Mark of Death? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Mark of Death? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Soulkeeper
06-22-06, 01:15 PM Has there been any talk, or posting, of details on the "Mark of Death" as portrayed in the novel by Matt Forbeck?

Thanks!
Kreistor1
06-22-06, 01:20 PM The MoD is one of those things that will not be defined. Of course, WotC can change that policy at a whim, but so far they have lived up to it.
Sythion
06-22-06, 01:44 PM Nothing official, so you are on your own if you wish it to be in your campaign. MoD is the focus of my campaign as well (although my silly players haven't figured that out yet), even though it differs from Matt Forbeck's version.

Based off of the descriptions of Espre's usage of the MoD, the two times I remember her using her mark, I would say it was slay living, and wail of the banshee that were used.

If the MoD were just that though, how would it have played in with the commercial power of the other dragonmarked houses? What would happen with its revival (seems pretty likely that my players are going to let the mark get revived at this point)? I can see two possibilities. Either they are a guild of assassins, or their powers involve the undead, and creating and selling them.
Kreistor1
06-22-06, 02:04 PM The problem with them as assassins is they can't hide who killed the person. The Mark of Shadows allows one to use the Mark to get close to the victim, then the killing blow comes from an undetectable source. Part of being a good assassin is not letting the good guys figure out who is responsible. A Mark that kills doesn't achieve that goal.

You could use such a Mark to kill, but not to assassinate. A Mark that kills is really no different than walking around with a sword on your hip. It's harder for the target to defend against a Mark, but it's hard to defend against a sword in your spine, too.

The Mark hasn't appeared in my campaign yet, but I'm thinking of a left turn. Deathwatch, Speak with Dead, Summon Undead, Animate Dead... instead of the Mark of Death killing, it deals with the already dead.
DragonWatcher
06-22-06, 02:19 PM If the MoD were just that though, how would it have played in with the commercial power of the other dragonmarked houses?

The Mark of Death was wiped out before the mercantile formation of the Dragonmarked Houses. At least that's what Keith said on the AKB Thread. So, there was no House d'Vol, because at the time the Mark of Death existed, the Houses (at least as they are today) did not.
poisondusk
06-22-06, 04:27 PM No. Period. End of story.
Soulkeeper
06-22-06, 04:55 PM The Mark hasn't appeared in my campaign yet, but I'm thinking of a left turn. Deathwatch, Speak with Dead, Summon Undead, Animate Dead... instead of the Mark of Death killing, it deals with the already dead.

Not a bad twist idea.

As we obviously are left to our own house rules, I plan to set something up similar to the existing marks. Basically, you have 3 paths you can follow, and I may steal yours to include.

Something such as:
path 1: death (harm, inflict damage, wail, and slay),
path 2: manipulation (life absorption, psionic absorbtion, etc)
path 3: control (per your suggestion)

But only in thought so far.
Isran_Imrador
06-26-06, 04:25 AM I collected most of the threads about the MoD in a link in my Signature...

The Mark of Death was wiped out before the mercantile formation of the Dragonmarked Houses. At least that's what Keith said on the AKB Thread. So, there was no House d'Vol, because at the time the Mark of Death existed, the Houses (at least as they are today) did not.

Yes it was wiped before the DMH were estaplished but the elven noble houses are simular in structure to the Dragonmarked houses. The DMHs structure were inspired by the elfs Family / House structure they brought to Khorvaire from Aerenal after the Vol "war".

So House Vol did not ned a ecomimic advantage, but a religious one...Like a undead serving Karrnath inside Thrane....House Vol on Aerenal...What would keep Thrane from destroying "Karrnath". And could "Karrnath" bring over some to their side...

Isran_Imrador
realdm
06-26-06, 05:58 AM the mod has been a central part of my campaign as well.
in the background i used, the elves of house vol were the executioners of Aerenal (as you can read from the PGTE, the phiarlans were some sort of warrior bards (not sure, no handbooks with me)).

ive portrayed the mark in a very different way, never read that book (the player with the reborn mark is, but they told me its not that great).
basically, a ranged attack with a saving throw. some sort of slay living, which increase in power as the mark evolves.

hope its useful.
(Psi)SeveredHead
06-26-06, 11:45 AM If the Mark of Death follows the same rules as other Marks, then there would be a host of spells you could cast with it. Slay Living, Animate Dead, etc, depending on how many feats and skill ranks you have. You could even have Siberys Marks of Death, etc.

