Things You Never Noticed V: Your Familiar

[Kish]

I'm not well versed in the game. Could you please tell me in what way bards are similar to rogues? Fighter/Sorcerer I can see.

More skill points per level than most classes, and there are some skills that are only class skills for rogues and bards (most prominently Use Magic Device).

[Laurana]

@Gryffon, @SirKazum and @Kish: thank you so much for the explanation.

It gives me a new appreciation of the "And that never struck you as needlessly complicated?" strip, too

[Kish]

Yeah, the upshot of that exchange is,
"So you're a bard? My father taught me bards are underpowered."
"What are you, then?"
"I mix three classes to make a faux-bard."
"And that never struck you as needlessly complicated?"
"Not until this moment, no."

[Jay R]

I never put together Xykon's comment in strip #197 ("Flying zombies. It will revolutionize the industry.") and the dead silver dragon two strips later in #195 with the fact that in his next major scene in strip #300, he's riding a zombie silver dragon.

[Rogar Demonblud]

You also might want to check out the flying troops seen during the Battle of Azure City.

[Vinyadan]

I just noticed that Flopsy and Stiffly referred to the status of the bodies attending the tea party: Flopsy Roy was floppy because of death, Stiffly O-Chul was stiff because of paralysis.

[Gift Jeraff]

With one spell Z saved millions of lives. He truly is V's opposite.

[Kish]

Oh wow. I hadn't seen that either, and you're totally right.

[Darth Paul]

Does Nale's constant planning (which reaches its greatest height in that strip) emphasize him as Elan's opposite as well? I recall very few plans by Elan.

[Ruck]

I just realized that Tarquin changing his speech bubbles to disguise himself as Thog in #849 is a bit of a clue that, perhaps, someone else in that scene is also disguising their speech bubbles...

[Debatra]

Does Nale's constant planning (which reaches its greatest height in that strip) emphasize him as Elan's opposite as well? I recall very few plans by Elan.

Well, Elan's biggest plan to date comes to fruition just a handful of strips after that one...

[Kish]

Yeah, I'd say rather that while Nale makes excessively complicated plans with multiple backup plans and watches them fail abjectly, Elan decides arbitrarily that doing something that makes very little sense will result in exactly what he wants later, and then it does.

[KillingAScarab]

I just realized that Tarquin changing his speech bubbles to disguise himself as Thog in #849 is a bit of a clue that, perhaps, someone else in that scene is also disguising their speech bubbles...

Huh. Malack's do change, but I don't understand the speech bubble changes before his death. Nale and Zz'dtri are well aware of Malack being a vampire. It seems to only occur when he has red eyes.

[snowblizz]

Huh. Malack's do change, but I don't understand the speech bubble changes before his death. Nale and Zz'dtri are well aware of Malack being a vampire. It seems to only occur when he has red eyes.

You should understand it as him "vamping out". I believe the easiest refrence is to Buffy where low-profile vampire looks human, but when going full-on vampire you get eyes changing colour, fangs and I think a "beastial" face. Releasing the beat within sorta.
That's what Malack does when speech bubble changes, he is showing the attributes of vampirism openly. He normally hides his true nature, but moments of stress and conflict tends to bring it out, his mask slips sort of.

[KillingAScarab]

You should understand it as him "vamping out". I believe the easiest refrence is to Buffy where low-profile vampire looks human, but when going full-on vampire you get eyes changing colour, fangs and I think a "beastial" face. Releasing the beat within sorta.
That's what Malack does when speech bubble changes, he is showing the attributes of vampirism openly. He normally hides his true nature, but moments of stress and conflict tends to bring it out, his mask slips sort of.

It is common to many portrayals of vampires. The red eyes often appear when he is casting spells, too, but not every time. Still, he has no need for subtlety while he is set aflame... but I realize his eyes are closed until that point and the last time they are open they're the same color as the flames.

[snowblizz]

The red eyes often appear when he is casting spells, too, but not every time. Still, he has no need for subtlety while he is set aflame... but I realize his eyes are closed until that point and the last time they are open they're the same color as the flames.

The first example is one where he casts a spell while "hidden", the second time he is casting a spell openly as a vampire. I don't think there's a point where he is casting with red eyes without the changed speechbubble. They seem AFAICT entirely constant. Malack does seem to habitually "turn-off" vampire-form. He doesn't really need to hide after the pyramid has been blown, but he does, seems like a thing for him.

[DaggerPen]

I'm still fond of the idea that the white snakey speech bubbles are him speaking by actually breathing and passing air over the vocal cords, while the black speech bubbles are him speaking using dark energy, as Durkula does. He may consider the former more 'polite', like using your 'inside voice', but drop it in times of stress. The red eyes just seem to go with using vampiric powers/dark energy/etc.

[hroþila]

It's interesting to ponder why he'd revert back to his mortal voice (and his normal eyes, I think? Just more fiery? Certainly not vamp-red) right before his death, at the moment of maximum stress. Together with his plea for his god to save him, which I think went against much of what he had said, and the commentary about his civil façade being ultimately nothing but that, it might suggest that Malack, at the end of the day, was a fake: not the powerful, clever, calculating and untouchable vampire cleric, priest of personalized Death, who was above pretty much everything, but a pathetic, hypocritical, deluded frail guy who was terrified of dying.

