Book 2 – Text Updates 011

[Llelldorin]

The spell scroll did not just bring Stanley the bracer, it also brought him Parson, and a pair of goggles to let him see unit stats, and a magic sword. And the bracer was said to be sold for more than the scroll that brought it cost, at a minimum.

I wonder if the scroll was more powerful than anyone realized? Remember, Wanda got Parson as a result of Stanley disrupting her concentration badly during the spellcasting, and loading on a series of unexpected demands. If she'd maintained her concentration, she'd have been focusing on a standard Erfworld warlord, and probably gotten one (a very good one, granted, but still, a standard warlord). Instead, the spell did something really unexpected, and grabbed Parson.

[Ashamam]

I buy a coffee for a dollar, meaning the coffee is as valuable as a dollar. It does not mean the coffee IS a dollar.

You make some great points. But if I can take the lid off of the cup of coffee and sell it for $1.50, and still enjoy my cup of coffee, isn't my dollar now worth a whole lot more than it originally was? And the cup remains after I've drank the coffee, as does the little cozy that prevents my fingers from burning while I drink the coffee. These also have value.

Well yes if you sell the coffee or it's parts later on at a higher price the original dollar is worth more to you then $1. There are all kinds of real world example of this (buying a milk cow to produce and sell milk for example). An items value is never fixed, but always dependent on circumstances and people surrounding it. Like i said I agree with what I called Argument 3 which essentially says that the value of a thing or things exchanged for something else are equal (at least for that transaction).

The issue I have is with the identification of an object with as it's value. Just because a spell has the value of an artifact does not make it an artifact. For example just because a spell that teleports an artifact to you is as valuable as the the artifact you obtain is to you does not make the spell itself an artifact. The best I can conclude (assuming that the bracers are in fact an artifact) is that casters can create or cast spells that are as valuable as an artifact. The final conclusion (Artifacts are not exclusively created by Titans) may still be true, but the argument as I presented it does not show it.

[JustDoug]

Vis. the argument about the bracer/spell/pearl of great carnymancy.

Don't confuse value for price. Things you need or desire are worth a lot more than things you don't, and needs tend to vary.

Also, recall that Stanley got what he asked for via the summoning spell, not what he expected to get.

(Of course, that's leaving out any VAT added to the listed price for a spell or bargain bin magic)

[Yucca]

So, you're saying that a magic automatic teller card that lets you withdraw a million dollars is worth less than a million dollars? That is contrary to my point, and it makes perfect sense to me that the card is worth the million dollars. If you had the card, would you sell it to me for $100,000? Because I would be taking that offer!
I think I know where the flaw and the shaky logic lies in this exchange, and it isn't with me.

Your flaw is this: "is worth the same as" =/= "is"

Ignoring coffee and ATM cards, lets use an in-world example. Stanley takes the Arkenhammer, something we know beyond debate to be an artifact, and sells it for 1 million schmuckers. Would you claim that the stack of schmuckers which he receives in exchange for the Arkenhammer is an artifact. Are those schmuckers themselves artifacts? They were exchanged for an artifact, they provided an artifact to the other side of that trade.

The flaw in you logic is that "worth" or "value" is not an intrinsic characteristic of a thing. Something is only worth as much as you can convince someone to pay you for it, there is no "right answer" to the question "what is this worth?". Whereas "artifact" vs "magic item" is an intrinsic categorization, something is either an artifact or not. Since one of these things can change and the other cannot, equating the two is objectively wrong.

[DoctorJest]

Tell Duncan that there's a battle, and he'll say "I'll be there with Belzon".

[Ashamam]

Your flaw is this: "is worth the same as" =/= "is"

Ignoring coffee and ATM cards, lets use an in-world example. Stanley takes the Arkenhammer, something we know beyond debate to be an artifact, and sells it for 1 million schmuckers. Would you claim that the stack of schmuckers which he receives in exchange for the Arkenhammer is an artifact. Are those schmuckers themselves artifacts? They were exchanged for an artifact, they provided an artifact to the other side of that trade.

The flaw in you logic is that "worth" or "value" is not an intrinsic characteristic of a thing. Something is only worth as much as you can convince someone to pay you for it, there is no "right answer" to the question "what is this worth?". Whereas "artifact" vs "magic item" is an intrinsic categorization, something is either an artifact or not. Since one of these things can change and the other cannot, equating the two is objectively wrong.

Thank you this was exactly my point, however you said it much more fluently.

[splintermute]

I buy a coffee for a dollar, meaning the coffee is as valuable as a dollar. It does not mean the coffee IS a dollar.

You make some great points. But if I can take the lid off of the cup of coffee and sell it for $1.50, and still enjoy my cup of coffee, isn't my dollar now worth a whole lot more than it originally was? And the cup remains after I've drank the coffee, as does the little cozy that prevents my fingers from burning while I drink the coffee. These also have value.