It is a useful assassination tool if the user was a rogue to begin with. It's a tool. On it's own, it doesn't make you an assassin, the same way a short sword can't turn a typical paladin into an assassin. A fighter (with no stealth) using the MoD is basically a fighter with an extra nasty trick.

Note that Espre might not actually have the MoD (I've only read the first book). But if she does, it's clearly not following the rules of the other mark. (She's killing people at range, so that's at least Finger of Death, even if she couldn't control it in the first book... and she's a teenager [equivalent], meaning she shouldn't have that many levels.)

There might be information on the MoD in the upcoming Dragonmark supplement. I doubt you'll ever see a fully detailed MoD, which leaves DMs free to design their own MoD. If a DM wants "official" rules, I would suggest looking at currently existing marks and picking [death] or undead-related spells to go with it.
ArcTan
06-27-06, 03:42 AM The problem with them as assassins is they can't hide who killed the person. The Mark of Shadows allows one to use the Mark to get close to the victim, then the killing blow comes from an undetectable source. Part of being a good assassin is not letting the good guys figure out who is responsible. A Mark that kills doesn't achieve that goal.

Well, yes and no. Part of the point of having paid assassins in the first place is that even if you can identify the assassin you can't identify who hired them. If House Vol has a reputation for killing for the highest bidder without bias or favor, then knowing that House Vol carried out a hit tells you nothing about who your enemies are or what their motives are.

And if you live in a society where the assassins are socially powerful enough to defend their existence and their anonymity, then just saying "House Vol did this" isn't going to mean anything, because no one is going to be powerful enough to arrest House Vol for murder. That's how being an assassin-for-hire works -- as long as you can keep yourself from being found and arrested by the law, you *want* people to know who you are, and what hits you're responsible for, and how competent you are at carrying them out, because that's how you get contracts.

This is going to be harder the more powerful the government is and the more motivated the government is to stamp out murder, but the "good guys" in a random fantasy setting are not necessarily all that powerful nor all that good. I can see House Vol or House Phiarlan/Thuranni thriving in the Five Nations as an expensive kill-for-hire outfit whose nature is known and generally winked at by the authorities.

This would not be true in Aerenal, perhaps, with its powerful religious government headed by the Undying Court, which is, perhaps, why House Vol was never actually allowed to take this form in Aerenal and was eventually destroyed. But who knows? In modern Eberron, I see a telltale sign of having been killed by magic as being merely a sign that you have enemies in high places, not a reliable way of tracking down who your killer is.

I also want to note that dying without a scratch on you, in a world where magic is, if not prevalent, available, and where fast-decaying contact or ingestion poisons are available, is not going to necessarily be the telltale you think it is.

You could use such a Mark to kill, but not to assassinate. A Mark that kills is really no different than walking around with a sword on your hip. It's harder for the target to defend against a Mark, but it's hard to defend against a sword in your spine, too.

If a Siberys MoD has a _wail of the banshee_ effect, that's way more powerful than a sword. A Siberys scion of Vol would become walking artillery, or even a walking WMD.

And remember that the dragonmarks are important primarily not for the spell-like abilities they give you when unaided by equipment, but for their ability to power feats and magic items. The Mark of Storm's direct weather control powers are less impressive than the power it gives its members to pilot airships or use equipment maintain a perfectly climate-controlled environment on their home island. The Mark of Making's SLAs are useless compared to the power the Mark gives you over Cannith artifacts, creation forges, and so on.

I've thought of the Mark of Death as possibly not being an *assassin* Mark so much as a WMD House. A modern House Vol might possibly be able to create powerful eldritch machines that can channel the Mark of Death's power to kill any named individual from a distance (a play on what "mark of death" means in real life) or to blast buildings or even whole cities from a distance with killing power. Such a House would play the role nuclear stockpiles play in today's world -- if they maintained strict neutrality to prevent themselves from being taken over by any actual government, they might serve as a powerful keeper of the peace by threatening any group that gets too aggressive or destabilizing with inescapable, large-scale death.

