What did we lose? What did we gain? 4th Inv aftermath

[Geronus]

Well, they certainly weren't very helpful. They mostly just inspired false hopes - Sint paid a huge price for sheltering one, and the first temple utterly failed to save Hetland. Of course that's only my character's perspective. They did allow Riombara to survive by protecting Grehk, but the power of the individual Temples was pretty worthless when the invaders could all replace armies far faster than the Temples could be used to destroy them. If they did ultimately cut off the flow of reinforcements to the invaders then perhaps they did serve a valuable purpose, but I saw little evidence of that in-character. Even after all three temples arose, the invaders kept coming, though it wasn't *too* long after that they finally tapered off.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

I'm pretty sure the humans never figured out how to use the temples properly. And you are right, individually they are pretty worthless... And they never were truly united, were they...? 

[Geronus]

I have no idea. My character didn't even have the slightest inkling that they could do more than they did. Certainly Gerontius never said anything about it where Evander could hear him.

That honestly was part of my problem with the invasion. There have been lots of interesting hints about things since it ended, but during the actual invasion it was virtually impossible to get any information that wasn't hopelessly tainted by enemy propaganda since the invaders themselves were (as far as I know) the only source of information. Other than the very broad and occasionally cryptic statements made by the prophets, that is, which I personally did not find to be useful. Mostly I found them to be dispensing warnings that were obsolete once the scope of the invaders' powers became clear.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

It is a bit too bad, though it does mean the NPCs were generally successful in deceiving humans, and that might not be a bad thing.

The Prophets said some things that got interpreted a variety of ways, which sounds about right. People tend to come up with lots of weird theories in the absence of clarity. Look at all the crazy speculations I've had about the 4th Inv on the BT boards, and multiply that by a bit to reflect the fact that there were many more interpretations floating around during the Invasion.

Those prophets were a bit too cryptic at times, and some of their sermons might have been twisted to reflect the strange motives of various humans. I especially liked the one about sacrificing honor, and the one about weaknesses in every fortress. Those got some pretty varied interpretations, I think.

However, as I reflect now with murky hindsight, I sometimes wonder if we had overlooked the roles of the commoners a bit too soon. As well, I wonder if we approached the initial invader factions too early, and instead should have had patience to await the arrival of the Light.

So, here's guess version...5 I think? Man, my guesses keep changing because I have no idea what's going on. Anyway, perhaps there was reason for the prophets preaching to the commonfolk, and the Light at first contacting commoners. Also, there must have been reason for those new books, although their true effects, I'm not sure. One adventurer has said that it appears fewer monsters/undead/daimons appear in a region after its use, and I wonder if that means it not only reduces the actual troops but also decreases the "hidden" resource value? With finite resources for the NPCs, the initial hordes would have been manageable if there were some serious concentrated effort...maybe? I don't know if the hunting would have been effective, but nothing suggests to me that the mechanics for gathering monsters and undead were different from the usual "resource" value for M/U that adventurers can estimate when investigating.

Still, that really doesn't solve the daimon problem, which is linked to a different value than the two distinct M/U values that already exist. Still, I feel strongly, and even went so far as to have Iksandros contact adventurers during the actual Invasion, that the adventurers were the key, not the nobles. Well, maybe not, but it would have been a most interesting twist in the irony of established human societal systems, that the ones who were considered the least could achieve the most while the ones who were considered the greatest could achieve the least.

As for the Light, they each "enchanted" three different faiths that were dedicated to combating the darkness. How they could have been activated for their great awesome effect, I have no clue, but it might have been hinted that such a method would have opened up the possibility of military resistance in earnest, much earlier than the arrival of archons.

But as with the Dream, those prophets to me are becoming a bit tricky to consider, because I am now having some doubts about their reliability. Just what visions were they seeing? What secret in the north could only be found in the south? Had it anything to do with the undead and monsters being two sides of the same coin? I guess they are kind of two sides in the adventurer's investigation, but now I'm just extending interpretation. Stretching hurts.

[Geronus]

From what I picked up during the invasion, I rather doubt that the monster/undead reinforcement rates were tied to the values that govern mundane undead and monster spawns. Unless those values are already linked behind the scenes to the factors that became evident during the invasion, which would be interesting...

The invading monsters ate people. They were like locusts. They'd move into a region, eat thousands of peasants overnight and have a shiny new army in the morning. The undead GM dropped hints that battle and death all over the continent contributed to his available reinforcements. Presumably this might have included peasants who died (of starvation for example... or of being eaten by monsters) in addition to soldiers. I never knew about the daimons, though I suppose their reinforcements came through portals to the netherworld or some such.

[Revan]

I never knew about the daimons, though I suppose their reinforcements came through portals to the netherworld or some such.

I always suspected the daimons similarly had to use humans for fuel and in that regard, they set themselves up early on by devouring Heen and Mesh' lands in quick succession.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Actually, the mundane values might have been linked quite a bit. Remember how (rogue) monster spawns appeared widespread during the Invasion, and (rogue) undead spawns became non-existent after a while? Also, recall how certain (rogue) undead spawns were disturbingly powerful even in small numbers, much smaller than any typical undead horde. That suggests to me that the "random" spawn rules got tweaked such that they were no longer governed by something like "At monster/undead value of X, spawn Y monsters/undead".

I have a feeling though, from one of the Prophets, that simply destroying them in battle would not have reduced the value appreciably. This is because I am pretty sure there's not a 1:1 correspondence between the value of the "resource" and the quantity of troops that can be gained from them. I'd guess that especially for undead, the ratio of undead recruited to resource available was very high, such that even if a couple thousand undead were defeated in pitched battle, the actual available resource wouldn't have suffered much of a dent.

