The snake is probably a python.
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The snake is probably a python.
After reading OotPCs, Elan's words in panel 8 are much funnier. :smallbiggrin:
More a language thing, but...
When holy wafers were mentionned, I was kind of surprised by this choice. Why holy wafers? Because gnomes would use that rather than holy water? That's cute. Weird, but cute.
I just realized that "holy wafer" are the same than "hostia". The only French term that I know being "hostie", I did not expect that there were other terms in English than hostia.
Somehow, it was funnier before :(
Am also doing a read through from the start, and this is not so much 'didn't notice' as 'curious as to what it is' because I have no idea!
So, in the words of Cat, from Red Dwarf, and in the third panel... 'What is it?'
It's a Wolf in sheep's clothing, aka carnivorous tree stump dressed like a cute rabbit. It made it as #3 in the "Stupid Monster" list.
Ha! Brilliant :smallsmile: Thanks!
EDIT (cos I found something else!): In this comic Hilgya 'tricks' Durkon into holding her hand... but in this comic they're already holding hands!
You can also find the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing in the avatar list for the board. :smallwink:
Oh my. Crystal clearly says Haley can borrow her dagger.
Haley "borrows" it to kill her with it, but then returns it when they meet again. Then the dagger breaks, perhaps symbolic of the end of bozzak and crystal.
Deep.
I just remembered that we got to know Surtur a few books before his priest.
Man, I'd love to see Surtur in the current art style.
On topic, I was re-reading On the Origin of PC's the other day and noticed, for the first time, that one of the patrons of the Bad Guy Bar that Elan and his then-employer Sir Francois are forced to retreat from bears a striking resemblance to the (on-again-off-again) Bandit King. Is it, in fact, meant to be him?
It depends: if he likes video games it's Hammerfell, if he'd rather listen to some music it's Hammerfall.
EDIT: It also could be an accent/dialect thing. Gontor talks like a human, while the other usher has a dwarven accent. My surname has different vowels when said with my accent or in the standard spelling. Hammerfell could be spelled Hammerfall by other dwarves.
Also, I just noticed that the last pages answer the great question: "Where was Gontor...?"
I don't know if it's in any of the manuals, but I've read of a very old Eastern European tradition that stuffing holy wafers into a vampire's mouth and beheading it (after staking through the heart) was a necessary part of killing them. Just staking wasn't considered enough to kill the vampire 100% dead in some versions of the lore.
And in Bram Stoker's novel, holy wafers are said to repel the undead and are used to keep vampires away from the coffins of the newly dead. According to this link, they've also been found inside the tombs of saints, and even modern Greeks placed them between the lips of the dead at burial to protect against vampirism.
I never noticed that in The fourth panel of the second page of 994, Belkar is still standing in the Circle of Truth when he stays "This stinks worse than that gnomish cheese that Elan brought back from town that I ate without asking."
Erm, I never noticed that the V in the thread title is, in addition to a roman numeral, Vaarsuvius.
I actually first saw this whole "holy wafers and vampires" thing (and yeah, I also wondered what the hell are holy wafers, since it's also called "ostia" in Portuguese) in the Vampire entry in the 2nd edition Monstrous Manual. It said you had to chop off the vampire's head and stick holy wafers in their mouth to definitely kill them, otherwise they'd just turn to mist and reform after a while or something like that.
Technically, holy wafers are referred to as the Host in English speaking countries as well. It's just that us Americans aren't so good at using proper technical terms.
When Soon summons the ghosts of the Sapphire Guard using the words "Arise, my children," he's the second person to address them as "children" in a few minutes. He may well be replying indirectly to Xykon.
Thanks for refreshing my memory, SirKazum. I know I have those books somewhere still. And I researched the topic after reading that, because I wondered where the idea came from. I wish I could find a good link for the legend, but alas...
The term probably didn't make it into the D&D books because it belongs to very specific IRL religions, and the authors didn't want to give offense by putting that term into their writings. Nor do I. :smalleek:
This one is a wild guess
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0707.html
The only prisoner who is not smiling and looks with anger at the goblin who wants to swap side?
A bald guy.
Who maybe has grown back a very few hairs (if it is possible while you are polymorphed, but I guess so)
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0827.html
This one instead seems quite clear to me, now. Compare the position of the hands in the two cases
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0928.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1003.html
It was already the Spellsplinter!
I was just rereading the 2E Vampire entry. First off, they probably mention "holy wafers" rather than "the host" for the same reasons they mention "lawful good holy symbols" rather than crosses :smallwink: That is, both to avoid unfortunate issues with RL religions, and to allow the whole myth to work with settings that have entirely fictious religions with different trappings (i.e. most D&D worlds).
Secondly, it seems the business with chopping the head off and stuffing the mouth with holy wafers refers to when you defeat a vampire by driving a stake into their heart. They can still be definitely destroyed if exposed to one round of sunlight, immersed in running water for three rounds, or if unable to find their coffin in 12 turns (i.e. 120 minutes) after turning into mist due to losing all their hitpoints. Mind, this is all 2nd edition.
And one final thing I remembered... boy, the folks who wrote the core 2E books did love to sprinkle "all but" liberally all over the text, as if it had no meaning other than making the text sound fancier. Which of course led to some ridiculous RAW interpretations - for example, the thing with the gems table where, if you roll 1 on the special characteristics table, it becomes a higher category and you roll again ignoring "all but 1". Which of course means that, if you happen to roll a 1 in the first place, you're guaranteed to get a gem of the highest possible category since you're "forced" to keep rolling 1's. But nevermind, this isn't the RAW Dysfunction thread... :smalltongue:
True. Indeed my hypothesis is quite a stretch.
But it seems so perfect that maybe Rich can think to start implying it was his plan all along. :smallbiggrin: