OOTS #1114 - The Discussion Thread

[2D8HP]

I can't tell which is cuter Elan or Kudzu (such a well behaved baby)!

It's weird, but in real-life Pollyanna-ish brightsiders get on my nerves and tick me off, but Elan charms me, maybe because he was the one who realized that the "happy ending" was false?

[Shining Wrath]

"Breathing in all that smoke would have been terrible for Kudzu's developing lungs"

Proper priorities!

Am I alone in finding this utterly heartwarming?

I don't know if I'd call it heartwarming, but it was motherly. Mother love for children crosses all alignment boundaries, so far as I can tell.

The acid damage is not *that* impressive, some minor acid resistance item would do most of the trick. The paralysis looks to be the bigger issue to bypass, but then I'm not thinking the jockeys can do *much* to affect the oozes speed.

As presented RAW you can breathe as well? Grapples don't stop you breathing and the rules for Gelatinous Cubes don't call out suffocation... man this game...

Why have jockeys at all if they have no effect on the cubes? Now I can easily see Xykon having jockeys because he'd enjoy watching the corpses dissolve, but I don't think the dwarves are CE.

Arms and Equipment Guide in 3.0 had an item for this, it creates an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere for the cube rider.

Amulet of Ooze Riding, pg 85

The ooze and the sphere are both air-permeable so no chance of suffocation

I actually had a gelatinous cube riding cavalry in a campaign. Sure it's slow but good luck surviving that in the Underdark.

This is excellent, and I may have to steal it. Party trapped in dungeon maze of 10' by 10' corridors, and suddenly - cube riders! From all directions! BEWARE THE CUBE CAVALRY!

Probably by bribing and/or threatening various participants, I'd imagine.Those are the standard approaches. But the comic doesn't say, nor does it need to.

Grey Wolf

Or Haste and Slow. I concede in advance you probably have to bribe someone to get access to the racing cubes, but maybe she used charm of the non-magical sort.

[The_Weirdo]

Replace "anyone who's not a Vulcan" with "anyone who is a monster" and you'll be right, Weirdo.

I said it before and I'll say it again:
Guilt by association is the worst.

Look, I'm not claiming she'd be in the right to murder innocents along (though I would and did frequently claim the guilt would pass over to the clans). I'm claiming someone with a grudge against at least most of the power structure of a clan would need to be very cool-minded in order to discriminate guilty and innocent in that scenario. Doubly so for merely talking about the action in a rather nonchalant way, instead of going through with it.

[Lord Joeltion]

Is it me, or when she got back with Ivan her belly was already swallen? It looks swollen for me, but perspective is tricky. How long did it take her to go back home, anyway? Do you people think she needed to mourn Durkon for a little while or she simply took the long road?

Technically possible, but unlikely IMO. Hilgya did say it was time to "settle things with [her] family once and for all". As for the referent of "their", sure, it can be read that way, but it is inherently ambiguous - personally I read it as referring to the Firehelms, and I see no difficulty in the idea that it's "their" clan hall and not "our" clan hall because she doesn't have anything to do with it personally anymore.

My interpretation of her "logic" is that setting the other clan's homestead on fire serves basically the same purpose: to fabricate a reason for them to agree to the divorce. Be it because the Firehelm are some crazy pyromaniacs; or because the Firehelm had lost all their fortune and respect. On the other hand, burning her own homestead would only serve as a revenge; but Ivan's family wouldn't find a compelling reason for divorce, specially if the Firehelms try to cover up the issue by alleging some domestic accident.

So I think while revenge was her cause, her main objective was to set her (and possibly Ivan) free from the marriage. Revenge on her family was probably seen as a nice extra. Additionally, we now have more reasons to believe it was the Firehelms the only ones who enforced her marriage directly; and Ivan clan's probably did it for convenience and weren't necessarily involved in the crossbow & padlock issue. Even if they probably knew about it, even a person like Hilgya would find more reason to blame her family than the groom's.

