The Order of the Stick

The point of the scene is, indeed, V missing the forest for the trees. Familicide is an act of sheer unbridled cruelty; nothing more, nothing less. It fails in its stated function because it assumes that only direct blood relations would ever mourn for someone. Like, the logic is that if Haley were murdered, Elan would shrug his shoulders and move on with his life, never sparing her another second. She's not his sister so why should he care?

The thing about evil is that it has no utilitarian value. Evil is not cruel but efficient. It's cruel for the sake of being cruel. V cast a cruel, evil, malicious spell to murder countless living creatures based on a janky logic chain that doesn't hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny because they were pissed off about being made to feel helpless. There's little more to Familicide than that.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 2nd 2021 at 6:59:03 AM

A few did, most didn’t. When Rich said “might have,” the statement makes it sound like he was being coy about it.

So, the attack on the village with the intent of stopping the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle from carrying out his Plan (which the paladins don’t know the particulars of, but do know their Twelve Gods are opposed to) was not in and of itself an action that broke the paladins’ code. Individual actions like slaughtering children were, but not all the paladins were held responsible for them.

Even assuming only blood relatives care, the fact that it stops at the second step still leaves people to be confused and angry as to why someone died with no explanation.

Well it also does match what an evil overlord would believe a good spell to rule by fear would be. A death star spell that would make anyone hesitate to to fight the one who can cast it because doing so could potentially mean the death of everyone related to you.

It's not a combat spell, mind you. It deals no damage to the victim, only kills their relatives. I would assume Haera used that spell like V did, raising her victims after defeating them in battle to torture them with the knowledge that they had doomed all most all their bloodline by opposing her.

"Forests & Trees", as some people have pointed out. You'd have to keep killing and not stop to run out of people who want vengeance.

The possible justification is that it's such a left field curve ball of a spell that the relatives three steps removed might have a hard time tracking the death of their loved one to you.

I wonder if it's possible for a caster of Familicide to wind up one of the victims themselves with a poor choice in target, or if there's a safeguard for that.

They'd be safe if they killed all their own living relatives first, I believe.

Oh, yeah. I was more imagining accidentally getting themselves as a secondary target through an adjacent blood relationship they were unaware of. Though, killing your every blood relative first would protect you from that as well I suppose.

I recall it being a popular theory that "accidental death by Familicide" is exactly how Harrita (or whatever her name was) died.

Edited by LSBK on May 3rd 2021 at 3:01:48 AM

I could picture her not knowing she was actually adopted or something before casting it.

Edited by M84 on May 4th 2021 at 3:56:13 AM

As the spell was a one-time plot device, I don't think it was thought of, but I think it's perfectly possible to kill yourself with it, the same way you can kill yourself with an area effect spell such as Fireball. Except, of course, Familicide being much more powerful, you need to be more careful not to wipe yourself out.

Edit: this reminds me of Nethack, which has the Scroll of Genocide that can wipe out a certain type of monsters, and it is perfectly possible to genocide yourself.

Edited by petersohn on May 3rd 2021 at 10:02:28 AM

For some reason I've just been assuming it was a spell she made and never actually got around to using.

Given how she smug she looked I suspect she did use it. And not once. You don't dump XP into Epic Spell crafting without cause and intent.

The depth of search for targets may also be just a function of power limits. Epic spells are still not omnipotence, it's still balance by how much effort you want to put it into it. So limiting to two degrees could've been a practical consideration of "Good enough". Being able to only track by blood relations also could've been just the limit of magical working.

In addition to it likely being crafted out of specific annoyance with getting Inigo Montoya'd as opposed to more generic proclamations against doomsday villainy.

Edited by Adannor on May 3rd 2021 at 3:37:10 PM

"Hello, you killed my loved ones, I have come for revenge."

"Son, I killed a lot of people's loved ones."

"I know, they have come for revenge too."

"oh shit"

Who is Harrita?...

Haertha*, one of souls spliced into Vaarsuvius, the one that created the Familicide epic spell.

"I didn't ask who their uncle was, DM; I said I cast Familicide!"

Any actual D&D campaign in which the DM allowed a player to learn and cast familicide is not one that I would find enjoyable to be a part of, I suspect. It's the sort of plot device that you base an entire adventure around stopping the villain from doing, or getting revenge for them doing it.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2021 at 9:56:12 AM

Yeah it's one of those spells that's mainly there for an antagonist to use.

Players who complain that they should be able to do anything the NP Cs themselves do are players I don't want to play with.

I'm a big fan of the idea that PCs and NPCs should follow the same rules, personally; it makes intuitive sense and is simulationistically pleasing. But a Familicide casting would have to be in the kind of evil campaign I'd also have zero interest in.

I wouldn't much want to be in a campaign where a villain casts it, either. That kind of mass collateral death of innocents is really not fun for me.

Ooo, what about a campaign where all the characters have a dead relative and find out that they are all distantly related and that's why they died mysteriously.

From a purely mechanics point of view, sure, I agree. But from a plot point of view, familicide is absolutely something that PCs should never touch. And that's not even getting into morality.

Thankfully, it requires at absolute minimum a level 21 wizard (quite likely far higher) to cast, and the DM could throw in a few extra roadblocks if a PC actually seems genuinely interested. Make it so that you have to be explicitly specialized as a necromancer (which is rare because wizard necromancers are pretty underpowered), give it all sorts of weird material and XP costs, so on and so on. The sort of thing that just pops into existence for an NPC can be an impossible barrier for a PC, even if they can technically get past it.

Like I said earlier, if you try to spec out familicide using the 3.5 Epic spellcasting rules, you end up with something that would take a 100th level wizard to cast or something similarly absurd, and there is no evidence in the comic scene of Haerta taking any hit point damage or losing any XP, mountains of gold disappearing, the spell taking weeks to cast, or any other backlash or restriction. It's insane.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2021 at 9:21:16 AM

I believe someone on the Giant in the Playground forum did once try to stat the spell out.