Weeeelll the "Holiday Humakt" was meant to be comic in dead pan mode. I had in mind that he killed a couple at a border post then legged it as their regiment turned up. He, as an NPC, is more like he is in the Deville stories than when I write "Holiday Humakt" but everyone is having such a reaction to the character I can't resist hamming it up a bit. But I figured everyone would realise that I'm taking the piss out of my own invention in true self-deprecating fashion.(Sigh, I'm so modest).
>As far as I know the only person who is running all over Dragon Pass
>killing everybody he meets is Harrek.
Correctumundo and Onslaught is in no way as tough as Harrek. Here is a
scenario: Onslaught fights his way to stand in front of Harrek on the
battlefield.
Onslaught says: "Hey you with the toupee, come and get a sword in yer guts!"
Harrek as he walks through Onslaughts exploded corpse: "Did somebody say
something?"
>It makes me wonder what would happen if Onslaught met Harrek. Can you
>say "splat"? I knew you could.
Exactly.
>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).
No he couldn't but then again thats not his style. As for Great Parry, thats a 3 point spell, they are going to waste all that POW just for one guy? With fifty X-bowmen of reasonable skill they'd bring him down or with magic anyway, a lot cheaper.
>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.
Startlingly accurate. INT is dead on.
>POW is high, since he gets lots of chances to exercise it in
>offensive magic casting.
>DEX is high, say it's 21.
Again..... you've broken into my house haven't you?
>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.
His APP is low but his CHA reflects his palpable power and will hence should be fairly high.
CULT STANDING and Rune Magic and STUFF:
>In this piece he appears to be Humakti, but before the slaughter of the thanes
I >thought he wascultless. 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.
He was a Sword of Humakt in the first Devile story he was in. The one where he through Deville through the latrine door into the cess pit. He used sever spirit on the leader of the merc irregulars in the last version of stain of honour (hope that one was better for you Brian). He has a lot of Rune Magic but its mostly weapon or defence orientated so its nowhere near as flash as Deville or even your average Storm Voice. Perhaps with the use of sever spirit I should have taken Sandys advice on how it appears to outside view. Will correct that in future.
>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 onspirit magic. He uses Shimmer a lot, and
>bladesharp and protectionand 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).
He does have a lot of hero cult magic from the various Sword temples he wanders around and worships at accross the region. He even has some pretty obscure weapon magics. His battle magic is excellent with very powerful Bladesharp, parry and shimmer/protection spells. In combat he would usually run shield 10 extended. His armour is almost dead right. 22APs all round. He usually runs vigour 10 as well giving him about 30 hitpoints making each individual location very tough and hard to take out with one hit, even a critical. He particularily dislikes undead and his number of morale spells are very uselful to any unit he hires on with. His allied spirit is called Onslaught too. He and his blade are one in the same, hence the same name. His sword is a skill focus. Every 20% the weilder is above 60% in attack and/or parry it adds 5% to attack and/or parry.
>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.
He often does wear a helm but its tricky for a character to have facial expressions in a story while wearing a whopping big helmet so excuse my writers lisence for now.
>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.
Er, he wouldn't do that. He respect the code of Humakt and fellow Humakti. He is a wanderer but the way I play it, if you were trying to teach your men sword play you' grab any weapon master you could to show the differences in style that might just give your men the knowledge to stay alive a bit longer. Hence Onslaught is often tolerated simply because he doesn't cause much trouble in Temple, he _loves_ to teach and is very good at it, in a brutal way, and is quite happy to spell teach his extensive knowledge for a place to stay and some food. Does he get into fights? Of course! But they all do! Deaths do happen but Humakt would not disapprove of that!
Mike Cule asked how Humakt would react to "Onslaught giving him a bad name". Personally I don't think he would care. He's the Death god and is really not going to be too fussed by a bad press. Lets face it, and I think Pam Carlson and Jeff Richards have admirably pointed this out, that Humakti are seen by most Orlanthi as deranged killers, clanless, bitter and twisted. Onslaught may be worse than many but I tend to think there are a lot of very evil men out there, killers, who wear Humakts runes without the god batting an eye.
Loren:
> 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.
Who me?
Terrible fates for Onslaught:
>2. Seduced by a High Ulerian courtesan who extends an Erotocomatose
>Lucidity on Onslaught to several years.
Thats great! One problem, hes celibate (geas). Why do you think he's in such a bad mood all the time? I'd be climbing the walls.
>3. Harrek hears of this great killer and seeks him out to test him.
See example above:
>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.
There are possiblities here.....
>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.
That won't work, 111 is his lucky number I'm afraid.
>7. He bumps into the crimson bat and is mistaken for batfood.
What in the pub you mean? "Hey you spilt my beer..."
>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.
He practicies daily with a plastic bag.
>His weakness is that he is alone. He would not have a long life.
Ah but is he? Okay, admitedly in the "Holiday Humakt" bits he's alone but look at the stories. He's with Deville. Deville and his crew are a bunch of loners and misfits hanging out together for mutual protection in a dangerous world. Onslaught does have friends (amazing eh?) who realise that much of his endless dialogues on his battles are simply to fill in the vey real lack of anything else in his life when he's not fighting (a state of affairs he is distincly uncomfortable with) and really he isn't such a bad person. He'll stand by you through thick and thin if he gave his word. How many people would do that? He does have a habit of killing people (which is a drag at parties) but he really doesn't think he's doing anything wrong. He _really_ believes he is showing them honour by killing them in combat.
Martin Laurie
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