could Nightlords actually outnumber Nightbane?

[Axelmania]

Given how "end boss" Nightlords seem and how Nightbane are the eponymous PC targets, I had always thought (perhaps wrongly assumed?) that Nightbane were more numerous than Nightlords. Flipping through the core book and underlining phrases for fun, came across some similar phrasing in a short enough span of time to notice which got me wondering. Underlining for emphasis.

Page 13 (paragraph 3 of America After Dark Day) referring to Nightbane:

Starting at Dark Day, hundreds, perhaps thousands of people had become monsters

Page 171 (The Nightlords, right column, 4th paragraph after the Wanderer Diaries excerpt)

There is typically one to five at each major city in the Nightlands, so there must be hundreds, or maybe even thousands.

While this could mean thousands of Nightbane and hundreds of Nightlords (say a 10:1 ratio) as I had thought, the phrasing is loose enough that it could also flip and mean thousands of Nightlords to hundreds of Nightbane.

How terrifying would this game be if each 'bane was up against ten Lords?

Of course, there are probably other numercial references to # of Bane / # of Lords which might be more clarifying than these two which influenced my thinking which I had just forgot about. Does anyone recall any more specific numbers?

All I really know from this is there is a minimum of 200 Nightbane and 200 Nightlords due to "hundreds".

[kennethk]

I will be honest, I have read both those passages multiple times and that never actually dawned on me. It is an interesting possibility that the Nightlords do in fact outnumber the Nightbane. I think I may actually go down that rabbit hole when I start a new Nightbane game.

[Shark_Force]

bear in mind, hundreds to thousands of nightbane awakened on dark day alone. there were already some nightbane previously awakened (and once awakened, a given nightbane could stick around for hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years), and most probably a number have awakened since, particularly since danger tends to awaken nightbane and the world has gotten a lot more dangerous since dark day.

to put it another way... 1-5 nightlords per city in the nightlands means pretty much the same thing as 1-5 per major city on earth... and i get the impression that there are definitely more than 1-5 nightbane per major city on earth

on the other hand, that's still pretty intimidating. i don't think we have any canon reference to any actual nightlords being killed. avatars, i think we have some, but not a single nightlord. also, iirc it is possible for night princes to ascend to nightlord. it may also be possible for the various human followers of the nightlords to become night princes. so you could potentially need to liberate cities from the nightlords several times. in fact, until widespread success occurs, you might need to defeat different nightlords controlling the city hundreds of times... and if you're losing 'bane (and other forces of good, or at least forces of lesser evil) each time (which seems likely to say the least), that's gonna get harder and harder to do each time...

gotta say, the nocturne sound a heck of a lot more reasonable now. a vampire intelligence can afford to sacrifice a few hundred vampires (or at least secondary or wild vampires) to kill off a nightlord. the nightbane probably can't afford to lose even ten per nightlord.

[drewkitty ~..~]

No. The text of the books, when taken as a whole, indicate that the Nightlords are fewer then the nightbane. It is just that they are more orginized and have created minions (hounds, hunters, etc...) that outnumber the NB.

If the NB ever did orginize under one banner they would still be sorely matched to the NL's forces. However, if it was just compairing the numbers of just the NB and NL, the NB would out number the NLs.

[AzathothXy]

bear in mind, hundreds to thousands of nightbane awakened on dark day alone. there were already some nightbane previously awakened (and once awakened, a given nightbane could stick around for hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years), and most probably a number have awakened since, particularly since danger tends to awaken nightbane and the world has gotten a lot more dangerous since dark day.

to put it another way... 1-5 nightlords per city in the nightlands means pretty much the same thing as 1-5 per major city on earth... and i get the impression that there are definitely more than 1-5 nightbane per major city on earth

on the other hand, that's still pretty intimidating. i don't think we have any canon reference to any actual nightlords being killed. avatars, i think we have some, but not a single nightlord. also, iirc it is possible for night princes to ascend to nightlord. it may also be possible for the various human followers of the nightlords to become night princes. so you could potentially need to liberate cities from the nightlords several times. in fact, until widespread success occurs, you might need to defeat different nightlords controlling the city hundreds of times... and if you're losing 'bane (and other forces of good, or at least forces of lesser evil) each time (which seems likely to say the least), that's gonna get harder and harder to do each time...

gotta say, the nocturne sound a heck of a lot more reasonable now. a vampire intelligence can afford to sacrifice a few hundred vampires (or at least secondary or wild vampires) to kill off a nightlord. the nightbane probably can't afford to lose even ten per nightlord.

