OOTS #1088 - The Discussion Thread

[137beth]

Is anyone else getting the feeling that they almost know what Durkon's going for, but then the idea reverts to mist-form and slinks off to the sarcophagus?

Has the comic explicitly stated that Darkon is CE (I seem to remember that being the default alignment for a vampire)? Or Hel, for that matter, though I would guess she's NE? I wonder if that might be part of the issues the vampire spirit is having. The experiences that make a LG person aren't going to make a CE as well. Darkon can't learn Durkon's lessons, and the main one he seems to misunderstand are the ones associated with family. Or I'm just rambling and sleep-deprived.

Side-note: I have no idea whether or not Mr. Burlew had it in his mind or not when he was writing, but the way he handles the relationship between the mortal host and the vampire goes a long way towards explaining why Dracula made so many mistakes in his own family history.

HPoH called a (Lawful, presumably) devil, albeit whilst still a thrall, so that points towards him being LE.

[TheBeggarDwarf]

Fair point. I'd forgotten that. He could still be NE, I suppose; I'd accept an argument for either way, based on his behavior.

[Aquillion]

Keep in mind that if Durkon is going to successfully pull something on the vampires, it's not going to be just yet (with Roy and co. nowhere nearby.) So it's more likely that this is just setting things up for later by establishing what the rules of this memory-thing are.

[woweedd]

HPoH called a (Lawful, presumably) devil, albeit whilst still a thrall, so that points towards him being LE.

True but, as you said, he was still a Thrall, so he may have been taking from Malack's Alignment.

[Ruck]

To be fair, he might have remembered it if he wasn't grasping at straw to find a way to stop the vampire due to frustration and fear for his friends, along with him having faith that Thor could help him.

Having a dark spirit parasyting his mind might also not have helped, too. But the memory of said agreement showed up when asked for.

I mean, a lot of things could have happened, but they didn't. Durkon obviously had the memory in there, so he learned it at some point, but he wasn't able to recall the necessary information on his own, which I'd expect someone with good ranks in Knowledge: Religion to do, which is what we were talking about in the first place.

[Snails]

Unfortunately, it seems like the positivity itself doesn't affect the vampire. However, the vampire learns less from positive memories, it seems, because he doesn't understand positive relationships very well. Durkon learned much earlier in the book that the vampire is not guaranteed to learn what Durkon himself learned from his own memories. He's been slowly using that to his advantage.

To throw out a hypothetical example, wet behind the ears vampires like Greg probably have great difficult distinguishing between "this dwarf in Durkon's life is stupid" and "this dwarf is strongly motivated to help family".

[hamishspence]

Vampires, being made of negative energy, are always Evil, but the SRD doesn't specify whether they keep the victim's ethical alignment. The Alignment section of their description says "Always Evil (Any.)" but, on the other hand, their intro says "A vampire uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here." So..It's not really clear i'd personally go with yes, but i'm not sure.

Always CE vampires was a thing in pre-3.5 editions of D&D - but 3.5 removed it. Vampire spawn still retain it though.

[factotum]

True but, as you said, he was still a Thrall, so he may have been taking from Malack's Alignment.

I'm pretty sure thralls don't work that way. They may be compelled to follow the instructions of their sire, but there isn't any other instance I know of in D&D where simply controlling another character makes them change alignment, so I doubt it does that for thralls either.

Also, I don't think there's any guarantee Malack was LE? I had him pegged more as NE.

[woweedd]

I'm pretty sure thralls don't work that way. They may be compelled to follow the instructions of their sire, but there isn't any other instance I know of in D&D where simply controlling another character makes them change alignment, so I doubt it does that for thralls either.

Also, I don't think there's any guarantee Malack was LE? I had him pegged more as NE.

Rich has explicitly pegged him as Lawful:

This is a baffling assertion. Malack had free will. He was an Evil person, in the same way that Redcloak is an Evil person. If he was slavishly loyal to Nergal, that was because he was a cleric, not because he was a vampire. He chose to be devoted to something larger than himself when he could have just rampaged around the continent draining people. Everything he did, every action you saw him take, was his own decision. Nothing about the metaphysics of how vampirism works changes anything. Even in the scenarios you would have preferred, if Nergal gave him a direct order, he still would have been obligated to follow it as a high-level Lawful priest. The end result is all the same. You're inserting your own biases and assumptions, mostly culled from a 20-year-old television show, into the situation.

[chillmynaga]

First Page!

[danielxcutter]

First Page!

'fraid not.

[Nightcanon]

Bards. You have to take Improved Spell Capacity three times, Heighten Spell, and convince the DM that being able to heighten a spell to 9th level with the 9th-level slot means you meet the "can cast 9th-level arcane spells" requirement for the Epic Spellcasting feat.

Knew that stratospheric Cha bonus and points in Bluff and Diplomacy would come in useful somewhere...

[Kardwill]

"Everything's ready", "We need a big room to get all of our work done"...

What have they been up to, apart from killing clerics? I kinda think we won't like the answer.

[Onyavar]

My guess is "this won't be a banquet hall any longer."

Or, it will be a banquet hall soon, again.

But as others have pointed out, Durkon is confronted with an evil spirit that is in the process of subsuming his entire being.

