Pointless Speculation about Calendar Pages

[Tubercular Ox]

So February 2015’s Subdue Dragon calendar page turned out to be prophetic. What other calendar pages do you think could be inserted into the story? Please note the question is could, not will. It’s okay to suggest something even if you think it’s not going to happen.

March 2015, Belkar jumping into a monster’s maw, maybe. Rich likes Swallow Whole, and we’ve theoretically been with Belkar ever since he got Mr. Scruffy so it’s either completely false or prophetic.

April 2015, Daigo and Kazumi defeating a swarm of Ninja assassins on the new island, looks like it could’ve happened, but I don’t see how it could be introduced into the story the same way that Subdue Dragon was, or if it were it wouldn’t be a main plot point. And the same for other pages that could’ve been but I don’t mention them. Feel free to disagree, I trimmed a lot to keep this short.

July 2016, Thog hugging Cerberus, could be used if Thog is the vessel and passed through Hell on his way to the final confrontation.

March 2019, Jirix hunting down Azurite rebels, could come up obliquely.

Bonus after December 2019, yes I think Amun-Zora plotting with Gannji and Enor will come up again, somehow. If they show up with an entire orrery of ioun stones it's going to be hysterical.

May 2020, Vector Legion cooperating to take down Reptilia, is delicious.

October 2020, Xykon shapechanging into a dragon, could come up in the final battle.

[Mic_128]

April 2015 looks like it could’ve happened, but I don’t see how it could be introduced into the story the same way that Subdue Dragon was, or if it were it wouldn’t be a main plot point. And the same for other pages that could’ve been but I don’t mention them. Feel free to disagree, I trimmed a lot to keep this short.

What happened in this month's?

[Tubercular Ox]

What happened in this month's?

Daigo and Kazumi defeating a swarm of Ninja assassins on the new island. Also, I updated the OP.

[Metastachydium]

May 2020, Linear Guild cooperating to take down Reptilia, is delicious.

That's… Um, well, not a likely thing to feature in the comic, seeing how Reptilia (still not invaded as of the end of BRitF!) has now officially outlived the Linear Guild (currently consisting of maybe Sabine and an up to 50% chance Thog is still alive). Or did you mean the Vectors?

[Precure]

Rich likes Swallow Whole

Exccuse me, what?

[Metastachydium]

Exccuse me, what?

Oddly enough, that's not untrue. He uses it a lot, even when the creature shouldn't, by RAW, be able to do it (links are randomly assigned to words; do add Roy and the Dire Toad, the sock puppet Ian mentions and the Roc that ate Wizard Guy to the list).

[Tubercular Ox]

That's… Um, well, not a likely thing to feature in the comic, seeing how Reptilia (still not invaded as of the end of BRitF!) has now officially outlived the Linear Guild (currently consisting of maybe Sabine and an up to 50% chance Thog is still alive). Or did you mean the Vectors?

Yes, that's right. It's the Vectors. And now that I look at it, it's just Miron and Jacinda. Tarquin gets a margin comment about campaigning against Reptilia being too important for "secondary merchandise," Tarquin wonders if the calendar is even canon.

[Metastachydium]

Yes, that's right. It's the Vectors. And now that I look at it, it's just Miron and Jacinda. Tarquin gets a margin comment about campaigning against Reptilia being too important for "secondary merchandise," Tarquin wonders if the calendar is even canon.

Ah, okay then! (And say what you will about Tarquin, that is a valid concern. I'd hate to invade someplace only to learn that "yeah, well, we're not using that timeline actually".)

[KorvinStarmast]

Yes, that's right. It's the Vectors. And now that I look at it, it's just Miron and Jacinda. Tarquin gets a margin comment about campaigning against Reptilia being too important for "secondary merchandise," Tarquin wonders if the calendar is even canon.

From this strip, last panel, it looks to me like Laurin is still among the quick, sine Miron pulled her back. Not sure what the color change in her eyes is supposed to reflect ...

[Precure]

Same thing happened to Blackwing, and he's fine:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0659.html

[Tubercular Ox]

I've decided to give these two months a closer look since I accidentally created interest in them by forgetting the name of the Vector Legion.

May 2020: "Iron Body." Miron is using the Iron Body spell, pwning some Lizardfolk without apparent effort. Jacinda is in the back, stabbing another Lizardfolk. In one marginalium, Miron is telling Shoulder Pads Guy two jokes, one about emergency basking stations and the other about temporal fenestra. The other marginalium is as I said above: Tarquin complaining about canon. Jacinda, Kilkil, and two soldiers are also present in the margins.

I'm pretty sure Belkar tells a joke about basking in the main comic somewhere. Or at least about Lizardfolk needing time in the sun. I looked them up in the Monster Manual and it's not mentioned.

Frak, I think I need to quote the temporal fenestra joke: "We considered coming up with a fallback strategy based on number of temporal fenestra, then decided to just kill them all instead."

I think the implication is that there are some folk they were facing that they would have preferred to keep alive, but not, like, a serious preference. In addition to separating reptiles from mammals, number of fenestra might separate reptiles from amphibians or certain kinds of dinosaur.

I'm willing to believe in Schrodinger's Laurin here. We don't know if she's alive or dead because we haven't observed her. I'll go so far as to mention that Rich didn't even need to decide that at the time he drew the calendar.