This is an analogy I can work with, Oberon - let's say you buy a cup of coffee for a dollar, and the cafe is having a contest/promotion, so when you look under the lid of the coffee cup, it says "Good for one free coffee" - and let's say, under the terms of the contest, one in every ten lids is a winner. Yes, your dollar is technically now worth 2 coffees, but the result isn't necessarily reproducible - when you spent the dollar, what you bought was a coffee and a chance at a free coffee - you just got lucky. And that's what happened here - the summon perfect warlord scroll was essentially a lottery ticket, and GK hit the jackpot. Yes, a winning lottery ticket for a $1 million prize is worth $1 million, but if you don't know it's a winning ticket, you're not going to pay $1 million for it.

[fjolnir]

The glasses would probably come to any non-erfer brought to the world, since that is how warlords see the units of their side...

[Oberon]

So, you're saying that a magic automatic teller card that lets you withdraw a million dollars is worth less than a million dollars? That is contrary to my point, and it makes perfect sense to me that the card is worth the million dollars. If you had the card, would you sell it to me for $100,000? Because I would be taking that offer!
I think I know where the flaw and the shaky logic lies in this exchange, and it isn't with me.

Your flaw is this: "is worth the same as" =/= "is"

It is? How so? If there is any difference at all, it is 150,000 shmuckers in my favor. Or more. Stanley paid 350,000 shmuckers for the scroll, and could sell the bracer for 500,00 or more, and still keep Parson, glasses, and sword.

So while I'll agree that 500,000 shmuckers, Parson, glasses, and sword != 350,000 shmuckers, I think you'll be hard pressed to describe to me why I should value the 350,000 shmucker scroll LESS than what I got for it. Especially since there is a clear apples-to-apples comparison between 350,000 and 500,000+, we don't even need to haggle about the worth of the other benefits the scroll brought to see that.

And no, shmuckers aren't artifacts. That way leads to madness, try to remain focused. I don't want to go down the road of determining how many shmuckers need to be gathered together before they qualify as a "heap" vs a "pile." Other men have done that before me to no good conclusion other than a lot of logic exercises.

Both items and artifacts are purchasable. Items we have seen purchased: The summoning scroll, be it item or artifact, and also less powerful scrolls of spells. And by the logic of "Sizemore thinks the bracer might be an artifact" plus "Sizemore said it could be sold for 500,000 shmuckers or more" then artifacts also are able to be bought and sold, assuming you can find an owner willing to part with one, and that you have the shmuckers to make the purchase.

But a scroll that brings you, by far, more value than the cost? Including an item that may be an artifact? That is an artifact to me, if we're measuring by "power level" rather than "origin."

I don't think you ever answered my question. Are you going to sell me that magic ATM card that will allow me to withdraw $1,000,000 for $100,000? Do you really value something less than what it can be exchanged for, even when there is a straight up apples-to-apples comparison which can be made?

[Oberon]

This is an analogy I can work with, Oberon - let's say you buy a cup of coffee for a dollar, and the cafe is having a contest/promotion, so when you look under the lid of the coffee cup, it says "Good for one free coffee" - and let's say, under the terms of the contest, one in every ten lids is a winner.

The error with extending my analogy to Governors in carts and to raffles is that they fall too far from the actual situation to count. I allowed that the analogy was not perfect. No analogy is. But I'll play along one more time.

The items brought by the scroll may have been random, we could make yet another epic argument out of this. But these items were going to be, as conveyed within the story, items that Parson needed to become the Perfect Warlord. So the random factor was not "win or lose" as with your coffee cup raffle, but "win, and then count the salable value and see if it is above the cost of the scroll." I see no need to argue that this would always be the case. We have only a single example, and it worked out to be this way. Any speculation that it would fail to do so has no evidence, while any speculation that it would be repeatable need only point to the example as evidence.

[Sinrus]

Oberon, I agree with everything you say but one thing. The only weak point I can find in your logic is that the bracer is undoubtedly an artifact. There is canon evidence from Sizemore that magic items are made by mortals, and heavy implications that artifacts are not. However, the basis of your argument is that Sizemore also said that the bracer may be an artifact.

Now before I continue, let me remind you that I agree wholeheartedly that if a scroll can bring you an artifact that it is as valuable as an artifact. Of course, that doesn't mean that it is an artifact. To use a previous analogy, the cup of coffee I bought with a dollar bill is in and of itself not a dollar bill. It is, of course, the same value as a dollar bill.

Sizemore's statement was based, in your words, on its power level and not its creator. But certainly Titans are stronger than mortals. Does it not stand to reason that Titans' magic is stronger than mortals'? And thus wouldn't an item created by a Titan be stronger than one created by a mortal?

