So, what is the pont of the battle with Calder?

[DaOldeWolf]

Wait! This isnt about complaining about the new battle. I am just wondering what its purpose in the bigger narrative is if any. My main guesses are:

-Calder will end up as an undead servant for Xykon.

-Calder´s soul will end up being spliced in whatever creature the IFCC ends up sending for their goal.

-Someone (or more) will end up dying to Calder. Or at the very least injured in a plot relevant way.

-Calder will change his mind and join the party in stopping XYkon.

-Calder will become victim to the snarl to show its effects in action.

-Calder ill flee and become one more side in this battle for the last gate.

--The Order will obtain something from defeating Calder. (maybe armor, shield or something)

-Nothing.

So, what do you think about it? Any other theories?

[Errorname]

My default assumption would be that it's this book's Frost Giant fight, a thing to occupy the heroes, show character growth for our mains and develop our new secondary characters, while also giving the real villains time to get into position.

[danielxcutter]

I think it’s also for Serini to have faith in the Order’s combat capabilities.

[Precure]

He will reveal some crucial backstory on what really happened between Soon and his team.

[Ruck]

My default assumption would be that it's this book's Frost Giant fight, a thing to occupy the heroes, show character growth for our mains and develop our new secondary characters, while also giving the real villains time to get into position.

I think it’s also for Serini to have faith in the Order’s combat capabilities.

He will reveal some crucial backstory on what really happened between Soon and his team.

I think all of these fit the bill in some way. (I might amend the last one to "or prod Serini to reveal," but either way I think that the unrevealed backstory is going to be part of this.)

[ZhonLord]

I think it's to convey the severity of the power gap. Calder is probably going to be quite a challenge for the group, which means they're in turn not necessarily ready for Team Evil. If they can't readily crush an old red dragon with lots of power and domination magic at his disposal, how are they going to take on an Epic sorcerer, a cleric with 9th tier spells, and an unknown creature with enough raw power to make earthquakes at will?

I think fighting Calder is going to give Serini reason to doubt the ability of the Order's success, even if she has no choice but to stick with them now that the threat of the gods' annihilation is on the table and she can't just let any team win without conflict any more.

[Gift Jeraff]

He drops one of the heroes' ultimate weapons.

[Tubercular Ox]

I think an immediate effect is that it's going to end up splitting the party, which will be a relief for me because I can stop wondering what the off panel characters are doing. Well, wonder less.

I agree Calder would be great at delivering perspective altering information about the Scribbles.

[Kvess]

Calder is a wrench in gears of the Order's plans that were so very clearly laid out at the beginning of the chapter. Think like a bard: Whenever the protagonists describe a plan in detail, the narrative purpose is so we can later understand how and why the circumstances have gone horribly, horribly wrong.

The party was planning on ambushing Xykon at full strength after Xykon's crew gets weakened by a number of traps and obstacles, presumably including Calder. This fight potentially takes that option off the table. It makes the outcome of their future encounter with Xykon more uncertain. The point of the battle doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

[KorvinStarmast]

... show character growth for our mains and develop our new secondary characters, while also giving the real villains time to get into position.

Yes, that's part of it.

I think it’s also for Serini to have faith in the Order’s combat capabilities.

That's another part of it.

He will reveal some crucial backstory on what really happened between Soon and his team.

Another part of it.

Calder is a wrench in gears of the Order's plans

Another part of it.

It's also a drain on party resources.

And lastly: the story is built on a Dungeons and Dragons shell.
Fighting a dragon is a thing. It's a good thing in and of itself.

I am still puzzling out what Eugene's return (convo with Roy) folds into at this stage of the game.

[Metastachydium]

He will reveal some crucial backstory on what really happened between Soon and his team.

I'd phrase it more like "between the Scribblers", honestly, but yeah.

I think it's to convey the severity of the power gap. Calder is probably going to be quite a challenge for the group, which means they're in turn not necessarily ready for Team Evil. If they can't readily crush an old red dragon with lots of power and domination magic at his disposal, how are they going to take on an Epic sorcerer, a cleric with 9th tier spells

It's also a drain on party resources.

I'd argue that goes both ways. A crucial thing that bears mentioning is that, at the end of the day, Calder is really just a line of defense in that dungeon who happens to be hostile towards the Good Guys… In a dungeon with many lines of defense equally hostile towards the Bad Guys.

In that way, it might also help demonstrate how tough this place is while leaving the camera focused on the heroes doing the cool thing that is soldiering through it anyhow.