Of course, all it would take to change them from keepers of the peace to fomenters of war is for them to get power-hungry themselves or get too cozy with certain power-brokers. All hell could break loose if a powerful House of Death existed and people stopped trusting them not to abuse their powers.
Kreistor1
06-27-06, 10:23 AM I also want to note that dying without a scratch on you, in a world where magic is, if not prevalent, available,

And because it's available, the trace aura can be detected for hours. Besides, there is no mark on the corpse if the DM chooses the magic not to leave a mark. It is not inappropriate for the DM to decide that a Finger of Death'ed victim can be determined to be caused by that spell with a Spellcraft check, or even leave a particular mark on the victim that declares it to be FOD'ed.

You miss my point about a sword vs. a spell for killing. Can a sword kill anyone in a single blow? The answer is yes, and it doesn't matter how many HP you've got. A sword in the eye is a sword in the eye. The differentiator for PC's is the game system that makes certain they are not trivialized.

In order to make the game a challenge and disallow random death, the system does not support the concept of the lucky hit to the heart. This is where the system breaks down as a realism simulator. See, the combats we fight on the table do not model reality, they model fighting in movies. This ensures a lower stress environment and a more pleasant playing experience.

But that doesn't mean as a DM I can't arbitrarily put the sword in the eye of one of my NPC's. For me, if I want an assassin to kill someone as a plot element, I don't get out dice to see if he succeeds, I put the sword in his eye. The PC's meet the assassin later, they're not getting the sword in the eye because the mechanics are there to protect them from such arbitrary decisions on my part.

So, as I said, a sword or spell are no different, in the end. Mechanically, the spell is higher level, but functionally, that only matters when the PC's are near. Since the PC's are not facing the sword in the eye, it really is not any different for them, either.

Of course, all it would take to change them from keepers of the peace to fomenters of war is for them to get power-hungry themselves

