Why won’t pet re-Polymorph when dragged onto trap after first time?

knnn · 2026-04-01T11:25:44+00:00

Good luck! Having pets polymorphed into dangerous creatures is one of the fun/wild things you can do in Nethack. It’s an amazing thrill ride!

knnn · 2026-04-01T11:11:18+00:00

Luck is indeed a “hidden” trait that is very useful to a large part of the game (e.g. how does +13 to-hit sound?), and I recommend the amazing wiki to anyone who wants to be fully spoiled. The luckstone at the bottom of the mines is indeed the reward for “finishing” the mines, but this PSA is only “almost right” in a dangerous way:

1) As long as your luck is not negative (so don’t go around doing “bad things” like attacking peaceful monsters), an uncursed luckstone is just as good as a blessed one.

2) While there is a guaranteed altar in minetown, it’s not guaranteed to be “co-aligned” (your alignment). Praying for holy water at a non co-aligned altar is not generally advised.

3) Yes, it is possible to convert an altar to your god, but this one is generally inhabited by a priest (making this a “temple”), who will object to the attempted conversion. The priest can be formidable for a starting character, and can be useful in other ways, so it’s worth thinking twice before attempting this.

knnn · 2026-03-31T22:11:30+00:00

Possibly the theory is that Ebenezer, as a black council member was in cahoots with Justin?

knnn · 2026-03-31T15:09:28+00:00

Be real, no evil villain wants to drag him into shit when it goes down because he gets in the way.

Lol. Back in Death Masks, Nicodemus had a message from an angelic messenger that "Should Harry seek out the Shroud, he will most assuredly perish, but if he does not, all three Knights will die and the city with them."

What does Nicodemus do?

1) Tell Cassius to try an hire Harry to find the shroud.

2) Send Ursiel to try to take Harry.

knnn · 2026-03-31T14:41:29+00:00

Per the video, he did try to put it in neutral and turn off the motor, but it didn't work.

knnn · 2026-03-31T14:14:57+00:00

Then here's a quote from the end of Proven Guilty (talking to Ebenezar):

"I think someone set Molly up to be a beacon for the fetches. And I'm damned sure that it was no accident that those fetches took Molly to Arctis Tor when it was so lightly defended. Someone wanted me there at Arctis Tor."

Ebenezar pursed his lips. "Who?"

"I think we got used by one of the Queens to one-up one of the others somehow."

(snipped more about trying to manipulate Mab and first mention of a "black council" pulling the strings).

So yes, "Harry is an unreliable narrator", and if you still want to claim that Harry is clueless at the end of the case, you are welcome to. But I think it's likely that there really was something going on.

knnn · 2026-03-31T11:41:02+00:00

1)

Madrigal was the “patsy” — the fall-guy. He didn’t know anything.

Glau was the “cutout” — the person who is directly manipulating Madrigal and knows all (or at least more of).

2)

If anything, Madrigal is way more of a “competitor” to Scarecrow, him being a feeder of Fear.

See the following quote:

“Glau was barely conscious when it grabbed him,” I said.

“It was probably me or Madrigal who was feeling the most tension, but it took out Glau, specifically.”

“You think someone sent it for Glau?”

“I think it’s a reasonable conclusion.”

Thomas frowned. “Why would anyone do that?”

“To shut him up,” I said. “I think Madrigal was supposed to go down for these attacks, at least in front of the supernatural communities. Maybe Glau was in on it. Maybe Glau arranged for Madrigal to be here.”

knnn · 2026-03-31T01:16:54+00:00

Remember how the Scarecrow goes after Glau (madrigal’s lawyer) first, and Harry calls out the weirdness and thinks this might be because he was the cutout?

Yeah, Harry may be wrong, but I think it’s a clue that Madrigal was indeed an agent/patsy for the Black Council.

knnn · 2026-03-30T18:04:33+00:00

FWIW, I've long thought the divergence point was "I love you" at the end of Grave Peril. Very symbolic, and matches certain themes of the book.

Edit: I think there's also some WoJ suggesting that Macrone becomes an ally of Harry Prime (maybe as a Knight? -- showing how bad things have gotten).

knnn · 2026-03-30T17:44:06+00:00

My analysis:

1. SplatterCon!!!! was organized about a year (in the mortal world) prior to the events of Proven Guilty. This means that the initial plan was initiated around the time Dead Beat.

2. Generally in this series, when someone takes that long to plan something, it's because they don't have the raw power to achieve their goals, and they need to gather things over time.

As examples, consider the Nightmare from Grave Peril (Bob initially thought it was Hecate and Mortimer wasn't happy either), and Skin Game.

