Author Topic: A silver dragon's blood  (Read 18345 times)

Offline Shard

  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 24
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #25 on: November 21, 2005, 04:28:37 AM »
True enough. That's why I suggested having one of those harmless old ladies having a flask or two of it lying around somewhere. Of course, not for free, and not too easy to obtain. I agree that Adalon wouldn't just give away her blood to anyone, even if you rescued her eggs.

Though maybe to compensate, wearing the flesh armor results in a reputation or charisma decrease? Maybe the wearer doesn't care, but the people around him or her certainly would, especially people like Aerie, Mazzy, Keldorn and Jaheira.

Offline Borsook

  • off topic
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 1679
  • Gender: Male
  • not a badger
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #26 on: November 21, 2005, 06:15:47 AM »
True enough. That's why I suggested having one of those harmless old ladies having a flask or two of it lying around somewhere. Of course, not for free, and not too easy to obtain. I agree that Adalon wouldn't just give away her blood to anyone, even if you rescued her eggs.

Though maybe to compensate, wearing the flesh armor results in a reputation or charisma decrease? Maybe the wearer doesn't care, but the people around him or her certainly would, especially people like Aerie, Mazzy, Keldorn and Jaheira.
If they knew. Otherwise I'm not sure anyone would be able to say after all the processes involved that it's made of human skin. If you look at leather and the animal whose skin has been used there's not much resemblance is there?
 
EDIT>Spelling, namely I wrote inloved instead of involved ;D
« Last Edit: November 21, 2005, 08:41:12 AM by Borsook »
"Borsook seems like a pretty cool guy who offers his insight where appropriate... just very, very frequently." - Imrahil

Borsook's Chambers - Home of Borsook's Mods

Offline Shard

  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 24
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #27 on: November 21, 2005, 07:49:19 AM »
True. I think the NPC's would only react if they were there during the completion of the armor itself.

Offline Drew

  • Kind of a prick
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 851
  • Gender: Male
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #28 on: November 29, 2005, 04:40:45 PM »
I'd like to see the opportunity for evil characters to blackmail her into giving up some blood before infiltrating the drow ciity.  She probably wouldn't give up any blood to an evil character unless she is forced.  I could see her willingly parting with some of her blood for a good aligned character.

That said, I also think forbidding any but evil characters from using the item is a little strange.  The pc doesn't have to kill anyone to make the armor (assuming he can get Adalon to part with some blood willingly) and  I just don't think your alignment should have any affect on what you will or won't wear.  In my opinion, the only reson to disallow wearing the armor based on alignment would be if the armor rejects the wearer.  (Which actually isn't a bad idea. This sidesteps the ethics issue entirely and only requires a slight tweak to the item description to implement.)
Poor baby. Couldn't find a fight anywhere else so you had to come here, huh. -Cybersquirt

Guest

  • Guest
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #29 on: December 05, 2005, 06:26:37 AM »
I'm going to get flamed for this...

but,
I actually can argue that a truly good character would create and use the armor if (s)he got hold of the blood in a <ahem> bloodless way (meaning that (s)he doesn't get it by either harming or getting others to harm the necessaru dragon) since that good character would <of course> see the need to actually make those poor unfortunate skinless peoples' deaths meaningful. As it is they are dead and the killer may be punished (by death, which is always objectionable to any good character, right?) but that's it. In this way something their deaths can "increase the greater good" by providing the (obviously) good character with protection against the (mainly) evil hordes of various monsters across Faerûn.

Of course, the picture in the game is really grotesque so I wouldn't advise wearing the armor in public if you want to keep your reputation as an immaculate dresser.

Cheers!

Offline Borsook

  • off topic
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 1679
  • Gender: Male
  • not a badger
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #30 on: December 05, 2005, 09:04:32 AM »
I'm going to get flamed for this...
Was that the reason for posting as guest called guest? ;)
"Borsook seems like a pretty cool guy who offers his insight where appropriate... just very, very frequently." - Imrahil

Borsook's Chambers - Home of Borsook's Mods

Acheron

  • Guest
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #31 on: December 05, 2005, 02:50:48 PM »
Adalon doesn't strike me a s the sort who will bleed herself for the player, maybe in exchange for the eggs...but not in any "good" way. She is essentially ancient, arrogant, and antagonistic towards the "lesser" races (yeah alliteration!). Don't get me wrong I like Adalon, but she just isn't that sort of dragon.

In general I see this as an attempt to take one of the few benifits of being evil away...sometimes it pays to be an evil bastard and this is one of those times. Part of being "good" is that the ends do NOT justify the means; some things are indeed sacred, it means imposing boundries on your behavior, and dictates that your actions be guided by more than simply "what makes me more powerful."

