Suggested by Aelfinn
Here we have the smackdown that’s been happening on other battles finally going head to head with the Wheel of Time series going up against the Sword of Truth.
Boxes of Orden and Choedan Kal are out. Gods can’t attack unless it’s another god, but their forces can.
You all know which side I’m rooting for.
Who wins?
I was going to go on my usual SoT slamming routine but seeing as how this is a thread that you’ll take great interest in, admin…i’ll make an exception.
I WILL not grace my fellow factpilers – yes, I don’t count Mike as a factpiler, never will at that – with facts about mike’s “intelligence”, academic success and textual interpretation skills – which, by the way, far exceed those of the entire population of Earth combined (barring Mike of course; he’s something else or so it would seem).
Hm….Interesting, sent in a more specific fight between two groups form these worlds awhile ago, but this works to.
I think that who wins this one largely depends on who’s calling the shots. But while there are not many things that scare me in this world, the thought of the imperial Order and the D’Haran Empire setting aside ideology and joining forces sends shivers down my spine. I similarly don’t want to think what could happen in Matt wall calling the attacks of a Shadow Spawn Army combined with the united forces of the Westlands, and the Seanchan…
There is a lot to consider for this one.
Does the Dark One’s taint count as an attack by the Dark One? If so, then the SoT verse will probably lose due to attrition.
Also glad to see another one of my suggestion get posted.
*was calling the attacks))
We need a comment edit button…
This sounds actually really interesting. Unfortunately I know absolutely nothing about the Sword of Truth series (other than it’s a sword that makes you angry? I think?) From the limited amount I do know, isn’t additive and subtractive magic easier to do complex things with than the One Power, while the One Power has a higher potential devastating effect?
@Krazy
Dark One’s taint couldn’t be weaponized against another universe unless additive and subtractive magic somehow worked the same way as the One Power, and the magic users therein tried directly confronting and binding the Dark One. The hundreds of thousands of Trollocs, The hordes of Myrdraal, and the rest of the Shadowspawn, however, are right in.
Come on people, post! I wish to consume your knowledge!
Ahem. Nearly absolutely nothing*
I’m gonna vote for WoT on this one. I think that the combined Seanchan, shadowspawn, and the Westlands like The End said would be able to defeat the SoT guys. The sorceress’ would be trouble, especially the ones that had absorbed the wizards magic, but I think there is enough channelers to deal with them.
Well lets see here is some information on WoT
1. WoT has a advantage in mobility because of gateways so they can move armies faster.
2. WoT has cannons
3. WoT has the Black tower which is specifically meant to train channelers for war all they do is learn how to kill pretty much.
4. They have TONS Shadowspawn.
5. Channeling seems to be very good at attacking mass numbers
6. Can make power forged weapons which are nearly unbreakable.
7. Dont know if they can use this but they have portal stones where they can go to different possibility of their world for more troops.
8. Wolves will fight with them because of wolf-brothers so thats got to count for something
9. They have flying animals they can ride.
Also could the Dark one revive people since its not attacking any one?
What are the numbers for the WoT forces? Cuz the SoT armies number in the millions. I think it was agreed on another thread that the total order soldiers was somewhere around 15-20 million. Then there’s the new world armies which in total are around 4 hundred thousand in total. There’s not much for wizards on the SoT side, maybe sime 20 in total, but there’s a couple hundred sorceresses, and some are sisters of the dark. The wizards include richard zedd and nathan, all very powerful wizards, especially richard
I don’t think that portal stones would be of any use because they’ve only been used once or twice in the books and gateways have all their advantages without distorting time too much. I think it was in the great hunt when they used a portal stone it took longer than it would have if they had traveled on foot. I bet even skimming would be faster in the long run and it’s easier to do than actual traveling.
I’m not sure how prevalent power-forged weapons will be, seeing as though there isn’t that many of them already, and only one has been made in the actual book series; that would be Perrin’s new hammer. It doesn’t seem like they would make much of a difference.
Even though the Aes Sedai are oathsworn not to fight unless their lives are in danger, that wouldn’t hold them too long, and there’s the black tower and the seanchan chanelers like Zen said.
There are many thousands of men in the standard armies in WoT, many hundereds of channelers, and countless darkspawn.
If SoT armies are in the millions, then they would outnumber WoT in pure man power, but WoT has monsters, channelers, and aiel.
The aiel are better than standard armies and the seanchen have flyers and elephants, and so on.
Gateways make this a stomp.
All there is too this really…
Darkspawn can’t travel through gateways, so they’ll end up being the detaining force, occupying the attention of the SoT armies by directly attacking their lines and forcing them to devote the vast majority of their forces to holding them at bay. The Darkspawn armies have massive numbers that should be comparable if not outright superior to those of the Imperial Order, and include problematic units such as dreadlords, fades and drakhars (or however they’re called), not to mention their foot soldiers are 8 ft tall armored minotaurs that can outrun horses.
The human armies would be mobile strike forces, gating around and stomping any and every vulnerable target and ganging up on any force dumb enough to be sizable yet no deterringly humongous.
Don’t be deceived by the “mobile strike forces” part though, these are massive armies in their own right.
-Rand’s Aiel alone would be at least 750,000 strong (as can be deduced from the battle of Ceirhien, where the shaido had some 250,000 spears and the aiel armies were divided 50% o rand’s side, 25% on the shaido’s side, and 25% undecideds).
-The borderlands martialed 200,000 men to take south while leaving sizable garrisons to guard the blightborder.
-Elayn herself assumed Andor could raise a 200,000 men army in a jiffy if necessary (and she’s the queen, so she of all people should know).
-The legions of the dragon have been steadily swelling to a point where they would probably be more then a match for most nations.
-Tyr and Illian each should be close to Andor in military power.
-Mat’s personal army is 40,000 strong and counting, plus it has cannons.
-Arad doman has enough of a fight left in her to obliterate a senchan army 300,000 strong (even if it was in a giant ambush).
-Last but not least, the Senchan have a huge army that is still considered a huge threat to the rest of these nations combined even after losing 300,000 men to the domani ambush, going so far as to conquer the worlds from them in a prophetic vision a generation or two later.
The total numbers of the human armies of WoT could easily surpass 2 million men all tolled. And all of them can be zipping around using gateways to decimate SoT forces left and right unchecked and without the SoT factions having any way of countering this tactic.
As for Channelers, here are the numbers as we know them so far-
- The white tower has around 900 aes sadai in total, as well as hundreds of novices and several accepted.
- The black tower had 400 ashaman when the last time an accurate number was given, though the number is probably much higher by now.
- The shaido, a single Aiel clan, had 400 wise ones who could channel, given the fact that there are 11 clans under rand’s control that means there are probably around 4,000 wise ones who can channel.
- The Senchan have hundreds of damana of their own, as well as hundreds of new damanas collared in the conquered nations, plus the 400 shaido wise ones they captured thanks to perrin.
- The Sea folk have quite a few channeling windfinders of their own, but now numbers were given, so they’re next to useless for the count.
- There are supposed to be a shitload of dreadlords in the armies of shadow, but so far we haven’t ever seen them
- The kin had some 1,300 or so channelers of their own.
Total tally: 8,000 channelers minimum, probably well over 10,000.
The SoT has absolutely no chance.
“Does the Dark One’s taint count as an attack by the Dark One?”
His “taint” must be very dangerous. Oh lawdy.
@Pyre
I was not talking about the Dark One’s taint of Saidin. I was talking about how him having a stronger presence in the WoT world that the world is decaying from it. Mainly food almost always being bad and such. That is why I said they would lose due to attrition.
“His “taint” must be very dangerous. Oh lawdy.”
Well, it will make it so that has much less usable food, and even that food will still be somewhat spoiled.
@ Galorian
Evidently it’s “Draghkar” (I thought it was the other way too) and “Damane”. Though Damanas sounds like it would be the pluralization, doesn’t it?
If SoT really only has 20 wizards and a few hundred sorceresses, then this looks like a *horribly* lopsided match in favor of Wheel of Time. Seanchan entirely aside (as I hate that entire group with a passion that defies reason), two simple words make attacking the forces of the Wheel of Time with ANY kind of standard army suicidally horrifying.
“Asha’man. Kill.”
As of Towers of Midnight, Rand alone could solo hundreds of thousands of mundane opponents. I’ll post it up just to make the point, though it’s going to take a good deal of space;
“Al’Thor raised one hand, then thrust it – palm forward – toward the tide of Shadowspawn.
And they started to die.
It began with waves of fire, much like the ones Asha’man used. Only these were far larger. The flames burned terrible swaths of death through the Trollocs. They followed the course of the land, seeping up the hill and down into the trenches, filling them with white-hot fire, searing and destroying.
Clouds of Dragkhar spun in the sky, diving for al’Thor. The air above him turned blue, and shards of ice exploded outward, spraying the air like arrows from the bows of an entire banner of archers. The beasts shrieked their inhuman agony, carcasses tumbling to the ground.
Light and Power exploded from the Dragon Reborn. He was like an entire army of channelers. Thousands of Shadowspawn died. Deathgates sprang up, striking across the ground, killing hundreds.
….
Clouds began to form and swirl above the city. The wind picked up, howling, and lightning struck from above. Blasts of thunder overpowered the sounds of drums as Trollocs tried in vain to get to al’Thor, climbing over the burning carcasses of their brethren. The swirling white clouds crashed into the black, boiling tempest, intermingling. Wind spun around al’Thor, whipping at his cloak.
…
Clouds spinning about one another made funnels into the masses of Trollocs, sweeping across the top of the hill, taking up the creatures into the air. Great waterspouts rose behind, made of flesh and fire. The beasts rained down, falling upon the others…
…
The tempest of destruction seemed to come to a peak, flashes of light blasting down in time with howling wind, thrumming waves of burning flame, tinkling shards of ice. It was a masterwork. A terrible, destructive, wonderful masterwork. Al’Thor lifted his hand toward the sky. The winds grew faster, the lightning strikes larger, the fires hotter. Trollocs screamed, moaned, howled. Ituralde found himself trembling.
Al’Thor closed his hand into a fist, and it all ended.”
-Towers of Midnight, pages 502 -503
Now, to prevent this from being fanwank. NOT every powerful channeler can do that. In fact it’s a safe bet no one besides Rand and maybe two others are capable of that kind of overwhelming devastation. Even whole armies of channelers aren’t THAT effective, though in a smaller scale they can devastate an army in much the same way (Dumai’s Wells saw the Asha’man leveling wave after wave of opponents with mixes of exploding earth, waves of fire, and then just crazy killing weaves). Rand was also exhausted unto nearly falling over after that effort, so it’s not something he can pull out regularly.
Deathgates, or the Windfinder’s ability to make it literally “rain lightning” (Hyperbole, but impressive hyperbole. Unfortunately I don’t recall the book this occurred in), the sheer variety of ways weaves can be used to kill, all of this makes engaging a unified Wheel of Time army terrifying, and that’s BEFORE we start factoring in the channelers powerful enough to wield Balefire, or those unscrupulous enough to use it indiscriminately (Darkfriends and the Forsaken).
Even though the Aes Sedai cannot attack with the Power except in the final defense of their or their Warder’s lives, they CAN defend: shields of Air that would be sufficient to stop bows at least, and possibly arcane assaults (The Battle of Dumai’s Wells showcases this trick, but I believe that was against Shaido Aiel, and their Wise Ones weren’t aiding the battle. Could be wrong).
On TOP of very effective standard armies with some admirable leadership (for the human forces, with the likes of Rodel Ituralde and Gareth Bryne), numerous blademasters, and then the hordes and hordes of Shadowspawn.
All of that said. If the SoT wizards are powerful enough, that could knock the scales back towards even. Most channelers are not nearly so strong as Rand, and channeling on the warfare scale is explicitly exhausting.
But like I said, I know damn near f***-all about Sword of Truth’s magic system though. Could a fan put up proper examples of power and skill?
Oh, and
@ Envoy
Damn it, I was trying to avoid that pun. But yes, truly his taint is horrifying…
Excuse me while I break down into snickering.
WoT verse will almost never lose a universe battle against another fantasy universe, because they can just resort to mutualy assured destruction by just balefire until the universe falls unravels. So, if things are looking grim for the WoT forces they can destroy reality ending this match in a tie.
@ Krazy
I’m thinking more of “Can SoT produce threats of a scale to render that threat irrelevant”. Balefire is a terrible weapon, true, but in order to create the kind of devastation you’re talking about you’d need every channeler powerful enough to wield the weave using it near-simultaneously, or at least constantly. On top of this, there ARE things that can deflect (or at least deter) balefire (to the tune of Callandor in The Dragon Reborn brimming with the Power bisecting a beam of balefire).
We need a SoT fan in here to describe exactly what the SoT wizards and casters can do. If they have the capability to head off large groups of channelers (by incapacitating, killing, or otherwise hampering enough) before they can craft and direct weaves, this match isn’t as lopsided as it seems.
So when will Dancer suggest his epic idea for a fight, so we can see if the alliance can actually contain or fight off Galactus, Dark Phoenix, and Dr. Manhattan and then successfully unleash the kill-’em-all policy upon Nihilus’ forces?
In any rate, i nominate Rand for the grand general of the main forces.
Would mass-producing the Sword of Truth be able to make a shread of difference in SoT’s favor, or is it going to worsen things?
@Commander
Patience.
@Krazy and Galorian
Buckle up gents…I sense impending doom upon this thread. Mike is coming…
“But like I said, I know damn near f***-all about Sword of Truth’s magic system though. Could a fan put up proper examples of power and skill?”
It works in a similar way to WoT’s power system. Individuals born with the “Gift” can tap into their own life-essence (“Han”) and exert it outside their bodies in order to cause desired affects. Say someone with the Gift lifts a rock by picking it up, then sets it down and dose the same thing by projecting their Han outside their self and using it to influence the air around the rock so it will lift up, to a user with the Gift it is the same thing, just different means. Gifted once exerting their Han outside their body will “spin” or “weave” into webs the accomplish complex feat by warping reality, to varying extents based on the complexity and strength behind the Web, basic acts, such as Lightning Bolts and Wizard’s Fire (fire so strong it melts down to the bone, through any substance, and cannot be extinguished) however do not require Webs since they are extremely basic actions. Also, unlike WoT “Weaves”, once a Web is unlinked from someone “Han” and left, it losses no potency or power, as well “Webs” cannot be unraveled or fundamentally altered beyond anything short of destruction. A Light Web (highly volatile and deadly form of magic, then when “Ignited” destroys and consumes everything around it) set around to protect an object cannot be unmade, or its purpose changed, other Webs can be “linked” (woven together with) a Web to try and move it, or else drain it of power over time, or a Lightning Bolt or Wizard’s Fire can be used to destroy it (most likely igniting the Web and destroying the object and anyone even remotely close by), but beyond that once a Web is out there, it is out there, and there is no taking it back.
Webs can also be Woven into objects to grant that object a power (i.e a stick that sets things on fire when someone says “Light for me”, or a Doll that can be used as a communication device over vast distances).
While only those on Rand level strength can take on hundreds to thousands of opponents at once in WoT, normal level Sorceress like Adie (who is blind) have been none to take on hundreds, more or less on their own. Both her and Zedd where able to hold out against the Imperial Order inside the Wizard’s Keep with no help what so ever, for months.
Also aside from the Sorceress scattered throughout the Midlands, the Sisters Of Light, and those twenty or so Wizards you mentioned, the Imperial Order had numerous Gifted that were captured by Jagang before the war even started, as well as all the young men in training at the Palace of The Prophets before it’s destruction that fled with the Sister Of The Light into the D’Haran Empire. It’s hard to say exactly how many, but there should be enough to match the WoT to some degree, given their difference in power.
Oh right, forgot about that. Kahlan’s armies she commanded were particularly good at guerilla tactics, and also there’s the mord sith, which would effectively counter the channelers. I got to go so somebody else will have to go into specifics, and remember, Mike is coming!
“Buckle up gents…I sense impending doom upon this thread. Mike is coming…”
We were doing so well too, until you had to come along and jinx it….jackass.