So to summarize, Sizemore didn't know whether the bracer was made by mortals or by Titans. Based on the assumption that Titans are stronger than mortals, the potency of the bracer led him to believe that it was an artifact.

I admit that my entire argument is based on the assumption that Titans create stronger things than mortals. I think that this is a safe assumption to make, since there has been no evidence to the contrary.

[Ashamam]

But a scroll that brings you, by far, more value than the cost? Including an item that may be an artifact? That is an artifact to me, if we're measuring by "power level" rather than "origin."

So, a Cow I buy for $100 dollars that I can milk and sell $10,000 worth of milk is milk (both a cow and milk)? Or are you saying that something that can bring you more value then you pay for it is an artifact and therefore this cow is now an Artifact...?

Another example:
Let's say I invent a teleportation device to steal an item of value say, the Mona Lisa, and transport it to my house. By your logic this teleportation device is a painting b/c it provided me with something as valuable as a painting.

How about if we get a Moneymancer and a Dittomancer together and they can create a device that will multiply money, or perhaps just make your side's upkeep costs less (thus granting you more money) is this device also an artifact?

The reason I believe we do not understand each other is you define an artifact as something that has a value or power above a certain level. The rest of us are using the definition which Sizemore gave which is an artifact is something created by the Titans, while a magic item is something created by a caster. Our definition has no mention of how powerful or valuable the item is, but only it's origin. Our ideas of what constitutes an "artifact" are greatly different, which causes confusion. We have Sizemore's statement to back up our definition, However your definition comes seems to be based merely on your own opinion of what an "artifact" should be. We could do the thought experiment to intuitively disprove your definition though. At what level of power of value does an item become an "artifact"? If I had all the shcmuckers in erfworld I could do a whole lot of things with them. The value of my treasury would exceed all others I could even buy known artifacts. I'd have enormous power as well. Is my treasury now an artifact?

[Jeivar]

A thought occurs: Duncan holds Jillian in high regard due to the Jitterati-thing. But wasn't that entirely Charlie's thing? As well as whatever his Archons are about to spring? What are we to make of Jillian's tactical sense? Is she just a blunt object who excels at personal combat and nothing else, or is she up to the challenge of leadership, and capable of her own masterstrokes?

Personally, I don't think she would have lasted so long as a wild barbarian warrior if she wasn't good at traditional tactics, but I suspect her mindset is rather too simple for anything unorthodox.

[Wender]

Now we know that Wanda had deliberately guided the shockamancy attack around Jillian so she remained untouched. Jillian assumes that means that Wanda will never cause her deadly harm.. but could it be something else?

Wanda has exhibited strong Duty to Stanley but she even admits her true loyalty is to fate magic. Could it be that she still considers herself in some part a Faq unit and as such her loyalty to Faq (such as it is) is now partial to its new Queen? Combine that with her version of Erfworld Love for Jillian and maybe some nudging from Vanna (assuming she is the 'unknown' caster below) and a sprinkling of Charlie's influence (Thinkamancy can affect loyalty) and it lends credence to those speculating on Wanda's joining forces with Jillian.

I don't know that it's necessarily that complicated. The chapter title ("Love is a Battlefield") gives us a guide, and everything necessary to understand the scene can be derived from both the simple fact that Jillian and Wanda love each other, and the ways in which they express that love (Wanda by her need for control, Jillian by playful submission).

Jillian actually has a pretty sweet strategy laid out here: First, her best odds come from parley just because it's one on one and she knows Wanda is both somewhat fragile--deeply hurt by Jillian breaking her control--and also deeply unwilling to really hurt Jillian. Jillian has her own demons to fight, but her odds in parley are at least as good as her side's in battle, and likely better.

Second, by leaving her warlords in the dark about Charlie's assistance, she can pull her subterfuge off perfectly. Her visible forces will look convincingly like they're ready to defy the odds and trying to figure out how, because... they are. Duncan's pairings will authentically reflect the inherent mismatch between forces. That causes GK to pick a strategy appropriate for a weak defense, which leaves them wide open for, say, a sudden Archon attack coordinated with the tower defenses once they've "punched through" and are concentrating entirely on killing or capturing Slately.

Jack should know this: the best way to pull off a veil is to make sure the other side doesn't even think to look for it. The dwagon-as-bat-swarm trick worked as well as it did because nobody was looking at it (and it stopped working as soon as someone did). Everyone was looking at the shiny distraction. Jillian is reprising that: nobody, not even on her side, expects Archons there, so there's no tell and no reason to look for them unless Jillian gives them away (but she's not that stupid). People see what they expect to, and in this case that's the impressive but insufficient forces of Faq and the tower of Jetstone behind them. Jack (or perhaps Parson) noticing that something is wrong is probably the only way GK doesn't walk right into this trap.

