The identity of the mysterious voices.

[CriticalFailure]

Yeah we need to go back to That Guy With A Halberd, the original forum meme.

Clearly That Guy With A Halberd is Redcloak's niece.

[Concept]

I speculate it's the IFCC, mainly because they just recently were featured in a strip as preparing to take action. Also, capturing the paladins leaves their options open, instead of just killing them. They would rather control the game-pieces instead of just remove them. I didn't put too much thought into the speech bubbles, but this thread's speculation there is consistent with IFCC being an option.

I admit the "not existing" part is problematic, but it doesn't make much sense for any theories, at the moment. At least they are aware that existence is at stake, and are making some kind of drastic changes. That much is compatible with IFCC.

[Turin_19]

I know I've derailed the thread a bit and I'm sorry so this will be my last word on this subject in this thread. But the people jokingly suggesting it is exactly the problem when it's done at the repetitive volume that it is done here.

True. By the way, I just brought that joke up so you could enlighten us the way you did it. I really appreciate.

The overuse of RC’s niece in the forum has been a constant trouble in my mind for a while, and this week it has reached the place of utmost importance. I could barely get any other work done in this time. Today it was crashing my thoughts from the moment I woke up. Gladly, you and I have been able to work together to spread out the relevant concerns.

For everyone else, please follow Calavera’s and my own example: RC’s niece is not to be played with. Please understand how important this is in all our daily lives.

Any other jokes or theories are permitted. Yet.

[Synesthesy]

I think that the voices belong to some kind of summoned creature (maybe of an elemental type) that will return to non existance once their task has come to an end. Their task may be something they have waited for, or maybe the boss is only sad.
The creature should be elemental because their colors don't match any other known type (no undead as they are dark, no outsiders as they should match their aligment).

The only other things that comes to my mind are an invisible green and a red slaad. But I can't think of a reason they should do what they did.

[Schroeswald]

While I have no clue whatsoever what they could be I’ll say that I doubt Kermit is an Eastern god (besides the fact it’s be hard for one to survive), because his speech bubble doesn’t match up with how the gods (including the eastern ones), speech bubbles have been shown, with green words as opposed to the black we’ve already seen.

[SlashDash]

The creature should be elemental because their colors don't match any other known type (no undead as they are dark, no outsiders as they should match their aligment).

They don't match elementals either

[monomer]

Things we know:

They can become invisible.
They can climb cliff faces while carrying paladins.
They seem to be working towards the end goal of unmaking the world?

Wait, who have we seen that can carry a load up a cliff without leaving tracks in the snow? That's right, this is the MITD's dad and his hench-monster.

More seriously, the green and orangish-red speech bubbles did immediately suggest Eastern and Western pantheons to me. Not gods, since all of the Western Gods have been killed (and even one managed to survive, I'm not sure how they would last through the time between worlds without any worshipers) and God's speech bubbles have black borders.

They could be a an immortal being associated with the pantheon, though, as their speech bubbles are similar to the Bureaucratic Deva that processes Roy's afterlife application, or an Eastern god's non-deific offspring that somehow managed to survive.

[The Pilgrim]

The speech bubbles of our new mystery guests match those of the Empress of Blood and Enor. Those are definitely draconic speech bubbles. But I'm not going to call "half-dragon" yet, as I suppose The Giant would use the same style for any other fearsome monster being.

The orange one, let's call him "Ernie", has a big size. It's supposed to be carryng the two paladins, and the positions of their bodies suggest a far avobe-human breadth. It seems to be large enough to qualify for at least "Huge" size. It also seems to have at least four limbs, given that it's carrying the paladins and their weapons in different "hands".

"Bert", on the orther hand, seems to be tiny, given the angle of attack of the darts. The Giant has used the "small and clever boss, huge and simple sidequick" trope before.

They both seem to be able to fly.

They are from the Prime. They aren't outsiders. Otherwise they wouldn't fear about ceasing to exist, as the outer planes are off-limits for the Snarl.

