Erfworld 106; the battle for Gobwin Knob

[SirBel]

I still think Jillian was unaffected because she's a double agent for Stanley! She healed when the sun came up when she was captive, and she didn't take any damage now. She's a tool of Stanley!!!!

[Kudzu]

If this is simply a damage attack, I think that the other two archons and Vinnie will survive the blast (though they may suffer serious injuries). Jillian seems to be (physically) unaffected. The blast appears (to me) to have three distinct areas of intensity. Jillian and Jaclyn are within 'ground zero'. Vinnie, the other archons, and some Unipegataurs are roughly where 'Ground Zero' ends and the secondary damage zone begins. All the rest of the flying creatures are within the secondary zone...beyond that the blast continues onward as a cone. Seems to me that we're seeing the worst of what the blast has done (frying an archon and three Unipegataurs) though I expect most (if not all) of the Orlys and bats to be wiped out as well as a few more Unipegataurs. Depending on how the spell works, the Peeps may all survive (alternatively, Jillian's mount may be getting some form of defense bonus from it's rider and the other Peeps will get torched). The crippled few units remaining will (after some shouting back and forth) likely follow orders and leave to meet reinforcements before attempting to tackle Stanley. Next time Ansom is contacted, Jillian will have some 'splainin to do.

[Laurentio]

Referring more to the fact that she's lost it due to the behavior of her female lover. Not necessarily a literal lesbian per se, but she fits the the trope (other bisexual women, like Talia Winters from Bab 5, are also listed in the trope description).

The real point is she's becoming a bit of a cliche.

I know. But still, I think that she is a Depravated Bisexual. Almost same trope, and more fitting. And, if Wanda ends to be fully lesbian, I lose my chance to lick her boots.

Laurentio

[lovelyluthien]

*gulp* Holy Boop.

[Jeivar]

I know. But still, I think that she is a Depravated Bisexual. Almost same trope, and more fitting. And, if Wanda ends to be fully lesbian, I lose my chance to lick her boots.

Laurentio

I'd hardly call her depraved. Cold, ambitious, driven, manipulative and self-centered. But not depraved.

[brob]

Whoever noted that earlier panel with Sizemore talking about above ground spell defences absolutely nailed it. This is obviously excessive force for a regular attack. It is a (probably single-use) spell defence. Parson will be awed, and possibly pissed if he was aware of this and was counting on using it. It also explains why Bogroll asked if he wanted a generic caster, if any caster could fire off the defences. The other theories are wrong because they are dumb.

[Zienth]

The other theories are wrong because they are dumb.

Hard to argue with that logic.

[brob]

Hard to argue with that logic.

Nods. Simple, yet ineffible.

[Keymort]

Whoever noted that earlier panel with Sizemore talking about above ground spell defences absolutely nailed it. This is obviously excessive force for a regular attack. It is a (probably single-use) spell defence. Parson will be awed, and possibly pissed if he was aware of this and was counting on using it. It also explains why Bogroll asked if he wanted a generic caster, if any caster could fire off the defences. The other theories are wrong because they are dumb.

Yeah, so you're saying anyone who's made their own theory is dumb... Thanks man. You are a really nice person.
Anyhowm, maybe she's just freaking powerful, but has never revealed her power until now.
She's obviously not a complete idiot, so I doubt she'd waste a major spell like that for revenge. She just seems to cold and calculated to do that.

[brob]

Yeah, so you're saying anyone who's made their own theory is dumb... Thanks man. You are a really nice person.

I think you have stephen hawking's, Aaron Sorkin's and Gaius Baltar's brains smooshed together inside your skull. (Especially compared to me!) But the only part of my statement above I would change is that I said ineffable instead of inerfable.

[Jeivar]

She's obviously not a complete idiot, so I doubt she'd waste a major spell like that for revenge. She just seems to cold and calculated to do that.

Under normal circumstances, yeah. But no-one has 100% control of their own emotions, and given recent events I'm willing to believe she's in a "SCREW CONSEQUENCES!!" frame of mind.

[Keymort]

Under normal circumstances, yeah. But no-one has 100% control of their own emotions, and given recent events I'm willing to believe she's in a "SCREW CONSEQUENCES!!" frame of mind.

Maybe, but personally I think she's too cold for even that.
I'm may be wrong, but if it is some kind of UBER death spell that drains all of your mana, I still doubt it would be something Stanley would be saving up, and its probably more than a one shot spell that can never be cast again.

She may just be a Dues Ex Machina too though.

[ideasmith]

While Jillian is obviously important to Wanda, there are also other things important to Wanda. It is worth noting that Wanda started spellcasting promptly after Jillian announce her intention of killing Stanley. It is also worth noting that the more flying troops she croaks (or whatever), the fewer are available to help kill Stanley.

