Grrl Power #1177 – Stupefy a succubus
It’s always fun when you stump the smartest person in the room. Or at least one of the smartest people in the room. We don’t know how Dabbler’s intelligence compares to Deus’s. But in this instance, she’s got 130-is years of experience on him, and as far as we know he’s never gone Delving, so on this topic she’s probably the expert-est.
Of course, then you’re tempted to keep it rolling so you try and ask her a seemingly complicated question like “How old is time?” and she’s all “Same age as the universe.” and you’re like “Whaaaa?” and she shrugs and is all “Before the universe existed there was no time in which an absence of time could exist, so obviously time started once time started existing.” and then you’re like “But… how… when did… how did the Big Bang happen if there was no time before the Big Bang happened?” and she puts her finger to the side of her nose. “You gotta figure that one out yourself.”
I know “bespoke” isn’t a verb, but then, anything is a verb if you try hard enough.
If you’re trying to view the Patreon double res version, check your pledge and billing, Patreon did something… I don’t know, they temporarily routed billing through Tuvalu or something and it broke some stuff.
So I’m still sick, but I think I’m over the hump. Like I said, colds seems to take a long ass time to burn through me these days. I had one bad feverish night, and now I just have a sporadic cough and some minor lung rattle. I managed to get the comic pages I was working on last week done, but I did have to skip shading them. That probably saved me two days at the pace I had been going. Spent yesterday working on the vote incentive, made some good progress, but it’ll still probably next Monday before I have that done. I guess the next incentive will have to be a simpler piece so I can make up for getting behind on them. (The current one involves 4 participants because I’m dumb and keep underestimating how long that will take me to color.)
But I have been taking it kind of easy. Not like, actual time off, but I’ve been dedicating my evenings to relaxing and playing some video games instead of getting back to drawing after dinner, which I don’t spend a lot of time on these days. Been replaying Mass Effect via the Legendary edition. That game is so good and I wish someone would make something else like it. Been playing on Legendary difficulty, but it don’t matter, because my Shepherd was a sniper on my first playthrough, and she’s a sniper this time around, and I am a one-shot machine. “Oh, some Geth took over one of your flotilla ships and you sent your own “special forces” in and they all got killed? Yeah, Imma take care of that for you right quick.” – One absolute massacre later… – “Yeah, no worries, got your ship back. So… those Geth really kicked you off your own planet huh? Yikes. What? I didn’t say you Quarians are a bunch of ninnies. Out loud. Oh by the way, know you’re a race of refugees, but I still looted the unholy fuck out of that ship, so… no need to thank me I guess.”
I kid the Quarians. I actually really like their post-exodus culture with their resource gathering pilgrimages and how each ship is sort of its own city state but still dedicated to the fleet. I wish they were in some form of media that extended beyond a single video game series. Really all you get to hear about them in the game is a dozen conversations with Tali, her loyalty mission in ME2, and a half dozen other miscellaneous Quarian encounters in the series in the game. And that’s kind of it.
The June vote incentive is finally up! Maxima is prepping for her night out.
And in the Patreon variants, she gets (un)dressed and takes a look through all the makeup options.
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Why no good dungeon?
1) there are good dungeons, but nobody is sharing them or letting their existence be known.
2) mana… If a good dungeon existed by freely giving mana Ghana boar might wonder into it and get free mana and realize that growing fifty feet and having fur that blocks all enemy attacks might be good… And then you got a dungeon boss guarding the good loot.
Throw in how hard it is to keep bugs out of a moderns home and then maybe have that random magic cause problems and you get a dungeon bio forming from flame thrower giant ants or psychic crickets that force people out before bigger monsters are born or move in.
3) tied to emotions as magic is funny like that. Its why low level dungeons don’t produce anything of value and they are usually faced with apathy and low loot drops by high level adventures and yet the ones who struggle get the rare loot drop… So a dungeon that freely gives out free loot wouldn’t be seen as special and gain the same emotional gain as walking into a grocery store tor pick up food for your home.
4) there was a perfectly nice way of doing things, but a jerk wizard made it so only evil dungeons exist.
5) another jerk war lock made dungeons this way because it also made every world that does it feed that warlock more magic and power so that the wizard can play god and relax in their little realm or pocket reality within the galaxy… The wizard just watches the dungeons like a TV channel and sees what new entertainment has been made in.
Good Curse: unwanted blessing
Bad Healing Spell: Ray of Cancer
Neutral Genocide: Asteroid Strike
It’s more likely that the dungeons develop magically-charged ecosystems, with intelligence forcibly developing when the most magically-powerful species within it (usually an apex predator and principle herbivore) reach a certain level of development- possibly spontaneously.