I do not think they are related to the IFCC, because they know about the Snarl, and the IFCC doesn't relays that kind of info to their agents. They haven't told Qarr, for instance. Sabine also told Qarr that she didn't know half of what was going on either. IFCC has been shown to operate under a "need to know" basis.

The obvious speculation is that they belong to whatever group is in charge of defending the Gate. They showed up right after O-Chul commented that he was concerned about how they were going to find the Gate themselves. According to Elan's Guide to Understanding the Rules of Drama, the appropiate thing in that situation is for the Gate Defenders to show up and carry them prisoner to the Gate's whereabouts.

We also know that the full story of the Scribbels has to be disclosed to the readers. And the only ones dramatically equipped to do so are either Serini or her allies.

The fact that they seem to be Monsters, suits the theme of the Gate's defenses. Serini populated Kraagor's tomb with the most powerful monsters in the World. And then she continued adventuring. It makes sense for her to have left a few zookeepers, and for the zookepers to be monsters themselves.

So, that's my speculation.

[Roland Itiative]

Why would this be an option? I honestly don't get it.
When they described how the scribbles protected the gates, Soon was specifically mentioned as using the honor of a paladin - hence the oathsworn.

But Serini had nothing to do with it. There's no reason to think they all had oaths, otherwise we'd have seen Girard by now.

Well, the two characters use rogue-like tactics to subdue the paladins (stealth, poison, somewhat underhanded diplomacy), and they seem to be somewhat related to that Gate specifically. So, it stands to reason that they could be something related to Serini. Not an oathsworn specifically, but some other of creature or transformation that would serve as Serini's own thematic defense mechanism for the Gate, on top of Kragoor's brute strength approach.

It would also be a nice echo of Haley's shell game mentality during the Azure City siege. Serini literally made her Gate an ostensible giant shell game, but being a rogue, why would she play it straight, instead of cheating in a way that guarantees invaders will always lose, even if they're extremely lucky?

So yeah, my guess is that those are Serini's Gate guardians (the leader may somehow be Serini herself, but that's beyond the point), and that both the multiple Gates and the information on her diary are diversion tactics.

[factotum]

True. By the way, I just brought that joke up so you could enlighten us the way you did it. I really appreciate.

Welp, that's another sarcasm detector exploded from overload--you any idea how expensive those things are?

[Mitth'raw'nuruo]

Guys, this is super easy.

Lorien.

The hint is when paladin chick asks Who are you? The question of the Vorlons, And then asks What do you want, the question of the Shadows.

The whole comic is one long Babylon 5 metaphor using D&D rule/world.

We know that the MitD is a vorlon, with the umbrella being his encounter suit. (we know it is a vorlon and not a shadow because everyone who seems him instantly knows him, a trait of vorlons, not shadows. Not to mention where he risks his own personal safety to save others key to the story, and of course, the fact that he follows the rules and speaks cryptically)


Snarl is of course, the shadow.

And the invisible thing is Lorien, who is immortal, and is going to end the story of taking ending the war and taking snarl and MitD away from this world.

[WolvesbaneIII]

Considering that we've seen Girard Draketooth's very dead skeleton, it's safe to assume he's not one of the two voices. Also the voice doesn't really fit the way he's spoken in flashbacks. Nale has the same issue. Super dead, and the dialogue doesn't really fit his character.

I heard Serini-as-oathspirit floated as an option, which is possible I suppose. Honestly, my money is on 'new characters' until proven otherwise.

Yeah, I wasn't being entirely serious about it being jirard. Though if he were alive, putting a fake corpse or skeleton in a tomb wouldn't be unreasonable. Faking ones death and masquerading around as a non legendary spell caster wouldn't be impossible.

The only point "in favor of" (but not really) of it being a fake skeleton is the strip here.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0431.html

Red cloak admits he didn't go out of his way to get 3 skeletons that looksed like xykon, and that the 3 pendants were just so he could tell them apart. Now imagine girard had a similar idea, at least before he died, and he died else where. So even if it isn't his skeleton, he could easily have kicked the bucket in a less than ideal place.

