ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:The Chaing-Ku learned this lesson when their skulls became a coveted commodity (and are, frankly, the likely way that the Splugorth stole the secrets of Tattoo Magic in the first place!)
Not likely. WB2 pg99 "...the monsters of Atlantis stay clear of death magic..." Suggesting it isn't a magic school they are involved in terms of actual use. There are more likely ways the Splugorth acquired the knowledge (circle magic, mind bleeders, rogue TA, etc).
We have seen necromancers used by other Splugorth though so it is still a route.
But your other options are there too.
ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:Because there isn't an "average"
Everything is either lesser or greater. By the canon even sub-demons are lesser supernatural beings for example.
They just don't bother to tell us which category most things fall in.
The fact they don't tell us if something is lesser or greater means either:
-a third category
-it is supposed to be obvious
Your contortions of the rules to keep Atlantians as a special snowflake that are above the rules are simply amazing.
There is no third category. If all effects are binary choices, then you can't have three categories.
I simply chalk up the failure to list the category to the fact that the vast majority of authors don't bother to think things through.
When C.J. wrote the South America books he didn't stop to think that his Anti-Monsters and Mega-Crazies could be summoned, so he didn't bother to tell us what category they were. Nor did the authors think to tell us what Sea Titans, or Mega Juicers, or Lyn-Saral, or Guardians, or Athanos, or you know... Atlantian T-men.
You are right though... it is usually pretty obvious...
and the obvious answer is "all things are Lesser Beings unless they are specifically stated to be Greater" since they do seem to go out of their way to tell us when something is a Greater Being, and those tend to be the movers and shakers of the hierarchies...
Which means that going by the way the rules are written it would suggest that Atlantian T-men are Lesser Beings.
Which, frankly, sucks for them.
I opined that they might be Greater Beings so as to avoid the unpleasantness of PCs who are bound and limited by all the petty restrictions that affect Lesser Beings. Because make no mistake about it, Lesser Beings have
a lot of limitations and a PC playing one is going to be rather annoyed at all the things that this retcon does to them. Just a partial list is below.
As Supernaturals:
Their alignment is now detectable (Supernatural Good/Supernatural Evil and by extension the lack of same)
They can be summoned and bound by Shifters
They are affected by the Level Eight spell Expel Demons
Can not be the target of the Level Ten spell Purge Other anymore
Can be tracked as a Supernatural by sensitives
Are now affected by weapons that deal extra damage to Supernatural Beings
As Lesser Beings:
They can be summoned by the Summon Lesser Being Spell.
Evil ones can be held at bay by the
Third Level spell Blood Ward spell (Through the Glass Darkly)
They can not cross a Protection Circle: Simple
They can not even stand to be with in eyeshot of a Protection Circle: Superior
They can not enter a Sanctum unless they save vs magic
(a lot of "good" places are listed as being Sanctums...)
They are now affected by the Level Seven spell Constrain Being
They are still affected by Life Drain
They are still affected by the Level Nine spell Aura of Doom
They can be Banished via the Level Ten spell Banishment
As Greater Beings:
They can not cross a Protection Circle: Superior
Their Skulls can be used by Necromancers
They gain the save bonuses and/or reduced penalties that several spells offer to Greater Beings
Would you like me to keep going?
ShadowLogan wrote:Keep in mind that the Necromancer OCC example you are using specifies "Skull of a power supernatural monster such as". They go on to list examples. Are T-men (or even specific classes) on the level of "gods, godlings, greater demon/being, demon lord". They certainly don't qualify as Gods, and aren't greater demons or demon lords, leaving examples of godlings or greater beings. They don't qualify as godling level either, and given the other examples on the list don't come across as "greater being". This means that what ever the Necromancer gets from the bonding with the T-man, it isn't going to come from this example.
I
am keeping that in mind.
It is going to be up to each GM to decide if they are Lesser Beings or Greater Beings.
Either way is going to have ramifications.
Lesser beings trade Three Quarts of "not having my skull actively hunted by necromancers" for a Gallon of "sucky spell problems".
Greater beings trade in their Spell Problems for "every necromancer who lusts after my skull" And Greater Beings are Greater Beings. Thus if they are a Greater Supernatural Being they get everything that goes along with that... including a Skull that Necromancers can use.
As I said before. This Retcon is a "Damned if you do and Damned if you don't" And a great big heaping barrel of suck for the Atlantians. And that barrel gets moved to the "industrial sized storage tanks numbers 1 through 99" if it only affects Atlantians because then you can safely summon T-Men and know that your going to always get an Atlantian and not a Splugorth Slave.
ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:The magic tattoos will magically reappear, because they have already been applied magically via the proper ritual and bonded to the skull.