This would make it easy for an intelligence to develop based on a mindset that is mired in paranoia and aggression… A near-perfect mindset for ‘evil’ intelligences to form.
Genocide is “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” as the UN defines it, so an asteroid isn’t specific enough (unless it wiped out an island civilisation, maybe), or intentional enough.
If one called zombies a race (you’d have to disregard the race of the former living person who got bit), might the successful defeat of a zombie apocalypse be called a neutral genocide? Brain-eating zombies aren’t inherently evil – fish gotta swim, and such – so its not a triumph of good over evil, so much as a triumph of prey over predator.
I’m surprised this question so easily stumped Dabbler since she’s all about moral neutrality.
A dungeon not run by a fully sentient AND autonomous evil tyrant, would not have the rules of good or evil even apply. Trials and survival are not concepts of good and evil, they just are what they are.
With a dungeon, you are exchanging the risk of your survival, with items that would aid in you or others survival. Its equivalent exchange. There is no such thing as a good dungeon because a trail by fire is by nature not safe. You risk nothing, so you get nothing.
There are “good curses” but it really is about how they’re used. Like you have a sword that gives you a massively inhuman strength bonus, but the drawback is it reduces your movement to 1/4. Or you are cursed into an animal form and cannot take any aggressive actions, but at the same time it gives you a great bonus such as 5x or more your movement speed or allowing you to fly where you normally wouldn’t be able to.
Btw, there’s a manga about a “Curcificer” a support type party member. He stacks curses up in such a way to maximize the bonus and minimize the curse effect. He gets kicked out of his group so he disenchants all their gear which pretty much makes them no stronger than an absolute noob. He can essentially solo a monster that would normally require an army to take care of. But he has such poor confidence in his skills he has no idea he’s a national treasure who creates relic-class items. A noble buys one of his rings and puts it on, not realizing it’s cursed. She is almost killed by an ambush. Well, it raised her def like 400% or something like that and negates instant death effects, only downside is the ring can’t be removed and the shield it creates is rather ominous.
“Reverse-Healing Spells” are a thing. Or just an underpowered or imperfect one. Maybe there’s an extra undesireable effect. Redo of healer and Tatsuya Shiba’s (Irregular at Magic Highschool) heal both require them to be subjected to the pain from the injury. In Tatsuya’s case he can bring someone back from the brink of death as long as they aren’t fully dead, but the cost is the pain they had from the point of injury to the time of Regrowth being cast, condensed, and instantly transmitted directly to his brain.
“Neutral Genocide” accidents, acts of god or just “Damn Nature! U scary!” Like city is minding it’s own business and a pilot makes an error and drops a nuke on them that’s been armed and all it’s safetys are unlocked.
In a long-ago tabletop Forgotten Realms campaign, we had an evangelical cleric of Ilmater (God of Suffering), whose favorite line was “Suff’rin’ on Earth puts jools in yer crown in Heaven!” His healing spells repaired injuries, but compressed all the pain that would have been experienced during the normal healing process into the instant the spell took effect. We instituted a house rule that anyone receiving more than 6 points of healing from him in a single spell had to make a CON check or pass out for 1d4 rounds. (Passing the check earned you a willpower token you could spend for a bonus on System Shock rolls or future CON checks.)
Haven’t seen it mentioned yet, but I got a kick out of the background in panel 2, where one of the team (Jabberwocky? Detla?) is apparently doing tai chi in the park with the natives.
Hadn’t noticed them, but it would more likely be Jabbs to learn a new combat form
To be fair blessing or curse can depend on your point of view.
If you put a spell on someone to change their sex it would be a curse if they were cis but a blessing if they were trans but the spell is the same either way.
Then there are things like immortality or super powers that people would see as a blessing but the person with them would see as a curse.
Beneficial Curses: You will instantly get nauseatingly sick and derive no pleasure or gain whatever from (smoking/drinking booze/drug of choice).
You will be unable to sit down or fall asleep if you do not exercise for at least an hour a day.
Any food you take in excess of your ideal nutritional and caloric amount will taste and feel utterly repulsive to you.
You cannot have sex with another being without their freely given and earnest approval.
Anytime you steal something you must immediately give away something of your own that you desire of at least twice the value of what you stole to someone you do not know.
etc.
The Justice System could use a lot of curses, IF they cannot be twisted to evil purposes, which historically is what writers love to do with them.
Opposite Parallel Universe Theory:
The the dungeons that are seen as “Bad Dungeons” in this world, are seen as “good” in the Opposite Universe/Nega-Verse, and the ones this world would see as “Good” ones are seen as “Bad” in Nega-Verse, and both cannot exist in either universe simultaneously, or it would obliterate all existence.
