Judgement Day: EVIL (Good stay out)

[Bialaska]

"Servant of Jemal, you talk about this as if it was possible to possess them. Certainly a man like you may understand that possession is no simple task, especially not when dealing with those who look upon themselves as being holy. I believe that at least Alise will be protected against such at all times and the knight probably is too." Gwynneth tells. "To even make that possible, we'd first have to remove all her magical protections and then somehow weaken her willpower. It will take more than just two of us to do a thing such as this."

She glances over the others. "Instead of taking their bodies, it would be just as simple for one of us to change our shapes. And then there's not the risk of entering some apprentice clerics circle against protection by accident. Possession is foolish and dangerous, it's the job of necromancers, because only those have their brains and common sense eaten so much away that they'd even consider such foolish tasks."

 

[Pyrex]

OOC:
Ah, I think Gwyneth just rolled a 1 on her Spellcraft check...

Protection from Evil
Abjuration [Good]
...
Likewise, the barrier keeps out a possessing life force but does not expel one if it is in place before the spell is cast.

~IC~
"We will have to overcome their defenses to kill them, no? Both plans require having them at our mercy. Consider the advantages of keeping them alive and soulbound. One; they can't be raised and set to fight us again. Two; any successful attempts to Scry them will show exactly what we want the scriers to see, namely us in their bodies. Third; any other divinations will show them as alive and where they are expected to be. Fourth; should the need arise we can kill them quite easily."

 

[Wrahn]

"If we wish to try this subtly, why not work on their weak link: Democracy. A council is only as strong as it's weakest link. There are 5 weak links by your description." he nods to Gwyneth, "5 to 2 is a majority."

"I have at my disposal a way to control people, all but undetectably, in a way that a simply protection spell will not be rid of. We control the members of the council that are not protected, offer them terms of surrender and have them accept."

 

[Rkhet]

"Controlling powerful beings is a risky business - history is full of summoners that could testify to this, were they not dead or worse. Much easier to just slay them and take their forms. If you wish to keep them dead, simply create an undead creature from their corpse, then cast Mind Blank upon them to prevent divinations - a temporary solution, granted, but sufficient for our purposes."

"Scrying should not be a problem. If they are dead, the spell would simply fail. And when you attempt scrying upon such powerful creatures, you would expect failure, yes? Especially when a simple Mind Blank could have made them completely unscryable, and that is hardly beyond their power, or an unreasonable thing for them to have in place."

"As I have said, however, I am leery of tarrying long enough to meddle in their politics. Much better to just infiltrate the city, assassinate their leaders, then take it by force while their forces are in disarray. Simple plans are the most likely to survive first contact with the enemy."

Alosat turns to Harkof: "Democracy depends on equality, lord Harkuf. The rudiments of statecraft tells us that power drifts towards the powerful. This 'Alise' and her consort are at the very least as powerful as we are; I do not think beings such as them would be bound by something as simple as the will of the useless majority, force of righteousness or otherwise. My guess is that the other members of the council are so much in awe and agreement with them normally that, should they uniformly oppose them, they would become immediately suspicious. And it is very hard to hide anything from the likes of us once we are actively looking.

But I am curious: what is this method you speak of, that would be all but undetectable?"

 

[Kagura~deadly~]

Interesting.

Hmmm

 

[Wrahn]

"I agree, assuming that the five begin acting in a way that is suspicious or even contrary to the wishes of the other two, they will begin looking for a way to reverse the decision."

"Through magics I possess, I can reweave the very fabric of the tapestry of a mind. It is a subtly and powerful spell, and like knitting bone and flesh with healing, leaves no permanent magic aura."

"I would imagine they will attempt to see if they are being directly controlled, which should fail. After that I imagine they will commune with their deity, which will more than likely reveal that they have been influenced on some level."

"But that won't neccessarily be the end of it. It depends on the strength of the support of the other councilmen. If we spread rumors that the Alise and the Captain are trying to take over the council when they actually do, we could be talking about an all out civil war."

"And don't underestimate the power of "morality." It can cripple the most powerful of being. If Alise believes in democracy strongly enough, she may accept the surrender."

OOC-

The spell he is refering to is Mind Rape from the BoVD

Kagura, this is not the proper place for comments, if you are interested in the game and want to make comments look here. Thank you.

 

[Rkhet]

"Perhaps we have been going about this the wrong way. A discussion like this could take days or even weeks, and time is not a luxury we could spare. Come, let us vote for a leader: a single voice to decide the plan and its implementation, who will relinquish this power when we have succeeded in capturing the city."

"To prevent a deadlock, no-one may vote for themselves."

 

[Pyrex]

"Quite the contrary, as we have no deadline we do indeed have time to spare. What we most lack is information."

 

[Rkhet]

(ooc: I mean no time to spare as in real time. I'm sure we would all rather be killing things than talking about killing things for the next real-time week or so. But for an in-game reason...)

"Lord Vorasin hasn't exactly been secretive in amassing his forces. If we tarry too long, we may well find the city bristling with defenses."

 

[Pyrex]

(OOC: Yeah, I know, I'd like to pick up the pace of the game too, but Aethan sees not need to be overly hasty)

"That much is true. Given that the one thing I believe we all agree on is that we need more information I recommend we move to establish a base of operations on the Material Plane and move into Arbosh to begin scouting. Assuming you are properly warded for planar travel we can gate from here to Nerezzo and from there to some ruins approximately a hundred leagues from Arbosh."

(OOC2: I had previously listed in my character description a gate to somewhere on the continent of Flynn. If there are no DM objections I'm going to arbitrarily place it ~100 miles inland of Arbosh/Maleign which should be about 3days ride for a small mounted group or a weeks march for any sizeable force.)