War-overlord said:

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But even in Arabic Myth, were Ghouls originate from, they were able to transform into hyena's. Hyena's aren't exactly slow creatures, so they could always be fast, even in ye olden days.

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GenyaArikado said:

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Still bummed they never released any of the Danse Macabre portraits full scale

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Stevie said:

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(And WO, I would appreciate if you tone down the animosity. Please consider the scope of this to be constructive criticism, not proving someone wrong.)

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I think this is false, because he followed his own teachings. Furthermore he did not rectify any of them after his transcendence and return to Ashan, if that is of any indication.

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Again, you either believe or you cleverly imply that the only way to get to the Spirit World is by "tearing" the Veil that separates it from the Physical World, which is false. You can "travel" through the Veil, which is what Sar-Elam did and his disciples also. The sole difference between Sar-Elam ascending to dragonhood and his disciples not being able to do the same is the fact that he found Asha's conscience in the Spirit World. He might as well have been the only one to ever set foot into the Spirit World to begin with, but I doubt that to be the case for the Veil too. In fact, I have found lore that pretty much contradicts that, here :" After Sar-Elam became the Seventh Dragon, many of his followers try to follow on his footsteps and undergo the same perilous journey through the Spirit World, to achieve the same transcendence. None succeeded. Those who survived the ordeal, including his seven disciples, however acquired great knowledge and wisdom during their spiritual quest.".

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So what you have done in regards to the Veil and spiritual travel is making it a bigger problem than it actually is. Traveling through it is entirely possible, even though very dangerous. Not only is it possible, but doing so brings great knowledge, and with knowledge a better understanding of the spiritual world, the cycle of life and death, and ultimately power. There is legitimate reason behind that knowledge, as the Veil is not empty but filled with all kind of phenomena and entities. Look what Sar-Issus says about the Veil in his writings, The Myths of Creation:  The two worlds [Spiritual and Physical] would be separated by the "Veil", a magical gate, an antechamber filled with dreams, ghosts and frozen memories.". It is to be expected that spirits traveling through the Veil to the other side where the Spirit World is should be found.

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The fact that spirits "need guidance to find their way to the Spirit World" only proves two things: One, that spirits have the power in and of themselves to get to the Spirit World through the Veil by traveling and not by "tearing" anything, and Two, that, depending on what "guidance" means, the Silent Sisters know "the right way" through the Veil at the very least.

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On the other hand, if it's about why they get more power than normal liches, it's because skeletal lichdom is one step closer in nature to the spiritual world, and that provides a better understanding of (primordial?) magic, phenomena, entities like the spirit and ghosts and cycle of life and death - and yes, this is totally my input, but I does not contradict with any lore and it provides a persuasive reason to be accepted as a good transition from the "conventional" liches.

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One other reason for Skeletal Liches could involve something from the description of the Heroes 6 Archlich, where it's said: "An Archlich is given that title when he has continued "living" beyond what his or her physical shell would have normally permitted. Though this passage might seem arbitrary, it is not, for a Lich feels the moment pass when death should have come.". If drinking a mixture of Manticore poison and Namtaru venom results in the moment of death being right then and there, then there's a reason more to have Skeletal Liches as that invokes that state earlier and makes them more powerful.

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This is my own rationalization but I don't find it contradictory with the lore. The novel parts that are introduced by me are there to provide a decent explanation for having Skeletal Liches, which is what we want. I would be curious to see what Marzhin has to say of this and if it's possible.

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Avirosb said:

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Thought Ghouls were shapeshifters.

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fuChris said:

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I hope you are taking notes Marzhin or all this mental masturbation is going to waste.
(I joke - give these men some QP-s)

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Marzhin said:

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GenyaArikado said:

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Still bummed they never released any of the Danse Macabre portraits full scale

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You're welcome

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War-overlord said:

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The problem is that you Add to the Lore. IMHO, you should not do so. The lore is convoluted enough as is. Stick to what is known already, without making things more complicated.
You now have an easy, lore friendly way which requires no fabrication whatsoever, push that.
I would not expect Marzhin to comment on this. He has shown earlier that he has little sympathy for the recent Necro outcry.

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fuChris said:

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I hope you are taking notes Marzhin or all this mental masturbation is going to waste.
(I joke - give these men some QP-s)

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War-overlord said:

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fuChris said:

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I hope you are taking notes Marzhin or all this mental masturbation is going to waste.
(I joke - give these men some QP-s)

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I'm not sure if you can get 2 QP's in the same topic. I already got one in this one.