[Ashamam]

Sinrus,
I agree that the "Bracer is an artifact" premise is shaky and if false would cause the whole argument to be invalid. This is the obvious premise one could attack to invalidate the argument. I think however our differing definitions of what an artifact is, causes the misunderstanding. The real issue is that Oberon is under the assumption that Artifacts are merely things over a certain power level or value. In terms of the argument I presented earlier the Premise 2 of Argument 3 "Things as valuable as an Artifact" are "Artifacts" is actually true for his definition. Which means if the bracers is an artifact his argument is sound. However he has not shown any proof or evidence that his definition of "Artifact" is correct within Erfworld, which if his definition is incorrect the whole argument becomes unsound.

[fractal]

Count me in the group that considers artifact status to be a matter of origin, not power level or "value".

Incidentally, it's normal when selling things to sell them for more than you paid for them - stores and merchants do it all the time. Despite that, sometimes stores go out of business. Just because something is "worth" 500K, doesn't mean you can instantly find someone to sell it to at that price.

If we assume that the summoning spell wasn't made specifically for GK or Wanda, then we should give Wanda props for being on the ball and recognizing a potentially good deal. Even so, she and Stanley still spent 350K to gamble on a new kind of spell. After the success of this casting, maybe the Findamancers and Predictamancers will be able to charge more for the next copy they create. The value of Findamancer time just went up.

[splintermute]

The items brought by the scroll may have been random, we could make yet another epic argument out of this. But these items were going to be, as conveyed within the story, items that Parson needed to become the Perfect Warlord. So the random factor was not "win or lose" as with your coffee cup raffle, but "win, and then count the salable value and see if it is above the cost of the scroll." I see no need to argue that this would always be the case. We have only a single example, and it worked out to be this way. Any speculation that it would fail to do so has no evidence, while any speculation that it would be repeatable need only point to the example as evidence.

Repeatability is the core of your argument - if some other side could go and buy another scroll and be guaranteed to get another Parson+bracer+glasses+sword, I would agree that the scroll is extraordinarily powerful - artifact-level, if we use your arbitrary power level definition of artifact, rather than the established "not created by mortals" definition. However, Parson is unique - the scroll didn't create him, it summoned him. If another side purchased and used an identical scroll, we don't know what could happen - would it teleport Parson and the bracer to the new side and force him to serve them? would it summon the best Erfworld-native warlord? would it summon the second-best warlord from some other parallel universe, complete with his own stupid-meal toys? would it create a dittomancy clone of Parson and the bracer? The evidence - i.e. that the spell summoned a unique individual, rather than creating a perfect warlord - suggests that it's not reproducible, which suggests that GK just lucked out.

Also, keep in mind that the scroll didn't summon Parson and the bracer - Wanda did. The scroll was just a tool. Perhaps Wanda's destiny was so important that fate, the titans and Erfworld all bent over backwards to bring her everything she would need to get her hands on the pliers.

[Yucca]

OK. To answer your largely irrelevant $1mil prepaid Visa card question: No, under normal everyday circumstances I would not sell the card for much less than $1mil. I could come up with mildly silly situations where I would take the $100k instead, but those would be exceptions.

Now you answer one: Would you agree that a "$1mil prepaid visa" and "$1mil in cash" are fundamentally the same thing?

No one disagrees that the bracer would be worth a lot of money. No one disagrees that the sum total of the stuff Parson ended up with could be >350k. The point of debate is that you seem to be claiming that "being as valuable as an artifact" == "being an artifact"

Being an artifact is a function of the basic nature of the thing (whatever basic nature you base that fact on), while the value of something is a function of what it can do in a given situation. You can't use one to find the other without a third, independent set of data. Which we don't have.

"A horse! A horse! My Kingdom for a horse!"

[Welf von Ehrwald]

Just a thought: I think Parson's bracer is the result of a mixture of divine and profane magic. Parson was summoned as the result of the booped up spell; thus he didn't quite fit into erfworld. Maybe his stuff was party popped by the magic spell, that tried to fix itself, but also partly by "erfwolrd" to make him fit into the world. In that case the bracer would be an artefact, because it couldn't be recreated with intend.

[Sunfall]

I still maintain that Erfworld is a place where powerful ideas can bend the rules and produce results far in excess of costs if the idea is clever enough. Uncroaking a volcano or producing the perfect warlord complete with powerful items, its the same. This was Parson's stated goal for the game he was creating, which correlates with Erfworld nicely.

And yeah, the results are likely not reproducible.

Fate probably lent a helping hand, since it was the likeliest route to placing an artifact in Wanda's hands.