I mean, maybe?

[Keltest]

It's interesting to ponder why he'd revert back to his mortal voice (and his normal eyes, I think? Just more fiery? Certainly not vamp-red) right before his death, at the moment of maximum stress. Together with his plea for his god to save him, which I think went against much of what he had said, and the commentary about his civil façade being ultimately nothing but that, it might suggest that Malack, at the end of the day, was a fake: not the powerful, clever, calculating and untouchable vampire cleric, priest of personalized Death, who was above pretty much everything, but a pathetic, hypocritical, deluded frail guy who was terrified of dying.

I mean, maybe?

To be perfectly honest, I'm willing to cut someone a little bit of slack when theyre actively burning to death. Being unafraid of death in general doesn't mean you would very much like to not die in a specific and incredibly torturous manner.

[Rogar Demonblud]

... but I realize his eyes are closed until that point and the last time they are open they're the same color as the flames.

I think that's because, by that point, his brain is also on fire and shining through what's left of his eyes.

[Captain Raveman]

I honestly can't believe I've never noticed this, but I just noticed recently that Vaarsuvius is somewhat shorter than most humans.

[bibliophile20]

I just noticed that the reason why Hayley is certain that Roy will even find the dagger-pinned wanted poster is because the Order was supposed to regroup at that spot in an hour.

[Gift Jeraff]

The latest strips made me notice that, as far as I can recall, there is no sequence of 2+ strips without any of the PCs that doesn't eventually transition into Team Evil (if it wasn't a Team Evil chapter to begin with). Closest exceptions I can think of are the printed/PDF version of 252-258 (since the mail calls are at the end of the books) and 906-907 if you don't count vampire Durkon.

Does Nale's constant planning (which reaches its greatest height in that strip) emphasize him as Elan's opposite as well? I recall very few plans by Elan.

Well, there was this.

I just realized that Tarquin changing his speech bubbles to disguise himself as Thog in #849 is a bit of a clue that, perhaps, someone else in that scene is also disguising their speech bubbles...

Confirmed.

It's interesting to ponder why he'd revert back to his mortal voice (and his normal eyes, I think? Just more fiery? Certainly not vamp-red) right before his death, at the moment of maximum stress. Together with his plea for his god to save him, which I think went against much of what he had said, and the commentary about his civil façade being ultimately nothing but that, it might suggest that Malack, at the end of the day, was a fake: not the powerful, clever, calculating and untouchable vampire cleric, priest of personalized Death, who was above pretty much everything, but a pathetic, hypocritical, deluded frail guy who was terrified of dying.

I mean, maybe?

SoD explains that the inverted speech balloons are generated by negative energy. So my take on Malack's final speech balloons is that he's so low on negative energy that it's easier to animate his lungs (barely, hence "Nerghal" instead of Nergal) than to directly talk. Similar deal with the eyes: not enough dark energies left to make them glow.

[Darth Paul]

Well, there was this.

Well, no wonder I forgot that one. I'm allergic to alpacas.

[Vinyadan]

I think that the black balloons in the death scene have two reasons. First, for the writing, they make the scene more dramatic, because they make it clear that something is happening to Malak, bad enough to have him suddenly change behaviour and lose all calm. Second, for what concerns the real world, it is normal under heavy stress to revert to your "normal" accent and speech, instead of a more controlled one.

[The Linker]

I think that the black balloons in the death scene have two reasons. First, for the writing, they make the scene more dramatic, because they make it clear that something is happening to Malak, bad enough to have him suddenly change behaviour and lose all calm. Second, for what concerns the real world, it is normal under heavy stress to revert to your "normal" accent and speech, instead of a more controlled one.

I think the thing people are more confused about is why his speech bubbles go back to white just before his death.

[Darth Paul]

I think the thing people are more confused about is why his speech bubbles go back to white just before his death.

Maybe... his voice itself is drying up, turning into dust, and blowing away?

I know... not convincing. Maybe if it looked like THIS, that would have been a good explanation.

[KillingAScarab]

I think the thing people are more confused about is why his speech bubbles go back to white just before his death.

That's what I'm wondering about now, yeah.

Maybe... his voice itself is drying up, turning into dust, and blowing away?

I know... not convincing. Maybe if it looked like THIS, that would have been a good explanation.

If it had been old World of Darkness, he would be losing blood points after all his health levels, which makes you considerably less able to do vampire stuff. But, I don't see any trenchcoats, katanas or Rötschreck on that comic page. I guess the old World of Darkness would only exist in this comic if Julio had stayed on the Mechane too long with Durkon*, learned questionable German and revealed he just happened to have stolen a weapon from the Azurites.

[Jasdoif]

It's interesting to ponder why he'd revert back to his mortal voice (and his normal eyes, I think? Just more fiery? Certainly not vamp-red) right before his death, at the moment of maximum stress.

My theory is that he'd been faking being alive for so very long, that he was doing it by rote. In that whole comic, the only time he used the negative energy speech/eyes was when he was actively going after Nale.

[Peelee]

My theory is that he'd been faking being alive for so very long, that he was doing it by rote. In that whole comic, the only time he used the negative energy speech/eyes was when he was actively going after Nale.

Well, not the only time. Though I support your theory.