-Acheron

Offline Borsook

  • off topic
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 1679
  • Gender: Male
  • not a badger
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #32 on: December 05, 2005, 03:07:47 PM »
She is essentially ancient, arrogant, and antagonistic towards the "lesser" races (yeah alliteration!).
Don't want to be rude but almost good sir (or lady) :). "ancient" and "arrogant" start with the same letter but different pronounciation of the vowel (or rather have different vowel), and antagonistic has the stress (and this is what counts) on "ni" (with secondary on "ta") But close enough ;). Sorry for butting-in like that but if one spends large part of his life studying that one can hardly help oneself :)
EDIT>PS.It has been brought to my attention that in e.g. latin it does indeed work as the poster here presnted, hence my above comment should probably be considered as devoid of validity.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2005, 04:18:26 PM by Borsook »
"Borsook seems like a pretty cool guy who offers his insight where appropriate... just very, very frequently." - Imrahil

Borsook's Chambers - Home of Borsook's Mods

Offline jastey

  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 1524
  • Gender: Female
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #33 on: December 05, 2005, 04:03:59 PM »
There's a German mod (coded by me, idea from Gandalf the white) dealing with the topic about the silver dragon's blood. You can ask Adalon for some of her blood (assuming you met Fael before) and she will give you an extra quest in the drow city after you brought her the eggs. After completion she will give you some of her blood before bringing you to the exit. The idea was that the "human skin" armour quest seems to be unfinished for good characters who want to take revenge for the murdered people, so the mod aims at good PCs who want to get hold of Fael and his bosses (the mages) and need the blood to prevent Fael to go away. After completion the armour can be brought to one of the big temples. I was planning on translating it into English but my spare time is very limited atm. Just wanted to let you know, in case someone likes the content of this mod the work doesn't have to be doubled.

Offline FluffigtDjur

  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 51
  • Gender: Male
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #34 on: December 13, 2005, 05:54:25 AM »

I'll go for the ethic aspect of this since it's completely uninteresting from a meta-gaming or power-gaming point of view (Since the skin sucks the big one unless insanely moded).

It might be possible to optain the silver blood, but it would have to be from one hell of an arch-alchemist... it would probably require an entire new mini-quest. Not just "Walk into random house and find it on the table".

From a roleplay-perspective, wearing the armour if your party isn't mostly evil woill not work. Only insanely chaotic good/neutral chars would allow it. In my opinion, none of the neutral chars in BGII would fit that description. It could be argued that the end justifies the means, but non of the chars displays that kind of morality and wouldn't enjoy the pc adopting it. The neutrals in the game are druids, and would probably think it an affront to nature, and could you honestly see the Doomguard-bard wearing human skin no matter the amount of gibbering he does about entropy?

No what Jastey talks about would be the most sensible, if you add a non-evil way to get the blood, better throw in a fight and a possibility to destroy the armour too. Possibly some pretty strong rep-drops if you don't.

Kikosemmek

  • Guest
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #35 on: January 10, 2006, 09:29:28 PM »
I guess I can take a potshot at the moral side of this arguement:

While wearing human flesh in the game is considered evil and twisted, wearing dragon scales, all kinds of leather armor, and Ankheg shells is perfectly fine. With this in mind, I prefer the following explanation: The game deems wearing the human flesh evil because that armor was made from a victim(s) who was deliberately hunted down killed for that armor, as if making the armor was worth more than their lives. This computation - "armor value > human life value" is what is considered evil.

Adalon seemed to have no problem as my party approached her with a Korgan clad in Red Dragon scale, Dragon shield, Dragon, helm, and a PC wearing Thax' ebony hide. Why is this not evil? I believe it's because the creatures from which these fine, fine pieces of scale were made were both evil and hostile to the PC's party, who killed them in self defence/the name of good primarely, not deliberately to have them skinned. Same can be said of Druids wearing any kind of leather armor. Druids value the sanctity of nature above all else, but since that animal was dead (either hunted for food or deceased) they simply made use of its leather. This isn't an evil act. To simply ask Adalon, a dragon that could sense an evil intent for her blood would be an evil act, as the game would then count the PC as a partaker in the manufacture of the armor that was valued more than a human's life. That is, in essence, what's evil.

James

  • Guest
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #36 on: July 12, 2006, 11:59:43 PM »
How about using the blood of some other dragon? How likely is Fael to have actually ever encountered silver dragon's blood? Not very - he is probably just following a recipe. I don't see why he couldn't be tricked with Shadow Dragon or Red Dragon blood. Of course, when the alchemical procedure didn't go as expected, he might work it out - then good parties could get the final fight too. Alternatively, this might produce a different version of the armour, with fire or acid resistance instead of magic resistance. Give one of the mages or Fael the rogue stone currently placed on Koshi by the QP (or is it UB?) for no readily apparent reason, and you have a complete Twisted Rune plotline.

