True Names
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I know that all the wizards got together and linked their powers to drive the demons out, but couldn’t demons do the same thing to humans on a large scale as well. They naturally generate a fear spell so forcing large numbers to flee in terror wouldn’t be to hard. I know in most fantasy settings humans are immune to many things of a magical nature, but shouldn’t they be more vulnerable due to their lack fo any natural resistance. If a human can do something to a demon, then it makes sense that demons would have devised a more cruel way to utilize it on a human.
Well, there are demons in Astlan even when they are there only part of the time. Also some demons like Exador actually do live there and make a living there. It would not be far off to assume that there are other demons like Exador who live there.
What an interesting discussion, I guess i will add in my two cents.
I find the theory of Tom changing his name perplexing, but here’s my theory.
wait… but first i must ask the author guy… Is Tom’s soul originally from Earth? or from another dimension like Astlan?Tizzy mentioned that when a person is born, he/she is named by the parents but the priests know their true name( identification tag unique to them)
I wager that the person’s soul carries that identification. What are bodies but vessels for the soul?But concerning Tom’s true name, Castleguard mentioned something about Tom having a true name that he changed or the little part of his theory that concerned people telling their common name as their real name when compelled because they don’t know their true names.
I believe that people have a unique identification that they can’t just change, I wonder…
Is TomedywardPerkinje even Tom’s full True name? or is it incomplete…
or
Is TomedywardPerkinje even Tom’s original name? or is it a hijacked name?
my theory rests on those questions, people have unique names, but can they discard it?
ahhh hell i gotta stop trying to understand other dimensions and crazy people like tizzy, my head hurts now.
But my personal favorite theory is my own(of course) that Tom was originally some Anilord/archfiend guy that was about to die, but used Temporamastery to displace his true name and soul to the planet earth. Therefore he existed on Astlan and on earth at the same time.[quote=Tizzy;739]
I suppose in theory, you could have Never Been Bound Demon who has been incarnated, just not familiar with that happeing.
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Pretty shure this will happen, as soon as Wizards know the Origin of unbound Demons and try to become Demon Princes themselves…Well to get the affect you want, demons really don’t have to do anything more than march together.
Nothing like a Demon Horde, or a Demon Army to send people screaming.
However, remember, brute force only works in certain controlled circumstances….if there are “good clerics” around a demon horde then an avatar host is likely to show up and things can get nasty.
One supposes this would be true on the true names–but I’m not sure I’d want to try.
Changing a true name would change its fundamental nature so it would have to be a pretty weird/wrenching/horrible event.
I supposed it could happen though.
I am not so sure on god’s seeing the agents of other gods as demons…
Clearly, if they two gods are in the same pantheon, and are enemies or diametrically opposed, then would presume, and probably assume, that said spells worked against the others.
In particular, if one god was good, the other evil.
But this is going to be a case by case basis, and how it plays out inter-pantheon is really almost too complex to say….
I would say, one should try it and find out, but inter-pantheon warfare is generally considered a VERY bad thing. Generally much worse than intra-pantheon fighting (which is quite normal).
Yes, he was under a compulsion to reveal his name.
if he’d have managed to resist, they’d have used a stronger spell…thus convincing them that he was even higher powered.
The true name basically allows the caster to “pin down” the exact being he/she is interested in. They then have to “glue a link to them”
You can form links to something without a true name, but the anchor is no where near as good.
So for example if put a “remote eyes” spell on someone (like a familiar) it might work at least for a while, but to get a permanent bond that wouldn’t break easily I’d need to know the true name…at that point the link spell (for a wizard) could take hold.
Tom was good example of this, he didn’t know the names of the priests he invaded, but through sheer force he was able to overwhelm them, but they could have eventually fought it off, pushed him out, particular if he had help. But if he had know the true names of those priests, it would have taken a full blown exorcism to get him out of their bodies.
It’s effectively one way, because the person who’s name is known doesn’t know the true name of the person who knows theirs (presumably) so they have a harder time “locking on” to that person.
That being said…specifically it’s well known that just because you know the true name of a demon, doesn’t mean you can control it, any normal “sane” wizard who knows the true name of say an Archdemon would think twice about using it’s true name to compel it. Because the Archdemon is likely so much more powerful than the wizard, that it could do a two way on it. Follow the link back and use shear force to attach to someone who’s true name they don’t know, and in however short of a time that is…be very very very nasty.
