Dragaera

Vlad's not a Jhereg at heart

Wed Mar 23 19:30:36 PST 2005

You forgot one . . . the Orb, IIRC, is also a Great Weapon.

Mia

Steve Simmons wrote:

>On Wed, Mar 23, 2005 at 11:48:31AM -0700, Maximilian Wilson wrote:
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>>On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 12:39:30 -0500, Steve Simmons <scs at di.org> wrote:
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>>>If Vlad wants to return, the threat of Godslayer alone will probably be
>>>sufficient to stop most assassins.
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>>Sure. Probably not any of the good ones, though, since you normally
>>don't figure on the target fighting back anyway. The Jhereg were
>>willing to go after Sethra Lavode in Dzur Mountain during the
>>Dragon-Jhereg war, at least until she destroyed a number of assassins.
>>(Heh heh heh.) I think Godslayer makes a better _pretext_ for backing
>>off than an actual defense--it would probably have to be pretty much
>>as Scott Schultz suggested, the Demon waking up to find Godslayer
>>pointed at his eye.
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>Come to think of it, it may well be that most Jhereg have very little
>idea of just what a Great Weapon can do.  Consider - there are only four
>we know enough of to name the holder.  Of those four, two have only
>surfaced in the past few years (Godslayer, Pathfinder), one in the past
>two centuries (Blackwand), and one has been largely in exile (Iceflame)
>since Sethra died.  Consider also that Vlad is startled as all hell when
>Blackwand continues defending the dead Morrolan.  I'd hazard a guess that
>your average Jhereg on the street doesn't have a clue to what a Great
>Weapon *really* is.  And thus Godslayers reputation gives Vlad no more
>protection than any other Morganti blade.
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>Until, of course, the first successful assasination attempt.  Someone
>takes out Vlad with a Morganti blade.  Vlads dead hand, weilded by
>Godslayer, kills the assasin.  Sethra and Morrolan pop in and revivify
>Vlad.  While Vlad sits there groggy, they drop a few words to the passers
>by neither they nor Godslayer are going to be real tolerant of any future
>attempts.
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>The Jhereg Council promptly shits it collective pants and becomes very
>amenable to negotiation.
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>I'd pay to read that scene.
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>>>If Brust wants to bring Vlad back to town, there are no more ifs: he can
>>>do it.
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>>Sure, but it has to be done in a way that's "cool."
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>IMHO the above is cool, but I'm only Steve, not Steve Brust. :-)
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>>P.S. Much as he would hate to admit it, I think Vlad fits in better
>>with the Dragons than with the Jhereg . . .
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>Nice analysis.  I think you're right.
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