[Sky_Schemer]

Probably by bribing and/or threatening various participants, I'd imagine.Those are the standard approaches. But the comic doesn't say, nor does it need to.

I wasn't sure if there was a hint in there or not, but now that my morning brain fog has lifted, I can see more clearly that "but it had its own benefits" was probably just meant to imply that "it was a hard problem, and solving it made her rich".

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Hilgya sure seems to straddle the line between CN and CE. Bankrupting her entire clan seems dishonorable, but it was the only way to get out of the marriage without killing anyone.

Well, we don't know that bankruptcy and arson were the only possible approaches, just that they were the only two she came up with. But more importantly, her objection to arson is not "people would have been killed", it is "my baby might be hurt". She clearly cares not one bit about the lives of anyone other than herself and Kudzu. As far as I can tell, she did not end up picking bankruptcy and personal enrichment because it was less morally problematic than arson, she did it because it was more convenient.

(I'm also not convinced that her arson plan involved murder, FWIW - if the idea was to bankrupt one of the two families so the divorce wouldn't be disputed, then she didn't need to kill anyone in the process either way).

ETA:

Is it me, or when she got back with Ivan her belly was already swallen? It looks swollen for me, but perspective is tricky. How long did it take her to go back home, anyway? Do you people think she needed to mourn Durkon for a little while or she simply took the long road?

I don't know if I see a belly or not, but if she took a couple of months to realise she was pregnant, and another couple of months to get back to dwarven lands from Dorukan's dungeon area, then she would be showing a little at that point.

Grey Wolf

[Jasder]

Hilgya sure seems to straddle the line between CN and CE. Bankrupting her entire clan seems dishonorable, but it was the only way to get out of the marriage without killing anyone. Also, Loki is dishonorable, so perhaps she was just honoring the god she had chosen to follow. Yet she feels bad about stabbing Elan and hurting Durkon, and even (eventually) realized that Ivan wasn't the one who trapped her in a forced, arranged marriage (though assigning his make-the-best-of-it disposition to an undiagnosed brain injury was a bit over the top in her lack of self awareness -- he could have just been being an honorable husband, while as sad as Durkon on the inside).

I guess she could be evil in the "evil in a self-interested way" sense instead of the "doing it for the evulz" sense, but we just saw the poster boy for "affably evil" with Tarquin. Also, Hilgya joining Loki is more of saying "F.U." to the honor system than actively choosing evil (and Loki has seemed far more chaotic & deceptive, while not really overtly evil, in the strip -- the Cleric of Loki in Greysky City didn't seem like a particularly bad dude either, except maybe for murdering Old Blind Pete, but even he said he had never done that before). Hilgya's evil acts seem to be out of necessity for pursuing a particular cause.

Or just the obvious... Durkon is using LG means to uphold and honor a bad, unfair system, while Hilgya is using CE means to try to overthrow it.

I may be wrong, but you seem to be treating being dishonourable as being the same as evil, while I see it as indicative only of being Chaotic. I also don't know if we have any evidence Loki is evil in this world, I know he often is portrayed as evil, but the OOTS version just seems Chaotic, not malicious. Maybe I've missed something, but I'm not surprised Loki's Clerics seem alright, if not good, willing to murder, if not gleeful about it like Belkar.

Looking at Hilgya specifically, she is clearly very different from the likes of Thog or Belkar, who clearly enjoy killing, and more like the Greysky Cleric, who doesn't mind killing, and whom I also reckon is Chaotic Neutral.

[Fyraltari]

she feels bad about [..] hurting Durkon

Since when?

I guess she could be evil in the "evil in a self-interested way" sense instead of the "doing it for the evulz" sense, but we just saw the poster boy for "affably evil" with Tarquin. Also, Hilgya joining Loki is more of saying "F.U." to the honor system than actively choosing evil (and Loki has seemed far more chaotic & deceptive, while not really overtly evil, in the strip -- the Cleric of Loki in Greysky City didn't seem like a particularly bad dude either, except maybe for murdering Old Blind Pete, but even he said he had never done that before). Hilgya's evil acts seem to be out of necessity for pursuing a particular cause.

