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Sorry to shoehorn in on the, um... "discussion" (for Pete's sake, he used a Titanium Elemental and people are getting pissy about the rules now?), but has anyone taken the trouble to translate what Haley was saying all that time she incomprehensible? I realize that a different code was used for each one, but if I could draw your attention to this strip: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0309.html. Since she though out in English was her first spoken line was, it made it very easy to translate, and the last line was particularly interesting. CODE = H A L E Y ? P K N ? T R U W D Z ? F B C G J M Q V ? Actual = A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z "Yrhw, N'u nw rdjy mnck vdg." Elan, I'm in love with you. "Yrhw, N'u nw rdjy mnck vdg. Lduzrycyrv nw rdjy." Elan, I'm in love with you. Completely in love. "Rdjy, rdjy, rdjy, rdjy!" Love, love, love, love! "Uv ehe nb aynwp kyre fhwbdu av hw yjnr enlchcdf." My dad is being held ransom by an evil dictator. "N'u wdc fyhrrv nw cky Cknyjyb' Pgnre hwvudfy." I'm not really in the Thieves' Guild anymore. "N lkyhc hc bdrnchnfy." I cheat at solitaire. "N khjy h chccdd vdg'jy wyjyf byyw." I have a tattoo you've never seen. "N tnbbye h pnfr dwly." I kissed a girl once. "DT, DT, udfy ckhw dwly!" OK, OK, more than once! "Yrhw, nc cgfwb dgc N uhv wdc ay yqhlcrv mkhc vdg mdgre lhrr-" Elan, it turns out I may not be exactly what you would call- Now, that line just screams to be followed by the word 'human'. Was it my imagination or was it hinted elsewhere that she might be some other race? I'd note one of her personalities had elven ears, if that means anything. And sorry if I'm late to the game and that's been mentioned before, but 40 pages is a bit much to sort through for one plot point.
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# ¿ May 12, 2007 09:37 |
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# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 23:18 |
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Wolfsheim posted:Maybe her alignment isn't actually chaotic good?
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# ¿ May 12, 2007 11:05 |
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Quarex posted:She only seems to respect supreme strength (the 12 Gods) and then you have the "hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable" thing. I mean, seriously; she claims to ostensibly be acting in concordance with her order's laws and ways all the time, but has she ever actually acted the same way twice in similar situations? I think she just makes everything up as she goes along, and loves to kill as many things in her path as she can.
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# ¿ Jun 6, 2007 22:55 |
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Bobulus posted:I find it interesting that Belkar is so concerned with what the cat is eating. I know he thinks the cat is awesome, but that's the most interest he's shown in the comfort-level of another creature in...ever? I certainly hope so. Because otherwise, Belkar can only see things in terms of lust or hate. Either way, that poor, poor kitty.
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# ¿ Feb 14, 2008 07:53 |
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MikeJF posted:Have we ever seen indication that it's actually evil? It might be theoretically netural or good, just too stupid and out of touch with the world to realise when it's being used for evil, even as it kills people. On the other hand, maybe it's just evil with an absurdly low intelligence stat.
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# ¿ Apr 17, 2008 08:53 |
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I am now 100% convinced that Rich reads this thread.
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# ¿ Jun 17, 2008 10:29 |
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ZorbaTHut posted:As much as I generally don't mind the art, the whole "sliding" sequence is absolutely for me. On the first panel of the sliding sequence she slips, okay, cool. Second panel there's speed lines, so I guess she's still got some momentum, but somehow she's still on the edge of the "slick". That's confusing. Not only that, but the end of the slick is about ten feet in front of her. Third panel there's still speed lines and she's still on the very edge of the slick. Fourth panel she hasn't moved at all but the slick is twice as long as it used to be. And there's monsters behind her! Oh no! Either she's moving away quickly or she's not, it's very hard to tell! Sixth panel she's still on the edge of the drat slick and there's still speed lines, and yet apparently by the seventh panel she's moved, the monsters are shambling along behind her at exactly the same rate as her speed-line'd bag o' jewels that's capable of traveling about five feet in the course of a medium-long conversation. Time to play the bad art apologist. Okay, how about this? The friction of the bag plus adventurers is causing the slick to stick and evaporate behind them, like a giant paper towel. Hence the wet spot on the bottom of the bag. As for the size of the puddle, there was actually two, with the second one just off panel and as the flow was pushed in front of the sliding bag, it covered the gap between the two all the way to the door. This is evident by the splash seen thrown up in front of the bag. The monsters are able to keep up because they are shuffling very quickly. Celia even commented on them moving faster and Belkar pointed out that they were getting closer. As for the trajectory, Haley and gold are clearly aimed for the cart. Belkar, who was on the same bag, in his delusion leaped up and back towards the castle from the bag. Thus his position in the panel and his ability to land back in the cart. Haley's change of position afterwards is obviously her just climbing forward off panel to take the reins. This is clear since the bag of gold is in the correct spot after the cart has been turned around. As for how a bag of gold small enough for Haley to carry over her shoulder grew large enough for her and Belkar both to ride upon... I got nothin'.