Wanda obviously wants the Arkenhammer kept out of enemy hands.

Not badly enough to kill Jillian, however.

Edit: Fixed grammer.

[kreszantas]

All I can say that this indeed is the end of this story arc... What better way to leave it than to your own imagination as to what happened. So many sequels and "TV Series" final episodes in this fashion. Why not a webcomic? This gives the story a little more emphasis and allows for an acceptable / reasonable plot shift without really causing to much pain.

Roasted Archon could be just a case of wrong place wrong time so it is not bad bonus after seeing them croak plenty of dwagons.

[Oslecamo]

I'd hardly call her depraved. Cold, ambitious, driven, manipulative and self-centered. But not depraved.

Did you forget her speciality is turning people into rotten walking corpses?

How much more depraved can you get? The only reason why she isn't eating childrens for breakfast it's because there are no childrens at Efworld.

And for all it seems she kills puppies and cuddly things for a living.

[Justyn]

Did you forget her speciality is turning people into rotten walking corpses?

How much more depraved can you get? The only reason why she isn't eating childrens for breakfast it's because there are no childrens at Efworld.

And for all it seems she kills puppies and cuddly things for a living.

In all fairness, Wanda turns rotten corpses into rotten walking corpses. They stopped being people when they had sharp pieces of metal shoved into them; and it's not like the corpses were going to do much else exept disintigrate at the start of their side's next turn.

[Wender]

Did you forget her speciality is turning people into rotten walking corpses?

How much more depraved can you get?

Wanda craves control, perhaps more than anything else, and who has more control than a necromancer over the undead? The archons were exactly right when they called her pet warlords "puppets." In this, Wanda is not unlike some of history's most vile killers.

The thing with the utterly depraved is that they are often, in their own terms, coldly rational. It is to the extent that they reject irrationality—any true love, humanity, spirit, or emotion beyond their own—that they are depraved.

I think Wanda has felt love, but she only understands it from another person as a voluntary submission to her control. It's hard for her to have a relationship to a peer. Not impossible, apparently, as she seems to have mustered something like that with Stanley and with Parson, but hard. She will always seek the advantage.

[R.I.P. Manpower]

well, I would look at this from a D&D point of view...basically we can compare to Croakamancy is Necromancy. The functions of the necromancy sphere of magic is to either kill things or reanimate things that have been killed...maybe even reanaimate things as they get killed, however that would have to be a suitably epic spell!!!

...but that is neither here nor there, epic level characters can take epic spells, spells that are not normally cast as part of your normal magic daily uses, these are feats that have a once a day use.

Seeing how that Wanda is a suitably epic Croakamancer, it would make perfect sense that she have at least one or two epic spells at her disposal. Especially as necro/croaka -mancy go very well with epic spells!

As a level 9 barbarian, Jillian would naturally have a very high fortitude save. Most save or die spells are fortitude based. Otherwise it's possible that there is an HD cap on the level of creatures effected in either the sense that it will only affect creatures up to level 8 or it only affects a total number of HD summed up!

...a good reason for not having seen power like this from Wanda before is because she has not yet had the opportunity. Even if we had seen her in battle, it would make little sense to use your Epic Spell, when a simple magic missile would suffix.

A seasoned caster knows when to use which spell so as to maximize it's efficiency...using your 1xday epic spell vs. a horde of your opponents highest level fliers seems like the perfect opportunity to unleash the beast!

What I'd like to see it the life-energy taken from all the croak targets coaless into some kind of summon to fight at Wanda's side! Ala Vampiric Feast from Neverwinter Nights 2!

[HamsterOfTheGod]

Looking at it again makes me think

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like the great story is coming to an end soon. Seems the time for it. It would make for a good cliffhanger ending to Part I.

[Oslecamo]

Wanda craves control, perhaps more than anything else, and who has more control than a necromancer over the undead?

A wizard/artificer/dirtmancer over his contructs? Golems not only follow your orders, they do it with a smile on their face.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0097.html

Granted, it's harder to turn your oponents into golems than zombifying them.

That's why I defend Wanda is depraved. She manipulates people untill they die, and then she reanimates them as zombies so he can "play" with them a little more.

Jillian seems to be the first to have escaped Wanda's tight control. And she's pissed. Really pissed

If Jillian didn't got hit by the blast, it's because Wanda decided death is too good for her. The croackmancer wants to breack her first.

And what's the best way of breaking a comander? Kill the troops under their control of course right on front of them of course. This will be a great blow to Jillian's pride. Wanda is showing the barbarian how wrong she was in trying to defy her directly. And then god knows what other atrocities Wanda will unleash to further torture Jillian untill she's an empty obedient shell that she can comand
again.

On the other hand, it seems like Stanley will be able to make his escape, with the pursue force hit so hard.