Tarquin's niceness looks to me more like a disguise than anything.
The only villain* of the comic that appears both evil and genuinely nice to me is Samantha's father. And maybe Malack. The others are either scornful or out to hurt the most people they can.

Or Haste and Slow. I concede in advance you probably have to bribe someone to get access to the racing cubes, but maybe she used charm of the non-magical sort.

She says it had its own rewards. So she enjoyed it in some way?

*Not counting Hilgya as a villain yet. On thefence vis-à-vis Therkla.

[The_Weirdo]

She says it had its own rewards.

Money, dear boy.

[Oerlaf]

Isn't Dream a bard, sorcerer and wizard only spell? Was it printed in some domain outside core rules? There are no in the core rules.

[The_Weirdo]

Isn't Dream a bard, sorcerer and wizard only spell? Was it printed in some domain outside core rules? There are no in the core rules.

She could have hired a caster, used a scroll...

[Fyraltari]

Is it me, or when she got back with Ivan her belly was already swallen? It looks swollen for me, but perspective is tricky. How long did it take her to go back home, anyway? Do you people think she needed to mourn Durkon for a little while or she simply took the long road?

The Dwarven Lands are pretty far up north and she had no fast method of transportation (that we know of). Itmight simply have taken her that long to get home.

(I'm also not convinced that her arson plan involved murder, FWIW - if the idea was to bankrupt one of the two families so the divorce wouldn't be disputed, then she didn't need to kill anyone in the process either way).

I don't think setting fire to the clan hall would bankrupt the Firehelms. It wouldn't destroy their gold nor (presumably) their source of income. I wouldn't expect Bill gates to go bankrupt if someone set his house on fire (I would expect him to die though, especially if he lived ina place withoiut dedicated first responders).

My interpretation of her "logic" is that setting the other clan's homestead on fire serves basically the same purpose: to fabricate a reason for them to agree to the divorce. Be it because the Firehelm are some crazy pyromaniacs; or because the Firehelm had lost all their fortune and respect. On the other hand, burning her own homestead would only serve as a revenge; but Ivan's family wouldn't find a compelling reason for divorce, specially if the Firehelms try to cover up the issue by alleging some domestic accident.

But if she attacked Ivan's family without being known (presumably shewould go to prison and she doesn't want that) then what would stop the Firehelms from marrying her off again, to some other clans?

The death of her family would possibly mean that Ivan's would be disinterested in the alliance still and wouldn't object to the divorce.

Additionally, we now have more reasons to believe it was the Firehelms the only ones who enforced her marriage directly

You mean apart from seeing someone in her faily colors threaten her? (It may even be the leftmost broter, come to think of it).

[Jasdoif]

Tarquin's niceness looks to me more like a disguise than anything.

To an extent.

You reveal who you really are under stress—stress doesn't magically turn you into someone else unrelated to who you usually are. The fact that you may not have ever known that this is who you were doesn't change anything.

I don't think Tarquin sat around thinking, "Ha ha! I am fooling them into thinking I love my family! I am so clever!" I think he thought that he really loved his family, right up until the point where loving his family conflicted with him being in total control. And then both he and the readers got to see which one of the two really mattered to him.

In other words, when I use the word "facade," I am not referring to a conscious artifice on Tarquin's part. I am referring to the idea that the true core of his being is hidden—possibly even from himself—until the crucible of the story burns it out of him. This is why it was in conflict with comments on this thread about people in real life who segregate their evil actions from the love of family—because in real life, there's no guarantee that such a crucible moment will ever occur.

