a dying species anyway because they have no Queen anymore and do not use Sarcophagi to be nearly immortal like the Goa’uld do, since they believe it destroys goodness in beings after repeated use.
Genocide isn’t even evil. Completely eradicating an Evil race from existence is a point of high honor for celestials in D&D. Some Solars are famous for having led efforts to accomplish that feat.
“Genocide isn’t even evil.”
I wouldnt go that far. :) For the most part, treating an entire race/species as needing to be completely exterminated would be evil. I was just giving some examples in fiction of where it wasn’t. Where, as in your example, the race is just completely, objectively evil without exception. Which is not realistic in RL or in most literature even, but can be in certain fiction (although, again, even in fiction there is usually some exception and not so absolute). Only the Sith deal in absolutes (although this statement itself, spoken by a Jedi, IS an absolute statement. :)
For example, the Milky Way Galaxy replicator known as Fifth might have not turned out to be evil if he had not been betrayed by SG-1, and the Weir Pegasus Galaxy replicator wound up not being evil and sacrificed herself with the other remaining Pegasus Galaxy replicators when she realized that the rest of the Replicators could never be trusted to not revert to their original programming. :) And like I mentioned, with the Goa’uld, there was the Tok’Ra (at the very least, the Tok’Ra Queen was a Goa’uld and not evil, since she gave birth to the Tok’Ra with their genetic memory differences). However,,with the Ori, they were all irredeemably evil throughout their entire species (although technically, even then it’s not really an absolute, since they were the same species as the Ancients – the Alterans, – who were not evil, just mostly neutral with a few exceptions like Oma Desala, Merlin, Morgan LeFay, Chaya Sar, Orlin, and (while he was Ascended) Daniel Jackson.
I’m sure there are some in fiction, like what you mentioned in D&D, who would fit the ‘universally evil and needing to be genocided’ but I don’t actually follow D&D beyond ‘The Order of the Stick’ and ‘Goblins – Life Through Their Eyes’ webcomics.
I think you meant Ella Enchanted. Great movie, one of my favourites. Anne Hathaway does a good job.
Right right. Ella Enchanted. It’s been a while since I saw it. :)
There are a number of MUDs, MUCKs , and MUSHs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:MU*_games, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MU*) that are basically social chat rooms with additional capabilities. Wikipedia also has a section on Cybersex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersex) which might be of interest to Dabbler.
I’ve never featured them publicly, but in my own Power of Ten Fiction, dungeons that exist just to provide traps, monsters, combat, and loot are all backed by divine-level powers (the only ones capable of generating the loot) and are called Delver’s Carnivals. They are basically there to suck in adventurers and keep them from doing important, useful stuff in the world, luring them gradually into the mindset of the gods. If you’re having fun cheating death, fighting random monsters, and getting loot drops, you aren’t fighting off monster incursions, trying to build up human society, training the next generation, making public works, upgrading the quality of life, etc. You’re just focused on yourself.
And the gods involved enjoy watching you flirt with death for your own greed.
We already have area 51.
eventually it will turn into one of these dungeons
It did, and then breached containment which is the only reason we know about it at all.
I feel like the present-tense verb version of bespoke should be ‘bespeak’
Bespaked? Bespoked? Bespokened? Bespokified?
Could be the ‘sacrifice’ aspect of magic. Basically, you have to earn your buffs
Maybe the dungeons are good and the psycho freaks who burst in and kill everything to harvest their organs are bad.
You’re saying a murderhobo isn’t a contributing member of society?
There are bad healing spells!
Viva La Dirt League: Blinding Heal https://youtu.be/8NbwizzxQ_s?t=130
The SCP Foundation: SCP 427 https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-427
Cultivating a ‘good’ dungeon would be excellent however.
For all the resources and scraps and treasures dragged out of dungeons, they usually represent a fraction of the power that was guarding them.
If you instead have a spawnpoint that generates a couple hundred powerful or clever people or tameable beasts every day? Wahaay more powerful than any components you could gather from their corpses – in the right context of course.
They might need to eat something outside their dungeon, so you might need a second dungeon of pigs and chickens or something. That’d definitely revolutionize the agriculture industry.
But even if not, you could simply use them as colonists or guards of new places. A few hundred per day may sound like a lot but humanity produces more than a few hundred new people per day.
could we get a dungeo without monsters? no.
why? cause the monsters are both the dungeons defences, parasites, and byproduct. they defend the dungeon as they feed off its energies to empower themselves and condense more of their kin, the rare materials are made by the dungeo but the waste energies are discharged into the dungeon to condense into monsters the more powerful the materials the more powerful the corresponding monsters.
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that a dungeon’s monsters are its immune system.
There actually are bad healing spells… spells that drain lifeforce from X target enemy to heal Y target ally would fit into the category of “Bad healing spells” depending on how you wanted to define ‘bad’.
Those are considered vampiric spells, not healing spells, and almost always fall into necromantic effects. There is always a war on in writing as to whether they are more or less effective than normal healing, and almost always no anti-drain effects at play, meaning they are unstoppable and very powerful.
Healing spells that suck out damage and do it to YOU are considered Empathic Healing.
The reason is probably as simple as the dungeons can’t produce creatures that are more advanced than essentially wild animals. Some of which may be incredibly intelligent, but still instinctual and territorial. And since the dungeon is always providing for them, there is no reason for them to evolve to the point of cooperating with others. The monsters aren’t inherently evil, just like bears aren’t.