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I think Tarquin's point was that he's already won, even if he died of a heart attack right now and was forgotten, all his empire undone. He's on what, his seventh wife? He's had people fighting in the arenas for his amusement. He's lived like a king for decades and decades, and while you can avenge people's suffering you can't take it back (uh, okay, in D&D you kind of can but let's not go there). He's a villain that's riding high and living the good life, and he's ready to go down whenever that might happen, though he'll go for as long as he can before then. There's really very little anyone could do to make him feel defeated in his own eyes, and he's done a good job of pointing out it means very little to destroy an evil Empire after they've actually done all their evil business and it's too late to save most people. Interesting perspective, really.
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Dec 2, 2010 19:56
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So is Thog ultimately the better combatant? Roy might be smarter and actually make things like plans, but that's clearly not counting for much in an arena (literally, an arena) where victory comes down to strength score. Almost reminds me of the old Batman vs. whoever arguments. Roy without preptime, so to speak. Which isn't to say that he's usually acting according to a cunning plan, just that there's little chance to outwit or outplay Thog here.
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Aug 29, 2011 22:02
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Well, he might've had a natural 18 strength then added to it as he gained levels. Then his Wis, Int, and Con scores all need to be significantly above-average to explain his proficiency, so probably each somewhere in the 14-16 range. His Dex can be low since he's never been a shooter or shown exceptional agility that I can recall, and his Charisma really only needs to be slightly above average to explain his leadership qualities, so maybe 12-13. So that's like 18, three 14-16, one 12-13, and one 9-11. Pretty amazing and a rare set, but not totally insane. That'd be my guess at his stats, anyway. Also depending on the nature-nurture approach to mental/physical stats in a D&D universe (you're not born with your adult stats, after all) that celestial might have been referring to how Roy had the potential to have trained up to a cleric, with some stat point shuffling as a result of this different upbringing.
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Aug 30, 2011 18:21
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 http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0807.html Wuh-oh, looks like somebody's starting to feel empathy... I'm kind of antsy about Belkar getting character development, but on the other hand it's been a glacially slow process over the process of hundreds of comics and it's part of an overarching story that will come to an end some day. Soooo, from that perspective, I guess it's good that something's going to come of Belkar rather than just being the stab-happy CE Ranger from start to finish.
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Sep 22, 2011 00:14
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Yes, yes, born with a heart full of neutrality and all that. I suppose these are the sorts of practical protocols you'd have to come up with in a world where shape-shifting, teleporting, mind control, and so many other crazy elements are common.
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Oct 24, 2011 17:18
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I don't know when we started scoffing at men who had the courage of their beliefs even after years of grueling torture and imprisonment, but yeah, while it'd be more effective to stay quiet and he's clearly got some issues, give some props to the rebel who gets let out of jail and immediately, fearlessly thumbs his nose at the rear end in a top hat who had him imprisoned.
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Nov 13, 2011 07:20
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I don't think Tarquin could fool Xykon. His "Power equals power" speech pretty much summed up Xykon's response to any manipulator who really tries to 'play' him. He's just as likely to look at Tarquin, recognize a dangerous schemer, and disintegrate him on the spot. On the other hand, Xykon doesn't have much reason to confront him directly, so it's more likely Tarquin's agents or tools or whatnot will cause Xykon trouble instead.
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Dec 12, 2011 20:13
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Tarquin is Draketooth, he replaced Elan's father years ago.
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Dec 15, 2011 20:00
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I'm getting a bad feeling that no matter what happens, the Resistance has outlived their narrative usefulness. Maybe the elves backstab them in order to retrieve the phylactery (the elves might want it as leverage against Xykon), or maybe there's a fight to retrieve it during which they're wiped out, but this whole scene with the phylactery seems like the payoff for the current status quo in Azure City which means the last use these Azurites have plot-wise is in dying.
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Jan 4, 2012 23:37
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He can't blink, and winking here seemed inappropriate. Anyway, Xykon is sufficiently canny to notice how obviously suspiscious the death is. More to the point, he knows that Redcloak's not the type just to up and kill someone who annoys him if they're part of a larger plan - otherwise he'd have killed Tsukiko in the last year already. The timing and everything will signal that Redcloak has something to hide. I guess the only question is whether Xykon will feel like making a big deal of it now (like, say, nuking the hobgoblin city on his way out) or whether he'll play dumb and file it away for later. They might get into some serious "I know you know that I know you know" stuff, to be honest.