And considering that every region has its own values for these things (I'm pretty sure everyone who's played an adventurer knows this by now), that means some places might still have a really high "resource" value.

[Geronus]

From what I remember, both types of mundane spawns were reduced during the invasion and the powerful rogue undead units didn't appear until after the invasion ended. It has been hinted on the D-list that this was a consequence of something achieved by the undead player during the invasion.

I will say that my shiny new adventurer was able to farm undead in a BT region for about a solid week alongside at least one other adventurer without running out just recently. From my last adventurer, I believe that's somewhat unusual, but I don't know for sure.

[^ban^]

Yes, they had other goals. And they reached them. Most of the bill is still open on that. But payday will come. After all, we have to have something for the 5th invasion, whatever form it may take.

"Something is always happening, but when it happens, people don't always see it, or understand it, or accept it."

But you know, I don't think the Light really fulfilled its "ultimate" purpose, if it could be called that.

I suppose that's possible, but then, what was the Light?

[Tom]

I suppose that's possible, but then, what was the Light?

Beyond - if it ever sees the light of day, so to speak, will answer that question.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Eh, I've been a fan of making up my own story for it, and seeing how long it takes before people realize it's not the "official canonical" version.

My highly strange improbably fantasy is that the Light was a conceptual power given more form than usual by the complex interaction between the power supplied by collective human consciousness focused in the transient world via the catalyst of faith, and the ambient dissociated "particles" of concepts floating about due to the interactions of the "darkness" extreme, aka the Invaders.

So in other words, the power of faith, given form, an opposite to that which gave origin to the triple divergent or perhaps convergent branches of darkness.

[Chenier]

Damn. And you were right all the time, too.

I think the Daimons were exceptionally well played, at least in parts. As were most of the other factions, in that they really got people convinced that they were friends. That was fantastic to see, the in-fighting amongst humans about which of their friends was the real friend and who'd just betray them in the end, when of course they all would.

Which the Blood Cult, and basically everyone in Enweil, perfectly understood. Nothing's black and white, and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" played a major role in many's positions, as far as I can tell.

[Chenier]

Really enjoyed Aelradir's post. It's very interesting, especially as someone who had some power in Heen back in the third invasion. There actually was a strong effort to make Martana cut you adrift and turn on Sint for their alliance with daimonry but she managed to weather the storm and stay the course. She wasn't ready to risk daimonic assault and even as the invasion finished, she wasn't interested in punishing invasion transgressions.

It's also very interesting to see Tom's post about the daimons. Glad to know I wasn't wrong in opposing daimons from the Third Invasion but Beluaterra as a whole wasn't all that worried about daimonry. In the time between invasions I spent a lot of time decrying dragon worshippers and trying to help people see why Sint ought to have gone the way of Vlaanderen too but didn't get far. It was really frustrating to see Mesh talking about the Blood Cult and daimonry whilst forging an alliance with Sint, who had had daimon lords walking among them. Mesh seemed to be striking the wrong enemies and Sint's friends ought to have abandoned her. When daimons turned up again, I flexed every sinew in Bara'Khur to make them see daimons were the true enemy and that Bara'Khur had to work for the good of all human realms but ended up going into exile after failing utterly.

Even now, I stick to the view that the daimons were the real enemy, or at least no more a friend of humanity than any other faction, but most people seem to think I'm slightly mad. To some extent though, I wonder if the daimons had it easier due to the time between invasions. In some areas, there seemed to be surprisingly few veterans of the Third Invasion and even then, unless you were in the north-west the daimons weren't as life altering or fearsome as perhaps they could have been. What I remember and experienced of daimonry in the Third Invasion just didn't chime with the experience some people were having of daimons at the start of the Fourth and so it was very easy to write off those opposing daimonry as being ridiculous very early on.

Though with all due respect, Tom isn't the leader of the Blood Cult, nor does he play any of the elders it had, as far as I know. The Blood Cult were not servants of the daimons, though they were frequently allies of circumstance (example: Mesh persecutes the Cult and taunts the Daimons when they return. The Cult therefore turns to the daimons to have Mesh whacked. Result: Everyone's happy.).

The Daimons did leak propaganda through the Cult, but the Cult also managed to influence the daimons on many levels. And the Cult did *not* want the daimons to reign supreme, it simply tried to profit of the daimons' rampage to take care of many long-standing opponents. "Keep your friends close, your ennemies even closer" was a pretty dominant philosophy: "We'll rid ourselves of the daimons when we see the chance, but we'll profit from their presence to take care of all those that have been causing us such a pain for so long". It was payback time, really. The Cult always played with and against all sides.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

That sort of thinking might have been among the very things the daimons exploited. After all, everyone's a fool, and the biggest fools are those who think they are not the fools.

In all, the invaders really took advantage of human weaknesses, such as causing petty differences to fracture any potential cooperation, using a lot of deception to cause confusion and cast humans into doubt as to who is the "good guy" when in truth they were all pretty much "enemies" to humanity.

[Chenier]

That sort of thinking might have been among the very things the daimons exploited. After all, everyone's a fool, and the biggest fools are those who think they are not the fools.

In all, the invaders really took advantage of human weaknesses, such as causing petty differences to fracture any potential cooperation, using a lot of deception to cause confusion and cast humans into doubt as to who is the "good guy" when in truth they were all pretty much "enemies" to humanity.

What did they make me do I wouldn't otherwise have done? On the other hand, the list of things I've got them to do for me is quite long.

As for the Light, they were a bunch of douchebags. Even if the daimons had told me they were our salvation, along with all the prophets of the continent, I wouldn't have bought it. One just doesn't expect his saviours to be douchebags.