OOTS #1048 - The Discussion Thread

[Kantaki]

This being the Lawful Good afterlife, I think that even had Eric technically been the Blood Oath bearer at the time, they'd give the toddler a pass.

I'm pretty sure that outside the evil ones every afterlife give Eric (or someone in a similar situation) a pass. Some very extreme interpretation of Lawful Neutral aside maybe.

[factotum]

Eugene was probably about ten years older than her (I've known wider age gaps) and a PC who rolled terribly on his maximum age check, dying early to mid 70s.

We don't need to figure out how old Eugene was--the birth and (final) death dates on his tombstone (in On the Origin of PCs) were 1102 and 1180, respectively, so he was either 77 or 78 when he died.

[Mightymosy]

She might have had a DNR order, given her views on Eugene's frequent use of the Resurrection spell.

GW

I don't think Sara had a problem with Eugene coming back from the dead so often. I rather think the problem for her was leaving for the dead so often.

[dtilque]

After reconsidering, I'll agree that Sara could have been older than 19 when she met Eugene. But one thing some people may be missing in this discussion is that there was a considerable gap between when she met Eugene and when Roy was born. Around 7 or 8 years, by my estimate. So if they met when she was in her mid 20s (evidence: the image Eugene gives Roy during the school library meeting), then she would have been in her early 30s when Roy was born. That would mean she died in her late 50s.

ETA: I already established Eugene was in his 40s when they met, so there was about a 20 year age gap between them. Some people seem to have the idea there wasn't an age gap. I don't know where they get that idea.

[nleseul]

So if they met when she was in her mid 20s (evidence: the image Eugene gives Roy during the school library meeting)

Just out of curiosity, what visual cues do you see in that image that suggest mid 20s rather than, say, mid 40s?

ETA: I already established Eugene was in his 40s when they met, so there was about a 20 year age gap between them. Some people seem to have the idea there wasn't an age gap. I don't know where they get that idea.

1) The fact that there's no clear visual indication of an age gap whenever they're drawn together.
2) The fact that they died at approximately the same time, and there's no evidence that there was anything unusual about her death.

[DaggerPen]

We don't need to figure out how old Eugene was--the birth and (final) death dates on his tombstone (in On the Origin of PCs) were 1102 and 1180, respectively, so he was either 77 or 78 when he died.

... pfft. You and your math... (But yes, good catch - thank you!)

[8BitNinja]

Stupid nat critfails. As far as I know the only person to benefit from rolling a nat 1 was the legendary paladin Sameo.

I may be an average paladin, but one day, I hope to rise to the skill of Sameo. If I go out in battle, this is how I will

[dtilque]

Just out of curiosity, what visual cues do you see in that image that suggest mid 20s rather than, say, mid 40s?

Well, there's not a lot you can do show intermediate age vs. young adult in the style of this strip. But the earrings and the hair down (as opposed to the bun she has when she's older) I think are meant to be indicators. More specifically, indicators of a young person letting loose and partying. The image I was refering to is in OoPCs, but there's a flashback to their meeting in SoD. She has these features in both images.

BTW, in my last post I said she died in her late 50s. Well it could have been early 60s. Roy was born when she was in her early 30s and she died when he was 27 or 28.

[Ruck]

Just out of curiosity, what visual cues do you see in that image that suggest mid 20s rather than, say, mid 40s?

Looking almost exactly the same* as she does in Celestia, where she is "the nineteen-year-old looker who had never heard the name 'Eugene Greenhilt'," is a pretty big visual cue.

(* the biggest difference is that her midriff is exposed in the flashback.)

[Werbaer]

People trying to figure out how old she was when she died, since she lives in a world with trivial raise dead mechanics/costs. I'm guessing Uncle Myrtok was dead before her, so he wouldn't be casting the spell on a discount.

Her Husband is dead. Her living children are away at the collage. She's a lonely, elderly woman.

In the afterlife, she is the 19-year old she always was in her heart. And one of her childs is there, too.

It doesn't matter what age she was when she died. Why should she want to come back?

[dancrilis]

Her Husband is dead. Her living children are away at the collage. She's a lonely, elderly woman.

Or a particularly young woman with much of her whole life in front of her depending on interpretation.

I am curious to understand how people think she might have died without reaching old age.

I am not sure any non-magical diseases kill people (could be wrong in that - but took a brief look at the rules and seems they don't), so was it a house cat, goblins, bandits? I would think if she had suffered a violent death we would have heard something, died in an accident? well when Eric died in an accident we actually heard of it when he was introduced, suicide after losing her husband and her children were grown up and gone or dead? it would seem unlikely given Julia's age (and from what we know if Sara I don't see it), poison? same problem with disease.

Outside old age it would seem that most other methods of her dieing would have been mentioned by someone somewhere - that time Roy defeated the people that murdered his mother -or looked for them and found nothing - sounds like the kind of thing we might have heard of.

