OotS 843

[Dioltach]

The new instalment of The Order of the Stick is up: Giant In the Playground Games.

 

[Zelligars Apprentice]

And the karmic justice has already begun...

Also, there's an Egypt analogue in the OOTS world? Interesting...

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

That is NOT how an elf's free check to notice secret doors is supposed to work.

 

[Remus Lupin]

OK, so let me see if I have the way this spell works right: V casts "familicide" on me. As a result, my children die. But because my children "share blood" with my wife, my wife and her entire family also die, correct?

I presume this doesn't keep going, so that my wife's brother's wife's family dies because they share blood with her, since that would very quickly lead to some apocalyptic consequences.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Familicide is *way* overpowered. And I'm not entirely clear on how it works. I think "directly related" means "either an ancestor or a descendent". So if the Ancient Black Dragon (ABD) was the target, her parents, grandparents, etc. would all be killed, as would any children, grandchildren, etc.. Any ancestors or descendents of the people killed in step one are then killed in step two. But the spell then stops.

Which means that if the Sire of All Black Dragons were alive, it would be targeted in step one; if SABD were killed, all other black dragons would also be killed. Since that didn't happen, either there is no SABD, or he resisted the spell (due to divinity, or whatever). The same would be true for the Mother of All Black Dragons, who I suppose would be Tiamat.

I think if someone were a childless orphan then familicide wouldn't kill anyone. Does that sound right? Even if the target had umpteen brothers and sisters, the spell needs to kill the parents before it can kill the parents' other children.

Otherwise familicide would kill the target's species, assuming that any two members of the same species have a common ancestor.

 

[Remus Lupin]

No, I don't think that's how it works. It kills your decedents, not all relations. So it would kill your children, grand children, etc. but not your aunts, uncles, etc. But the bit that surprised me was that it would kill those who were related to your offspring, thus, your mates brothers, sisters, etc. and their offspring.

That's how I read it at least, but I may have missed something. That certainly seems to be what V's exposition implies.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Yeah, but you are related to your brother because you have the same parents. Similarly you are related to your cousins because you share a pair of grandparents. Probably everyone is related to everyone else if you consider sufficiently remote ancestors.

One other way such a spell might work is that it would affect only people who share (say) 1/64 of your genetic material. 5th cousins or closer. Anyone less related to you than that is hardly a relative. I'd have to study the relevant comics to see if this rule would explain the evidence.

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I just had a thought. Tarquin's last wife died to "Mysterious circumstances". She was also a redhead (dark red, but red nonetheless).

The initial strip implied he did it of course, but during his conversation with Nale both accused the other of killing her and seemed to genuinely not know who did it. It makes me think that she might be a Draketooth (or at least vaguely related to one) too.

 

[Remus Lupin]

I just had a thought. Tarquin's last wife died to "Mysterious circumstances". She was also a redhead (dark red, but red nonetheless).

The initial strip implied he did it of course, but during his conversation with Nale both accused the other of killing her and seemed to genuinely not know who did it. It makes me think that she might be a Draketooth (or at least vaguely related to one) too.

V explicitly says he did it in this strip. Of course, he may be wrong, but I don't think so.

 

[Celebrim]

Familicide is *way* overpowered. And I'm not entirely clear on how it works. I think "directly related" means "either an ancestor or a descendent". So if the Ancient Black Dragon (ABD) was the target, her parents, grandparents, etc. would all be killed, as would any children, grandchildren, etc.. Any ancestors or descendents of the people killed in step one are then killed in step two. But the spell then stops.

Which means that if the Sire of All Black Dragons were alive, it would be targeted in step one; if SABD were killed, all other black dragons would also be killed. Since that didn't happen, either there is no SABD, or he resisted the spell (due to divinity, or whatever). The same would be true for the Mother of All Black Dragons, who I suppose would be Tiamat.

I think if someone were a childless orphan then familicide wouldn't kill anyone. Does that sound right? Even if the target had umpteen brothers and sisters, the spell needs to kill the parents before it can kill the parents' other children.

Otherwise familicide would kill the target's species, assuming that any two members of the same species have a common ancestor.

Yeah, I'm not sure of the details, but so far as I can tell, the requirement is that it can only jump still living blood relations. It can't jump without a 'direct' link.

So if you and I are related by a now deceased common grandparent, if it hits me then you are safe.

In a normal mortal family, this would tend to greatly limit the scope of 'familicide'. The spell seems to have hit so many targets because the ancestors themselves are so long lived.

The Draketooth clan itself has been doing the interbreeding as V says, 'for 60 years', so the only people hit are the living 'direct' relations of the clan's breeding program.

Still, this is a lot more 'lateral' in nature than the spell was originally presented as. Also, by this rule, my father's brother is less likely to be hit by the spell than a 4th cousin's 4th cousin I've never met. There has to be some rules limiting back tracking up trees in some fashion. I suspect that Rich is going to ignore the simulation details of the spell in favor of pure narrative.