- Intelligence: His intelligence also extends to combat experience and tactical ability. He posed as a viscount during the time of Vlad Tepes' rule, and was very actively a part of that man's crusade. Stated by Glaeken to have fought in numerous wars and such, and was an active sorcerer prior to his recruitment by the Otherness. He can effectively predict a person's thoughts through their body language, and he regularly uses that ability to play people like a harp. And he's had around 14-15 thousand years to improve himself in these areas.
I suspect that this will be extremely difficult to do to Vile, due to A) The armour, B) The trademark "absolutely completely ******* still until he moves to wreck your shit" stance, and C) he's a skeleton so his body language isn't exactly normal. Other bits on the combat, what sort of combat? Magical combat?
- Shapeshifting: Literally just alters his features so that he appears to be someone else. He's not like Randall Flagg who can turn into animals and such, but he can change to different identities. Can also change his gender.
Ok, so nothing combat applicable
- Necromancy: Raises the dead to fight for him like any decent necromancer should be able to. Unlike some other "zombies", the ones under his control can survive a lot of bullshit and keep moving. They can still move and attack even if they lose their limbs, suffer decapitation, have their entrails torn out, and a number of other things. Burying them alive and drowning them in water doesn't kill them either. They can also wield weapons. (The battlefield is a cemetery, so this should be at least somewhat applicable here.)
This is probably an advantage for Rasalom actually. Vile's necromancy (apart from him being, you know, a Necromancer) comes from an annecdote where he slaughters a bunch of people and infects their corpses with "shards of darkness" that reanimate them to attack people. There's nothing else there about it, so
maybe he could override or at least mutually counter any corpses Rasalom summons with his own, but I feel the superior necromany here goes to Rasolam.
That being said, a bunch of corpses aren't going to pose much of a threat to Vile or his shadows.
- Darkness Manip: His aura, as well as his ability to travel through shadows. He can surround people in a darkness so complete that they lose their sense of direction, though I don't know if Vile's lack of eyes would mitigate this or not, like it does with certain other things.
Vile's lack of eyes would probably help there. He doesn't really "see". Pretty sure the shadows he uses are semi-sentient themselves too and can attack on their own, sooooooo creating a spot of dense blackness would probably just let him screw Rasalom over more.
- Light Manipulation: His aura causes all lights to fade, including bulbs and torches. He's shown to manipulate exactly what areas of a place are lit, and could generate some sort of sickly glow at the end of the series so that Glaeken could see him in what was otherwise a dark cavern.
Ok, so no "blinding flashes of light that burn away the shadows". I should have guessed as much based on his ... character. In which case, it's useless here.
- Paralysis: He can paralyze a person's entire body just by glancing at them. This is different from the thing about the "palpable malevolence" in his eyes; he looks at you exactly once and your body stops moving, to the point that the only thing you're able to do is breathe. He's also not above starting off a fight with this, and actually combined it with his "glance at you" TK once in order to knock Jack down and prevent him from getting up. (Though that last bit is moot here)
Are we sure this isn't just an application of TK? If it is, Vile resists. If it isn't, welllll Vile doesn't need to breathe, and can use those shadows without needing to move either.
- Animal Manip: Can control creatures of just about every kind and make them attack people, and can also call them to him at will IIRC. Also completely stole control of a bunch of Otherness creatures from a girl who could also control them easily. May translate to the other things (undead) that he can control, but I dunno. Depending on what's considered fair, the creatures that aid him can range from common rats to various beasts that can rip people apart like paper.
I mean... it's a graveyard in the middle of the night? There's probably some animals around somewhere. But I kinda doubt that they'll pose much of a threat either, what with the semi-sentient shadows automatically and homicidally protecting Vile.
- Absorption: Emotions, yeah.
I'll ask what "absorbing" emotions lets him do, or if its just now that person can't feel them any more, but Vile probably resists.
- Weather: Pretty much the statement about messing with clouds and lightning, yeah. I actually remembered that he also said his powers had "attenuated" since that past life, so yeah. Can't do it anymore.
May be able to do it in his High 4-C key, but that sort of power doesn't mean anything in Tier 4, so whatever.
So not so useful then
- Summoning: This isn't really combat-applicable...Which sucks, because if it were, the demons themselves would be one of the most threatening things in his arsenal due to their ability to sing a discordant song together that drains the life force of any living thing nearby. (Which probably wouldn't work on Vile, so I suppose it's just as well.) At best, I'd say he could maybe summon a few of them at a time in a combat situation. It took him two years to summon all twelve hundred.
Well, Vile isn't alive... and the shadows could probably take care of them pretty easily anyway.
