OOTS #1146 - The Discussion Thread

[Fyraltari]

:"Sending! We need ta talk, alone. Imp'rtant cleric business. Fate o' tha world and Tha Dark One at stake. Where do we meet?"

PS: Pinkie swear it's not a trap.

[Mandor]

Clearly, there's an obscure rule that allows a Dwarf to challenge any vote of the council with a Drinking Contest, and the challenger may name the libation of choice.
Durkon will choose Holy Water.

[Fish]

Whatever Thor has in mind, it doesn't have to be some powerful spell, an ancient weapon, or anything else like that. It could be an obscure parliamentary procedure at the meeting, or a weird bylaw that's still on the books but which nobody remembers.

It could also be something about Durkon's mother or the mission she was on — she's been disabled for fifty years, so anything that happened prior to that might be forgotten by most of the dwarven people.

Clearly, there's an obscure rule that allows a Dwarf to challenge any vote of the council with a Drinking Contest, and the challenger may name the libation of choice.
Durkon will choose Holy Water.

I love this idea. We've known for a long time that the dwarves have had a thing about a) drinking and b) trees. The latter makes wooden stakes hard to come by, but the thing about drinking could mean the high council brews beer using holy water. Maybe there's a ceremonial toast that begins the meeting or something. (Although it's unlikely the dwarves would forget a ritual where they get to drink beer.)

[Reboot]

Whatever Thor has in mind, it doesn't have to be some powerful spell, an ancient weapon, or anything else like that. It could be an obscure parliamentary procedure at the meeting, or a weird bylaw that's still on the books but which nobody remembers.

Maybe, but Durkon absolutely needs a new weapon - since Durkula never held his hammer, it's probably buried under pyramid rubble - and it's unlikely that +5 hammers are just lying around.

I love this idea. We've known for a long time that the dwarves have had a thing about a) drinking and b) trees. The latter makes wooden stakes hard to come by, but the thing about drinking could mean the high council brews beer using holy water. Maybe there's a ceremonial toast that begins the meeting or something. (Although it's unlikely the dwarves would forget a ritual where they get to drink beer.)

Well, Holy Ale is absolutely a thing.

[Peelee]

I'd say the Vector Legion solidified power by manipulating others into being expendable figureheads while staying out of the public eye so they can play rulers off each other. A pretty brilliant plot, but nothing that ties it to an objectively narrative world. We just got Tarquin's perspective of the story, but he has Narrative Insanity^tm and so framed it as such. When we see Miron and Laurin's interactions with him in 921 (Pixie, can't link) it's clear that the "objective rule of drama" is something that Tarquin believes and everyone else tolerates.

To be fair, I'm not gonna fault you for not knowing this. But yeah:

There's certainly been no evidence presented in the comic that Tarquin has even a passing understanding of valid military strategy, or political strategy, or personal relationships. What he understands are stories, and it just so happens that he was born into a world where that actually can help you win

[Angelalex242]

I think he probably told him about an ancient dwarven cache of gear. Even in Tolkien it's a thing...gear made thousands of years ago is far superior to anything made recently. I wouldn't be surprise if there's a +5 holy Warhammer of disruption waiting for him down there.

[Psychronia]

Chekov? T'was a divine revelation.

Also, huzzah! Banjo is vindicated! You know, if Thor and Odin make him an offer now, he could totally join their pantheon.

No, wait. Nevermind. Better to bank on him becoming a god on his own so they can have a 5th (6th?) color to work with if luck allows.

Clearly, there's an obscure rule that allows a Dwarf to challenge any vote of the council with a Drinking Contest, and the challenger may name the libation of choice.
Durkon will choose Holy Water.

You know what? That sounds dope. Holy Water honestly sounds kinda unhealthy for even normal people, but I'm sure Durkon's liver can take one for the team.

[Clistenes]

Well I would imagine the western gods are mostly evil and some of the northern gods are evil so... yeah. And if you put demon lords and stuff into the mix, well, you get the point.

Well, if they are divided evenly, there should be 4 good deities, 4 neutral deities and 4 evil deities in the Southern Panteon.

Few among the Northen pantheon looked evil... Loki (but not too evil), Hel, Fenrir, Surtur and Thrym... but if we add the ones who looked neutral (Mani, Sunna, Tyr, Njord, Skadi, Hoder, Vafthrudnir, Iounn, Bragi, Dvalin...) they outnumber the ones I think good (Odin, Thor, Balder, Frigga, Freyr, Freya, Sif, Heimdall, Sigrun and Hermod...). Of course, we know very little about most gods...

We know little about the Western pantheon, but most real-world ancient Mesopotamic deities would be neutral at best, according to our modern morals... again, I can't be more thorough due to forum rules...

[Rrmcklin]

Odin didn't say most gods were Evil, he said most gods weren't Good.

I don't find that particularly surprising, and the exact ratio doesn't actually matter to the point. We don't know enough about any of the pantheons to say that any of them are primarily of any alignment.

[Tarthalion]

Durkon left his hammer and shield behind in the pyramid, I believe. He needs replacements and, in any case, is due for an upgrade.

Thor's little secret may not be weaponry - maybe he will just be furnished with some nice gear by grateful dwarves after they have eliminated the vampire threat - but if it is then my guess is that "your people" is Durkon's line specifically, not dwarves in general, and that the little secret is a shield from which he got the Thundershield surname. Something with a sonic shield built in, because no one ever protects themselves against sonic damage.

[The MunchKING]

My assumption is that gods can fight other gods in the the same pantheon somewhat freely, because they have the same quiddity.

My assumption was it depends on whether they are smacking people with Godly Hammers or actually pulling on the threads of reality, since that was what was described as making the snarl, and ordinary fighting wasn't.