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Jan 25, 2012 01:32
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Redcloak's a master of impassive calm. He wants Jirix alive, but he's not panicking or anything at the sight of Xykon choking him out or anything. Just knows he needs to present Xykon with what he wants in his own time and the problem will resolve itself.
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Jan 26, 2012 06:01
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MildShow posted:Not just this, but he could also turn the tables on Xykon and said he killed her because he knew Xykon was trying to use her to replace him. Xykon might respect that sort of answer, but he'd still probably follow it up by killing Jirix just as a polite tit-for-tat "hey, just remember I'm the boss".
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Jan 31, 2012 15:40
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Deftly played by Redcloak there (his little victory grin is priceless). Now both he and Xykon have shifted the blame for their respective attempts to power-play each other on to Tsukiko, meaning Xykon doesn't even want her alive again since there's a chance she'd tell Redcloak about how he wanted her to steal the ritual and work it all out for him. It was pretty well-written and organic and it didn't seem like Redcloak's responses were highly dependent on certain reactions he couldn't predict in Xykon, which is something to watch for in any dialogue where a character attempts a deception. I don't think Xykon even suspects Redcloak of alternative motive, that little "...No." of his is clearly more about him wanting to cover up his attempt against Redcloak than any suspiscions of his own. In short, he put Xykon on the defensive so that he was too busy looking for the out that covered his rear end rather than looking for a lie.
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Feb 6, 2012 15:53
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I wasn't expecting that. He's NOT going to be happy when the domination wears off. He's got class levels, he's probably worth the one spell slot it takes to keep him under control for now. Also, I like how Elan is exactly right - getting V back was a quick and boring job the plot needed (which conveniently fell during a time of authorial productivity) so they were able to explain it and have it pull off without a hitch and just a few jokes to tide us over. Whatever Elan's just come up with, however, sounds longer-term and as such has just had its chance of success upped considerably by his refusal to explain it right this moment. This is in fact how OotS works, and Elan's helping himself and the comic by acknowledging it.
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Feb 16, 2012 02:12
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She was sad because she lost her son, Nale, and young Elan thought she just meant she had lost "a nail"? And his mother's emotional attachment to the child she lost had an impact on Elan, which is why he finds it hard to think of Nale as just some evil bastard with a grudge against him? Edit: beaten.
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Feb 16, 2012 03:32
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The old ways are the best ways.
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Feb 17, 2012 03:37
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They may have to recruit him if he somehow survives the next big encounter, since if it leaves Belkar dead (and all signs point to Belkar dying some time 'soon') the Order's going to need to bulk their numbers and there just aren't many high level adventurers around. Nale keeps finding them of course because he's an antagonist, who can always find the fresh manpower he needs to challenge the heroes if given enough offscreen time.
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Feb 18, 2012 15:51
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The Oracle made a point about how he should savour his next birthday cake, I think there might've been something else. It does rather fit with Durkon's heavily-prophecised death, though - they could lose a couple members in a hard fight here for a big shake-up before moving on to the finale at the final gate.
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Feb 18, 2012 18:03
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It's probably a trap or diversion (we've not seen enough illusion yet out of the 'master of illusions'), but it looks like a pretty major one. Also seems like a good set-piece to fight over should Nale and that crew blow in.
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Feb 19, 2012 21:41
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Did anyone else think of the Creeping Doom spell? Then again that's centipedes and normal bugs would be attracted to a pile of corpses too, but just at first glance that's what I thought of. Although yeah my money's on this all being a complex illusion - he's an epic-level illusion, what illusion is more epic in scope than crafting what appears to be an epic illusion maze that has been destroyed from within?
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Feb 24, 2012 14:53
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One of the things that supports the "familicide" argument, for me, is if Girard was a sorcerer. Sorcerers have latent, in-the-blood magic power, and one of the possible origins of this power is dragon ancestry. You don't have to be a half-dragon or anything, any sorcerer descended from a dragon-blooded line would do. Although familicide as a spell seemed to stick a little closer to the trunk of the family tree than that. I suppose it was meant to be cast on short-lived races like humans where killing everyone related would only add up to a couple dozen presently-living individuals at most.
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Feb 25, 2012 17:32
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I suppose "Draketooth" isn't a bad little bit of foreshadowing too, all things considered. I feel a little weird about how this plotline was predicted by the readers. On the one hand you give the internet enough time and interest and it'll guess almost everything you might do, so there's no avoiding it. On the other, I can't help but think if I didn't keep up with this thread and with OOTS elsewhere I'd have been more blown away by this revelation. It's a tough balance to strike I guess. It's drat good reading though, and I imagine it'll catch first-time readers who're moving from page to page off-guard.
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Feb 29, 2012 04:40
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At risk of reigniting the alignment debates again, Vaarsuvius implies their fate will be hell now, for the evil act they've committed, but the D&D afterlife doesn't work so much on sin or guilt so much as active alignment. Unintended consequences and blinding hubris don't really represent evil, just error.
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Mar 5, 2012 20:33
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Well that does it for the statue theory, heck it isn't even the right size. I guess they're sort of back to square one, nothing to do but root around until they find something that points them to the gate.
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Mar 23, 2012 03:06
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If the mundane traps are still in play, retreating deeper into the temple could result in an interesting cat-and-mouse scenario.
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Mar 30, 2012 22:45
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HKR posted:just think, every minute you spend reading MLP discussion on the OotS forums you could have spent reading a book you never read before. Be careful with this line of thinking. Every minute spent reading OOtS could've been used to read a classic of the Western canon. Every second spent posting on SA could've been spent earning a medical degree with an emphasis on research in order to cure diseases. Every moment of your life could have been spent more efficiently to better the lives of your fellow living beings. The minute I spent posting this could've been spent not being a terrible poster. Of course the above is true and should not be ignored, and we should try to strike a balance between what we enjoy for personal satisfaction and what we do for the betterment of ourselves and others, but it's not a great off-the-cuff argument for not doing something.
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Apr 2, 2012 22:41
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Tarquin's just an act villain, like Kubota. More memorable, more useful as a tool to develop the other characters (though I feel he did precious little to add depth to the dynamics between Elan, Haley, and Nale), more entertaining, but still ultimately temporary. If he survives this chapter of the story he still won't be carrying on to the next - which is for the best, since his shtick is entertaining in short doses. He's not being overexposed, he's being wrung out before he's dropped. Nale's not a great character. He was conceived when the story didn't really stretch further than the first dungeon and the one gate, and ever since the story expanded in scope it's been hard to find a place for him. There is value in characters and plot threads that have been around since the start of the story though, especially when you close in on the ending and want to have some major arcs to wrap up to add weight to events. He may have been baggage for a lot of the story's middle, but if he's been carried this long he won't be spent before he's most useful to the narrative. Killing him now, especially just to be replaced by Tarquin, feels like it would just be admitting he was a bad idea to keep running with and that Rich is cutting his losses. Some stories and authours make a habit of defied expectations and big twists, but this isn't one of them.
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Jun 12, 2012 02:25
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It's a gamble, but I'd still bet heavily on Tarquin not surviving this act. He has "Act Villain" written on his head in big bold letters, like Kubota or Miko or any of the other myriad villains they've beat down over the story. He might have a good hook and people might like his shtick, but that just makes him a very good act villain. This just hasn't been the sort of story to throw big twists like that - some big twists and turns here and there, sure, but Rich hasn't proven to be the sort of authour to turn the whole story on its ear in a moment just to keep us guessing.
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Jun 20, 2012 02:34
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Is he going to explain it, though? He's serving his master as a familiar and his master is trying to complete Nale's goal of taking control of the pyramid, knowing that the guardians of the pyramid have been killed by epic magic would be useful in knowing that the pyramid's going to be even easier to take. Then again this scene might be enough that if later Nale's group talks about the illusionists they can assume they were killed without spelling out for us that they know that because the imp told them. Yeesh what a clumsy sentence. You know what I mean.
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Jun 21, 2012 06:40
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jng2058 posted:Which is good. Because if they were paralyzed they'd do nothing. Deafened and mobile, however, lets them walk blindly into any number of traps up ahead, and there's nothing Nale can do to stop them. He wouldn't want to stop them. I'd assume part of the plan here with the Holy is that with their retreat from behind cut off by the door and being deafened and possibly blind, the Linear Guild will stumble haphazardly forward and out of the smoke effect, possibly hitting more traps. Having the mummies at least gives them a thin meat shield to slow down the Order while they shrug off the Holy Word effects as well as setting off any traps they might've otherwise blundered into. Also it's been a while, if Holy Word deafens characters of equal level, does it deafen characters of "equal or higher" level?