So while it looks like I'm disagreeing with you, I'm actually not.

As to nale being reborn as a demon, I don't buy it much either. He would have no reason to spare the paladins. unless its a complicated convoluted idea only nale could come up with, but even so, not buying it.







But I'll just concede as much that I prefer jirard had died of old age, its not him and move on.

[Fish]

Suppose Kermit and Scooter are there to defend the Gate.

How do they do this? Well, they go out and look for creatures they can pop into the dungeon to defend it for them.

Like a couple of fairly-powerful paladins.

Maybe they have the power to buff up the paladins, or keep them pointed at the enemy somehow. Sort of like the Xykon vs O-Chul battle, except where O-Chul has an ally, all his armor, and possibly buffs.

Imagine how epic that would be. O-Chul is meant to endure; maybe that means losing over and over to Xykon in order to hold him off. That would be the ultimate test of a paladin’s sense of duty.

“Xykon, I’m here to bargain.”

[leveebreakage]

The speech bubbles of our new mystery guests match those of the Empress of Blood and Enor.

Oh, good catch! I hadn't thought of that connection between EoB and Enor, but you're completely right, that does seem to be a pattern. And there are no footprints trailing behind these two; that makes it seem plausible that they might be flying or hovering. Unless I'm missing something obvious your theory makes sense so far.

[Fish]

Enor is blue; Kermit is green.

[CriticalFailure]

Can anyone think of reasons powers from other planes or Tiamat would be involving themselves that make sense?

[Petrocorus]

It would also be a nice echo of Haley's shell game mentality during the Azure City siege. Serini literally made her Gate an ostensible giant shell game, but being a rogue, why would she play it straight, instead of cheating in a way that guarantees invaders will always lose, even if they're extremely lucky?

I do believe there is a shell game in effect on this Gate.

Lorien.

The hint is when paladin chick asks Who are you? The question of the Vorlons, And then asks What do you want, the question of the Shadows. ...

I would totally be behind this.

The speech bubbles of our new mystery guests match those of the Empress of Blood and Enor. Those are definitely draconic speech bubbles. But I'm not going to call "half-dragon" yet, as I suppose The Giant would use the same style for any other fearsome monster being.

I was going to post this.
The speech bubble pattern is one color for the bubble and the letters and a lighter shade of the same color for the background. And so far, we've seen this only on dragons and half-dragons. And the bubble's colour matches the dragon's color.

So i would concur those should be draconic characters, one from a green bloodline and one from maybe a mixed bloodline.

Now, who are they working with/for? So far, i have no clear idea.
The most realistic (IMHO) hypothesis i've seen:
- Serini.
- IFCC. They are not Evil outsiders but could work for them anyway. Not my favorite hypothesis.
- Some pro-End of the world god(s), from one or several pantheon.
- Some anti-End of the World god(s), because we're not sure of those two guy's intent.
- Tiamat, because they are draconic IMHO, and she was one of the few gods to have spoken with TDO. And we don't know which side of the god's debate she's on.
- A completely new party. A bit late in the story for this, but possible.

Can anyone think of reasons powers from other planes or Tiamat would be involving themselves that make sense?

For Tiamat:
- Being in leagues with Loki and Thor and probably some others to get TDO to negotiate and help them to close the rifts.
- Taking revenge on V for the familicide.
- Taking revenge on the IFCC for the familicide.
- Wanting for some reason to get the world destroyed. Maybe wanting for some reason to help Hel.

[Flame of Anor]

Yeah we need to go back to That Guy With A Halberd, the original forum meme.

Oh, that takes me back.

[Riftwolf]

While checking the Magic Mouth in the Oracle's valley, I actually found green voiced and orange voiced characters. The Knight and Knave of the Test of the Mind!

[understatement]

Don't think literal Eastern gods would use two poison darts to kidnap some paladins.

If these [new] characters wanted the world destroyed, they would've killed the paladins instead of abducting them.

I'm guessing the reason they abducted the paladins instead of talking to them is because -- like Lien said -- technically they can't be trusted. Operating under "show not tell" here.