Be nice to healers. Any spell is reversible.
Be nice to healers because even if they do not like doing it, they know how to REALLY make it hurt AND make it last.
Or as a Marine veteran of the battle for Iwo Jima once told me- ‘Be nice to Doc because he has all the painkillers!’
Magic is not required! Anger a healer at your peril.
there are good curses; David Eddings wrote about them in the Mallorian. There are bad heal spell; you can invert them to cause damage instead of repairing it, and many undead take damage from heals, and there are lots of things that heal from a specific energy or damage type instead of being harmed. genocides are trickier; would it be genocide to eliminate nazis and other bigots?
A good and legit question since bigots can run in any race from being white, black, or even oriental. Also I’ve seen supposed Nazis that were black. Not to mention that the Nazis were aligned with the Japanese empire of the sun.
That is true. It’s the Perfect setting to have something like Dungeon Core Delta from “There is no Epic loot, only Puns” to serve as a Dungeon.
There’s also the ethical issues of creating and killing creatures for fun and profit.
So long as they’re non-sapient, most folks probably won’t lose much sleep over it, but from what I gather, especially at the higher end, you’re talking about atleast occasionally creating **people** (even if they’re evil dragons or whatever) so you can kill them.
True. Capturing and taking blood, scales, etc from sapient creatures (like dragons) for one’s own use, involuntarily, by force, does seem a LOT like what Sciona was doing with supers and other supernatural beings. And she was obviously considered evil, and the ones she was ‘harvesting’ from did not seem to appreciate the violation, so Maxima doing the same thing would definitely have ethical problems.
Very good point. Just them being biological was something my younger self didn’t like so my dungeons were populated by respawning mana constructs, robot, hard light holograms, or golems. Even the more intelligent boss class and overlord class monsters were mainly like AI or an Admin’s avatar and would also respawn. The magic schools using the golems and hologram dungeons for training and as a sporting event.
interestingly enough, there is a remarkably easy way to apply this in D&D. If you make a Demiplane, and select Enhanced Magic/Timeless for the COnjuration School, you can Summon in all the monsters you like, and they stick around forever, vanishing if killed, and then you can just resummon them. Upgrade all the way to Gate spells or equivalents, and you have eternal respawns with no issues, as Summoned monsters (if not Called ones) are basically mana constructs. You can even give them templates from Summoning to make tougher ones!
Actually under that circumstance the whole situation is in a morally grey area- they are creating a specific environment for said ‘monsters’ to exist, but also going through their home ransacking the ‘monsters’ stuff. At best the monsters violent response can be called entirely defensive in the same way a wild dog might respond to someone trying to steal it’s food, or defend it’s progeny from attack. On the other hand being the creator of the environment does make the individuals entitled to some part of it. Consider how many thousands of years humanity has lived, and yet there are still wars fought over simple entitlement (coughputincough) the question is more whether or not one should consider letting the dungeon develop long enough to attract mobile life an evil act by proxy.
Order of the Stick kinda had one when Xykon had to retake his tower waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy early on.
Already linked on one of the other pages :)
Well good curses can simply be about point of view
Say any as example a curse belt that transforms you into the opposite sex (baulder gate reference) would be a heaven sent boon to some people.
A curse to weaken certain aspects of yourself that prove a hindrance, a certain autoimune disorder would benfit by gettin a curse of weakness( similar to how hookworms are used, google it)
As for bad Healing magic, I played/seen enough dnd to know people found ways to use healing magic very offensively with grisly effects.
Should create the dungeon on another planet and have Sidney gate them there as needed.
Good Curse: Curse of Sexchange on a transperson. Common theme, helps them have a better happier life, has no real downsides. Alternatively, you can also consider curses that prevent people from harming others as ‘good’, depending on the circumstances. So, a curse that blunts any knife that you attempt to use against living flesh might well be good to inflict on, say, a serial killer. That said, such a curse can easily be used for evil as well.
Evil Healing Spell: I mean, any necromancy. To start with. Any healing spell used to sustain torture, I mean, yeah you’re preventing the guy’s death, but like, just to make him suffer more, I think that’s the definition of evil. Ressurecting bacteria could also be considerred an evil healing spell, basically forcing people to live through diseases.
