Goblins XVII: The shocking end of the story arc

[Typewriter]

I'm not super bothered by the gore or the fact that Chief lives inside of literal torture porn hell so much as I am bothered by the way this information is being delivered. The last two pages could easily have been converted down to 1 page. A joke could have even been worked in as well because it's not like every single page has to be a pile of drama, though I suppose the action/drama/comedy tend to be kept separate here.

It feels to me as if the author is trying really hard to convey something truly horrid but she can't do so in any sort of way that gets the message across properly so instead we just have two pages of characters talking about how horrible things are to try and convince us, the 'viewers,' that things are really bad. It sort of reminds me of the end of the game Jade Empire.

Spoiler: Spoilers for Jade Empire

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At the end of the game you discover that the body of a god has been impaled and imprisoned with people leeching power from it (I think, my memory might be slightly off). The imagery is intense but because the situation is a lot more emotionally/spiritually intense and the game needs to convey that you have a character or two that literally just yells things like, "Oh no, they have done this to a god. That's really bad. Because it's a god. And they did this to it!"

It's sort of a violation of "show, don't tell" but not really because I think a good job was already done of showing. We know he's an imprisoned spirit, we can tell he's been through a lot. Maybe a line or two to really convey how bad things are... but why the rest? Why the exposition (how is he sane enough to deliver exposition after years of torture?) Why do we need to take what the audience already knows and then just dig in further? What is even the point of the entire last page? Everything you wanted conveyed was conveyed in the page previous to this one?

[archon_huskie]

Heh, I already pointed that out myself. Even random guard in Brassmoon had a big magic sword, but Kore needs to waste turns casting magic weapon on his axes.

A Random guard in Brassmoon had a +1 longsword sized for medium creatures. Simple magic weapons that only provide a bonus without any other features are quite rare in this universe.

Common magic items have qualifiers like the Racist Axe, which provides a bonus but only against members of your own race. Or the shield of wonder which can turn a battlefield into a chaotic mess of randomness. Or Name's current sword which increases its modifier, but only after Names performs a successful tumble check.

Less common a magic items provide a mundane effect that may or may not be useful. Like Minmax's armor that changes color when he says a color's name. (I'm curious what will happen if he moves away from the primary and secondary colors (like Gold, lemon wine, heather, jade). Or the Anymug which creates any liquid the user wants.

SO in a world with +1 weapons rare, and the shield of wonder given to a lvl 1 character, Kore probably decided that magic weapons=evil and thus avoids them.

[Vinyadan]

I wonder what the rules are for how souls look. Chief still doesn't have his eye, he has his tattoo, but he doesn't have the cuts from Kore.

Also, Chief suffering somehow overlaps with two things: Kore's ime of tortured souls, and Forgath saying that he won't have his soul.

Actually, now that I think about it, Chief didn't need to say that he was suffering. He just could have reacted with terror when he was told that only days had passed, and we would have put the pieces together.

An interesting thing from the updates concerning the animation: how the heads (especially the profile) are drawn. It would be great if such a model were integrated in the comic, I think that the goblin heads right now look realy, really, really weird, especially from 3/4. https://c1.iggcdn.com/indiegogo-medi...t2pbv2zcwt.jpg https://c1.iggcdn.com/indiegogo-medi...c9vihy3amf.jpg

[Gez]

A joke could have even been worked in as well because it's not like every single page has to be a pile of drama, though I suppose the action/drama/comedy tend to be kept separate here.

No-Ears telling his empty arms that he won't let go worked well enough as a joke; at least it made me laugh.

[Draconi Redfir]

An interesting thing from the updates concerning the animation: how the heads (especially the profile) are drawn. It would be great if such a model were integrated in the comic, I think that the goblin heads right now look realy, really, really weird, especially from 3/4. https://c1.iggcdn.com/indiegogo-medi...t2pbv2zcwt.jpg https://c1.iggcdn.com/indiegogo-medi...c9vihy3amf.jpg

i don't think that would benefit the comic very well though. the designs had to be simplified for easier animation, using things like that for the comic though might make everything look very same-y, where everyone uses the same general shape or poses, suffering from "Same-face-sympom" or whatnot. Might even look like the characters are being represented by paper-dolls or something idk.

[Kaptin Keen]

I don't pay anywhere near as much attention to detail as the rest of you, but - is there any actual reason we assume Kore's gear isn't magical?

[deuterio12]

I don't pay anywhere near as much attention to detail as the rest of you, but - is there any actual reason we assume Kore's gear isn't magical?

Because he wastes turns in combat to cast magic weapon on his axe. No need for that if it was already magic.

[Douglas]

Because he wastes turns in combat to cast magic weapon on his axe. No need for that if it was already magic.

I remember him casting Holy Sword, not Magic Weapon. That's powerful enough that even for many magic weapons it would still be an upgrade.

[deuterio12]

I remember him casting Holy Sword, not Magic Weapon. That's powerful enough that even for many magic weapons it would still be an upgrade.

Holy sword was earlier, but current battle kore casted (greater) magic weapon.

However since greater magic weapon grants a bonus equal to 1/4 CL and paladins only get half CL, Kore can only get a +2 from casting GMW unless he's lv24+ (in which case Kore should be fighting godlings, not struggling against single-digit level goblins and a random golem). If Kore's axe was already +1 then that would mean a measly +1 increase from casting GMW, which is hardly an effective use of your action. And as a lv.16+ melee warrior, Kore should have a bag full of +2 weapons from random loot alone.

[Draconi Redfir]

maybe his heavy armor and sheild setup take a lot of cold to construct and maintain.

maybe he just prefers using mundane items

maybe he believes magic weapons may be tainted with evil due to sketchy backgrounds, unless he were to personally make them.

maybe he's saving himself for the axe of prissan.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

i propose a topic change.

who want's to have a "Design your own Klik stat-block" contest?

Uhmmm... What's the LA on "if you eat the wrong thing or something you could devour the world against your will"?

[Draconi Redfir]

Uhmmm... What's the LA on "if you eat the wrong thing or something you could devour the world against your will"?

i'd imagine that "Warped Klik" would be an acquired template that could only be gotten if the Klik failed a saving throw and rolled low on a d100. After that it would probably grow stronger in increments, similar to dragons having statblocks based on age.

[Traab]

In general this world seems fairly low magic when it comes to items. The latest thing being in this very dungeon where there was piles of super strong loot.... then it all exploded as a greed trap and would have wiped out the party if it wasnt for excessive plot armor as it dropped basically everyone to negatives and left them there to die. And destroyed half the items. Its entirely likely that kore refuses to take loot from his kills as he believes everything is tainted by evil and he is too busy hunting down evil to gather up treasure chests and the like.

[deuterio12]

In general this world seems fairly low magic when it comes to items. The latest thing being in this very dungeon where there was piles of super strong loot.... then it all exploded as a greed trap and would have wiped out the party if it wasnt for excessive plot armor as it dropped basically everyone to negatives and left them there to die. And destroyed half the items. Its entirely likely that kore refuses to take loot from his kills as he believes everything is tainted by evil and he is too busy hunting down evil to gather up treasure chests and the like.

The story starts with the goblins themselves guarding a magic +1 sword, the hax shield of wonder and a bunch of other magic stuff including a cup of endless napalm. And only lv.1 adventurers bother going there.

Random rookie guard in the brassmoon barracks is packing another +1 sword. How can a rookie afford one of those if they're supposed to be super rare?

Captain goblinslayer has a collar of no-save domination and uses it only to keep a sex slave.

And when Kin escapes, she instantly finds a magic crossbow just laying around.

The maze of many is literally "go in and then go out packing at least 1 mid-grade magic item, probably more, everybody's a winner!". The local economy should have plenty of magic bling flowing around from that alone.

The axe of prissan has swapped hands countless times but somehow nobody pays much attention to the giant golden glowing axe. That strongly suggests that giant glowing golden axes are just that common that the axe of prissan is a tree hiding in the forest.

Kore himself didn't find it strange at all that the filthy gobs he's been hunting are packing no less than 3 magic weapons between them (at least until getting in touch with the paladin axe).

And Kore was just fine looting the racist axe from a clearly super evil dwarf.

Although in the other hand Kore did not loot Chief's hax splitting spear.



Every proper goblinslayer knows that the best way to hunt gobs is to use their own weapons against them.

