Shadow Walker- chapter 15

[ANTIcarrot]

It's up and posted in announcements.

Speculation over. Commentary begins!

[expedient]

I don't think that the taking of Avannar will be a straightforward task. The Loremasters have carefully accumulated every single innovation seen in alchemy over hundreds of years and we haven't seen their big guns as of yet. The shaman, when they get there, should be able to counter most of them but perhaps not all. There is a huge stockpile of crystals in Avannar and the sheer number of tactical defenses might be enough to wear the shaman down as they tire.

One possible way that the Loremasters might be able to partially counter the shaman is by using a version of their manna-null zone device. If it could be switched on and off quickly a weapon could be stored inside the effect and fired during the slit second of the magical shield being down. Another is their flight technology, if they are out of range of the shaman then they could cause some havoc.

We don't know how far along their version of the ancient device is either. If they could complete it in Avannar and switch it on everyone would be in trouble.

All indications are that subtlety will win the day in the end.

Nightfall's comment about the shadow fox arcans/humans makes me wonder how at odds they could be with the other races in Noraam after these events. I suspect that at the end of Shadow Walker Fel will rip up the rulebook and leave us with a completely different conundrum.

[SYED]

SO objective is to take as many arcans, and gear as possible, remove enemy assets, getting the army geared. Then buy arcans for crystals. Sell white, green and red crystals, as the most in demand, also the white capability to reuse is useful
As it stand the combined human forces can deal with the loreguards, but this way the arcans are freed in the trek.
TO keep the war going after the fall of the loreguard, supply certain factions the necessary crystals, those with limited supplies so they will force them to make those with stores to use them up. Once the city falls, get the army out of there, before huge brawl begins. best bet, would be get the arcan out of the city through sewer, and let the humans seige it out. Use one of those smugller tunnel to place a pounder to collapse a section of wall
THe soon to be dealt with city, was the central home of alchemy, with it gone many alchemy industries will be crippled, there will still be shops and workshps, but on a much smaller scale. SO when they take the city, raid every crystal cutter, black smith and alchemist work shop. Take their inventory, supplies and tools. SAy they use this to re -establish the home of alchemy in haven. there are only five crytal types or so, can shaman make others. they also need to steal the alchemy library, the lore masters appointed themselves the over seerers of all alchemists. anything a shaman can do, an alchemist could produce a device.
Invite royalty, to come see haven for them selves. EIther the northern and southern nations will unite to take the mines for them selves, or fight between them selves for access.
Every person with out work can find a job with the lack of arcans, but they would all need to be paid and treated well, with guilds and unions growing. They have a choice use crystals for collars and anger haven, or give freedom and crystal to build. WIth the shortage of crystal, to valuable for just a collar.
the lore guard has other military forces right, where are they. so danna army goes through the canyons. will they continue to city and steal on the way. can they hold the passes later on.
avannar is a very advanced city, must have plenty of pipes in the sewers, what would happen if they were all frozen during a seige, or broken. Or simply create an ice dam at the exit to flood them, so the giant rats would escape.
WHat if they use the same trick in cheston, but using a river. get a river spirit to ice the top, kyvern deals with the guard, while they poor through.

the arcans at riyan, get a shaman that can help them escape during battle, likly held back in the rear near the supplies. then run to the nearest allies.

the war will make supplies in greatt demand. a small crystal per arcan freed.

[ANTIcarrot]

We don't know how far along their version of the ancient device is either. If they could complete it in Avannar and switch it on everyone would be in trouble.

We also don't know if they realise that a crystal maker can very easily be turned into a city destroying crystal-bomb. Wiping out an entire army (and the surrounding 5 miles) would probably give Annavar quite a bit of breathing space. The other armies might suddenly become very reluctant to challenge the Loremasters (irrispective of what Kyven tells them) though by the same nature, probably wouldn't agree to go back to the way things were. The Acans wouldn't like it, and the Spirits *definately* wouldn't like it but there might not be a lot they coudl do about it.

This would also give Annavar one final trump card: Threaten to give away the secret of building really big bombs to all the kingdoms. Given the choice between freeing the slaves, and suffering multiple 'small' breaches of their reality, the spirits might choose to abandon the Arcans, or at least not support any further advances.

[Edit:] Just to be clear on a few things that I honestly thought would be obvious to everyone:
The origonal magic crystal making machine exploded with enough force to do damage on a GLOBAL BASIS and throw debris HUNDREDS OF MILES. We're probably talking an explosion in the gigaton plus range. It follows that a crystal device *specifically* designed to explode in this manner might be much smaller, if you only wanted a 100kt explosion. There is a good change it might be small enough to be cart-portable. At that point you move it far away from Annavar, leave it in the path of the army (preferably in or at a bottleneck) and set it off as they pass. At which point it effectively becomes a chicken powered nuclear land mine.

