Wanderer's Chronicle:
page 91:
Old Kurn maintains its illusion of business-as-usual through the cooperation of its citizens and the advanced powers of its sorcerer-king.
See, they go into the defilers brain-pan with a mixture or modified powers such as decerbrate, modify memory, psychic chirugery, and maybe throw in a geas for kicks, and wa-la - this dude will not remember where he put his pants if you do not let him. So there we have it - no death, but the guy will not remember anything someone does not want him too.
And also, I would think that Oronis would be highly aware of the lure of defiling, and therefore, there may be "secret police" within any places where the learning of arcane magic takes place, as well as Epic types of wards and alarms not only within the city, but also in the surrounding areas, that detect defiling.
Then keep the memories stored somewhere that is not in the deflier, like in a garden or something, and send them on their way.
but...
if you are gunna go to that trouble, why not just mindwipe them and place some sort of compulsion in them not to learn magic? Oronis might not do it, but others in Kurn might.
It is called a lobotomy!
We don't use the term lobotomy, we prefer "harmonization" :P
We don't use the term lobotomy, we prefer "harmonization" :P
The old, "mindwipes will continue until morale improves"?;) Sort of the philosophy of the Mind Lords...
Defilers have a place and exist in Old Kurn, but their are fines and penalties for excessive defiling damage. I would make it that not everyone in Kurn knows about New Kurn for fact. (although there are rumors) Anyone with contacts to New Kurn are EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN to let any defilers in on the secret. Any breaches of the secret are dealt with by the spymaster organizations of New Kurn. (assassination, mindwiping) Because a single leak could ruin everyone. A small evil to preserve a greater good. And if it's out of control, Oronis himself will step in for a mind wipe.
But the templars that are in Old Kurn do have agents that are defilers. On the order of bad, defiling would be something like speeding or running a red light. Pay your fine and get on with your life but do it too many times and you are going to get suspended.
If someone in New Kurn reveals himself to be a defiler, I would say that Oronis would give them once chance to repent and would help him on the path to recovery, if the defiler falters in anyway, he would be personally killed by Oronis, and he would tell everyone in New Kurn that they were banished. A small evil to preserve a greater good.
defilers are considered enemies of everything Oronis stands for. The avangion is reluctant to allow his followers to make defiling magic punishable by death, as he himself was once a defiler of the highest order. However, he knows that in most cases defilers can’t make the mental and spiritual changes necessary to reject that path, so he has agreed that known defilers must be banished from the society.
If someone in New Kurn reveals himself to be a defiler, I would say that Oronis would give them once chance to repent and would help him on the path to recovery, if the defiler falters in anyway, he would be personally killed by Oronis, and he would tell everyone in New Kurn that they were banished. A small evil to preserve a greater good.
Reluctant to allow his followers to kill them so he kills them himself?
I'm with Bruno on this: we can't obliterate distinctions between Oronis and the Mind Lords.
Reluctant to allow his followers to kill them so he kills them himself?
I'm with Bruno on this: we can't obliterate distinctions between Oronis and the Mind Lords.
Well mindwipes can be recovered with psychic surgery (at least in 2e rules), geas spells can be dispelled. Anyone who lives in New Kurn and has been ejected is a serious risk to the security of New Kurn.
What other option does Oronis has but to quietly dispose of them?
Well mindwipes can be recovered with psychic surgery (at least in 2e rules), geas spells can be dispelled. Anyone who lives in New Kurn and has been ejected is a serious risk to the security of New Kurn.
What other option does Oronis has but to quietly dispose of them?
Maybe the people who get to go to New Kurn have to pass rigorous tests in the first place. And maybe part of the deal is that if they leave New Kurn, they voluntarily have their knowledge and memories of the place wiped. New Kurn is a big secret. So secret that Prodigy, Oronis's wife, left him and defected to the Order when she found out that he had not told her about it. It's such a big secret that Oronis didn't tell his wife. There is no way that a defiler will just "slip through the cracks."
Maybe the people who get to go to New Kurn have to pass rigorous tests in the first place. And maybe part of the deal is that if they leave New Kurn, they voluntarily have their knowledge and memories of the place wiped.
How would they be wiped where they could not be recovered? I'm not saying that Oronis is as paranoid as the Drakster, but how could Oronis guarantee himself that someone could not drag it out?
-J
Maybe the people who get to go to New Kurn have to pass rigorous tests in the first place. And maybe part of the deal is that if they leave New Kurn, they voluntarily have their knowledge and memories of the place wiped. New Kurn is a big secret. So secret that Prodigy, Oronis's wife, left him and defected to the Order when she found out that he had not told her about it. It's such a big secret that Oronis didn't tell his wife.
Unless she just doesn't remember him telling her. Or taking her there.
I'm not saying that Oronis is as paranoid as the Drakster, but how could Oronis guarantee himself that someone could not drag it out?
-J
Guarantee, no, but then neither can Daskinor guarantee his own secrets.
How would they be wiped where they could not be recovered?
If someone voluntarily agreed to give up up a memory and to replace it with something else, seems to me that we'd be working with a different set of rules. Perhaps some sort of memory modification that -- while it leaves a trace for an expert to see where it's been modified -- leaves no trace of what's been removed. Maybe you can leave your memory somewhere else, where you can come back to it.
There's a park called Memory's Shrine, just below the Elven Spire. Mourners in Kurn there go to remember, and to forget. Sometimes people go to visit the old cemeteries a few miles North of kurn, near Fort Protector. All they remember about the trip later is that they spent a few weeks among the graves, mourning those that they've lost. On return they immediately go to memory's shrine, before returning to their homes and work.
When that defilier comes back looking for something s/he lost and casts the big evil spell using that large tree as a source s/he'll loose all of those memories
I really like the idea of putting their memories in something else ... the garden is a great idea.
When that defilier comes back looking for something s/he lost and casts the big evil spell using that large tree as a source s/he'll loose all of those memories
The stream running through the area is alive, sentient. I think the memories run downstream. You can probably imagine what sort of place houses the memories. There are two fairly recent movies and an even more recent TV show to draw on for inspiration, associating memory or images of events with water, so I don't think I need to flesh it out.
Well mindwipes can be recovered with psychic surgery (at least in 2e rules), geas spells can be dispelled. Anyone who lives in New Kurn and has been ejected is a serious risk to the security of New Kurn.
What other option does Oronis has but to quietly dispose of them?
Dead people can be talked to be necromancers too. But, you need a reason to suspect in the 1st place.
Dead people can be talked to be necromancers too.
Not if the body's not to be found and the soul's been bound up.
And if the defiler was from New Kurn, and died there ...But, you need a reason to suspect in the 1st place.
Exactly
I mean EVERYTHING.
Defiling is a violent, evil act. I think that Oronis would deal with it in the same way if a New Kurnian went on a sudden homicidal killing spree, and remove their ability to harm others. He absolutely cannot endanger the secret of New Kurn. Now no secret is 100% secure, but he cannot allow someone with even a tiny, tiny inkling of thoughts of revenge be walking around the Tablelands. Athas is a hard place and hard decisions have to be made. If you Defile in New Kurn, it is like assaulting Oronis himself... and I honestly think that Oronis would kill the defiler. (Without pain... like a sweet sleep.)
Now if the books say he banishes them, then he banishes them. Even with mind wipes, that seems foolish to me.