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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 109463" data-attributes="member: 3146">I've seen a couple attempts to prove mageocracy victory by clever storytelling. I'm not convinced though. (I'm particularly unconvinced by the fighter/mage parts of the story--it's an effective multiclass but an effectively built character doesn't have much more fighting power than the cleric (actually, a fighter/wizard will be a less effective fighter than a cleric of equal level unless very carefully constructed) and the levels of arcane advancement given up enable clerics to catch up in the direct damage department).Perhaps more to the point, telling a story proves that you can tell a story (and in both cases, they were good stories) but it doesn't prove the point. A story could easily be told that ends up with the opposite result.For instance:The wizards' sneak attack slew the theocrat and suddenly plunged the lands into war. At least, that's how the bards tell the story now. At the time, even though nobody expected it, nobody was too surprised. The increasing border raids and constant rumors of coming conflict on both sides gave the war a sort of inevitable feeling to the populace. In fact, the theocracy didn't even seem to suffer too much from the loss of its patriarch. He was old, after all, and his death simply meant that the leading prelate stepped up to the office a few months earlier.What the sneak attack did provide was a unifying experience for the Theocracy. For once, the Reform party and the Inquisition saw eye to eye: such an assault could not go unavenged. Volunteers streamed into the army swelling its ranks. But they were as yet untrained. In his wisdom, the new theocrat did not send them into the field immidiately but trained them while an elite group of paladins and knights fought a scorched earth campaign on the western border, delaying the wizards' advance.The Dread Sorceror King knew that he had to strike quickly. His charmed armies were loyal, but the spells didn't work for that long and he knew it would be worse than useless to try to send undead against the disciplined and spiritually empowered armies of the theocrat. Undermining the theocrat's forces with lightning teleport raids behind enemy lines, he doggedly pushed his armies forward, animating the dead from both sides to patrol the rear and secure his supply lines.Unfortunately, after a string of initial successes, the teleport raids became death traps. Scrying the result of one revealed the truth--His wizard teleported in with a cadre of fighters and returned to teleport the second batch. As soon as the wizard left, a pillar of flame erupted among his troops and a group of paladins thundered from out of the cover of the trees, cutting down the first group of soldiers before they realized what was happening to them. As the scene unfolded before the Dread Kings' eyes, his wizard returned with the rest of his raiding party. Surrounded, surprised, and outnumbered, the wizard died before the first arcane syllable passed his lips. Realizing that those who were beyond the sight of the gods (ie. can cast Mind Blank and therefore avoid having divinations reveal when and where the next raid will take place) were few and far between--even in his powerful mageocracy, the Dread Sorceror King scaled back his use of teleport raids.Throughout the winter, large troop movements were impractical, but both sides raided each other and sought out allies. Historians later agreed that the Theocrat's recruitment of the Greenwood's elves proved vital to the war effort. Although the dominated forest ogres were an impressive addition to the Sorceror King's forces, the recruitment of the elves to their cause allowed the Theocracy to use the forest as a redoubt for their raiding parties and a safe passage--effectively doubling size of the front the Dread Sorceror king had to defend.In the spring, the Theocracy's recruits met their first test and turned back the Sorceror-king's armies at the battle of Paladinkeep. Pressing forward, they made great gains and by the end of the summer, had pushed the sorceror-king's forces back past the original borders. Though the sorceror king deployed several massive constructs of stone and iron in the crucial battle of Ironbridge, they were met by a small host of the Theocrat's Celestial allies. The resulting titanic battle was watched in awe by soldiers on both sides who sometimes referred to this event as the spectators' truce. (In reality, it is said that the wizards and priests continued to fight at this time but the silenced arrows of the elven archer-priests enabled the theocracy to hold its own in the duel of spells).Relentless in their pursuit of the old theocrats' murderers, the theocrats forces moved from one redoubt to the next, systematically levelling the towers of the mages. Although the cost was high, the attack on the symbol of their nation demonstrated to the Theocracy that complete and unequivocal victory was the only way they could return to lives of peace. In the final battle, the new theocrat himself took the field, and, though he gave up his life on the walls of the Sorceror-king's citadel, his honor guard slew the Dread Mage in the throne room and summoned elementals tore the citadel apart so thoroughly that no two stones were mortared together.In the aftermath of the conflict, the Reform party's leader became Theocrat and created an institution for wizards under the theocracy's benevolent guidance. Potential wizards swore loyalty to the Temple first and foremost and forswore seeking or wielding political power. Thus the Arcane Order we know today was born. . . .</blockquote>

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