Undurkon has taunted Durkon with "you soon won't be around anymore", several times even, so I guess that is it with vampirism in OotSverse: The vampire gains full strength once it has completely taken control of the bound host-soul. He takes control not automatically after a certain time, but once he has crushed all hope, love and positive emotions of the host. Then, host and vampire merge and become one - something that happened with Malack long ago, the original tribal shaman has long faded away. I guess that the vampire spirit achieves this merging by taunting the host, confronting him with evil acts and dark spots of his past, convincing the host that all hope is lost, and by suppressing positive emotions. How quick will that be? Dunno, but Undurkon's "soon" makes me think this is not a long-term development.

Thus, being confronted with positive memories is strengthening Durkon's bound soul against the psychic assaults of the vampire's spirit. What good that will be, has to be seen. Okay, it would be a big surprise if Durkon can overthrow the vampire completely just because Roy tells him his exile is over. But Undurkon making errors that lead to his demise... I think we can all see that.

Edit:

"Everything's ready", "We need a big room to get all of our work done"...

What have they been up to, apart from killing clerics? I kinda think we won't like the answer.

I guess either this is a plan cooking of which we will see a big reveal later; or the insert point of a bonus strip, or both. My guess is that it is something bloodier than this (or this).

[Spore]

Durkon is great.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the „banquet hall” memory is still some kind of trap, even if it isn't false.

I love trying to predict incredibly detailed eventualities. The banquet hall is close-ish to the ceremony hall. So maybe the ancient hallowing still holds (Hallow spell). So magic circle against evil on the entire premise, turn undead/command undead becomes harder, and other spell described under hallow is permanent in the area, I feel dimensional anchor along with another sealed dwarven gate would delay the vampires. Maybe the way Vampirism works in the world the mental control of Durkon (and the other vampires) can be suppressed and rolled again in the magic circle.

If Durkon has the upper hand, Durkula cannot prepare spells to banish the hallowing. If Durkula has the upper hand, he still has to waste time and spells to dispel the anchor or hallowing. Loosing 6th level spell(s) to undo it with greater dispel magic may give the others a fighting chance as I feel a standard dispel magic won't cut it.

[factotum]

The vampire gains full strength once it has completely taken control of the bound host-soul.

I don't think it's anything to do with the vampire's strength--Durkula is as strong now as he's likely to get, barring a heck of a lot of XP (that level adjustment as a vampire can't be good at his level). It's more to do with absorbing all the knowledge of the imprisoned soul.

[Mikemical]

I hope when this Vampire Arc is over, Durkon will retain his snarkyness.

[Gift Jeraff]

There's a good chance Durkon exceeded the amount of thralls he could have by the time he vampirized this human. Looking back at her first 2 appearances, she's the only vampire who seems disinterested and only cares about feeding. And now in these past few strips she's the only one not to call Durkon "Master" and seems to be the most independent thinker of Durkon's spawns.

[cyberchihuahua]

Holy beer might still hurt him

[GreatWyrmGold]

Dukon, Durkon, Durkon...if you could feed Durkula any lie at all, you'd choose those? Subtlety is truly a lost art.

[KorvinStarmast]

Clearly Haley is the Gangster of Love.

The entire OotS is revealed as the Steve Miller band brought into a D&D world, which may in fact mean the Monster in the Darkness is actually the beast from Hotel California. Belkar stabbed it with his steely knives but couldn't scratch it ...

I like what you did there.

I hope when this Vampire Arc is over, Durkon will retain his snarkyness.

Free Trip.

[goto124]

Free Trip.

Just noticed a typo: "First, spending the cash isn't my only prioity."

I guess changing old strips for small typos isn't too high a priority?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Just noticed a typo: "First, spending the cash isn't my only prioity."

I guess changing old strips for small typos isn't too high a priority?

Changing any on-line strip to fix a small typo is not a priority, new or old. I believe Rich does correct his local copy, so it gets fixed when he publishes them, but seldom does he re-upload a comic with fixes. He is interested in catching these mistakes, though, since he is on record as reading the first few pages of each comic discussion thread to see if any such mistakes are mentioned.

Grey Wolf

[Jasdoif]

Dukon, Durkon, Durkon...if you could feed Durkula any lie at all, you'd choose those? Subtlety is truly a lost art.

The Order would be the target recipient, though. I wouldn't rely on them catching subtlety either

[IndigoFenix]

Pretty sure the undead can't get drunk.

Clearly. After all the dwarves they've been draining, there's no way they'd still be able to stand.

[Anarion]

Interesting list. Especially considering most of those things could happen. Haley might refuse payment if the person she helped was both good and poor (e.g., dirt farmers), Belkar could totally run a public cook off at some point that happens to feed orphans, and Elan has been doing some thoughtful level-up planning as of late.

[LtPowers]

The look Cousin Logann's wife gives him when he brags about his "slacking off" skills, especially.

I believe that's his ma, not his wife. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0962.html


Powers &8^]

[GloatingSwine]

Has the comic explicitly stated that Darkon is CE (I seem to remember that being the default alignment for a vampire)? Or Hel, for that matter, though I would guess she's NE?

LE is quite possible since she's caught in a very bad bet and is working within the rules of it instead of cheating.

[Unoriginal]

Did we ever see the old, rotund dwarf who is sleeping in this strip (and is possibly Durkon's grandfather) speak, in a previous strip?

[Chei]

Did we ever see the old, rotund dwarf who is sleeping in this strip (and is possibly Durkon's grandfather) speak, in a previous strip?

It's almost certainly his grandfather, and no, we haven't.