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otakumick said:
Which one? The good one, or the hilarious one?
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The Book of Erotic Fantasy. Which was... surprisingly tastefully done. I had expected a somewhat humorous and crass treatment, like the one someone had put out for 2nd Edition AD&D in the late 90's and early 2000's. Not sure if it's still around, since it was online only. Instead I got a tasteful book that treated the subject with respect and dignity, while still slipping in a bit of humor. Something that is right at home being included in pretty much any campaign, instead of only campaigns of a certain flavor.

EDIT:
After checking... to my absolute surprise, it's still around. And has been updated to include hypertext links.
 
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I'd also like to see Naurelin meeting some other Taylors. Particularly Papillon (Her Dark Wings Arise), Dr. Wily (A Fate Woven in Steel), Guzma!Taylor (Ya'll Are Stupid), Ancalagon (Shard Flight), Dungeon!Taylor (I Woke Up as a Dungeon, Now What), and Terraform (AvatarTaylor).
 
I once had a Dragonborn Bard try and flirt with Tiamat. Huh, I might actually write an Omake about that considering that Kelvin did end up as a Dragon God Emperor...

Although on the subject of Dragon Taylor's, there is the one from my Empress of Escilation where she had the Boosted Gear. And i intend to go back and rewrite slightly at some point. I really ought to get to that...
 
MDK said:
Just because Brushstroke's escalation takes a different an much more supple form doesn't mean that she doesn't escalates at all.
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When Brushstroke escelates, heroes lose their secret identity, gangs are dismantled/redeamed, and tea is served to both heroes and villains at the same time. Of course, only one of those is Brushstroke's direct actions. The rest is Sunny being a Good Dog.
 
Prince Chrom said:
I mean, Sauron's phylactery was much harder to break than any lich's.
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Sauron failed to consider that a shiny golden ring (that holds much of his power) on his finger isn't a great location when many of your opponents are armed with swords. I suspect many fictional liches would be laughing at Sauron for not considering what they'd consider 'basic security measures'.

On the other hand :)'worn on my hand' does make it a lot harder to steal than a typical phylactery's 'there must be something really valuable here' level of 'hiding place' that many liches traditionally opt for.

Did Sauron (who was a shapeshifter) have the option of hiding the One Ring 'inside' his body, where it would be much harder to find?
Similarly, does a (skeletal) lich have the option of concealing a small (or shrunken) phylactery inside a tough bone like a femur or vertebra?
 
Telvara said:
Sauron failed to consider that a shiny golden ring (that holds much of his power) on his finger isn't a great location when many of your opponents are armed with swords. I suspect many fictional liches would be laughing at Sauron for not considering what they'd consider 'basic security measures'.

On the other hand :)'worn on my hand' does make it a lot harder to steal than a typical phylactery's 'there must be something really valuable here' level of 'hiding place' that many liches traditionally opt for.

Did Sauron (who was a shapeshifter) have the option of hiding the One Ring 'inside' his body, where it would be much harder to find?
Similarly, does a (skeletal) lich have the option of concealing a small (or shrunken) phylactery inside a tough bone like a femur or vertebra?
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From what I recall, the main issue with that idea is that Sauron isn't really a conventional lich. You could argue that he's an unintentional lich, because he had very little use for immortality. Before he sort of lichified, he was a minor Deity of Craftsmanship and Artisanry. He was one of Aule's Maia, and, well... it is very likely that the Ring could only be made as a Ring, because of the other qualities he built into it. The almost irresistible mental corruption, the ability to maximize the owner's innate strengths, and the power to essentially turn others into more liches under his irreversible command. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason he made it as a ring, was very explicitly in order to connect it to the other rings he made. And he made it so that even rings that he was barely, if at all, involved with, were still channels of his corruption. Basically every magic ring in Middle Earth was under his control at least to a certain degree.