[Traab]

The story starts with the goblins themselves guarding a magic +1 sword, the hax shield of wonder and a bunch of other magic stuff including a cup of endless napalm. And only lv.1 adventurers bother going there.

Random rookie guard in the brassmoon barracks is packing another +1 sword. How can a rookie afford one of those if they're supposed to be super rare?

Captain goblinslayer has a collar of no-save domination and uses it only to keep a sex slave.

And when Kin escapes, she instantly finds a magic crossbow just laying around.

The maze of many is literally "go in and then go out packing at least 1 mid-grade magic item, probably more, everybody's a winner!". The local economy should have plenty of magic bling flowing around from that alone.

The axe of prissan has swapped hands countless times but somehow nobody pays much attention to the giant golden glowing axe. That strongly suggests that giant glowing golden axes are just that common that the axe of prissan is a tree hiding in the forest.

Kore himself didn't find it strange at all that the filthy gobs he's been hunting are packing no less than 3 magic weapons between them (at least until getting in touch with the paladin axe).

And Kore was just fine looting the racist axe from a clearly super evil dwarf.

Although in the other hand Kore did not loot Chief's hax splitting spear.



Every proper goblinslayer knows that the best way to hunt gobs is to use their own weapons against them.

A +1 sword, a shield that is at LEAST as much a bane as a blessing, and a joke item meant to provide free water/booze/whatever forgath found a workaround to finally make useful.

Yes, a +1 sword, and its the only magic item anybody but goblinslayer and his partner have in brassmoon.

Do we even know if it would work on anyone not a no class level monster? All we know about it is, iirc, forgath had to level up a couple times to get the spell to safely remove it?

A crossbow so powerful it causes less damage in exchange for not needing to carry extra ammo..... yay?

The axe is the legendary artifact macguffin of the entire campaign. We honestly have no idea what benefit it actually provides. Yes a suit of armor, but we dont know how powerful the axe is as a weapon or how strong the armor is. Iirc we see it get damaged early on so we get to ooh and ahh over how ears can will it to repair itself.


We dont know what kore was thinking beyond "Evil, must kill, rarg"

He didnt loot the axe, he tossed it over the chasm!

So now we have two times where he had the chance to grab magic loot off his enemy and he didnt.

[Draconi Redfir]

The brassmoon guard wasn't just some random rookie either. according to the archives, he was Sergeant Bremick (if you go to the Archive, this page is accessed via the title "Complains of names Vs Sergeant Bremick") (edit: a Soldier also calls out to him in this page)

so one of two things happened. He only has that sword because he's a Sergeant, or he was promoted to Sergeant because he got that sword.

[Morgaln]

A +1 sword, a shield that is at LEAST as much a bane as a blessing, and a joke item meant to provide free water/booze/whatever forgath found a workaround to finally make useful.

Yes, a +1 sword, and its the only magic item anybody but goblinslayer and his partner have in brassmoon.

Do we even know if it would work on anyone not a no class level monster? All we know about it is, iirc, forgath had to level up a couple times to get the spell to safely remove it?

A crossbow so powerful it causes less damage in exchange for not needing to carry extra ammo..... yay?

The axe is the legendary artifact macguffin of the entire campaign. We honestly have no idea what benefit it actually provides. Yes a suit of armor, but we dont know how powerful the axe is as a weapon or how strong the armor is. Iirc we see it get damaged early on so we get to ooh and ahh over how ears can will it to repair itself.


We dont know what kore was thinking beyond "Evil, must kill, rarg"

He didnt loot the axe, he tossed it over the chasm!

So now we have two times where he had the chance to grab magic loot off his enemy and he didnt.

The whole elite guard in Brassmoon was fitted out with magical crossbows. There were so many of them they could create a literal rain of bolts. If a world has enough magical items that you can outfit a whole company of random mooks, that world is not low magic.

[Draconi Redfir]

numbers were really the only thing those crossbows had going for them though. they do -1 damage, are extremely brittle, and take an hour to regrow a limited bolt supply

So effectively "they go further and if you're in very short fights, you'll have ammo", that's about it.


it does say it was made with the same magic that made Goblinslayer and supposedly Sarl Cain, both and/or one of whom may have had a hand in creating those crossbows anyways. So it might be less a case of "Everyone gets dirty water", and more of a case of "Only people we like get our dirty water, and we control where that dirty water comes from"

[deuterio12]

A +1 sword, a shield that is at LEAST as much a bane as a blessing, and a joke item meant to provide free water/booze/whatever forgath found a workaround to finally make useful.

