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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graf" data-source="post: 375190" data-attributes="member: 3087">I get knocked down...I know that Joseph and co write the books too so its kind of silly to be back here with my mouth open.But from what I know about Scarn I can't really put together a 'gods are ignorant of and fear psionics' image in my mind. I'm not arguing with the fact that, if a significant number of them every massed again, the Slarecians would probably be the single greatest threat to the status quo of Scarn.But just because someone has a few power points (or a few hundred) they can't, to borrow a phrase, start crank calling Vangal.I feel like a bit of a jerk going into somebody for a well done set of points but I feel like I can't leave this alone.All well and true. Note here that Slarecians is the key term. Its not any old person with psionics.And its not just a few Slarecians either. Or more preceisly and empire built up in secret and hidden since the 2nd epoch (if the epochs presented in the SLCS aren't just a titanspawn fairy tale ;] ).That's a pretty long time they spent building their empire, given how long the current epoch has gone on you could probably say 5000 years an epoch and there were (no books in front of me) maybe 6-8 epochs between then and the time the gods came knocking on their door. I think that 50,000 years isn't an unreasonable time period. On one hand they probably weren't just getting ready to fight, and were keeping a low profile. on the other hand they arrived on Scarn with a lot of power.And it was a pretty kick-ass empire. The young gods couldn't get rid of it by themselves, they'd never encountered psionics and they had to get help.But lets look at what happened more closely because I think this is the most important part: 1. They had whole cities2. They were well prepared3. The gods badly underestimated the strength of the opposition4. The gods had never encountered the Slarecians or psionics before(I would also suggest the gods lacked experience and viciousness and tatical skill of the sort that they honed during the Divine war. Would you rather have to face Tanil before the divine war, or after?)The result:1 dead demi-god and 1 captured demi-god.It was definitely a brusing encounter but even with everything stacked against them they came back swinging and with the Titans completely obliterated them.It is fair to say that (as far as we know of) the Slarecians are the only mortals to have ever killed a god (albeit a demi-god).Its hard to see this situation replicated again. The gods know about the Slarecians, they've dealt with psionics before, they know the Slarecians are powerful, and they've had a hell of a lot of tough fights and the accumulated skill at decision making, strategy, etc.To extend the metaphor further the gods (&Denev) then went to war with the titans net result: 11 beaten titans, 1 surrendured. 2 dead demi-gods: Hedrada's daughter and That Which AbidesSo neither the Slarecians nor the Titans have killed a god. But that doesn't mean psionics or a handful of Slarecians figuring out some way to either be reborn or return to Scarn is going to herald the defeat of the gods and the destruction of the world either....I'm not saying that the gods don't fear psionics. But I don't see much reason for them to be quaking in their boots as a collective group either.(Complantancy builds its own problems, of course but...)[There was an interesting conversation recently about the Slarecians using Kaduums body and inadvertently triggering events leading to Corean's death on Scarntalk but that invovled a lot of other stuff too]She probably hates them more than anybody. I'm glad you mentioned this. Somebody should definitely make a PrC/magic item relating to this; great story stuff.As I recall they caught her by stealth too.This is where I don't really follow you. The gods destroyed their 50,000 year little empire in a big war (which probably didn't take more than 50 or 100 years). Again we know little about the Slarecians and it is possible that they rule this immense dimension spanning empire and they're all 100th level psions/ 100th level psychic warriors and they've got a troup of 20,000 of these guys just itching to invade Scarn.There's no real evidence for that and I'd be a bit disappointed if S&S took the game this route. We've seen a lot of gaming systems & worlds from Vampire to Forgotten Realms continually jack-up the power level to continue to sell books and its a trend that's probably likly to continue in the RPG field even if SL manages to dodge the bullet. On one hand I think this is a well put concept. But it doesn't hold water with me for the following reason:I don't see the titans returning easily. If the gods disappeared from scarn suddenly most of the titans would still be out of the picture.There are only three or four who could probably act quickly. Thulkas might try to pull the sun into Scarn, Mesos potentially could reform or Chern could bust out from his rotting prision. That's about it. (unless you think the blood crone could start putting mormo back together but after getting her butt whipped by Glivid Autel that looks less likly).We've talked a bit about this on Scarntalk and I'm always curious about hearing more.This was what I was kind of getting at above in my first post. The whole my-special-powers-make-me-special instinct is strong in most players. I have it a bit too but I think it undermines the world in exchange for shock value.Hmm.Why?Does psionics create some kind of weird field that prevents divine beings from understanding it?It would be one thing to say that the gods are uncomfortable with psionics because it is the only force on Scarn that either they or their progenitors the titans did not create.Or to say that since gods can't tap into psionic power it represents a tool which can be used against them.Or that since they aren't worrshiped by psionic beings then its at best neutral or at worst a tool of the enemy.Or that the transdimentionsonal nature of the powers mean that there are some unexpected consiquences.But absent any sort of explaination it seems like you've basically said that the gods -can never- understand psionics by definition. Given their generally impressive ability to understand things this sits poorly with me. According to the tD&tD they almost certainly all have access to Knowledge (psionics) through the Divine Knowledge powers they have; just like they have Knowledge (Planes), Knowledge (Arcana), etc.Very simplistic words/phrases like 'fear' and 'beyond their ken' don't make much sense to me when applied to them as a group. SL has traditionally presented the gods of their setting (unlike most other settings) as not being threatened by common mortals and generally possessed of a great deal of information about Scarn. (the best a mortal can hope to do, for example, is take down an avatar and that's pretty unlikely unless you're seriously epic level). I don't know why someone, even someone who's twentith level and psionic, is going to get people worked up.Frankly I think that Tanil is significantly more concerned about the Blood Crone than some 20th level savant. I think that if you gave him the choice Corean would prefer to wipe vangal's herald off of scarn instead of some 20th level psychic warrior.</blockquote>

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