Don't have the books with me atm, but Through the Glass Darkly talks about a dead nightlord named Vifrawk or something like that. The reference is in the creature section under the race of the same name.
And I could have sworn in The Nightlands book in Moloch's section there is a dead nightlord. I think he tried to look in Moloch's Mirror(not Mocker, but another one).

[eliakon]

Nightlords have died yes.
Its just the various resistance organizations have not killed one (yet) since Dark Day.
As of right now... the Nightlords are their own worst enemies.

[Shark_Force]

Nightlords have died yes.
Its just the various resistance organizations have not killed one (yet) since Dark Day.
As of right now... the Nightlords are their own worst enemies.

yeah, it doesn't count as the resistance having accomplished it when it was really just the nightlords killing each other

and of course, it isn't just a matter of the number of minions the nightlords have... a lone nightbane is not equivalent in power to 1 nightlord even if the nightlord has no minions at all.

[Axelmania]

No. The text of the books, when taken as a whole, indicate that the Nightlords are fewer then the nightbane.

What I'm looking for is other parts composing this whole which paint a clearer picture of this.

It's the kind of thing which I agree with you on, and have probably read, but not where I can remember where I read it, and now I'm questioning whether I actually DID read it (as you believe you did) or if we might possibly just be assuming there MUST be fewer Nightlords because the opposite would seem unwinnable.

Nightlords have died yes.
Its just the various resistance organizations have not killed one (yet) since Dark Day.
As of right now... the Nightlords are their own worst enemies.

yeah, it doesn't count as the resistance having accomplished it when it was really just the nightlords killing each other

The most progress I seem to recall reading about was it said The Resistance thought they killed a Nightlord and announced it triumphantly but it turns out it was just the Nightlord's avatar and a false positive. Can't remember if that was Moloch or Magog or some other one.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Axe That is the problem. The written word can carry over an idea/theme w/o actually saying anything specific about that idea/theme. But when the reader read the text as a whole that idea comes over after thinking over the whole.

As a whole the text (all the books combined) says that there are fewer NL's then NB's. Nothing is specifically said about it. It is just there to know if you don't try focusing on the details.

Sort of a not seeing the forest by getting distracted by looking at the trees sort of thing.

Or it is a PB has left things ""Open"" so GMs can write their own stories.

Go read the origins text about the NL. Is what I would suggest.

[eliakon]

Sure.
If the GM wants a pointlessly dark game where everyone is already fordoomed to fail and the world dies, its just a matter of what you do in the time you have left ala HotD?
Go for it.
If you want there to be the slightest shred of hope? Ignore the idea of there being thousands of Nightlords and just assume that they really meant "Night Lords, Avatars and senior Night Princes"... since that is what the later books have being in charge of major cities and not a Night Lord for every city.
Put another way... just 1 Nightlord is going to laugh at pretty much anything short of a major military operation or Plot level artifacts... a couple dozen Night Lords is going to be a nightmare to even begin to try and dislodge, a hundred is going to be nigh impossible... get into the hundreds and your looking at needing Plot Devices (possibly left over from the Chaos War) that can wipe out entire races with the Power Of Plot.

[Axelmania]

The written word can carry over an idea/theme w/o actually saying anything specific about that idea/theme.
But when the reader read the text as a whole that idea comes over after thinking over the whole.
As a whole the text (all the books combined) says that there are fewer NL's then NB's.
Nothing is specifically said about it.
It is just there to know if you don't try focusing on the details.

This doesn't really make any sense to me. You and I have the same impression that Nightlords probably outnumber Nightbane. There had to have been specific parts of the text which gave us this impression, even if it wasn't specific numbers. We would just need to find them again.

Go read the origins text about the NL. Is what I would suggest.

I've read them all. Which one do you mean?

If the GM wants a pointlessly dark game where everyone is already fordoomed to fail and the world dies, its just a matter of what you do in the time you have left ala HotD? Go for it.

I wouldn't say 1000 Nightlords and 100 Nightbane is necessarily hopeless Certainly playing on hard mode though.

If you want there to be the slightest shred of hope? Ignore the idea of there being thousands of Nightlords and just assume that they really meant "Night Lords, Avatars and senior Night Princes"... since that is what the later books have being in charge of major cities and not a Night Lord for every city.

Again: it says hundreds to thousands for both groups, as I said in the OP this could also mean 1000 Nightbane per 100 Nightlords or similar. I imagine that's how most play. I'm just wondering how bleak it is possible to be according to the text.

Put another way... just 1 Nightlord is going to laugh at pretty much anything short of a major military operation or Plot level artifacts...

until one gets blown up by a room full of 100 sticks of Dynamite?

a couple dozen Night Lords is going to be a nightmare to even begin to try and dislodge,

Luckily they don't tend to work THAT closely. They're so competetive they might even help you off each other.

a hundred is going to be nigh impossible... get into the hundreds and your looking at needing Plot Devices (possibly left over from the Chaos War) that can wipe out entire races with the Power Of Plot.