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War-overlord said:

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When I stated Sar-Elam's teaching were flawed, I never implied that they were wrong. Being incomplete is also a flaw. Given that after his ascension, Sar'elam was pretty busy saving the world, he might have had better things to do than to update his books.

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Erwan said:

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The Necromancers
By Jeff Spock, Writer, and Erwan Le Breton, World Coordinator.

"Life is chaos, filth and suffering. Death is peace, order, everlasting beauty."

Just what is a Necromancer? Where did they come from? What are their needs, their aspirations? Is there an order among the ranks of the undead?

Let us begin at the traditional place...

While the beginnings of many things are lost in the mists of time -- or at least misfiled upon the shelves of time -- the Necromancers of Heresh have a recorded history that has been well-documented.

Ahhh, documents! Timeless, ageless records that permit the wisdom and experiences of a people to be archived and managed, perused and discussed, as timeless and unchanging as Death itself... Necromancers without lore, Necromancers without a history, is a notion that is fundamentally impossible. For Necromancers are to a soul (which, yes, they do have) thinkers, philosophers, and seekers of wisdom and understanding. Their biggest problem, of course, is deciding when to end a debate; debates can go on forever when the debaters are deathless.

But on to the specifics.

As with many things that concern magic, necromancy began as part of the legacy of Sar-Elam, the great wizard who became the Seventh Dragon. His most gifted disciple was Sar-Shazzar, who went on to carve his own place in history.

Sar-Shazzar himself had a talented student, named Belketh.

In an age when the world was young and vibrant and much of magic was in doing, building, and experimenting, Belketh was a thinker and philosopher. Fascinated with the principles and passages of death -- must we all? do we all? where does the soul go? what exactly ends with death, and what begins? -- Belketh turned less and less to the teachings of his master and more and more to his own reflections and investigations.

At a critical moment he uncovered an ancient manuscript; it was a part of the writings of Sar-Elam collectively known as the Revelations of the Seventh Dragon. This particular chapter spoke of Necromancy, the power of the immortal soul, and the aspect of Asha that was least-known and least-worshipped.

Belketh was struck by the conviction that this countenance of Asha, though it was least understood and most feared, was all-embracing and all-encompassing.

For Asha, the goddess who created the world that bears her name, is all facets of the wheel of existence; the triple-faced figure of birth, life and death.
She is the Faceless Maiden, Destiny's herald, stitching here and there, unseen, to make sure that all the living creatures fulfil their purpose.
She is the Mother, who regards all things as her creation and her children. By giving birth, she set chaos into form and gives meaning to potential.
She is the Crone, wizened and old, who snips the web of life, with a sickle held in gnarled fingers, when the time has come.

The fateful text of the Revelations that Belketh read referred to this third image of Asha as the most powerful, holding sway over the works of the other two. From the rituals and the insights in this document Belketh gleaned two elements that would influence the development of the Necromancers.
One was the image of Asha as a spider, spinning the web of life, administering death through her mandibles when one's allotted time was up.
The other was the temptation of the alternative to life; death was not an end, merely a transformation. The petty desires and needs of the flesh, the destructive passions of the heart, the unreasoning decisions of the brain that piloted this mass of humours and conflicts -- death was the answer to all of that, the reduction of existence to its purest and most changeless form.

All agree that this fragment of the original text is at the origin of the Necromantic Kingdom of Heresh. After this point of agreement, however, all else diverges. On one side are the Necromancers, convinced that this fragment is the core and the essence of the teachings of Asha, and that the rest are dead ends, half-truths, and traps for the gullible and unwary. The other side of the argument, obviously, is that this fragment is necessarily only a part of a greater truth, and that in their dedication to this subset of Her teachings the Necromancers have missed much of Asha's message.

Feel free to debate this with a Necromancer some time, if you have a few decades to spare.

From this point of origin the Necromancers have built a culture and a structure of beliefs, founding a nation that has upon occasion wielded a terrible might.

