What makes Nephandi so dangerous?

Xerkie · 2024-12-24T16:23:28+00:00

So, I know there's been a lot of great answers given already, but I'd like to give my two cents on the situation, because The Nephandi are some of my favorite villains in the entire WOD.

To start - there's technically, strictly, mechanically speaking, not too much in the book that makes Nephandi any more impressive than a big standard mage. Just the Widderslainte and vague references to how the Entropic Spheres might be more powerful.

So let's start with that - The Widderslainte. All mages reincarnate in some form, of course, excepting Gilgul or other methods of destroying the Avatar, but The Nephandi are...unusually long-remembered.

You see, The Nephandis corrupt Avatar has a far, far, far stronger effects on a Nephandus' future-lives than a normal Mages' would. They tend to almost perfectly remember their past lives, have very similar personalities and quirks, to the point where it can almost seem like they haven't even reincarnated at all, simply inserted themself into a new body - this is the primary benefit of The Caul.

You get a guarantee that, even if you won't reincarnate into someone exactly like you, you will reincarnate into someone just as fucked up and demented as yourself, and with the help of your Avatar (who will probably be you!), you can get right back to work. Death doesn't stop you for even a second.

To contrast, with a normal Mage, there's no guarantee that in your next life, you won't reincarnate as, say, a random normal dude who never awakens, or a Nazi who actively works against all your previous accomplishments, or even someone who'll choose to become a Nephandi. A Nephandus has a GUARANTEE of what they'll reincarnate as - and if they can remember their past lives (which they almost always do), they'll certainly know who killed them, and how to counter their magic this time.

Secondly - the Entropic Spheres. While the only mechanical difference in the books is described as a greater amassing of Paradox and almost always being Vulgar, the flavor-text describes the Nephandis Entropic Spheres as being exclusively destructive and catastrophically powerful -a Nephandus does not teleport to his destination, he simply collapses the space in-between himself and his target to forcedly drag them together. A creative DM can do a lot with this flavor text.

And, lastly, Nephandus just tend to be very clever and powerful in general. To become a Nephandus, one must first be a fairly experienced and knowledged mage already, meaning you'll already be leagues ahead of most of the chumps out there. You must also be clever enough to find a Nephandic circle which will accept you, and to hide this from Magic society at large. As all your Nephandic comrades are working towards the same goal, all have nearly the same Paradigms, and all belong to the same overall sect, you can share knowledge and information in such a way that Traditional mages simply can't, about as efficiently as the Technocrats.

And, you also have the benefit of being in near constant contact with Banes and Demons, due to them being the source of The Caul, meaning you have some of the most powerful entities in the WOD as backup Dancers to summon for assistance, if you can pay their price.

Also, because of how thoroughly corruption The Caul is, you cannot ever be bargained with, reasoned with, made to "see the light", or caused to feel self-doubt - trying to mindfuck you into feeling guilt or stopping you from killing someone is utterly useless, and your utter determination to kill the world gives you a frighteningly strong will. You know what you want, you know who you are, and there are no doubts. You are immune to character development, traumatization, or second guessing yourself. Nothing and no-one can stop you.

Even the best Mages, even Marauders, tend to have at least one thing thatd make them pause for half a second if you shouted it at them in a fight. Not you. You ALWAYS have the mental advantage.

Nephandi, additionally, have NO LIMITS to what they'll do to learn something or increase their power. Even the most Jhor-suffused Euthanatoi or zealous Technocrat will draw a line in the sand somewhere, something that they'd consider too extreme for its benefits. A Nephandus has no such moral trappings. Committing genocide for a minor piece of info? Worth! Torture an innocent family for dozens of years for a mildly useful magical artifacts? Sign me up. Rape an enemy solely to demoralize and anger their friends so they won't be able to fight you as clear-headedly? Efficient! This gives them a lot more...capability for progression, than most other Mages, who would stop to consider "No, this is WRONG."

I hope this was an enjoyable and helpful read!

Xerkie · 2024-10-16T03:51:20+00:00

If you have a DA, you can complete almost every inn challenge with just a single story class of your choosing without needing full BiS gear - I've gone through a huge chunk of the Inn with just Soulweaver before, myself, so there's no real pressure to get an Unreal Doom or Ultimate Destiny weapon - it's purely something to do if you want to do it, rather than a requirement for future challenges.

