A Report on Lifasan Traitors

[Yuthirin]

Harkin: Human. Uses a greathammer the size of a child. Dark paladin and marshal of Bel. Has the ability to smite good, as well as smiting those who dare oppose him. His ability to invoke blood oaths against those who offend him grant him amazing combat abilities, at the price of some of his vitality. Has the ability to create hellfire golems.

Yian's opinion: Arrogant fool, but a powerful one. Underestimates his opponents.

Velasca: Elf. Skilled rogue, quite good at infiltration and able to hide right in plain sight. She has mastered the abilities of her new form, her natural attacks striking with as much deadly grace as a stiletto-blade.

Yian's opinion: Whorish fool who will sleep with anyone to advance her own standing.

Quinn: Dwarf. Scout and warrior of darkness. He specializes in mobile warfare and has aerial mobility to rival an angel. The unholy blessings he has been given guide his strikes and shield his body, granting him preternaturally potent defenses.

Yian's opinion: Dislikes holy grounds and goes out of his way to profane them, no matter the tactical impact or risk.

Mala: Tiefling. Was present via illusion during the attempted invasion of the Aurora, but beside speaking, she did not act against the defenders or cast spells. Capable wizard and diabolist, specializing in vile magic. She has a few tricks of note: Grim Revenge, which wretches your hand off and has it attack you, Utterdark, which blinds all but the evil, and violated spells of all kinds. She is less capable in combat than most, but her magic is overwhelming. She carries the Tome of Forbidden Magic, a gift from the Duke of Destiny.

Yian's opinion: Too physically weak.

Ettan: Goblin. Warchief, able to rally any who serve him into a vicious, all consuming, murderous rage. He never fights alone, always surrounded by deranged helpers that fly into a rage as easily as he orders them into a frenzy. When so influenced, even a mild mannered clerk could hit as hard as an angry giant.

Yian's opinion: Small minded scum grown too large.

Silvber: Orc. Sorcerer and infernal speaker, taught in vile words of the Dark speech. His words can terrorize even the fearless, beguile the weak willed and dominate the unworthy. Further, his brimstone soaked words may summon hellfire to scorch all away who oppose Hell's supremacy. In particular his apotheosis has empowered him, removing all the limitations of his mortal heritage.

Yian's opinion: Too pathetic a fool to rule the Outer Ring Fortresses. Far too consumed in his studies of sorcery.

Yian: Dragon. Martial Artist. Captured & Detained. See interrogation report for more information. Base of operations on the Burning Aeropolis severely damaged or destroyed, his followers are currently in disarray.

Willah: Nymph. Still of some fey blood, as well as a great marshal and leader of soldiers. A bat of her eyes or a single smile can cause men to die for her, infecting them with a zeal unknown. When she and Ettan work together, mere lemures can threaten even balors. Worse, her beauty has been enhanced by the unholy powers of the Pit, so that even looking on her risks the soul of a good creature.   

Yian's opinion: Secretly desires break Ilsenine for her own; one such scheme was found by Yian and used to blackmail her.

Apasa: Catfolk. Duskblade. Very skilled in all things. Duskblade and general, all around warrior of fine skill. He specializes in a little bit of everything, able to fight and cast well both. In particular he has developed his own custom spell, Apasa's Darkstroke, that consumes the righteous and weak in unbearable agonies.

Yian's opinion: Master of none, attempt of all.

Worth noting, Yian expressed fear while under compulsion, stating that holy power is something that the traitors fear.

[Anastasia]

Bump for one reason: Yuth, we're getting a lot more info on the traitors now. Could you update once Willah's fully interrogated?

[Yuthirin]

Woo look at that. You did reply to me. Uh. Yes. Did we complete the interrogation yet, or did the People In Charge want Tryll to root around inside her head?

[Ebiris]

We're basically done with Willah but anyone's free to go visit her in the dungeons and mock her/ask her hard questions/mindprobe her. Also Jaela really has burning questions about her castle layout that remain unanswered.

[Yuthirin]

Tryll would be pleased to pull apart Willah's spaghetti mind and lay it out in straight lines so everyone can understand it. If he's able.

Can we do this via posts or do we need to dedicate an RP to it?

[Anastasia]

It's OOC bait. Describe how you're doing it and what powers you're using to do it.