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Jul 27, 2012 02:08
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I guess that means Tarquin might just be reacting in a "Urgh, what a noise" way but he'll shrug it off and suffer no effects. Anything else will narrow down his level pretty fast. Here's hoping the Order has another move lined up because this doesn't look like it'll be enough.
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Jul 27, 2012 02:21
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MelvinTheJerk posted:That was probably the most badass thing I've ever seen Durkon do. Yet somehow he didn't seem very impressed by it himself. Very impassive expression for someone on the offensive.
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Jul 28, 2012 05:05
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Zereth posted:Okay. I like the culturally assimilated look with the little tooth necklace as a concession to heritage. Like a third-generation immigrant who wears a t-shirt featuring the language of their forefathers that they can't read. "Pit traps and wooden chests? Uh, I guess I read about that stuff in school. Oh hey, check out my sweet new messenger bag!"
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Aug 18, 2012 19:17
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I always figured that with the right magic items to complement their natural abilities, a fighting character has a perfectly reasonable shot of taking down a powerful caster even if the caster maintains an edge. D&D outside of the first few levels is a game of counter-measures and contingencies where the winner is the one who manages to catch their opponent in a situation they're unprepared for.
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Sep 2, 2012 19:52
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Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I'm surprised to find how much I still want to see this comic through after every hiatus.
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Jan 1, 2013 13:42
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RickoniX posted:I hope Rich pulls a Vriska with Belkar and has him change completely with the help of Mr Scruffy so he can heroically sacrifice himself at the last moment to spend eternity in Neutral Good heaven with Lord Shojo and never get his comeuppance at all. To go full Huss, Rich would have to then have Belkar's soul get eaten by the Snarl when it starts rampaging across the afterlife, popping planes. ...Which actually kind of sounds like something that could happen.
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Jan 17, 2013 22:47
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CapnAndy posted:Yeah, the smart thing to do would have obviously been to just tell Durkon the prophecy and then make him swear an oath to never leave for any reasons. He'd gladly stand in an earthquake or whatever and die if he'd been ordered to and understood why. Look, the thing about self-fulfilling prophecies is you can't avoid them - your avoidance is only going to ensure they come true in an uncontrolled way. What people should actually do but never do for some reason is intentionally make it come true in a contrived and controlled manner. Tell the Dwarven population of this prophecy and intentionally set up a ceremony where Durkon goes home then steps outside and all Dwarves are ordered to speak in rhyme for a day, or wear pink, or try to get around with a blindfold on. Have him learn how to play an instrument and start a band then go home and start a music sensation that sweeps the nation, just reinterpret what upheaval entails. This is generally true of future-prophecy. If you ever see yourself stabbing your best friend in a vision of the future, don't try and avoid your friend, get your friend and carefully stage the exact scene you saw. Do it several times just to be sure you did the one that you saw in your vision. It seems so obvious but everyone stomps on the self-fulfilling rake like it's something new and not as old as the Ancient Greeks.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:47
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NihilCredo posted:I like how you're applying rational thinking to a concept that breaks causality itself. Just about every self-fulfilling prophecy story is about someone hearing the prophecy and trying to be rational about avoiding it. Might as well do it right, or at least fail in a slightly more original manner. If you're lucky, you can get away with fulfilling it in the least-terrible interpretation possible.
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Jan 22, 2013 17:49
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He'll probably catch Belkar, not kill him. They're trying to find the rest of his party, after all. Although things still might not end well for Belkar.
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Feb 8, 2013 06:38
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Fire Storm posted:Well, it's also possible that we're coming to the end of the comic so people can die permanently and not have as many long term consequences. I mean, we have 3 main characters that will likely be dead very soon (I doubt V will survive her possession). I'd never considered who will actually live or die by the end of the story (OotS ending has always seemed a rather distant prospect). With Belkar and Durkon set to expire, and V not having the best chances of survival, who of Roy, Elan and Haley will make it out? Narratively it wouldn't be too unusual for Roy to bite it in order to defeat Xykon once and for all, so it might just be Elan and Haley who survive.
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Feb 9, 2013 00:36
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