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So Roy plans to resurrect Durkon - I wonder if he'll object to it the same way Malack did.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:13
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The Midniter posted:Okay, so the Linear Guild is effectively disbanded. Why would Tarquin raise an army and bring it to the desert? The gate's already been blown up. If all he wanted to do is destroy the Order, an entire army to do so is way overkill. Time to conquer another planet. 
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Aug 12, 2013 19:14
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Huh. That's a gate spell isn't it?
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Aug 12, 2013 19:17
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The Midniter posted:Okay, so the Linear Guild is effectively disbanded. Why would Tarquin raise an army and bring it to the desert? The gate's already been blown up. If all he wanted to do is destroy the Order, an entire army to do so is way overkill. It depends on what he knows or doesn't know. He was leaving in the first place to get reinforcements, right? Also "way overkill" isn't quite the same in this particular narrative given that we've established that PCs can reap mooks if they need to. Tarquin, being genre-savvy, knows full well he'd need 100-to-1 odds to even have a chance of standing up to PCs if all he has to work with are mooks.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:18
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Naramyth posted:Time to conquer another planet. Or to perform the role of the villian that completely and utterly defeats the heroes at some point between the middle and ending of the narrative.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:19
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Regalingualius posted:Or to perform the role of the villian that completely and utterly defeats the heroes at some point between the middle and ending of the narrative. Wasn't that Xykon 450 strips ago or so?
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Aug 12, 2013 19:21
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I doubt he's even particularly interested in the order right now, and they could probably leave before he even noticed.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:21
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Ursine Asylum posted:Wasn't that Xykon 450 strips ago or so? The Order lost, yeah, but they still managed to either escape or lead a resistance afterwards. Here... They're probably at their weakest (save for Durkon and Roy (maybe V when s/he gets back), obviously) health-wise, with a villain (probably) bearing down on them with an army that's been trained by one of the most competent and brutal rulers we've met in the narrative, and with no readily-apparent means of escape and surviving out in the middle of the world's largest desert.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:26
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They have one pretty obvious means of escape, it's just very risky since they have no idea where they'd be escaping to and what little they do know makes it a bad idea. They could mitigate the immediate danger of being in the middle of the ocean with the flying carpet but then there's still being stuck in an unknown world where they have to assume a god-killing monstrosity just around the corner.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:34
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Too bad wands aren't color coded for our convenience. Looks like she pulled three wands off of Z's corpse.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:42
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Johnny Aztec posted:Too bad wands aren't color coded for our convenience. Looks like she pulled three wands off of Z's corpse. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them turned out to be a wand of levitation since it was pretty much Z's favorite spell.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:47
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It is incredible that Belkar had to be the one to bring up the "What about Durkon?" issue. That is, the fact that allowing vampire Durkon to continue to exist is a terrible thing to do the actual Durkon. If afterwards he remembers what happened while he was a vampire I don't really see his friendship with Roy lasting, regardless of what pragmatic rationalizations he comes up with. I don't think that army is going to give the order any trouble. More likely they will sneak past it, or even into it.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:48
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Ho Lee poo poogreatn posted:Dimension door, low HP score, everybody's riding dinosaurs  As a child of the 80s, I get this reference and thank you for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuWlk4xRVUI
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Aug 12, 2013 19:50
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greatn posted:Dimension door, low HP score, everybody's riding dinosaurs This syncs up well with the "walk the dinosaur" song. I lol'd. e X posted:Also, isn't that caster woman from Tarquin's adventure group? Yes, yes it is. And she can apparently cast Gate. I don't see a scroll so she's doing it on her own.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:53
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Honestly right now what else can they do with Durkon? He'd most likely beat them in a fight, and if they did kill him, then they'd have to drag a corpse around with them for who knows how long till they found another high level cleric, which based on what we've seen previously is something that isn't super common in this setting. His goals align with theirs, they might as well ride it out till circumstances change.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:54
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Wili posted:I don't think that army is going to give the order any trouble. More likely they will sneak past it, or even into it. Hasn't Tarquin established in the past that that sort of poo poo won't fly with his forces? Regalingualius fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 19:55
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Wili posted:It is incredible that Belkar had to be the one to bring up the "What about Durkon?" issue. That is, the fact that allowing vampire Durkon to continue to exist is a terrible thing to do the actual Durkon. If afterwards he remembers what happened while he was a vampire I don't really see his friendship with Roy lasting, regardless of what pragmatic rationalizations he comes up with. Keep in mind the last time something like this happened the corpse got dragged around aimlessly for almost a year with no real progress on the resurrection front. And Roy got a front row seat to all of it. Dude's probably not too keen on a repeat of that little incident to say the least.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:57
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This would seem to be a great time for a "called it", but eh, it was pretty much the group consensus that Tarquin had quit fooling around and was ready to get poo poo done. And, as expected, that involved getting the rest of his team together. I think the idea that he'd also bring an army had been floated as well, though I'll admit the full on dino-cavalry was something that I personally hadn't expected. The question now is whether or not Nale survives this. On one hand he just irrevocably murdered Tarquin's oldest friend. On the other, he just defeated a vampire cleric much more powerful than himself. Which is going to matter more in Tarquin's mind? I like the fact that I'm really not sure, and I'm looking forward to the next strip to find out.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:57
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jng2058 posted:On the other, he just defeated a vampire cleric much more powerful than himself. And then got his wizard killed moments later by a different vampire cleric. Even ignoring the costs to Tarquin, Nale's recent actions didn't produce a particularly praiseworthy result.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:04
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The biggest reason he was able to pull it off is now ALSO dead. Nale has no purpose to anyone anymore and, as I have been saying for like 500 strips, I can't wait until he's finally ended.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:05
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Regalingualius posted:Hasn't Tarquin established in the past that that sort of poo poo won't fly with his forces? That is one of my favorite individual strips. It's just hilarious.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:09
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Eifert Posting posted:The biggest reason he was able to pull it off is now ALSO dead. Nale has no purpose to anyone anymore and, as I have been saying for like 500 strips, I can't wait until he's finally ended. You forget about Team Evil. Where Nale goes Sabine follows, and Team Evil wants players on every team. And Z's death is entirely his own. He's the flying wizard who decided to park himself right next to the vampire whose master he just killed. greatn fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 20:14
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Hey maybe they'll revive Zz'dahahaha of course not 
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Aug 12, 2013 20:17
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ConfusedUs posted:That is one of my favorite individual strips. It's just hilarious. Hence why I remembered the reference so easily. 
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Aug 12, 2013 20:19
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I wasn't expecting Tarquin to bring in the big guns like that. I was expecting something, but not dino-cavalry. Pretty sure Tarquin already knows what's up, if he hasn't been magically spying, he'll have known the instant he saw Nale pretty wounded and running away. He can't have run that far from the pyramid as well, so it's a reasonable bet that Tarquin is seeing that something when ka-boom where a pyramid used to be. Now I'm just not sure if he's there to conquer the area and study the rift, or if he wants to extort the location of the last gate out of Nale/OotS and then move his army over there to fight Xykon.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:22
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Tarquin is about to show why Leadership is a very broken feat.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:28
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Tarquin put all the eggs in one basket for the first time. The army is completely useless under these circumstances, and if the entire Tarquin's group is here, we might be seeing the end of the Empires of Blood, Sweat and Tears soon. If they lose their Dimension Door caster, it's all over. They won't be able to get out of the valley before they die from thirst or starvation. my dad fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 20:28
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my dad posted:Tarquin put all the eggs in one basket for the first time. Well he's presently sitting on about a million dinosaur sandwiches so that's probably not the issue.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:33
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Plus it assumes his friend isn't also savvy enough to know when to save herself, then either come back within a day or two or try her hand at seizing control of his empire.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:36
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MechanicalTomPetty posted:I wouldn't be surprised if one of them turned out to be a wand of levitation since it was pretty much Z's favorite spell. Could be, but it would be the spell Fly. Z had the house-ruled in 3.0 version per http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0049.html
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Aug 12, 2013 20:53
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my dad posted:Tarquin put all the eggs in one basket for the first time. Not sure the army is useless. Sure, he cannot magically control the gate, but he can militarily control the portal. He has plenty of mooks, so he can send a few to scout the world on the other side -- it doesn't open to outer space like it did in Azure City -- and he could twist it to his advantage regardless. If it's an ocean rather than a lake we saw, they have plenty of undrinkable salt water, but a few low-level clerics in the army can take care of that with purify food and drink.
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Aug 12, 2013 21:07
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That army isn't for the Order of the Stick, It's for Xykon, whom last anyone knew had an army of goblins.
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Aug 12, 2013 22:22
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A.o.D. posted:That army isn't for the Order of the Stick, It's for Xykon, whom last anyone knew had an army of goblins. That he left back in
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Aug 12, 2013 23:06
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e X posted:That he left back in But Tarquin has no reason to know either of those facts. His assumption, which was logical at the time he left to get reinforcements, was that Xykon would bring his own army.
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Aug 12, 2013 23:15
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jng2058 posted:But Tarquin has no reason to know either of those facts. His assumption, which was logical at the time he left to get reinforcements, was that Xykon would bring his own army. Tarquin didn't knew Xykon was on his way at all. The Order only found out through the send after he left. Not to mention that he still thinks Nale can score him an alliance.
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Aug 12, 2013 23:21
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Or alternatively Tarquin is working for the fiends as well, and knows how it was going to play out. Kind of makes me wonder if the Dark one is working with the fiends, is a fiend, or if the leader of the goblin army is in league with them. There are two gates open, one with a goblin army at it's door, another with a dinosaur army. Is the actual plan some kind of evil invasion plan?
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Aug 12, 2013 23:53
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Tarquin knows what Nale knows. Nale knows that Xykon came for the gate at Azure City with an army of Hobgoblins. He was there, after all. For that matter, he was almost certainly near enough to see the castle explode a mere five strips later, so he could certainly guess that Xykon would be coming here next. For that matter, he'd have been privy to all of the Order's info as well by playing dumb so he'd even have known the Oracle prophecy that Xykon would be nearest to Girard's Gate next, so he'd know that Xykon and possibly his whole army were likely sailing to the Gate. Which makes it totally reasonable that Tarquin, who knows the same, would bring his own army.
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Aug 13, 2013 00:43
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Tarquin knows something more than what Nale knows - the ambassador from the Lizard people had to do an emergency briefing with him about something. That shoe hasn't dropped yet, but here he is with a sizable military force. I suspect the two are related.
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Aug 13, 2013 01:03
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Additionally, Tarquin knows the narrative. Good things never happen for the evil overlord when he sends his entire army after the heroes. ESPECIALLY when those heroes are at their darkest hour.
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Aug 13, 2013 01:15
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Tarquin is not riding out to meet Xykon's army, because that would be incredibly anticlimactic after this pretty badass revelation. I'd say he's either trying to take Girard's rift or (less likely) he's making his move for Kraagor's gate.
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Aug 13, 2013 01:15
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