Well he hasn’t showed up yet, we might be safe for a bit. I’m back now so, what mord sith do is capture an enemies magic. All they have to do is come into contact with it and the spell caster is f*cked. Book version they cause supreme pain to the victim, and it doesn’t matter how strong they are at magic, they can’t resist. Only a dreamwalker can break their hold, and that’s when he takes the victims mind and acts with them, ignoring their pain. After that he somehow screws up the mord sith’s veins. As far s I know, there are about 50 of them (rough guess, but its somewhere in that area)
Well he hasn’t showed up yet, we might be safe for a bit. I’m back now so, what mord sith do is capture an enemies magic. All they have to do is come into contact with it and the spell caster is f*cked. Book version they cause supreme pain to the victim, and it doesn’t matter how strong they are at magic, they can’t resist. Only a dreamwalker can break their hold, and that’s when he takes the victims mind and acts with them, ignoring their pain. After that he somehow screws up the mord sith’s veins. As far s I know, there are about 50 of them (rough guess, but its somewhere in that area). How would that affect the WoT channelers?
@ The End
THERE we go. Thank you!
Now then. Overall, which supernatural force is superior?
Because it’s going to come down to that. The numbers we’ve gotten from both sides place the mundane combatant advantage squarely in the favor of the SoT universe.
The description The End gave up above of how magic works in that universe gives the SoT magic an advantage in certain ways – enduring without losing potency after being unlinked from its source being one, relative ease of creating magical objects presumably being another, as the WoT universe currently has very few channelers capable of doing the same, at least for weapons.
However, Webs being destructible seems like a significant exploitable weakness versus most weaves in Wheel of Time that either have to be approached a certain way to be affected (applying the proper elements like Spirit, Air, Fire, etc.), and won’t notice attack magic being directed at them.
Lightning bolts are basic stuff for both sides. Wizard’s Fire is innately superior to the normal fires channelers summon, purely by the description, but for a powerful enough channeler – on the level of say, Egwene, Elayne or Nynaeve – such a feat shouldn’t be too hard if they chose to go that route.
There are also weaves with the Power that will outright block any assault, as they repel everything, including air. Here my memory starts failing me though: I just spent twenty minutes searching the books and couldn’t find the scene. i THOUGHT it was the Trolloc attack on the Stone of Tear: can anyone with a better memory get a quote for this one?
However only the Forsaken and Rand are going to know that particular weave. It helps, though, that these characters are the most powerful channelers in the WoT universe.
What is the likelihood that the two magical systems would interact? Obviously they ought to to some degree: a shield designed for stopping stuff should stop it, Wizard’s Fire should burn through Power-summoned ice, etc. But would weaves of Spirit likely be able to affect Sword of Truth webs? Could both sides begin hampering or directly countering the others’ magic?
The central problem with the One Power of course is that a channeler can be cut off from it (and there are a grand total of two confirmed characters with ready access to the “True Power”, and one of them won’t use it). If the Sword of Truth magic was capable of doing this, that’s a dangerous advantage in their part that, presumably, the Wheel of Time channelers cannot replicate.
Of course there’s still very little that’s going to present a credible defense against Balefire, but seeing as that’s the “Crazy reality nuke” of Wheel of Time, i prefer to leave it in the wings until after everything else is settled.
How about Mat Cauthon? He has memories of many military geniuses inside his own, and I believe it was decided he could beat Kahlan over in their fight elsewhere on Factpile.
And Fang, how would the Mord Sith “counter the channelers”? I don’t know much about them, so please explain. I need to know why this group can stop thousands of people who can each blow a man up at the speed of thought?
Crap, I hate when it double posts. Stupid phone. Just what are the gate ways? How do they work? How many men can they transport?can they go anywhere or does the caster have to have been there before?
@Fang
What’s the exact mechanic of the Mord Sith’s ability? Does it work because the caster cannot be separated from their magic? Since sudden, mind-blasting pain is enough to cause most people to lose hold of the Source, which means there’s then no more magical power to draw on. If the Mord Sith ability locks whatever it is a caster uses to draw on their power, though, it ought to affect WoT channelers much the same way.
Huh. It’s like a less offensive version of sul’dam and the a’dam collars…
@ pyre
Wizards fire is basically a ball of lava.
@Aelfinn
Well, mord sith basicall come into contact with the magic, and the magic doesn’t affect them. They somehow capture the victim’s han and cause extreme pain to them. This is usually followed up by an agiel (rods that cause incredible pain to whoever they touch).
I’m not sure what the limit is for capturing at the same time, but they can easily get one at a time. I don’t remember if they ever caught more than one at a time. Anyway, I doubt a thousand channelers are going to blast one single woman simultaneously (mord sith are girls). Also, mordsith are adept at combat, with any weapon. Their agiel can kill by simply poking someone and twisting it, this stops their heart instantly.
@ Fang, the problem though is that most weaves simply create something, and let it go. Like the ground blowing up beneath someone. Or a giant fireball. The magic itself isn’t touching someone, just a lightning bolt. The only thing a Mord Sith could capture is a picture of his death.
@ Pyre, I don’t see how SOT magic could cut a WOT person away from their magic, unless its been shown that they can do that, (not to mention the fact that channelers don’t have a big cord coming out of their back that you can cut).
It HAS been shown WOT users can cut magic users off from their source of magic, so I don’t see why they couldn’t do that to all the magic users in SOT, considering Factpile debating rules.
@ The End,
You mentioned two magic users holding off hundreds of troops for months.
Did they destroy all of them at the same time? Because that’s what made Rand so exhausted. He killed AT LEAST one hundred thousand Trollocs at the same time (it could have been more, the book only said “endless”).
From what it seems like in the books, hundreds of soldiers isn’t hard at all for two channelers if they are given months to do it. They could probably do it in hours.
@ Fang
A beautifully weird point about the Gateways is that the channeler doesn’t need to have been where they’re going. In fact, they don’t need to have anything besides a *description* of it, at best. They need to know the area they’re LEAVING from very well. Why? Because, that’s why (no seriously, that’s the explanation in the books, it’s hilarious).
Gateways don’t have any shown limit on range. Worse, the edges are monomolecular (or at least damn near it) slices in reality. Touching the edge of a gateway means you’re losing that limb, or at least getting one very bad cut.
This is what “Deathgates” are, though again only Rand and the Forsaken are going to be pulling them out unless they teach others in a hurry: gateways that spin across a battlefield, carving up foes as they go. Where the bits that fall inside go, I have no idea.
The Mord Sith sound rather similar to the Seanchan Sul’dam, only less horrifyingly evil (actually misguided, but God I hate them so much) and more efficient. From your description, it sounds like a Mord Sith capturing a channeler in this way is going to simply snap off their connection to the Source thanks to the pain. As for magic not affecting them, that’s MUCH more dangerous, but the Wheel of Time universe has threats like that: it would remain a problem until Mat Cauthon started telling people to throw things at them.
@ Pyre, Rand did teach people about Deathgates in a hurry. When a Trolloc force attacked him , Logain and the other Asha’man around him immediately saw how to do it and started copying him.
@ Fang, if a channeler hits a Mord Sith with a lightning bolt, that’s just it, a lightning bolt. They’ll be dead. There’s also the fact that Rand restarted his own heart when it was stopped magically, and that male channelers are supposed to not feel pain. They enter the “void,” and this allows them to not feel pain, as in “it felt like another man’s.”
There are also the Seanchan assassination group. I forget there names, but they are almost impossible to kill. And if these assassins have access to Gateways, pretty soon the entire command of the SOT is going to be dead really quickly.
@ Aelfinn
Half-accurate. Channelers DO have a “cord coming out of their backs”, after a fashion. The problem is SoT casters presumably wouldn’t be able to SEE it (or the equivalent connection to the One Power). My question is whether SoT magic has been shown to be adaptable enough to allow them to figure out where channelers are getting their power from, and then block them from that.
Wheel of Time channelers are only capable of cutting other magic users off from the One Power, the source of magic in their world. This is possible because channeling requires drawing on the One Power, a force explicitly outside the person, to begin with. Sword of Truth “Han” does not seem to work on the same mechanic at all, and therefore could not logically be interrupted in that way. If there is a way of cutting a SoT caster off from their Han, the One Power’s adaptability would imply that eventually some channelers might figure it out (some fancy use of weaves of Spirit, I’d imagine).
@ Aelfinn
Also. BACK! BACK! YOU WILL NOT HAVE MY SKIN, SNAKE MAN! NO MATTER HOW MANY TRUE ANSWERS YOU GIVE ME!
What were the names of the darkspawn creatures that were unkillable by normal means and seemingly had no skeleton? Matt’s medallion could burn them.
“I don’t think that portal stones would be of any use because they’ve only been used once or twice in the books and gateways have all their advantages without distorting time too much. I think it was in the great hunt when they used a portal stone it took longer than it would have if they had traveled on foot. I bet even skimming would be faster in the long run and it’s easier to do than actual traveling.”
Multiverse’s are always in play on factpile unless stated otherwise.
Forgot to add this.
@ Aelfinn
Do you remember what book, and what area thereof, that scene was in (Logain and the others copying the Deathgates)? I feel like I remember it, but since I couldn’t find the example of that shielding weave, I’m distrusting my memory on the series.
Also, the Seanchan assassination group is called the Bloodknives. I shall try to put aside my mind-numbing hate of the Seanchan for a moment and address their capabilities properly. Specifically, they are difficult to fight because they hide in and use shadows as weapons: they hide in shadows too small to realistically contain humans
“The shadowy alcove from before didn’t seem to *repel* his attention as it had last time”
Towers of Midnight page 574
And they are difficult to keep your eyes on (like a Gray Man, but shadowy).
“Again his attacks missed. It seemed he was off by only a few hairs.”
Towers of Midnight page 575
They are also rather fast and durable, but since one blademaster was able to carve down three that made the mistake of not striking to kill immediately (even if he would have died in the effort) they’re obviously not that impressive. Just very good assassins because of physical skill and some neat little magical items.
@Cide
The creatures you’re referencing are called gholam. There were only two left maximum by the current time in the Wheel of Time universe. If we exclude certain events of Towers of Midnight, there’s only one left. We don’t know exactly how its magical immunity works, but it seems like it would logically carry over to Sword of Truth magic…
@ CIDE, it was called a “gholam.”
@ Pyre, I believe the “cord coming out of their backs” was only someone’s connection to the Dark One, not the Source. Figuratively, yes, they do have a cord, but there isn’t one that can be cut except with Spirit, and it isn’t literally coming out of their backs, its more… inside them.
also: DO YOU HAVE IRON, FIRE, OR MUSIC?? DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH TO FIGHT US ALL OFF? YOU WILL WANDER OUR HALLWAYS UNTIL WE FIND YOU AND ADD YOUR DEATH TO THE LIKES OF BIRGITTE AND JAIN FAIRSTRIDER!!!!!!!
@ Aelfinn
I was speaking figuratively, but yes, that’s right (i’d actually forgotten the literal “cord” thing for the Forsaken! Darnit!). Other channelers can innately detect a fellow channeler’s connection to the Source, and block it that way. Sword of Truth works on what appears to be an entirely different mechanic, and one channelers would not be able to immediately detect anyway.
again also: I ONLY HAVE SOME KITCHEN MATCHES AND A BIT OF SINGING ABILITY! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I do know the “magic-blocking” has been allowed on other fights, as it might fall under one of the Factpile rules where someone has all their capabilities even in the new universe.
also: NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU WENT TO THE DENTIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CURSE YOU IRON FILLINGS AND BRACES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAGGGGHHHHHghghghhh…
“What were the names of the darkspawn creatures that were unkillable by normal means and seemingly had no skeleton? Matt’s medallion could burn them.”
Gholams, and the Seanchan assassins are called bloodknives.
Heh.
If magic-blocking was allowed in other fights for channelers, that’s…an odd kind of mistake. Not that it ought to be impossible for a channeler to cut off, say, a wizard who draws mana from their surroundings, since that is mechanically similar to the way one blocks a channeler from the True Source.
But unless SoT contains a precedent, blocking someone off from their life force is entirely different. Preventing a caster from using that (via Compulsion or some other kind of weave) would be viable, but not outright shutting down a SoT’s access to their magic. Again, unless the books contain a precedent for this.
“but since one blademaster was able to carve down three that made the mistake of not striking to kill immediately”
That fight had major PIS. Since earlier in the book the same swordsman was having difficulty fighting just one bloodknife.
Mordsith have been hit by lightning before and it didn’t hurt them when they caught the wizard, even subtractive doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter if the victim stops their spell, in fact, their spell is stopped immediately. Webs however, affect them. Not ones cast by wizards, these do work but only if the mord sith let them, but if the mordsith opens a box that’s made to explode when exposed to say, sunlight, they’ll be killed.
I forgot to mention that the SoT universe has these and they have been used before, however nobody knows how to make them anymore so they have a limited supply.
A mord sith’s ability functions remarkably like the a’dam (even suspiciously so). The main difference is that unlike the collar a mord sith traps the victim the moment his magic is used directly against her, and at that point it is caught. That being said, WoT channelers have plenty of ways of killing indirectly that should work just fine against mord sith, such as making the ground explode in their vicinity, thus hitting them with shrapnel, heat and concussive force. This also happens to be one of the most commonly used weaves in massed warfare in the WoT universe.
As for gateways, they are portals that connect two points in space, allowing anyone to pass through them so long as they remain open. it seems most channelers can make them at least big enough for people to pass through single file. Any group of female channelers no matter how weak could link up and create bigger ones, and a circle of 13 average aes sadai can create a gateway big enough for several wagons to pass through side by side. Two of the weakest aes sadai in the white tower could manage to create a gateway big enough for safe passage when linked.
The size of a gateway is directly proportional to the channeler’s effective power potential (not the power invested) so making the biggest gateway you can does not necessarily mean putting all your power into it (though it is a fairly demanding weave as it is).
The prerequisites for creating a gateway are knowing the place you are starting from well, only vague knowledge of the target location is required, though this prerequisite does not apply for gates within visual range. The prep time required used to be hours but thanks to some clever rules exploit WoT channelers can manage it nearly instantly in later books.
@The End
“While only those on Rand level strength can take on hundreds to thousands of opponents at once in WoT, normal level Sorceress like Adie (who is blind) have been none to take on hundreds, more or less on their own. Both her and Zedd where able to hold out against the Imperial Order inside the Wizard’s Keep with no help what so ever, for months.”
Adie is not a normal sorceress. Zed himself remarked that her power was exceptional. At any rate, your average channeler can in fact cause a fair amount of devastation, An average Ashaman faced with 50 horsemen charging his way would probably either detonate a concussive weave in the middle of their formation, killing or wounding many of them and breaking their charge and then quickly finish them off, or he would rapid fire small explosive weaves into their bodies killing them one by one as fast as he can weave, which would make the horsemen look like they’re charging through a blender. Either way 50 horsemen vs an average channeler is a stomp in the channeler’s favor that would be resolved in mere moments.
“but there should be enough to match the WoT to some degree, given their difference in power.”
Wrong. Big time.
If you had bothered to read my previous post you’d have noticed the low end figures for channelers in the WoT to be in the 8,000 range without even counting the dreadlords. That’s well over ten times as many magic users as there are in the SoT universe.
Add to that the fact that Richard is the only SoT wizard who’s power might be on par with the heavy hitters of the WoT universe (of whom there are quite a few) and you get a real stomp in the magical power department.
@Pyre
“Because it’s going to come down to that. The numbers we’ve gotten from both sides place the mundane combatant advantage squarely in the favor of the SoT universe.”
Actually, the human armies of the WoT series, which have around 2-3 million men between them are expected to be ridiculously outnumbered by the trollock hordes. Given the fact that no numbers were ever given about said trollocks I’d say it is a bit premature to declare that the SoT universe has a numeric advantage, as they could very well outnumber the imperial order when fully mobilized.
“The description The End gave up above of how magic works in that universe gives the SoT magic an advantage in certain ways – enduring without losing potency after being unlinked from its source being one, relative ease of creating magical objects presumably being another, as the WoT universe currently has very few channelers capable of doing the same, at least for weapons.”
