oots 639

[Zimri]

Or their friends, or the friends of any of their various slaughtered family members, or anyone who just plain objects to people going around slaughtering entire clans of dragonkind.

Don't make this out as some kind of pre-emptive protective measure. Killing off an entire family line of dragons is far more likely to draw retribution than killing any single dragon - so V hasn't protected hir family, s/he's massively endangered them.

In fact, it wouldn't be uncharacteristic for a dragon-god like Tiamat to simply declare open warfare against all elves in retaliation to an act like that.

Except Tiamat knew (or should have known) this was coming vis a vis the oracle and did nothing to stop it's happening, like telling the ABD "um no darling this will set off all kinds of trouble"

Seriously if you killed Bobby in a "relatively" fair fight (or are we saying the slaying of the young adult was unjust ?) Then his mother humiliated you and was about to kill and then torture your family you would think just dispatching her would be the end of it ?

Maybe I'm paranoid but I would see a circle of escalating violence and threat best way to end that take out as much of the threat as quickly as possible.

"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue."

 

[Orius]

Bunch of damned bunny haters, the whole lot of you.

What did the poor little bunnies ever do to you.

Rabbits have a short lifespan and are on the low end of the food chain. Ergo, they exist to be eaten. Are wolves evil for eating them? No. By that same logic, is ELMER FUDD evil?!!?!

Besides, the bunny isn't an excuse, since only one dragon was rabbit hunting at the time.

Don't make this out as some kind of pre-emptive protective measure. Killing off an entire family line of dragons is far more likely to draw retribution than killing any single dragon - so V hasn't protected hir family, s/he's massively endangered them.

In fact, it wouldn't be uncharacteristic for a dragon-god like Tiamat to simply declare open warfare against all elves in retaliation to an act like that.

I agree. Given how unsocial dragons are, it was really unnecessary, since it's not likely that many of those dragons would care that a progenitor was wiped out. Since black dragons are typically evil, they would be even less likely to care.

More likely, dragons worldwide will see this slaughter and think it's some sort of generalized attack on dragonkind. Dragons are sometimes characterized as being paranoid, so a lot of them out there might very well be wondering just who the hell pulled off this act, because they might fear being the next target. And that fear will cause many of them to act rather capriciously.

And Tiamat might very well use this as an excuse to mass-murder elves. She's evil, so she wouldn't bother stopping the spell in the first place, but she would use it as a justification for evil.

V's action here is likely going to involve ass-biting of some sort down the road.

 

[JetstreamGW]

While I think that Var's intent has to factor into whether that was an evil act or not, I think there's one thing we have to agree on: If a spell has the (Evil) descriptor, it's evil to cast it...


And do you REALLY think a necromantic spell designed to kill every member of a family (race?) would NOT have that descriptor on it?

 

[MarkB]

Maybe I'm paranoid but I would see a circle of escalating violence and threat best way to end that take out as much of the threat as quickly as possible.

"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue."

So, you see the potential for a circle of escalating violence, and your 'solution' to this problem is to escalate the violence?

That can only end with everyone on all sides being sent to the morgue, which is then demolished, blown up and disintegrated.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

Great GrandDaddy Black Dracolich:

"Hello Elf. I'm the potentially vengeful family member you didn't think of."

Count Black Dracula:

"And I'm the Other One!"

High Druid Ad Hoc Committee on Unnatural Extinction Prevention:

"May we have a word?"

I also wonder if V just wiped out the guardians of the other snarl Fractures?

 

[Nymrohd]

Hehe V better hope there is some instant magical effect to make her/him untrackable.

 

[Hussar]

Going by Draconomicon, Its an Ancient female dragon with a Young Adult offspring- puts it at less than 900 years, since female dragons stop being fertile at end of Very Old age category (800), and Young Adult lasts to 100 years old.

Ancient is referred to in-strip. It says it has a talent for magic- would be represented by sorcerer levels, which stack with its own innate spellcasting.

Ok, thanks for that.

In any case, SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS is more than enough to have 64 progeny. Particularly considering evil dragons don't just lay one egg at a time. Again, it's still pretty much a celibate dragon if that's all it has for direct blood relations after 8 CENTURIES.

 

[Nymrohd]

Well I could see the next strip starting with many small panels of dragons dying leading all the way to 3 big bad dragons who survive the spell and then one big panel of a pissed off Tiamat

 

[hamishspence]

Remember Mama Dragon referred to the younger one as "my only child" when she faced V the first time. Suggesting No other progeny.

Which suggests all these dragons are Mama's siblings, nephews/nieces, cousins (close and distant), and maybe parents/uncles/aunts. Grandparents might be getting a bit close to age limits though.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

What does family mean? Could be as narrow as direct blood descendents (clearly not the case here)

Why can't it be the case here? Though I'd probably include siblings as well.

Possibly some assumptions on my part:

1. The young black dragon V killed early in the strip had not reproduced (thus the desire of mama for him to get friendly with the local green while mama was out of town)
2. The young black dragon V killed was the mama's only child (thus the rage in mama seeing her only offspring killed)

I'm pretty sure the young black is the only direct descendent of mama.