[Rift_Wolf]

We don't need to figure out how old Eugene was--the birth and (final) death dates on his tombstone (in On the Origin of PCs) were 1102 and 1180, respectively, so he was either 77 or 78 when he died.

Rolling 7-8 on 2d20 counts as 'rolling terribly'. But thanks for clarifying; I'll alter my assumptions accordingly.

I am not sure any non-magical diseases kill people (could be wrong in that - but took a brief look at the rules and seems they don't)

I looked at the SRD and counted four that did Con damage; filth fever and slimy doom are non-magical, demon fever and mummy rot are supernatural (and require magical Healing). Diseases don't do their damage once, they keep dealing damage until you're cured or make your fortitude saves. While others might cap out at paralysis or comas, the four I mentioned are commoner-killers.

[Peelee]

Or a particularly young woman with much of her whole life in front of her depending on interpretation.

I am curious to understand how people think she might have died without reaching old age.

I am not sure any non-magical diseases kill people (could be wrong in that - but took a brief look at the rules and seems they don't), so was it a house cat, goblins, bandits? I would think if she had suffered a violent death we would have heard something, died in an accident? well when Eric died in an accident we actually heard of it when he was introduced, suicide after losing her husband and her children were grown up and gone or dead? it would seem unlikely given Julia's age (and from what we know if Sara I don't see it), poison? same problem with disease.

Outside old age it would seem that most other methods of her dieing would have been mentioned by someone somewhere - that time Roy defeated the people that murdered his mother -or looked for them and found nothing - sounds like the kind of thing we might have heard of.

A girl I was friends with back in the day got married, had a baby, and became widowed, all in a few years. Heart attack. She was under 30, and her husband was close in age (I lost contact, so no exact details on the guy). Fit, healthy, nonsmoker, not overweight, no known health problems.

Sometimes life just sucks, man. Sometimes people die early of natural causes.

[dancrilis]

I looked at the SRD and counted four that did Con damage; filth fever and slimy doom are non-magical, demon fever and mummy rot are supernatural (and require magical Healing). Diseases don't do their damage once, they keep dealing damage until you're cured or make your fortitude saves. While others might cap out at paralysis or comas, the four I mentioned are commoner-killers.

I was pretty sure I read somewhere that stats could not be brought to 0 by ability damage from Disease at least (Mummy Rot being an exception), but cannot find the reference.

So what was she upto that she contacted filth fever (was she living in squallor after Eugene died? - or was battling Dire Rats?) or slimy doom (don't really want to think about and the affect that the outbreak of it had on Roy's hometown), either seem like the kind of thing Roy might mention when he met her - 'glad to see you are no longer living in your own excrement mom' or 'sorry I couldn't help you when you dissolved from the inside out into a puddle of slime'.
Maybe she was attacked by a Mummy or a Night Hag - but it seems like the kindof thing that might have been brought up.

A girl I was friends with back in the day got married, had a baby, and became widowed, all in a few years. Heart attack. She was under 30, and her husband was close in age (I lost contact, so no exact details on the guy). Fit, healthy, nonsmoker, not overweight, no known health problems.

Sometimes life just sucks, man. Sometimes people die early of natural causes.

We live in a dark and gritty setting (I have had relatives that have suffered from that myself) - but there is no indication that the OOTS is such a setting.

[GreyTraveller]

We live in a dark and gritty setting (I have had relatives that have suffered from that myself) - but there is no indication that the OOTS is such a setting.

Well, we do know that people in the Stick World can die suddenly of a heart attack, with very little prior warning.

[dancrilis]

Well, we do know that people in the Stick World can die suddenly of a heart attack, with very little prior warning.

Yes but how are Heart Attacks caused?
The Stop Heart spell does it sure - but I am unsure of any other method official way of generating one.

Perhaps the Test of Heart is to ensure that you are not being affected by a magical (or other effect) effect that might cause one to be triggered by the Oracle.

[factotum]

Rolling 7-8 on 2d20 counts as 'rolling terribly'.

More than a third of people will "roll terribly", in that case...

[dancrilis]

More than a third of people will "roll terribly", in that case...

I think you might be mistaking 2d20 for 1d20.

Edit: for 2d20 it is 7% of people will roll 8 or lower.

[DaggerPen]

Well, we do know that people in the Stick World can die suddenly of a heart attack, with very little prior warning.

I do believe we know that people die of disease in the OOTS setting, too :p

[dancrilis]

I do believe we know that people die of disease in the OOTS setting, too :p

Mummy Rot is explicitly fatal (and I made reference to the others above in case my memory of them was wrong), but these diseases are not something that one just catches.

People don't die of cancer in a fantasy world, they die of having the thread of their existence severed by the personifications of Destiny.