[Yuthirin]

We'll start with Dominate boosted so it can affect outsiders, followed by uses of Mind Probe and Read Thoughts.

[Anastasia]

Link me to those? Also, just lay out the entire plan and I'll sort it all at once barring any counter measures you may take.

[Yuthirin]

Magic Circle Against Evil will be active via Calleigh at all times, though not encompassing Willah. This plus standard defenses and Intellect Fortress in reserve, we should be safe from any automatic reprisals, and the dungeons are pretty secure all told in case she manages to summon something.

Our process for this will be Decerebration, which should prevent her brain from accessing her body. She should still be able to think, but not speak. Unpleasant, but not immediately fatal.

Step two will be Psionic Domination, whish should work on her unless she's immune to mind-affecting. If she is, we'll know right away and scrap anything further. Tests will be made on her mind to verify she is under control before proceeding.

She will then be questioned under a mix of Mind Probe and Read Thoughts. Images and locations should be clearly available to Tryll, which he should be able to accurately reproduce with illusions and knowledge transfers. She should not be able to hide anything from Tryll without him at least knowing she's hiding it.

After that, she can be safely given to The Queen disposed of.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/decerebrate.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/dominatePsionic.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindProbe.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/readThoughts.htm

[Nephrite]

Just throwing out here that Decerebrate is really fucking awful to think about, wow.

[Iron Dragoon]

Programmed Amnesia is also pretty f'n awful. I wanted to do it with Surraruthru's original build but was warned off of it like ripping the mind of a devil apart and putting it back together so it thought we were its best friends was bad or something.

[Anastasia]

I'll reply to all this tonight since today was taken up by nagging/spells.

[Yuthirin]

Just throwing out here that Decerebrate is really fucking awful to think about, wow.

Decerebrate is a great disablement spell. Yes, it can be used for awful things, but things you're using it on should probably be awful. Using it on villagers is generally frowned-upon, and Tryll can remove the damage himself if he desires.

It makes for a very effective containment ability, as the mind itself is not damaged and the autonomic nervous system still runs, but any voluntary actions are simply not processed. Horrifying? Yep. Effective? Absolutely.

[Anastasia]

Magic Circle Against Evil will be active via Calleigh at all times, though not encompassing Willah. This plus standard defenses and Intellect Fortress in reserve, we should be safe from any automatic reprisals, and the dungeons are pretty secure all told in case she manages to summon something.

As Wilah was already dominated (oh that sounds so wrong, I'm so sorry) by Ilsenine via dominate monster, odds are this isn't a concern, but your precautions are noted.

Our process for this will be Decerebration, which should prevent her brain from accessing her body. She should still be able to think, but not speak. Unpleasant, but not immediately fatal.

Side note and not relevant to this, but you think this would be the sort of thing regeneration would fix. It removes a body part which regeneration is more than capable of fixing, since it can regrow lost limbs and the like. Then further reading notes regeneration can't restore effects that don't cause hit point damage. Odd and interesting rules quirk there. Not a particular interaction that I like RAW, but I'm not going to make a ruling on it here. It's just interesting.

I think it's the sort of situation where the flavor of the rules (regeneration heals lost body parts and even injuries a normal person can never heal) doesn't quite mesh with the flavor of the power (remove part of the brain stem). If someone took the exact same injury through hit point damage somehow, I wouldn't think twice about regeneration fixing it. Go figure.

Step two will be Psionic Domination, whish should work on her unless she's immune to mind-affecting. If she is, we'll know right away and scrap anything further. Tests will be made on her mind to verify she is under control before proceeding.

She isn't, Ilsenine already cast dominate monster on her successfully. This is where I'm not sure how it proceeds. What exactly does removing a creature's cerebral activity do? The spell lists some things like loss of voluntary motor function and the like, but is there still a coherent mind functioning in there? The spell doesn't address it and I don't have the medical knowledge to know what it's meant to do. It notes the target becomes limp and unresponsive, which suggests there's not a lot going on in there after that.

[Yuthirin]

The brain stem controls the flow of messages between the brain and the rest of the body, and it also controls basic body functions such as breathing, swallowing, heart rate, blood pressure, consciousness, and whether one is awake or sleepy. The brain stem consists of the midbrain, pons, and medulla oblongata.

As the power removes a portion of the brain stem, not all, she still breathes, heart-beats, etc. She should be able to take purely mental actions. Thus the Dominate.