WindRide, CloudTrapeze and MindHunt???

[archaeolept]

heh yup - but you could just sub in his elder brother, a tartarian cyclops w/ a robe of shadows.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

archaeolept said:
heh yup - but you could just sub in his elder brother, a tartarian cyclops w/ a robe of shadows.

I'd rather give my vote to a Void Lurker with added Earth magic. Innate etherealness, size 6, and aquatic - if you're really paranoid about Wind Ride, this one is for you!

[Chazar]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
Innate etherealness, size 6, and aquatic

So water is indeed a hindrance as well... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

[Taqwus]

Hm? Odd. Why would a Tartarian Cyclops be larger than a living Cyclops?

(Yeah, unless it's a juvenile. If somebody now points to a mod in numerous units have been replaced with juvvies, I'd be mildly disturbed. Well, more than I already am.)

[Cainehill]

Taqwus said:
Hm? Odd. Why would a Tartarian Cyclops be larger than a living Cyclops?

(Yeah, unless it's a juvenile. If somebody now points to a mod in numerous units have been replaced with juvvies, I'd be mildly disturbed. Well, more than I already am.)

Dead bodies grow bigger than live bodies, as the gases caused by internal decay cause them to swell, thus becoming larger than the living Versions. Given the right conditions, they can also explode, becoming substantially broader and longer (and even expanding to the cielings) while also thinner.

[Stormbinder]

Cainehill said:

Dead bodies grow bigger than live bodies, as the gases caused by internal decay cause them to swell, thus becoming larger than the living Versions. Given the right conditions, they can also explode, becoming substantially broader and longer (and even expanding to the cielings) while also thinner.

That's not so. Such process is only relivent to the contained stomach area in appropriate conditions AFAIK.


The floating to the ceiling and explosition is a joke, I think. Although I did read about bodies of some very large animals (such as elephants) leaved on the sun, exploding because of gases.


In general though dead bodies shrinks pretty quickly after the death, mostly due to dehydration process. BTW that's where urban legends about "corpses which keep growing nails and hair after death" came from.


Your local Morte expert,
Stormbinder

[Chazar]

That's at least compatible with what I know about death & decay in the other world...
(Edit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire yields the following additional information on decay:

Fountain of blood when staked
As a body decomposes, the internal organs rot first because the food that is fermenting there continues fermenting and cannot get out. As a result, a body can swell like a balloon. Put pressure on this and the pressure seeks a way to escape.

Finding vampires in graves
When the coffin of an alleged vampire was opened, people sometimes found the cadaver in a "healthy state" and beautiful, meaning that the corpse was a well-fed and pale-skinned vampire. Reasons for this appearance include:

• In the past, people were often malnourished and therefore thin in life. Corpses swell as gasses from decomposition accumulate in the torso. The implication was that the corpse was not famished and, because blood was sometimes found in the corners of the mouth, it was assumed that the "vampire" had been drinking blood.
• Before modern times, people who didn't work the land, such as nobility, had pale skin. They also commonly had longer fingernails, as theirs didn't break from doing hard labour. After death, the skin around the fingernails retracts, which make them seem even longer. Corpses also become pale because, eventually, the upper layer of skin is shed, revealing the white skin underneath.

)

---

I do indeed enjoy amusing off-topic conversations, but there is still an unanswered question of mine remaining:

Doeas a pretender still remain within the ascension race, if she doesnt own any provinces by herself anymore, but nevertheless has dominion over some provinces as well as commanding some hidden troops (including herself if that matters)?

(i.e. is it worth the trouble to recapture all the province those savage sneakers snatch immediately and thus threatening a quick wipe-out so that they cannot hide every other turn?)

[Stormbinder]

Heh. Sounds yaky.

But you can also dig up info on the net about dead bodies shrinking due to dehydration, perhaps even on wikipedia. Swelling and shrinking at the same time is a bit hard to combine, isn't it? Maybe some body parts shrink and some swell?


Also you have to keep in mind that even if some parts of the body are swelling, it will likely to continue only until the body tissues and skin hold their integrity, otherwise the inner gases that are created due to decompression process would not be contained inside the body, especialy if they are indeed building pressure that would fasten their release.


Finally the vampire's "fountain of blood" explanation seem a bit stretched to me. If body have been dead for a long time, enough to build this "innner pressure", wouldn't the blood stop being in liquid form do to after-death coagulation process?

Ok, I think I should put these matters out of my head for now, or I may have difficulties eating my breakfast.


Answering your question about pretender - I don't think so. ASAICT when your Last province fall, you will join all dead Gods in the Oblivion. There will be no return due to your Last desperate followers sneaking around, hoping to conquer some faraway province and use it as a Last heaven for their forbidden Deity.

[Cainehill]

Chazar said:
Doeas a pretender still remain within the ascension race, if she doesnt own any provinces by herself anymore, but nevertheless has dominion over some provinces as well as commanding some hidden troops (including herself if that matters)?

(i.e. is it worth the trouble to recapture all the province those savage sneakers snatch immediately and thus threatening a quick wipe-out so that they cannot hide every other turn?)

With good dominion and a living pretender, I was banished when my Last province fell - the pretender was in stealth mode, about to snag another province, but game over for me.

So yes - it can be very worthwhile to nail the provinces to eliminate them.