Which begs the question: why were they allowed to exist in the first place? They weren't wrecked until the cross-breeding. A House with powers like you suggest is a direct threat to all military establishments, which usually winds up with them being enslaved to the state or annihilated. The original House Vol were allowed to operate in freedom (at least so far as they have been written thus far), suggesting their abilities were much more benign.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Soulkeeper 06-22-06, 01:15 PM	Has there been any talk, or posting, of details on the "Mark of Death" as portrayed in the novel by Matt Forbeck? Thanks!
Kreistor1 06-22-06, 01:20 PM	The MoD is one of those things that will not be defined. Of course, WotC can change that policy at a whim, but so far they have lived up to it.
Sythion 06-22-06, 01:44 PM	Nothing official, so you are on your own if you wish it to be in your campaign. MoD is the focus of my campaign as well (although my silly players haven't figured that out yet), even though it differs from Matt Forbeck's version. Based off of the descriptions of Espre's usage of the MoD, the two times I remember her using her mark, I would say it was slay living, and wail of the banshee that were used. If the MoD were just that though, how would it have played in with the commercial power of the other dragonmarked houses? What would happen with its revival (seems pretty likely that my players are going to let the mark get revived at this point)? I can see two possibilities. Either they are a guild of assassins, or their powers involve the undead, and creating and selling them.
Kreistor1 06-22-06, 02:04 PM	The problem with them as assassins is they can't hide who killed the person. The Mark of Shadows allows one to use the Mark to get close to the victim, then the killing blow comes from an undetectable source. Part of being a good assassin is not letting the good guys figure out who is responsible. A Mark that kills doesn't achieve that goal. You could use such a Mark to kill, but not to assassinate. A Mark that kills is really no different than walking around with a sword on your hip. It's harder for the target to defend against a Mark, but it's hard to defend against a sword in your spine, too. The Mark hasn't appeared in my campaign yet, but I'm thinking of a left turn. Deathwatch, Speak with Dead, Summon Undead, Animate Dead... instead of the Mark of Death killing, it deals with the already dead.
DragonWatcher 06-22-06, 02:19 PM	If the MoD were just that though, how would it have played in with the commercial power of the other dragonmarked houses? The Mark of Death was wiped out before the mercantile formation of the Dragonmarked Houses. At least that's what Keith said on the AKB Thread. So, there was no House d'Vol, because at the time the Mark of Death existed, the Houses (at least as they are today) did not.
poisondusk 06-22-06, 04:27 PM	No. Period. End of story.
Soulkeeper 06-22-06, 04:55 PM	The Mark hasn't appeared in my campaign yet, but I'm thinking of a left turn. Deathwatch, Speak with Dead, Summon Undead, Animate Dead... instead of the Mark of Death killing, it deals with the already dead. Not a bad twist idea. As we obviously are left to our own house rules, I plan to set something up similar to the existing marks. Basically, you have 3 paths you can follow, and I may steal yours to include. Something such as: path 1: death (harm, inflict damage, wail, and slay), path 2: manipulation (life absorption, psionic absorbtion, etc) path 3: control (per your suggestion) But only in thought so far.
Isran_Imrador 06-26-06, 04:25 AM	I collected most of the threads about the MoD in a link in my Signature... The Mark of Death was wiped out before the mercantile formation of the Dragonmarked Houses. At least that's what Keith said on the AKB Thread. So, there was no House d'Vol, because at the time the Mark of Death existed, the Houses (at least as they are today) did not. Yes it was wiped before the DMH were estaplished but the elven noble houses are simular in structure to the Dragonmarked houses. The DMHs structure were inspired by the elfs Family / House structure they brought to Khorvaire from Aerenal after the Vol "war". So House Vol did not ned a ecomimic advantage, but a religious one...Like a undead serving Karrnath inside Thrane....House Vol on Aerenal...What would keep Thrane from destroying "Karrnath". And could "Karrnath" bring over some to their side... Isran_Imrador
realdm 06-26-06, 05:58 AM	the mod has been a central part of my campaign as well. in the background i used, the elves of house vol were the executioners of Aerenal (as you can read from the PGTE, the phiarlans were some sort of warrior bards (not sure, no handbooks with me)). ive portrayed the mark in a very different way, never read that book (the player with the reborn mark is, but they told me its not that great). basically, a ranged attack with a saving throw. some sort of slay living, which increase in power as the mark evolves. hope its useful.
(Psi)SeveredHead 06-26-06, 11:45 AM	If the Mark of Death follows the same rules as other Marks, then there would be a host of spells you could cast with it. Slay Living, Animate Dead, etc, depending on how many feats and skill ranks you have. You could even have Siberys Marks of Death, etc. It is a useful assassination tool if the user was a rogue to begin with. It's a tool. On it's own, it doesn't make you an assassin, the same way a short sword can't turn a typical paladin into an assassin. A fighter (with no stealth) using the MoD is basically a fighter with an extra nasty trick. Note that Espre might not actually have the MoD (I've only read the first book). But if she does, it's clearly not following the rules of the other mark. (She's killing people at range, so that's at least Finger of Death, even if she couldn't control it in the first book... and she's a teenager [equivalent], meaning she shouldn't have that many levels.) There might be information on the MoD in the upcoming Dragonmark supplement. I doubt you'll ever see a fully detailed MoD, which leaves DMs free to design their own MoD. If a DM wants "official" rules, I would suggest looking at currently existing marks and picking [death] or undead-related spells to go with it.
