Since I was but a wee lad (and I remember most of the translations given by Humpty-Dumpty)
Haven't read the The Hunting of the Snark though...
Also, is this considered going off topic?
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Grey Wolf, I am not a DnD gamer myself (except for Baldurs gate series :smallsmile:) so I have no idea what monsters exist in that world that would be good aligned. But yes, I do believe he is one.
OK, let's say that I agree with you (I haven't given the topic much mind). Even if I did, MitD's alignment is irrelevant to this discussion. Whether he is LG, TN, CG or whatever is not important. RC knew what species he was when he "hired" him. At the time he needed a powerful monster to defend the village and the new "TN" lifestyle he was planning to have with his brother, so MitD's species could be anything from LG to NE. I doubt the species would be chaotic, since those don't make for good guards, but not even that can be discarded (the argument then would shift to "sure, he knew he should be CE, but he could tell from the fact he stayed in the circus that he was a particularly mellow CE").
But no matter what MitD's species actual alignment is, MitD's individual alignment is unlikely to get us any closer to what his species is. So no matter if I agree or not with your characterisation, it does not belong in this thread (although I'll give props for being more on-topic than someone's ability to remember a poem).
Grey Wolf
Greywolf, IMO that is a minor consideration to them. They are Goblins; vile, dirty and discusting creatures :smallwink: (ask the Azurites!). The cirkus scene shows that they liked MitF not for his alignment, but for his looks! (Maybe also his habits. He even eat what they (mouldy sandwich) scorn. Discusting!)
I would say they didn't bother about his alignment at all. (see below)
But O-Chul did. Indeed I believe O-chul, so to speak, helped a child to find his true alignment.
He actully say it; "You are a good man", and in the end that is Rich speaking. I call that a pretty big hint from him:smallsmile:
One may wonder why a good aligned creature would be accepted by team Evil and I think that is because of plot, and that the child aspect let Rich disregard a few objections. To the team he is a monster, a secret super weapon. Who cares what he thinks about the Evilness of their actions? Indeed they don't.
The monster itself don't either, because of low wisdom or being a child (up until recently that is). He is like the duckling that becomes a Swan (I predicted some real good strips at the time for his reveal)
We do not know his racial alignment for sure, of course, but I wondered if it would help us nail down the race if we assumed we did?
Note being evil it would at least rule out a couple of contenders.
If we hold to the D&D alignment describtions, at best the MitD's alignment along the Good/Evil axis is Neutral because he lacks a commitment/the inclination to do Good/evil. When Mr. Stiffly calls the MitD "a good man" I take that simply to mean that he believes that the Monster will eventually realize that he belongs on the side of Good.
In D&D terms that will not help us a whole lot, as Grey Wolf has already stated, unless we chose to believe that the MitD is not a moral agent at all, such as most wild animals.
Ugh. Your argument hinges on racial alignment being unimportant to "vile, dirty, and discusting[sic] creatures" and all-important to O-Chul. I'm pretty sure you missed the point of both Start of Darkness and the line you quote from O-Chul.
No it wouldn't, and no it doesn't. As I already said in my last post, MitD's individual alignment will tell us nothing about his race's alignment, just like Drizzt Do'Urden's alignment tells us nothing about drow alignment (lampshaded here).
Since you have not addressed any of my arguments of my previous post, I'll cut this short here. Just note that this thread is to discuss MitD's species, not MitD's alignment and as such, you should present a case of how the second would help the first, or I will need to ask you to please start a new thread to discuss it separate from this one.
Grey Wolf
On a different note completely, and knowingly double-posting (but in my defence after several hours, and if I had edited it, it might have been missed), I am going to bring to the thread's attention what just happened in Schlock Mercenary: Howard Tayler received a Cease-and-Desist notice over his use of a parody of the book "The 7 effective habits" (Mr. Tayler folded and changed the joke).
How is this relevant to this thread? Well, it relates to the whole discussion of MitD being a copyrighted/trademarked creature. I will let you guys draw your own conclusions but mine is: if Tayler, from a fairly strong "parody" position didn't bother defending it, I doubt that Rich, from a far weaker situation would even consider it (but I've been saying that all along, so take with a grain of salt. Bias is strong here).
