Protections of Kraagar's Tomb Theory

[Jannoire]

I do see a reason: There must be a substantial amount of already marked doors before this can be done, or RC will notice that the number of doors marked is larger than the number of explorations that have been done.

Grey Wolf

While it certainly seems unwise to mark extra doors after the first encounter, we have no idea how long Team Evil has been doing dungeon crawls here. It might as well have been more than twenty rounds.
And since Xykon won't let Redcloak use this fancy thing called tactics, I guess Redcloak might as well stop counting.

[CriticalFailure]

I feel like Redcloak has marked off the number of doors attacked and the kind of challenges faced in some sort of tactical notebook that Xykon makes fun of him for keeping. Or something to that effect.

[RatElemental]

You seem to be assuming that MitD marks a few extra doors every day, or at least regularly. I see no reason to assume anything other than he's only done it the one time it was depicted on panel.

Grey Wolf

I make no such assumption, I just don't make the assumption he's only done it once. Thus, we (and O-Chul) cannot know if O-Chul has witnessed him marking all the doors he has falsely marked.

[KorvinStarmast]

I make no such assumption, I just don't make the assumption he's only done it once. Thus, we (and O-Chul) cannot know if O-Chul has witnessed him marking all the doors he has falsely marked.

I don't know if Lien and O'Chul have paper and writing tools to make sketches of what he views through his telescope. But they have time so O'Chul looking through the telescope and patiently describing to Lien what he sees, and her sketching out the lines of doors - both x'd off and not x'd off - is not beyond their skill as a special ops recon team. Their whole job is Observation. (If you've ever sat in an OP for a couple of days ... )

And while I think that O'Chul likes to play Go, he could also use the go stones as a way to mark out black for marked doors and white for unmarked doors, in rows, if they don't have writing material with them. (But I get the idea he brought it to play with ...)

[Squire Doodad]

I make no such assumption, I just don't make the assumption he's only done it once. Thus, we (and O-Chul) cannot know if O-Chul has witnessed him marking all the doors he has falsely marked.

Yeah, pretty much all that is being assumed is that if O-Chul has a map of marked doors, he also has marked the ones MitD falsely marked in a different color.

[Fish]

What if ... the marked doors are in some Go pattern?

[Squire Doodad]

What if ... the marked doors are in some Go pattern?

Of course! It all makes sense now!
That said, RC would be looking for that, so a Chess technique would work better.

[RatElemental]

I don't know if Lien and O'Chul have paper and writing tools to make sketches of what he views through his telescope. But they have time so O'Chul looking through the telescope and patiently describing to Lien what he sees, and her sketching out the lines of doors - both x'd off and not x'd off - is not beyond their skill as a special ops recon team. Their whole job is Observation. (If you've ever sat in an OP for a couple of days ... )

And while I think that O'Chul likes to play Go, he could also use the go stones as a way to mark out black for marked doors and white for unmarked doors, in rows, if they don't have writing material with them. (But I get the idea he brought it to play with ...)

The problem is not the ability to write, it's that a lot of doors were marked when they got there already, and they have no idea which ones Team Evil actually explored or not.

[Schroeswald]

The problem is not the ability to write, it's that a lot of doors were marked when they got there already, and they have no idea which ones Team Evil actually explored or not.

But they can know a few of them, which is definitely an advantage over Xykon if they search those caves.

[Squire Doodad]

But they can know a few of them, which is definitely an advantage over Xykon if they search those caves.

Of course, once they have the Order and maybe the Mechane crew for supporting fire (assuming they got their ballistas reattached) then the logical solution is to have the 8+ man team go and attack Xykon. Finding the gate isn't as important as eliminating Xykon and recruiting RC. As such, they would go to the doors that haven't been marked at all so as to intercept Xykon en route to the gate. On the other hand, if all of the gates have been marked "somehow", then the Order is now at a major advantage because they can check which ones were not explored.

[Morquard]

How would checking those doors help them? All they would do is weaken the defenses of the actual gate, and whatever they can mount is likely less effective than whats already there atm.

Until they convince Redcloak to help them, their best bet is to not let Team Evil get to the gate. And once/if they get Redcloak to help, they'll have to deal with Xykon first, because you can bet your ass, he won't be ok with it.

[Squire Doodad]

How would checking those doors help them? All they would do is weaken the defenses of the actual gate, and whatever they can mount is likely less effective than whats already there atm.