This is why you start with the true name and then use mutliple wheel barrels full of the biggest spells you’ve got to back yourself up and contain/control the demon.
The true name is really just a key to making stuff “stick” or “finding someone”
Think of it as being like an encryption certificate. In terms of an SSL certificate, the true name guarantees you’ve got the right person on the other end of the spell, and like a PKE certificate, it can let you decode the person and get “inside”
If any demons have, they aren’t telling people.
As a rule, demons don’t even trust their own spawn very much.
But I suppose they might eventually figure out some ways of doing it.
How one create God Pools is a very closely guarded secret that only the gods know.
My suspicion is that if a demon were to figure out how to create a god pool, and have a group to share with….that demon and its friends would all sort of die the true death and people would start hearing about some new religion that was recruiting. I.e. The names have been changed to protect the formerly damned.
I wish…
If a demon were powerful enough, or became powerful enough they might resist. Then the wizard could try a more powerful spell.
A demon can always try to resist, whether they succeed in resisting or simply piss the wizard off and cause him/her to torture you is another question.
Definitely not omnipotent!
They wish!
Well…all I can say about those mythologies is this…at one time those stories were part of what people called religion. The stories of Zeus, Heracles, Aphrodite, etc. That was what human beings in ancient Rome and Greece, in all their so-human folly, believed to be ‘gospel’ those stories were their Bible. it was mainly oral, but eventually written down.
If you can question how those people could believe in that non-sense, they you must also see why someone from outside of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim world might say the same about the stories in the books of those religions.
So it’s interesting that you ask if they are omnipotent, the ancient gods were never omnipotent, the JCM G-d is omnipotent, and if you ask me, an omnipotent, omniscient deity brings up even more questions than those posed by the ancient gods…
But then, I am a demon, it is my job to spread heresy in all forms.
But, of course, it’s always better to read non-fiction, like DoA than to read fiction like these other books.
o:)Now try to make a Japanese person to pronounce and spell it.
The spelling and pronounciation error might be becuase of difference in languages. Astlanian language is not clearly defined in the book but maybe they don’t have a sound or a letter that correspond to the English language. Think of the various languages and writing just here. In speach for example there might be a limitation of sound. Rotokas for example only has 11 phonemes (English has about 40). Writing is even more diverse. Try reading a German text. What are those weid letters?
Though as I can see. Astlanian language has similar phoneme set as English but maybe lack the ‘TH’ phoneme that might make them replace it with ‘T’ when they speak and write it. Astlanian also seems to be writing in alphabetic like English but maybe they don’t spell words with -TH- or use the letter(s) that correspond to the phoneme (like θ) in their writing which might also cause them to misspell Thomas’ name. It might even be not possible to spell his name right if Astlanians use Semanto-phonetic (like Chinese and Ancient Egyptian) or Sylabic (like Hiragana/Katakana Japanese and Thai). :-k
Oh dear god…
Understand I don’t ever use that term lightly….
It’s for this very reason we don’t tell them the truth!
I am sure someone like Tom with all his silly ideals of demon rights might want to tell the truth to the wizards, but we demons have purposefully stayed silent for just sort of reason. Plus, they really wouldn’t believe us, and any that did, would probably figure out exactly how to do this and then become the overlord demon of the demon that told him/her.
ok lets say demons can split themselves in half (or someone/thing can split them).
you have a demon with x units of mana/animus and you split them equally (it doesnt matter how often).
memories, however, are nothing but information which you can share with any number of “shells” without any loss of information (unless you have some kind of data corruption).
basically you end up with at least two identical demons (identical at least for the moment of their creation) and since you cant distinguish the copies from the original, they should have the same true name right?so what happens if you try to bind/summon one of them?
it should at least mess up the spell since the binding is supposed to be put on one specific demon and not several.
perhaps you can compare the binding and summoning process to databases like sql ?
the true name would be something like a unique identifier and you crash the system by returning more that one result 8-[probably overthinking it though 🙂
have a nice weekendCan true names change?
For instance in some stories peoples names grow or change as they make accomplishments or at certain milestones in life. Like having a child by the same name makes you a Sr. the child a Jr.
Also what if you don’t know your true name, does it still bind you? For instance maybe your parents never told you or maybe you got amnesia or simply forgot because you are so old even you don’t remember it.
What about title – becoming a lord, sir, doctor, etc? What effect does that have?
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