Wouldn't people like to buy a book about the lives of Haerta, Ganonron and Jephton?

[MagusBloodsoak]

*sigh*

Let the arguing begin.

1. Let's examine the Fiends deal with V. Now, before we hear a lame retort like "you can't trust what they said, they're EVIL!" I think we basically have to, otherwise why do they need to make a deal with V at all? They can tell him they'll sell him a teleport scroll and a recharge spell scroll for 5000 GP when he's really selling his soul. So yeh, logic tells us they need to actually be honest when making the deal, especially the lawful evil one, who is all for the deal.

2. what is this deal he's offered? He's told his power will dwarf any caster who has ever lived. He's offered the 3 most powerful dead evil arcane users from the CE, LE and NE pool, and the Giant apparently confirmed that the Oracle's prediction was validated by the fiends deal, that being that he would obtain ultimate and complete arcane power. He's also told he basically can't gain XP, because nothing will be enough of a challenge (and the fiends then tell us they had considered the possibility of him fighting Xykon incredibly likely, so the Lawful Evil guy is including that in the bunch). Not to mention they are telling him he won't gain XP from killing an Ancient Black Dragon whose spell slots indicate she is at Wyrm level based on the D&D guidelines.

And let's be clear here, the ABD would mop the floor with Xykon. All she has to do is anti-magic field and have at him, and Xykon is toast. At the very least, the 2 are of comparable challenge difficulty.

3. Sure, Xykon trash talks with "they died, so they sucked", but that's just Xykon trash talking. Not to mention, what he says has no credibility because a) we see uber strong people die all the time in this comic, b) Xykon himself nearly died multiple times, so it's a bit ridiculous to suggest Xykon is some outlier of awesomeness, and c) V is promised total and complete ultimate arcane power, dwarfing anyone who has ever lived, power so high he can't gain XP off an ABD; and Xykon? He lives/d, so it should dwarf him too. More to the point, it should dwarf epic wizards like Dorukan who gave Xykon a very tough fight, and who we know "lived" at one point. V's power should dwarf Haerta, who once "lived", and who we'll get to in a second. So Xykon's taunt doesn't carry alot of credibility... in fact it carries none. More to the point, my personal feeling (and I wouldn't expect the author to admit this even if true) is that the subsequent comic starts to immediately play down what Xykon just said, and focuses on V still being very powerful, but just fighting badly. After all, V just lost at least 10-18 levels from energy drains from his 2 (much weaker) splices, and is still going toe to toe with Xykon, and ultimately losing not because of weakness of the splices, but because Redcloak and Xykon somehow know what splices are, and are thus able to combine to make him lose his focus, something that otherwise wouldn't have happened in a hurry.

4. And what do we know about the 3 splices?

Jephton we know the least about, except he's apparently an epic level, and the most powerful chaotic evil arcane user the fiends had.

Haerta is "the strongest by a large margin" and uses a spell which trumps anything we've ever seen or heard of being done in the OOTSverse ever by any magic user who lived. In addition, her disjunction was powerful enough that V knew it could one-shot the ABD anti-magic field, which requires an enormously high level to do (which is also probably the subject of an author retrospective/clarification when the other splices note "oh, yeh, disjunction was Haerta's spell.. so if anyone is wondering why we don't do something like that again, or how it was so awesome... yeh, there's your explanation, now stop nitpicking my comic"). Haerta is also described as being able to kill with a thought, which suggests a Momento Mori spell of some kind (another Epic spell of awesomeness, which would actually one shot the ABD too if V wasn't busy taunting and showing off). However the point is Haerta is ridiculously powerful, which is why the Giant got rid of her before the Xykon fight so Xykon winning could still be plausible, since he obviously wanted Xykon to win).

Ganonron is described as being able to conquer world after world, and he needs to be correspondingly powerful to survive the threats on the life of such a conqueror. You're fond of stuff Xykon flippantly says, so remember how he says he's constantly attacked by random villains, popping out of pots and so on. And he's only ruler of a city. Ganonron ruled "world after world" across planes of existence (and there's no indication these were the planes of unlimited sauces he conquered). His spell Epic Teleport trumps any spell we've seen thus far not named familicide, teleporting tens of thousands of people and their boats huge distances effortlessly. He also seems to be able to use it multiple times no problem. Aside from the 2 times he used it, you'd logically think he had to know how to do it a 3rd time, because V had no idea of the specific abjuration around Xykon's base, and for all he knew he's need it to get out again.

Could Xykon even conquer this world? I doubt it. The ABD alone would stomp him, and he was almost beaten by an adolescent Silver Dragon in the bonus strips. He lost to Soon, even Roy somehow beat him, and these can hardly be the greatest threats in this world (Tarquin and his team look like they'd be much more dangerous). Heck, he only beat Dorukan out of plot induced idiot balling. So what Ganonron did was way above Xykon's paygrade, and every indication is he is more powerful. After an energy drain and a maximized energy drain, they're still busting out 10th level spells no problem.