Yes, a +1 sword, and its the only magic item anybody but goblinslayer and his partner have in brassmoon.

Do we even know if it would work on anyone not a no class level monster? All we know about it is, iirc, forgath had to level up a couple times to get the spell to safely remove it?

A crossbow so powerful it causes less damage in exchange for not needing to carry extra ammo..... yay?

The axe is the legendary artifact macguffin of the entire campaign. We honestly have no idea what benefit it actually provides. Yes a suit of armor, but we dont know how powerful the axe is as a weapon or how strong the armor is. Iirc we see it get damaged early on so we get to ooh and ahh over how ears can will it to repair itself.


We dont know what kore was thinking beyond "Evil, must kill, rarg"

He didnt loot the axe, he tossed it over the chasm!

So now we have two times where he had the chance to grab magic loot off his enemy and he didnt.

A joke item? Even ignoring infinite napalm, infinite fresh water or infinite booze of your choice is something people in the real world would pay a lot for. It may be something that keeps a desert city going. Certainly a nice circumstancial bonus for any diplomacy checks. As for the shield, think of it more like a tactical nuke. Equip it on some low level grunt, throw them at the enemy army, watch the fireworks go off from a safe distance.

Did Kin have levels back then? Either way, even with limitations, no-save domination isn't a light effect, and that it demands strong magic to remove is just more evidence it's a pretty strong item itself.

Besides the magic sword, there were mass-produced magic crossbows enough to equip a small army as pointed out. And yes, ammo costs money and has extra weight, so not needing to carry it around is a massive benefit for soldiers. Even in the real world there's been the policy of making bullets smaller so you can carry more of them.

The armor is good enough to allow the low level goblin to tank hits from the high-level dwarf, isn't that enough proof of how good it is? And the axe itself made short work of its previous owner that was also significantly higher level. Then the fact it can phase through its owner is another massive advantage since it means it can be used even if you're grappled (or granting bonus on intimidate checks like when Ears phased it through his head to scare a crowd).

Kore got distracted by a flying glowing goblin, so he's not fully immune to shiny.

Good point in throwing away the racist axe though, was misremembering things. Kore still wants to loot the axe of prissan though.

[Agi Hammerthief]

or maybe you are all overthinking this and it’s simply a story poorly written by an adolescent with issues.

[halfeye]

or maybe you are all overthinking this and it’s simply a story poorly written by an adolescent with issues.

Teenager? I though she is/was married?

[Vinyadan]

My impression is that magic items aren't readily available to the common man, but anyone who does a little bit of adventuring will be submerged by them. There is the "final loot", like in the warcamp, the swamp, and the maze of many (and, I suspect from Grem's inventory, the Well of Darkness). Then there is scavenge loot, like the anymug and the key to the well of darkness. Finally, there are the items taken from defeated enemies, like the crossbows, the magical cloth, and the axe.

And then there is the fact that magic actually has its ways to expand. So, after the thing with the shield, Brassmoon has a talking wall that tells you your future. The Goblinslayer was changed by the same magic that created the crossbows, which allowed him to create magic weapons. Clicks can infuse other creatures with magical powers.

I do think it weird that Kore has no magic items. But it is possible that his crossbows or armour had an unspecified +1 or more. Or he could mistrust magic because IIRC demons created the axe and so could create more, and the thing with the shield suggests that not touching that stuff will make your life longer.

[Draconi Redfir]

or maybe you are all overthinking this and it’s simply a story poorly written by an adolescent with issues.

seriously dude, this is too far. Insulting the author because you have problems with the setting's flipping magic system? Are you twelve?

[Willie the Duck]

With the exception of the Klik's and their potential world-disrupting abilities (which is a glaring flaw, but not one dissimilar to ones which exist in vanilla D&D*), most of the unusual magic effects or items fall in the range of things DMs regularly put in adventures.
*where you have demons who can summon other demons which can summon other demons and why exactly can't one stray demon in the wilderness amass a world-destroying army?