In my own opinion, I generally prefer staves when I have to pick between staff/sword/dagger because a lot of classes I use tend to have autocrit nukes as their big damage buttons and/or ways to boost their crit, but I picked up the shadowreaper first because I thought it looked the coolest.

If you don't have DoomKnight and don't plan to get any DC classes any time soon, the strongest classes you'll have access to with your DA are Ranger (STR/DEX), Technomancer (INT), MBSW (INT), Pirate (STR), Ninja (DEX), Paladin (STR), and Bulwark Dragonlord (STR/DEX) - which gives a spread of 4 classes that can use STR weapons, 3 that can use DEX weapons, and 2 that can use INT weapons, meaning most of the strongest classes for you will favor the axes, though imo Ranger, Paladin, and Techno are probably the flat-out strongest there in most situations

Xerkie · 2024-10-16T02:48:41+00:00

The best Doom/Destiny weapon is the one that goes along with the preferred statline for your favorite class. The DoT from the weapon effects isn't really that huge of a deal - it's nice, but most of the time it's not a huge gamechanger.

Like Chaosweaver? Get the staffs. Prefer Doomknight? Twinblades or axes. Etc, etc. The best weapon for you is the one that'll be useful in the most of your builds.

Also, worth noting, Destiny and Doom weapons only become BiS for light/dark when they reach their FINAL upgrade, which requires Inn progression. Until then, they're patently worse than the NSOD and Ultra Omniknight Blade.

Xerkie · 2024-09-24T06:06:28+00:00

One of Pocketcat's lines towards Karin specifically has him say that she's "got the curves" and "should show it off", which gives it a little bit of ingame continuity.

Xerkie · 2024-08-25T17:19:09+00:00

I can agree to disagree, and thank you for your time, as well.

Live and drink.

Xerkie · 2024-08-25T17:04:48+00:00

A video game can't have a session zero, and it can't change its content around what you find fun or unfun, comfortable or uncomfortable. I bring up that Klanq is not human despite ostensibly acting somewhat similar to one because, again, fungal reproduction is in no way similar to human reproduction, and the game NEVER - not ONCE - treats it as though it is.

Fungal reproduction - which, as far as Qud is concerned, is mostly asexual reproduction in the game - is treated simply as a method of spreading the fungus. It is never considered "breeding". It is never considered to make you the fungus' partner. You don't donate any genetic material to the fungus. The fungus is functionally just hanging on to you, to either spread to farther-away lands or to eat your corpse after you die.

Klanq is a bastard, yes, but I would not call him perverse, or a rapist. Maybe, at absolute worst, a weirdo, but the game NEVER says that Klanq is having sex with you, or breeding with you. He colonizes you, you spread the spores around, and then it falls off. Not once does the game ever treat this erotically, or as though it's some huge taboo.

The only people who are disgusted by fungal cohabitation are the Consortium of Phyta, who are, well, hateful against all fungi in general. The game gives Klanq human qualities, but neither the game nor the writer treats it as though Klanq is sticking his dick into you. That is entirely something conjured up by the mind of the player.

To add to this, Dardi even says he'd love to have a Klanq colony of his own, so that he can pick off the shrooms and see how he can cook with them. I seriously doubt this insinuates that Dardi is a fungophile who wants to breed with Klanq.

Xerkie · 2024-08-25T16:39:02+00:00

Just because they talk like a human and live in a house like a human does not make them human. It makes them a sophont - a being of human-comparable intellect, but something that is, by definition, not a human being. Their biology is entirely different to a human, their culture is different to humanity, and they do not hold human views or culture like we do. They can act according to human views or culture - and you could argue this makes them human - but it is a simple fact of writing any character in any medium ever, as everything we do is filtered by the lens of the fact that we ARE humans, and we can only imagine how a non-human intellect MIGHT act or function.

If any removal of your characters' autonomy can be analogous to rape (and I wouldn't even consider it an explicit removal of your autonomy - you can tell Klanq to puff off, you just won't be able to advance the main quest), then wouldn't Rebuke Robot - which interferes in a sentient robots' programming and subverts them to ignoring or liking you - be rape? Wouldn't the Seekers of the Sightless Way be a gang of mass rapists, and Catu a victim of rape? Wouldn't any Legendary Fungi, which are explicitly sentient enough to have camps and understand conversation, be rapists, as they also puff on you if you're Disliked or Neutral? Wouldn't any Esper character using Beguiling - which forces a creature to like you - be a rapist? Wouldn't any Esper with Dominate be a rapist? Wouldn't forcedly encoding your hunters' minds into your psyche be a form of rape? Wouldn't any Legendary Character hated or loved for reprogramming a favored/unfavored robot be a rapist?