[Kish]

Look, I'm not claiming she'd be in the right to murder innocents along (though I would and did frequently claim the guilt would pass over to the clans). I'm claiming someone with a grudge against at least most of the power structure of a clan would need to be very cool-minded in order to discriminate guilty and innocent in that scenario. Doubly so for merely talking about the action in a rather nonchalant way, instead of going through with it.

Oh, you're revising your statement then? I'm not. Anyone who "takes revenge on" the innocent is entirely and unambiguously in the wrong, is a terrible person, and needs to be stopped. No qualifier you propose--not "a Vulcan," not "very cool-minded," not anything less than "not a terrible person"--is accurate.

[Nymrod]

On how Hilgya can rig the race.

We now she has the Fire domain from Loki, I presume her second domain is Trickery which means she has access to invisibility.

Cast Invisibility and resist energy (acid) on a hunch of meat, throw parts of it on the edge of the cubes. The objects stay invisible if the spell was cast directly on them, the acid resistance prevents the cube from digesting it yet the cube constantly feels organic objects off-center and will keep moving to that direction trying to engulf it making it very hard for the rider to direct it.

[Fyraltari]

Money, dear boy.

Oh right. Didn't notice her there.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if it turned out that the guy she hired to cast Dream was Thirden?

[The_Weirdo]

Oh, you're revising your statement then? I'm not. Anyone who "takes revenge on" the innocent is entirely and unambiguously in the wrong, is a terrible person, and needs to be stopped. No qualifier you propose--not "a Vulcan," not "very cool-minded," not anything less than "not a terrible person"--is accurate.

Well, since Hilgya didn't (and, instead, merely discussed the idea somewhat coolly), she's obviously not a terrible person.

Now, whether or not I am is up for debate, but I think I might need to set up a thread on that...

Wouldn't it be hilarious if it turned out that the guy she hired to cast Dream was Thirden?

Yes, but I don't think we'll see that...

[Doug Lampert]

My interpretation of her "logic" is that setting the other clan's homestead on fire serves basically the same purpose: to fabricate a reason for them to agree to the divorce. Be it because the Firehelm are some crazy pyromaniacs; or because the Firehelm had lost all their fortune and respect. On the other hand, burning her own homestead would only serve as a revenge; but Ivan's family wouldn't find a compelling reason for divorce, specially if the Firehelms try to cover up the issue by alleging some domestic accident.

So I think while revenge was her cause, her main objective was to set her (and possibly Ivan) free from the marriage. Revenge on her family was probably seen as a nice extra. Additionally, we now have more reasons to believe it was the Firehelms the only ones who enforced her marriage directly; and Ivan clan's probably did it for convenience and weren't necessarily involved in the crossbow & padlock issue. Even if they probably knew about it, even a person like Hilgya would find more reason to blame her family than the groom's.

Alright, the dwarves are partly based on Norse culture, hence the Norse gods. It happens that burning down someone's clan hall is something that happens in several Norse sagas.

EVERY TIME that I've encountered it, it is a way to MURDER the entire clan. Men, women, and children. Everyone is in the clan-hall at night, and there's only one exit, which is where you start the fire and guard once you've got the fire going to make sure no one gets out.

Rich may intend that the "burn the clan hall down" isn't necessarily a plot to kill anyone, but that interpretation would never have occurred to me prior to reading this thread. As a Norse saga reference, it's a clear, KILL THEM ALL WITH FIRE! And I don't know of any "burn the clan hall down" reference that isn't a Norse saga and the Norse sagas sure look appropriate for much of dwarven culture and religion.

I think assuming she's not discussing murdering everyone with that plot is very definitely giving her the benefit of the doubt.

[KorvinStarmast]

Arms and Equipment Guide in 3.0 had an item for this, it creates an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere for the cube rider. Amulet of Ooze Riding, pg 85 The ooze and the sphere are both air-permeable so no chance of suffocation

That explains the hilarious panel with the day at the races.

Well, at least she didn't actually try to murder anyone this time?