ArcTan 06-27-06, 03:42 AM	The problem with them as assassins is they can't hide who killed the person. The Mark of Shadows allows one to use the Mark to get close to the victim, then the killing blow comes from an undetectable source. Part of being a good assassin is not letting the good guys figure out who is responsible. A Mark that kills doesn't achieve that goal. Well, yes and no. Part of the point of having paid assassins in the first place is that even if you can identify the assassin you can't identify who hired them. If House Vol has a reputation for killing for the highest bidder without bias or favor, then knowing that House Vol carried out a hit tells you nothing about who your enemies are or what their motives are. And if you live in a society where the assassins are socially powerful enough to defend their existence and their anonymity, then just saying "House Vol did this" isn't going to mean anything, because no one is going to be powerful enough to arrest House Vol for murder. That's how being an assassin-for-hire works -- as long as you can keep yourself from being found and arrested by the law, you want people to know who you are, and what hits you're responsible for, and how competent you are at carrying them out, because that's how you get contracts. This is going to be harder the more powerful the government is and the more motivated the government is to stamp out murder, but the "good guys" in a random fantasy setting are not necessarily all that powerful nor all that good. I can see House Vol or House Phiarlan/Thuranni thriving in the Five Nations as an expensive kill-for-hire outfit whose nature is known and generally winked at by the authorities. This would not be true in Aerenal, perhaps, with its powerful religious government headed by the Undying Court, which is, perhaps, why House Vol was never actually allowed to take this form in Aerenal and was eventually destroyed. But who knows? In modern Eberron, I see a telltale sign of having been killed by magic as being merely a sign that you have enemies in high places, not a reliable way of tracking down who your killer is. I also want to note that dying without a scratch on you, in a world where magic is, if not prevalent, available, and where fast-decaying contact or ingestion poisons are available, is not going to necessarily be the telltale you think it is. You could use such a Mark to kill, but not to assassinate. A Mark that kills is really no different than walking around with a sword on your hip. It's harder for the target to defend against a Mark, but it's hard to defend against a sword in your spine, too. If a Siberys MoD has a _wail of the banshee_ effect, that's way more powerful than a sword. A Siberys scion of Vol would become walking artillery, or even a walking WMD. And remember that the dragonmarks are important primarily not for the spell-like abilities they give you when unaided by equipment, but for their ability to power feats and magic items. The Mark of Storm's direct weather control powers are less impressive than the power it gives its members to pilot airships or use equipment maintain a perfectly climate-controlled environment on their home island. The Mark of Making's SLAs are useless compared to the power the Mark gives you over Cannith artifacts, creation forges, and so on. I've thought of the Mark of Death as possibly not being an assassin Mark so much as a WMD House. A modern House Vol might possibly be able to create powerful eldritch machines that can channel the Mark of Death's power to kill any named individual from a distance (a play on what "mark of death" means in real life) or to blast buildings or even whole cities from a distance with killing power. Such a House would play the role nuclear stockpiles play in today's world -- if they maintained strict neutrality to prevent themselves from being taken over by any actual government, they might serve as a powerful keeper of the peace by threatening any group that gets too aggressive or destabilizing with inescapable, large-scale death. Of course, all it would take to change them from keepers of the peace to fomenters of war is for them to get power-hungry themselves or get too cozy with certain power-brokers. All hell could break loose if a powerful House of Death existed and people stopped trusting them not to abuse their powers.
Kreistor1 06-27-06, 10:23 AM	I also want to note that dying without a scratch on you, in a world where magic is, if not prevalent, available, And because it's available, the trace aura can be detected for hours. Besides, there is no mark on the corpse if the DM chooses the magic not to leave a mark. It is not inappropriate for the DM to decide that a Finger of Death'ed victim can be determined to be caused by that spell with a Spellcraft check, or even leave a particular mark on the victim that declares it to be FOD'ed. You miss my point about a sword vs. a spell for killing. Can a sword kill anyone in a single blow? The answer is yes, and it doesn't matter how many HP you've got. A sword in the eye is a sword in the eye. The differentiator for PC's is the game system that makes certain they are not trivialized. In order to make the game a challenge and disallow random death, the system does not support the concept of the lucky hit to the heart. This is where the system breaks down as a realism simulator. See, the combats we fight on the table do not model reality, they model fighting in movies. This ensures a lower stress environment and a more pleasant playing experience. But that doesn't mean as a DM I can't arbitrarily put the sword in the eye of one of my NPC's. For me, if I want an assassin to kill someone as a plot element, I don't get out dice to see if he succeeds, I put the sword in his eye. The PC's meet the assassin later, they're not getting the sword in the eye because the mechanics are there to protect them from such arbitrary decisions on my part. So, as I said, a sword or spell are no different, in the end. Mechanically, the spell is higher level, but functionally, that only matters when the PC's are near. Since the PC's are not facing the sword in the eye, it really is not any different for them, either. Of course, all it would take to change them from keepers of the peace to fomenters of war is for them to get power-hungry themselves Which begs the question: why were they allowed to exist in the first place? They weren't wrecked until the cross-breeding. A House with powers like you suggest is a direct threat to all military establishments, which usually winds up with them being enslaved to the state or annihilated. The original House Vol were allowed to operate in freedom (at least so far as they have been written thus far), suggesting their abilities were much more benign.