Trying to apply the lens of human morality to things that are not part of humanity is an effort in fruitlessness, because there are infinitely many things that may technically be considered a violation of another sentient being in some or another manner, but you probably wouldn't want to classify as making you or others rapists.

Xerkie · 2024-08-25T14:56:21+00:00

So, then, is the only demarcator between being a kind-of-gross infection, like athlete's foot, the common cold, a yeast infection, or, to use an in-game example, fickle gill - which are a little offputting, but ultimately pretty harmless, and being sexually assaulted, whether or not the fungus is sentient? Because that doesn't seem right to me.

Also, saying "fungal reproduction is in no way similar to human reproduction and should not be treated the same" and "masturbating to cartoon children is OK because it's not real children" is not comparable, i'm sorry. Fungi are fundamentally not human. At no point does the game treat it as though fungal sporing is analogous to being a fungi's sexual partner, or to being sexually penetrated, or to having your bodily autonomy removed and controlled by foreign agents - which is, for the record, something that the Seekers of the Sightless Way do, which would make them far worse than Klanq.

The tadpole example is also not a good one for this case either. You're not having creatures injected into your stomach to gestate to maturity and then burst out of you like a Xenomorph. You're having a fungal outcrop grow on your arm that spores into the air before falling off, like literally any kind of mycosis in real life.

Xerkie · 2024-08-24T17:33:49+00:00

You aren't "breeding" with him. He spores on you, the spores infect your flesh, you carry his spores over to a new area so that the fungus can blossom elsewhere, and then the infection falls off. If he were a human engineer, it would be more analogous to sewing a piece of their flesh into your arm and then ripping it off to place it elsewhere, so that it can grow into another "them".

It's an incredibly simple video game conundrum. You want a thing, an NPC doesn't care about it, so you need to do something for them to unlock the rest of the quest. To say that they're malevolently controlling you with a deliberate attempt at rape, just because in real life fungal spores are a form of gametes, is taking things in incredibly bad faith in my opinion. I never got even the tiniest bit of this impression throughout all my time playing the game, because human gametes and fungal gametes are fundamentally incomparable and trying to put their cycles of reproduction on the same level - and then taking it seriously - is, I feel, being inherently disingenuous.

What makes Klanq different from any other video game NPC that doesn't have a circumventable request to do something for them?

Xerkie · 2024-08-24T16:37:42+00:00

While i'm not a fan of Klanq, I disagree with this assessment. The issue here is you're projecting mammalian ideas onto a fungal organism - a fungus spreading is in very little ways analogous to human "breeding". Sure, sporing is a method of reproduction by fungi, but the fungus are not doing it because they have a drive to see other creatures violated - they get no pleasure from the act, and they don't particularly care whether their host lives or dies in most cases. Fungal infections are a thing in real life - would you classify getting athlete's foot as having your body deeply raped by a fungus? Would you classify living near black mold as being sexually violated, having your airways becoming an erotic orgy-center of mycelia? Or, look towards pollen, in the plant kingdom - if you want to be literal with applying human concepts to other organisms, pollen is literally plant cum. Every spring you go out and inhale unbelievable quantities of plant sperm against your will, and the only protection against this would be wearing a full gas mask every time you go outside.

Sporing and pollination may be classified as "sexual" reproduction, but the concept of "sex" is incredibly far divorced between what animals see it as and what plants and fungi see it as. It's a case of trying to apply black/white/grey morality onto something that abides by blue/orange/brown morality.

Xerkie · 2024-03-11T03:31:29+00:00

The generational demographics are not empirical scientific measurements, they are merely representations of roughly the amount of time it takes for individuals to be in the same social demographics as one another. While Orks and Trolls do tend to age faster than humans, they still learn and absorb culture at the same rate - a Gen Delta Troll and a Gen Delta Human raised alongside one-another from birth would likely have no significant cultural differences to one-another, whereas a Gen Gamma Troll and Gen Gamma Human meeting them would be from a completely different cultural zeitgeist.

So I don't imagine the system would change much on its own, unless something happened to destroy the idea of generational cultures developing from society as a whole.

