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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: An interesting problem...
Message-ID: <1122@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Sep-83 00:14:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1122
Posted: Wed Sep 28 00:14:31 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Sep-83 01:40:31 EDT
References: <213@ecn-ed.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 93

i thought that this was an interesting problem, so I thought about
it. I have not read what the other people did about this, so I
may be duplicating somebody else' answer. if so, sorry. Also, if
the original question was ill-formed and there has been long discussion
on 'what is an artifact', 'what is magic', or 'what is magic resistance'
then I missed all of these. 

On to Orcus. Right, the first thing that you have to realise about this
creature is that there is no way in hell (where you are, right?) that
he is not going to be with his retainers. and if you fight him you
are either going to have to kill him in your first blow, or be prepared
to get teleported to a particularily nasty nether reagion populated by
litches and other nasties. 

Now there is no way that I can see that you are going to to kill Orcus
unless you are a God (which i presume you are not). If you view artifacts
as Gods then you might get away with using one, but I wouldn't count on
it. I (if I were the DM) would play Orcus as immune from Artifact magic.

And offensive magic is useless. 

So unless you can summon a lot of Gods who want to kill Orcus on his
home plane, I think that it is time to forget killing him. What you ought
to be worried about is survival.

There are 2 ways to survive. Either not be found at all, or to bargain with
Orcus. Wish yourself back home safe and sound. Keep the other artifacts
or magic items. This should work. If you wish yourself back home soon enough
there is the chance that Orcus will not some after you. Waste some more wishes 
making sure that you will not be found, or wish yourself to some plane where
Orcus is not likely to want to travel. 

the other way is to bargain. If you are going to bargain with Orcus, I
suggest that you bring the wand of Orcus. You can bring any other collection 
of items that you think that Orcus might be interested in. Also it is
necesary to know what sort of a player you are. if you are a 
Paladin, you may have no choice but to fight Orcus, even if it kills
you (and He will unless your DM is awfully lenient in my opinion) and
you cannot bargain with him. But if you are a evil priest of
Orcus, then it is likely that Orcus will not kill you, seeing as you are
useful to him.

If you are going to bargain with Orcus it will be necessary to know how
binding oaths are in this world. I would not allow Orcus (or any player,
of course) to break a solemn oath without the most dire of consequences.
Thus the idea is to get Orcus to swear to let you go while you swear to
give him the wand of Orcus. if oaths are binding, then you will escape
with your life. Now the trick is to get Orcus into a bargaining mood,
rather than a killing one. This may be some trick, depending on how the
DM plays Orcus. 

I would start with a huge ceremony to honour Orcus. I might slaughter
some paladins, or anyone else that I thought that Orcus might want to
get rid of (assuming, of course, that I was not a good character).
If I pull of the ceremony with style, then I will probably win Orcus'
respect. (if I don't win his respect than I am going to teleport out of
there, remember.) I might even be willing to swear an oath of fealty to Orcus,
depending on my alignment. or course, i will present my gift of the wand
of Orcus, but since the oaths sweared will be mutual, i should be safe.
(Unless I worded the oath badly, more fool me!)

I don't know, but if i were playing Orcus I would be pretty leary of killing
any first level character that could bring me the wand of Orcus. Something
is decidely non-standard about this, so perhaps this seemingly first level
character is more than he seems. 

By the way, you are going to have to get Orcus' true name if you are going
to bargain with him, that will cost one wish.


Now, of course, is the time for bonus points. If you pick the right oath
you can make a fool out of Orcus without getting killed. Hand him the
wand of Orcus which has the appearance of something foul or good. Say
Heimdall's famous sword... Of course, Orcus will see through the illusion,
but will the other inhabitants of hell? of course, something brilliant would
be to give the wand of Orcus to Orcus all the while knowing that 4 hours
later some bunch of Good Gods (say all of Asgard, for instance) was going to
decide that THEY needed the wand of Orcus. Thus you get an oath from
Orcus in exchange for which Orcus gets his wand for 4 hours.

However, bargaining with the Gods is bound to be tough as well.
Personally, i cannot think of any reason why a first level character
would have a whole lot of magic and be meeting Orcus, unless they were
on some God's business, in which case their options will be severely
limited by the nature of the God in question and their relationship
with Him.

I am interested in what other people do. I get the distinct impression
that people will be calling me a craven coward for many weeks, but I
really think that "killing Orcus" is too big a task to set on any mortal.

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura