Knights of Astlan
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With all of the abilities Talarius and other knights have shown, they are ridiculous strong for mortals. The way Exador, Bess, Ramses acted when they saw his armor when he fought with Tom, really showed me just how strong his armor was. I started thinking about Iron Man, since their capabilities are pretty similar, and I think in a surprise fight, where neither had a chance to prepare, Talarius would destroy Tony Stark. So I guess my question is, is the price of outfitting one of these knights similar to the price of building an iron man suit? It has to take years to make all of the enchanments involved with each piece right? If they had any way of mass-producing that gear, they could legitimately conquer the abyss, or at least the courts, in a century.
Speaking of Darkness
Laughter to get some idea of color palette
[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/VdasbLKm4s0[/YOUTUBE]To get a feel for the character..
(ignore picture quality as it’s a bad DVR transfer)[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/a3J91bPrW9A[/YOUTUBE]
What I like about this–very influential to me movie–is that it’s one of the very few places where you see both old school wizardry, and an animage…
Well, given that they smell like Brie when they arrive, I think they are still coming. Although about 2 months ago, there seemed to be a lot of Camembert in the air, that’s probably related to the Brie…
Not sure who is doing the summoning. Don’t think it’s anyone in Astlan. I’d imagine it’s someone of their own mortal race or someone similar.
As you may recall from Tom’s encounter, they aren’t that talkative. Eat you first, ask questions later types.
There has to be a way to substitute for a true name.
At least in my opinion, a master of runic magic, who can at least think of the name, can create a unique rune, with the meaning of that name. Then, they wouldn’t need to shred their vocal cords, or have an entire choir say the name together to get it right. They could build it into the summons.
I’d also have to imagine that there are other ways to do it. Sure, they might not be as powerful, but there could be ways around it too.
A powerful animage or wizard, could force a binding onto someone, (obviously not as strong as a true name binding, but good enough in the short term) and force them to give up their true name ( like Lenamare did with Tom), then, they could just think the name telepathically to complete the true-name binding. I bet an accomplished mind-reaver could do it easily.That brings up another question. If someone’s mind is erased and they start over with a new life and identity, do they keep the old true name or their new one?
A perfect defense against bindings would be to have a trained dragon name your kids, then call them by a nickname for the rest of their lives.
Well, I’m not an expert, but I would expect so.
These Knights Rampant are really rather an odd lot, with a [u][b]LOTS OF TOYS![/b][/u]
But according to some, they are extremely well trained and insanely skilled, so maybe a cross between Batman and Ironman.
Both have lots of toys, but if they were forced to put away their toys? Pretty sure Bruce Wayne could flatten Tony Stark. Of course, it’s hard to believe either of them being willing to “give up” their toys, at least all of them, they’d each sneakily have something up their sleeves.
Yep, really does sound like one of these knights.
According to Kristof, in CoA:ITW, he briefly considered becoming a Knight of Tiernon (younger imperial children often take up careers in Churches, or church militaries) But he was not at all certain that he was up to “Slaying dragons in his short pants before breakfast every morning.” Given this statement, I would therefore assume this must be part of their daily routine.
Seems pretty unsocial to me, at least from a dragon’s point of view. Also sort of sounds like genocide if all of them are doing this every single day…
It should be okay, if the dragons are related to the ones in the abyss, and they have their own ways of getting to Midgard, without a summoning. They should just reform in the abyss in a couple hundred years and then head back into Midgard for some more terrorizing. Its not genocide if they don’t really die.
Actually, sine dragons reform differently than demons, and are almost impossible to kill permanently, I guess its possible that they have some way of reforming directly on Midgard, without heading to the abyss first. I don’t know hoe strongly they are tied to the abyss.
Or I guess they could be the non-demonic versions of the dragons in the abyss, that somehow migrated to the localverseYeah, this dragon business is very confusing.
You might call Abyssal Dragons, D’Dragons, but that technically would not be correct since they are not really mortal dragons that have been demonized.
Rather they are a race of aliens of a rather lizardlike nature, who when first summoned as a demon, take on the appearance of the Abyssal Dragons, which happen to look rather similar to certain species/races of mortal dragons.
I have to admit, that I don’t think I’ve seen a mortal dragon demonized, probably because there aren’t a lot of wizards of any race (other than dragons) who can speak the true names to truly bind them to the Abyss. I sort of assume that mortal dragon wizards are not myopic like Lenamare and friends.
Mind wipes don’t work with true names, many people simply don’t consciously know or remember their true name. So you can sometimes bind them with what they think is their true name, at least until they realize it is not and wake up and smell the dead wizard.
Summoning con-men demons can be tricky.
Or what about a member of the Umbrella Academy? Their true names are very ambiguous “Number 5” ???
The thing to keep in mind, I keep telling myself is that a true name is not necessarily the calling name or christian name or whatever you call it. In large part, it is a reflection of one’s internal self-identity.
People with DID present some definite challenges.
But yes, that is what wizards do with certain spells, they compel the neo-demon to give up their name, remember Lenamare did it with Tom. Tom’s true name was his full name, or at least it was sufficiently close that it allowed him to be bound.
See, there is the trick. Because so many demons come from Earth, where, particularly today, true names aren’t what they used to be and most people think of their true name as their given name and so “allow” themselves to be bound by it. And…well…this leads into many a long treatise that are gathering dust in the Council of Wizardry library.
Now, the interesting question that comes up from your mind wipe question. What about reincarnation? Lots of religions do it, do people keep their true names through reincarnation? This gets very tricky. And I’ll leave that to one’s local reincarnating deity.
That would be a good idea, assuming the dragon didn’t eat your kid. I am sure you could work out a deal, get 3 complex true names for the price of your fourth child being named “Dinner.”
Of course, as we all know, dragons love virgins, sort of like unicorns–weird fetish–but children too young to have sex are not sufficiently pure to qualify, yes they are virgins but they have many other interesting/tasty qualities (see Liltith’s drinking habits). But for dragons, I think they want sexually mature virgins.
So at say sixteen? Dinner is served!
That could be a pretty good gig for a dragon that can learn english or whatever the local language is. He could give all of the village children names, and every couple they would be named after a dish, then he could keep track of them as they mature. The villagers wouldn’t know whats going on, they would just know that if they made it to a certain age without being eaten, they were safe. The dragon would probably protect his crops too. Depending on the size of the village, it might just become a fact of life, like The Lottery.
That’s very close to the traditional sacrificial model as well.
I assume you have seen [url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082288/]DragonSlayer[/url]? (not to be confused with Dawn of the Dragonslayer–which is decent, but completely different and much newer)
Probably the most classic wizard vs dragon movie EVER.
Of course, be sure to bring lots of kleenex, because it’s a real tear jerker of a tragedy. But then you can guess that from the title.
Definitely worth watching, not seeing it free streaming, but it might be. It is a cheap rental though.
However, I would definitely look for the highest resolution quality, a lot of the clips I see on youtube look pretty grainy/making it look cheesy. It was on film obviously and gorgeous in the original. Not “Legend” gorgeous, of course–there has never been a more beautiful fantasy with with a weaker script and cheesy Tom Cruise acting, than Legend–but definitely worth watching for the soundtrack and Tim Curry’s Darkness–my favorite movie demon of all time)
For the time, DragonSlayer’s the special effects were quite good, and with a good quality copy, the FX still hold up relatively well compared to stuff you see on say SyFy.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Sharknado’s but…
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