Until they convince Redcloak to help them, their best bet is to not let Team Evil get to the gate. And once/if they get Redcloak to help, they'll have to deal with Xykon first, because you can bet your ass, he won't be ok with it.

Come to think of it, waiting until Xykon just got after the day ended would be better. A Lich Sorcerer missing a couple spell slots and a half drained Cleric is much easier than running into them at full power. That said, the nature of the narrative would suggest that running into a cave to fight Xykon will just be more likely because its more entertaining. Then again, the Order has shown Decent Logic (tm) on other occasions...

[RatElemental]

Come to think of it, waiting until Xykon just got after the day ended would be better. A Lich Sorcerer missing a couple spell slots and a half drained Cleric is much easier than running into them at full power. That said, the nature of the narrative would suggest that running into a cave to fight Xykon will just be more likely because its more entertaining. Then again, the Order has shown Decent Logic (tm) on other occasions...

Easy to split the difference. The order plans to ambush team evil as they come out of a door but have to throw that plan out the window when it turns out team evil have found the gate and they need to rush in there and stop them.

[Squire Doodad]

Easy to split the difference. The order plans to ambush team evil as they come out of a door but have to throw that plan out the window when it turns out team evil have found the gate and they need to rush in there and stop them.

I wonder how they'd be able to tell that Team Evil found the gate though

[RatElemental]

I wonder how they'd be able to tell that Team Evil found the gate though

By telling them they've been in the current door for over a day, I imagine.

[CriticalFailure]

What will O'Chul and Lien do if Team Evil finds the gate before the Order arrive? Xykon and Redcloak low on spell slots are more vulnerable than usual, but Oona alone seemed to challenge them, and even low on spells Xykon and Redcloak are many levels above the pair.

[Jasdoif]

I wonder how they'd be able to tell that Team Evil found the gate though

By telling them they've been in the current door for over a day, I imagine.

That's what they're thinking, yes.

[jwhouk]

Yet another idea that may be not so far off:

What if there is no gate at Kraagor's Tomb?

Think on this: the tomb itself is a monument to strength, but it was designed by a rogue (Serini). The ultimate deception would be that the Tomb itself is not the gate - as in, there's no room with a gate like in Lirian or Girard's gates. The Tomb is simply a cover for the access portal or other means of transport to the true location of the gate - which is completely elsewhere in the OotS world.

Say, perhaps... the South Pole?

[Schroeswald]

Yet another idea that may be not so far off:

What if there is no gate at Kraagor's Tomb?

Think on this: the tomb itself is a monument to strength, but it was designed by a rogue (Serini). The ultimate deception would be that the Tomb itself is not the gate - as in, there's no room with a gate like in Lirian or Girard's gates. The Tomb is simply a cover for the access portal or other means of transport to the true location of the gate - which is completely elsewhere in the OotS world.

Say, perhaps... the South Pole?

You'd think Soon would know where the gate is, and Girard and Dorukan wouldn't be willing to let Serini decide
Hey! Lets make our memorial to Kraagor in the South! For secrety reasons!

[Peelee]

Yet another idea that may be not so far off:

What if there is no gate at Kraagor's Tomb?

Think on this: the tomb itself is a monument to strength, but it was designed by a rogue (Serini). The ultimate deception would be that the Tomb itself is not the gate - as in, there's no room with a gate like in Lirian or Girard's gates. The Tomb is simply a cover for the access portal or other means of transport to the true location of the gate - which is completely elsewhere in the OotS world.

Say, perhaps... the South Pole?

Why would she lie in her diary, which had all the other gate locations accurately listed? It's not as if she expected anyone would read it.

[Schroeswald]

Why would she lie in her diary, which had all the other gate locations accurately listed? It's not as if she expected anyone would read it.

Girard's Gate was under the correct coordinates and she and Girard lied about that one to Soon.

[factotum]

Why would she lie in her diary, which had all the other gate locations accurately listed? It's not as if she expected anyone would read it.

Not to mention a couple of other points:

a) We've already had one misdirection of a gate not being where it was expected to be, it would be unlikely for the Giant to pull that trick again.
b) Soon may not be the brightest candle in the box, but I think even he would notice if the listed location of Kraagor's Gate was at the opposite end of the planet from where he knows it to be.

[Peelee]

Girard's Gate was under the correct coordinates and she and Girard lied about that one to Soon.

She didn't lie to Soon, Girard did. We have no reason to believe she even knew about that.

[SlashDash]

a) We've already had one misdirection of a gate not being where it was expected to be, it would be unlikely for the Giant to pull that trick again.

