part six, page fourteen

Dammit. I had my money on Robot.

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… what the hell is self-mummification? Is that a thing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu

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Okay, as has been pointed out, the “getting knocked back” effect from being shot is actually caused by the pain and/or dying and falling over, not by the momentum of the bullet. The momentum is no more than the recoil whatsisname would feel when firing the gun – if he didn’t fall over, why did Broah? Either Broah was in pain, in which case this should be reflected in all other battles with “undying” soldiers (so if you stab them, they recoil in pain), or it did actually kill him a little bit, and whatever mojo is worked on that kind of person revives them. I’m guessing the second one, which means that this kind of dude can be temporarily (for a few moments) incapacitated by most things that would kill an ordinary person.

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Co-fucking-sign.

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Oh, and speaking as one of the primary instigators of the whole ‘appropriate reactions to being shot’ debate…

I’m okay with how things turned out. It’s pretty clear the bullet didn’t actually bounce off Broah, but rather, it actually penetrated. And even an undead monster like Broah is probably going to be pretty staggered by getting shot in his brain-meats.

What I was pushing back against is the highly annoying ‘person is shot and the force of the bullet is sufficient to send them staggering backwards, through multiple obstructions and possibly a plate glass window’ scenario.

I fucking hate that.

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A note about recoil from a gun versus bullet impact: while conservation of momentum dictates that they’ll be about the same, there’s still a qualitative difference between the two. For instance:
– When the gun fires, the impact on the shooter is spread out over time (the time it takes for the powder to blow) and space (the contact area between the gun and the hand). The bullet’s impact has a much smaller space and shorter time, making its effect much more dramatic.
– The gun is supported by the full length of Alric’s arm, and so has the whole arm to work with as a shock absorber, further spreading out the effect of the recoil. Broah’s head is held in place by his neck, which is not directly behind the impact (meaning that the bullet has some leverage to knock his head around), and Broah’s neck was braced mostly to hold his head up, not counter a sudden push backwards.
– Alric, like any good marksman, was expecting the recoil from his gun. He knew when and where it would happen and was prepared. Broah was NOT expecting to get shot, so he was not prepared.

And that’s why, even without invoking the fact that it’s a magic gun, or discussing the nature of braaaaiiiinnns undead heads, I can believe that Alric can knock Broah over with a good shot.

By the way, surely Dalakhra has noticed that Rayana is no longer being held captive by Broah? If I were Rayana, I’d be making a run for it right now…

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You raise a fair point, wc, but it’s got me thinking. We can see that Dalakhra is thoroughly evil, but what about the Undying Wizard-King? Is the UWK sufficiently evil to justify allying with Dalakhra? Dalakhra is trying to convince Kahal and Alric that this is the case, and he seems to have a good case. But he’s also a good liar… so what if Dalakhra is just pulling a massive triple-cross here, and his aim is to become an undying wizard-king, depose the current UWK, and conquer the world?

I now strongly suspect that’s exactly what Dalakhra is up to. This is going to be interesting.

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…would you kill the Caliph if that was your pitch?

Somehow, I had forgotten about that. What can I say, these last few pages have been really involved.

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