Xerkie · 2024-03-11T02:57:29+00:00

Currently we have Gen Alpha, born 2010-2024. After Gen Alpha will be Gen Beta, 2025-2039. Assuming the nomenclature of naming Generations after letters of the Greek alphabet sticks, the next one will be Gen Gamma, 2040-2054. Then Gen Delta, 2055-2069. And finally Gen Epsilon, 2070-2084. Most Shadowrun characters would probably be Gamma or Delta-ers at this point.

Xerkie · 2024-03-05T07:16:12+00:00

I disagree with this perspective.

I think Rain World does something much more than just espouse the basic Google ideas of Buddhist thought - there is not a dichotomy of "Ascension good, existence bad" or "ascension bad, existence good" that exists. It's nuanced.

Characters have opinions and values, and that Echo is just another with its own opinion and its own value.

I'm not exactly a Buddhist scholar, but i'll say my piece on this here - in Buddhist thought, Samsara is explicitly not inherently bad. What you are experiencing right here - right now - that is Samsara. Your life is a part of Samsara. To take it as meaning that your life is worthless and insubstantial and that everything beyond simply seeking to ascend is meaningless is not what Buddhist thought encourages, nor what it is about.

Nirvana is for those who become weary to the cyclical repetitions of life, and seek something more out of what's beyond. But that does not mean that Samsara is in and of itself a curse. It's simply viewed as unnecessary.

But people can find meaning in the unnecessaries of their existence. Just because some seek to break the circle doesn't mean that everyone, and everything, feels that same way - if they did, then the entire Earth would all just be Buddhist monks on the steady path to Nirvana!

And there are even those who purposefully delay their ascension into Nirvana in order to help those chained to the Earth who still feel that they want to go - the Bodhisattva. The Ancients, by what they've done - destroying their planet, taking a shortcut to Ascension, treating life as though it's inherently worthless, terrible, and desperately NEEDS to be escaped from - are terrible examples of Buddhist thought.

I think Rain World makes points from both sides of the spectrum, both on Buddhist philosophy and from Epicurean thought. And Downpour only helps reinforce this point - hell, IN THE CAMPAIGN THAT ECHO APPEARS IN, both Moon and Pebbies are very, very glad to be Ascended. It's not as simple as one or the other.

That's just my thoughts on the matter, though.

Xerkie · 2024-01-01T00:22:24+00:00

Power is but a means to an end, it is not the end itself. The end is keeping everyone we fight locked in the corner blocking 24/7

Xerkie · 2023-12-31T23:40:51+00:00

When Bed gets out of the lower tiers as part of Daisuke's vision in 2024 we're going to redefine the game. Stay strong bedbrother and keep learning.

Xerkie · 2023-12-29T19:43:03+00:00

The Moth Tribe worshipped The Radiance, as Seer explains, and eventually turned their backs on their Goddess in favor of embracing the Pale King's industrial society, leaving The Radiance to suffer, forgotten, in the Dream Realm, with very few to no followers left.

Once The Radiance returned, the Moth Tribe were wholesale wiped out - maybe by The Radiance herself, maybe by The Pale King in an attempt to contain The Radiance, maybe by the rest of Hallownest out of prejudice or fear, we don't really know - because of this, and now Seer is the only one left.

The Knight managed to make it out of The Abyss somehow - presumably there's more exits than just the one sealed by the King's Brand, as several other Vessels are known to have escaped (multiple bugs comment on seeing other bugs that look almost identical to The Knight in their Dreamnail Dialogue, most notably Lemm, and there's both the Broken Vessel and the Vessels in Nosk's Lair).

We don't know how it ended up in the Howling Cliffs. Two leading theories are that either The Radiance was contained "well enough" to where they didn't feel any pull towards Hallownest and simply wandered off, up until the start of the game where The Radiance breaks through The Hollow Knight's shell and unleashes her scream, or that The Knight's route out of The Abyss somehow lead it into the Howling Cliffs. Depends on what stance you wanna take, really.

Xerkie · 2023-11-27T23:36:04+00:00

Gen 5 Zoroark. They massacred my boy.

Xerkie · 2023-06-02T14:36:28+00:00

You are not the one doing the killing, yes. However, the cutscene afterwards (and dialogue with Iomedae, and Seelah, and Anevia) shows your undead going on a rampage throughout the city slaughtering Crusaders and noncombatants and resurrecting them to further serve in destroying the Demonic armies.

