welcome to the forums, fredobar. Enjoy!

Ramuthra took 4 magicians to summon him so they could retain contrl and Ramuthra wouldn't destroy the city. No such thing was needed for Nouda.

Makepeace was intending to keep control of Nouda you know...

Yes, but:

a. He thought a human body and sheer force of will were more than enough.
B. Nouda broke free anyway.

But to summon him in the first place should have required more magicians if he was as strong as Ramuthra.

Demons are only held into obedience by magicians' ability to punish them and bounds placed on them once they've been summoned preventing them from attacking the magician. Barti himself said that taking control of Nat's body would have been as simple as blocking off a couple of conduction pathways in his brain. No chance of Makepeace punishing Nouda, and no bounds placed preventing him harming Makepeace because it was his first summoning.

wrote:But to summon him in the first place should have required more magicians if he was as strong as Ramuthra.

The many magicians thing were needed to merely retain control of Nouda. Proof? We all agree that Nouda is more powerful than a marid, right? Then why was Nouda summoned by one magician, when a normal marid takes 2 of them?

Any one magician can summon any one spirit, the problem is controlling it.

wrote:Demons are only held into obedience by magicians' ability to punish them and bounds placed on them once they've been summoned preventing them from attacking the magician. Barti himself said that taking control of Nat's body would have been as simple as blocking off a couple of conduction pathways in his brain. No chance of Makepeace punishing Nouda, and no bounds placed preventing him harming Makepeace because it was his first summoning.

Barti indeed said that, but how could Makepeace know this? Hopkins had told him that controlling the demon only took sheer will.

I like to class most of the spirits in this way:

foliots

Imps

Djinn

Afrits

Marids

Nouda

Ramuthra

And there are many other things inbetween classes For example:a lesser foliot and a Greater Djinn. In other words I'm convinced that ramuthra's much more powerfull then Nouda. :D

Why?

Two ordinary magicians could summon a marid. Makepeace is relatively powerful - powerful enough to summon, say, a marid single handed.

Nouda didn't break free - a mere imp in Nouda's position could have killed Makepeace, although controlling the body after that is a different matter. No spirit summoned in that way could be prevented from killing the human occupant of a body.

Exactly. Meaning that the fact that it took Ramuthra magicians to summon him and Nouda is absolutely meaningless.

That sentence makes no sense whatsoever.

Yeah ramuthra is definately more powerful. If he can distort reality like that, there's not much competition. Also, I think if anyone tried to keep him as a lodger inside their body, there'd be magician jelly slowly dripping down the neighboring houses windows...

wrote:That sentence makes no sense whatsoever.

You: Ramuthra needs 4, Nouda needs 1, Ramuthra > Nouda.

Me: Marids need 2, Nouda needs one, and Nouda is still > marid.


Therefore, number of magicians needed to summon a spirit does not determine its powers, just the level of control needed.

Makepeace: THOUGHT he could subdue Ramuthra with his mind, therefore, even if normally 1, 2, 10, 100 magicians would be necessary to summon Nouda, in *this* particular case, it doesn't count.

I made it as clear as possible.

Like I said, Makepeace is a strong magician - strong enough to summon a spirit that would take two ordinary magicians singlehanded. The stronger the spirit, the harder it is to summon. However, even Makepeace had to work with others to summon Ramuthra.
You're entirely wrong about number of magicians determining amount of control, because no control was required over Ramuthra. Ramuthra was inside a pentacle at all times and Lovelace had the Amulet of Samarkand, rendering him invincible to Ramuthra. They didn't need any control at all, yet it still took four magicians to summon him.

its all getting very heated in here!

Not really debating or anything, but wasn't Nouda willing to come because he knew what lay ahead?

So couldn't he therefore have helped Makepeace by not struggling?

Ianna wrote: Not really debating or anything, but wasn't Nouda willing to come because he knew what lay ahead?

So couldn't he therefore have helped Makepeace by not struggling?

good point

Thanks.

So you actually think it's a valid idea?

I'm not sure... if Faquarl was bound into Hopkins' body, he wouldn't have been able to return to the Other Place and talk to Nouda... although I guess messengers might have worked.
Regardless, Makepeace knew his own strength and would have known he could summon Nouda single handed - his mistake was thinking it was possible to prevent a spirit from killing its host by sheer willpower, which can't be done.

wrote:Like I said, Makepeace is a strong magician - strong enough to summon a spirit that would take two ordinary magicians singlehanded. The stronger the spirit, the harder it is to summon. However, even Makepeace had to work with others to summon Ramuthra.

First, this implies Nouda was a mere marid, which he wasn't. Second, since Nouda was above marid, you're implying that Makepeace was at least 4 times stronger than a regular Parliament member, which I doubt..

wrote:You're entirely wrong about number of magicians determining amount of control, because no control was required over Ramuthra. Ramuthra was inside a pentacle at all times and Lovelace had the Amulet of Samarkand, rendering him invincible to Ramuthra. They didn't need any control at all, yet it still took four magicians to summon him.

You don't need control? Like hell you don't. He didn't want England to get destroyed.

wrote:I'm not sure... if Faquarl was bound into Hopkins' body, he wouldn't have been able to return to the Other Place and talk to Nouda... although I guess messengers might have worked.

Faqural spoke to Nouda about the plan, so yes, he knew.

wrote:Regardless, Makepeace knew his own strength and would have known he could summon Nouda single handed - his mistake was thinking it was possible to prevent a spirit from killing its host by sheer willpower, which can't be done.

Let's recap. Do you thing a spirit that destroyed Persepolis (the capital of the Persian Empire) would be normally summonable by a single magician?

Second, that was the thing. Makepeace *didn't* knew his own power. He was overconfident about it. He didn't need other magicians because he was sure having Nouda inside of him would make it possible for him to subdue it.