Bonus 2019: Unnamed. Amun-Zora, Enor, and Gannji are walking through the desert, in that order. A city is in the background. Enor is carrying a box of potions, upside down. Gannji is carrying a barrel. He doesn't look happy, nor does Amun-Zora. Gannji has swirly eyes and is being circled by 8 ioun stones, colored green, red, pink, light blue, a slightly different shade of red, orange, a darker green, and purple. Tell me it's important and I'll try to figure out what these do.

Actually, the ioun stones are the most interesting part. I may try to map them later.

[Tubercular Ox]

Okay, I have a theory for Miron’s comment.

“decided to kill them all instead” implies the original plan was to separate some out and kill only them, let’s call them Lizardfolk and Other Folk.

“a fallback strategy based on number of temporal fenestra” implies the Other Folk are hard to distinguish from the Lizardfolk.

And the original strategy of acting at night, thwarted by Lizardfolk basking stations, implies that the Other Folk don’t need to bask to stay active.

So I think it’s something Dragonblooded and Medium sized. Dragonborn, Spellscales, Draconic Lizardfolk, Half-Dragons, Permanently Enlarged Dragonwrought Kobolds, etc.

The Draconomicon makes a big deal out of Dragons being endothermic, and Rich draws them essentially the same as Lizardfolk. I suppose there could be some shibboleth that he’s including that I haven’t noticed yet, but that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s subtle.

Conveniently, in the same calendar, there’s a picture of Xykon shapechanged into a skeletal dragon. There’s a distressing black dot in the temporal region, but it looks nothing like a fenestra as it’s displayed in any short research you can do on the topic, and it’s missing the divot lizards have where their primitive ancestors had a second fenestra.

There are also several pictures of dragon skulls in Draconomicon and none of them show a fenestra. One shows the indentation around the earhole that a human skull has, that may be what Rich was trying to show with the black dot.

Normally I wouldn’t credit Rich for caring about anatomically correct dragon skulls, but he just told a temporal fenestra joke. So if it turns out it matters it’s one of those things where Rich gets to say he tried to tell us but there wasn’t actually a way for us to know for sure.

Miron wanting to fight a bunch of Dragonblooded while the Lizardfolk sleep it off, then abandoning the plan as soon as it met resistance, is a bit more than I think can be pulled into the main story before the finale, so I’m wondering if Rich is planning a side story. My fantasy is that he will plug this side story by introducing some of it in the main story just before it’s published, otherwise examining all this failed to give me any of the spoilers I was hoping for.

And here are the ioun stones, although in hindsight this was probably a waste.

Dusty Rose: +1 AC
Deep Red: +2 Dex
Pink: +2 Con
Pale Blue: +2 Str
Vibrant Purple: Spell Storing
Pale Green (x2?): +1 attack, save, skill check, ability check
Orange: +1 caster level

I’m not confident. The “Dusty Rose” and “Deep Red” may be the same color in different contexts and it’s confusing me. Likewise the two green stones. I doubt Enor is a caster and two green stones don’t stack, so the stones are probably for show, and if they’re probably for show then Rich may not have looked any of the colors up first. OTOH he managed to avoid drawing a yellow stone (which doesn’t exist), so maybe he glanced at the color column of the chart when he was looking up the color of Blackwing’s bauble. And maybe Enor is just “holding” them while they travel. Splitting them up between a caster and a melee fighter is pretty easy.

My memory is bad. Have we seen any casters that could plausibly be hanging out with Amun-Zora, either now or after minor plot development?

[KorvinStarmast]

And here are the ioun stones, although in hindsight this was probably a waste.

Dusty Rose: +1 AC
Deep Red: +2 Dex
Pink: +2 Con
Pale Blue: +2 Str
Vibrant Purple: Spell Storing
Pale Green (x2?): +1 attack, save, skill check, ability check
Orange: +1 caster level

I’m not confident. The “Dusty Rose” and “Deep Red” may be the same color in different contexts and it’s confusing me. Likewise the two green stones. I doubt Enor is a caster and two green stones don’t stack, so the stones are probably for show, and if they’re probably for show then Rich may not have looked any of the colors up first. OTOH he managed to avoid drawing a yellow stone (which doesn’t exist), so maybe he glanced at the color column of the chart when he was looking up the color of Blackwing’s bauble. And maybe Enor is just “holding” them while they travel. Splitting them up between a caster and a melee fighter is pretty easy.

Thanks for the deep dive on Ioun stones. Interesting, and the ornage on Blackwing has does offer V +1 Caster level.

[Tubercular Ox]

Thanks for the deep dive on Ioun stones. Interesting, and the ornage on Blackwing has does offer V +1 Caster level.

Laurin had green, red, and orange stones. Orange is the one Blackwing stole, and green and red are the colors that are duplicated around Enor's head. (I think I've talked myself out of "Dusty Rose").

So Rich is biased towards stones that offer +2 Dexterity (and therefore AC and initiative) and +1 attack/saves/checks. That's a really utilitarian bias, it encourages me to think he thought about it.

Or maybe Laurin lived and later Amun-Zora defeated her and added her ioun stones to an existing collection?

[KorvinStarmast]

Or maybe Laurin lived and later Amun-Zora defeated her and added her ioun stones to an existing collection?

That's certainly plausible.