Like... it becoming a sort of phylactery, unlike most other liches, is only a side-effect, and likely an unintended or unwanted one at that. He poured his soul into it because it was his ultimate creation, and because of how much sheer power he poured into it.
 
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Telvara said:
Sauron failed to consider that a shiny golden ring (that holds much of his power) on his finger isn't a great location when many of your opponents are armed with swords. I suspect many fictional liches would be laughing at Sauron for not considering what they'd consider 'basic security measures'.
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Note that it only got cut off his hand after he was beaten to 'death' and he took down three of the five people involved in the fight, at least two of which were Tolkien Elves. Not as much of a weakness as it first looks.
 
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Yeah, the movies kinda do...most characters dirty. Isildur especially. He was depicted as weak and easily corrupted, but he held the Ring for a very long time and wasnt truly ever corrupted. It took one of his companions (his son I think) literally BEGGING him to get him to leave the battle. He certainly didnt run the moment shit hit the fan.
 
I've read a fair bit of Ring Maker. It lost my interest about the time that Taylor crafted the rings for the Wards. But the story was interesting.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
And even then, Sauron was winning the fight until a desprate swing just so happened to cut off the hand wearing the One Ring.
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Which is exactly why it was a bad idea in the first place, it probably wouldn't have been nearly as crippling had Sauron's other hand been cut off instead, and he could have won the fight, retreated to regrow his hand or simply not been severely weakened and unable to resume his plans until many centuries had passed.
 
Wonder if Koschei the deathless/Immortal is on this earth bet, He always seems to find a way keep coming back in spite of how many times various Slavic heroes figured out the while hiding his death in a needle hidden in an egg hidden in a duck, hidden in a hare hidden in a chest or log hidden on a far-off island business.

He's also pretty much one of the few magic users I recall having a sword and not just a sword but a sword almost as long as he is.
 
Alane1 said:
Wonder if Koschei the deathless/Immortal is on this earth bet, He always seems to find a way keep coming back in spite of how many times various Slavic heroes figured out the while hiding his death in a needle hidden in an egg hidden in a duck, hidden in a hare hidden in a chest or log hidden on a far-off island business.

He's also pretty much one of the few magic users I recall having a sword and not just a sword but a sword almost as long as he is.
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The Feywyld expansion for D&D Online: Stormreach played with this. Only the Archfey in question hid his immortality in a needle hidden in a egg, hidden in a small animal (can't remember which kind), hidden in a bird, hidden in a chest, hidden in a tree in a swamp, hidden among a horde of mimics pretending to be chests in said trees.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
The Feywyld expansion for D&D Online: Stormreach played with this. Only the Archfey in question hid his immortality in a needle hidden in a egg, hidden in a small animal (can't remember which kind), hidden in a bird, hidden in a chest, hidden in a tree in a swamp, hidden among a horde of mimics pretending to be chests in said trees.
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Somehow, that's still less secure than what the original Koschei went with, because he put that tree on an island that is considered to be a fairy tale even in fairy tales, and is the place where all weather is born, so it's also hella stormy.
 
DestinyPlayer said:
Somehow, that's still less secure than what the original Koschei went with, because he put that tree on an island that is considered to be a fairy tale even in fairy tales, and is the place where all weather is born, so it's also hella stormy.
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Would it help if I mentioned that even after you find the needle, it gets swiped by an invincible pseudodragon that thinks it's a real dragon that'll only give it to you if you play Hide and go Seek/tag, and WIN? With only about 30 seconds to find each hiding spot after evading the little guy's attempts to tag you for about five minutes each time? And without Expeditous Retreat on everyone (or Monk/Barbarian movement speeds) it's impossible to evade the pseudodragon?
 
Sun Wukong : "Nah, I like Legend too much. Wouldn't do that to him. Now, Alex dearest, on the other hand, needs to loosen up a bit. So, I stole her office building. Bwahahahahahahaha! Whoops, here she comes, gotta split!"
 
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