| From: | shadowrn@*********.com (Lone Eagle) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [Getting slowly back On Topic] Good Blood Spirits |
| Date: | Mon Mar 25 07:25:01 2002 |
>I think it depends... If the guy pushes the button anyway after you've
>jumped, the whole thing is a bit pointless. Now, if you grab the guy >and
>jump into the furnace, taking him with you in order to prevent him from
>pushing the button (and destroying the world, or your loved ones, >etc.),
>then it'd be self-sacrifice.
It doesn't matter whether your sacrifice is pointless, it is your decision
to sacrifice yourself that has point, not the good faith of other people,
let's change it slightly, the furnace burns hydrogen, it's set up in such a
way that when it's been burning for a certain amount of time it triggers
events that will (insert catastrophy here) however it has safety cut offs
that will trigger if a significant quantity of carbon dioxide is registered
by the exhaust scrubbers, you need to put carbon into the furnace and all
you have is your own body; no handy fire extinguishers, no dead guards, not
even a nearby chair, the guy who set it up has obviously visited
eviloverlord.com (or whatever it is). You are killing yourself by your own
actions but the reasoning, the decision is one of sacrifice rather than
suicide.
>Hm... No, this was not suicide. He didn't kill himself - could have >done
>this at any time. He was martyrized, which is a bit different.
Martyrdom is not the right "word", my point is that he could, at any time,
have stopped it happening, (assuming he was God incarnate) Other people may
have put him up there but the decision to stay there and die was his and his
alone.
>Slitting your own throat to summon a big-ass blood spirit is not self
>sacrifice by my evaluation. That's what being discussed here, let's >keep
>on topic :).
What if you and your team are running in Aztlan, you've managed to cock up
somehow and now you're surrounded by half a dozen large gribbly blood
spirits intent on killing all of you, if pulling your Cougar fineblade and
removing your own heart, still beating from your chest to summon a "blood
spirit" will save your friends, is the only way to save your friends then
doing so is self sacrifice.
>However, you can just change a few "cosmetic" aspects in the act and
>make it much more noble in the character's views. Causing a "miracle"
>instead of summoning a spirit, summoning a differen kind of spirit or
>dying "spontaneously" without bloodshed as the character's soul leaves
>his body are all things than can be combined to make a perfecly noble
>and unambiguous sacrifice, great for ending a PC mage's career in grand
>style :).
I'd avoid the "Miracle" direction myself and any "Blood Spirit"
summoned in
this way would have to be different. But I would put it that however
different it is it would still be a blood spirit. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
has The Vyydaag (probably spelt wrong) A good Greater Deamon whose touch
will raise the dead... etc. and the antithesis of the Marrdaag, an evil
deamon who deals in death. So the "Blood Spirit" summoned by self sacrifice
would look significantly different but would still be recognizably linked to
blood, perhaps a giant winged humanoid bleeding from hundreds of wounds. In
the classic High fantasy manner I'd make the "good" "blood spirits"
significantly tougher than the evil ones twice as hard, three times as
hard... whatever but there are fewer of them, significantly fewer, so that
despite their power a status quo is maintained.
>I'm afraid that went right over my little non-English head :).
Assuming sarcasm wasn't dripping from every syllable of that (a dangerous
assumption I know) look at Scott of the Antarctic.
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