That's the thing: there ARE hundreds of Nightlords. That's the minimum. The question is whether or not there are thousands, and if there are also thousands of nightbane (instead of mere hundreds) which group has the more thousands?

[Incriptus]

Page 16 2nd column

Dark Day changed all of this. Before that time, there were
only a few hundred manifested Nightbane worldwide. But the
coming of the Dark and the mystical energies unleashed during
the process caused every potential Nightbane in the world to be
revealed through transformation. Thus, the number of Nightbane
has increased a hundredfold. However, their awakenings did not
all occur simultaneously. Throughout the Dark Day, approximately
half of all the Nightbane in the world had manifested,
while the rest remained unaltered. These late bloomers would
"awaken" over the next year or so. Furthermore, since Nightbane
abilities appear only after puberty, there are still thousands
of unsuspecting children who will become inhuman beings over
the next several years.

[Axelmania]

"a few hundred" I would say is minimum 200 (I hate words like "few") so "increased a hundredfold" would mean minimum 20,000

It goes on to mention that half are unaltered unmanifested late bloomers though, there would only be 10,000 manifested ones. Since it only says "thousands of unsuspecting children who will" rather than "tens of thousands" this is why I'm thinking 20,000 total makes sense. At highest maybe 30,000, because if it was 40,000 (few=four) then 20,000 unmanifested would allow you to say "tens of thousands"

This is evidence against Nightlords heavily outnumbering Nightbane but not really an argument against them having equal numbers to the MANIFESTED ones. The "maybe thousands" of Nightlords could be 10-19,000 (using the same "it would say tens of thousands if it were 20,000 or more) so allowing them to tie or ournumber manifested Nightbane, only being outnumbered if ALL the unmanifested Nightbane woke.

[dreicunan]

"a few hundred" I would say is minimum 200 (I hate words like "few") so "increased a hundredfold" would mean minimum 20,000

It goes on to mention that half are unaltered unmanifested late bloomers though, there would only be 10,000 manifested ones. Since it only says "thousands of unsuspecting children who will" rather than "tens of thousands" this is why I'm thinking 20,000 total makes sense. At highest maybe 30,000, because if it was 40,000 (few=four) then 20,000 unmanifested would allow you to say "tens of thousands"

This is evidence against Nightlords heavily outnumbering Nightbane but not really an argument against them having equal numbers to the MANIFESTED ones. The "maybe thousands" of Nightlords could be 10-19,000 (using the same "it would say tens of thousands if it were 20,000 or more) so allowing them to tie or ournumber manifested Nightbane, only being outnumbered if ALL the unmanifested Nightbane woke.

I would submit that "tens of thousands," while technically accurate for the 20k range, probably only starts to become more likely with the 30k range (but it isn't set in stone regarding that usage). "Few," on the other hand, is much more likely to mean "3 or more" in general usage despite technically meaning "an indefinite small number greater than one". In other words, if we here someone talk about a few, we don't normally assume "two." Thus, I'd suggest reading a "few hundred" as at least 300 (after all, "a couple (of) hundred" exists as a phrase).

[Axelmania]

I didn't assume two, I said minimum two I'm not sure 'couple of' existing as a phrase should mean things like few/several/many and so forth necessarily shouldn't mean two. We have other words like trio/quartet/quintet/sextet which are similarly not used yet that doesn't imply it can't be those.

[dreicunan]

I didn't assume two, I said minimum two I'm not sure 'couple of' existing as a phrase should mean things like few/several/many and so forth necessarily shouldn't mean two. We have other words like trio/quartet/quintet/sextet which are similarly not used yet that doesn't imply it can't be those.

Well, they are all relative terms. Few can mean "two," by definition, but I was looking more at usage patterns. "couple of" is used far more often than those other number specific terms. Another way to look at it: "if you promise a child a few cookies and then only give them two instead of three or four, their expectations will have been subverted. Your reading of few providing a minimum of two isn't wrong from a definition perspective, but I do find it less likely from a standard usage perspective.

To paraphrase Obi-Wan, it's a point-of-view issue.

[Axelmania]

I can't see that actually coming up. A kid will only process that cookies was plural. Perhaps ask specifies as to how many more than 1.

[dreicunan]

I can't see that actually coming up. A kid will only process that cookies was plural. Perhaps ask specifies as to how many more than 1.

You need to spend more time with children if you think them incapable of processing that the word "few" was used. While I now work in a high school, I started in K-6, and they most definitely can process it (especially when cookies are involved).