# Order of the Stick - Book 5 Discussion Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 31, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323 "2009-08-31T04:09:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 267
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5322 "2013-03-14T19:58:26Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > As for the Evil of vampirism, I thought that Burlew was big on the “deeds make alignment, not your species,” point of view? Other than chomping on Belkar, D hasn’t had many evil deeds yet. (Of course, it’s still early…) Is he? Most everything we’ve seen in the comic has corresponded to their official alignment. We haven’t met any good aligned goblins, or good aligned black dragons, or good aligned undead. Burlew seems to be more about making evil characters who have understandable motives, or charming personalities, but who still act in ways that are clearly malevolent. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5323 "2013-03-14T20:02:03Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Is he? Most everything we’ve seen in the comic has corresponded to their official alignment. We haven’t met any good aligned goblins, \ IIRC, there were some teenage rebellious goblins who acted good out of, well, teenage rebelliousness. Much to the dismay of their parents; "You’ll drink the blood of the innocent and _like it!"_ ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5324 "2013-03-14T20:20:42Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I don’t think so. “Annihilating the person I am today” seems to me to imply something a lot more drastic than just a loss of personal power. Personal power is what makes him who he is today. Without it, he’s just some schlub. In the cinematic words of Henry Hill: _Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I’d either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. Didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything. When I was broke, I’d go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it’s all over. And that’s the hardest part. Today everything is different; there’s no action… have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody… get to live the rest of my life like a schnook._ ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5325 "2013-03-14T20:43:32Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > IIRC, there were some teenage rebellious goblins who acted good out of, well, teenage rebelliousness. Much to the dismay of their parents; "You’ll drink the blood of the innocent and _like it!"_ I remember them, but within five strips, they’d “grown up” and sold out the OotS to the other goblins in the dungeon. > [@Jophiel](#): > > I didn’t get that at all. Malack was (from my view) just saying that “curing” him was changing him from a powerful vampire-cleric and ally of a national leader back into a chump lizardman who didn’t even have a tribe any longer, much less the resources of a nation at his feet. He’d still be a cleric but much of his power and parity with Tarquin comes from his vampirism… I don’t know about that. If he came back to life with exactly the same personality he has as a vampire, he’d still be friends with Tarquin, who seems to hold some genuine affection for the lizard. And I don’t see why being a non-vampire would necessarily threaten his position as head of his church, which presumably mostly derives from his cleric levels and organizational abilities. Being high level isn’t a necessary prerequisite for being a national leader, as we saw in Azure City, where Lord Shojo just had levels in an NPC class, and not all that many of them. I think **Der Trihs** has it right - Malack sees being resurrected as a reversion to a personality he has long since shed. He views it as being turned into a different person entirely, and is not merely concerned with being depowered in some meta-gaming sense. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5326 "2013-03-15T04:01:15Z")
Nitpick: Shojo did have a lot of Aristocrat levels (16, IIRC). The primary significance of Malack’s 200 years dead is that it means that he couldn’t be resurrected at all, at least by any caster short of epic. Resurrection has a time limit of 10 years per caster level, meaning Durkon would have been limited to 150-ish. We (at least, those of us who have bought the print books) have seen at least one goblin who seems to be good, and we’ve all seen a good kobold. But those don’t matter much, since goblins and kobolds are both just “usually evil”. That just means more than 50% likelihood for any given member, but even going by the strictest rules, still leaves plenty of room for exceptions. Of species that are listed as _always_ a particular alignment, we’ve only seen one or possibly two exceptions: Enor the neutral half-blue-dragon, and possibly Sabine who seems to behave as lawful evil rather than the chaotic evil that’s normal for a succubus (though her alignment hasn’t been confirmed). ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5327 "2013-03-15T07:48:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > We (at least, those of us who have bought the print books) have seen at least one goblin who seems to be good, and we’ve all seen a good kobold. Which ones? ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5328 "2013-03-15T09:08:05Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Which ones? Right-Eye is probably the aforementioned Good-aligned goblin. The good-aligned kobold mentioned is probably The Oracle, but that’s rather dubious in my view. He seems pretty neutral to me. In addition to the reasons Roy actually mentioned, there are a couple more reasons why I think he was in such denial about Durkon. Belkar really _did not_ help himself with that “turning undead” pun. And Roy and Durkon knew each other for a couple years prior to forming the Order; Roy, in fact, was the first human ever to treat Durkon with any kind of respect. Anyway… the Order may be up shit creek _anyway,_ but they absolutely _need_ to find V (and V needs to get over her Heroic Blue Screen of Death) or they’re **really** in trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5329 "2013-03-15T13:42:07Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > No idea how they do it now but I vaguely remember the old rules (1st ed Deities & Demigods?) saying that a cleric changing deities was looking at a minimum two level drop in power and being barred from the most powerful spell levels until they re-established themselves in their new patron’s eyes. Not that the information would have been current anyway, but I got curious about this and looked it up and I was misremembering. No information in Deities & Demigods about flipping deities. Rather, the Krynn sourcebook said that clerics who change alignment immediately lose two levels. They also lose all spells until they find a new deity. I have no idea if those guidelines were ever used outside the Krynn setting though. ---
**Author:** ![Wolverine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba9def/32.png) [@Wolverine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolverine)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5330 "2013-03-15T13:55:19Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > The good-aligned kobold mentioned is probably The Oracle, but that’s rather dubious in my view. He seems pretty neutral to me. The good-aligned [kobold is most likely Yokyok](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0357.html) the son of Yikyik. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5331 "2013-03-15T14:07:03Z")
> [@Wolverine](#): > > The good-aligned [kobold is most likely Yokyok](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0357.html) the son of Yikyik. Yeah, that’s got to be it. The Oracle serves an evil god, and he is on the “bad guys” side of the big Order of the Stick poster. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5332 "2013-03-15T16:37:00Z")
YokYok doesn’t seem terribly good-aligned to me. But you know what they say about the only good kobold. And we’ve seen plenty of those. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5333 "2013-03-15T16:49:47Z")
Oh, yes, forgot about Yokyok. D’oh! ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5334 "2013-03-15T18:52:58Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > YokYok doesn’t seem terribly good-aligned to me. > [@Yokyok](#): > > I would normally never stoop to traveling with such scoundrels as the Linear Guild … I’m pure righteous justice … That’s where the thought comes from that Yokyok [del]is[/del] was good. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5335 "2013-03-15T18:58:58Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > That’s where the thought comes from that Yokyok [del]is[/del] was good. And from the commentary in **War and XPs** : “… I did try to hint that Belkar’s opposite was also the odd-man-out, alignment-wise, on his team… only Yokyok was noble in the company of villains…” ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5336 "2013-03-15T19:13:39Z")
> [@chorpler](#): > > And from the commentary in **War and XPs** : “… I did try to hint that Belkar’s opposite was also the odd-man-out, alignment-wise, on his team… only Yokyok was noble in the company of villains…” I really need to buy some of those books … ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5337 "2013-03-15T19:34:58Z")
You really need to buy ALL of the books. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5338 "2013-03-15T20:09:43Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > You really need to buy ALL of the books. Ouch. Not at $30 a pop, I don’t. It looks like most of the strips are available online anyway and I’ve already read them. Just the old Dragon Magazine strips and the prequel book have material I haven’t seen (unless I’m judging wrong). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5339 "2013-03-15T20:13:00Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Ouch. Not at $30 a pop, I don’t. > > It looks like most of the strips are available online anyway and I’ve already read them. Just the old Dragon Magazine strips and the prequel book have material I haven’t seen (unless I’m judging wrong). Not completely. Burlew usually adds extra strips to the main story when he publishes the books. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5340 "2013-03-15T20:18:54Z")
Well, I like Burlew’s stuff and all but I doubt I like it to the tune of $5 a strip for new work 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/5341 "2013-03-15T20:33:02Z")
I’m not saying that you have to buy them all at once. However, Burlew does put more content into each books, and sometimes re-orders the strips within the books. Personally, I find it much easier to read the strips when they’re in a book, and I WILL buy the new book when it comes out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323.md?page=266) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323.md?page=268)