Except that he kind of does all the time.
In fact that characters laugh about it.

Like Haley claiming she didn't realize Elan was Nale, so she didn't expect Greg to be impersonating Durkon as they already went that route.

Or Durkon twice already tricking a bad guy into falling for his traps by telling them he is luring them for a trap with both his mom's memory and the tea time thing.



That being said, I think if the gate isn't under any of the doors, then what the MITD does is kind of meaningless.

All it does is tell us the viewers that the monster is not really on team evil side anymore, but we the viewers already know that since he stopped Xykon from killing the OotS.

So whatever the defense is, I definitely think the doors are involved.

I also considered the statue... But come on, it's too obvious.



Back to the doors issue, I think it's not likely that the actual dungeon behind the door is an issue, because if it's enough to give team evil a challenge there's 0 percent chance the OotS will survive down there.

I think that maybe the doors themselves are key. And that maybe there's some sort of riddle or whatever one could solve by examining them?

The MITD marking the doors means that there is little point for team evil to examine them. Thus they can't have all the pieces to the puzzle.

But if the gang show up and start looking into the one's that team evil skipped, they might find some sort of clue.

[Ruck]

Girard's Gate was under the correct coordinates and she and Girard lied about that one to Soon.

Girard lied to Soon. Serini's diary contained the correct coordinates, as evidenced by Xykon teleporting directly there.

[Squire Doodad]

Yet another idea that may be not so far off:

What if there is no gate at Kraagor's Tomb?

Think on this: the tomb itself is a monument to strength, but it was designed by a rogue (Serini). The ultimate deception would be that the Tomb itself is not the gate - as in, there's no room with a gate like in Lirian or Girard's gates. The Tomb is simply a cover for the access portal or other means of transport to the true location of the gate - which is completely elsewhere in the OotS world.

Say, perhaps... the South Pole?

From a Doylist point of view, that would require the party to fly all the way to the South Pole over the course of at least a week while Xykon can get there somewhere from instantly to two days (Xykon could cover from Azure City to Girard's Gate, so I guess that means he should be able to reach the South Pole from the north one in 2-4 castings).
Unless there's a warp in the "gate room" that would transport everyone there, I don't really see the gate secretly being in the South Pole doing much aside from stretching out the story.

[drazen]

Personally, i think that if there is a twist to the last gate's defenses (i can't tell what with the writing of the Giant catching me of guard often enough), that it's going to be that the entire dungeon and tribute to might is a diversion, with the real gate hidden somewhere else, probably in plain sight. The statue to Kraagor is my current guess, but we haven't seen the area all that well for that guess to be any good. It would fit with a rogue to rely on stealth and information control to defend a gate, rather then pure might that can be bypassed by a sufficiently powerfull or clever opponent (like a rogue would well know, often being said opponent).

I would also guess that there would be an "obvious" element to it, that would stand out to someone friendly and upbeat like Sereni, but that would elude most grumpier or less nice people, like most villians she'd be guarding the gate from. What said element would be i can't even guess at though.

If we go by tropes alone, my money is on the statue being Kraagor's sacrifice -- he was turned to stone when they sealed the rift, and his stoned body IS the gate.

Instead of the ritual, I expect Xykon to blast the statue and then for something unexpected to happen; Durkon telling Thor about the planet in the rift is information that may make its way to the other gods soon. Or if the godsmoot is stuck in suspension, with the dwarves indefinitely postponing the Council of Clans, they might not be able to call another vote to destroy the world? It would be the most frustrating way to rules-lawyer it for them, after all.

[Ruck]

I'm still putting my money on "the Gate is really where Serini said it was" over any theories about it being somewhere completely undefended, especially Kraagor's statue.

[SlashDash]

I'm still putting my money on "the Gate is really where Serini said it was" over any theories about it being somewhere completely undefended, especially Kraagor's statue.

Yeah, I mean why would she write down the wrong coordinates just for her own gate but would put the right one for everyone else?

[Snails]

Yeah, I mean why would she write down the wrong coordinates just for her own gate but would put the right one for everyone else?

IMHO that speaks volumes about who she was. Serini's notable feature is not that she is a rogue. Her notable feature is that she and Kraagor were two very decent human(oid) beings who held the team together by their winning personalities. Writing this stuff down makes her a bad at being a rogue but being good at being Serini.

"No matter what she said about honoring Kraagor to Kraagor's personal friends, remember she is a rogue first" is a very weak argument IMO.