The Misadventures of the Missed Adventurers

[Krsqk]

Arthur "I tend to agree with the telepathy argument for the life detection responses. I suppose it would be possible for those sorts of coincidences, but I don't know how there would have suddenly been seventy of those complex golems or spells running around on my way here."

Arthur "As for the Guild rules, they are unfortunately clear and direct about both the terms of apprenticeship and necromancy. 11.1) Once application for apprenticeship, the apprentice is bound to secure all three signet rings. Until he does so, he is forbidden to seek or receive training from anyone, with limited exceptions upon gaining each of the first two rings. 11.2) The rings must be willingly surrendered by their owner. A third party may not be involved in the transaction. 11.3) Apprenticeship may only be terminated by the express desire of the master, or the master's death. The second condition is subject to rule 1) above. 27.3) Necromancy in any form is strictly prohibited by the Guild, and will be punished with death and/or banishment. There is actually precedent in the Guild case law which deals with this exact situation. In fact, it was Rellath himself who was the test case. Fortunately for him, pressure from the Guild as a whole (not the Guild board) caused the third ring holder to surrender it. Unfortunately for me, he had to wait about three thousand years before enough pressure mounted, and I'm only halfway there."

Arthur "As for the possibility that John would actually surrender it to me willing after/because of being freed from mind control, there is a chance of it. My only questions then are, who is preventing him from delivering it to me and what is his interest? If I/we can find satisfactory answers to those questions, I'll buy the possibility."

Arthur "Just so you know, I am opposed to taking any shortcuts or using any underhanded schemes to work this out. Just about any plan could be reverse-engineered, and there is no statue of limitations on violation Guild rules. The only way to have immunity is to rank either Grand Master Wizard or Grand High Master Wizard, and I'm about seventeen thousand years short of eligibility for that. I'll take shortcuts in just about anything else, but this has plenty of time to come back and bite me."

[ July 09, 2003, 04:44: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

[Jack Simth]

Jack "Definately vastly different rules. I can understand not wanting to break the rules or take shady shortcuts. After all, the goal is to get people to teach you willingly, and that requires their co-operation."

Jack "Any form of necromancy's illegal? Does that mean if I have to rebuild myself a body, they will execute me? That's amusing. Also rather pointless. Banishment might work. I might even accept it willingly if they give me a route home in the process. Then again, if this plane's Guild signed the Interplanal Castaway treaty, they would be obligated to do so. I'm not sure what the chances of that are, however, as there is a very large number of planes that were missed, or didn't have a strong Guild at the time. You seem up on Guild history; would you know? It would have been around fifty thousand years ago."

Jack "As for the why on the ring: at home, I've noticed that guild rules are seldom senseless, even when they seem to be so. It's possible that putting all three together restores an enchantment of some kind. However, there wouldn't be any way to tell what it does without all three. Of course, the only real way to track down the culprit and their motives would be to find the person controlling your brother. We might check those caves you keep getting the response from, especially with the timing. Can you cloak your thoughts, or do I need to make another talisman? Oh, and we should probably find D; with all the ruckus, I suspect the telepath suspects we're coming."

[Krsqk]

Arthur "Oh, there is no single Guild organized on this plane. There are several, and your eligibility is primarily determined by family (or, in some instances, nationality). My family's Guild is one of the three oldest, which brings with it both prestige and strong tradition. My particular clan has controlled the ruling body of our Guild for dozens of millenia. At times, though, the way we pointlessly follow tradition seems to outweigh the benefits of belonging to such a prestigious guild."

Arthur "Each of the top three guilds have Banned necromancy for their members. By default, most of the lower guilds have as well, and those that have not are forced to practice it in secret. The rules would not technically apply to an outsider such as yourself, but practicing it would be socially distasteful and would taint your reputation if it were widely known. It hasn't been necessary for long lives here mostly because those naturally possessing magical talent tend to live for several thousand years anyway, and also because natural causes of death are so easily avoided. Even accidents may be provided against without much trouble. Death in battle is generally accepted as final and is viewed as a sign of your foe's superiority. That makes achieving the Grand Master Wizard and Grand High Master Wizard ranks such a feat--one must have truly mastered his skill to survive so long. Also, both medicinal and magical means of extending life before death have been a focus of research, and are one of the few areas of knowledge which are freely and widely shared here."

