Alliances
Somewhere in this forum, somebody listed the 12 groups in the game, and according to the list, Merka and the shop guards are in a group all of their own. So in recent times, when messing around in WizMod, I have taken adoption papers to Merka. Now, the advantage of that, is that once you're adopted by Merka (or even one of the shop guards), you have political immunity. You can attack anyone you want without fear of retaliation, you can nick stuff from the cathedral treasury/armoury, monsters aren't hostile. You still have to buy things, but it makes spelunking (spelling?) so much easier :D

Call me ignorant, but what are adoption papers, and how do you get them?

He was JOKING, there are no adoption papers, he most likely used Wizard Mode, because I don't recall being able to tame the dungeon shopkeep. EDIT :: Well I suppose by adoption papers he could have meant Scroll of Taming, but I dunno if that works on him.

By adoption papers I do mean the scroll of taming, and the taming is done by the shopkeeper, not you. To be specific, I started the game, turned on Wizard Mode (WizMod as I like to call it), got a scroll of taming from the free set of 5 scrolls of wishing, went over to GC, looked for the shop, dropped the scroll of taming nearby, possessed Merka, picked up the scroll of taming, tamed my character. I then re-possessed my character, kicked Merka and the shop guards so they won't follow me around, and voila! Political immunity. :P

no way you can do it out of wizmode right?

Correct. Not only is possession a WizMod only ability, even when playing legit it's impossible to tame any person who already has a name. The "has-name=no-tame" doesn't apply to monsters, but that's about it.

I did not try to tame anyone named, but when I resurrected Sherarax after slaying her, she fell in love with me.

Damn! Now there's a pet!

And I gave more enchantment to her whip of thievery, and cloned it in 4 copies, two for me, two for her...

Maybe she decided you weren't so bad :wink: Really, resurrection is different from taming, but it's a great way to get allies. There's no chance of it not working, because you gave them life, so they're bound to you. You can still piss 'em off, though, which is why I like the political immunity granted by Merka 8) Excellent choice of partner, though, well done Z! Of all the creatures in IVAN, only Petrus' wives have more CHA than Raxy, but Raxy's a hell of a lot more useful

the only bad thing about resurrecting dead monsters is that they can give you leprosy. And that they look a hell lot worse ("Hey Rax, you're looking a bit green today")

Are you talking ressurection or necromancy? I'll admit, I've done very little tinkering with either one; I'm not fond of pets... I DO know that it's possible to ressurect the corpses from bones files, if you can get the ghost and the corpse in the same place...

I'm pretty sure resurrected monsters (as opposed to monsters brought back by necromancy) don't have leprosy... But then again, what do I know? I don't like pets too much either - they can be helpful in certain situations but in general they're just annoying, unless it be a status-giving, INT-raising, awesome spell-caster 8) EDIT: I left out WIS-raising... :P

mystical froggies and battlemages seem to do just that. and tamed necromancers resurrect just about every dead thing on the level, so before long, you'd have an entire army of leprosy-giving, butt-kicking zombies :lol:

Necromancers are definitely useful when conquering a town, but otherwise they are the worst. Don't forget, hanging around with zombies get you leprosy.