WoT weaves can be tied in place, making them permenant and independent as well. Also, I’ve never heard anything to suggest that SoT magic users can create magical items with any degree of ease. Simply making a web on top of a mundane item isn’t the same thing, and even that isn’t done often.
“There are also weaves with the Power that will outright block any assault, as they repel everything, including air. Here my memory starts failing me though: I just spent twenty minutes searching the books and couldn’t find the scene.”
Practically every channeler in the WoT universe knows weaves that “cut” magic, and they works even against weaves they can’t see.
@Aelfinn
“How about Mat Cauthon? He has memories of many military geniuses inside his own, and I believe it was decided he could beat Kahlan over in their fight elsewhere on Factpile. ”
Yea, Mat would definitely be the one to command the WoT armies in this fight, and he’d wipe the floor with any SoT general (even that Mary tzu Kahlan).
@Krazy
I pointed that out, and it said in the fight that Gawyn wasn’t promptly dead because they didn’t rush him as one. However, he also knew what he was dealing with the second time around, he was an excellent blademaster, and he got lucky. Not PIS, just skill and luck.
@ Fang
This is fascinating. So magic consciously directed by someone is ineffective, but magic that’s just sitting there as a ready-made lethal trap can do the job?
Since the latter is completely possible and fairly common in Wheel of Time.
Also, regarding the gholam: picture a vampire (higher end of that spectrum in recent fiction for a proper gauge of power and speed), without any of the weaknesses associated with those creatures. The only known things that hurt gholam are blows from things that negate the One Power.
Interestingly, this might mean that a Mord Sith could punch a gholam and harm it. Not that they’d likely survive long enough one-on-one to beat it to death this way, but just the image of that is great in my head.
Haha! I just noticed I have two stars!
@ Galorian
I know about cutting weaves (amusingly in my search I found the example of Lanfear effortlessly slicing weaves she couldn’t even see, when Rand was holding her aloft, and then explaining that all she needed to do that was to know the general location of the weave and the type).
I’m referencing the shield of Air, Earth and something else Rand used when he was under attack at one point inside some fortress (I could have sworn it was the Trolloc assault on the Stone, but I couldn’t find it in there). He described it as being able to repel anything, including air, which was why he had to undo the weave quickly (he’d encased himself in it). Typically, walls made of Air would serve just fine for this.
Regarding tying off weaves and leaving them in place, doesn’t that cause the weaves to weaken over time depending on the circumstances? Then again, Moghedien’s shield on that one Black Sister was explicitly never going to go away, so I might be misremembering something else from the series.
@ Fang
Isn’t it cool when you first see that? Like little achievements sitting there.
Mhm its pretty nice
And yeah, the death traps do work on them, also I guess that the explosion-under-their-feet could easily kill a mord sith, zedd did something similar to a man who couldn’t be touched by magic. I’d say these guys were factors in the fight, but most of them are pacifists and only about… 50 maybe have had any combat training
@pyre
I think your talking about the shield he used when the rogue ashaman tried to assassinate him in carhien, something like the sixth or seventh book. As I remember it said that nothing could penatrate that shield short of balefire, even air, so he couldn’t breath in it so he could only hold it up for a short amount of time.
@fang
I thought that the deathgates only worked on shadowspawn because they’re contructs and therefore cannot go though gateways. That’s what I remember but I could be mistaken. Someone earlier was talking about how the death gates chop people up but I’m not so sure about that.
Anyways, I think WoT has this in the bag
“I thought that the deathgates only worked on shadowspawn because they’re contructs and therefore cannot go though gateways. That’s what I remember but I could be mistaken. Someone earlier was talking about how the death gates chop people up but I’m not so sure about that.
Anyways, I think WoT has this in the bag”
Yes it kills the shadowspawn, but it will still chop people up as the edges hit them. It is a rapidly opening and closing gateway, and anything that touches the edges will be cut. They could also be used to effectivley dissipate an army, as the troops that aren’t sliced up will be randomly moved elsewhere.
I meant only kills the shadowspawn.
@ Ian
Thanks for that, I’ll check my books again. Hell, I might just reread the lot of them, I’m rather tempted to now.
Backing up what Krazy pointed out, Deathgates will kill most anything effectively: they’re just rapidly moving gateways, and those will carve open anything they hit (short of a gholam or, presumably, a Mord Sith) without meaningful resistance. I don’t remember them transporting enemies too, but…well, they’re gateways. They have to. I just don’t know to where. Come to think, I doubt the channeler using them cares.
Certainly seems like WoT is taking the overall advantage at the moment.
Mat’s legendary luck and multiple experiences of uber-generals notwithstanding, would holding out against Kahlan have something to do with being augmented by deus ex machina(due to Ta’veren blood and the Wheel of Time?) as opposed to Kahlan drawing too much from that universal source at once and grew into a Mary-Tzu, from it?
That’s my 10 bucks for more thoughts.
@commander cross
I’m not sure what your talking about when you say ” Kahlan drawing too much from that universal source at once and grew into a Mary-Tzu” Can you explain that further? I only read through those books once, so it’s quite possible that I missed something so I’m not calling you a lier or anything, I just want some clearifacation.
From what i am able to recall, Mary Sues are essentially a result of beings too infused with Deus Ex Machina without just cause.
Mary Tzus are a breed of Mary Sues that lay an extreme emphasis on strategic warfare in all matters, to the point that they have strategic intelligence to rival that of Athena, Goddess of Strategic and Defensive War, the likes of King Arthur when he has to delve to one of his Speed-Chessmaster moments(He isn’t stupid, despite being guilty of having C.I.S!) and the legendary Sun Tzu of China.
Minus the meaningful amount of justifications(genetic or otherwise!) to have such intelligence in the first place.
Considering that Deus Ex Machina is essentially some sort of source older than at least the Milky Way, itself, it seems best to caution against over-using such a source of power if it can be helped(unless you’re an outright immortal who was never mortal, but even then, that’s still too risky!) because if you do over-use it, your essence might get tainted beyond reason.
Its probably some sort of meta-power-system unto itself, from what i figured.
@commander cross
I see…
That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
sorry for the length, but alot of things needed to be set straight and there was only one thing cited in the thread so far, so i put some quotes in here.
first off, i don’t know why people keep saying rand killed hundreds of thousands of trollocs; this is the rest of the quote from post 16 that apparently didn’t make it past the editing board.
“Al’Thor closed his hand into a fist, and it all ended.
The last of the wind seized Trollocs dropped from the sky like leaves abandoned by a passing breeze. Everything fell silent. The flames died, the black and white clouds cleared and opened to a blue sky.
Al’Thor lowered his hand. The field before him was piled with carcasses. Tens of thousands of dead Trollocs smoldering. Directly before al’Thor, a pile a hundred paces wide formed a ridge five feet tall, a mound of dead that had nearly reached him.”
“1. WoT has a advantage in mobility because of gateways so they can move armies faster. ”
-what is the most # of people moved by these before?
“2. WoT has cannons ”
-non magical offensive weapons that pale in comparison to the magical ones wouldn’t make much of a difference.
“3. WoT has the Black tower which is specifically meant to train channelers for war all they do is learn how to kill pretty much.”
-the sisters of the light(and dark) specifically train wizard’s and sorcerers, and zedd has vast knowledge of how to implement it into war.
“4. They have TONS Shadowspawn. ”
-quoted # please, so we can compare to the combined SoT #s of at least a dozen million(i’ll get these #s cited up here soon).
“5. Channeling seems to be very good at attacking mass numbers”
-SoT magic is also very good at this, i’ll get examples of 1 spell 1 kill, to 1 spell 2000+ kills, to 1 spell 40,000 kills, to 1 spell 500,000-1,000,000+ kills later.
“6. Can make power forged weapons which are nearly unbreakable. ”
-three similar “unbreakable” weapons were made in the sot series also. original sot, duplicate sot, and ripp off sot.
“7. Dont know if they can use this but they have portal stones where they can go to different possibility of their world for more troops. ”
-have they actually done this in the books, and to what extent have they done it?
“8. Wolves will fight with them because of wolf-brothers so thats got to count for something”
-i suppose it would count for something, but SoT has hearthounds that could do the same for them.
“9. They have flying animals they can ride.”
-i only know of 2 from the SoT series that could be ridden, and it was the two red dragons, Scarlet, and Gregory. other creatures fly on their own though, such as gars.
“If SoT armies are in the millions, then they would outnumber WoT in pure man power, but WoT has monsters, channelers, and aiel.”
-Sot also has many “monsters”, magic users=channelers, and skilled warriors=aiel.
-albino mosquito, black-tipped race, short tailed gars, calthrops(creatures not objects), dragons(2 red dragons is all i think that would matter), grippers, Healers of Redcliff, hearthounds, nambles, nightwisps, screelings, shadow people, baka tau mana(blade masters), mud people(mainly stealth and poison and archery), people can be turned into creatures(some of these might be examples of them, but i just can’t remember right now) such as brophy the man who was turned into a huge wolf and could still talk.
“-Rand’s Aiel alone would be at least 750,000 strong (as can be deduced from the battle of Ceirhien, where the shaido had some 250,000 spears and the aiel armies were divided 50% o rand’s side, 25% on the shaido’s side, and 25% undecideds).”
-can i see the quote this came from? i’ve never heard of the #s being so high in the WoT series.
“As for Channelers, here are the numbers as we know them so far-”
-can i get the quotes these #s came from also?
“But like I said, I know damn near f***-all about Sword of Truth’s magic system though. Could a fan put up proper examples of power and skill?”
-since alot of people seem to not like me, i’m just going to be posting the quotes and let you decide, instead of putting my 2cents in also. seems a few people have nothing better to do than try to make me seem like an ass when all i have done is disagree with information based off of quotes. info will be scattered throughout this post.
“WoT verse will almost never lose a universe battle against another fantasy universe, because they can just resort to mutualy assured destruction by just balefire until the universe falls unravels. So, if things are looking grim for the WoT forces they can destroy reality ending this match in a tie.”
-only WoT universe is tied to the wheel of time. putting this fight in a neutral universe wouldn’t change that.
“I’m thinking more of “Can SoT produce threats of a scale to render that threat irrelevant”
-some of this is constructed magic from “long ago” and some is conjured. with access to the temple of the winds, richard rahl would be able to make these or things or things like the constructed magic shown here.
“Many units had scattered, preparing for the possibility of an imminent attack. Others, it was suspected, had simply run for the hills. In the area where the light web had ignited there was nothing but a vast depression of blackened ground. In the ensuing chaos, no one had been able to determine how many men had been killed. It was next to impossible, with so many either killed or scattered, to get an accurate count of units, much less individuals, but there was no argument that the devastation was staggering.
Jennsen had overheard whispers of over half a million men turned to dust in an instant, and maybe as many as twice that number. In the end, the number killed might prove to be much higher; there were inestimable numbers of seriously injured soldiers-men burned or blinded, men severely cut or with limbs taken off by flying debris, men partially crushed by heavy wagons and equipment toppling on them, men made deaf, men so insensate, so stupefied, that they could only stare unblinking at nothing. There were not enough army surgeons or Sisters of the Light to even begin to attend to the tiniest fraction of the wounded. With every hour that passed, thousands of those who survived the initial blast died of their injuries.” pillars of creation
-from what was said it was basically a small nuke….this was a few pages prior to the last quote.
“There was a sudden blinding flash off at the horizon.
The world around them lit with the intensity of a flash of lightning, but the flash didn’t die out as lightning did.
Jennsen seized the reins just under Rusty and Pete’s bits to keep them from bolting. Other horses spooked, rearing up.
White-hot light flared up from the river valley down over the hills-in the direction of the army. The light was so white, so pure, so hot, that it lit the clouds from underneath all the way to the opposite horizon. It was a light of such power, such intensity, that many of the men dropped to a knee in alarm.
The incandescent glow expanded outward with incredible speed, dwarfing the hills, yet it was so distant that they heard nothing. The rocky slopes of the mountains ringing the city were all illuminated in the harsh glare.
And then Jennsen heard at last a deep rumbling boom that vibrated in her chest. It shook the ground beneath their feet. The powerful, resonant boom stretched out into a growing, clacking roar.
A dark dome expanded up through the light. Jennsen realized that, because of the distance, what looked to her like a spreading dome of dust had to be debris at least as big as trees. Or wagons.
As the dark cloud expanded upward through the light, it dissipated, as if evaporating in the might of that consuming heat and light. Jennsen could see a wave, like the rings made by tossing a rock in a pond, radiating outward, except this was a single wave racing across the ground.
As everyone stood transfixed, gripped in fright, a sudden wall of wind, driving dirt and sand before it, blasted up the hill toward them. It was the shock of the wave that had finally reached them. It was so abrupt and so powerful that if the branches were not already bare, they would have been stripped of leaves right then and there. Limbs snapped as trees shuddered under the concussion of wind.”
-this is also from pillars of creation
“With a deafening roar, forty thousand men loosed a pent-up battle cry as they charged away. ”
-a few pages later…
“Tens of thousand of cavalry men had formed up into a huge battle line out across the palace grounds, stretching all the way down the hill, appearing to charge the enemy in a great battle. They all brandished swords, axes, and pikes as they rushed as a single mass, yelling bloodcurdling battle cries.
Jennsen watched in stunned silence, seeing nothing yet for them to fight. Still, the men, raising a great cry, ran forward with weapons raised. She expected to see them run down the hill toward something out beyond the wall. Perhaps they could see an enemy approaching that she could not from her angle up in the palace.
But then, in the middle of the grounds, with a mighty shock all along the line, there was a resounding crash as they met the wall of an enemy that was not there.
Jennsen couldn’t believe her eyes. Her mind groped to reconcile it, but the terrifying sight outside made no sense. She wouldn’t have believed what she was seeing, were it not for the shock of sudden carnage.
Bodies, man and horse, were rent open. Horses reared. Others went down, tumbling over broken legs.
Men’s heads and arms spun through the air, as if lopped off by sword and axe. All along the line, blood filled the air. Men were driven back by blows that exploded through their bodies. The dark and grimy force of Imperial Order cavalry was suddenly bright red in the muted daylight. The slaughter was so horrific that the green grass was left red in a swath down the hill…..”
“The sight as they came around the side of the palace was horrifying. It looked like the entire force had been cut down, that none of the cavalry could possibly still be alive…”
“”Excellency, it was some kind of attack involving magic-phantom horsemen invoked by wizardry is the only explanation I have.”
-this is richard rahl using an add./sub.magic lightning mix also from pillars of creation…..
“”As the Order cavalry raced down on him, he lifted an arm toward them, as if warning them to halt. Jennsen knew, from both Sebastian’s orders and from the way they charged toward the lone man, that they had no intention of stopping for anything short of his head.
Jennsen watched with dread as a man was about to be killed, watched, spellbound, as the thousand men crashed in toward him.
The valley rim abruptly lit with a thunderous explosion. Despite the dark head wrap, Jennsen shielded her eyes as she gasped in surprise. The violent rope of lightning and its terrible counterpart had twined together a blazing white-hot bolt of lightning twisted together with a crackling black line that looked to be a void in the world itself, terrible power joined and discharged in an explosive instant.
In the space of a heartbeat, it seemed as if all the glaring brightness of the barren plain, the fierce heat of the Pillars of Creation, had been gathered at a single point and unleashed. In an instant, the ignition of that explosive lightning annihilated the force of a thousand in a brilliantly lit red cloud. When the blinding light, the thunderous roar, the violent concussion were suddenly gone, so were the thousand men-all of them leveled.
Among the smoking remains of horse and man, the lone man marched ever onward toward the trail, appearing not to have lost a step.”
“While only those on Rand level strength can take on hundreds to thousands of opponents at once in WoT, normal level Sorceress like Adie (who is blind) have been none to take on hundreds, more or less on their own. Both her and Zedd where able to hold out against the Imperial Order inside the Wizard’s Keep with no help what so ever, for months.”
-as far as i can tell from scanning the part in pillars of creation this came from, all the fighting happened in one day, and it was over 40,000 people and some of their horses along with hundreds of footmen that went into the confessors palace.
