After writing this out, I realized it stopped being about Divine Outrage X.0, so I moved it here.

>> if you get too close to a cleric with sufficient holiness you both explode

I could definitely be going down the wrong path here, but I bet a magical theorist in DR could make a valid argument that Holy spells hurt undead/cursed so much because the undead/cursed are generally created through a corruption related to Life + other energies. By forcing holy energy into them through something aggressive like Harm Evil, they're essentially forcing their existence to turn into a sorcerous backlash.

In magical theory, Holy + Life = nuclear explosion, at least in DR terms. Maybe because they're both such higher mana/frequency energies, it's like making a frequency so shrill that it would shatters glass (the glass being you).

So it's not so much that holy energy just hates the undead because the Immortals hate the undead and thus holy energy hates the undead, but the internal energy frequencies that make cursed/undead beings function are so high due to Life + whatever else coursing through them that it makes forcing a higher frequency into them (hello Harm Evil!) just makes them go kaboom.

Of course, the Temple's view would just be "Immortals hate undead. Immortals gave us holy energy spells to kill them. Praise the 39!"

A properly sufficient magical theorist who isn't too worried about being called a Necromancer could possibly argue that people using Life + Holy explode because it pushes the frequency even further than Divinity frequency levels. Meanwhile, by mixing Lunar + Life + Elemental frequencies, you could hop beyond Holy and touch the Divinity frequency "safely." Because you're now attuned to the Divinity frequency, the Immortals can't touch you by overloading your system (aka: why Immortals can't smite a Lich or Transcendent Necromancer) with Divine energy: you already have it in you so sucks to be you, Immortals.

Of course, at that point, you still have an exceptionally bad response to the Holy frequency, since going beyond a Divine frequency is still impossible.

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"We're not "out to get you," we're here to enhance your playing experience with extreme prejudice.," DR-ARMIFER

That still seems to lend the theory merit, PB. Would be a very cool thing to write up a research paper about in game and present at, I dunno, some sort of meeting thing?

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Also: I highly suggest that everyone who goes after Necromancers in a PvP sense should be Open themselves. To do otherwise is hypocrisy.

-Z

Isn't the "all-four-streams" pattern going to be Feral Magic?

Holy = Holy
Necromancers = Unholy

~and so we lay in the same grave , our chemical wedding day .

<<Heck, you'd think a Necromancer would have a stronger interest in finding out the truth behind the Temple and the Immortals than anyone else in the realms>>

the philosopher leadership discourages such inquiry though. based on what one particular fellow says when you ask about the Immortals.

There are a few possibilities for this.

1. a cover-up. They are lying and they don't want you to go for redemption- to protect themselves.

2. they are looking out for your best interests as well as theirs - too much inquiry into the truth would bring the whole bearing of the temple out to rout out the blasphemy and could end their very existence - and yours if they are found.

3. they don't give a damn about the immortals, they just want to have the power over death themselves - the great work, as it were.

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You've seen life through distorted eyes;You know you had to learn;The execution of your mind;You really had to turn;,the book is read,The end begins to show,The truth is out, the lies are old, But you don't want to know - Black Sabbath

>>This is way, way to many assumptions in this single line.

That's the best kind!

>>Reason why necromancers can't use holy spells is because holy spells filter through the caster's soul even at an unconscious levels.

And the major assumption there being that players actually have souls. After all, Necromancers backfire when casting holy spells while still capable of getting favors AND having good holy magic work on them/bad holy magic not work on them.

>>Holy spells only get a bonus damage to necromancers when they get their divine outrage so high the gods curse them or they become liches.

Which relies on the assumption that the Immortals are actually that powerful. A Philosopher may question that. Is a Necromancer infused with enough Arcane energy to corrupt him facing the side effects of doing so, or is he actually being punished by the divine?

>>Why the divine can't touch a lich or a transcendent necromancer is unknown(to players), more so for the latter because not a single one has ever existed.

AFAIK, Lyras was a legitimate lich. I also think it's important to recognize that, on an OOC level, we know that they get Divine Outrage Immunity (at least for now, right?), but even ICly it would be useful for Philosophers to recognize a difference between being immune to an Immortal just deciding to squish you like a bug through Divine mumbo-jumbo and being immune to Divine intervention as a whole. After all, the Immortals still killed Lyras off (or at least I'm sure they'd want the credit for it). It just took more effort than preferred.

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"We're not "out to get you," we're here to enhance your playing experience with extreme prejudice.," DR-ARMIFER

<<After all, the Immortals still killed Lyras off (or at least I'm sure they'd want the credit for it).>>

nope. not in either instance.

Prime: when meraud "possessed" Vorclaf, Lyras kicked his immortal butt. The deal with Lyras was, it wasn't only "lyras the lich". The hunger <the entity behind her> was a "demon" that gave her power, and prevented the gods from smiting her. It was only AFTER the "connection" between her body and the demon was severed <via the alchemically-necro-created stuff - created by Book and the others > that was thrown at her that the connection was able to be severed and she was able to be destroyed by that temple beacon, plus the empathical "connection".

Plat: the gods had nothing to do with it. The necromancer guild brought Maelshyve to deal with her, via a very complicated and dangerous ritual -- although again, in the main battle, the empathic touch was used, although the empath got some sort of "goop" from the temple. And this goop was made when one young s'kra necro braved the temple's buzzard dungeon <after making sure to commit a crime that would get the attention of the inquisition> and their ritual circles took something ... a part of her essence... from her. She's convinced they made the "goop" the empath used out of this essence.

So, in neither instance do the gods get credit. :-)

Although the Temple probably won't admit it. <G>

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You've seen life through distorted eyes;You know you had to learn;The execution of your mind;You really had to turn;,the book is read,The end begins to show,The truth is out, the lies are old, But you don't want to know - Black Sabbath

>It was only AFTER the "connection" between her body and the demon was severed <via the alchemically-necro-created stuff - created by Book and the others >

We don't know what that stuff was for. We know what Book said it would do, but anything Book says should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when his own goals are mixed in with it. It's pretty widely suspected that that solution had a much different purpose.

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How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. -Bram Stoker's Dracula

<<It's pretty widely suspected that that solution had a much different purpose.>>

oh? whats the theory on that? i'm interested in possibly different perspectives. :-)

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You've seen life through distorted eyes;You know you had to learn;The execution of your mind;You really had to turn;,the book is read,The end begins to show,The truth is out, the lies are old, But you don't want to know - Black Sabbath

>>Holy = Holy | Necromancers = Unholy

>>>You do realize that some players (or at least their characters) have an interest in more than what the Temple says is the reasoning, right?

>>Heck, you'd think a Necromancer would have a stronger interest in finding out the truth behind the Temple and the Immortals than anyone else in the realms.

>>Not to say that all Necromancers would care, but geez.

Sorry for being a month late on this one...but take this basic logic a single step deeper...holy magic is connected/controlled/driven/powered by the immortals, the immortals hate necromancers and undead, so they developed/helped develop these spells/mana patterns/mana properties in such a way that they have greater effect on things they don't like, or things they actively mark.

Keep in mind that, ICly, the only evidence that Immortals are involved in holy magic is that the Temple (and the Immortals) say so.

It might be fun to have Philosophers treat them similar to flat earthers are treated.

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"We're not "out to get you," we're here to enhance your playing experience with extreme prejudice.," DR-ARMIFER