There's more profit in fixing a race than in murder.

The innocents can take it up with the rest of the clan. Hilgya had to buy her freedom.

Agency? Morality? *eyeroll* at least your story is consistent.

I have to wonder how one recruits a jockey for a gelatinous cube race - or outfits one. It seems difficult.

my guess is "cash" but with dwarves, one isn't sure.

I don't know if I'd call it heartwarming, but it was motherly. Mother love for children crosses all alignment boundaries, so far as I can tell.

But it won't keep someone from being evil.

It happens that burning down someone's clan hall is something that happens in several Norse sagas.

EVERY TIME that I've encountered it, it is a way to MURDER the entire clan. Men, women, and children. Everyone is in the clan-hall at night, and there's only one exit, which is where you start the fire and guard once you've got the fire going to make sure no one gets out.

It was used explicitly for this in an episode of The Last Kingdom. (A decent series)

[The_Weirdo]

I think assuming she's not discussing murdering everyone with that plot is very definitely giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Oh, she totally was. But she didn't go through with it. Considering an Evil act doesn't make you Evil.

[Shining Wrath]

Well, we don't know that bankruptcy and arson were the only possible approaches, just that they were the only two she came up with. But more importantly, her objection to arson is not "people would have been killed", it is "my baby might be hurt". She clearly cares not one bit about the lives of anyone other than herself and Kudzu. As far as I can tell, she did not end up picking bankruptcy and personal enrichment because it was less morally problematic than arson, she did it because it was more convenient.

(I'm also not convinced that her arson plan involved murder, FWIW - if the idea was to bankrupt one of the two families so the divorce wouldn't be disputed, then she didn't need to kill anyone in the process either way).

ETA:
I don't know if I see a belly or not, but if she took a couple of months to realise she was pregnant, and another couple of months to get back to dwarven lands from Dorukan's dungeon area, then she would be showing a little at that point.

Grey Wolf

Point of order: we don't know that dwarves have 9 month gestation.

We also don't know how devastating bankruptcy is to dwarves, other than that they feared being caveless. Suicide due to financial troubles is not unknown, as is suicide for perceived loss of honor. If Hilgya knows that deceiving her brother will result in his suicide, or may, that's not morally neutral.

[Kish]

Well, since Hilgya didn't (and, instead, merely discussed the idea somewhat coolly), she's obviously not a terrible person.

Now, whether or not I am is up for debate, but I think I might need to set up a thread on that...

You keep acting like someone else is bringing up your preoccupation with all the atrocities Hilgya would have been oh-so-justified to commit. If you don't want to discuss Hilgya's supposed justifications for entirely hypothetical atrocities, you should look into this newfangled technique called not bringing it up.

(And no, she's not "obviously not a terrible person"--she's just "not proven a terrible person," which is what I already said.)

[Sky_Schemer]

Isn't Dream a bard, sorcerer and wizard only spell? Was it printed in some domain outside core rules? There are no in the core rules.

Or she paid for someone to cast it for her:

You, or a messenger touched by you, sends a phantasmal message to others in the form of a dream.

[The_Weirdo]

Agency? Morality? *eyeroll* at least your story is consistent.

Yes, yes, her poor clan. I don't know how they'll deal with it. Given the pattern, maybe they'll force the remaining women into prostitution? Sheesh! Hilgya had a right to be free, she came up with a nonlethal way to make it so and her clan deserved it.

We also don't know how devastating bankruptcy is to dwarves, other than that they feared being caveless. Suicide due to financial troubles is not unknown, as is suicide for perceived loss of honor. If Hilgya knows that deceiving her brother will result in his suicide, or may, that's not morally neutral.