The Hierarchy of Heresh

To become a lord of the Necromancers is the ideal of all who have chosen this path, though there are many other forms of unlife that have relatively more or less importance. In fact a Necromancer is not necessarily one of the non-living; in particular those who go on embassies to foreign lands are often still in human form. As they gain power, however, they inevitably choose to pass through the portal of death, becoming one of the undead. Little is known of this rite of passage to outsiders, as it involves the bite of the sacred spiders, the Namtaru, who dwell in the catacombs deep beneath the capital of Nar-Heresh.

Those who make this passage first become Asakkus, or "Liches", their bodies desiccated but intact, freed from the passions of the flesh to meditate undistracted.
As the decades pass, and they grow in power, they may earn the right to become Akhkharus, or "Vampires". For a Vampire is the most potent incarnation of a once-human form, one of the unliving lords of Heresh who hold sway over both the dead and undead.
Once a Lich ascends to take the form of a Vampire he ages backwards. The longer a Necromancer is undead, the younger and healthier he looks. The ruling council of the Lords of Heresh all appear to be in their mid-twenties, beautiful and unchanging.

Rabisus, or "Ghouls", on the other hand, are distinctly lesser undead. Formed when a Necromancer forces a soul to remain in a dead body, they are trapped between life and death. They are tormented; filled with hatred for the living. Powerful Necromancers can control them, but otherwise they are wild and destructive. Transformation into a ghoul is used as the ultimate punishment in Heresh, and is a means of permanently removing a soul from the cycle of death and transformation.

Zombies and skeletons are the least potent, mere soulless bodies re-animated by death magic. They shamble about following orders, and even the lowliest Necromancer can command them with absolute authority.

Edimmus (ghosts, spectres and wraiths), finally, are disembodied spirits of the dead. They can be trapped, geased, and commanded by sufficiently powerful Necromancers, though in Heresh they are more often used as scouts and allies. Ghosts can barter their services for favors done for their descendants, for deeds done among the living, or for aid in returning to a body -- living or not -- and entering once more into Asha's great cycle.

Those wishing to further study the lore of the Necromancers and the history of Heresh are invited to peruse one of the great libraries of the Silver Cities, perhaps one of those in Qays or Fidaa. The eager student may even travel to Heresh to learn from the source, though those who do so seem, upon their return, to be somewhat altered...

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War-overlord said:

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So what you have done in regards to the Veil and spiritual travel is making it a bigger problem than it actually is. Traveling through it is entirely possible, even though very dangerous. Not only is it possible, but doing so brings great knowledge, and with knowledge a better understanding of the spiritual world, the cycle of life and death, and ultimately power. There is legitimate reason behind that knowledge, as the Veil is not empty but filled with all kind of phenomena and entities. Look what Sar-Issus says about the Veil in his writings, The Myths of Creation:  The two worlds [Spiritual and Physical] would be separated by the "Veil", a magical gate, an antechamber filled with dreams, ghosts and frozen memories.". It is to be expected that spirits traveling through the Veil to the other side where the Spirit World is should be found.

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I'm not saying that travel through the Spiritworld is impossibe. I'm saying that are only 3 kinds of people who know how to do it. Sar'Elam, the souls of the deceased (and it's a question if they have concious knowledge of this) and Orc Shamans through their Dreamwalking.
Even the myth of creation you reference, seems to suggest, that Dragon-created races aren't able to get to the spiritworld, as they are "forlorn on the other side of the Veil".

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Staff of Netherworld said:

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After Sar-Elam became the Seventh Dragon, many of his followers tried to follow in his footsteps and undergo the same perilous journey through the Spirit World, to achieve the same transcendence. None succeeded. Those who survived the ordeal, including his 7 disciples, however acquired great knowledge and wisdom during their spiritual quest. One initiate named Taybah, though, met a gruesome demise on the path of elevation. The foolhardy scholar believed the key to success was to skirt around the Spirit World altogether, taking a shortcut through the Void itself. But as his spirit crossed into the Void, Taybah's spirit was twisted in a silent scream as it became frozen out of time and space. Simultaneously, in the physical world, his body decomposed in a matter of seconds, to the horror of the witnesses present around him. All that remained of Taybah was his skull. Nobody remembers who had the idea to mount the skull on a staff, creating the artifact now known as the Staff of the Netherworld, but it has always been thought to be cursed. It is said that looking in the skull's eyes is like staring into the Void.

