Re: Holiday Humakti

From: Loren Miller <loren_at_wharton.upenn.edu>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:02:34 EST


I kinda liked Onslaught at first in the Morthander stories, because he was a different Humakti from the usual, but now he's gone too far. He's running all over killing off axemaidens and all that with impunity. He ignores all the magical forces which would focus on him with overwhelming effect, and he is not a superhero who can shrug it off.

As far as I know the only person who is running all over Dragon Pass killing everybody he meets is Harrek.

It makes me wonder what would happen if Onslaught met Harrek. Can you say "splat"? I knew you could.

I'd be interested in seeing the game stats of Onslaught, so that we know what the character can do. Certainly, he could not defeat a legion of axe-maidens with Great Parry up. He'd have to parry four attackers every round and would only kill on 19 swings out of 400 (when his opponent failed her parry and he didn't fail his attack).

Let me start.

STR, CON & SIZ are all 21, because we can assume that he started big and got some royal jelly to boost his SIZ, and with his fanatical training his STR and CON would be up to match.

INT is ok, but not up to Conan I mean Harrek level, so let's say 14.

POW is high, since he gets lots of chances to exercise it in offensive magic casting.

DEX is high, say it's 21.

APP/CHA is very low, after deliberate body-modifications and the absolute refusal to be polite by any standards. Say 3. Not quite subhuman but pretty damn close.

What about his cult standing? In this piece he appears to be Humakti, but before the slaughter of the thanes I thought he was cultless. Let's assume he is a Sword then, to be kind. However we've never seen him use Sever Spirit, so I don't think he has all that much Divine Magic. IMO he respects Morthander more than he would if he were up to Morthander's level with enchantments and godpowers. Shield or something like it. Morale. Truesword. But he depends on spirit magic. He uses Shimmer a lot, and bladesharp and protection and heal. He does have an allied spirit, or so it would seem, and this would be in his sword. I think that's it for his magic. He probably has enchanted iron armor with an armoring enchantment on it for more AP. Let's say a total AP averaging 21 or so (14+2d6 = average 21AP).

I seem to remember that his head has no Armor on it, apparently by geas, so it is totally vulnerable, unless he has armored his own head with an Armoring Enchantment, which would make it difficult for him to even feel his face.

The main question we'd have to answer is how much Divine Magic do you allow him to carry?

He irritates other Humakti, at least a minority of them, and the majority of them in some places. I would expect that he would have already or will soon come up to a sword temple, wanting to renew his humakti blessings, and find that he is not permitted to enter the temple by order of the eldest sword and the war council. Knowing what I know of Onslaught, he'd attack, go storming in hacking and slaying his brethren right and left, and then in the holy of holies be blasted by about 10 Sever Spirits backed by a 45 POW temple guardian spirit. Resulting in a permanently dead Onslaught.

But that pretty scenario aside, he could not get away with half the stuff Martin is writing about him doing. I doubt that even Harrek could. Martin is doing a good job of tweaking people though.

Terrible Fates to be wished on Onslaught.

  1. Surrounded by Babs Gor axemaidens with Great Parry up, with six berserk, highly armored gnomes chowing on his horse's legs, tail, and whatever else there is to chow on.
  2. Seduced by a High Ulerian courtesan who extends an Erotocomatose Lucidity on Onslaught to several years.
  3. Harrek hears of this great killer and seeks him out to test him.
  4. Abandoned by Humakt because he has performed too many assassinations for hire, he meets a persuasive stranger who is as violent and murderous as he, and ends up throwing in his lot with Urain, or better yet with Krjalk.
  5. He pisses off a redlands shaman who looses a hundred and eleven terrible spirits at Onslaught, all at once, spirits of pain, of despair, of self-mutilation, of fear, ghosts and ghoul spirits, the dead whom he has killed, demons of darkness, of fire, and of the air, and as Onslaught tries to fights off the spirits he is ambushed by one hundred and eleven horse-archers with firearrow.
  6. He wanders into Bad Deal and pisses off the iron mostali.
  7. He bumps into the crimson bat and is mistaken for batfood.
  8. He pisses off a high-powered sorceror who casts a long-distance smother on him, using projected vision to steer it. Bereft of allies he succombs.

His weakness is that he is alone. He would not have a long life.

End of Glorantha Digest V2 #508

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