Offline Drew

  • Kind of a prick
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 851
  • Gender: Male
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #37 on: July 13, 2006, 12:22:49 AM »
You know, there's already a human flesh armor in the game that is useable by characters of good alignment.  Ghouls were (demi) human before becoming undead.  They, too, were likely the victims of some type of heinous crime.  A good aligned character may find wearing the Human Flesh armor repugnant or immoral, but it wouldn't be unethical as long as the Silver Dragon blood were obtained peacefully.
Poor baby. Couldn't find a fight anywhere else so you had to come here, huh. -Cybersquirt

Berk

  • Guest
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #38 on: July 13, 2006, 11:36:09 AM »
Bah! Baldur's Gate needs to be less friendly to good paties, not more!
One of the very few times in the game it pays to do an evil act, and now that goes too.

The game should actually have more of these difficult descisions where you actually have to weigh up your options.

IMO Adalon would not give up her blood, because she's already pretty suspicious of you (regardless of alignment), and knows what her blood could do in the wrong hands.
Blackmail? I think not. She already has enough to bargain with, the way out and the Drow illusions that let you do the cool things in Drow City.

But hypothetically we can all come up with many reasons why NPC X might do a certain thing. IMO its better to consider what is better for the game, and write your NPCs around that.

At the end of the day people just want this for powergaming reasons...just CLUA in the HF+5.
It's not worth wasting mod time on it.

Although if Adalon would drop silver dragon scales upon dying (like she should) then it would still give some benefit to killing her.

Grand_dracolich

  • Guest
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #39 on: July 14, 2006, 07:31:59 PM »
Adalon seemed to have no problem as my party approached her with a Korgan clad in Red Dragon scale, Dragon shield, Dragon, helm, and a PC wearing Thax' ebony hide.

Silver Dragons are natural enemies of Red, Shadow, white, blue (and any other evil) dragons. Silver Dragons often band with Mercury Dragons to defeat Reds, which usually inhabit the same areas as the Silver/Mercury Dragons. I heard this on www.wizards.com/dnd, I'm not a huge fanatic on the subject. I just wanted to clear that up.

About that German mod by Gandalf the White that jastey posted about, it would be neat if SimDing0 could emulate that in the mod (he did, after all, use the Potion quest and numerous other mods in Quest Pack). A good way to do all this and destroy the armor on top of all that would be great for a good-party-only player like me.

Offline jastey

  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 1524
  • Gender: Female
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #40 on: July 15, 2006, 01:26:27 AM »
but it wouldn't be unethical as long as the Silver Dragon blood were obtained peacefully.
You mean using the skin of murdered humans is ethical?

Offline SimDing0™

  • Back In Black
  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 3496
  • Gender: Male
  • Word Enhancer
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #41 on: July 15, 2006, 05:18:45 AM »
the rogue stone currently placed on Koshi by the QP (or is it UB?) for no readily apparent reason
I'm not sure why everyone thinks I'm responsible for this.

Offline Bex

  • black marketeer
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 683
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #42 on: July 15, 2006, 11:27:25 AM »
the rogue stone currently placed on Koshi by the QP (or is it UB?) for no readily apparent reason
I'm not sure why everyone thinks I'm responsible for this.

It's just the one guy who mentioned it in two threads, as far as I can tell. I corrected him in the thread he started.

Unless wild accusations (of something other than stirring trouble) are being thrown at you elsewhere as well.
Silverjon's Journal: a Baldur's Gate fanfic/semi-AAR, by yours truly

Offline Drew

  • Kind of a prick
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 851
  • Gender: Male
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #43 on: July 15, 2006, 04:09:19 PM »
but it wouldn't be unethical as long as the Silver Dragon blood were obtained peacefully.
You mean using the skin of murdered humans is ethical?
I'm a vegan.  I think eating the flesh of dead animals is unethical.  However, if I ordered Kung Pao Bean Curd (my favorite) at a chinese restauraunt and they brought me the chicken,  eating the chicken would not be unethical, since they will just throw the chicken out (due to regulations they cannot re-serve it) when I point out the error to my waiter.  (I still wouldn't eat it, though.  While it isn't unethical, to someone who hasn't had meat in 10 years, it is definitely gross.)

With the human flesh armor, the humans are already dead.....and we are assuming you gained the silver dragon blood peacefully.  There would be no ethical reason not to use the armor.  On the other hand, it's still disgusting, so many non-evil (and probably some evil) characters would refuse to wear it because it's sick.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2006, 04:13:36 PM by Drew »
Poor baby. Couldn't find a fight anywhere else so you had to come here, huh. -Cybersquirt

Offline jastey

  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 1524
  • Gender: Female
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #44 on: July 16, 2006, 08:21:49 AM »
There would be no ethical reason not to use the armor.
I guess I have a different opinion concerning "ethical" in this regard.