Grey Wolf
Please do note that Schlock Mercenary was not ordered to stop the parodying someones work or even to not release his book. He was ordered to cease and desist with using the words/numbers "7" and "Habit" in conjunction as that combination is trademarked. IMO this has no bearing on the MitD discussion at all.
On the contrary. If MitD was a trademark/copyright of, say, Disney, they could serve a C&D on Rich's use of MitD, which is to say Rich would have to change what MitD is or face court. Tell you what, let's assume that has already happened, and try to figure out what MitD will be after the hypothetical C&D. Because if he refused, penalties would consider all MitD appearances, even before the reveal, when it is abundantly clear it is not a parody of anything (not that it would matter, since an army of US lawyers > arguments).
GW
The thing is....
As far as i understand it, everything not in the SRD is copyrighted, hence the jokes early on with the mindflayer and the beholder. Rich was able to make one or two strip jokes out of them, and never mention again.
There are (or seem to be) characters in the strip with classes not in the SRD. I'm thinking specifically here of Tarquin, who seems to be a factotum, a class that Rich himself was involved in the creation of. I don't want to derail the thread, this has been discussed elsewhere, I merely bring it up here to illustrate the point that nowhere does it say in the strip "Tarquin is a factotum", and if he is, it will never be confirmed because the factotum is not in the SRD.
Hell, I could be wrong about this, but I do not believe that anyone in the strip has ever said "D&D" or "Dungeons and Dragons". When V casts Mordenkeinen's Disjunction on the ABD, it is referred to simply as "Disjunction".
I've probably laboured this a bit to much now, but unless I'm very much mistaken, the MITD has to be either:
A) a creature in the SRD
B) a mythological creature not covered by copyright (or be from a book older than 75 years as of strip 100, as I believe that means the copyright would have expired)
C) a monster that he will never be able to name due to the copyright restrictions, which would mean he is not going to be able to reveal it.
Or D) a monster that Rich has obtained permission to use, thus negating the whole copyright argument.
I can't help feeling the most likely one of the above is D). Which also probably adds weight to the carbosilicate amorph (sp?) as it would probably be the easiest of the suggestions for permission to be obtained.
C)
An amorph wouldn't be strong enough. And wouldn't really explain the Escape, unless he has a personal Teraport device hidden in his mouth (which would just raise more questions).
Schlock can use heavy weapon shielding as a flyswatter. That is more than strong enough. And the teraport is no more farfetched (and indeed, in some ways, quite less farfetched) than most of the Escape explanations in this thread. While there are arguments to be made against a carbosilicate amorph, mostly centered around the fact it is the wrong genre, it fits surprisingly well.
As to the list presented by LightsOnNo1Home, I would amend:
1) In SRD (or equivalent)
2) Older than Mickey Mouse, who is currently the reason for extended copyright protection
OR
3) Copyright belonging to someone likely to give Rich permission
Argument "C" is easily discarded since we know Rich does intend to reveal MitD in the storyline.
Grey Wolf
Edit: added to point one, since there must be other licenses that Rich could use.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-05-11
This strip shows that, while an amorph wouldn't have been at risk of long-term harm from Miko's attack, it would still have been temporarily sliced in half.
The following monsters are all from the SRD:
- Dream Larva
- Hagumemnon (Protean)
- Neothelid
- Tarrasque
So is the Phrenic template I've been talking about.
(I'm too tired to make a list about which other proposed monsters and templates are also the from the SRD.)
So? MitD is in darkness. If he was split in half, that is not going to either hurt it or stop him for long. Indeed, since Miko's blade is several orders of magnitude more blunt than the Dorothy wire, there are two arguments to be done: first, that a carbosilicate amorph would just reform behind the metal. And two, that Miko's sword would just bounce off. But there is no posibility of doing anything that would hurt an amorph.
Edit: Nerdanel, I wouldn't worry if I were you. If someone wants to point out an idea is NOT in SRD, they can do so. I'm going to assume that, lacking other indication, everything proposed is OK.
Grey Wolf
Yes, I did notice the slight distinction, and the slightly different arguments thereof, but they are close enough that hopefully you'll excuse me for not putting in your idea as a different one, since the joke section is for levity rather than a fundamental part of the first post (thus also why it was the first to be moved when I hit the hard limit on the number of characters allowed per post).