Now we have a number of items that we could deal with - we could say that Sara died of old age, which causes no real questions and is purely natural. Or we could assume she didn't which raises questions as to why a personification of Destiny decided to kill her early (or what befell her)

Maybe she lived in her own filth and contracted filth fever - but I don't really see it as likely, perhaps she fought a mummy and died of mummy rot but we have no indication she was an adventurer (maybe the mummy merely killed her directly) - but seems like the kind of thing that would come up in conversation.

While the simpliest answer is not always the correct answer it likely should be the default answer before needing to create fanfiction to justify things.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Mummy Rot is explicitly fatal (and I made reference to the others above in case my memory of them was wrong), but these diseases are not something that one just catches.

I may be wrong, but I suspect DaggerPen was referring to the cirrhosis of the liver disease referenced in the last panel. Which you don't "catch", I suppose, but it is also not a magical disease like mummy rot.

GW

[georgie_leech]

The Giant doesn't seem to be arguing that cancer or the like doesn't happen. In real life, 'old age' isn't a thing that can kill you. Rather, as you get older your organs will begin to fail through cell multiplication errors, even without some disease or similar speeding things along. That doesn't happen in D&D Land though, you just die of 'old age.' So it's not in the least bit inconsistent to say that mortals have intrinsic Best Before dates, but can still die of disease or something early.

[DaggerPen]

I may be wrong, but I suspect DaggerPen was referring to the cirrhosis of the liver disease referenced in the last panel. Which you don't "catch", I suppose, but it is also not a magical disease like mummy rot.

GW

Mostly correct, but I specifically meant "the very fact that Hel takes dwarves who die of disease, but the mentioned alcohol related illnesses don't count and diseases contracted in the line of adventuring may not count means that there are in fact other non-adventuring-type diseases what will kill you in this setting."

[dancrilis]

I may be wrong, but I suspect DaggerPen was referring to the cirrhosis of the liver disease referenced in the last panel. Which you don't "catch", I suppose, but it is also not a magical disease like mummy rot.

GW

It doesn't actual mention cirrhosis - it mentions alchole related illnesses, which Mummy Rot, Filth Fever etc are if you contract them while on the way to the pub or undertaking other drinking related activities (whether the liver is crucial to the fight against disease in OOTS I would have no idea).

[nleseul]

Again, per SRD, "Most people in the world at large die from pestilence, accidents, infections, or violence before getting to venerable age." So normal gritty-reality disease absolutely exists. It doesn't generally affect PCs, either because that doesn't make good epic fantasy storytelling, or because PCs generally have the resources to make it irrelevant.

The question is whether the same applies to family members of PCs.

[dancrilis]

Again, per SRD, "Most people in the world at large die from pestilence, accidents, infections, or violence before getting to venerable age." So normal gritty-reality disease absolutely exists. It doesn't generally affect PCs, either because that doesn't make good epic fantasy storytelling, or because PCs generally have the resources to make it irrelevant.

The question is whether the same applies to family members of PCs.

You know what - fine. For future reference you might be better quoting the area before that line for this discussion 'The maximum ages are for player characters'.

However I still see no reason to assume that 20 year old Sara Greenhilt hooked up with ~50 year old Eugene - but grand there is historical precedent for this, so if that is what people prefer to imagine happened cool, I will continue to think they were roughly the same age.

[Kish]

The Giant doesn't seem to be arguing that cancer or the like doesn't happen. In real life, 'old age' isn't a thing that can kill you. Rather, as you get older your organs will begin to fail through cell multiplication errors, even without some disease or similar speeding things along. That doesn't happen in D&D Land though, you just die of 'old age.' So it's not in the least bit inconsistent to say that mortals have intrinsic Best Before dates, but can still die of disease or something early.

However, disease can be cured by a third-level spell and people who die of it can be raised.

[georgie_leech]

However, disease can be cured by a third-level spell and people who die of it can be raised.

If they want to, yeah. My point was specifically addressed at those using the Giant's words as an argument that something unusual happened to bring about Sara Greenhilt's death. I don't think that follows from what he wrote.

[GreyTraveller]

Yes but how are Heart Attacks caused?
The Stop Heart spell does it sure - but I am unsure of any other method official way of generating one.

Perhaps the Test of Heart is to ensure that you are not being affected by a magical (or other effect) effect that might cause one to be triggered by the Oracle.

Since the Test of the Heart involved checking pulse and blood pressure (the same way a modern doctor would), rather than casting detect magic, it seems more likely that heart attacks can occur for nonmagical reasons as well as magical ones, just as they can in our world. Heck, we even know that coconut oil can be bad for hobgoblins with a family history of heart disease. Similarly, Belkar Assumed It Was a Cholesterol Thing when thinking that steaks would be bad for a vampire's heart.

[dtilque]

I am curious to understand how people think she might have died without reaching old age.

She died of the Vaporizing Flu. Which is why they couldn't Raise Dead.