“Also aside from the Sorceress scattered throughout the Midlands, the Sisters Of Light, and those twenty or so Wizards you mentioned, the Imperial Order had numerous Gifted that were captured by Jagang before the war even started, as well as all the young men in training at the Palace of The Prophets before it’s destruction that fled with the Sister Of The Light into the D’Haran Empire. It’s hard to say exactly how many, but there should be enough to match the WoT to some degree, given their difference in power.”
-it’s actually hard to get a # on the magic users in sot. there are sisters of the light, sisters of the dark, wizards, wizard’s in training with the sisters, more magic users (wizard’s) that were brother nareve’s diciples, witch women(shota, six…). even some new recruited young wizards at the end of the latest book have been brought to the wizard’s keep to learn.
-mord sith don’t need to wait to have “lightning shot at them”. just for magic be intended for them, “targeting” them so to speak. you can still lift and fling rocks magically at them, but no direct magic.
“Quick as a slap, Cara spun, catching him off guard. The air resounded with a hard thud as her boot nailed his jaw. The blow drove him backward. Kahlan took aim to leap for him before all the sparks extinguished and it went dark again.
“You die first!” he railed in rage at Cara. “I’ll have no more of your trifling interference! You’ll taste my power!”
24
The air at his fingertips lit with glimmering flashes as he leveled his full attention on Cara. Kahlan had to deal with the threat now, before anything else went wrong.
But before she could leap for him, his curled fingers twitched up. With a contemptuous sneer, he thrust one hand toward Cara.
Kahlan expected Cara to be the one on the floor next. Instead, the young man crumpled with a cry. He tried to stand, but collapsed with a shriek, hugging himself as if he had been stabbed in the gut.” page 24 temple of the winds
“The sword continued around, tracing its route with strings of blood. He refocused the rage, the hate, the need. She commanded them. Richard wanted her lifeblood. The magic surged through him unhindered. He was still screaming. She stood with a hand on her hip.
Richard met her eyes, made a slight alteration to the course of the sword so it too would meet them.
Her widening smile only fed the violent fire of his wrath. Their eyes locked together. The sword tip whistled around toward her head. His need to kill was beyond retrieval. Bringer of death.
The pain of the sword’s magic hit him like a waterfall of icy water on naked flesh. The blade never reached her. The sword clattered to the ground as the pain took him to his knees, ripping through him, doubling him over. Hand still on her hip, smile still on her face, she stood over him, watching as he clutched his arms across his abdomen, vomiting blood, choking on it. Fire burned through every inch of him” wizard’s first rule
“However, Webs being destructible seems like a significant exploitable weakness versus most weaves in Wheel of Time that either have to be approached a certain way to be affected (applying the proper elements like Spirit, Air, Fire, etc.), and won’t notice attack magic being directed at them.”
-not all things are that simple in SoT for countering magic.
“Jagang nodded as he listened. “We still must untangle those wards so we can gain the Keep.”
Sister Perdita glanced over her shoulder at the dark stone Keep far up on the mountainside before she spoke. “Excellency, as I have often tried to explain, our degree of ability and aggregate power doesn’t mean we can untangle or defeat those wards. Such a thing is not directly relational. A bear, strong as he is, can’t open a lock on a strongbox. Strength isn’t necessarily the key to such things.” pillars of creation
“Of course there’s still very little that’s going to present a credible defense against Balefire, but seeing as that’s the “Crazy reality nuke” of Wheel of Time, i prefer to leave it in the wings until after everything else is settled.”
-yes this seems to be a touchy subject for WoT supporters when i bring up how i think sub.magic would at least counter it, and in my opinion just wink it out of existence, being literally not there and all(a void of nonexistence) so nothing there for balefire to affect.
“how would the Mord Sith “counter the channelers”? I don’t know much about them, so please explain.”
-they take control of whatever magic you use against them, but have no control over it other than to cause pain and death and they have very good control over the amount of pain and can even see what you are thinking, words/visions whathaveyou. having two magic sources can counter this and allow you to use the one not in control against them. i think this would pertain to the one power and true power that a couple of people have in the WoT series.
“@ Pyre, I don’t see how SOT magic could cut a WOT person away from their magic, unless its been shown that they can do that, (not to mention the fact that channelers don’t have a big cord coming out of their back that you can cut).”
-i personally don’t think either side can cut the other off. the magics, and their sources are so different no one would know where to start.
“It HAS been shown WOT users can cut magic users off from their source of magic, so I don’t see why they couldn’t do that to all the magic users in SOT, considering Factpile debating rules.”
-same thing, no outside force to cut them off from.
“@ The End,
You mentioned two magic users holding off hundreds of troops for months.
Did they destroy all of them at the same time? Because that’s what made Rand so exhausted. He killed AT LEAST one hundred thousand Trollocs at the same time (it could have been more, the book only said “endless”).”
-as far as i could tell it was one day and not meant to hold them off, so the 40,000+ was all in one day, actually a matter of minutes. i cannot find anywhere in the quote where it said “endless” only where it said “Thousands of shadowspawn died” and “Deathgates sprang up, striking across the ground, killing hundreds” leading to this…. “Tens of thousands of dead Trollocs smoldering”. if there is a quote of rand killing hundreds of thousands of trollocs i have not seen it, can you please provide it.
“There are also the Seanchan assassination group. I forget there names, but they are almost impossible to kill. And if these assassins have access to Gateways, pretty soon the entire command of the SOT is going to be dead really quickly.”
-both sides have good assassination people/armies/squads. claiming ones to be better than the other with no evidence means nothing. both sides should have precautions against this, i know SoT does, at the least magic users can sense people very far away.
“What were the names of the darkspawn creatures that were unkillable by normal means and seemingly had no skeleton? Matt’s medallion could burn them.”
-probably was the Gholam, and it was tough because of being made immune to the one power. all sot magic should work still if it was specific to the one power.
“I do know the “magic-blocking” has been allowed on other fights, as it might fall under one of the Factpile rules where someone has all their capabilities even in the new universe.”
-the fundimentals of how the cutting off of magic works in both universes is completely different, so it cannot be assumed it would work against each other’s magic.
“Actually, the human armies of the WoT series, which have around 2-3 million men between them are expected to be ridiculously outnumbered by the trollock hordes. Given the fact that no numbers were ever given about said trollocks I’d say it is a bit premature to declare that the SoT universe has a numeric advantage, as they could very well outnumber the imperial order when fully mobilized.”
-quotes please for these numbers, and no speculation about trolloc #s
“Add to that the fact that Richard is the only SoT wizard who’s power might be on par with the heavy hitters of the WoT universe (of whom there are quite a few) and you get a real stomp in the magical power department.”
-i think you are selling alot of SoT characters short here. if you want post their feats and i’ll show you some of the sot characters feats that are comparable.
“Also, I’ve never heard anything to suggest that SoT magic users can create magical items with any degree of ease. Simply making a web on top of a mundane item isn’t the same thing, and even that isn’t done often.”
-it is actually done quite often, from fire sticks, to walkie talkie dolls, to changing the element of an item(wood to gold), and plenty of other things. also with the temple of the winds being back in the world of life, richard can make anything that thousands of ancient war wizards could and have made during the ancient wizard war 3000yrs ago.
“Yea, Mat would definitely be the one to command the WoT armies in this fight, and he’d wipe the floor with any SoT general (even that Mary tzu Kahlan).”
-kahlan would make a good general, but i would put all magic users in zedd and richard’s command, because of zedd’s experience with magic in multiple wars and richard’s knowledge of magics from the temple of the winds.
“-since alot of people seem to not like me, i’m just going to be posting the quotes and let you decide, instead of putting my 2cents in also. seems a few people have nothing better to do than try to make me seem like an ass when all i have done is disagree with information based off of quotes. info will be scattered throughout this post.”
It is not that posting of fact that we don’t like nor how you interpret the passages, but how you hold yourself about them. With the example with Nynaeve and the boat you were claiming that the quote obviously showed something than what everyone else was saying. You would have seemed like an asshole, even if you were correct. We don’t dislike you because of how you interpret the quotes, but by how adamantly and arrogantly you hold those beliefs. It is one things to believe that your interpretations and interpretation skills are far superior to others when they actually are, it is another to do that and be wrong about them. For the first instance you are just an asshole but are correct so people won’ hate you all that much. But for the latter situation you are seen as something close to a troll. L-W doesn’t visit this site anymore, but when he did he was often an asshole, but he was right and more importantly convinced people that he was. It would be a lie to say he didn’t come across as an asshole sometimes, but I know I didn’t hate him because he was correct, he could have been a bit more polite but he was still right.
i understand how some think of me as being arrogant, but i have shown no attitude that wasn’t retalitory toward’s something already said at me or in a prolonged discussion that insults were already exchanged, and the nynaeve quote you are talking about was also correctly explained by my version of it, and was only later shown to be not my way by a random author quote from a Q&A stating everything had threads, when no evidence of this before was brought up. with all the information that was brought up in the debate at that point my theory was right, no one had a quote to show otherwise and balefire had shown to affect objects and sentient beings differently already(sentient erased as a whole, and objects not). so call that arrogant if you want, i just see it as sticking with the facts of the known. hence why when that evidence was brought up, i conceded the point. you seem to be judging me by the ends, not the means to the end. opinions form while information is being accumulated, not just at an end that is unforseable. if this example is similar to the other reasons you think this of me, then i’d ask you to go back and look at some of the things you think me arrogant or an ass about and see why i stuck to those points.
@MIke
I’ll spill it out for you….what Krazy said in post #61. Obviously, what I think goes beyond that as you are well aware…
-here is some of the information about imperial order #s. i put in troop # quotes and death quotes along with reinforcement quotes to give a better understanding of the #s and how fast they get them from their home country. basically from book 8-11 they only refered to the imperial forces army as millions and don’t get into what kind of exact #s. i know their force was split more than a few times and there was always hundreds of thousands roaming around and coming in reinforcements and getting killed by various means including battle but i don’t know the specifics on it or more so it’s too late for me to look for it all in detail. so i’ll try to average it out with the info given. all in chronological order also.
“Soon, the virgin snow would be trampled by
the boots of over a million men.” page 296 faith of the fallen
“Kahlan had fought beside the
captain and his young Galean soldiers, and had helped train them in the
ways of fighting a vastly superior force. If only the enemy force did
not number over a million . . .”page 319 faith of the fallen
“”They’re a big army,” Kahlan said. “They would have supplies
sent from their homeland to augment what they can get as spoils. A
supply column would have men guarding them.”
“I followed them for a week, just to get an accurate count.”
“How many,” Kahlan asked.
“Well over a quarter million, Mother Confessor.” page 322 faith of the fallen
“”Hayes saw only the first group.
The men we captured told us about the reinforcements. We weren’t sure
they were telling us the truth-we thought they might be trying to spook
us-but then we met up with Corporal Hayes, on his way back. We did some
further questioning and scoutingthat’s why we were delayed in
returning.”
“Another quarter million . . .” Kahlan’s words trailed off. It
all seemed so hopeless.” page 323 faith of the fallen
-1.5million low end
“Richard was horrified to see the numbers of people living in the
Old World, because it meant that the Order’s army already in the New
World was hardly a drain on the populace-and only the beginning. He had
thought that perhaps the Order might lose their enthusiasm for a war
conducted so far from their homeland, or that the people of the Old
World would tire of the hardship necessary to conduct such a war. He now
knew that thought had been but a feeble daydream.
It didn’t take a wizard, or a prophet, to know that the armies
the New World could raise, even given wildly optimistic conditions, had no hope
whatsoever of prevailing against the millions upon millions of soldiers
Richard had seen pouring north, to say nothing of the ones he hadn’t
seen who would be taking other routes.” page 345 faith of the fallen
5.5million low end
“Winter, though, had killed far more of the enemy than anything
Kahlan and her men could conceive. The Imperial Order, being from far to
the south, was unfamiliar with and ill prepared for winter in the New
World. Well over half a million men had frozen to death. Several hundred
thousand more had succumbed to fevers and sickness from the harsh life
in the field.
The winter alone had cost Jagang nearly three-quarters of a
million men. It was almost beyond comprehension.
Kahlan now commanded roughly three hundred thousand troops in
the southern reaches of the Midlands. Under ordinary circumstances, that
would be a force capable of crushing any enemy.
The men streaming up from the Old World had replaced the enemy
losses several times over. Jagang’s army was now well over two and a
half million men. It grew by the day.” page 401 faith of the fallen
4.75 million low end (750,000 dead), the 2.5 million may count some previous reinforcements.
“”Move through us?” General Meiffert asked in an surly manner.
Warren looked up at him. “Well, do you suppose you are going to
be able to stop them? It wouldn’t surprise me if by then they have three
and a half to four million men.”" page 404 faith of the fallen
-educated guess(he’s from the old world and has seen the rise of the imperial order and has scouted them before), but still speculation of sorts so i’ll leave it to everyone else to get what they want out of it.
“The Order had lost many times that number. In the high summer heat, the Order had lost a quarter million men to fever alone. It made little difference; they
continued to grow and to roll onward.” page 467 faith of the fallen
-4.5 million low end (continuing to grow an unknown #)
“Try as she might, though, she couldn’t
get any closer. Now, she realized that she probably couldn’t even
extract herself from the crush of hundreds of thousands of people around
her. There had to be well over a half million people in the huge throng
around the palace.
And then, Nicci saw Brother Narev and his disciples appear up on
the plaza, all in their dark brown robes, ” page 513 faith of the fallen
-these people started the internal rebelion against the imperial order in a battle soon after this quote, i mention them because they are still troop strength of the “old world” which is the imperial order’s land.
5million low end
“Jennsen had overheard whispers of over half a million men turned to dust in an instant, and maybe as many as twice that number. In the end, the number killed might prove to be much higher; there were inestimable numbers of seriously injured soldiers-men burned or blinded, men severely cut or with limbs taken off by flying debris, men partially crushed by heavy wagons and equipment toppling on them, men made deaf, men so insensate, so stupefied, that they could only stare unblinking at nothing. There were not enough army surgeons or Sisters of the Light to even begin to attend to the tiniest fraction of the wounded. With every hour that passed, thousands of those who survived the initial blast died of their injuries.” chapter 51 pillars of creation
4 million low end
“”I’ve been to the Imperial Order encampment too
many times to count,” Captain Zimmer said as he
cast his arm out toward the enemy over the
mountains to the west. “You can’t even imagine how
big their camp is. They have millions of men there.
“Their encampment is a quagmire of cutthroats.” page 526 naked empire
“For nearly a year, Kahlan led the D’Haran Empire forces
as they frustrated Jagang’s efforts to swiftly subdue the New World. She harried
and harassed him without pause. She helped direct plans that resulted in Jagang’s
army losing hundreds of thousands of men.” page 57 chainfire
“Zedd cocked his head. “Richard, you’ve got to focus on the threat that’s about to kill you. His army is millions of men strong. They’re coming to crush all opposition and enslave us all.” chapter 22 phantom
-i’m really tired right now so i might have majorly messed this up, or just not included info in this post that i’m getting these #s from so if i am, i’m sorry. 4 million seems to be about all that can be figured out for sure at that point in the series. from the page 401 quote (being in a temperate climate) they regained at least 2.25 million before the end of summer and after winter(they died in the winter, and were replaced before the “fever” deaths in the summer. the boxes of orden were put in play on winter solstice of that same year(end of year) and the latest book ended a year after that. so with over 5 million reinforcements(extreme low end) a year and a year and a half at least to get the troops, that puts my lowest estimate at about 12 million that could be at the warfront at the end of the series(or at least book 11).
@Mike
Looks like I confused the shaido numbers from the second battle of Cairhien with those given in later books about the shaido army gathered by sevanna. however, here’s the wiki quote about the numbers involved in the battle:
“Couladin had approximately 160,000 Shaido surrounding the city of Cairhien, including an unknown number on the Western bank of the River Alguenya to ensure no supplies would get to Cairhien. Because Couladin brought the entire clan across the Dragon Wall and additional fighters from other clans who reject Rand’s telling of Aiel history have joined the Shaido, his forces far exceeds that of the other individual clans.
Rand’s forces consisted of seven Aiel clans with roughly double the Shaido numbers. In addition, some Cairhienin and Tairen forces have also gathered to his banner including roughly 900 Tairen cavalry, a similar number of Cairheinin cavalry, and several thousand mostly Cairheinin foot troops.