GW
Talking about the carbosilicate amorph, a few questions seem to arise:
a) Would it be uncommon for an amorph to be able to speak? This then contradicts the Big Game Hunters (unless we assume they were incompetent)
b) Would it be possible to raise an amorph from the dead? (unless we assume Redcloak's threat was an empty one)
c) Is it not too much of a stretch for an amorph to have a tongue?
d) Would an amorph get gas from consuming baked beans? Which ties in with- should we add 'Has an anus' to the list of suspected physical characterisitcs of the MitD, or at the very least 'Has the ability to pass gas'? It sounds juvenile, but might help the search in the long run...
The teraport is the biggest sticking point for me with the amorph, since that requires introducing a high tech gadget into the story as well as the creature himself.
If I remember my Schlock canon properly (although I'm not about to go check), amorphs don't have their own language - when they communicate, they pass around bits of each other and share the memories they want to share. They picked up Galstandard West from first contact. But even if they do have their own language, it's not going to be anything that sounds remotely like a language to any of us.
I believe what you mean is "can he be used as material for raising undead", since that's what RC actually said (for the record, I don't see why an amorph couldn't be raised from the dead, although he is more likely not going to need the help most of the time). In any case, yes. Meat is very useful when creating undead, and I'd imagine that carbosilicate meat makes for some extra-strong zombies.
A tongue is a muscle used to move food around our mouths to facilitate breaking it down before the stomach has a go at it. An amorph would similarly use a tongue to move food around in preparation for digestion. The second use of a tongue is to taste, of course, which in an amorph is a matter of increasing the surface in contact with the food. Since there is physically no restriction for an amorph creating inside himself an extrusion not unlike a tongue, and it has good reasons to do so, I'd say that's a yes.
An amorph excretes through his mouth. "Passing gas" happens when in the process of breaking down food to extract nutrients, volatile substances are generated as a byproduct. If an amorph generated any such substances, it would release them through his own mouth/anus/multipurpose hole. So, again, yes.
As to the second part, I disagree. Everything that can eat has a way of releasing any and all byproducts. Life has evolved around the mouth->anus digestive system. I cannot see it being a filter of any kind in the short or the long run, since 1) I doubt we'll find any information on the subject in most creatures and 2) any creature that doesn't have one is either badly designed, or simply doesn't eat to start with.
Grey Wolf
I doubt an amorph would suffer a paper cut the way MiTD did.
Well, if anyone has access to the 'manual of the planes', look to page 165-166. There you will find the Goristro. And I quote: "The hulking Goristro are kept as destructive siege engines and pets by powerful demon lords." Interesting, hmm? Let's continue. "Stupid creatures, they exist only to smash anything they can. Centuries in the abyssal breeding pits have rendered them quite efficient at this. A Goristro looks like a cross between a bison and a human, with a squat muscular body and broad shoulders supporting a massive horned head." Afterward it states that they are unable to grasp subtlety and have only a simple grasp of tactics. The text also says they have a stomp ability, can throw heavy rocks as far as 140 feet, and has spell-like abilities, meaning they are capable of magic. The encounter table shows that it's BAB is +23, meaning he is, in fact, incapable of hitting 'softly'. Normally they are chaotic evil, but then again discussions with O-Chul and his youth may have changed that. He has DR 20/+2, SR 22, meaning he might have simply rolled against himself to stay, fast healing 5, and challenge rating 13. It's really low, but Xykon is expecting him to grow to a maximum of 48 hit dice, growing to gargantuan size. His intelligence is 5, so it explains why he is easily confused. Any questions?
Goristro: Str 29, Size Huge. Its type is Demon (Tanar'ri). SLAs are at will fear and constant see invisibility, so it has absolutely no way to teleport anyone (it can't even summon other tanar'ri). The rocks it throws weigh 60-80 lbs, so they're way lighter than Miko and horse, as well.
True, but in my defense, Rich hasn't always stuck to the rules. It could be part of the whole "The order of the stick will never have a solid character sheet" thing. He wants to change up the stats on the monster so he can make jokes like the whole 'throw stuff through the wall' and 'I'm too dumb to know this' gags.