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# ¿ Jul 28, 2008 03:16 |
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At the risk of geeking out in an already geeky thread, anyone else get the impression that Hinjo is a late-commer PC rather than an NPC? Several times we've seen him in combat with "other" NPCs without the PCs or just before the PCs could get involved. IF we was just another NPC wouldn't that be the GM playing with himself? Every game I've played or ran, that sort of thing was flavor text or handled 'off screen'. Of course, the whole comic gets really complicated when you try and step back and picture the people playing the game.
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# ¿ Sep 26, 2008 20:32 |
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Cuchulain posted:Man, Rich knows his DnD, right down to PC's magically regaining HP when they double check their stats. Of course, you can't wait too long or else stat cheks won't always work.
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# ¿ Nov 2, 2008 07:51 |
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A Big Dark Yak posted:It's really easier to, instead of trying to interpret such stupid PC actions within the normal alignment system, just make "stupid" another alignment component that can be stuck on either end. So what's needed to be done to get an alignment shift to True Stupid?
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# ¿ Dec 15, 2008 10:29 |
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Maldraedior posted:the Oracle also doesn't have the ability to change what he sees, otherwise he would have stopped Belkar from killing him. Instead he just got some fun revenge and a prearranged rez. Even if the dragon is a good customer and dragonkind is the intended benefactor of Tiamat's visions, if V is gonna whup rear end here then that's just the way it's going to play out. Agreed. The Oracle doesn't seem to have the kind of power where he sees what might be and can alter that. He sees what will happen as a result of his "interference" or not. Like the Grandfather paradox in reverse.
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# ¿ Feb 26, 2009 08:37 |
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I think this is being a little overthought. Most likely the dragon did nothing more than ask the Oracle who killed her son and where his/her family was. Dragons may be clever, but they're pretty arrogant and overconfident too.
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# ¿ Mar 1, 2009 02:25 |
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The Rooster posted:I like that he got eaten by her, like by her son. Well okay, but if this turns into a vore comic, I'm out of here.
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# ¿ Mar 18, 2009 19:47 |
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Wolfsheim posted:He knew it was coming! Buh. Depends on whether he has God-like omnipitence or, more likely, he only foresees events he thinks to check on. I bet it's kind of like the internet. I may have the sum of all human knowledge at my fingertips here, but I'm only going to know what I bother to look up.
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# ¿ Mar 22, 2009 07:36 |
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Just to throw more fuel on the fire, at least the player group frowns on genocide for its own sake. I think its safe to say at least the non-Belkar characters would consider this an evil act.
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2009 06:08 |
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maltesh posted:Are those kids standing on broken legs? I'm pretty sure they're not standing at all.
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2009 17:51 |
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Was it ever spelled out in the contract that the souls leaving of their own accord stops the clock? I was under the impression that it continues until V says stop, and not a moment sooner. So maybe the three souls are encouraged to split when they can as that would make V more desperate to hold on to the remaining power even longer. Hell, if all three get away and V just goes 'oh well' and move on, it wouldn't surprise me at all if 100+ years when he dies those corporate demons show up and say, 'you never ended the spell, so that's 300 years a peice'.
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# ¿ Mar 31, 2009 20:39 |
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Liberal_L33t posted:The only tangible difference is that the Sapphire guard were massacring innocents by the dozens using holy powers given by good-aligned gods, wheras Suvie is doing it with powers granted by fiends. I think you hit on it right there. The paladins are acting at the behest of the gods, the very ones who get to decide if something is good or evil. V's just kinda going out there on his own.
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# ¿ Apr 2, 2009 07:38 |
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Pope Guilty posted:Pre-meditated murder of someone who is rather openly planning on murdering you is evil? Really. Haley knows Crystal is just waiting for the Guild (an organized criminal organization) to green light it and she try to kill her again. Haley's actions might have been callous, but absent any real legal authority in the city Haley's actions clearly fall under self-defence. And considering they might just raise Crystal, it becomes less murder and more assault, theft, and minor inconvenience.
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2009 20:13 |
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bison wings posted:the car rental place still charges you an arm and a leg if you bring the car back with less fuel than it started with. and these are infernal bureaucrats. They could be real dicks about it too. "Alright, so we they came back down ten levels, so we get your soul for the time you were spliced plus the time it takes you to gain ten levels."
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# ¿ May 11, 2009 20:36 |
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Ashenai posted:V definitely has some sort of rapport with Haley; this is evident starting from Strip #3, and then in many strips afterwards. Aside from his mate, I think Roy is the person V respects the most (which is still not much,) and Haley is the person he considers his best friend (which is still not a very strong friendship.) Sure, he's got at least a little connection with the group. But I wonder how much of his obsession with finding Haley was friendship, and how much was his pride refusing to concede there was a power he simply could not overcome.
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# ¿ May 14, 2009 18:43 |
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Mylan posted:The problem with splitting the party is the game itself is group based by nature. If you split the party in two, half the players are now spectators. That's ok in small doses, as long as the active players are doing things interesting enough for the inactive players to enjoy watching. But if the split starts to drag on and on through several sessions, you're essentially running two campaigns. The worst offender of this is solo adventures. Now you've got everyone sitting and watching just one player doing their own thing. That's going to get old really fast, and cause resentment against that player if they do it too often. Granted this was with Rifts and not D&D, but I can't have been the only GM who let the "off screen" players temporarily run the NPC monsters and villains (to a point) so they wouldn't be sitting there twiddling their thumbs.
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# ¿ May 15, 2009 23:47 |
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Sick_Boy posted:As a WoD GM, I'll tell you that I'll let players run my NPCs with pages and pages of goddamn backstory over my dead body. The beauty of Rifts, if they mess it up, I can just kill 'em off and bring another version from another reality through a rift or whatever the heck I feel like. In fact, rifts in my games got the nickname ‘magic monster machines’. I may have abused the game mechanics slightly.
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# ¿ May 16, 2009 01:52 |
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Cuchulain posted:A cage I could have broken out of months ago, but decided to endure torture to teach a monster the difference between right and wrong instead. O-Chul never broke out because escape was never his goal. He was waiting until he was in the best place to harm the bad guys as much as possible. Teaching the monster was more of a good deed to help pass the time. And yeah, that's pretty bad-rear end.
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# ¿ May 22, 2009 20:01 |
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Kuroshi posted:I dont remember Xykon ever going to the oracle, either in the main strip or in Start of Darkness, what are you referring to? He's taking about this strip. drat you, FredMSloniker!
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# ¿ Jun 5, 2009 23:26 |
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maltesh posted:Not to mention that V assumes that the twenty minutes that they have his soul will occur after he dies, which the fiends neither confirmed, nor denied. Assuming they can take him over while alive, is there any reason to assume the twenty minutes have to be consecutive? Those twenty minutes could really be stretched out if they only used it up a few key actions at a time. Geshtal fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Jun 27, 2009 |
# ¿ Jun 27, 2009 10:41 |
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ZorbaTHut posted:I don't know about you, but this sounds absolutely loving fascinating to me. If someone offered me the Hob gambit I'd take it in a flash. And then what? You'd find something else to amuse you until that got bored, then anthor and another, and then what? A lifespan measured in cosmic ages might be cool, true immortality slightly less so. Or at least make drat sure you have the option to cash out when you've done everything.
