On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 11:20:53PM +0100, Martin Wohlert wrote: > Steve Simmons <scs at di.org> wrote: > >Yes, I am referring to the Necromancer. We have not seen her be in > >multiple locations at once, but Sethra has told us she can. More > >specificly, Sethra has said the the defining difference between a god > >and a demon is that a demon can be compelled while a god cannot - and > >by this definition, the Necromancer is a demon. Hence the Necromancer > >can do polylocation (my neologism of the day). > > Eh? I can be compelled too, thus I can be a god? Pretty please? I wanna be > a god! > > You may have related only parts of what's in the book, but the way you put > it doesn't work. You are *so* picky. :-) OK, here's the full, mostly unexpurgated exchange. Starting near the bottom of pg 34 of the hardback edition of Issola: "Perhaps," she [Sethra] siad, "I should ask: Who are the gods. No, I've already taken a false step. That is not the question: Ask, rather, *What* are the gods? What freaks of chance, what hidden talents, what cataclysmic events combined to produce those who your people worship, and mine strikve to emulate? What are they, why are they, what do they do? Is their power acquired only because there are those who worship hem? Is their power, in fact, imaginary? There are no simple answer to the question yo have asked, because everything is tied to everything else." I [Vlad] drank klava, and listened. "Part of the answer to the question I have posed is this: The gods are being who are able to manifest in at least two palces at once, and yet who are not subject to the forcible control of any other being; this latter marking the difference between a god and a demon." . . . "I don't think I've ever met a demon," I [Vlad] said. ... "You have," said Sethra. "The Necromancer." That's it. IMHO it makes my point. The Necromancer can polylocate (I'm getting to like that word) but isn't a god because she can be coerced. -- "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." -- Albert Einstein