[zedd]

The way I understand it, they would destroy the city itself also. So it wouldn't help them

[SYED]

THere could be a potential crystal making device, but based on shaman skills, instead of breaking the barrier of the spirit world. If you had to breach it for the energy, how do shaman do it, so potentially a safe way to make crystals but likly still need some shaman help.

WIll the loremasters consider taking all their enemies with them in a ball of fire a valid military tactic. WHat if they over power their crystal discharger, so covered the city and the enemies, so all the armies are effectivly crippled, so force the army to fight hand to hand. the dis charger doesnt affect it self, so potentially, it could creat a dome or sphere around the city ut would be very draining, and not that thick.

THe shadow fox will want as much of the human military to wipe each other out as they can. SO that what force that goes against haven would be eay to deal with. Arcans are better armed, and better skilled at fighting.
Apart from danna seal, the spirit want more shadow fox arcans, so kyvern agrees to more children.Kyvern can drain energy from a person, what if he learns to take what is needed to make arcans, and give it to the shadow fox.
The shadow fox is afraid of the shadow creatures, so kyvern shadow gifts, ablt to shape and take solidality, so can touch it, potentially.

[ANTIcarrot]

THere could be a potential crystal making device, but based on shaman skills, instead of breaking the barrier of the spirit world.

Crystals are just a form of stored energy. If you can turn magic into light, then you can turn light into magic. There isnt just one safe way, there are dozens. Hundreds. One for every application of crystal energy; and all of them bypass the spirit world. In fact it beggers belief that the Loremasters (or possibly the more scientificly minded europeans) havent stumbled upon a single method of doing this.

Reguarding the Shamans help though... I believe the way they do it is to ask a spirit to do it. The spirit is the one that sends a controlled amount of magic from their world into the body of the shaman. The shaman just catch it. Its largely a passive process for them. Taking energy (or anything else really) is pretty much against their whole philosophy.

The shadow fox is afraid of the shadow creatures, so kyvern shadow gifts, ablt to shape and take solidality, so can touch it, potentially.

Now thats an interesting idea! I had wondered if Kyven might want to find out what does happen to a living creature when the shadow creatures do catch one. Pull a deer into the shadow world and push it in their direction. (Nasty yes, but Kyvens a bit of a heartless jerk when it comes to animal welfare.) He might learn something. I wonder if theyre vaulnerable to conventional or magical weapons too. If its *heat* theyre after, how might they react to a thermite charge? Or some kind of rapid freezing device? Or a black crystal device? How smart are they?

Can they be trained...?

[DigitalMaestro]

Can they be trained...?

OMG!!!!! That would be SO awesome!!! Train them to catch the tasty "treats" [read loremasters] Kyven throws thru the portals.... or to guard the citadels for him... O the possibilities...

I do like the idea of execution by Lovecraftian nether creatures though....

-DM

[Fel]

Kyven does interact with the things in the shadow world later in the book.

As to how, and what happens...I'll leave that alone for now.

[DigitalMaestro]

Kyven does interact with the things in the shadow world later in the book.

As to how, and what happens...I'll leave that alone for now.

AAAGGAHHGH!!!! I thought this was a new chapter post.....

-DM

[expedient]

The shadow fox is afraid of the shadow creatures, so kyvern shadow gifts, ablt to shape and take solidality, so can touch it, potentially.

Now thats an interesting idea! I had wondered if Kyven might want to find out what does happen to a living creature when the shadow creatures do catch one. Pull a deer into the shadow world and push it in their direction. (Nasty yes, but Kyvens a bit of a heartless jerk when it comes to animal welfare.) He might learn something. I wonder if theyre vaulnerable to conventional or magical weapons too. If its *heat* theyre after, how might they react to a thermite charge? Or some kind of rapid freezing device? Or a black crystal device? How smart are they?

Can they be trained...?

Yes, this is an interesting idea. If Kyven could take the fight to the shadow fox or at least ambush her in some way...

I thought that Kyven had already dumped a human or two in the shadow realm in an earlier chapter?

The shadow creatures are fascinating but trained or reasoned with? What Kyven might be able to do is take one of them from the shadow realm and using his shadow powers allow them to operate on this side of the portals then let them attack a fortified position under complete darkness.

[SYED]

is magic usable in the shadow realm, do collars work,

the creatures how do the sense, sound, light, heat,

if they are shadows are they harmed by light, what happens if they are dragged out of shadows

[SYED]

If shadow powers allow manipulation of reality, that means both the material and spirit world, could he even create bridges or gates between the two. Do we know for certain he is unable to make crystals, what if his shadow powers give him an alternative, an easier way to make crystal, or a new knind of crystals, shadow crystals.
If he can manipulate reality can he heal feral arcan.
WHat if he wasnt made part shadow fox, but part shadow fox spirit.
he can speak to animals, will he gather shadow foxes to him to act as spies and scouts.
can he bless shadow abilities, he can give spider climb abilities, so how is that different from shadow ability. give to army so simly climb up the city walls.