[Freederick]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Wanda just jumped the shark?

Many of the telltale signs are here: it's done to boost the strip's sagging ratings; we have a drastic mood whiplash, going directly from AYBABTU to Hiroshima; and Wanda's heretofore complex personality is grossly flanderized. All this makes me seriously doubt if the strip will continue past the current story arc.

Yes, the artwork is superb. But it too clashes with the rest of the strip.

[Moral Wiz]

It's just you.

This is just effects. It;s basically one, rather powerful attack, probably at high personal cost, and very much at an appropriate dramatic moment, as this is about the end of book one.

[Laurentio]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Wanda just jumped the shark?

Well, no. To me, it's just quite linear. Rejection, denial and homicide frenzy are just the expression of her being a little pissed.

More seriously, seems me not.

Laurentio

[SteveMB]

I'm not seeing this "mood whiplash". Wanda has had her (over)confidence suddenly shot down, been decisively rejected by Jillian, and lost all control over the situation. After she (somewhat) recovered from her collapse, she first tried to make sense of what had happened. When the answers she got were simply not acceptable to her, she lashed out.

That all sounds like a natural progression, and perfectly in character based on what we've seen so far. In particular, the initial attempt to ask "Why?" seems very natural -- for someone with a strong need to be in control, a sudden feeling that The World Isn't Making Sense Anymore can be far more alarming than petty trifles like the approach of an enemy that outnumbers you 25:1.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Wanda just jumped the shark?

Actually a quick survey of the previous posts shows that most people thought it was an awesome moment. This means either that the comic is in full swing, hitting its stride or that ...

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its a cliffhanger ending to part 1.

[Jari Kafghan]

Everyone keeps referring to the "Cone of Death" as a spell. I think its less that and more of a lethal magical manifestation of screaming at the top of your lungs or going apesh*t on someone. All the cheat codes leading up to it are kind of similar to the, "fine. You want to be like that? I can play that game. Lets see how you like it." More talking to herself kind of trying to gather her thoughts and not doing it well, then unleashing whatever she was barely controlling before.

Shortened, I don't see it as a spell, but more of a release of raw unfocused magic. No straight uncroaking, no disintegrate, just "eat this" kind of magic. Not calculations just an action.

And to me there are very few things scarier then someone who is complete control all the time and prides themselves on it, losing control in such a way.

And I think Jillian made the Fort save.

[Rollin]

I still think Jillian was unaffected because she's a double agent for Stanley! She healed when the sun came up when she was captive, and she didn't take any damage now. She's a tool of Stanley!!!!

If this was indeed the reason the blast didn't kill Jillian (not that we know this yet), Wanda might even have set it off in order to find out Jillian's present allegiance (and kill her if she is truly on the other side now).

This idea would probably only make sense, though, if Wanda had reason to take Jillian's allegiance as standing for her personal loyalty to Wanda. (Otherwise the mega-attack would be absurdly over-the-top, as opposed to just astonishingly over-the-top.) And we simply don't know enough about this either. So, I guess, never mind.

[EvilDoom]

Interesting, I didn't think of the aggro-ed croak-o-mancy spell so much as allowing selection of targets, but as limited to only affecting regular troops and not leaders, i.e. beings with leadership scores per Parson's blog.

My perspective is probably too rules oriented, but I can see how a powerful spell like that might be limited to not immediately terminate (or better possibly convert to undead) enemy leaders, but only regular enemy troops.

It appears pretty kick butt already and affecting opposing leaders may be game unbalancing.

[Jeivar]

I'm not seeing this "mood whiplash". Wanda has had her (over)confidence suddenly shot down, been decisively rejected by Jillian, and lost all control over the situation. After she (somewhat) recovered from her collapse, she first tried to make sense of what had happened. When the answers she got were simply not acceptable to her, she lashed out.

That all sounds like a natural progression, and perfectly in character based on what we've seen so far. In particular, the initial attempt to ask "Why?" seems very natural -- for someone with a strong need to be in control, a sudden feeling that The World Isn't Making Sense Anymore can be far more alarming than petty trifles like the approach of an enemy that outnumbers you 25:1.

Agreed. The optimist in me is a little disappointed by Wanda's true colors, but from a realistic standpoint this hardly clashes with her previous behavior. I must strongly disagree with the "jump the shark" comment. No matter what happens next, we're going to have some juicy, well-constructed drama on our hands. :)

Oh, and could someone tell me if there'll be a waiting period between book 1 and two?

[SteveMB]

Oh, and could someone tell me if there'll be a waiting period between book 1 and two?

While we're coming up on the originally projected page count for Part 1, the actual page count remains to be seen. As Rob put it some time ago:

Still aiming for 90 [pages]. My aim ain't what it used to be, though.