The city with living tree-themed defenses complete with otherwise normal guards having special tree-themed attacks which are technically magic items but don't necessarily give normal magic-item level benefits (and who knows what other limitations, such as maybe needing to stay near the city or else they start to wither) is utterly normal location-based nuance. It makes a world that is superficially 3e-based seem a bit more like a city description from a AD&D or 5e module, where 'and the city guards have magic xbows which grow their own arrows' isn't as much an issue because there's no system in place demanding that such things must have player-facing rules or that all items must fit into the WBL mechanic or the like.

A magic item that grants infinite normal fluids is also pretty normal D&D fare. There even already exists one -- the decanter of endless water. This one is just a little more useful -- particularly to an inventive player who can think outside the box and come up with novel uses for otherwise benign items. That's not only not unusual, it's often been encouraged.

Overall, the only part that really seems all that out of place in a D&D inspired world is Kore's lack of magic items. Of course, we don't actually know that he doesn't have any (just that he doesn't have any with specified distinctive effects). Beyond that, he clearly has a different set of aesthetics, and I for one think that needs to be taken into account at least for whether he has magic items that need be worth mentioning (as opposed to just having items +1 or 2 for everything). He already has his whole paladin who can be evil but still be a paladin schtick, which is one main feature. He also has the whole capturing the souls of those he slays, which is another. And he has the ridiculously armored dwarven warrior with a miniscule eye-slit, metal under his boot leather, a tower shield on friggin' wheels, handaxes on chains, and automatic-self-reloading-and-recocking (but apparently not magical, which I'll forgive under 'rule of cool'). If he also had a suite of awesome magic items, each with their own IME effects, and requiring a page of exposition to explain... well honestly that would detract from the comic, not add to it. It would be nice if it were mentioned in some exposition page that he was all about the simple +1 armor, +1 shield, +1 weapons, item of +2 Str, etc. etc. etc. to explain away not seeing any special items, but the end result is the same.

Edit: And yes, calling the author an adolescent is not a positive direction for the conversation.

[Morgaln]

I don't think anyone is saying that it's not a normal D&D world. We're just saying it's not a world low on magic items.

It's very likely that none of Kore's items are magical, because none of them show an IME. That is unusual for at least magic weapons in that world, so I would assume his weapons aren't magical at all.

I took the adolescent thing as referring to the fact that Ellipsis wrote the story long before the webcomic started, so possibly as a teenager.Therefore I didn't understand it as an insult, but I can see where you would interpret it differently.

[deuterio12]

I don't think anyone is saying that it's not a normal D&D world. We're just saying it's not a world low on magic items.

Yeah, somebody said that it's "low magic world" but there's actually plenty of magic bling all around.

[Draconi Redfir]

I love to think of it as "Low magic, but what magic is around is quite powerful"

suppose it's up to opinion though.

[John Cribati]

I see it more as high magic but with a steep accessibility curve.

Like, all this obnoxiously powerful magic crap exists, but few people who start to take class levels get far enough past level 1 to obtain it because they end up party wiping to dungeon gimmicks like mind control moss or Mr. Fingers.

[deuterio12]

I see it more as high magic but with a steep accessibility curve.

Like, all this obnoxiously powerful magic crap exists, but few people who start to take class levels get far enough past level 1 to obtain it because they end up party wiping to dungeon gimmicks like mind control moss or Mr. Fingers.

Precisely, the adventurers that survive and walk out of the dungeon will always be loaded with new magic bling.

So if you're an adventurer who's still walking and breathing, you should have a nice set of magic items.

The dead are dead, they don't get to lower the statistics because they're not around anymore. If you're a living adventurer, you'll have collected plenty of magic bling along the way.

Meanwhile Brassmoon still could afford to equip most of their grunts with magic weapons.

And again, the maze of many allows anybody to save-load scum until they walk out with their own magic bling (unless some random psion psycho gets there but that's the exception rather than the rule).

[Lvl 2 Expert]

You know, I want to see Kore go into the Maze of Many. And then he comes out with a bunch of his own heads chained to his IME.

In fact, I want to see what it's like in there for him. I bet there are Kore's that became barbarians, and wizards, and rogues, and even blacksmiths, but every last one of them is super self-righteous. "I am the second child of brassmoon's finest baker, I can not be beaten in a pie eating contest by a simple dungeon gimmick!"