Neutral Genocide: Viral/bacterial/parasitic obliteration healing spells. Ta dah, you wiped out an entire species, congrats! This is theoretically a really good thing, but, as it’s a genocide, it’s got some ramifications. Let’s say you wipe out a modern disease that everyone has had, say, Chicken Pox. And then smallpox starts spreading. The people who would have had resistance, due to the chicken pox, would now become sick to smallpox. Additionally, emptying out an entire ‘niche’ of sicknesses temporarily sets longterm problems ahead of you, because when another bacteria comes to fill that slot in 50-60 years, nobody will have any more resistances to it, and if it’s initially terminal…
if it’s initially terminal you isolate the carriers and the disease dies out on its own, since it kills off its host. Disease immunity propagates through a population and over time. It’s the MUTATION of diseases that keeps them effective and working on us, as the ones we become resistant/immune to die off, and the mutations reoccur. We get a LOT of resistances and immunities passed onto us through our mothers just in the womb, and by breast-feeding.
While I’m not exactly what would be called a fan of torture I sort of disagree with that being a bad time to use a healing spell. Don’t get me wrong by all means. Torture is pretty bad I make no bones about that at all. However without the whole healing in torture thing you just end up with a dead person instead of the much needed information that the torture “victim” has. What if that torture victim is the only person that knows where a bomb was planted and the torture is the only way you can get the information in time as an example. Or the person being tortured is a kidnapper whom sold their victim into slavery? Maybe some other equally repulsive person in a thousand different scenarios where torture, which frowned upon, becomes that only way to get the information, which you need healing in order to keep that despised torture “victim” alive in order to get the information which in turn frees innocent victims, saves lives from bombs, or even stops a mass poisoning which would kill hundreds or even thousands of people. Yes torture is bad, and healing a torture victim could also be bad healing. But, to every situation their is also another path in which the torture could become a good thing instead of evil, and the healing postpones death until others are saved. As for bacteria, their finding we need it more than not. A lot of bacteria which have become defunct helps to build up the system and allows the body to build up not only immunities but the ability to fight infections. Bacteria can be good for us, and getting rid of it is the actual evil.
Torture is rarely effective, and is basically a deterrent to those who can hear of/witness the torture, seldom having decent results. Sure, people will break over time, but the intelligence you get out of them is spotty, as they will say everything and anything to stop the pain, and you won’t be able to tell the valuable stuff from the dross. Proven over and over.
Torturers usually do not meet good ends, either.
On the horrifically flip side, we continue the process of ‘good’ coming out of this, as torturers made significant in studies of anatomy in their research on pain and keeping victims alive/restoring them to health.
If you have the magic to heal somebody, you should have the magic to compel them to reveal the information you want by one means or another. If they are truly guilty of such sins, they’ve forfeited their right to privacy if they are planning something that involves murder.
My favorite curse is,” May you stub your toe every time you urgently need to pee.”
Mine is from the Bavarian comedian/singer Fredl Fesl. Loosely translated from one of his songs (“I hab de scho daseng”): “He wished him every possible evil. That he has diarrhea and no paper.”
Can’t recall the source (believe it was a comedy rather than word of mouth), but from the Middle East: “May you have the fleas of a thousand camels, and your arms be too short to scratch.”
Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail
Actually not able to find that as a definitive source, most common one I’m seeing is actually Klinger from M.A.S.H.
Did pick up another fun one during the search though – “I don’t have the time or the crayons to explain it to you.”
Ooh, nice.
I would suggest looking at an anime series, “The Dungeon only I can enter” Specifically I would suggest the episode on the forest level with the tree spirit. I would also suggest “Is it wrong to pick up girls in the Dungeon?” In which for every X levels where in the dungeon has danger you have a safety level in which the adventurers can rest and safety is more dependent on the adventurers and their treatment of each other than on what the dungeon itself may throw at you. The main point is that a dungeon has a life and existence all it’s own and at some point they seem to show some level of inner intelligence outside of what an inanimate creation should have.
Looking over the comic again I don’t think Dabbler was stumped after all. That was more of a pensive look she gets when she suddenly thinks outside the box. She might have had an idea how to do exactly what was suggested and create a dungeon that would give them what they want without actually having to fight for it. We are talking about Dabbler here after all. That question could have sparked all sorts of off the wall thinking in her which could do exactly that.
Maybe there are “Good Dungeons”, but they look completely different, and aren’t a threat to anyone, so nobody has connected those particular dots.
Since a GD isn’t a threat, and due to survival needs, probably all successful species tend to focus on the threats, these wouldn’t be as obvious or memorable. Combine that with the ignorance of the various peoples ancient unenlightened times, the whole idea that “Dungeons are evil monster filled holes with valuables inside” is probably a well ingrained trope in their cultures and so nobody that wasn’t a weirdo, wackjob, or alien from a seemingly non-magical world to them would even think about such an idea.