A third force consisted of the four remaining Aiel clans. It roughly equaled the Shaido force in size, and stood apart from both sides.”
Here are the book quotes:
“If the Aiel scouts could count, Couladin had nearly one hundred and sixty thousand spears”
-Fires of the Heaven, p. 662
“[regarding the neutral clans] Between them, they apparently had at least as many spears as Couladin”
-Fires of the Heaven, p. 662
“The Seven clans with Rand almost doubled that”
-Fires of the Heaven, p. 662
So at least 480,000 Aiel warriors for Rand, probably more since they’ve been preparing for the final battle during the following 8 books.
The numbers for Andor and the band of the red hand came from the knife of dreams, which I gave to a friend so I can’t pull any book quotes, here’s the wiki quote though:
“Andor is a powerful nation, with a substantial army consisting of the Queen’s Guards and the standing armies maintained by the individual noble houses, who are also able to call upon huge levies in times of crisis. The maximum military strength of Andor has been estimated at almost 200,000 men, although many would be barely-trained levies. ”
“With regard to the Band of the Red Hand, they now have six banners of horse and five banners of foot. One banner of horse contains roughly 1500 riders and one banner of foot about 3000 men. Also the band have 4000 mounted crossbow men.[1] Based on these rough figures alone, the Band has around 28,000 men (9000 horse, 15000 foot and 4000 mounted crossbows). There also exists a banner of masons dedicated to building bridges and similar tasks, though this is historically often a much smaller and indeterminate number. ”
Fairly certain there were more men in the band, as these are the bare minimum estimates and leave out non mounted crossbowmen entirely. Note that this is a private army, not a national one.
The nature of gateways is such that so long as they are open people can pass through them freely, so the limiting factors are how big the gateway is and how long it is maintained. The latter is rendered mute by the fact gateways can be tied off and later untied when no longer needed.
As for specific cases, Rand’s armies use gateways often to travel where they are needed. One prominent and quantifiable instance is when Rand used gateways to invade the city of Illian,
“Dashiva and three more Asha’man are waiting outside; as soon as Morr joins them, we’ll be ready” [Rand is the speaker]
-A Crown of Swords, p. 832
“The rope had been taken down outside, and Rand stood waiting with Dashiva and the other Asha’man while nine thousand Saldaean light horse arrayed themselves behind Bashere in column of threes. Somewhere behind them, fifteen thousand men who called themselves the Legion of the Dragon would be gathering on foot.”
-A Crown of Swords, p. 833
“Seizing the source Rand made a gateway between the posts, four paces by four, and ran through as he tied off the weave”
-A Crown of Swords, p. 834
“a flood of horsemen waving their swords as they poured out. Straight ahead Bashere led the center line of the column, just as they planned what seemed so long ago, while the other two lines peeled off to either side.
Rand did not wait to see the last of the horsemen exit. With well under a third out of the gateway, he immediately wove another, smaller opening. You did not need to know a place to travel if you only intend to go a very short distance.”
-A Crown of Swords, p. 835
True, few men other then rand could create gateways large enough for horsemen to gallop through 3 abreast, but then again even if you assume half the channelers of WoT would need to double up via linking in order to open a human sized gateway (massively deflated power levels for the sake of the argument) given their numbers that would still mean they have the manpower (mostly womanpower) to simultaneously open over 6,000 usable gateways, most of which would be bigger.
As for the numbers of channelers, I can pull the number of shaido channelers from the wiki page of the battle of Malden:
“# 400+ Wise Ones capable of channelling, led by Therava. ”
Note that this is one clan out of 12, and unlike the number of warriors which was augmented by deserters from Rand’s Aiel (long story), the number of wise ones remained mostly unchanged, making this a regular number of channelers for an Aiel clan. So around 4,400 channeling wise ones.
While gathering allies for the attack on the Shaido army at Malden Perrin met with a Senchan general. Upon hearing of the number of Shaido channalers the general informed him that to gather enough Damane to challange that many wise ones he’d need to get the ok of the Senchan leadership and commented that he’d once been in a battle that involved such numbers of channelers and that it was a bloodbath. So the Senchan had at least 400 damane, probably far more, and added the 400 Shaido damane to their numbers after the battle was won.
That means no less then 800 damane, probably a lot more.
As for the Kin, I once again got the number wrong. Here’s the quote:
“At present there are one thousand seven hundred and eighty three names on the roll”
-A Crown of Swords, p. 640
So 1,783 kinswoman for the tally. For those of you not keeping track that makes it 6,983 channelers so far, not counting Asha’man, Aes Sadai, Windfinders and Dreadlords.
I can’t seem to recall in which books the numbers of Aes Sedai and Asha’man were stated, and the Wiki proved useless in finding out, so if someone else can find a relevant quote that would be great. As far as I can recall (and I admit my memory is less then stellar) there were around 900 Aes Sedai, and at one point there were 400 Asha’man, though their numbers might very well rival the white tower by now.
Either way surpassing the 8,00 channelers mark should be quite easy even without taking into account the windfinders and Dreadlords, who’s numbers were never provided, and with the more outdated yet factually solid 400 men count for the black tower.
As I said, 8,000 channelers is seriously lowballing it.
Not the shaido army numbers after all… where did that 250,000 figure come from?…
*meant to say 8,000 channelers mark
Really need an edit function here…
“Adie is not a normal sorceress. Zed himself remarked that her power was exceptional. At any rate, your average channeler can in fact cause a fair amount of devastation, An average Ashaman faced with 50 horsemen charging his way would probably either detonate a concussive weave in the middle of their formation, killing or wounding many of them and breaking their charge and then quickly finish them off, or he would rapid fire small explosive weaves into their bodies killing them one by one as fast as he can weave, which would make the horsemen look like they’re charging through a blender. Either way 50 horsemen vs an average channeler is a stomp in the channeler’s favor that would be resolved in mere moments”
We may have to agree to disagree here, as the way I see Adie presented as a Sorceress of average ability, but that might just be me. Also she kills over a hundred well trained soldiers in service to Lord General Tobias Brogan, of The Blood Of The Fold an organization that more or less serves as a elite army of Nicrobase, in said book with only token help from Khalaen and Orsk.
“Wrong. Big time.
If you had bothered to read my previous post you’d have noticed the low end figures for channelers in the WoT to be in the 8,000 range without even counting the dreadlords. That’s well over ten times as many magic users as there are in the SoT universe.
Add to that the fact that Richard is the only SoT wizard who’s power might be on par with the heavy hitters of the WoT universe (of whom there are quite a few) and you get a real stomp in the magical power department”
Meh, we are never told just how many young men are in training at the Palace to be Wizards, or how many where captured by the Imperial Order to serve. Presumably, there is at least one for every Sister Of The Light (of which there are several hundred at the very least, since in order to graduate from Novice to Sister, they must guide and train one Wizard newly arrived to the Palace), so considering that, we can effectively double the numbers of magically empowered so far. There is also a unkown number of Sorceress in hiding through the Midlands (presumable avoiding prosecution from the Blood OF The Fold, who believe that all Magic is the Gift Of The Keeper, and all Gifted are Banelings). Goodkind never really got into plain numbers, rather leaving things vague.
Also, we should take into account the way the Gifted of the SoT verse perform Magical Warfare, and Warfare in general:
(From “Faith Of The Fallen”, dialog and unnecessary plot taken out to avoid spoilers)
“Do you know,” he said, frowning in thought as if distracted by something as he looking up at the ceiling of the tent, “that I once saw a wizard lay down a simply prodigious font of flame before a line of charging cavalry?”
“Well, there you go,” Verna said. “You know its value, then. You’ve seen it in
action.”
“Yes . . .” Zedd drawled. “Problem was, the enemy had been prepared for
such a simpleminded trick.”
“Simpleminded!” Verna shot to her feet. “I don’t see how you could possibly
consider-”
“The enemy had conjured curved shields just for such an eventuality.”
“Curved shields?” Warren swiped back a curly lock of his blond hair. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. What are curved-’
“The wizard who laid down the fire had been expecting shields, of course, and so he made his fire resistant to such an expected defense. These shields, though, weren’t conjured to stop the fire”-Zedd’s gaze. shifted from Warren’s wide eyes to Verna’s scowl-”but to roll it.”
***
“Roll the fire?” Warren asked as he leaned forward.
“Yes,” Zedd said. “Roll the fire before the cavalry charge-so that instead of a simple cavalry assault, the defenders now had deadly fire rolling back at them.”
“Dear Creator . . .” Warren whispered. “That’s ingenious-but surely the shield would extinguish the fire.”
Zedd twirled his fork as he spoke, as if to demonstrate the shield rolling the flames. “Conjured by their own wizard for the expected defense, the fire had been hardened against shields, so instead of fizzling, it stayed viable. That, of course, enabled the curved shield to roll the fire back without it extinguishing. And, of course, being hardened to shields, the wizard’s own quickly thrown up defensive shields couldn’t stop his own fire’s return.”
***
“You see,” Zedd finally went on, tossing his fork down onto his plate, “using the gift in war is not simply an act of exercising your power, but an act of using your wits.”
Zedd pointed. “For example, consider that albino mosquito General Reibisch is holding. Under cover of darkness, just like right now, tens of thousands of them, conjured by the enemy, could be sneaking into this camp to infect your men with fever, and no one would even realize they were under attack. Then, in the morning, the enemy strikes a camp of weak and sick soldiers and slaughters the lot of you.”
***
Zedd fixed a fierce glare on Sister Philippa. “It’s night. In the night, they simply seem to be ordinary mosquitoes, pesky, but no different from any other. Why, the general here didn’t notice them. Neither did any of you gifted people. You can’t detect the fever they carry, either, because it, too, is such a tiny speck of magic you aren’t watching for it-you’re looking for something huge and powerful and fearsome. Most of the gifted Sisters will be bitten in their sleep, without ever knowing it happened, until they awake in the pitch blackness with the shivering chills of a frightful fever, only to discover the first truly debilitating symptom of this particular fever: blindness. You see, it isn’t the blackness of night they awake to dawn has already broken-but blindness. Then they find that their legs won’t obey their wishes. Their ears are ringing with what sounds like an endless, tingling scream.”
The general’s gaze darted about, testing his eyesight as Zedd went on. He. twisted a big finger in an ear as if to clean it out. “By now, anyone bitten is too weak to stand. They lose control of their bodily functions and lie helpless in their own filth. They are within hours of death . . . but
those last hours will seem like a year.”
“How do we counter it?” On the edge of his seat, Warren licked his lips.
“What’s the cure?”
“Cure? There is no cure! Now a fog is beginning to creep toward the camp. This time, the few gifted left can sense that the wide mass of seething murk is foul with dark, suffocating magic. They warn everyone. Those too sick to stand wail in terror. They can’t see, but they can hear the distant battle cries of the advancing enemy. In a panic not to be touched by the deadly fog, anyone able to rise from their bedrolls does so. Too delirious to stand, a few manage to crawl. The rest run for their lives before the advancing fog.”It’s the last mistake they ever make,” Zedd whispered. He swept a hand out before their white faces. “They run headlong into the horror of a waiting death trap.”
***
Zedd passed a hard look among them all. “War is nasty business. It’s about killing people before they can kill you. Magic in war is simply another weapon, if a frightening one. You must realize that it, too, in this, must be used for the end result of killing people.”
***
“I fear to think of magic added to warfare,” General Reibisch said as he stood.
Zedd shrugged. “To tell the truth, the ultimate object of magic in warfare is to counter the enemy’s magic. If we do our job properly, we will bring balance to this. That would mean that all magic would be nullified and the soldiers would then be able to fight without magic swaying the battle. You will be able to be the steel against steel, while we are the magic against magic.”
“You mean, your magic won’t be of direct help to us?”
Zedd shrugged. “We will try to use magic to visit harm on them in any way we can, but when we try to use magic as a weapon, the enemy will try to counter ours. Any attempt to use their power against us, we will try to counter. The result of magic in warfare, if properly and expertly done, is that it seems as if magic did not exist at all.
“If we fail to rise to the challenge, then the power they throw at us will be truly horrific to witness. If we can best them, then you will see such destruction of their forces as you can’t imagine. But, in my experience, magic has a way of balancing, so that you rarely see such events.”
“A deadlock, then, is our goal?” Sister Philippa asked.
***
(From Stone Of Tears, same as above)
Slowly, she shook her head. ‘You men must understand what it is I call upon you to do. It is no glorious battle, as you think, where you move like pieces on a game board. No tactics to outwit an opponent in a grand engagement. We will not face them in the field of battle, but kill them in every other way.’
‘But Mother Confessor,’ someone near the front timidly called out, ‘it’s the code of honor for soldiers to face one another in battle, to best him in a fair fight.’
There is nothing fair about having to fight in war. The only fair thing would be to live in peace. The purpose of war is singular: to kill.
‘You must all understand this, for it’s central to your survival. There is no honor in killing, no matter the method. Dead is dead. Killing your enemy in war is done to protect the lives of those for whom you fight. Their lives are no better protected by killing your enemy sword to sword than by slaying him while he sleeps, but only put at risk by it. There is no glory in this task. It’s an onerous deed. We do not intend to give them a chance to engage in pitched battle, to see who is the better at the game. Our chore is simply to kill them.
***
‘If the enemy is looking the other way, so much the better, because they will not thrust a knife into you. If it is from a distance, with an arrow, so much the better, because they will not have a chance to impale you on an argon. If it is while they have food in their mouths, so much the better, because they will not be able to raise an alarm. If it is while they are sleeping, so much the better, because they will not have a chance to cleave you with their sword.’
***
The SoT force will not fight fair in war, to them there are now rule of honorable engagement, or restrictions of battle. (See the Khalan VS Mat in military prowess for more info).
Also the Gifted will not be working as we would conceive the Channlers will be working. There first and for most goal is: Kill the enemy no matter how underhanded you do so. But beyond that they are aiming for a dead-lock with the enemies magic, so that is will seem like no magic is going on at all. Considering the sheer difference in numbers (the Imperial Order….Just the Imperial Order) would put the advantage into the SoT world.
Some of the known strategies of those with the Gift in war: breaking glass into dust sized fragments, using ones hand to make sure they come out jagged and sharp still, and unleashing it at the enemy to blind on mass scales among other nasty side effects, the use of Albion Mosquitoes in mass infectaside, turning small objects into (such as pebbles) into deadly weapons by loading them with ones Han and hurling them so they travel at bullet speeds, sabotaging the enemy alarms, causing the enemy alarm to raise constantly putting them in chaos, using complex illusions such as Enemy Webs (which make people look like the enemy to their allies), detonating Light Webs inside enemy camps (which cause the mass anyone at our anywhere near the place of the web was) among other things.
I will leave further conjecture to another post, as I am dead tired right now.
And there is something I forgot to mention in the last post about Magic, The Han is divided into two parts: Additive and Subtractive. Without getting into the philosophy of it too much, the idea is that the world exists because the Creator constantly creates and the Keeper constantly takes and destroys, the cycle perpetuating existence, to where the destruction of either would effectively end life as we know it. The Gift mirrors this; Additive magic can create, reform, alter, and change, while Sub magic can only destroy. Say someone splits tree with a bold of Additive Lightning, the tree is destroyed, but the particles still exist, all the changed is that you split it apart and made it impossible for it to live, but you still killed it. Subtractive Lightning would dissolve the tree from existence and leave nothing. Webs laced with Sub magic cannot be affected by only Additive magic and vice versa, also Webs (with the handful of exceptions) made with only Add Magic can be bypassed completely (as if they did not exist) by someone with sub magic (i.e a web meant to prevent easedroping would be heard through if the individual amplified there hearing with Sub magic). It used to be that all people where born with both halves, but these days mostly it is only Add magic that people are born with, those with Sub Magic include all Of the Sisters Of The Dark (who earned it as a gift from the Keeper for swearing allegiance to him), Richard (A War Wizard), and Confessors (i.e Kahlan) that have invoked the Con Dar.
@The End
“The enemy had conjured curved shields just for such an eventuality.”