Offline Drew

  • Kind of a prick
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 851
  • Gender: Male
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #45 on: July 16, 2006, 09:37:48 AM »
You are confusing morality with ethics, then.  Simply put: if you do no harm to anyone in order to get the human flesh armor, then you have not done anything unethical.  The human flesh used to make the armor is the flesh of humans that were already dead when you found the flesh.  Killing them was certainly unethical, but the PC did not do that.  It could be argued that turning the flesh tunic into a suit of armor instead of burying it or something would constitute disrespecting the dead or desecrating a corpse, but such arguments are purely moralistic in nature.  The PC would do nothing unethical because no one is harmed in any way by producing the armor.  The only people harmed were already dead when the PC came into the picture.
Poor baby. Couldn't find a fight anywhere else so you had to come here, huh. -Cybersquirt

Offline jastey

  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 1524
  • Gender: Female
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #46 on: July 16, 2006, 04:05:39 PM »
I guess I would loose if this discussion continues. Maybe we can agree that wearing the armour is disgusting. :P

Offline TormentedDragon

  • spleling ninja
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 60
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #47 on: July 23, 2006, 01:03:32 PM »
You know, it strikes me that people tend to ignore the existence of deities when they discuss morality and ethics in regards to BG II and the Forgotten Realms.

You probably shouldn't do this. You can't deny the existence of the FR deities, for FR. And so, you can't just leave them out of the picture when you discuss morality, since they no doubt have a say in it. Clerics and the like usually get their moral code direct from the teachings of their respective god. The laws and worldviews of everyone in the Forgotten Realms, or at least in the particular area of the Forgotten Realms in which Baldur's Gate II takes place, are influenced to an enormous degree by the pantheon.

Talos is known as an evil god. He is known as evil even to those who follow him. Lathander is known as good, and seen as good, even by those who are evil. The very existence of the Detect Alignment spell, and those that Detect Evil, Good, and Extreme, means that there has to be a system of absolutes, that relativity does not have much of a place within the Forgotten Realms.

With that said, wearing human flesh is most likely deemed evil because the good deities would deem it so. The evil deities would probably deem it so as well, and then say "go ahead."

So, my personal take? I'm against allowing good-aligned players to finish the armor. Plus, there's that thing with the game already being biased towards a good character (which I have no problems with).

On the other hand, I would very much like an option to, say, dominate, charm, or otherwise convince Fael to spill the beans, then go and brutally slaughter all his comrades. I mean... I don't even get the option to brutally slaughter HIM, unless I force attack. And he tends to run for that inn door, and then promptly disappear. It's rather galling.

Just my take on it.

Offline Drew

  • Kind of a prick
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 851
  • Gender: Male
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #48 on: July 23, 2006, 07:33:17 PM »
Morality and Ethics actually have nothing to do with each other.  Sune would consider purposely maiming oneself "immoral".  Ilmater, on the other hand, would consider it the pinnacle of self-denial and a highly "moral" act.  A Lawful Good deity like Tyr would likely be offended by one of his Paladins wearing armor created from human flesh.  Assuran (a lwaful god of vengeance who also sponsors Paladins), on the other hand, would enjoy the poetic Irony of his Paladin wearing armor made of the skin dancer's victims as he brings them to justice.  Virtue isn't about enforcing the moral standards of a specific deity or religion.  Virtue is about ethics.  Ethics and morality, however, rarely have anything to do with each other. :)
Poor baby. Couldn't find a fight anywhere else so you had to come here, huh. -Cybersquirt

Offline Evilyn

  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 49
Re: A silver dragon's blood
« Reply #49 on: July 30, 2006, 01:16:09 AM »
So, my personal take? I'm against allowing good-aligned players to finish the armor. Plus, there's that thing with the game already being biased towards a good character (which I have no problems with).

On the other hand, I would very much like an option to, say, dominate, charm, or otherwise convince Fael to spill the beans, then go and brutally slaughter all his comrades. I mean... I don't even get the option to brutally slaughter HIM, unless I force attack. And he tends to run for that inn door, and then promptly disappear. It's rather galling.

I don't think it would that great an idea to allow Good parties the option to "brutally slaughter" everyone they thought to be evil, or even those that actually were evil. Doesn't strike me as the Good thing to do.

 

With Quick-Reply you can write a post when viewing a topic without loading a new page. You can still use bulletin board code and smileys as you would in a normal post.

Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.

Name: Email:
Verification:
Type the letters shown in the picture
Listen to the letters / Request another image
Type the letters shown in the picture:
What color is grass?:
What is the seventh word in this sentence?:
What is five minus two (use the full word)?: