Summoners and genocides in the Minion War

[Tor]

Has any reference been made to the ease at which Sahtalus/Mephisto/Diabolus (of Deevils) and on the demon side: Charun (and ally Anubis)/Abdul-Ra (plus many Raksasaha)/Set (Andras' ally) could mass-summon the enemy, and kill them? This would seem like a major battle tactic.

Were any of these gods/Lords to invade the enemy domain and summon them within their own dimension, that's a permanent defeat, but even if you don't want to risk your neck in such a dangerous outpost, you could summon the enemy to a guarded territory and kill them and keep them out of the battle for about half a century or so. Summoning is far cheaper than speeding up the respawn rate of dead minions.

The only reason I could figure why this tactic is abstained from would be that the Lords are mutually interested in defeating and conquering the other side's lesser/greater minions rather than wiping them out completely or randomly.

Charun in particular has such ridiculous claw damage (would anyone know if the second 0s were dropped in later reprints? My 2nd printing still has them, seems high) that he could 1-hit lesser deevils and defeat Greater Deevils speedily. Even for those who lack that individual killing ability, the lords and gods command so many minions they could simply have a circle surrounded by a couple dozen minions who will gang up on the summoned victim and rapidly take them out.

[Alrik Vas]

Probably has to do with Palladium's lack of foresight on the matter. I'd give hell/hades/whatever-spawn a saving throw vs magic if they didn't want to be summoned.

Though, don't they need the creature's name for something like that?

[Tor]

You need the True Name to summon a particular individual, but without that, you are still able to specify whether you want a deevil or a demon, and also which particular kind you want.

There's a margin of error, so sometimes if you want something cool like a Locust you might get a Lasae instead (not really sure how that happens since they use different circles... but that's the example they give) and I'm not sure if it works backwards. It would suck if you were only prepped to slay Lasae and then a Locust came accidentally, but the only example they give is a similar lesser coming if you fail a particular greater.

Random summoning wouldn't be so good if you were interested in political assassination within your own netherworld, since you could as easily summon an ally or neutral as a rival (but even then it would still be useful). In the case where you're against pretty much ALL members of a particular breed though, you could just wipe'm out.

I'd probably start with the weakest or stupidest ones least likely to resist you, like say Harpies or Gurgoyles. You could harvest a lot of body parts and meat and PPE this way to prep for the bigger summonings and battles. Not only that, but if these guys see how outpowered they are, they might offer a contract of fealty or even their True Name in exchange for survival, in some cases.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Well, the demon and deevil lords are explictly mentioned as being immune to being summoned. they only show up when summoned if they want to, and never have to bother with a battle of wills and can do as they please.

Abdul-Ra, in dragons and gods, is explictly listed as working on a "Summon Deities" circle to get around that problem, but that it's only in the "highly Experimental" phase of development.

[Tor]

I'm not talking about summoning the enemy lords, I'm talking about mass-summoning lessers and greaters repeatedly to just deplete their numbers over time in a low-risk manner where you can use numerical advantage and prep.

[Nekira Sudacne]

once you make the circle and activate it for the first time, you can re-activate it at any time for 5 PPE. in the case of summoning, each time you summon it, it takes 2d6 melee rounds for the creature to appear. Since it takes one turn to activate and the average roll on 2d6 is 7 melee rounds, that would take an average of 120 seconds per being summoned. Presuming one has enough resources on hand to sustain the rate. this allows for a theoretical maximum of 720 beings summoned per day.

a few flaws is the problem that without true names you only have a 60% chance of summoning the type of demon/deevil you want and this precentange never increases. F also the fact that even a demon lord can't be sure of destroying greater demons in one hit each, so there may be time between summonings to drag it out.

quite frankly, I think the idea isn't useful. there are more productive ways to kill demons than summoning them one at a time to gank. your absolute maximum is a bit over 700 a day, of which 288 won't be the kind you want, I can't imagine you'd get away with it for long, and sinse we have no hard numbers but roughly billions of demons and deevils each...you just arn't going to make a useful dent.

it's not that it won't work for what it is, it's just you likely have better things to do with your time.

Most likely answer: Someone tried this, was attacked by a much larger army after a while and eventually there was a kind of gentlemans agreement to stop doing it.

[Prysus]

Has any reference been made to the ease at which Sahtalus/Mephisto/Diabolus (of Deevils) and on the demon side: Charun (and ally Anubis)/Abdul-Ra (plus many Raksasaha)/Set (Andras' ally) could mass-summon the enemy, and kill them? This would seem like a major battle tactic.

Greetings and Salutations. Only some of the ones you listed actually have Summoning Circles (Sahtalus and Charun are not listed as having Summoning Circles), and not sure Set would involve himself (though I'm not following the Minion War, so if canon says he did so be it). Still, at least one member on each side can do it, so I'll address it the best I can ...

1: It takes 30 to 60 minutes to set up and activate a circle. Though for argument sake, we'll say once the circle is set up it can be continued to reused without further setup time. It then takes 2D6 melee rounds before anything comes through. That's an average of 7 melee rounds (1 minute 45 seconds). More sacrifices will need to be made, and more power words uttered, not to mention time to actually kill the summoned being. I think I'll be nice and say the rest can be done in 15 seconds (probably longer, but I like having a nice round 2 minutes turn around time).

So in around 1 1/2 to 2 hours you've managed to summon about 30 enemy (possibly suffering some damage to your own forces if a few of the enemy got lucky), and spent a minimum of 3,000 P.P.E. to do so. 7,500 P.P.E. if you're summoning greaters, which will probably result in more time and more losses (even if just a few) as well. At this point you're probably going to have to stop and recuperate thousands of P.P.E. Using the P.P.E. recovery tables found in page 88-89 for gods (and giving that same rate to them), this is still several hours of recovery (at a god's "standard" recovery rate, we're talking about 20 hours for Demon Lords and 13 hours for Deevil Lords).

Note: This is more P.P.E. than Diabolus and Abdul-Ra even have, and would severely deplete Mephisto. They'd probably stop after an hour or more (including circle creation time) and only summoning 15 (or less) of the enemy.

This takes up the better part of a day. While this will eventually add up, it's going to be slow going and I'd think they'd rather spend thousands of P.P.E. in other ways. I just have to think there are better ways to spend 3,000 P.P.E. and the better part of your day than defeating 30 low threat enemies. While probably safer than most methods, not sure it's very efficient or if I'd call it a "mass-summon" tactic. Mephisto and Abdul-Ra might have the patience for this, but I (personally) doubt the insane Diabolus would be able to stay focused and lucid long enough to make this work long term.

2: I've very rarely dealth with Summoners, so my knowledge on the subject is lacking. However, from looking at it, I don't see where it says they can summon a specific type they want. So if a Demon Lord uses "Summon Lesser Demon or Deevil" ... they might very well just summon a random demon. "Wow ... I just got one of my own minions. That was an hour wasted." Same goes for the Deevils.

The only circles that might be somewhat productive are Summon the Jinn, which would be useful for the Deevil Lords. Eliminating the Jinn population from the equation could be useful, but about the only method I can see with reasonable success. Of course, with a Jinn, it can turn into mist (and not all your surrounding minions may be able to hurt it at this point), as well as dimensionally teleport. So you risk bringing an enemy into a place you feel safe/secure (if not safe and secure, you probably don't want to be spending hours and wasting large portions of your P.P.E. there, as well as dedicating various forces), letting it gain potential intel (if it manages to flee the area before you can kill it), and possibly escape with whatever it learns. Note: Summon Gargoyles & Sub-Demons includes a lot of non-demon entities in it.

Summoning is far cheaper than speeding up the respawn rate of dead minions.

While I don't follow the Minion War books that closely, as far as I can tell from a quick look only Deevil Lords can speed up minion respawn rates (though they probably don't care enough about their minions to worry about this most of the time). Meanwhile Demons can use host mothers to speed up their respawn rates.

Anyways, that's about all for now. If I am on one of these matters (and it is possible as this isn't one of my strong points), feel free to mention the book and page number that contradict something I said. I'm half responding to test my knowledge on the subject (and potentially learn something if I'm actually wrong) more than anything else. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys to all.

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. Darn it! 'Net was acting up (having trouble loading pages) and I didn't see Nekira's post until just now, and naturally seems to have a better handle it on than I.

once you make the circle and activate it for the first time, you can re-activate it at any time for 5 PPE.

Okay, yeah, that does throw off my figures. I finally found the note though.

a few flaws is the problem that without true names you only have a 60% chance of summoning the type of demon/deevil you want and this precentange never increases.

Ohhhh ... so I did have the right idea (about not being guaranteed to summon the right type), but there's a percentage? Hmm ... can't find that note. I trust it, but I admit I don't know Summoners and Circles too well. Which page would that be on? If you don't mind. Edit: Never mind, found it! Thanks again. For some reason my players never use/take magic, and as such my weakest subject (so I try to learn new stuff when I can)

Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys to all.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Hurm. I did find one interesting wrinkle. it also says in the summoners rules that once a circle is already made, anyone, ANYONE who is simply told the power words and how it works and has 5 PPE can activate the circle without further training. this actually opens up the idea wide open. Simply make an array of thousands upon thousands down a firing range, and just teach a bunch of lesser demons the words to use them, and you could have a veritable killing feild.

[Tor]

once you make the circle and activate it for the first time, you can re-activate it at any time for 5 PPE. in the case of summoning, each time you summon it, it takes 2d6 melee rounds for the creature to appear. Since it takes one turn to activate and the average roll on 2d6 is 7 melee rounds, that would take an average of 120 seconds per being summoned. Presuming one has enough resources on hand to sustain the rate. this allows for a theoretical maximum of 720 beings summoned per day.

Per summoner, yes. This includes a portion of the Raksasha, and any Summoners who have allied themselves with either pantheon. Sadly PF2nd/CB1/Hades doesn't give us a percentage so I'm not clear on just how many cats can circle.

a few flaws is the problem that without true names you only have a 60% chance of summoning the type of demon/deevil you want and this precentange never increases.

True, per page 144. But we should keep in mind the example that you can get perfect accuracy if you merely put something down like 'greater demon'. So you could specify if you only want to summoner exclusively lesser minions, without any risk of summoning a greater one by accident. This could limit you to lesser targets if you aren't prepped to slay hard guys, or limit you to greater ones if you want to take out the biggest threats.

also the fact that even a demon lord can't be sure of destroying greater demons in one hit each, so there may be time between summonings to drag it out.

True, that's why part of the proposal involves having minions at hand (a whole army) to just launch a bunch of attacks.

For example, if the diabolical Diabolus was using this tactic, he could buddy up with the equally evil Leviathan and ask if she could lend her Dire Harpies to the cause. Then, when someone appears, they can mass-lava the victim.

quite frankly, I think the idea isn't useful. there are more productive ways to kill demons than summoning them one at a time to gank. your absolute maximum is a bit over 700 a day, of which 288 won't be the kind you want

That's assuming we focus on a particular kind (like Lasae) rather than just a power level (like lesser). I think this is very productive though. Even if we estimate the time high (say, a full 12 melees to summon, so 3 minutes... and 2 minutes to kill the guy, so let's say 5 minutes a kill. That's 12 kills an hour, 288 kills a day. You could have a small squad of say, 28 dire harpies just ready to volley on whoever appears. Surely killing 10x their number on a daily basis is pretty efficient?

I can't imagine you'd get away with it for long, and sinse we have no hard numbers but roughly billions of demons and deevils each...you just arn't going to make a useful dent.

The idea is you could have multiple summoners doing this. Everything adds up. It's low-risk so you don't lose your own forces, don't have to hunt anyone down, don't have to deal with healing people might've done as they evaded you, etc.

it's not that it won't work for what it is, it's just you likely have better things to do with your time.

Like what? You could just do it in your space time if you wanted to, we surely don't expect the Lords to regularly go out in direct battle, it's a good way for them to contribute to the effort.

Most likely answer: Someone tried this, was attacked by a much larger army after a while and eventually there was a kind of gentlemans agreement to stop doing it.

How would the army attack? Information about what they're doing would only get out decades later after the being has respawned. Sahtalus already has an army of demons after him, so picking them off like this wouldn't create any larger threat.

Sahtalus and Charun are not listed as having Summoning Circles

They're both Summoners, who start off with all Summoning Circles, so we can assume it was simply omitted. The reason things like Power Circles are mentioned is because they're what stands out, what isn't started with.

I don't think the explicit mention of protection/summoning for mephisto and protection for Charun necessarily means that Charun lacks summoning or that Sahtalus lacks both and only has power. Sometimes NPC descriptions just aren't fully extensive. Much like Thoth's Techno-Wizard abilities were left out of D+G.

not sure Set would involve himself (though I'm not following the Minion War, so if canon says he did so be it).

I'm not totally sure, just it's up there with him and Anubis since they're both backing different Demon Lords.

More sacrifices will need to be made, and more power words uttered, not to mention time to actually kill the summoned being. I think I'll be nice and say the rest can be done in 15 seconds (probably longer, but I like having a nice round 2 minutes turn around time).

I don't think additional sacrifices are required. Page 145 mentions that active circles keep the components fresh, and it only mentions using the small PPE to use an already-active circle, not any need for more sacrifices. The 2nd column bold section about sacrifices says 'to activate it'. Activation is a 1-time thing with a big PPE amount, and then the 'use' fee is minor.

So in around 1 1/2 to 2 hours you've managed to summon about 30 enemy (possibly suffering some damage to your own forces if a few of the enemy got lucky)

Pretty much irrelevant, your guys would have healing and could be cycled out (or everyone could wait) until back to full before moving on to the next. The only risk would be if someone was killed.

spent a minimum of 3,000 P.P.E. to do so. 7,500 P.P.E. if you're summoning greaters

Summoning 30 guys costs 150 PPE, you're thinking of the activation cost, not the use cost.

I don't see where it says they can summon a specific type they want. So if a Demon Lord uses "Summon Lesser Demon or Deevil" ... they might very well just summon a random demon. "Wow ... I just got one of my own minions. That was an hour wasted." Same goes for the Deevils.

If you did summon your own guy you could safely send them back. But there's no risk of this. Page 144 "Notes 1" says you can specify demon or deevil, and greater or lesser, with perfect accuracy. You only get the -40% accuracy if you try to be even more specific and pick a specific breed.

The only possible problem I could see, which would only apply to Deevils, is there are other guys of lesser/greater demons besides the Hades ones. I don't know if they can specify that, or if they might accidentally get a lesser Russian demon by 'summon lesser demon'.

Demons wouldn't have this problem since they can specify 'deevil'.

as far as I can tell from a quick look only Deevil Lords can speed up minion respawn rates (though they probably don't care enough about their minions to worry about this most of the time). Meanwhile Demons can use host mothers to speed up their respawn rates.

Ah good point, Deevils can also do the host mother business so I guess I had assumed that they both had equal respawn powers, guess Deevils have more options.

...and I see you already responded to this stuff... blah... well I typed it...

once a circle is already made, anyone, ANYONE who is simply told the power words and how it works and has 5 PPE can activate the circle without further training. this actually opens up the idea wide open. Simply make an array of thousands upon thousands down a firing range, and just teach a bunch of lesser demons the words to use them, and you could have a veritable killing feild.

LOL I honestly forgot that bit, I was thinking it'd be the summoner paying the 5/pop, this makes it even worse, could use area attacks if they were small enough circles.

Still probably more efficient to do the gang-up though, rather than expend PPE or munitions.

[Nekira Sudacne]

once you make the circle and activate it for the first time, you can re-activate it at any time for 5 PPE. in the case of summoning, each time you summon it, it takes 2d6 melee rounds for the creature to appear. Since it takes one turn to activate and the average roll on 2d6 is 7 melee rounds, that would take an average of 120 seconds per being summoned. Presuming one has enough resources on hand to sustain the rate. this allows for a theoretical maximum of 720 beings summoned per day.

Per summoner, yes. This includes a portion of the Raksasha, and any Summoners who have allied themselves with either pantheon. Sadly PF2nd/CB1/Hades doesn't give us a percentage so I'm not clear on just how many cats can circle.

Dark Conversion says that 10% of them study wards and circles instead of spell magic.

quite frankly, I think the idea isn't useful. there are more productive ways to kill demons than summoning them one at a time to gank. your absolute maximum is a bit over 700 a day, of which 288 won't be the kind you want

That's assuming we focus on a particular kind (like Lasae) rather than just a power level (like lesser). I think this is very productive though. Even if we estimate the time high (say, a full 12 melees to summon, so 3 minutes... and 2 minutes to kill the guy, so let's say 5 minutes a kill. That's 12 kills an hour, 288 kills a day. You could have a small squad of say, 28 dire harpies just ready to volley on whoever appears. Surely killing 10x their number on a daily basis is pretty efficient?

Given their respawn rates, I doubt it, especially sinse we have no idea how fast demons breed, either. but lets just say demons repopulate at only 1% a year. assuming you have a population of just 100 million of any given type of demon, and that's really REALLY lowballing it (in some cases, explictly too low), then they will be gaining 2740 more demons of that type per day. So no, you arn't going to make a mesurable dent that way.

I can't imagine you'd get away with it for long, and sinse we have no hard numbers but roughly billions of demons and deevils each...you just arn't going to make a useful dent.

The idea is you could have multiple summoners doing this. Everything adds up. It's low-risk so you don't lose your own forces, don't have to hunt anyone down, don't have to deal with healing people might've done as they evaded you, etc.

You do remember how demon and deevil lords have devine senses and deific powers, right? including the ability to see through the eyes of all their worshipers at will? someone starts a mass summoning slaughterhouse, they will just turn thoses sense on and see what's happening pretty fast.

it's not that it won't work for what it is, it's just you likely have better things to do with your time.

Like what? You could just do it in your space time if you wanted to, we surely don't expect the Lords to regularly go out in direct battle, it's a good way for them to contribute to the effort.

I fail to see why demon lords would care about personally contributing to the war effort. "Fairness"? That's what minions are for. a few demon lords might sully their hands with such a sceme, I don't think most will. No matter how logical a plan is on paper, a lot of people just won't consider it.

Most likely answer: Someone tried this, was attacked by a much larger army after a while and eventually there was a kind of gentlemans agreement to stop doing it.

How would the army attack? Information about what they're doing would only get out decades later after the being has respawned. Sahtalus already has an army of demons after him, so picking them off like this wouldn't create any larger threat.

No, again, devine senses pretty much means that this thing would have a limit of a few weeks, tops. all it takes is for the demon lords to do the "See through the eyes of all worshipers to check up on them" thing, which i'd imagine all of them do semireguarlly just to keep up with things, and they would notice systematic summonings. sinse if you are running this round the clock, you get caught the next time they do it.

You are also forgetting any other methods of keeping an eye on things. such as someone on a mission dosn't report in. I fail to see why hell wouldn't investigate sudden mass disaperances.

once a circle is already made, anyone, ANYONE who is simply told the power words and how it works and has 5 PPE can activate the circle without further training. this actually opens up the idea wide open. Simply make an array of thousands upon thousands down a firing range, and just teach a bunch of lesser demons the words to use them, and you could have a veritable killing feild.

LOL I honestly forgot that bit, I was thinking it'd be the summoner paying the 5/pop, this makes it even worse, could use area attacks if they were small enough circles.

Still probably more efficient to do the gang-up though, rather than expend PPE or munitions.

Depends entirely on if you are economizing for time or money. bullets are cheep.

[Tor]

Dark Conversion says that 10% of them study wards and circles instead of spell magic.

That helps narrow it down. With your reminder of anyone being able to use an active circle, the number of summoners is really now only a limit to how many minions you can enslave to fight their brethren. Any percentage not that gives extra diabolists to make permanence wards out of the corpses of victims, useful for fortifying outposts or empowering human fodder.

Given their respawn rates, I doubt it, especially sinse we have no idea how fast demons breed, either. but lets just say demons repopulate at only 1% a year. assuming you have a population of just 100 million of any given type of demon, and that's really REALLY lowballing it (in some cases, explictly too low), then they will be gaining 2740 more demons of that type per day. So no, you arn't going to make a mesurable dent that way.

If talking a single summoning circle, I agree, but I'm talking about a mass strategy. It also need not replace normal warfare, it could supplement it. It just seems a lot safer for troops to summon guys 1 at a time inside a fortress and gang up on them. About the only thing you lose out on are the mass-slaughter options from area-effect spells or bombs.

You do remember how demon and deevil lords have devine senses and deific powers, right? including the ability to see through the eyes of all their worshipers at will? someone starts a mass summoning slaughterhouse, they will just turn thoses sense on and see what's happening pretty fast.

This is a good observation but I'm not sure how useful it would be. Although they can see through any particular minion, they have so many that there needs to be something which draws their attention to that minion.

If it were being actual named guys being specifically targeted, you could prep for this, but if it's random summoning then you would have to predict the victim or otherwise be able to rapidly single them out for observation. I'm not sure being summoned will actually be a big enough event to draw a Lord's attention to that individual. Plus if you killed them very rapidly, it may not be enough time to draw the attention, or to take time to look around or use a deific power.

If they did, they could create a rift to the location and then send in some troops... but making rifts is way more expensive than making summoning circles, no? Plus you'd be porting right into a killing field, possibly just saving them time and PPE, they could be prepped for that.

I fail to see why demon lords would care about personally contributing to the war effort.

The top honchoes would want to do it to conquer (Modeus) or defend (Sahtalus) their respective empires. The lesser Lords/Ladies would want to do it to curry favour or show their loyalty. They may just be badgered into doing it. If Modeus is aware of Charun's summoner powers, getting him (and maybe his buddy Anubis, if Modeus found out about that) to busy himself doing that would be a good way to distract him from his plots.

"Fairness"? That's what minions are for. a few demon lords might sully their hands with such a sceme, I don't think most will. No matter how logical a plan is on paper, a lot of people just won't consider it.

Even considering delegation to minions, we have the Raksasha Summoners/Diabolists who are used to doing non-front-line stuff anyway, so I think Abdul-Ra would be happy to put them to work at such an effort rather than risking their own tails in hand to hand or infiltration missions.

devine senses pretty much means that this thing would have a limit of a few weeks, tops. all it takes is for the demon lords to do the "See through the eyes of all worshipers to check up on them" thing, which i'd imagine all of them do semireguarlly just to keep up with things, and they would notice systematic summonings. sinse if you are running this round the clock, you get caught the next time they do it.

If we assume that the Lords are regularly checking up on what's happening to minions who get summoned, should we assume that every summoner who ever summoned a demon/deevil has been watched by one of them?

I've no doubt that they'll eventually notice an increase in minions who stop coming back. Minions have always died at the behest of summoners, but normally summoners try to keep their minions alive to some degree for service. I'm sure there've been good summoners (or greedy ones) who summon lesser demons/deevils solely to slay them, but probably not on such a massive scale as might be incentivized by the Minion War. But even if they notice the decrease, it doesn't necessarily mean they can predict who will be picked next, or that they will notice which blip on the radar has appeared elsewhere and know where to look in time to see where they are before they get snuffed.

You are also forgetting any other methods of keeping an eye on things. such as someone on a mission dosn't report in. I fail to see why hell wouldn't investigate sudden mass disaperances.

I think they WOULD try to investigate... but if you rapidly kill them, the deific senses won't be a window into their fate, so what else is left to see where they went? There might be some spell I'm forgetting that could be used for this, but it's hard to tell.

The best I can think is maybe either Clairvoyance or equivalent spell might be use by a demon or deevil who may be sacrificed in the future, and they could report that to their Lord and give them clues which accumulate into figuring out where the summoning circle is located and who is operating it. This could lead to eventual assaults on any fortress where they are located, but it wouldn't be that hard to relocate a circle. Or just locate it inside a fortress ALREADY under assault (like Modeus') since it's already fortified and defended.

Depends entirely on if you are economizing for time or money. bullets are cheep.

Yeah but I think this is probably more economic time-wise, since it saves on all the time locating/chasing enemies.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I will admit that Abdul-Ra is the most likely canidate to actually try to put this thing into work. Not only is he a summoner enough to know how it would work but a full 10% of his minions are summoners as well. I don't think he is likely to actually personally participate, more like tell a few hundred of his summoner rakasha to set the thing up and leave it up to them.

I do think you are downplaying the utility of devine senses in determining and localizing the scheme though. especially sinse, as several entries specificy, a lot of demon lords retain their minions through a protection racket, and I can see demons praying to their demon lords with their dying breaths the way a mortal would, in which case, while the demon lord is unlikely to personally intervine on the spot, they would at least become aware of the scheme and can start marshalling a response.

as for assuming that all demon lords are aware of all summoners...well, I don't know about all, but certainly most. it's pretty clear that demons and demon lords tolerate Summoners/shifters as a group, if only because weaker-willed ones become both openings into worlds and easy to manipulate pawns, and the demon lords likely consider the occasional wasteful death of a minion a small price to pay for the overall broader access to new worlds and new minions that they represent. any individual summoner that begins to put this up completely on their own is going to be discovered and slain eventually.

As for Abdul-ra organizing a mass campaign as part of the minion war...it might work. I don't think it'll work out as neatly as it seems on paper--no plan survives contact with the enemy after all--and like any new sea change in stratagy it would simply cause the deevil lords to begin to think of or even invent counters that don't presently exist.

[Tor]

Not 10%, up to 10%, since 'wards and circles' might mean a split of Diabolists/Summoners. If 1/10 are dual-class, that's very scary.

the utility of devine senses in determining and localizing the scheme though. especially sinse, as several entries specificy, a lot of demon lords retain their minions through a protection racket

No doubt they would try, and probably be able to rescue prisoners, but a corpse can't tell you where it's buried.

I can see demons praying to their demon lords with their dying breaths the way a mortal would

They probably have people worshipping them on a daily basis as a means of sucking up though. Like "hey look how awesome I'm doing, Lord". Or people just communicating battle events. It'd be hard to pick out the guys randomly picked up while they're asleep or eating dinner apart from the static.

If a minion is spending energy focusing on detailed prayer like "come look through my eyes lord, a hord of Demons/Deevils have summoned me and are murdering me" then they'd be opting to do that instead of engaging in combat and die all the faster.

I'm not opposing that counters could be made, but to think of how to counter this is interesting.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Not 10%, up to 10%, since 'wards and circles' might mean a split of Diabolists/Summoners. If 1/10 are dual-class, that's very scary.

Hurm. Well, checking abdul-ra, considering he is a summoner but has no wards, it would indicate that rakasha generally do one or the other. Still, 5% being summoners is not bad at all.

the utility of devine senses in determining and localizing the scheme though. especially sinse, as several entries specificy, a lot of demon lords retain their minions through a protection racket

No doubt they would try, and probably be able to rescue prisoners, but a corpse can't tell you where it's buried.

Actually as gods they have deific ressurection as a standard ability. they could just grab a corpse and bring it back to life with no chance of failure and then ask it questions.

I can see demons praying to their demon lords with their dying breaths the way a mortal would

They probably have people worshipping them on a daily basis as a means of sucking up though. Like "hey look how awesome I'm doing, Lord". Or people just communicating battle events. It'd be hard to pick out the guys randomly picked up while they're asleep or eating dinner apart from the static.

I would imagine it is much like a trained observer listening to a very crowded auditorium or stadium. while conciously you can only pick out a handful of conversations, your ears naturally tend to pick out things most unusual or interesting. Just because the filtering happens subconciously dosn't mean there isn't filtering and recognition of what's going on, and I would imagine gods are better than mortals at this, if only through sheer forced practice. as you say, the praying likely never entirely stops, so long lived gods become very good at subconciously picking out important bits from the meaningless flattery.

If a minion is spending energy focusing on detailed prayer like "come look through my eyes lord, a hord of Demons/Deevils have summoned me and are murdering me" then they'd be opting to do that instead of engaging in combat and die all the faster.

Prehaps. given the general hopeless situation, praying for devine intervention is still probablly a better choice.

I'm not opposing that counters could be made, but to think of how to counter this is interesting.

MAD might hold in this situation, if it had been attempted in the distant past.

[Tor]

Actually as gods they have deific ressurection as a standard ability. they could just grab a corpse and bring it back to life with no chance of failure and then ask it questions.

You'd need to get access to the corpse to do that though Can't just resurrect an absent party.

I would imagine it is much like a trained observer listening to a very crowded auditorium or stadium. while conciously you can only pick out a handful of conversations, your ears naturally tend to pick out things most unusual or interesting. Just because the filtering happens subconciously dosn't mean there isn't filtering and recognition of what's going on, and I would imagine gods are better than mortals at this, if only through sheer forced practice. as you say, the praying likely never entirely stops, so long lived gods become very good at subconciously picking out important bits from the meaningless flattery.

It's kind of a murky issue. The Lords are also busy doing their own thing a lot of the time, so may not even be listening to minions.

given the general hopeless situation, praying for devine intervention is still probablly a better choice.

True, perhaps something we'd expect the lesser ones to do. Although with how abusive Lords often are, perhaps they'd rather just die and respawn in a few decades and hope their Lord doesn't notice rather than call attention to the failure.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Actually as gods they have deific ressurection as a standard ability. they could just grab a corpse and bring it back to life with no chance of failure and then ask it questions.

You'd need to get access to the corpse to do that though Can't just resurrect an absent party.

Umm, Resurrection: Deific explictly says it dosn't need the body at all. In fact it works even if there IS no body left at all. It dosn't even need a body investment. It just costs 600 PPE for a supernatural being and they can bring back any minion they want.

I would imagine it is much like a trained observer listening to a very crowded auditorium or stadium. while conciously you can only pick out a handful of conversations, your ears naturally tend to pick out things most unusual or interesting. Just because the filtering happens subconciously dosn't mean there isn't filtering and recognition of what's going on, and I would imagine gods are better than mortals at this, if only through sheer forced practice. as you say, the praying likely never entirely stops, so long lived gods become very good at subconciously picking out important bits from the meaningless flattery.

It's kind of a murky issue. The Lords are also busy doing their own thing a lot of the time, so may not even be listening to minions.

Indeed, but sinse your plan calls for calling on random greater/lessers of any type, you will eventually get a minion of one of the more attentive demon lords.

given the general hopeless situation, praying for devine intervention is still probablly a better choice.

True, perhaps something we'd expect the lesser ones to do. Although with how abusive Lords often are, perhaps they'd rather just die and respawn in a few decades and hope their Lord doesn't notice rather than call attention to the failure.[/quote]

Possible, but also doubtful. Lords are casually abusive, but I can't imagine one waiting decades just for annoying it with a bit of pleading before death. as you said, it would at worst simply be tuned out and forgotton by the time they revive decades later.

[Tor]

Umm, Resurrection: Deific explictly says it dosn't need the body at all. In fact it works even if there IS no body left at all. It dosn't even need a body investment.

Not exactly. It has "range: touch" meaning you need to touch SOMETHING. "Completely destroyed" and "Discorporated" don't mean absent, just atomized.

While they can touch a single atom of a deceased person and bring them back, they would first have to locate that atom and be able to make contact with it.

but sinse your plan calls for calling on random greater/lessers of any type, you will eventually get a minion of one of the more attentive demon lords.

Are any of them that attentive though?

As said previously, this is probably a better anti-Deevil plan than an anti-Demon plan. There are more Demon Lords to manage minions, Deevil Lords have a lot more on their plate, and they don't overlap with other (Chaos/Chinese/English/Indian/Japanese/Persian/Russian) groups of demons.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Umm, Resurrection: Deific explictly says it dosn't need the body at all. In fact it works even if there IS no body left at all. It dosn't even need a body investment.

Not exactly. It has "range: touch" meaning you need to touch SOMETHING. "Completely destroyed" and "Discorporated" don't mean absent, just atomized.

While they can touch a single atom of a deceased person and bring them back, they would first have to locate that atom and be able to make contact with it.

Actually, it says that the god has to touch where they are revived, it says the body dosn't need to be there. After all, what if a persons body was destroyed via antimatter so that no atoms are left? the power only makes sense as "The person suddenly is ressurected wherever the god is presently touching", not, "he has to touch something of the body"

but sinse your plan calls for calling on random greater/lessers of any type, you will eventually get a minion of one of the more attentive demon lords.

Are any of them that attentive though?

As said previously, this is probably a better anti-Deevil plan than an anti-Demon plan. There are more Demon Lords to manage minions, Deevil Lords have a lot more on their plate, and they don't overlap with other (Chaos/Chinese/English/Indian/Japanese/Persian/Russian) groups of demons.

The Chinese Yama Kings are explictly stated to carefully track every individual demon under their command and persue any runaways or disapperances throughly.

[Tor]

it says that the god has to touch where they are revived

It doesn't say that... it sounds like this is how you're interpreting what touch means.

it says the body dosn't need to be there

I don't see where it says that either... you're simply thinking that 'discorporated' means someone isn't there, I gotta disagree there.

what if a persons body was destroyed via antimatter so that no atoms are left?

Even spells like Annihilate don't explicitly do this. If the main targets' MDC is exceeded it is "vaporized", which means your substance is changed into vapour, not that your atoms cease to exist.

With spells like Godblaze, it possibly "consumes the god entirely" (unless main impact is dodge), but being 'consumed' doesn't mean that your matter is removed from the universe, merely that the blast eats you up and processes every bit of you into base components (like when I consume a cheeseburger). The gods are turned into dead ash/mush incapable of regenerating under its own power (juggie/bennu/apepi excepted), but do not simply vanish.

It even mentions that someone self-sacrificing "risks being annihilated himself". Words like annihilate/consume/vapourize do not mean utter absence of physical remains, just utter destruction of the preceding form, being broken into base elements.

Yama Kings are explictly stated to carefully track every individual demon

They might be better masters than the Hades guys The reason I bring up the Chaos/Russian/Yama demons is because their also being demons might interfere with trying to get Hades demons through random demon summoning. While you can specify a deevil, I'm not sure you can go beyond summoning a random lesser demon to summoning a a random lesser Hades demon specifically. Presumably the circle could also summon the 3 other variants, which would make the process less straightforward or efficient.

[Nekira Sudacne]

it says that the god has to touch where they are revived

It doesn't say that... it sounds like this is how you're interpreting what touch means.

it says the body dosn't need to be there

I don't see where it says that either... you're simply thinking that 'discorporated' means someone isn't there, I gotta disagree there.

Well I gotta disagree with your disagreement. "not being there" is exactly what discorporated or destroyed means. Saying you need to touch an individual atom is streaching to the point of ludicriousness, in my opinion, so prehaps we should just agree to disagree here.

[Tor]

Destruction does not mean not being there, it means the form being broken down. If I destroy a bicycle, I just break it apart, not atomize it. Even atomization isn't utter destruction.

You don't have to zero in on an atom, just stick your hand in some of the leftover mist.