[Aptorian]

Well, it might actually weaken him just like the Demon D'ivers from BH, but unlike Dejim, Ryl had time to munch on a lot of human beings when he escaped, and unlike Dejim, Ryl was looked upon as a deity and the tribes of Quon continued to worship him, so he had an added "powersource".

[borstalboy]

 D, on 19 March 2010 - 02:57 PM, said:

You guys just need to think outside the box more.

Who ever said Rake and Cowl were even close to being even? Cowl was doing what Cowl always does - jump around from warren to warren appearing in places randomly, firing off some attacks and jumping again. His style is one that leads well to self-preservation, and obviously he has enough brute strength to do some notable damage, but that doesn't make him the equal of Rake. I picture the Rake hunting Cowl bit more like Rake detecting Cowl, firing enormous waves at him while Cowl shoots back a little something and quickly jumps away to some other part of the continent. Rinse and repeat. Tays on the other hand went toe-to-toe with Rake head-on, plus the distraction of the Nightchill-Bellurdan betrayal. I could easily see Tay being much stronger than Cowl.

well,

Spoiler

acc to endest silann's reckoning in TtH, cowl drove off silanah with a concentrated barrage of magery.

so obviously he's got some major firepower. plus, he easily outclassed rake's no. 2, korlat in GotM.
the point is not who'd beat who, but that ICE's cowl seems an attenuated version.

Quote

You mean because there are exiled/renegade Seguleh who are good fighters but not on the Seguleh ladder? of course not, they're exiles! Rell was banned from Seguleh fighting because he disputed a duel judging. Who knows what that duel was, maybe he was chellenging the 4th or something. It's clearly said that Rell was damned good for someone as young as he.

all we know is that he got into the agati real quick. he could have easily been fightin no. 999.

Quote

as QB explains, Treach had gone insane from his Soletakenness and receded in his tiger form for centuries. Where once he could probably summon immense power and rapid healing from his First Hero-ness, his mind was now addled and he more or less thought of himself as just a tiger.

yeah qb says that treach's mind had regressed into a bestial state. that just means treach thought like a tiger n not a man. n it does not account for him losin the soletaken ritual endowed powers.

Quote

I don't see why a giant man-jackal of rage would be easy to kill just because he'd been incarcerated for a while. He doesn't need to eat or drink or exercise to stay healthy, so why would it weaken him?

can u quote relevant passages from the books to support this? rylly was not chained in some azath that kept him more or less in suspended animation... where is it written that soletaken need not feed?

face it, RotCG needed a badass rylly n MoI needed a treach to die without monologuin for too many pages... whomever the story needs killed , shall be; attempts of the readers to make sense of the events be damned.

Quote

Well, it might actually weaken him just like the Demon D'ivers from BH, but unlike Dejim, Ryl had time to munch on a lot of human beings when he escaped, and unlike Dejim, Ryl was looked upon as a deity and the tribes of Quon continued to worship him, so he had an added "powersource".

yeah, at one time, it's insinuated that the seti worship him, but l8r, someone refutes this by sayin that the worship is limited to the white jackal cultists...

Spoiler

n we know how those guys end up while tryin to invoke their god

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

I'll agree I was disappointed with Cowl's apparent strength at first, but it's not like we have concrete examples for how strong Topper is, he could easily have just as impressive a resume of opponents as Cowl.

About Treach: If he reverted to a bestial mind and just thought he was a tiger, what soletaken ritual endowed powers are you talking about? Maybe it makes them more resilient, but if he has the mind of a tiger it's not like he's going to fight with any warrens or magic. And in just a straight up physical fight, I'd take 3 undead K'ell Hunters over a tiger. But I also think its important to note that there was a need for a god of war after Fener's fall, and I think that had something to do with Treach's death.

Ryllandaras was a hugely powerful First Hero, do you think his prison was a mundane cave? The place obviously had protective wards around it. And if it was a magic of preservation, why would he need to eat or exercise to maintain strength? Look at Calm in HoC, imprisoned under a rock and pops out pwning Karsa and his buddies. The FA in MT is the same. The Jaghut that Karsa frees later in HoC.

And you said it yourself about Rell, we don't know who he beat to get into the Agatii, he could have easily been in the top 50 or so, but even if he wasn't, Mok's two brothers in MoI pretty much proved that Seguleh are on a whole different level than regular soldiers.

[borstalboy]

 WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 20 March 2010 - 10:43 PM, said:

I'll agree I was disappointed with Cowl's apparent strength at first, but it's not like we have concrete examples for how strong Topper is, he could easily have just as impressive a resume of opponents as Cowl.

true. but the fight was still a big let down.

Quote

About Treach: If he reverted to a bestial mind and just thought he was a tiger, what soletaken ritual endowed powers are you talking about? Maybe it makes them more resilient, but if he has the mind of a tiger it's not like he's going to fight with any warrens or magic. And in just a straight up physical fight, I'd take 3 undead K'ell Hunters over a tiger. But I also think its important to note that there was a need for a god of war after Fener's fall, and I think that had something to do with Treach's death.

what soletaken magics have u seen (apart from eleint)? no mention of any soletaken employin any magery while in beast form. did rylly employ some magery? messremb? treach? soletakenness probably endows them with advanced healin, strength, agility or some such... i'd say such powers wouldn't fade away with the mind... they'd be ingrained in the beast's very blood. he's described as an oversized tiger, in all probability due to his soletaken nature (like rylly is an xxxxl-size jackal)... so why didn't he shrink back to "normal" size if he had become just "a tiger"?(hopefully some future book will deal with the issue of soletaken powers, n give us some real info to fall back upon)

Quote

Ryllandaras was a hugely powerful First Hero, do you think his prison was a mundane cave? The place obviously had protective wards around it. And if it was a magic of preservation, why would he need to eat or exercise to maintain strength? Look at Calm in HoC, imprisoned under a rock and pops out pwning Karsa and his buddies. The FA in MT is the same. The Jaghut that Karsa frees later in HoC.

A) don't know much about the nature of rylly's imprisonment magics
don't know if calm survived coz of the nature of the imprisonment magics (which may be totally different from rylly's) or becoz she was a really powerful creature. or both. same for others.

Quote

And you said it yourself about Rell, we don't know who he beat to get into the Agatii, he could have easily been in the top 50 or so, but even if he wasn't, Mok's two brothers in MoI pretty much proved that Seguleh are on a whole different level than regular soldiers.

so it seems.

[Coldsnap]

We should also discuss whether it is possible that Lasseen is quite simply an ascendant, as in the kind that Paran discusses in another book of the fallen by Erikson.

Lasseen is a highly skilled, highly intelligent and extremely succesful player on Wu with massive following and even worship in some contexts.

As such, an ascendant could walk through even Avowed.

[Harvester]

I don't think so. She is just one of the Deadhouse crew ... like for example Dassem who's infamous for shrugging people's heads off. Teehee

[ansible]

 Harvester, on 09 April 2010 - 10:36 PM, said:

I don't think so. She is just one of the Deadhouse crew ... like for example Dassem who's infamous for shrugging people's heads off. Teehee

Except, Dassem is an ascendant, Dessembrae, Lord of Tragedy. I actually don't know if this is a spoiler in this forum.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Yea, I don't think its hidden knowledge at this point that Dassem is a freakin god lol.

[Harvester]

Quote

"...he'd been there when they took Ubaryd. Upstairs they found the private chambers and the Holy One herself tied by silk ropes to a chair. Three Claws stood about her, knives out...He (Temper) and Point had held back, unsure, but Dassem surged forward and thrust aside the Claw standing before the woman...It happened so quickly it was if Dassem had merely shrugged. The Falah'd's head spun away...Thus the end of the last Holy Falah'd of Ubaryd." -Temper reminiscing

NoK, UK mmpb, p.46

I think that happened before he became a god and what about Urko knocking out Karsa with one hit or beating an Awowed's head to a pulp? They are one scary bunch.

[Ulrik]

 D, on 19 March 2010 - 02:57 PM, said:

You guys just need to think outside the box more.

 Ulrik, on 15 March 2010 - 12:11 PM, said:

Yep, ICE´s  Cowl descension is sad. Tha man clashed with Anomander and forces were even (probably)...and got screwed by Topper? Sorry, I dont buy it...jesus, Topper isnt sappeur, that would be reasonable, but this...

Who ever said Rake and Cowl were even close to being even? Cowl was doing what Cowl always does - jump around from warren to warren appearing in places randomly, firing off some attacks and jumping again. His style is one that leads well to self-preservation, and obviously he has enough brute strength to do some notable damage, but that doesn't make him the equal of Rake. I picture the Rake hunting Cowl bit more like Rake detecting Cowl, firing enormous waves at him while Cowl shoots back a little something and quickly jumps away to some other part of the continent. Rinse and repeat. Tays on the other hand went toe-to-toe with Rake head-on, plus the distraction of the Nightchill-Bellurdan betrayal. I could easily see Tay being much stronger than Cowl.

 Ulrik, on 15 March 2010 - 12:11 PM, said:

And now, different Seguleh shows different skills, sometimes against this "ladder". For me its lil, not so important,  fail.

You mean because there are exiled/renegade Seguleh who are good fighters but not on the Seguleh ladder? of course not, they're exiles! Rell was banned from Seguleh fighting because he disputed a duel judging. Who knows what that duel was, maybe he was chellenging the 4th or something. It's clearly said that Rell was damned good for someone as young as he.

Whoops, I forgot this thread..so Ill be a little bit necromantic:)


"Who ever said Rake and Cowl were even close to being even?" - reread whispered me. They clashed, iirc described in RG or TtH that they clashed and no-one was sure who retreated first. Yep, live with it, Rake is no god...or...well...he could be...so...no God! Cowl is Avowed high mage, your picture of sneaky assassin trying to survive is definetly different from what saw witnesses. He hurt Silannah and forced her to retreat.. Sorry pal, you have to think outside box.


For Seguleh - Im talking about somu under-50 chick beating Iron Bars, 7 (or 11? my bad memory...) screwed by Karsa, Rell making Mok almost humbled...no exile arguments pls. ICE´s Seguleh are much much stronger than SE´s, it can be seen by everyone.

(if is my tone harsh, ignore it, I woke up because football match that didnt happen)

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

 Ulrik, on 10 April 2010 - 02:36 PM, said:

For Seguleh - Im talking about somu under-50 chick beating Iron Bars, 7 (or 11? my bad memory...) screwed by Karsa, Rell making Mok almost humbled...no exile arguments pls. ICE´s Seguleh are much much stronger than SE´s, it can be seen by everyone.

(if is my tone harsh, ignore it, I woke up because football match that didnt happen)

Well, the chick that beat Iron Bars wasn't top 50, she was the lowest ranked member of the party. I assumed she was pretty low down in the thousand. Also, umm...she didn't beat Iron Bars.

Karsa is one of the most powerful people we've seen in the books.

And what do you mean about Rell humbling Mok? Do you just mean by comparison? Because in MoI we see Mok cut through entire Pannion armies (with help, but still).

[Ulrik]

 WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 10 April 2010 - 02:55 PM, said:

 Ulrik, on 10 April 2010 - 02:36 PM, said:

For Seguleh - Im talking about somu under-50 chick beating Iron Bars, 7 (or 11? my bad memory...) screwed by Karsa, Rell making Mok almost humbled...no exile arguments pls. ICE´s Seguleh are much much stronger than SE´s, it can be seen by everyone.

(if is my tone harsh, ignore it, I woke up because football match that didnt happen)

Well, the chick that beat Iron Bars wasn't top 50, she was the lowest ranked member of the party. I assumed she was pretty low down in the thousand. Also, umm...she didn't beat Iron Bars.

Karsa is one of the most powerful people we've seen in the books.

And what do you mean about Rell humbling Mok? Do you just mean by comparison? Because in MoI we see Mok cut through entire Pannion armies (with help, but still).

Chick (LOL, nice alias) - well, as you see, its worse:) To beating IB..OK, she just almost killed him, unhuman swordsman who survived thankfully to his avowedancy. This probably pissed me most, yeah, you are right, now I realize she was some scrap, that there clashed different effectivity of top Avowed swordsman (he was compared to Skinner, Blues) and Seguleh from really lower ranks. Also strange was that Avowed never heard about them, but...happens.


Rell humbling Mok was a little bit hyperbole:) But in RotCG he almost cut in same way. Only thing that stops him is solid portion of magic (wish those poor guys from TtH has same "resistance") and uberpowered divers who kills soldiers by dozens, screw ascended Old Guard - and even he pays life for messing with Rell, our talented noname:)

But what really pains me is the first one - IB vs Chick

Uh, as I read my previous post, I was really in bad mood, sorry D´rek.

[Black Winged Lord]

Probably the avowed that underwhelmed me the most from a strength/resilience point of view was Shimmer while in Unta.

About the only injury we see her take directly was a single cross-bow bolt to the side. This floored her for a while (as well as the armoury going up i spose) and she complained about it for a while afterwards as well.
Something along the lines of the closest she'd come under the vow.

Not quite what I'd expected after earlier glimpses of avowed heroes fighting on while pin-cushioned.