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Stevie said:

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Just a question, even that part about a in-between state of the Lich's spirit was not convincing to you? I think my point relied heavily on that, which is why I went for Sar-Elam and his disciples because it provided a point in that being alive and entering the Veil is possible (not necessarily reaching the other side - Spiritual World).

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Doesn't matter in the end, as long as you, who's so pretentious about lore, admitted that instantaneous Archlichdom would be a good explanation for using Manticore venom and having Skeletal Liches. As long as that is achieved, I don't really care about what the lore even says.

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Avonu said:

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Speaking of correcting someone...
Well, first, his ascension was in 0 YSD, his death was ca. 40 YSD and Wars of Fire started in 28 YSD. He had plenty of time to wrote correct lore.

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Avonu said:

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Actually, you can travel through Spirit World - we did it in Vein's campaign in 50 Shades of Purple and we did it again in Heroes Online.
What is different, then is no one besides Sar-Elam (as far as we know), who reached Asha's healing cocoon (Moon) - he was only one who did that and leanrt by that great knowlegde and power... so great that he became Seventh Dragon and ended Elders Wars between two powerful races.
His fallowers tried to fallow his steps, even by crossing the Void, but no one - sans Sandro - returned... and I don't relly know if even Sandro returned in whole... I mean, he lost his flash durning this journey, but is this his only lost?

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War-overlord said:

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Furthermore, there is already a dissolving property in Namtaru Venom, evident in Vampires. Vampires have no blood of their own anymore and it is the Venom that flows through their veins. However, Vampires continually need to thin the Venom in their veins with actual blood, to prevent the Venom from dissolving them from the inside out.

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Sleeping_Sun said:

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Does this mean that if they stop sucking blood they will turn skeletal (if that's the case there's no need for Manticore venom) or they will turn into a pile of bile (read nada) on the floor?

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War-overlord said:

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I think Vampire's death animation of burning/dissolving into a pile of ash is what happens. Wounding a Vampire grievously, might just drain all blood he accumulates out.

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War-overlord said:

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In that time, he was also stopping the Angles and the Faceless from wiping eachother of the face of Ashan, helping Ronan Falcon unite the Human Tribes into a single Empire and who know wat other unrecorded shenanigans that would have resulted in the doom of one race or another. He was pretty busy in those days.

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War-overlord said:

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I never got that far in Shades of Purple. My game keeps crashing in the first week of the second map. And I've stopped playing Heroes online. It takes too much time to get things (done).

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Avonu said:

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1. Stopping Angels and Faceless - Convent of Twilight - and thus end of Elder Wars - has happened (according to Ashan Compendium) in year of Sar-Elam's ascendion - 0 YSD.
2. Ronan the Falcon united 7 human clans (and erased others ) in 3 YSD.
3. He did write his "Revelations" and take appreantices to teach them - so I guess he found time for that.
What I suggest is that, according to Erwan&Jeff Spock newsletter, Belketh and Sandro found only one, incomplete chapter of these Revelations. Necromancers took all their philosophy and knowledge from this part of Sar-Elam's teaching - they don't even fully know full context of what Sar-Elan wrote and what he has on his mind.

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War-overlord said:

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No. Not in the least, as it require creation of (contradictory) lore. It requires the explaination of how and why such Liches can be in both dead and undead at the same time. It require expanding already complicated rules. And most of all, I still don't think you've sufficiently proven that entering the Veil alive and returning is a thing than anyone other than Sar'Elam has been able to do. (Orcs and Nethermancers don't count, because as I say, they tear a rift in the Veil).

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War-Overlord said:

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It requires the explaination of how and why such Liches can be in both dead and undead at the same time.

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Stevie said:

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On top of the fact that the body is left fleshless, the spirit too enters a contradictory state where, at the time of ingestion, it's being pushed towards departing the body by the Manticore venom as well as drawn back by the effects of the Namtaru venom that seeks to protect its link with the body.

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It require expanding already complicated rules.

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Stevie said:

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Ofc, this is a side issue now as we already established that the scenario is not even relevant at this point, because Liches consuming Manticore poison to achieve Archlichdom on the spot is already good enough.

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War-overlord said:

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So let's leave it be.
But I think it best to go the other way around. Don't have Liches consume Manticore Venom, already being undead, it's questionable if that kills them or if that counts as their allotted time.
Have Living people consume Manticore Venom and then Namtaru Venom to skip the entire Lich phase and go straight from Human to Archlich.

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