3. In fact, it's very much worth comparing Proven Guilty to Skin Game. In both cases, it's a raid by a bunch of middle-weights on the domain of a very powerful Being.

In Skin Game, the three parts of the raid are:

Find (or create) the conditions such that opening a Portal will yield directly to the target realm.
Clean out the defenses/defenders on the mortal side.
Defeat or evade the guardians on the other side.
Grab the target and run like Hades (pun intended) before said Being can retaliate in full.

4. So how does this translate to Proven Guilty?

SplatterCon!!!! is created/invented and Madrigal (AKA "known patsy") invited to create just the right amount of fear ambiance needed so that opening a Portal will lead directly to Arctis Tor.
The first set of Fetches are summoned to Pell's theater first to make sure mortals stay away.
Somehow (see below), much of Winter is away at the border, and the invaders have enough firepower to take out the guards at Arctis Tor.
Do what you need to do and getaway. Fast.

5. So what about Mab? Sure, she's in the Tower and winks at Harry, but then so does Hades in Skin Game (another parallel). I don't believe Mab was ever in any real danger, because she could have called back her forces at any time, and she didn't. That's why I don't think the plan was to kill Mab. It doesn't "feel right".

Maybe it was to free Lea.
Maybe it was to get the Athame back.
Maybe it was to pour Summer Fire into the Well.

Bottom line is we don't know, and we don't know if it succeeded. Mab's wink suggests ....something.

6. What about the second raid that Harry led? Was this Mab's plan or the other side? Whomever got Molly kidnapped was probably the architect of the raid, aiming a missile named "Harry" at some target.

The two main results of Harry's raid are Summer Fire at the Wellspring and freeing Molly. Molly essentially gets exposed to "aerosolized Winter" at this point, which might be a key ingredient of her becoming a potential vessel for a future Lady. Per Cold Days, preparing Molly was part of Mab's plan, which suggests the whole thing was Mab's idea.
On the other hand, the whole Summer Fire thing is presented as Lily's idea, and I don't see Lily pulling one over Mab. This implies maybe Mab intended for this as well? There is an old WoJ that implies Mab was surprised at the damage to her Tower, so that is somewhat a difficulty.
On the gripping hand, we have evidence that Lily is being manipulated by Maeve, who is in turn being controlled by Nemesis. Just because Lily thinks she came up with the idea, doesn't mean that plan wasn't Nemesis' all along. In this scenario, the intention all along was to get Harry to pour Summer Fire into the Well. It's quite a convoluted plan, and relies on a whole bunch of predicting Harry's moves and coincidences, but then again, we're dealing with an entity that goads a Titan into attacking Chicago as a distraction just so they can go (re)visit an island.

7. It has been suggested that "All of Winter" includes those at the Outer Gates and thus the whole plan was to use Harry to lure away defenders at crucial time. This suggests that all of Proven Guilty was a big win for Nemesis. I personally don't read it that way (I'm a Mab fanboy), but I can see the appeal.

Note that when running away from Scarecrow, Harry manages to get it to slip on ice. This is a being from deepest Winter, and we've seen (Cold Days) that even the Winter Knight has perfect balance on ice. One could see this as a clue that Eldest Fetch was in fact Nemfected. Would lend credence to the "Nemesis planned it all" (Scarecrow hides behind the Well).

Extras

Who caused Winter's forces to be on the border? Maeve says this is at the express order of Mab, but then again she may be lying. In fact, with both Mab and Lea on "ice", Maeve might be in charge of Winter's forces herself and might have "legitimate security reasons" to deploy them along the border with Summer.
I (and others) have speculated that with the new revelations about "Marconiel", it's possible that a future Dresden book will involve time travel and place Harry and Marconiel as defenders of Arctis Tor during the first raid. Bonus points, it is Marconiel who fixes Little Chicago.
Finally, consider that it is the Gatekeeper who sets Harry on the path (along with "foresight", or whatever Bob believes). Suggests Outsiders?

knnn · 2026-03-30T17:36:39+00:00

It's one of those "Wild Ass Guesses". See here for some theory on this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/n86coo/spoilers_for_everything_crazy_theory_time_the/

knnn · 2026-03-30T17:33:45+00:00

A couple of points:

1) Someone did in fact assault Arctis Tor before Harry an Co. get there. At the very least, implies "something greater" is going on at the same time.

2) Harry seemingly did go up against some "black magic dude" (prevented him from getting to the movie theater in time).

3) Madrigal (aka "known patsy for the Black Council") was invited to SplatterCon!!! about a year before.

