Question about horror marks

[ioticus]

In all my games I've never seen a horror attack a horror marked unit. Is it very rare? When does an attack occur? During combat? As an event? Are there conditions that modify the likelihood of it occurring? I'm just very curious because I've seen lots of units get horror marks, but I've never seen the consequences thereof.

[deccan]

Horrors do sometimes attack people carrying soul contracts. But the bug whereby if a scout carrying the soul contract is hiding, the attack fails and the game crashes if you try to view battle still has not been fixed in 2.14 since I just saw it in SP play.

[Edi]

Horrors attacking horror marked beings appear as a special attack (like the event when an indep assassin tries to kill your commanders). It works like an assassination attempt. Just try and build the Forbidden Light sometime and slap it on a mage, you'll see a horror attack inside of five turns.

In a co-op game with my friend, his pretender, a Daughter of the Land, got attacked by lesser horror after ~30 turns of carrying a horror mark. Of course, unfortunately for the horror, she was deep within dominion and in the lab forging an item, so she dropped the heavy end of a dwarven hammer on the bugger and went back about her business.

Edi

[Yossar]

It's pretty rare but it happens. I had a guy with a soul contract from the first turn and in 76 turns, he's been hit once by a horror.

[Chazar]

I always thought that the horror mark is rather intended to enhance battle targeting, i.e. to ehance the usefulness of "CallHorror"? Is it worth it? Aint there other summons that prefer horror marked targets as well?

[deccan]

I still think scouts carrying soul contracts should be targettable by horrors. Even if he is hiding, the horror should be able to "home in" on the scout.

[quantum_mechani]

Chazar said:
Aint there other summons that prefer horror marked targets as well?

Lammashtas, I think.

[Taqwus]

I think the Ashen Angels from Manifestation are supposed to prefer horror-marked targets.

I've wondered whether the it's the horror mark or the item causing the horror mark that summons them. For instance, carrying the Gift of Kurgi or the Banefire Sceptre might make you more horror-prone than a Soul Contract... if you drop the sceptre, will the mark left behind still summon them as quickly? If you are resurrected after Kurgi's minions take back his Gift, does the mark still attract horrors like crazy?

[Vicious Love]

We know horror marks come in varying degrees of severity(The one inflicted by the spell has a nearly negligible chance of spontaneously summoning a horror, even if you spend a few dozen turns forging and casting in a magic-3 province), but we also know various items(The Tartarian Chains, for instance) have a chance of summoning horrors or similar nasties independently of any marks.
We've reason to consider both possibilities, but it'd take plenty of experimentation to ratify either one.
Little help?

[Edi]

Vicious Love said:
We know horror marks come in varying degrees of severity(The one inflicted by the spell has a nearly negligible chance of spontaneously summoning a horror, even if you spend a few dozen turns forging and casting in a magic-3 province), but we also know various items(The Tartarian Chains, for instance) have a chance of summoning horrors or similar nasties independently of any marks.
We've reason to consider both possibilities, but it'd take plenty of experimentation to ratify either one.
Little help?

Tartarian chains do not confer a horror mark, they just give an x% chance of an assassination attempt by an Ashen Angel every turn, where x is relatively small.

The Forbidden Light on the other hand confers possibly the worst horror mark ever, I've never seen a bearer go more than five turns before being splattered all over the place. The Sceptre of Corruption also gives a more powerful horror mark, if my understanding is correct. By the way, both of these are cursed items, you can't remove them once equipped. You can always reforge after they are lost, however.

And it seems like horror marks from several sources would (at least partially) stack. Having a mage horror marked by the spell, then putting Magebane, Sceptre of Coruption, Robe of the Magi, Gift of Kurgi and The Forbidden Light on one would probably give some very interesting results...

Edi