And lastly: the story is built on a Dungeons and Dragons shell.
Fighting a dragon is a thing. It's a good thing in and of itself.

And fighting a dragon in a dungeon… Yeah. Hells, yeah, in fact.

I am still puzzling out what Eugene's return (convo with Roy) folds into at this stage of the game.

All the Dwarves in the world will suddenly appear and throw themselves at Clader dying in droves, probably?

an unknown creature with enough raw power to make earthquakes at will?

How do you know it's at-will?

[Ionathus]

I agree with most of the ideas posited here. OotS is very good at juggling multiple storytelling goals in a single scene.

Ultimately, I think it's just really fun to do a dragon fight. It's iconic and exciting.

The Order has never fought and won a straight-up fight with a mature dragon. The YBD fight was a short struggle followed by a Disintegration curb-stomp; the ABD fight was an even more flashy curb-stomp. It'll be really fun to see the Order take down a dragon, on even footing, based purely on skill.

Assuming nothing goes horribly off the rails, of course

[DaOldeWolf]

Wow! This is why I love this community. So many possibilities that could entail the batte that I hadnt though about. Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts!

[Aidan]

As others have mentioned I think delaying the heroes plus giving Serini a front row seat to how the Order deals with a very strong foe. It seems like this could eat heavily into final dungeon trap setting time, and the Order dealing with Calder weakens the gates defenses. Additionally how the Order manages to deal with or not deal with this threat could heavily affect Serini's view of the Order. If it is a hard battle and they just barely defeat Calder, or fail to beat him, she could second guess their abilities for a battle against Team Evil. On the other hand if they are able to defeat him and demonstrate their ability to work together she could end up buying into believing the Order can win against Team Evil.

My current guess is that the battle is going to be very hard but seeing how the Order works as a team to ultimately overcome Calder will make her more confident in them.

[SlashDash]

A poster above mentioned that when protagonists lay plans, they are obviously going to fail.
I think this applies not just to the protagonists - but to Serini as well.
It's pretty obvious that there's no way team evil are actually going through all of Serini's traps in The Final Dungeon.

Also let's face it, it's far too early in the book for the actual final conflict with team evil to happen. Too many open plot threads. So there's no way team evil goes into conflict with the heroes yet.

At some point something is going to happen to allow team evil to get past the defenses and put the heroes on the run again.

I think the fight with Calder will be the instigation of it.
Too early to guess how, but maybe he'll chose to runaway (he clearly won't surrender again) and smash through the walls? Trigger some other defense? Blow stuff up?
Do something near the threads of creation that would put a serious dent in the place?


Either way, something will happen to shift the entire situation of who is in control and the path to the gate.

[Synesthesy]

It just came to my mind that if they kill Calder and leave him dead there, Xykon will ride zombie Calder :O

[Metastachydium]

It just came to my mind that if they kill Calder and leave him dead there, Xykon will ride zombie Calder :O

Well, there's a symmetry to appreciate about that theory for sure (in that his previous dead dragon mount had the other horn damaged)!

[danielxcutter]

I suspect that the Order are going to destroy the corpse specifically because they remember Xykon riding a dragon zombie, tbh.

[Metastachydium]

I suspect that the Order are going to destroy the corpse specifically because they remember Xykon riding a dragon zombie, tbh.

That might bring back memories for V!

[Kamunami]

-Calder will become victim to the snarl to show its effects in action.

I actually really like this specific possibility, in addition to what everyone's saying. Though I'm guessing by the Snarl you meant the "Threads of Creation" we saw earlier? No one's going to go touching them willingly, but this fight makes the perfect opportunity for someone on either side to end up accidentally grazing one and show us how dangerous they really are.

[Sermil]

At some point something is going to happen to allow team evil to get past the defenses and put the heroes on the run again.

I think the fight with Calder will be the instigation of it.
Too early to guess how, but maybe he'll chose to runaway (he clearly won't surrender again) and smash through the walls? Trigger some other defense? Blow stuff up?
Do something near the threads of creation that would put a serious dent in the place?

Or just escape, run into Redcloak, and tell him he's falling for a shell game, and tell him how to bypass it.

[Peelee]

Or just escape, run into Redcloak, and tell him he's falling for a shell game, and tell him how to bypass it.

A.) It's not a shell game.
2.) Regardless of that, Calder doesn't know the setup, or how to bypass the setup.

[yes]

I agree that it's probably about showing Serini what it's like to coordinate as a team.