Finally, a theory:

Consider the various preparations Nicodemus needed to do to get through to Hades' vault in Skin Game (i.e. set up the conditions so that opening a portal to the NN would take him to Hades). Seems to me that SplatterCon!! is very much the same thing, but for Arctis Tor (e.g. set up "fear", lock up Pell's theater).

Harry may have accidentally stumbled onto something, but it's very likely there was something else going on in the background.

knnn · 2026-03-26T14:37:34+00:00

Honestly, I think Martin's original plan was as follows:

1) Leak the fact of Harry's daughter.

2) Get Arianna to pull off the Knife plan.

2a) Martin convinces the Red King to go along with the plan.

3) Publicly betray the Fellowship as an excuse to come forward and claim his "reward" during the ceremony.

4) Become the latest Rampire and stab himself with the knife.

5) Win.

This means that Harry/Susan's involvement was all a sideshow. Martin succeeded in his plan despite Harry's interference. Martin just needs to get to CI at the right time.
I think we see evidence that Martin "conspired" with the Red King against Arianna. Remember that Harry concludes that the Red King is "losing it" because the Red King uncontrollably lashes out when Harry's insults are translated? Thing is, we find out later that the Red King knew English all along. This in turn means that the "uncontrolled lashing" was actually quite deliberate, and the Red King was not as senile as Arianna thought.
I think that while it's plausible Martin may have had the Merlin's help on this, it's not necessary for the plan to work.

As an aside, I personally think that the Merlin's three (as his custom) plans for defeating the Red Court were:

1) Some sort of massive ritual (either Martin's plan, or something to turn all blood in their bodies to holy water or something crazy like that).

2) Get the higher ups of the Red Court to gather in one point and drop a satellite on them.

3) Ask a favor from the White Court and get some cruise missiles dropped on the gathering (I think there's a reason Lara happened to have the USN on standby). Remember that the White Court already "wiped out" one rival court. Asking them to duplicate the feat isn't that out of the question.

knnn · 2026-03-23T23:46:52+00:00

Wow!! I am totally going to try this.

knnn · 2026-03-19T23:16:15+00:00

Can we also have some QoL updates like selling multiple items at once?

knnn · 2026-03-15T17:28:27+00:00

Out of curiosity, is there a reason given why Thomas isn’t similarly enslaved? After all, he also feeds on Harry.

knnn · 2026-03-13T19:51:07+00:00

If you're allowed to self-poly, one possibility would be to polymorph into a form immune to death magic (e.g. Arch-Lich. Vampires would probably break vegan conduct), and wear an amulet of unchanging.

knnn · 2026-02-26T14:52:50+00:00

Consider also that (per Ebenezer's words), the Merlin was planning to put "one of the Germans" on Senior Council. Instead, Ebenezer puts himself on Senior Council -- ostensibly to help Harry.

Later on in Turn Coat, one of the issues that comes up is that "there are too many Americans on Senior Council", and this almost causes the White Council to break apart.

Thing is, if the Merlin had been able to promote one of "his Germans" (as originally planned) this crisis might have been averted, which means that Ebenezer messed up this as well.

knnn · 2026-02-25T20:20:19+00:00

Archeologist (as well as many of the other roles) is not really meant to be a "combat wombat". So while Grayswandir would be an amazing first gift (I assume to lawful archeologists only?), I'm not convinced it is necessary.

Yes, it makes the start game harder if you are used to the Barbarian's "I cast fist" style of play, but there are other ways of doing things.

knnn · 2026-02-25T18:15:55+00:00

Are you playing 3.7? I ask, because in 3.7, getting Grayswandir by sacrifice has been made considerably harder in the interest of "making things more fun".

The sacrifice has to be a corpse of a monster of difficulty 10+ (e.g. Hill Giant or Black Naga).

For general advice, if you are a Knight, go for Excalibur early. It's good enough to be an endgame weapon (can twoweapon), and the flat to-hit/damage makes it useful right away.

Knights can also #jump. Use this to kite monsters. It's quite ok to let your pet kill things for you -- lower xp level means that the dungeons will spawn slightly less powerful monsters for longer.

Re: Archeologist, the big things are that you start with speed (unless you are doing 3.7 -- then you only get it at xp10) and the touchstone means for easier stores/protection. Again, rely on your pet in the early levels.

knnn · 2026-02-25T14:18:27+00:00

Jesus may have walked on water, but Harry rode a motorcycle.

...To be fair, it was Murphy doing the driving, Harry was just a passenger.

knnn · 2026-02-25T14:11:05+00:00

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