Of course the problem is for MOST Gods you an't trust them to not start trying to pull Reality Strings if they are losing, so "No conflict" was easier to institute.

[Tiltowait]

Well, there are a number of possibilities I can think of for what the secret could be:
(...)
Golems. Mentioned above. Golems are good.

Maybe the statue of Thor is a golem if you know the codeword to activate it.

[SaintRidley]

Since Roy already got the super cool weapon of legacy type deal, I'm more inclined to think something along the lines of a dwarf-specific cleric prestige class. Maybe some old spell.

[slowpokerface]

"So remember, it's called Divine Metamagic."

"Aye."

"And then you take these things called nightsticks..."

[Anansiil]

Gotta love that that sarcasm from Thor... he really doesn't do much for his followers lol.

[Ruck]

Most plausible of what I've heard I think is the idea that it's some fancy equipment, in part because Durkon lost his and in part because, like Roy, I can definitely see the legendary object Durkon's family is literally named after come into play in the story.

But it could be so many different things that I'm not confident speculating,. myself.

[Grey Watcher]

Since it's night that wouldn't save time.

I guess I was thinking that they could attack Gontor, Curly, and No (Name) sometime after dawn but before the Council meeting starts. Though depending on what time of night it is, Durkon might not have enough time to get enough rest to refresh spells anyway.

Seeing as the human Vampire has learned it, Gontor* and his cohort probably have as well.

Missed that bit! Yeah, since Greg finished researching it probably got, to use an analogy to modern tech, uploaded to the cloud and is now generally available for any Cleric of Hel to prepare (possibly even any Cleric of the entire Northern pantheon), which probably sucks going forward, but I guess this is more incentive to make sure the undead she ordains don't get enough Cleric levels to be able to cast it. At any rate, I hope Gontor and No Name at the very least used up all their instances of the spell for the night, so they can't create a bunch of cannon fodder on a moment's notice again.

[An Enemy Spy]

When in the comic are we told that Rat is evil?

[Peelee]

When in the comic are we told that Rat is evil?

Start of Darkness, IIRC.

Spoiler

Show

There's a Crayons of Time bit from Redcloak's perspective, where some of the Evil gods let The Dark One know about the Snarl. Rat is one of them.

[togapika]

What about that spell that makes you a half celestial? Maybe that's the secret?

[Peelee]

What about that spell that makes you a half celestial? Maybe that's the secret?

...Heightened Reincarnation?

[ManuelSacha]

Belkar is gonna be so happy when Durkon comes back to life.
And then he's immediately gonna be soooo angry, when Durkon gets the weapon upgrade Belkar's been waiting for since strip #1.

[Sengachi]

Wait. Does anyone remember if Banjo the Puppet God has ever shown a divine aura, and if so what color it was?

Because a good storyteller, when using an old, old reference in a plot critical way, will often lampshade it before the big reveal to jog your memory. Y'all, I think Banjo may be a god with a new novel color that will help seal Snarl in place of The Dark One.

[blunk]

Excellent comic and I cannot wait for a mind better than mine to try and figure out exactly what thor just told Durkon.

"jet fuel can't melt steel beams"

[PontificatusRex]

Belkar is gonna be so happy when Durkon comes back to life.
And then he's immediately gonna be soooo angry, when Durkon gets the weapon upgrade Belkar's been waiting for since strip #1.

What, +5 psionically enhanced mass-shifting dagger isn't good enough?

[Rrmcklin]

Wait. Does anyone remember if Banjo the Puppet God has ever shown a divine aura, and if so what color it was?

Because a good storyteller, when using an old, old reference in a plot critical way, will often lampshade it before the big reveal to jog your memory. Y'all, I think Banjo may be a god with a new novel color that will help seal Snarl in place of The Dark One.

I don't know if you're serious or not, but the comic has already gone out of it's way to say that, no, a puppet is not going to be solution to any plot critical point.

[Particle_Man]

Well, this would make sense, if the nine-point alignment chart is followed. Good is only one-third of the whole thing, after all.

Given that the Astral Plane makes things out of thoughts, and those thoughts seemed to be fairly well balanced given the colour pools we saw in the comic, it makes sense that there is a fairly even spread of the nine alignments of the gods, who are also made out of thoughts.

I am a bit surprised that the dwarf anti-tree belief hasn't in turn influenced Thor to actually become anti-tree.

If we want to take some previous bait regarding "previous generations" pointing to 1e artifacts, Hammer of Thunderbolts leaps to mind, with the "girdle of giant strength and gauntlets of ogre power" trifecta making for a nice upgrade to Durkon's set up. But they have to find all that ...

Didn't at least one of those (or the combo of all three) have a 6'1" height requirement in 1e? Durkon might fall . . . short.

[WindStruck]

Yeah, thinking about it, it very well could be Mjolnir...

And just think. We have V slinging spells, Haley shooting arrows, Row throwing his sword with his psychic powers, Durkon throwin his hammer and calling it back like Thor, Elan being Elan... and poor Belkar behind in the dust complaining why everyone else gets cool ranged attacks but him. As always.

[Fan67]

"So remember, it's called Divine Metamagic."

"Aye."

"And then you take these things called nightsticks..."

I laughed so hard... brings back the memories from my local d&d3.5 arena experiences.
It was banned so fast...

[The MunchKING]

Wait. Does anyone remember if Banjo the Puppet God has ever shown a divine aura, and if so what color it was?

He had an orange background-splash-page thing on the panel he was introduced, but I don't think that's the same thing.

Especially notable is later when he smites Roy, no divine aura at all. So Nope. No quiddity for him.

Wait my spell check is cool with quiddity, but doesn't know that OFF is a word? Macs are stupid. :p