That is after all one of the major points of Tattoo Magic. That the tattoos reappear and can not be removed. Trying to pretended that one of the primary, main key features of the magic doesn't exist seems to be, frankly, disingenuous.
This is wrong.
The tattoos will not magically reappear and can be removed. They only time per text they will reappear is from the removal of layers of skin, severing the limb is the only method of removing the magic tattoos (per text). Mages (and T-men in general) are also said to want to replace the lost limb with a Bio-System Cybernetic limb, but in this case the Magic Tattoo(s) does not return (nothing indicates it does).
Of course it doesn't Bio-Systems limbs are still, as per the book, machines. Closer to the body, and using more flesh in them and thus some how more 'magic friendly' due to what ever reason... but they are still machines.
Transfer to a clone body and your tattoos go with you.
Transfer your soul via Soulmancy to a new body forever forsaking the old one... and your tattoos go with you... because they are bonded to you, not your body but to 'you'.
Actually factually removing Tattoos is a major pain in the posterior and tends to require the use of Divine Intervention, Plotonium, or the creative use of some rather obscure OCCs to pull some interesting (if creepy) Shenanigans <tm>
ShadowLogan wrote:Necromancy does not allow the creation of "bonus limbs" from joining with a single limb.
And you are actually incorrect... the skulls can grant limbs.
If the presence of those limbs is a magic power of the skull bearer.
Off the cuff exemplar would be the Necromancer who robs the grave of the Magic Girl Bright Sun Angel a Mega Hero (Mega-Mystic Transformation) with Awe Factor, Achilles Heel: Permanently Transformed. Powers granted: Energy Wings and Karmic Power"
Activating that skull would grant you their magical powers... and you would instantly grow Energy Wings though if you are evil I would advise that you be pretty careful due to potential Karmic backlash Good thing you didn't get the skull of their Nemesis who had Tentacles
This aside is important because of the next bit
ShadowLogan wrote:So if the T-man had M-Tats on his left arm and torso, they won't appear on the T-man if he/she bonds with just the T-man's skull.
And for the duration of the meld...
That Torso Is the Torso That The Tattoos Go With.So
yes, they will appear.
The Tattoos are the magic. The Skull gives the magic. The idea that the skull gives the magic...but not the magic is absurd.
ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:Bad example.
Trying to argue that not having a spell component is the same as not getting a spell is pretty absurd.
Also a bad example from the point of trying to argue that you don't get magical powers that are not spel
Perfectly good example. The Magic Tattoos have a physical component, much like creating Wards or Circle Magic (and Line Magic from SA2) OR using a magic weapon/item. You can have the necessary knowledge/power, but without the components you can not use it.
The problem is that there are no "components" here. Seriously, there are no components.
That is my entire point.
There. Are. No. Components.
None.
The Tattoos that you keep trying to call "components" are part an parcel of the magic. They are a package deal.
The idea that they would not appear (and maybe though probably not, disappear) is simply absurd given the way that Tattoos are said to work.
Let me walk this through
Step 1 Skull is placed on subject
Step 2 Skull is Activated
Step 3 Magic in skull activates
Step 4 Subject now "has all the subjects magical powers" and is now the T-man/Dragon the subject was
Step 5 The magic, now active, recognizes the Subject as having the magic.
Step 6 The magic, notices that the tattoos are missing and they all magically reappear as per the norm for how Tattoo Magic works.
Step 7 The subject goes and does Tattoo stuff
Step 8 The Bond ends
Step 9 The magic ends
Step 10 The issue here is hazy. I would, personally, suspect that the tattoos would remain but could be removed easily with a simple application of a purge spell or the like.
Seriously.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You really can't
Thus you can't claim both that the Only magical tattoos are the ones that exist on the body of the original T-Man
AND
At the same time claim that those tattoos lose their magic upon death.
It doesn't work that way you see.
Because the skull activates the magic and now, because of how the magic works... there have to be Tattoos that go with the magic. There
have to be Tattoos because that is a definition of the Magic Power that the skull granted.
And this is pretty much a given since we know that the T-man can't escape
their Tattoos by any means what so ever... so the idea that the Necromancer who is trying to get the Tattoos can't get what the T-man can't escape, by using identical processes... well it fails the logic test.
If having the magic means that the Tattoos appear on you body la-de-da-de everybody no matter what you can't escape this... then it means
just that that the Tattoos appear on your body if you have the magic.
Tattoo Magic is not a snowflake that is somehow the one magic in the game immune to Necromancy. Now this is Palladium so it is possible that a future canon update will make it immune... but for now immunity is only granted via GM invoking Rule Zero.