Arthur "I do not believe that this plane signed the castaway treaty. In fact, few extra-planar visitors have ever stayed here for long, probably because there is little interest in changing the current power structure. Nearly everyone in content to leave things as they are, from the nobility to the peasantry to the wizards themselves. While there are few true conflicts, most are only interested in advancing their Guild or their own personal causes."

Arthur "It is possible that the three rings together release or create some enchantment. The practice was once common, but all but died out in our Guild fifty or fifty-five thousand years ago. Rellath was the first to have such a signet in seven thousand years, and I can't think of a single apprentice in any of the twelve clans with a similar situation since then."

Arthur "Perhaps we'll find out more after our explorations. By all means, let us find D and be off. If you have the time, I would appreciate your making me an amulet, probably with thoughts about the location of the rest of my home--it's useful enough to seem real, and not useful enough to possibly help anyone. I could do so, but it would take me quite a while (I'm rather weak in thought magic); and I need to dig through the Guild history to see if I can't find something to help me in there. Narp, I don't know much detail on the other Guilds; do you know of anything in their history that might be useful?"

[ooc: I'm leaning toward the releasing of some enchantment or other, but I don't know yet what would be important enough for someone to prevent, but small enough to fit in with the low-level characters we're dealing with. It's not like Arthur can suddenly be Supreme Lord High Ruler of the plane or anything. ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ooc:[Krsqk, in your post you made a reference to relath. Jack is from another plane, so the only way you could know about him would be to be from the same plane.]

[Krsqk]

[ooc: I thought I was the one to create Rellath. He was the Grand High Master Wizard on the current plane approximately forty thousand or so years ago. Did I re-use a name, and just not catch it? If so, point me to it, and I'll go back and change my Posts.]

[ooc: edit: If you're concerned about Jack not knowing about Rellath, Arthur mentioned him several Posts back, I think when referring to having a Guild panel appointed to train him.]

[ July 09, 2003, 06:14: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ooc:[never mind. mistook one of krsqk's Posts for one of Jack's. i should still update the 'about' so we can all keep everything sort of straight. i just saved all of the webpages just in case we loose any. i have another post partially done, but i'm gonna wait till our discussion has finalized a few things, like what the magical ability is like here. yeah, i know. i'm hurry up and wait.]

[ July 09, 2003, 07:13: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Jack Simth]

Jack "Ahh, they wouldn't have dealt with multiple guilds presnt; too much work to make a deal with every guild on the plane when the same amount of time could be spent to get several other planes in on it."

Jack "Hmm, so one way to immortality was forbidden, so another was resarched more strongly? Very interesting. So I will need to avoid things that ought to be fatal while here though, to preserve appearences. I can probably do that."

Jack "Didn't you say Rellath was in your family? And it was your father's signet ring? It could be an heirloom, passed down from him."

Jack "Although, we must be gathering D and going. It would take an hour or so to make a talisman for you, but if you can take the reigns of a spell, I can record a few minutes' thoughts from you and use those as the cover, then hand it over to you to maintain. It should only take a short while. However, if you normally block, that would be better; it's likely that the telepath has tried to take a peek at you before; if he was stopped by a shield, he would be expecting another if he tried again."

D reaches the roof, and places the mental illusion over the Wizard of Lago. Satisfied, he returns to the tower and climbs back down to the open wall.

ooc:[It could be a complete guild library; the data is encrypted and divided between two of the rings; the third is the decryption and viewing mechanism. It would take much study in order to use it properly (and thus won't affect the thread very often - a new spell every now and then whenever Arthur takes time to study - probably while camping), and it would represent enough power that someone would want it supressed. The only danger would be if all three pieces were brought together, so you don't need to start paying any attention to it until one person has two, and is seeking the third ... like Arthur is now. It would also be useful for furthering one's education in magic, and thus make sense for being a criteria for graduation from an apprenticeship.]