I think Storo's story about back in genabackis was probably the most overrated glimpse we get. Can't remember her name, but she has a tower dropped on her head, shot full of bolts then nailed to the ground by javelins but still fighting back until he hacks her head off.
Could have been an exaggeration in his telling of it, but judging his character I just can't see it.

[Kryphon]

 WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 10 April 2010 - 02:55 PM, said:

Karsa is one of the most powerful people we've seen in the books.

And what do you mean about Rell humbling Mok? Do you just mean by comparison? Because in MoI we see Mok cut through entire Pannion armies (with help, but still).

Karsa handling that Segulah shouldn't be a suprise. Between the agility he's shown and the range advantage he has due to his size and his sword only a handfull of people SHOULD be able to match him. Of those we know... Icarium, he admits to being glad he didn't have to fight Traveller, and... ??

Mok fought not only the entire Pannion army, he also stood still until a KCCM was on top of him before reacting, then dismembered it casually. Mok was a badass. What we see is that Envy has the ability to attack his mind, something he and his brothers seem completely unable to defend against. As for Mok vs Rell... Somehow I think Rell is pretty close on the skill table. But we're clearly never going to get a chance to see. But Rell facing down Ryll seems comperable to Mok pwning EVERYTHING, pannions and KCCM.

[L'oric]

[quote name='borstalboy' date='21 March 2010 - 03:18 PM' timestamp='1269206324' post='741843']

[quote]
Ryllandaras was a hugely powerful First Hero, do you think his prison was a mundane cave? The place obviously had protective wards around it. And if it was a magic of preservation, why would he need to eat or exercise to maintain strength? Look at Calm in HoC, imprisoned under a rock and pops out pwning Karsa and his buddies. The FA in MT is the same. The Jaghut that Karsa frees later in HoC.[/quote]

A) don't know much about the nature of rylly's imprisonment magics
don't know if calm survived coz of the nature of the imprisonment magics (which may be totally different from rylly's) or becoz she was a really powerful creature. or both. same for others.

[quote]


I probably messed up these quotes...ah well.

We are told in House of Chains right around where karsa frees the Jaghut that the Imass chain and keep those they defeat alive in order to use them as power amplifiers to the tellan warren.

So Calm and the Jaghut lived because of the ritual..their power always being siphoned age upon age. Which could be a reason why once freed they seem so powerful because we know from what QB says that if you are stretched beyond your limits you can experience a power boost. So imagine being "stretched" for millenia, or they were just that powerful before being imprisoned.

The T'lan Ritual/Warren has had some hard losses.

Sincerely

ps Laseen is that good and I found nothing wrong with her being able to kill avowed. Topper has access to Elder Darkness and we saw what that did to the Avowed mages. Tays has been able to counter the Avowed mages by himself before. And I think avowed survive more because of their strength of will. Its not the injuries that kill them but the amount of pain and suffering they can will their bodies to sustain. IMO.


T

[togepreee]

eh. seemed like the avowed in this book were wusses. in previous books they talked about them like they were untouchable, but here they fell right and left. the battle at the end was a huge letdown. seemed like shoddy writing to make everything good that could possibly happen for laseen happen. a secret high mage that could counter all the avowed high mages, some other priest that used darkness to pick up where she left off (supposedly impossible. who was that guy?), nait and his squad of misfits (which i think was retarded. fools with no training walking through a battlefield killing avowed? as if they wouldn't have realized they were being blown apart and focused on killing the guy), etc. oh, and then there's the fact that the avowed themselves were worthless. you know they've fought moranth munitions before. how could they not have a counter to them?

another note: iron bars was such a scrub. previously, he fought 5 gods at once (granted, with help), using his speed and skill. he also killed rhulad in one move without stopping. his swordsmanship was compared to skinner. yet in this book, he had no speed, nor skill. all he had was the willpower to take hits and stay alive. sure, you could say that he was wounded and such, but that doesn't change the fact that he almost died to an unnamed, low ranked seguleh (i highly doubt the seguleh would fill one patrol boat with top 50).

blues, supposedly a master swordsman and powerful mage. he accomplished nothing the whole book. the only thing he did was take out a whole barracks of guards, but we don't even know what happened there.

cowl, master of assassins and high mage. went toe to toe with dancer with no obvious winner. confident enough to challenge tay, alone and on hostile grounds. sure, technically he wasn't beaten by topper, he went mad and let the deadhouse take him, but what did he do in the battle? absolutely nothing. his veils went around assassinating people, but apparently no one important. they couldn't even kill the Sword. if avowed mages went up against tayschrenn, hairlock, night chill, etc., you would think they could defeat one unknown high mage and one cadre mage. apparently not. they were negated by untrained sappers with magical eyes. once they realized the havok those sappers were creating, they should have slaughtered them all.

shimmer, second in command and master swordsman. in her two fight scenes, she almost died twice.

skinner himself. supposedly one of the greatest swordsman alive. this book made it seem like without his armor he just be a slow, strong guy; yet we know that prior to this book, he had no such armor.