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# ¿ Jul 17, 2009 19:11 |
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Maybe they have it all backwards and have they've been on the real world trapped inside the rift now looking out this whole time. (I'm just throwing wild-rear end guesses out there since the author hates it when people guess his plot-lines.)
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# ¿ Aug 8, 2009 21:39 |
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tylertfb posted:If Roy and Belkar found this out wouldn't they try and hasten that process...and wouldn't Xykon and all the casters be trying their damndest to stop it. Not if it has to destroy the 3.5 world in the process. Kind of puts a damper on things.
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# ¿ Aug 10, 2009 19:22 |
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I'm still a little vauge on what the plan is here anyways. Besides 'get there before Big X does', it's protected by the best illusions possible that have hid it from the rest of the world for how long now and they're going to add to this security... how? Isn't far more likely they'll just follow the path the OotS is blazing for them right to the gate? Anyways, brilliant move. He gets to jerk who he figured would be paladins around while still leaving the rift's location up in the air. Is it elsewhere or knowing that we'd know he's an illusionist is this just another deceit to direct them away from the site, or does he know that we know that he knows, etc.
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# ¿ Dec 14, 2009 23:54 |
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Toussaint Louverture posted:It never fails. Every time there's a long break all it takes for a comic is for someone to say "Man, is Burlew okay?" Bam. Comic in 24 hours. Man, is Burlew okay? Just doing my part to keep the comics rolling.
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# ¿ Jun 9, 2011 21:35 |
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Toussaint Louverture posted:I would expect Rich to stick to the rules as written. The titanium elementals would beg to differ with this statement.
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# ¿ Oct 6, 2011 04:31 |
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Cabbit posted:I just noticed: it's a play on words. Thog knocked three columns over, and then five rows fell down onto him. Where do those words show up in the comic?
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# ¿ Oct 9, 2011 18:03 |
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We need to get Tarquin and O-Chul in the same room. That is, if it can handle that much concentrated pure awesomeness.
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# ¿ Dec 5, 2011 23:16 |
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Why make this more complicated than it needs to be? Show Xykon that they found the phylactery before swapping it out with his identical looking back-up symbol. Leave the real deal behind in Azure City in a catapult aimed at the rift with orders to shoot it in if Redcloak sends the order or if the city is in danger of being overrun.
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# ¿ Jan 11, 2012 01:50 |
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Ho-lee poo poo. Wild rear end speculation ahoy: - If Girard was in some way part dragon, AND - If he's related to Haley's dad, and thus Haley, AND - If Haley knows about the first two, THEN It could explain Haley's deep secret. The one that was never revealed back when she lost the ability to speak. The one that was phrased to sound like she was about to confess to being "not exactly what you would call” human. Waaaaaaay back here.
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# ¿ Feb 25, 2012 02:40 |
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Maxwell Lord posted:I really hope there's a new strip soon. Won't work. You forgot to ask if Burlew is all right.
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# ¿ Mar 7, 2012 04:55 |
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Is it just me or have a lot of webcomics rather suddenly started up Kickstarter drives? There are some good ones out there, but something tells me they aren't all $1 million worthy.
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# ¿ Apr 4, 2012 16:23 |
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Looks like the Snarl got loose.
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 22:16 |
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# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 23:18 |
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Dolash posted:On the topic of Belkar dying, I think it'll definitely show off a bit of his character growth (what there is of it) just so that his former teammates won't be able to just shrug his death off like they do in the illusion. Him breaking them out of the illusion but dying somehow as a result or soon after would work well. Wild-rear end speculation here, but Roy seemed ready to start poo poo with Belkar just for breaking the news about Durkon. And as we've seen, he wasn't ready to believe that anyways. If Belkar does break them free, then it's emotionally like he's responsible not only for Durkon but also for "killing" every aspect of what they felt was their deserved happy ending. Is it possible that in a moment of shock and trauma, plus Belkar's extremely weakened condition, that the Order itself (or at least Roy) could end up killing Belkar without intending to simply by lashing out in grief and immediately regret the action? Seems like that may hold the biggest dramatic punch.
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# ¿ May 17, 2013 22:00 |