Most offensive weaves are crated and detonated inside enemy formations. If a shied such as this is in place then the channeler will feel it blocking his weaving, and would either cut it or weave around it. Either way it will be mostly useless.
Such shields are rarely used this way in the WoT series. It is far more effective to directly cut or deflect enemy weaves in real time, since a shield will probably be attacked and destroyed the moment it is detected. That is barring a vast power differential of course.
“Also she kills over a hundred well trained soldiers in service to Lord General Tobias Brogan, of The Blood Of The Fold an organization that more or less serves as a elite army of Nicrobase, in said book with only token help from Khalaen and Orsk.”
This is no different from seeing a random Asha’man or Damane effortlessly obliterate a charging cavalry company.
“Meh, we are never told just how many young men are in training at the Palace to be Wizards, or how many where captured by the Imperial Order to serve. Presumably, there is at least one for every Sister Of The Light (of which there are several hundred at the very least, since in order to graduate from Novice to Sister, they must guide and train one Wizard newly arrived to the Palace)”
You are completely ignoring the effect of the time dilation spell on the Palace of the Prophets. Sisters live their whole lives inside the palace, while the gifted spend as long as they need to master their gift and then leave. This means that the average sister lives 5-10 times as long as one of the gifted (depending on how long it took him to learn), so there would be a 5-10 times as many of them as there are gifted in any given moment even if we assume there was one gifted born for every sister born.
“For example, consider that albino mosquito General Reibisch is holding. Under cover of darkness, just like right now, tens of thousands of them, conjured by the enemy, could be sneaking into this camp to infect your men with fever, and no one would even realize they were under attack. Then, in the morning, the enemy strikes a camp of weak and sick soldiers and slaughters the lot of you.”
Easily averted by insect repelling wards (which just about any Aes Sedai can easily make). WoT healing magic is seriously overpowered as well, making it a viable counter for many of the more esoteric SoT tactics.
“Now a fog is beginning to creep toward the camp. This time, the few gifted left can sense that the wide mass of seething murk is foul with dark, suffocating magic.”
Easily dispersed with wind weaves or dispelled with magic cutting weaves.
“To tell the truth, the ultimate object of magic in warfare is to counter the enemy’s magic. If we do our job properly, we will bring balance to this. That would mean that all magic would be nullified and the soldiers would then be able to fight without magic swaying the battle. You will be able to be the steel against steel, while we are the magic against magic.”
Only SoT casters are outnumbered 10-20 to one and WoT magic is far better at countering magic then SoT magic is.
“Slowly, she shook her head. ‘You men must understand what it is I call upon you to do. It is no glorious battle, as you think, where you move like pieces on a game board. No tactics to outwit an opponent in a grand engagement. We will not face them in the field of battle, but kill them in every other way.’”
You really don’t know much about mat’s fighting style do you? Kahlan’s Hollywood tactics would get her men slaughtered against him even without the use of gateways.
Mat, Bashere, Ituralde, Gareth Brane, The Legions of the Dragon in general, The Senchan in general, they all use advanced military tactics and ambushes extensively. The first 4 are the ones that will command the WoT war effort, could teach Kahlan a few things about running a real army and waging a real war, and have already worked out the use of the one power in warfare and include it in their planning.
Non of them is dumb enough to lead the charge in battle either, let alone do it naked, during winter in a snow-swept mountain range no less.
Is it too much to ask for more punctuation in the writing?
Though that said, i really tried to be reasonable about earlier on.
“probably was the Gholam, and it was tough because of being made immune to the one power. all sot magic should work still if it was specific to the one power”
Wouldn’t limiting the Gholam’s magic immunity also limit the sith’s (or whatever) to only SoT magic?
“quotes please for these numbers, and no speculation about trolloc #s”
There are no stated numbers for trollocs, there is only the fact that hundereds of thousands have died over the cource of the WoT series and there has been no effect on the numbers of trollocs.
Cannons would be effective because with millions of SoT soldiers their mages would have to be very spread out to cover the intire army, so they would likely be consentrated for max effect. Cannons would give channeler level destruction without having to have channelers present.
Also the asha’man and aes sedai can form circles to increase their power to Rands level or above. The White Tower, the Stone, and the aiel city (forgot the name) all have angreal and sa’angreal and ta’angreal. And with the chosen and the Great Lord of the Dark the true purpose of the ta’angreal would be known. Maybe shocklances would be made (speculation).
The Great Lord of the Dark could resurect the powerful channelers and grant more people access to the true power.
Also don’t forget Darkhounds, they can only be killed by balefire or sub. magic. Most physical attacks they just re form. And they can kill with a drop of their saliva or blood
“Great balck heads flew apart from black bodies, their dripping teeth, like burnished steel,”
-The Fires of Heaven pg. 158
“Slowly, the dead dogs and their heads were melting, settling into pools of liquid shadow that quivered slightly, as it alive. Their blood, fanned across the floor, trembled. Suddenly the smaller pools flowed across teh floor in viscousstreams to merge with the larger, which oozed away the mosaic to mound higher and higher, untill the three huge black dogs stood their once more…”
-Fires of Heaven pg. 158
I doubt that additive magic would be effective because Moraine resorted immediatly to balefire, and not a fireball or something like that. Balefire and sub. magic are close enought to kill darkhounds.
As for numbers there are 12-50 in a pack (in a battle situation, 50ish is more likely) and 7 packs althought during the Trolloc Wars there were around 100. So 100-200 or so is a reasonable estimate.
Does SoT have magical healing? If not any nick by a Fade or a Darkhound would kill.
“You really don’t know much about mat’s fighting style do you? Kahlan’s Hollywood tactics would get her men slaughtered against him even without the use of gateways.”
On this note Robert Jordan actually went to school for politics and tactics. Unlike a certain other writer he actually knows WTF he’s talking about with this shit.
He also served in ‘nam, and had a big ass medieval weapon collection.
That man knew his sh*t…
RIP Robert Jordan…
“He also served in ‘nam, and had a big ass medieval weapon collection.
That man knew his sh*t…
RIP Robert Jordan…”
I knew about ‘nam, not the weapons collection.
RIP indeed.
Robert Jordan fought in Vietnam?
Yeegads!!!
George Lucas didn’t fight wars like that, yet he knew what he was discussing when it came to how combat was displayed without the mysticism, right?
Or is it only the basics?
I hope you’re not referring to StarWars George Lucas. If his movies are anything to judge by he knows jack sh*t about warfare…
@NemoVonUtopia
I’d say that there are probably at least a few more darkhounds, because in this quote: “Masuri Sokawa, an Aes Sedai of the Brown Ajah, has researched Darkhounds and claims to have crossed the paths of seven different packs. She says that the number of packs in existence is in dispute, with some sources saying only seven packs exist, while others claim nine, thirteen, or more”
so there are at least 200, probably more. Also, darkhounds and hearthounds sound very similar, almost suspiciously so, (totally copied this line from someone in another thread, i forget who)
@Galorian
I can’t provide a quote, but I think the 400 Ashaman you’re talking about might just be full Ashaman, which would put their numbers probably around 1200 or so total, including soldiers and dedicated, maybe more. This isn’t really fact based, I just remembered it from something so someone else could try to find evidence supporting this.
@mike
I’m gonna take the time to address some of your points in post 60
1 and 2 have been answered
3: As I recall, training with the sisters of the light would be kind of like training with the Aes Sadai, you learn how to control your magic, how you’re supposed to use it, and how to help your community with it. Basically it would be a well rounded training that only got into specifics if you should a certain aptitude for it.
Ashaman training is different. They push you hard every day, if you die from it that means you’re weak. For ashaman, their bread and butter is battle weaves. They don’t learn anything else, like healing, unless they show that they have a particular talent in it. Overall, every single Ashaman, Dedicated, or soldier is a “battle-ready” monster prepared to kill.
So that puts the average Ashaman above the average sorcerer or wizard. I’m not saying that the Sisters of the light are screwed; I’m just saying that they’re at a disadvantage.
4: Shadowspawn #’s are hard to figure because RJ never gave official statements, but since we know that they outnumber the combined westlands (which I think total up to about 1 or 2 million, not including Seanchan/Aiel), I think it’s safe to assume that they number at least 2 or 3 million, maybe more. I’m thinking about 2 million, give or take.
5: It seems to me that WoT is better, overall, at channeling against large numbers, but I can’t prove that. But then there’s people like Rand, or any Forsaken, who could probably at least match anything a very powerful wizard like Zedd or Richard could do. Since neither side has been proven to be more effective than the other we can’t make a conclusive statement or use it in an argument. Someone else could try and prove it, but I can’t.
6: There are more than 3 power-forged blades currently in existence, at least 5 known blades in the books, and probably more. On a side note, I don’t see how power-forged blades could turn the battle in favor or WoT, it just seems kind of silly that a few unbreakable blades will turn the tide of a huge battle of millions of soldiers.
7: Ya, they’ve used portal stones, and they’re kind of like gateways, only you get transported to another “dimension” or shadow world and walk in that world to your destination. Then you will find a portal stone near there and go back to your world. But again, I don’t see how these will make or break this fight, because as far as I can tell, the only advantage they have over gateways is you don’t need to know your surroundings very well. Also, I think that It’s hard to transport large amounts of people, in fact, it was in the 4th book, Shadow rising, when Rand took I think a score or two of people through one, with the help of a power magnifying angreal, and almost killed himself doing it. So my point is, I don’t see why they would use a portal stone when they could just use a gateway.
8: WoT has wolves and darkhounds. While I think the average wolf couldn’t take a heart hound by itself, a darkhound, being the size of a small horse, seems like it could take one without too much trouble.
Another point; in the end of the last SoT book, when Richard split the world in two, and all the people who hated magic and all the people not effected by magic (such as Richards sister), were separated from the people like Richard and Kahlan, did this make to separate dimensions, because if it did, than I think that the most current one, the one without most of the imperial order, but with the temple of the winds, would be what we are debating. Or you take the pre-split version, with all the manpower of the imperial order, but without the Temple of the winds. Taking both seems kind of like taking a few thousand Age-of-Legends soldiers armed with shocklances and jo-cars and throwing them in the fight. I may just be babbling, but it makes sense to me.
J.R.R Tolkein’s knowledge of warfare might have been outdated from his time, but that didn’t stop Middle-Earth from being worth the googling every now and then, did it?
Tolkein fought in World War 1, if i recalled well.
Jordan’s knowledge of warfare has the upper hand of being vastly more dated than Goodkind’s, and he may have the upper hand on Tolkein, on that matter, as well(Not that Tolkein is stupid, either!)
Does anyone in Bioware know enough about warfare?
“And with the chosen and the Great Lord of the Dark the true purpose of the ta’angreal would be known. Maybe shocklances would be made (speculation).”
I don’t know where the quote is but one of the Forsaken, Sammael I think, expressd what he could could due if he only had a small amount of shocklances. Also Moridin has a shocklance, along with large amounts of power weaponry, as shown in ToM
“Graendal followed him inside. The narrow room was lined with shelves. And on them were dozens-perhaps hundreds-of objects of power. Darkness within! she thought. Where did he get so many?
Moridin walked to the end of the room, where he picked through objects on a shelf. Graendal entered, awed. ‘Is that a shocklance?’ she asked, pointing to a long thin bit of metal. ‘Three binding rods? A rema’ker? Those pieces of a sho-’
‘It is unimportant,’ he said selecting an item.”
Towers of Midnight, Chapter 5
It is known that Elayne is able to make copies of Ter’angreal. Although with the stronger Ter’angreal she makes flawed copies. It is also known that Power forged weapons are now a possibility due to Perrin having created one for himself. We also know that Moridin has a shocklance. So, it is a very good possibility that the combined WoT forces can create shocklances. Also, some of the Forsaken may be able to help Elayne perfect her crafting of Ter’angreal.
Portal stones can also be used as a direct teleportation. In Towers of Midnight a darklord used a portal stone to bring groups of darkspawn into the battle with Perrin and the Whitecloaks. Portal stones and way gates wont help much if the battle is outside Randland.
The Ogier are also a good fighting force and there are probably a few hundered.
I’m thinking that there’s more than just a few hundred Ogier, seems to me like they’d have a few thousand or so.
First note: Huh, SoT looks like it has some pretty awesome writing to its name. I may have to look into that too.
Second note: Regarding Rand’s power, purely on his own.
“He peered out the window, and someone handed him a looking glass. He raised it, and as he’d guessed, this building was on enough of a rise to look out over the city and onto the killing field outside and beyond…Beyond the hill, surging down through the pass, was an awesome force of Trollocs, many times the number that had assaulted Maradon. The wave of monsters seemed to continue on forever.”
Towers of Midnight, page 500
Of course that’s just hyperbole, albeit hyperbole that indicates higher numbers than simply one hundred thousand. So to elaborate.
“Ituralde had been fighting a draining war for weeks now.”
Towers of Midnight, page 497
Waves of enemies that were never lacking for a period of weeks. When they finally overwhelmed the fortifications Ituralde and his men were holding, they then assaulted Maradon with a sizeable portion of their current force.
When that force retreated, then the greater numbers poured in. Even if their numbers are below literally one hundred thousand or more, that’s still tens of thousands of corpses created by a single man, who was also taking care not to destroy the hilltop fortifications with his weaves of mind-numbing devastation. This is not counting the however many that finally broke and ran as fast as they could the other way.
And how long did it take for one guy to do that?
“How long had it taken? Ituralde found that he could not gauge the time, though looking at the sun, at least an hour had passed. Perhaps more. It had seemed like seconds.”
Towers of Midnight, page 503
So an hour, to butcher tens of thousands of significantly-better-than-human targets, at minimum.
There are actually at least three others that could conceivably manage this scale of devastation all on their own: Lanfear (Currently known as Cyndane, and no longer wuite as strong with the Power), the former Damane whose name I forget who helped guard Rand and Nynaeve when they cleansed Saidin, and Moridin, who is supposed to be on equal standing with Rand in terms of Power.
On top of this, the approach of SoT to magical warfare isn’t going to help them much. WoT weaves don’t work like any of the things quoted: battle weaves typically just kill things, brutally, in whatever fashion is most effective. Small balls of flame with enough punch to blow holes through men, explosive weaves that turn the ground beneath soldiers into trenches and shrapnel. Hell, anything Rand did above.
As far as underhanded warfare, is there a single thing the SoT forces have going for them that could prevent or counteract the use of Gateways in the midst of their camps, and annihilating weaves hurled in every direction?
Also, a corrective note about gateways: the size evidently does depend on how much Power the channeler can put into it. Specifically when Cadsuane notes to Rand that the amount of Power held in her Palis-net will only allow her to create a Gateway big enough to crawl through, when normally she’s capable of generating ones big enough to walk through. I’ll dig up the quote if desired.
In honesty, it’s now looking like there’s a proper battle to be had here, rather than a one-sided fight in favor of Wheel of Time. Given the Light Magic Webs thing (Unless not all of them function like that nuke-equivalent that Mike quoted, above?), it’s actually leaning toward a pretty even balance in terms of which side can magically f*** over the other. However, Wheel of Time is still carrying more magical characters, and has an apparently more variable magical system to work with.
The ways can be used to quickly move large numbers of shadowspawn closer to the fighting quickly.
WoT has insurmountable mobility and information gathering advantage advantages.
Using gateways to scout enemy territory and snatch enemy soldiers, using compulsion on said abductees to gain reliable intel, using said intel to infiltrate and snatch or kill higher priority targets (such as sleeping wizards) and obtain detailed camp layouts.
You get the picture.
Using these tactics would be devastating to leadership and morale, grind away at SoT’s already small number of casters, lead to devastating raids via gateways, and last but not least, would find the location of the SoT leadership in no time (the first full blooded da’haran they snatch and compel will lead them strait to Richard).
Once they know the location of Richard Rahl it would be child’s play to gather a large number of powerful channelers (plenty of those to go around, say Rand, nynave, egwain, moridin, taim, cadsuain, olivia, that sea folk chick, that granny accepted, Logain, Avienda, sammael, demondred, grendal, Elayne and a whole bunch of the strongest among the Aes Sedai, Asha’man, Sea Folk, Aiel and the kin who’s names I either can’t recall or never learned), equip them with all the angrael and sa’ngrael they can get their hands on (including Callendor), have them all link up in a huge circle (with a few smaller circles for backup and protection), and then gate them to within a few km of Rahl’s encampment.