After all, someone who doesn’t know what’s not supposed to be possible is the more likely person to question or ignore that limitation and find something surprising.
I kind of wanted to do a dumb bunny joke, but I can’t think of one that fits, especially since Catrina doesn’t seem to be dumb.
Never call a tough rabbit a ‘dumb bunny’.
A Good Dungeon = Amusement Park.
Where else do you have so much screaming, yet everyone wants to go?
Where else do people line up for hours to be strapped to a seat and endure physical torture for a few brief but terrifying moments?
The reason a dungeon core makes monsters are two fold. One is protection for self all things alive fear death and a dungeon core is alive. Two is that survival of the fittest most life forms adapt to life by taking life to sustain oneself (easier than having to make there own food) which creates evolutionary pressure to both defend against other life forms and to predate other life forms. With the inclusion of magic and magical abilities this creates a basis for life to evolve along aggressive axis. Most life does not become passive until intelligence is involved so it is easier to select for aggression then passivity.
I disagree with “most life forms”. In a stable ecology you need many food producers (producing from sunlight or geochemical sources) compared to a relative small number of predators. In this context, herbivores are already the predators of green plants.
have you not seen what happens to herbivores and plants get when magic is introduced they can get bloody violent. So if even the weeds select for aggressive enhancements then the herbivores and predator’s have to follow suit.
I had a role-play group where we actually addressed this question. In our setting, a “good” dungeon was built on the side of a mountain. Ascending the mountain forced you to encounter stronger and stronger entities until you found the “boss” character at the top (usually a good aligned dragon/ angel/ etc). All the residents lived on different levels of the mountain and were generally neutral/good aligned. The mountain’s goal was to work with the surrounding kingdoms, protect and support the people, and build up defenses against evil entities.
Irish mythology has “good curses” in the form of Gaeses… Gaei… Cu Chulainn is the most famous one for using them to become Irish Herakles. They’re essentially conditional power ups.
I kinda just assumed that by default we see evil dungenos because of natural selection. Ecosystems that are completely harmless and benelovent just don’t seem like the kind of thing that could sprout from sources a resource as volitile as mana. I don’t think it’s impossible, it’s just incredibly unlikely.
That, and I’m a little fuzzy on my Grrl Power lore but I’m pretty sure there’s been some mention of realms that commodify suffering (or something?) so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a supernatural bias towards that to boot.
Earth *is* a dungeon. Human, animals and plants are its monsters. Case in point: Australia.
they are not “evil”, they are “wild”. The correct question is: “can we tame a dungeon?”
Hmmm, may have a vaild point there, but ‘law of the jungle’ isn’t going to be benign, so the first intelligent type is going to be shaded towards warlord/dark cleric (outcast/explorer) types.
A good dungeon requires someone with good intentions to start with and keeping it that way will require a lot of (micro)management to stay that way (as natural forces tend toward the ‘jungle’).
I actually have a ‘reason’ for this in a novelette that I’m writing.
Dungeon’s aren’t necessarily ‘evil’, rather they serve as a ‘balance’ to the world around them.
Over time, civilisation tends to lean towards goodness and equality. All that ‘unused’ negativity needs to go ‘somewhere’ ergo, a dungeon. In worlds where morality is greyer, you have dungeons that are more balanced. In the world that I’m building, society isn’t getting organised, but it isn’t any more moral. Dungeons still exist, but they’re now more chaotic as opposed to evil.
On the note of the tagline;
Good curses; you mean blessed with suck?
Bad healing spells; you mean a body horror?
Neutral genocides; you mean mutually assured destruction?
I belövés Dungeons are not “evil”, they are neutral. They had their own ecosystem, and – just like in nature – if there is too much inhabitants, some of them leave for new lands. Which is, in the case of Dungeons, are known as ‘overflow’. The creatures in Dungeons are mostly act like animals, what are not evil – for that they should possess a certain level of intelligence and intention to cause harm. Which can be found among higher ranked monsters, but within the Dungeons those are more of a surviving skills, than moral flaws – after all, an orcish horde might pillage anything, what they could, but it’s only possible, as they can work together with their tribe. With their own laws and rules they act as a different nation, and by their standards what they do it’s isn’t evil, it’s only called as that, because of our different worldview.
If a potion requires dragon liver for example, I doubt any intelligent powerful magical being would be happy getting farmed and slaughtered. So I doubt high level farm dungeons exist without very strict control that would reduce the benefits.
Technically viable doesn’t mean practical of financial viable.
What would be done to the ecosystem and it’s nature and magic production would likely either reduce its level or have a huge negative side effect like summoning Cthulhu one a decade.