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**Acacea** · 06-04-08, 11:30 AM

It does make a kind of sense that we have seen very few NPCs do it, though the whole dragons thing sounds a bit contrived to me, like they just got bound because they weren't tough enough to stand up to PC hunters... "they're bound, it comes back!" You know? I mean, there's nothing that proscribes anyone from making it so, it just seems...weird. Almost like it makes them too ordinary, does that make sense, or sound strange? That binding seems so ordinary? It just seems like they would have other ways, or something weird preventing them from being bound (lengthy discussion of the souls of dragons, fey, etc here), or that they just wouldn't stoop to using the same means or whittling away... As stated at least, I'd kind of rather they were just super powered to make it hard to kill, and had an escape hatch the big named ones could use to get away from groups, rather than binding...it just sounds weird, hehe. Except Fisterion, him I could see... though... would the flaming destruction of even Fisterion make Pyrtechon happy?

Anyway, I was going to say that it makes sense that few NPCs make use of it - remember they were inert until the war began and Ozlo started calling the 'heroes.' So if you held to the theory that what determined a Summoning was if the person could be bound or not, most of your random NPC population could not be bound - Ozlo was Calling all those that could, with maybe some missed here and there, but for the most part you end up with the big "PC" camp which is the Bound, and everybody else, who are not.

So Ozlo dies, there's nobody to point a claw at you saying "You can bind!" and people start finding their way over to try. I think there must be some kind of resonance or sign, despite the stated "gambling" because how many of the current generation of PCs would really have risked eternal death on the hopes they could bind, with no sign whatsoever? A priest of Aeridin for example, should be fairly certain and need to feel it was somehow okay from the god... not ala Moses and the ten commandments, but something you know? Not just "Hey! I'm going to risk death and my god's disfavor by trying to extend my life unnaturally with no idea if it will actually work!" So maybe there is just some kind of mental click, heh.

Anyway, so it hasn't been THAT long since Ozlo was separating out all those that could bind. It needs some time to catch on with villains, maybe. :P

I did see one NPC villain perm on a quest series, though. She'd been one for a very long time, rarely directly confronted but rumored to have died and lived at least a few times. Of course, I'm not sure she doesn't belong more in the undead theme...she wasn't undead, but she'd jacked herself up so much she wasn't really a normal organism, either. But I digress! I was just thinking about why it is probably quite appropriate to not have too many bound NPCs right now... some, maybe - maybe even now they are hunting kobolds - but not long established ones who have no reason to take the risk.

06-04-08, 11:30 AM	#12
Acacea World Leader Characters Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 2,723 Thanks: 206 Thanked 789 Times in 386 Posts	Re: NPCs and Bindstones It does make a kind of sense that we have seen very few NPCs do it, though the whole dragons thing sounds a bit contrived to me, like they just got bound because they weren't tough enough to stand up to PC hunters... "they're bound, it comes back!" You know? I mean, there's nothing that proscribes anyone from making it so, it just seems...weird. Almost like it makes them too ordinary, does that make sense, or sound strange? That binding seems so ordinary? It just seems like they would have other ways, or something weird preventing them from being bound (lengthy discussion of the souls of dragons, fey, etc here), or that they just wouldn't stoop to using the same means or whittling away... As stated at least, I'd kind of rather they were just super powered to make it hard to kill, and had an escape hatch the big named ones could use to get away from groups, rather than binding...it just sounds weird, hehe. Except Fisterion, him I could see... though... would the flaming destruction of even Fisterion make Pyrtechon happy? Anyway, I was going to say that it makes sense that few NPCs make use of it - remember they were inert until the war began and Ozlo started calling the 'heroes.' So if you held to the theory that what determined a Summoning was if the person could be bound or not, most of your random NPC population could not be bound - Ozlo was Calling all those that could, with maybe some missed here and there, but for the most part you end up with the big "PC" camp which is the Bound, and everybody else, who are not. So Ozlo dies, there's nobody to point a claw at you saying "You can bind!" and people start finding their way over to try. I think there must be some kind of resonance or sign, despite the stated "gambling" because how many of the current generation of PCs would really have risked eternal death on the hopes they could bind, with no sign whatsoever? A priest of Aeridin for example, should be fairly certain and need to feel it was somehow okay from the god... not ala Moses and the ten commandments, but something you know? Not just "Hey! I'm going to risk death and my god's disfavor by trying to extend my life unnaturally with no idea if it will actually work!" So maybe there is just some kind of mental click, heh. Anyway, so it hasn't been THAT long since Ozlo was separating out all those that could bind. It needs some time to catch on with villains, maybe. :P I did see one NPC villain perm on a quest series, though. She'd been one for a very long time, rarely directly confronted but rumored to have died and lived at least a few times. Of course, I'm not sure she doesn't belong more in the undead theme...she wasn't undead, but she'd jacked herself up so much she wasn't really a normal organism, either. But I digress! I was just thinking about why it is probably quite appropriate to not have too many bound NPCs right now... some, maybe - maybe even now they are hunting kobolds - but not long established ones who have no reason to take the risk.