If they meant harm to the paladins, they wouldn't have brought their weapons along.

...

Still guessing Serini. It's not too unlikely to think she's changed quite a bit since the fall of the original OOTS.

[skim172]

Things we know:

They can become invisible.
They can climb cliff faces while carrying paladins.
They seem to be working towards the end goal of unmaking the world?

Playing devil's advocate here -
1. Anyone in Stickverse can become invisible, with the use of an accessory, spell, or beverage, which are purchasable at the appropriate retailers. We can't know if invisibility is an attribute or ability that is innate to the nature of the two entities in question.
Not knowing much about the Paladin class - do high level Paladins have some ability that can detect or cancel certain types of invisibility? That might rule some things out.
2. Are they climbing a cliff face? I initially assumed they were flying with Soon and Lirian in tow. It could mean they're winged creatures, or that they can float. Or that they have cash and access to the right store for flying items. They could be in Wonder Woman's invisible jet.
3. Their words don't necessarily mean that they want to unmake the Universe. I think it could mean they are enacting a risky plan re: the Gate which has a high possibility of failure resulting in unmaking the Universe.

So we actually know very little about them. We can assume it's at least two people - or maybe it's a hydra with different voices.


Throwing out a completely random theory put there:
It's Dorukan and Lirian, returned to this plane via some magicky, spirity hijinks, carrying out a long-awaited plan set by some or all of the Order of the Scribble.

See, because one of them wore green and the other wore yellow ...

Alternatively, one of them is Ryan Reynolds and the other is Sinestro.

[Riftwolf]

Could be the paladins are being removed now because Lien just confirmed the Order are on their way. Though why their arrival would equate to the end of existence is unclear.

[Jay R]

Things we know:

They can become invisible.
They can climb cliff faces while carrying paladins.
They seem to be working towards the end goal of unmaking the world?

We don't know that they are working towards the end goal of unmaking the world. Perhaps they are created beings that disappear when they complete their assignment. We only know that they believe that they will stop existing soon.

I really like the idea that the green voice - Kermit, I suppose - is a surviving Eastern Pantheon god or demigod.

I don't believe that for purely story reasons. We have set up that Durkon's quest needs him to get help from Redcloak, after being on opposite sides throughout the story.

If there is still an Eastern god left, then that isn't necessary, and a major tension is released for no good reason.

[The Pilgrim]

While checking the Magic Mouth in the Oracle's valley, I actually found green voiced and orange voiced characters. The Knight and Knave of the Test of the Mind!

Good catch. Unfortunately, the background of the speech balloons of those characters is white, not a lighter shade. Also, neither of the two mystery guests seems to be always lying, like the Green Guy from the Test.

[Jay R]

Once you realize what Vaarsuvius's gender and the MitD's species are, it's obvious who they are, and why their speech balloons had to be green and orange. I've been waiting for them to show up for over 100 strips.

[Roland Itiative]

Well, when it comes to their dialogue, there are three lines that give us hints of what their goals are:

"Well. That could've gone better."

"*sigh* I guess we're finally doing this, huh?"

"[Existing has been] fun while it lasted, right?"

The first line doesn't make a lot of sense if it's referring to their encounter with the paladins. That seems to have gone incredibly well, probably as well as it could. They captured both paladins, without alerting the bugbears or Xykon, and without any casualties on their side. So, instead of talking about the paladin encounter, they must be talking about the whole situation surrounding the area, namely the fact that someone is sistematically looking for the Gate, with nefarious purposes in mind. The Gate defenses could defintiely have "gone better" than they did so far against Team Evil.

The second line heavily suggests some plan that has existed for a while, as the word "finally" implies. So, assuming those voices belong indeed to Gate guardians who are seeing their defenses fail, they're probably preparing to put in motion some contingency put in place for just that kind of situation.

The third line, when connected to the second, implies this plan will lead to destruction for our mistery characters, at the very least. They don't seem to be after the destruction of the world, but simply resigned to it, since perhaps destroying the last Gate is preferable to losing it to Evil.