That circle would have enough power to nuke a continent. Focused on Richard’s camp it would be more then enough to turn it into a giant superheated crater that will then be simultaneously crushed, cut to ribbons, exploded, frozen and electrocuted for good measure “just to make sure”. Richard, being only human and incapable of traveling, would have absolutely no chance of surviving that. The poor sod would be instantly vaporized along with whatever unfortunate army he happens to be with at the moment.
@galorian
nice description of how fucked Richard would be. I think we know who wins now.
moving to where richard rahl is isn’t as easy as catching a daharan even if they are completely under your control, the bond that connects daharans to the lord rahl is not that specific. you might get within a few days of him if going by where the daharan says richard is. and you really don’t want to be near richard because of what the temple of the winds does for him. i’ll get into that in a bit, i’m writing up a post now and just saw the “description of how fucked Richard would be” and thought i should let you know it’s not as simple as that.
“There are actually at least three others that could conceivably manage this scale of devastation all on their own: Lanfear (Currently known as Cyndane, and no longer wuite as strong with the Power), the former Damane whose name I forget who helped guard Rand and Nynaeve when they cleansed Saidin, and Moridin, who is supposed to be on equal standing with Rand in terms of Power.”
It was actually hinted that she gained power after going into the Tower of Genjei, not the other way around.
Now! From the begging with hopefully no spelling mistakes!
“What’s the exact mechanic of the Mord Sith’s ability? Does it work because the caster cannot be separated from their magic? Since sudden, mind-blasting pain is enough to cause most people to lose hold of the Source, which means there’s then no more magical power to draw on. If the Mord Sith ability locks whatever it is a caster uses to draw on their power, though, it ought to affect WoT channelers much the same way”
A Mord-Sith’s power works like this: the moment Magic is used on them, they form a instantaneous psychic link by connecting and taking over that persons power. The Link is the key, it allows them to know when their victim is thinking thoughts that are out of line with what the Mord-Sith wishes, and causes extreme pain if they even try to disobey a Mord-Sith’s direct orders.
“Fang, if a channeler hits a Mord Sith with a lightning bolt, that’s just it, a lightning bolt. They’ll be dead.”
That is some murky waters, if a Wizard in the SoT verse summons Fire (normal not Wizard’s Fire) it is just fire, but it was caused and is controlled by magic and if used on a Mord-Sith has the same outcome as any other magical attack.
“But unless SoT contains a precedent, blocking someone off from their life force is entirely different. Preventing a caster from using that (via Compulsion or some other kind of weave) would be viable, but not outright shutting down a SoT’s access to their magic. Again, unless the books contain a precedent for this”
While, aside from mental powers like Mord-Sith and Dreamwalkers, the only way that is currently known to cut someone off from their magic, is to place “block”, the Block prevents the user from Touching their Han (it is still there though) and thus from exerting it outside their body, but the only know way of place a Block is through the use of a Rada’Han, which in order to work have to be connected to linked to another person’s Han.
“Actually, the human armies of the WoT series, which have around 2-3 million men between them are expected to be ridiculously outnumbered by the trollock hordes. Given the fact that no numbers were ever given about said trollocks I’d say it is a bit premature to declare that the SoT universe has a numeric advantage, as they could very well outnumber the imperial order when fully mobilized.”
Again, giving things exact numbers was never a strong suit of Goodkind, but the Midlands themselves have numerous kingdoms with around seventy thousand men in each standing army. There are at least (most likely more) 9 kingdoms in the Midlands (not including D’Hara), that puts the man power of the Midlands 630,000. Double that, since D’Hara is about the size of the Midlands, so we have a force 1,260,000 strong. Not that impressive matched up with Randland right? Now add the old world, which according to Warren, a equal analogy would be a small rock (representing the Midlands) on a much larger table (representing the Old World, which the Imperial Order draws troops form in near endless reserves). From, Faith Of The Fallen:
***
Warren picked up a small rock, not quite the size of his fist, and held it in his palm as he spoke. “I mean no disrespect, General, and I do not mean to dissuade you from our just cause, but the subject of the Order has been a pastime of mine. I’ve studied them for years. I’m also from the Old World.”
“Fair enough. So what is it you have to tell us?”
“Well, say that the tabletop is the Old World-the area from which Jagang draws his troops. Now, there are places, to be sure, where there are few people Warren shook his head. He passed his hand over the tabletop. “Say this is the Old World-the whole of this table.” He held up the rock to show the general and then placed it on the edge of the tabletop. “This is the New World. This is its size this rock–compared to the Old World.”
“But, but, that doesn’t include D’Hara,” General Reibisch sputtered. “Surely… with D’Hara-”
“D’Hara is included in the rock.”
***
Infer from that what you will, at the very lest I will say a margin of maybe 10 times that of the Midlands (placing us at 12,600,000) at the very least, more likely then not far more. Again we never get into actual numbers.
“Thanks for that, I’ll check my books again. Hell, I might just reread the lot of them, I’m rather tempted to now.
“Backing up what Krazy pointed out, Deathgates will kill most anything effectively: they’re just rapidly moving gateways, and those will carve open anything they hit (short of a gholam or, presumably, a Mord Sith) without meaningful resistance. I don’t remember them transporting enemies too, but…well, they’re gateways. They have to. I just don’t know to where. Come to think, I doubt the channeler using them cares.”
Or Pristinely Ungifted, surprised they haven’t been mentioned yet, near as I can tell. They are enigmas, immune to any and all magic, but also unable to wield it. There is nothing stoping say….Jennsen from slipping into the White Tower, bypassing all wards and Weaves meant to detect and or hamper intruders, and killing Egween while she sleeps. (She is good with a knife after all…)
“Only SoT casters are outnumbered 10-20 to one and WoT magic is far better at countering magic then SoT magic is”
Watch out your Bias is showing
“Most offensive weaves are crated and detonated inside enemy formations. If a shied such as this is in place then the channeler will feel it blocking his weaving, and would either cut it or weave around it. Either way it will be mostly useless.
Such shields are rarely used this way in the WoT series. It is far more effective to directly cut or deflect enemy weaves in real time, since a shield will probably be attacked and destroyed the moment it is detected. That is barring a vast power differential of course”
The difference? WoT Channlers might not even be able to tell those Shields are there. Channlers can sense Weaves made with the One Power, but, especially right off the bat, I doubt they could tell anything about a Web made by the Gifted, since it’s a completely different source.
“Mat, Bashere, Ituralde, Gareth Brane, The Legions of the Dragon in general, The Senchan in general, they all use advanced military tactics and ambushes extensively. The first 4 are the ones that will command the WoT war effort, could teach Kahlan a few things about running a real army and waging a real war, and have already worked out the use of the one power in warfare and include it in their planning.
Non of them is dumb enough to lead the charge in battle either, let alone do it naked, during winter in a snow-swept mountain range no less.”
The thing is, Kahlan won’t give them the chance. She won’t wait for large battles, or engage is military tactics, she will use ever under-handed, blood-thirsty, dirty, trick in the book and then some to accomplish her goal as she sees it: kill everyone that poses a threat. She will raid enemy camps while they are sleeping, slit the throats of any officer of rank she can find or capture, but not before she allows the Mord-Sith their go, their specialty being cold-blooded torture, to drain that officer dry of everything he knows about the army their fighting, any weakness from cultural to strategic, she can abuse to kill more of the enemy.
The above example, actually fits this really well, as she exploiting, D’Haran’s fundmental fear of two things, the Dead and Magic:
(From Stone Of Tears)
***
‘The road divides ahead. When they are past the fork, and on their way to Cellion, the wagons with the food and all the ale are to take the other road, and then the smaller routes, to get ahead of them. You will lie in wait with these wagons until their advance guard nears, and then cross their path so they can see you. When their forward column spots you and gives chase, you are to abandon the wagons and escape. Let them have the food and drink.
‘The Imperial Order is nearly out of ale, and tonight they will celebrate their luck. I expect they will get drunk. I want them to be drunk when we attack them.’
***
‘Tonight, under cover of darkness, we will slip into their camp and make a quick strike. This is to be a disciplined action, not random killing. We will have a list of objectives. Our aim is to weaken the bull. I have already partially blinded him by eliminating the wizard. The sentries and lookouts will be taken first. We will dress as many men as we can in their clothes. Those men will go into their camp and locate our targets. ‘Our first need is to slow their ability to counterattack. I don’t want us run down by cavalry. We need to bring ruin to their horses. There’s no need to waste time killing them; breaking their legs is sufficient. We need to destroy their food. We’re an army small enough to be able to get food by hunting, foraging, and buying from surrounding farms and villages, but one that size requires much. If we destroy their food, they
will be weakened.”
***
‘We need to kill their arrow makers and fletchers, bowyers and blacksmiths, all the craftsmen who can make and repair bows, arrows, and other weapons. They will have sacks of goose wings for fletching arrows. They must be stolen or burned. Every arrow not made is one that can’t kill us. Bow staves need to be destroyed. Wreck their bugles, if you find them, and the buglers. This will help take away their voice and coordination.
‘Their lances, pikes, and argons will be stacked upright, together. Five seconds and a few swings with an axe or sword will destroy a great many lances and pikes. Heavy axes or hammers will at least bend the argons and render them useless. Every lance or spear broken is one that can’t kill you. Burn their tents, to expose them to the cold, burn their wagons so they will lose supplies.
‘Of most importance are their officers. I would rather kill one officer tonight than a thousand men. If we can kill their officers, it will make them dull and slow, and it will be easier to take this bull to the ground.
‘If any of you can think of anything else that will weaken them, bring the ideas to me or Captain Ryan, or the other officers. The object tonight is not primarily to kill soldiers; there are too many. Our object is to disable them, make them weak, slow; to make them less sure of themselves.
‘Most of all, our object is to put fear into their minds. These men aren’t used to being afraid. When men are afraid, they make mistakes. Those mistakes allow us to kill them. I intend to terrify them. Later, I will tell you how.
***
Kahlan nodded to herself. ‘I want you to select about a thousand swordsmen. Pick the strongest, the fiercest, the most eager for the fight.’
‘And what are we going to do with these men?’
‘The men dressed in the uniforms of the sentries we kill will make an exploration of the enemy camp, and come back and give us the locations of our objectives. We have enough men to do the tasks we have assigned for those objectives.
‘The swordsmen are for beginning our prime objective. Killing the enemy. They will first see to the enemy commanders, just in case they weren’t poisoned, and then after that, they will kill as many men as they can in the shortest possible time.’
They came to the dozen tents set up close together in a half circle. Kahlan checked inside them all to be sure they were equipped as she had ordered. Finished checking, she stood outside the largest and faced Captain Ryan.
‘So, are you going to tell me, now, what it is we’re to paint?’
Kahlan nodded. ‘Those thousand swordsmen.’
He stared, dumfounded. ‘We’re going to paint the men? Why?’
‘It’s simple. D’Harans fear spirits. They fear the spirits of the foes they kill, that’s why they drag the bodies of their fallen comrades away from a battle site, like Ebinissia.
‘Tonight, their fears are going to come to haunt them. They are going to be attacked by the thing they fear most: spirits.’
‘But they will recognize us as soldiers, simply with white clothes, not as spirits.’
Kahlan looked at Captain Ryan from under her eyebrows. ‘They will not be wearing clothes. They will have nothing but their swords, painted white, just as are they. They will remove their clothes just before the attack.’
His mouth dropped open. ‘What?’
‘I want you to get the swordsmen together, now, and assemble them here. They’re to go into the tents, remove their clothes, and dip themselves in the whitewash. After dunking themselves, they will stand near the hot rocks until dry. It won’t take long. Then they can put their clothes back on. Until the attack.’
Captain Ryan stood in shock. ‘But it’s winter. They’ll freeze without clothes.’
‘We have a break in the bitter cold. Besides, the cold will remind them to rush in and rush back out. I don’t want them to stay in that camp very long. The enemy will recover from their shock in short order, and set upon any invader. I want our men to attack, kill terrified D’Harans, and escape.
‘As I said, D’Harans fear spirits. When they see what they will at first think is their worst fear, they will be stunned. Their first thought will be to run, not to fight. Men die as easily from a sword through the back as through the front. Some will freeze in place, not knowing what to do. Even those who recognize the invaders as men painted white, and not as spirits, will be confused for a moment.
‘Those few seconds of confusion, as we come upon each new group, are the seconds we need to run them through. In battle, the difference between killing, and being killed, is often a single moment of indecision. The swordsmen are not to engage in fights. If challenged, they’re to run on to others. There are more than enough to kill; it’s a mistake to waste time engaging in battle, if it can be avoided. I simply want enemy soldiers killed. After the commanders are dead, it doesn’t matter which ones. I don’t want our men fighting unless forced to; that only risks their lives needlessly.
‘Rush in, kill as many men as possible, and rush out. Those are to be the orders.’
‘Now, I want you to have my horse’s saddle and tack brought here, and dipped in the whitewash. And please post some guards outside this tent, while I’m inside.’
His eyes widened. ‘Your saddle? … You’re not … Mother Confessor … You can’t be serious.’
‘I would not ask my men to do something I myself would not do. They need to have a commander to rally around in their first battle. I intend to lead them.’
***
Captain Ryan finally looked to the ground and pushed snow with his boot. ‘Forgive me, Mother
Confessor, but I still don’t like it. It puts you at danger for nothing of much gain.’
That’s not true. There are two more important reasons I must do this. First, when I left the Order’s camp last night I was being chased by about fifty men. The D’Hafans have no doubt that those fifty men will catch me, and kill me.’
The captain stiffened. ‘You mean there are fifty men roaming around looking for you?’
‘No. They’re all dead. To a man. But the men back at camp don’t know that. When they see me, all white, like a spirit, they will think I was killed, as I should have been, and that it’s my spirit in their midst. It will only frighten them further.’
‘All fifty …!’ He peered up at her. ‘And what’s the second reason?’
Kahlan stared at him for a moment. Her voice came softly. ‘When those men of the Order see me, whether they think me a spirit or they think me a naked woman on a horse before them, they will stare. While they are staring, they cannot kill our men. But we can kill them. It will divert their attention from the men, to me.’
***
Again I am not saying that Kahlan and the SoT verse are going to win, but you can bet they are going to put up one hell of a fight, and go to any lengths they deem necessary to win the war, which in their eyes is: Kill the enemy.
“There is nothing stoping say….Jennsen from slipping into the White Tower, bypassing all wards and Weaves meant to detect and or hamper intruders, and killing Egween while she sleeps. (She is good with a knife after all…)”
The only thing stopping her is the tower guard plus a bunch of over protective warders.
“The thing is, Kahlan won’t give them the chance. She won’t wait for large battles, or engage is military tactics, she will use ever under-handed, blood-thirsty, dirty, trick in the book and then some to accomplish her goal as she sees it: kill everyone that poses a threat. She will raid enemy camps while they are sleeping, slit the throats of any officer of rank she can find or capture, but not before she allows the Mord-Sith their go, their specialty being cold-blooded torture, to drain that officer dry of everything he knows about the army their fighting, any weakness from cultural to strategic, she can abuse to kill more of the enemy.”
Both Mat and Rodel have had very sucessful gurilla campaings. WoT camps would have sentries, maybe aiel ones, wards that would make noise when anyone crosed them.
Likewise for WoT, a gateway could dump asha’man and aiel into the middle of a SoT camp and kill everyone. Not to mention Gray Men who are hard enought for WoT people to counter who know what they are. They could easily sneak into a SoT camp because nobody would know what to look for.
Dragkhar to kill sentries, then a trolloc attack with gray men sneaking into the captain’s camp in the battle as well as darkhounds, some of which cannot be killed by anything but sub. magic. In matter of fact, fades could shadow walk into the camp and kill.
Why is there only one gholam left? 6 were made. But I guess not all of them were found.
Do y’all think that the bubbles of evil could become targeted at the SoT?
“Do y’all think that the bubbles of evil could become targeted at the SoT?”