[ShadowRaven]

IMO, the very style in which Erikson and ICE handle magic in their books makes power comparisons and analyzing the nature of spells tricky: Effectiveness of different warrens against each other, plus individual tricks some characters might know make them more effective in certain situations (although a very powerful character will be effective in most situations). There is much less of the classic fantasy approach of describing certain spells/power a single mage might possess in the Malazan books, which could give us a more concrete opinion. Although Cowl felt like a letdown in this book, I did feel that his and Topper's fighting styles were so similar (ie. popping in and out of warrens and making quick attacks) that he couldn't maybe utilize his magic to its full extent. Cowl could still have very well driven off Silanah because I imagine his style would work very well against her: Hitting a big dragon flying around with a magery blast, then quickly changing locations via warren so the dragon can't retaliate and then repeating. This is Similar to what Ulrik stated about Cowl vs. Rake.



And besides, the Crimson Guard's reputation is probably quite inflated because of some strong performances on the battlefield. I can't remember whether it is explicitly stated in RotCG, but there are quite a lot of the dead ones following them during the book, which would indicate that quite a lot of them have died after the first battles that made them legendary. Furthermore, the nature of the vow remains unclear, but since it was referred to as being a question of willpower I also see it as a question of how the Avowed would personally perceive the injury. I'm not sure if I can explain this properly but here goes: In Storo's story, the Avowed gets pincushioned and a tower collapses on him, but he is in a battlerage and thinking he is going to rip his enemies to shreds (Along the lines of "these minor scratches won't kill me, but I'm gonna get 'em!"). Therefore, the vow sustains him through it. However, in Shimmer's situation she suddenly gets hit, and sees the injury which probably looks quite bad (they are still more or less human after all), so her will to keep the vow going might not be as good during that situation.

[IgnatiusKruppe]

 WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 22 February 2010 - 04:25 AM, said:

If an Avowed takes a major injury it hampers them basically the same as a normal strong person (excepting instant death apparently in Stoops case). The thing that sets them apart is if they get a couple of seconds to rest, the essentially recharge all their batteries. Iron Bars was almost done against the Tarthenal until Ublala showed up and distracted them. He got a couple seconds to rest then, and stepped back up as refreshed as when he started. Plus Iron Bars had Corlo distracting the Tarthenal and allowing him to dodge more of their blows. Against someone like Laseen or a ranked Seguleh, the blows would come so quickly that an Avowed doesn't really have the time to regenerate their strength. If Laseen broke a wriste, elbow, neck the other elbow a nose and snapped a knee inside of 10 seconds (which I definitely think she's capable of) then the Avowed wouldn't actually be able to move before she finished them off.

This is why I'm confused. He managed to go from 'Capable of standing against 5 Tartheno Gods' to 'Incapable Of Moving Because Of Getting Roughed Up By 5 Tartheno Gods'
to 60~ second rest back to 'Capable of standing against Tartheno Gods' again.. But then he's still injured when they're on the boat? Just seems like if he could
overwhelm so much internal damage so fast, that he shouldn't still be recovering. I understand that it could be an Adrenaline-like situation where he can recharge for another
short burst of power at a terrible cost..but I still dont get why Iron Bars is so jacked up.

Also.. Skinner is a Jhag right? I seem to remember Kyle thinking that the first time he sees him. I had no concept of him being a Jhag before that. Still only at the part of the book
where IB killed the Seguleh so maybe they get into it more later

[HoosierDaddy]

Skinner is a Jhag? First I've heard of that. Just thought he was a tall human.

[D'rek]

 HoosierDaddy, on 17 August 2011 - 12:27 AM, said:

Skinner is a Jhag? First I've heard of that. Just thought he was a tall human.

Kyle just thinks that because Skinner is very tall and imposing, and was covered head to toe in armour so Kyle couldn't see he was human (plus maybe Assailian Jhags wear lots of armour).