Her experience with team work is a bunch of in-fighting and distrust. She may have fought along with the Scribbles for who knows how long, but I get the impression their team style was less "coordinated tactical assault" and more "competition to see who's more effective". In 1296 she even says "It took all six of us working together to take [Calder's] operation down", implying that working together wasn't the normal.

So it's no surprise she doesn't think the order could beat Xykon. I don't think she's imagining them cooperating as a unit where the sum is greater than the whole, but rather that she's thinking of them as a bunch individual characters who all happen to be facing off with an epic level lich at the same time. Even when she fought them they weren't working much as a team; Roy and V were poisoned, Durkon petrified, Haley without her bow, Belkar charmed/calmed, etc. She was them as a bunch of incapable disorganized goofs entirely outside of their element.

After seeing them fight Calder as a united and functional team, she might get a new respect for the team, and for having the paladins along, etc. Instead of just tolerating them and hoping for the best, she may become a cooperative team member in the type of team she wish she was part of decades ago.

[Tzardok]

In 1296 she even says "It took all six of us working together to take [Calder's] operation down", implying that working together wasn't the normal.

I don't see how that sentence implies that they don't usually work together. It's simply a statement in Calder's power that it required six high level, near epic characters to defeat him and his cult.

[Precure]

She was coordinating with them when she built this dungeon and was counting on their help, that's why Soon's rejection hurt her so.

[yes]

I don't see how that sentence implies that they don't usually work together. It's simply a statement in Calder's power that it required six high level, near epic characters to defeat him and his cult.

There's plenty of example of how much strife and tension they had on that team. Gerard and Soon for example. The lack of trust and cooperation. It's part of why they fell apart.

And I'm not sure why she would specify that it required all six of them working together to defeat Calder if that behavior was a fair default expectation.

[gbaji]

There's plenty of example of how much strife and tension they had on that team. Gerard and Soon for example. The lack of trust and cooperation. It's part of why they fell apart.

And I'm not sure why she would specify that it required all six of them working together to defeat Calder if that behavior was a fair default expectation.

Because it emphasizes the fact that it takes a high level group, working together, to defeat him. I didn't get any specific implication about whether this was a common on uncommon thing for the Scribblers back when they fought Calder (and clearly they were able to work together to defeat him back then, so it's kinda moot anyway), but more a statement to showcase how far the Order has come in this regard. The Order is a group that would routinely step on each others toes, disagree about how to proceed, and fail to follow the most basic of plans.

I kinda agree with the poster who said this is more or less like the Frost Giant fight. It's about showcasing the Order's capabilities in a fight, against a really tough opponent, but not in a "final boss" situation. Also, this kinda goes to V's whole "we will have one and only one encounter on the way" observation. The party has to fight *something* while traveling through the dungeon to the area they're going to lie in wait for TE at. That's just narrative pacing at work IMO. It would be kinda boring if they just walked on through with no difficulties. Someone at some point had to trip something for them to have to deal with. And odds were good it would be either Elan, Belkar, or Sunny.

And yeah, it also showcases that... yup... this is a really dangerous dungeon, full of really dangerous things. There might be some other stuff as well. Showing what the threads will do if touched is a possiblity, but seems like that's some distance away, so I'm not sure. I suppose there could also be some opportunity for reveals as well. Calder is "something of a mindbender", so might use mental tricks to his advantage, or may have used them against the Scribblers back in the day, and try to use information gleaned then to his advantage now. Not sure what he could know that would be of great interest though. But it's possible. We do still have unanswered questions about exactly what happened with the Scribblers, so this could be where that comes out. But it's unclear if those thing happened before or after Calder was imprisoned.

[KorvinStarmast]

She was coordinating with them when she built this dungeon and was counting on their help, that's why Soon's rejection hurt her so.

That makes some sense. She did the old "How about I take a level in paladin?" thing and got the smart alec response from Girard about the stick up the butt ... so at one point, she at least had appreciation for her paladin party member.
Or she was just being a smart alec herself.

[Grendelkin]

Maybe the 'point' is that this world does still run on the rules of D&D to some extent. You can't expect to breeze through a high-level dungeon without having to fight something close to or exceeding your own level.
And maybe Calder is just here to show how strong the heroes have grown and to allow them to grow mightier still - by providing them with XP.

[Riarra]

This latest strip confirmed that no, Calder was not supposed to be conscious while in stasis. The Scribblers intended to show him mercy and instead trapped him in an endless waking nightmare. But it's no less wrong for being from neglect than malice. I think Calder's going to reinforce the ideas that came up with the gods, the goblinoids, and intention vs. impact.