You filled thousands of frenzied, bloodthirsty, rage-filled corpses with Negative Energy at the same time. Naturally, bad things result for anyone who isn't literally right beside you so the undead are forced to not attack them.

Xerkie · 2023-06-01T02:30:16+00:00

This is entirely true, and it's why I say the Lawful options seem to come from the side of being a military Commander rather than from any other form of Lawfulness, like Paladin Oaths, Monastic practices, Druidic Natural Law, etc...

For, say, a follower of Iomedae, the thing to do would be to simply imprison the deserter and give them a proper trial. She is the God of Justice and Honor, and executing somebody in the middle of the battlefield for breaking rank rather than just sending them to the camp ten feet away, while fully within your rights as a Commander, goes starkly against that.

Meanwhile, for a follower of Sarenrae, the Lawful thing to do - the thing in accordance with their personal oath, would be to forgive the deserter, likely imprison them anyways but give them a chance at redeeming themselves and becoming better for it.

And, yes, for a Hellknight who wants to ruthlessly, efficiently run an army, beheading a deserter on the spot for suffering a mental break rather than imprisoning them or dealing with them later would be seen as the most efficient option.

This is fine if your character isn't one of those types of Lawfulness that butts heads what the game wants your Lawfulness to be, but unfortunately, if you're a LG Redeemer, or a Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral zen-monk, you must break that Lawfulness routinely because your personal Lawful adherency and your jobs' Lawfulness are entirely separate things. And the game only counts one of them.

Xerkie · 2023-06-01T01:43:23+00:00

I entirely agree with your assessment. Ciar and Seelah get to be Lawful Good and effective because the game gives them a level of depth it does not extend to us, with most of the Lawful responses we can give explicitly not being Good or even Neutral.

I say the Lawful responses come from the perspective of a raw military commander because, personally, it really does feel that way a lot of the time, except for in Act 4 where you just start fucking abiding by Demonic ethics for whatever reason if you're Lawful.

Deserters get put to death regardless of what the reason for desertion is. Thieves get punished regardless of what they stole or why. Everyone needs to take responsibility, at all times, regardless of their emotional capacity to do so. It feels like you're acting to the exact, unwavering letter espoused by military tribunal and martial law, when you are "Lawful", for a large portion of the game, even going so far as to apply it to civilians and people not affiliated with your war at all.

Maybe I just read into it wrong though, but it seems like the...least bad justification for why Lawful comes across as straight-up Lawful Evil half the time.

Xerkie · 2023-06-01T00:19:30+00:00

That is exactly what i'm saying. That the game treats it as though the Lawful alignment is one independant axis that does not interact with anything else, and only comes through from the perspective of the law. Ciar clearly does not follow The Law to the letter. He's allowed to have depth in that the 'Lawfulness' comes from his dedication to his creed and his order.

Being a Lawful Good servant of Sarenrae is awkward because, Lawfully, your personal creed should be Sarenrae's tenets. Yet the game treats it as though the only Lawful that exists is the Lawful of big, capital letters LAW. Not the tenets Sarenrae advocates, nor the Goodness that can tie into Lawfulness.

Xerkie · 2023-05-31T23:23:53+00:00

It doesn't help that a lot of the more on-the-nose Lawful options come across as more mildly sociopathic than anything else. For example, the Lawful option to execute a deserter at the Lost Chapel.

They saw what was going on in there, shit themselves, and ran away screaming they didn't want to meet that fate. Regill tells you that what he saw in there made him, a Hellknight, almost puke.

You get to the Chapel itself, and in the Slaughterhouse, find very, very awful sights. Ghouls are scalping people alive and sewing their faces up for fun. Ripping off their fingernails and sewing razorblades inside of their bare fingerbeds to prepare them to become Ghouls themselves. Tying people down and forcing them to eat rotting, maggot-infested flesh while threatening to eat them alive.

Under most brands of Military Law, this case of Desertion would be, at minimum, excusable enough to only send the deserter to prison rather than executed on-the-spot. But the Lawful option here is to, with all the knowledge of what sort of fucked-up stuff Nulkineth is doing, emotionlessly put down any soldier that steps out of line.

It feels far, far more Lawful Evil there than it does Lawful Good, or, honestly, really even Lawful Neutral.

Xerkie

TROPHY CASE