While other interpretations, such as them being agents of the gods or characters from the Eastern continent are not impossible, I feel like the interpretation that they're probably Gate guardians is the only one to make sense of the entire dialogue.

P.S. It's also interesting that they're concerned about the bugbears specifically spotting them. Not Xykon, a lich with a lot of bonuses to perception checks, or Redcloaks, a near-epic cleric who probably has a ton of wisdom, but the bugbears. This seems to imply that the bugbears are uniquely equipped to detect them, but I don't know what to take away from this.

[skim172]

Well, when it comes to their dialogue, there are three lines that give us hints of what their goals are:

"Well. That could've gone better."

"*sigh* I guess we're finally doing this, huh?"

"[Existing has been] fun while it lasted, right?"

The first line doesn't make a lot of sense if it's referring to their encounter with the paladins. That seems to have gone incredibly well, probably as well as it could. They captured both paladins, without alerting the bugbears or Xykon, and without any casualties on their side. So, instead of talking about the paladin encounter, they must be talking about the whole situation surrounding the area, namely the fact that someone is sistematically looking for the Gate, with nefarious purposes in mind. The Gate defenses could defintiely have "gone better" than they did so far against Team Evil.

The second line heavily suggests some plan that has existed for a while, as the word "finally" implies. So, assuming those voices belong indeed to Gate guardians who are seeing their defenses fail, they're probably preparing to put in motion some contingency put in place for just that kind of situation.

The third line, when connected to the second, implies this plan will lead to destruction for our mistery characters, at the very least. They don't seem to be after the destruction of the world, but simply resigned to it, since perhaps destroying the last Gate is preferable to losing it to Evil.

While other interpretations, such as them being agents of the gods or characters from the Eastern continent are not impossible, I feel like the interpretation that they're probably Gate guardians is the only one to make sense of the entire dialogue.

P.S. It's also interesting that they're concerned about the bugbears specifically spotting them. Not Xykon, a lich with a lot of bonuses to perception checks, or Redcloaks, a near-epic cleric who probably has a ton of wisdom, but the bugbears. This seems to imply that the bugbears are uniquely equipped to detect them, but I don't know what to take away from this.

First line could perhaps mean that "They" were hoping to sleep the pair of them and spirit them away without any confrontation. But O-Chul's constitution delayed the poison taking effect, which alerted Lien and it took longer than they hoped.

I also think the third line isn't necessarily indicative of their goals. They may be recognizing the possibilities, rather than declaring their intentions. It could simply be a wry, cynical joke. Like a sort of gallows humor - "No chance of us living to old age, then."

As for the bugbears line - maybe they said that because there are a lot of bugbears around? Sort of a "don't get seen by the guards" kind of sentiment.

[Chronos]

The problem with them being agents of Serini is, why the poison darts? They at least know that O-Chul and Lien are paladins, and presumably a lot more about them. They should know that they're allies. So why not just lead off with talking to them? That seems like a much more reliable plan than the one they went with.

[Roland Itiative]

The problem with them being agents of Serini is, why the poison darts? They at least know that O-Chul and Lien are paladins, and presumably a lot more about them. They should know that they're allies. So why not just lead off with talking to them? That seems like a much more reliable plan than the one they went with.

Leverage. If they're Serini followers, they were probably instructed to be specially wary of paladins. Serini, while not as extreme as Girard, still seemed way closer to him than she was to Soon, and possibly shares some of his fears that Soon would try to strong-arm control of the other Gates away from them at some point. Now that they incapacitated the paladins, they can hear them out on their terms, while the paladins are in a total disadvantage in case they try to fight or escape.

And the fact they overheard the conversation and know that there are reinforcements arriving in two days make this the perfect time to either heard what their reasoning is, or get rid of them before an unknown party arrives.

[Ranzear]

First post of the #1189 discussion thread noted the orange was the same as Roy's Archon, and the behavior we've seen of an archon would match the lines, but RA had black text instead of orange (this may be a simple art change though.)