I believe that falls under part of the Dark One’s taint on the world. I am still waiting an answer to whether the taint of the Dark One will be allowed, or if it is considered an attack by him.
“Another point; in the end of the last SoT book, when Richard split the world in two, and all the people who hated magic and all the people not effected by magic (such as Richards sister), were separated from the people like Richard and Kahlan, did this make to separate dimensions, because if it did, than I think that the most current one, the one without most of the imperial order, but with the temple of the winds, would be what we are debating. Or you take the pre-split version, with all the manpower of the imperial order, but without the Temple of the winds. Taking both seems kind of like taking a few thousand Age-of-Legends soldiers armed with shocklances and jo-cars and throwing them in the fight. I may just be babbling, but it makes sense to me.”
-i haven’t seen admin or the OP of this battle state anything about the stipulations of the battle so i’m going with current incarnation.
“Most offensive weaves are crated and detonated inside enemy formations. If a shied such as this is in place then the channeler will feel it blocking his weaving, and would either cut it or weave around it. Either way it will be mostly useless.”
-they have no way of detecting each others magic or cutting it off.
“Such shields are rarely used this way in the WoT series. It is far more effective to directly cut or deflect enemy weaves in real time, since a shield will probably be attacked and destroyed the moment it is detected. That is barring a vast power differential of course.”
-as the quote i provided earlier stated, destroying SoT magic, at least the shields/wards that can be proved right now is far more complicated than just using force.
“You are completely ignoring the effect of the time dilation spell on the Palace of the Prophets. Sisters live their whole lives inside the palace, while the gifted spend as long as they need to master their gift and then leave. This means that the average sister lives 5-10 times as long as one of the gifted (depending on how long it took him to learn), so there would be a 5-10 times as many of them as there are gifted in any given moment even if we assume there was one gifted born for every sister born.”
-here’s some of what i could find on the subject.
“Women stood in bunches around the floor and more lined the balconies. Scattered among the women on the second level were some men and boys. The women, all Sisters of the Light, he presumed, were dressed in finery. There seemed to be no pattern; their dresses were of every color, with designs ranging from conservative to revealing. The boys and men were dressed in everything from plain robes to coats as elaborate as Richard imagined any lord or prince would wear.” stone of tears
-a little later…
“Richard put the back of his hand against her shoulder and swept her aside as he took another stride into the room, redirecting his glare to the hundreds of eyes watching him.” stone of tears same page or a little after(i’m copying and pasting from a word document form of the book).
-just from the palace of the prophets that means, no more than 100 wizards, and no less than 100 sorceresses(with the 1 trainee to one sister ratio).
-then there’s brother narev’s diciples
“In all that time, with her, along with everyone else, paying him
little heed, he must have been studying the spell around the palace.
From what she knew, most of Brother Narev’s disciples had been young
wizards from the Palace of the Prophets” faith of the fallen
“”Priests? What priests? How will I know them?”
“Brown robes and creased caps-oh, you’ll know them. You can’t
miss them. If you see any, you be on your best manners. If a priest
suspects you of having an improper attitude toward the Creator or such,
he can have you tortured. The priests are Brother Narev’s disciples.”
-how many? i don’t know i’m still looking……
“”What about Brother Narev’s disciples?”
“Young wizards from the Palace of the Prophets.Alarmed, Richard sat up. “I was at the Palace of the Prophets.
They will recognize me.” ‘
“No. They were young wizards in training there, but they left to follow Brother Narev before you arrived. If they see you, they will not know you.”" faith of the fallen…….still no #s…..
“”One of Brother Narev’s disciples, Neal, came around last evening with some new orders.” – there’s one
“As best as Richard could figure, there were about fifty of the
brown-robed disciples. He saw them often enough to come to know their
nature. Victor had mentioned to Richard that one of the foundries had
cast in pure gold, from the master that the blacksmith had made;
somewhere near the same numbers of the spell-forms. Victor thought them
only decorations. ” faith of the fallen
-so there seems to be 50 in the city of tamarang. at least a couple died in the uprising there in the same book though, but i can only recall about 5 or so dying.
so not counting any of the named characters there seems to be up to 100 wizards and 100-200+ sorceresses.
-now for the bond thing(capturing a daharan to have them tell you where richard is)
“Friedrich looked up, squinting against the bright sky. “Lord Rahl?”
“Yes, Lord Rahl. You are D’Haran. You should know.”
“I guess I can feel the bond.” Friedrich gestured off to the south. “He’s that way. But it’s weak. He must be a
great distance. Greater than I’ve ever felt of a Lord Rahl in all my life.”
” That’s right,” Nathan said. “He’s in the Old World. You must go to him. ” pillars of creation
-distance plays a factor and it’s not a radar that shows specifics. frederich was near the peoples palace and richard rahl was in the old world(thousands of miles away).
-now for things richard can do with the knowledge fo the temple of the winds(along with whomever he brings in there, limited by their magic, but not him).
“To the sides, as he strode the hall, there were alcoves under each arch. beyond each pair of columns. In
each alcove resided the things of magic stored here for safekeeping-sent here from the world of life, for the
safekeeping of the world of life.
Richard understood them and could use them. He understood how dangerous these things were, and why
some had wanted them locked away for all time. The knowledge of the winds was his, now.
With that knowledge, he had halted the plague. He didn’t have the book that was used to start the plague,
but it wasn’t necessary to have the book to render it impotent. The book was stolen from this place, and so
was still yoked to the winds.
It was a simple matter of switching the fluxes of power emanating from the winds which enabled the magic
of the book to function in the world of life.” this will all be from The Temple of the Winds book
“At least he was able to use his healing powers to halt the sickness among most who were afflicted before he
had interrupted the currents of magic. At least the plague was ended”
-this was a multi nation wide plague he stopped and healed everyone at once
“It had cost Nadine her life. He felt profound sorrow for her. He would have eliminated Jagang, and the threat
from the Old World, too, but he couldn’t do so from this place. That was the world of life, and he could only
affect those things taken from this place to the world of life, and the damage they caused.
He had touched the core of power in this place, though; there would be no more entry through Betrayer’s
Hall.” -it is no longer in the underworld anymore, richard moved it with the power of orden to the world of life at the end of the book confessor. he states he can end the threat from the old world and at that time it was millions strong.
“Richard paused. He drew his sword, Drefan’s sword. He held it out in his palms, staring at it, watching the
light catch it. This wasn’t his sword-the Sword of Truth.
He let his will flow from the core of his soul, carrying his birthright of power with it. His gift came as easily as
a sigh, where before he had struggled to bring forth the most insignificant shred of his power. Force flowed
outward, through his arms, and into the object he held.
His mind guided its elements, balancing each to the desired sequence and result, until the sword in his
hands transmuted into the twin of the one he knew so well. He held the twin to the Sword of Truth, although
without its attendant impressions of those past souls who had used his real sword. In every other way,
though, it was the same. It held the same power, the same magic.Wizards had died in the attempt to make the Sword of Truth, until some were finally successful. Once they
had succeeded, that knowledge was borne to this place, and it was therefore Richard’s for the taking, as
was all the knowledge here.
He seized the hilt and held the blade aloft. Richard let the power, the magic, the rage of the sword inundate
him, storm through him, just to feel something. Even wrath was something.
He had no need of a sword, though. The wrath winked out, to be replaced again by the emptiness.
He tossed the sword high into the air and held it there, where it rotated slowly on a bed of force. With a pulse
of power, he shattered the sword he had made into a cloud of metal lie dust, and with another thought,
evacuated the dust out of existence. ” – just an example of how fast and powerful of things he can make and destroy at will.(it took hundreds of ancient war wizards to make the sword 3000+years ago, and it is the key to orden).
“Richard leaned across the lower basin to place his hands on the proper symbols, spread wide to each side.
He read the ancient words before him as he leaned in, hands pressed to the gazing keyways. When the
words were said. he focused his mind on the person he wished to gaze upon. As he did this, he let slip a
small cord
of power to release the liquid in the upper font.
Across the entire knife-edge front of the upper basin, the silver liquid spilled out in a thin. silvery sheet before
his face. In that waterfall of gazing liquid, Richard saw the person he called in his mind: Kahlan.
His chest tightened at seeing her. He almost gasped, almost called out her name in anguish.”
-this goes on to show that he watches her as the actions take place. so it’s a live feed to whomever you think. it also shows to some degree an area around them, just like a tv!!lol
“Richard released the font. He lifted his fists as he staggered back. The gazing font exploded apart, heavy
pieces of rock driven ahead of huge gouts of flame and smoke. Shards of stone whistled through the hall,
disappearing into the distance. Massive chunks of stone wailed as they rose up into the air, lifted on a raging
inferno, until they lost their upward momentum and dropped back down, to shatter into fragments and dust.
The gazing liquid flooded the floor. In each droplet and pool, Richard could see Kahlan’s face. He turned his
back and stalked away. A furnace of flame blasted the floor, evaporating each droplet, yet he could still
perceive her face in the tiniest mist of it filling the air. He cast up his fists. Every droplet, every infinitesimal
bit of mist, winked into nothingness behind him.” – eh, just some effortless destruction
-this is all besides every single thing ever mentioned about the old war, including but not limited to…
-mriswith, the sliph, gars, orden(i know it’s not alowed in this match, but he could if allowed), dream walkers, confessors(even male, which would be extremely devistating due to not having to recharge at all, anyone they touch could be confessed), endless hearthounds and screelings could be brought forth out of the underworld(just need to tear the viel and the keepers agents can control then, agents being sisters of the dark), the light web “nukes”, the phantom cavalry…..this could go for a while.
@ mike
When I suggested this fight. I had it so that each universe was at full strength, but no boxes or CK. I also clarified that people were at current incarnation, but armies were at full strength. But, Aelfinn was the one that was given credit as the person suggesting the fight.
Dark One wielding bubbles of evil against the enemy sounds an awful lot like his direct involvement. And we’re going to have to wait until 2012 to see what his REAL direct involvement looks like, so…
@Mike
Even given all the feats suggested for Richard…how, exactly, is he supposed to survive the kind of massed threat suggested by Galorian? Rand, or any powerful male channeler wielding Callandor and linked with enough of those suggested directing their efforts at destroying something would, quite literally, be enough to level continents. All the male channelers of the Age of Legends going crazy one after another was enough to literally restructure the entire face of the planet (Look at the Wheel of Time world map. That used to be the REAL world’s map). And that’s a bunch of only males (meaning limited linking possible if they were even doing it), nevermind the female half of the Power being poured in.
Something I hadn’t been considering, also, was the involvement of the Dark One and the Forsaken. Without the Dark One and his servants fighting the heroes, suddenly all that lost information from the Age of Legends is much more accessible again. Admittedly, the current characters have figured things out no one in the Age of Legends ever did (Healing Stilling, Healing diseases of the mind, or at least the Dark One’s taint), but the Forsaken would be bringing actual understanding of all the ter’angreal the heroes just kind of wield and h
So far, we have Richard as the only caster on par with the “big guns” from Wheel of Time BEFORE they start using circles, and SoT having no way at all to match the mobility options Traveling supplies. Richard could presumably scry the locations of people from this Temple of the Winds, but given that all a Wheel of Time channeler needs to go to a place is a vague description OF that place, Richard wouldn’t be able to hide for long.
From all you quoted, it seems very much like the Temple of the Winds gives Richard power over things explicitly in the Sword of Truth universe. He has power over them because the Temple of the Winds lets him understand/control them on some fundamental level – I could be interpreting it wrong, please feel free to correct me if so.
If I’m reading it right though, that really won’t help him against things from the WoT universe, as they have no inherent connection to the Temple of Winds.
I’m inclined to agree that the different systems of magic wouldn’t interact enough to allow for proper “counterspelling”, at least not at first. Both sides would have to learn each other’s powers and study the effects thereof to have a chance at countering the other’s magic in any way besides “Make a shield. Now make something explode. Repeat.”
The Mord Sith, evidently, are sul’dam without the need for a’dam collars. unfortunately, capturing a single channeler isn’t going to turn the tide much in their favor: they’d need to conduct a raid hoping to capture every high-end channeler (Rand, Lanfear, Moridin, Nynaeve, Logain, Taim, etc), and to get to these people they’d have to sneak or fight their way past exceptionally good sentries, average to very good soldiers and defenders in the form of Aiel, Trollocs and Myrdraal and whatever else the Shadowspawn come up with, and then hope that the Mord Sith could succeed in capturing these people before someone figured out weaves didn’t work against them (If we consider that to even be the case given the differences in systems of magic) and started shredding them with shrapnel and thrown objects. And bows.
Most other underhanded tactics are easily solved by just noticing them in time: mosquitoes carrying a plague that can almost certainly be Healed (not that they’d get past insect-repelling wards, so this trick would only work once), though it might take some effort and ingenuity on the part of the people doing the Healing. Sneaking into a WoT camp is a desperately risky proposition, whereas, as noted, the Wheel of Time group can literally just decide to appear in the middle of an enemy camp and start razing the whole thing to the ground. After the first Light Web they ran into or so, they’d even learn to do this without exposing their own troops to needless risk. And that’s JUST the channelers: Myrdraal can shadow walk, Gray Men are exceedingly difficult to even notice, Dark Hounds would require subtractive magic to kill effectively, etc.
Again, is there a single thing the SoT camp has, aside from possibly Richard scrying the enemy and guessing what they were about to do, that serves as a viable deterrent for that tactic?
Or…just for, again, the “Give a powerful male channeler Callandor. Link him in the biggest circle you can make. Proceed to melt continents” approach? Admittedly this isn’t something they’d be pulling right off the bat, but it’s a possible strategy, and one the Forsaken, at least, are going to readily suggest.
bringing actual understanding of all the ter’angreal the heroes just kind of wield and hope they work*
weird typo.
@krazycrismore
If it’s current incarnation then wouldn’t SoT not have most of the imperial order, because they were sent away to the other place?
Something yet to be taken into account: The Sisters Of The Dark, among the most powerful women to ever draw breath, when six of them linked their powers the hand the ability to obliterate everything within twenty miles of where they were with a single blast. And that was only six, they are at least twenty out there that we know of, most likely more.
““Most offensive weaves are crated and detonated inside enemy formations. If a shied such as this is in place then the channeler will feel it blocking his weaving, and would either cut it or weave around it. Either way it will be mostly useless.”
-they have no way of detecting each others magic or cutting it off.”
Magic cutting weaves are specifically stated and seen to be effective against magic that the caster cannot see, all he needs is to know its location. When I wrote that they would feel the shield I didn’t mean that they would feet SoT magic, what I meant was that they would feel something blocking their weaves.
Would’ve addressed more points, but it’s 3:42 am over here and I ‘m getting tired…
Avienda (Rand’s aiel girl I can’t spell it) did something like that when she unravled the gateway from Far Madding I believe.
With the Bowl of Winds WoT could manipulate the weather for their advantage like making blizzard to stop the enemy armies or rain to make all the roads muddy.
What do y’all thing those red aiel people were at the end of Towers of Midnight? Corrupted aiel or something different.
Do the SoT soldires have any experience fighting monsters. As evedenced by the Whitecloaks in ToM, even the experienced and disiplened force loose effectiveness facing trollocs.
@Ian
I said that armies were at full strength meaning that the Imperial Order would still be around. But, Aelfinn is the one that is credited for suggesting the match, so he is the one that would have control over it.
@ The End
Significant point for SoT, then. Can you recall the book or passage where this occurred?
It seems like, at least at the start, the SoT armies would take an advantage thanks to brutal tactics and vicious, “underhanded” assaults: plagues of death-carrying bugs, everything else that kind of tactic indicates they’d come up with, you name it.
The inherent problem here is that even WITH the Sisters of the Dark feat listed above, they’re still outnumbered and outpowered by the WoT channelers. And unless the SoT group has a way to make their armies as mobile as the WoT forces would be thanks to Traveling (The technical term for the use of gateways), then the central advantage of any guerilla-tactics army is removed: if you can’t outrun your enemy, you can’t maintain guerilla tactics for any length of time. The WoT forces on the other hand could keep up guerilla assaults literally all day thanks to their caster’s numbers and the comparitive ease of Traveling, and the SoT forces would have no reliable way to stop or counteract that tactic.