Oh, so now agency doesn't count? She didn't Charm him into killing himself. Regardless, odds are we aren't gonna see her discussing her brother's failed attempt to fly in the next strip.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I really liked this strip! It’s good to get a pretty clear showing that Ivan was not responsible for Hilgya’s predicament, and that she was wrong for trying to kill him. I also like the ingenuity Hilgya shows with her plans. As for alignment—bankrupting an entire clan is pretty cruel, and might hurt some innocents, but it does seem like the clan is largely responsible for her predicament, so on the whole not enough to call her CE. The alternate plan*, on the other hand, being only rejected for its potential damage to Kudzu, seems more towards the deep end of the alignment pool.

Other highlights are Elan, as always, and the reference to Jones & Rodriguez.

*which, by the way, does seem pretty ambiguous in terms of which clan hall. I read it Grey Wolf’s way, but I think it could be more clear, although either works to fulfill Hilgya’s plan

[KorvinStarmast]

Yes, yes, her poor clan. I don't know how they'll deal with it.

You treat the clan as though there can be no innocents in it, whereas the likely agency in re the arranged marriage were the clan elders. Everyone in the clan who is her age and younger by The_Weirdo logic must be punished even if innocent of that agency, or even having no agency. Your position is right in line with Chivington's. As others have pointed out, your position (while consistent) isn't anywhere close to the moral high ground: it's closer to Sand Creek.

[Lord Joeltion]

But if she attacked Ivan's family without being known (presumably shewould go to prison and she doesn't want that) then what would stop the Firehelms from marrying her off again, to some other clans?

The death of her family would possibly mean that Ivan's would be disinterested in the alliance still and wouldn't object to the divorce.

You misquote Grey Wolf for me. What can I say except how honored I feel (?). I was telling why I think her initial plan was setting fire to the other family house (my interpretation of her words was akin to Grey Wolf's). In my interpretation both match because it was a solution that at least serves a similar purpose than the one actually implemented. It had several flaws though. What you added would be another reason why setting the groom's family on fire was discarded. Once she thought it through enough, it would only be a momentary solution to a greater issue; plus, pneumonia is no joke.

You mean apart from seeing someone in her faily colors threaten her? (It may even be the leftmost broter, come to think of it).

The involvement of Ivan's clan in the forced marriage was disputed until this day. I don't believe we have clear confirmation of their "innocence" though. Even if the family was holding the trigger and holding the keys in a safe; the groom's family involvement could range from "unwitting facilitators" to "accomplices of the deed" (I'm not good with legal terms).

[The_Weirdo]

As for alignment—bankrupting an entire clan is pretty cruel, and might hurt some innocents, but it does seem like the clan is largely responsible for her predicament, so on the whole not enough to call her CE.

She had a right to her freedom. Bankrupting her clan (which was responsible for her situation, as you pointed out) was a means to obtain said freedom. Nearly anyone would do it. It's a very Neutral action.

You treat the clan as though there can be no innocents in it, whereas the likely agency in re the arranged marriage were the clan elders. Everyone in the clan who is her age and younger by The_Weirdo logic must be punished even if innocent of that agency, or even having no agency. Your position is right in line with Chivington's. As others have pointed out, your position (while consistent) isn't anywhere close to the moral high ground: it's closer to Sand Creek.

Absent from all that moral exposition is a response to the question why should her clan's well-being be her problem?

She had a right to freedom. Bankrupting the clan was a means to attain the fulfillment of that right.

[zimmerwald1915]

Nearly anyone would do it.

You keep claiming this, with nothing to back it up but your say-so. In fact, we know from history and can infer from the text that Hilgya's chosen course of action was very much the exception, not the rule. Most people, when faced between bearing some oppression and pursuing their rights, will actually choose the path of least resistance. It takes exceptional circumstances to get the opposite response.

Appeals to popularity are bad enough when they're right.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Additionally, we now have more reasons to believe it was the Firehelms the only ones who enforced her marriage directly

You mean apart from seeing someone in her faily colors threaten her? (It may even be the leftmost broter, come to think of it).

I never said that - please fix that quote at once.

GW