The elf says “Good. They won’t be able to report back who stole the lich’s phylactery.”
Not that they wouldn’t be able to report back that the lich’s phylactery had been found.
It was in No Cure for the Paladin Blues, and just for the sake of accuracy, it wasn’t a decapitation, it was an “x3 critical hit right to the jugular.” Could somebody explain what that means in actual D&D-playing? Does that mean you have to role three 20’s in a row?
O-Chul surely told Hinjo about what happened with the phylactery during his debriefing, and Hinjo spoke to Belkar (in the bonus strips in Don’t Split the Party, at least) and presumably Haley/Celia/Vaarsuvius as well. Since we know Hinjo helped set up the elf infiltration –“Liberation: commencing.” and all – it seems likely that the information about the phylactery came from O-Chul/Vaarsuvius, to Hinjo, to the elf infiltration, to the entire Resistance.
My only question is the same as the hobgoblin: how did the Resistance discover that the phylactery had been found in time to intercept its delivery? I guess they’d probably have operatives all over the place keeping a sharp lookout …
One unrelated question: it’s been almost a year since Azure City fell – at the point Redcloak gave that speech, 10.5 months, I guess. But when Roy first started looking down on the mortal plane to see what the heck was going on, it had been a few days shy of four months since the battle. What took up the rest of the six months? We know from this point until almost the end of Don’t Split the Party is at most one day, since presumably Durkon would have removed V’s paralysis and healed V by the next day at the latest, and that’s only if he didn’t have Remove Paralysis prepared that same day. So how much time passed before that and after that? Can anybody help me with an approximate timeline?
Well, it’s already had significance, hasn’t it? It seems to have caused Girard to hate Soon, so much that he wants to kill him. If it wasn’t for that, maybe Girard would have trusted Soon with the actual location of the gate, and the Order of the Stick wouldn’t be involved in a desperate hunt and race against time…
Incidentally, I just noticed that Rich consistently misspells “fascist” as “facist.” Weird.
In 3.5, it just means a confirmed critical hit (i.e. 20 on the initial attack roll, followed by a successful second attack roll, which probably means another 20 in the case of a low-level goblin attacking a high-level dragon), using a weapon with a x3 critical multiplier (eg. a battleaxe).
WAG: Redcloak is sending three search parties out on shifts, probably at intervals and locations already known to the Resistance. An unscheduled return of a team will surely be taken by the Resistance as a sign that this search party had found the phylactery.
Unfortunately, Redcloak, when shift change time comes around, with only two parties showing up to be relieved, will just as surely come to the same conclusion. And, as has been pointed out, Tsukiko will be easily able to bring her talents to bear when Redcloak and Xykon need to debrief the finders.
Question: would destroying the bodies (with, f’rinstance, disintegration) do more than slow them down wrt speaking with the dead spirits of the gobbos that the Resistance killed?
Idiot hobgoblin! Elan thought O-Chul would die from saying “I didn’t expect to live through that”, and that guy’s got, like, +10 plot armor. A nameless mook saying “I’d sure hate to die from this” isn’t so much tempting fate as sending fate an engraved invitation.
Huff Finally…caught up with thread puffafter…discovering…comic…two months ago. gasp Can now start reading…thread.
Holy crap, fifty six pages. Well I’ll follow along from here.
No, no, no. It’s 56 pages for Book 5. You still havethe first general thread andBook 4as well.
See you in a couple of months. 
Set your posts per page to 200. Now it’s only 15 pages! Much more manageable, don’t you agree?
In this strip Redcloak convinced Xykon they needed to do some research of the Gates before heading out for the next one. Which was mostly an excuse to give Redcloak time to set up his Goblin homeland.
Yep. So, then four months later, Roy looks down and starts seeing what’s been going on. Then, when we next see Redcloak and pals, it’s 10.5 months later, which we know can’t be more than seven weeks after the day Xykon loses his phylactery and Roy gets resurrected, since Belkar isn’t dead yet. So when did the intervening six months pass between Roy starting to watch and Redcloak’s speech?
I guess what I’m wondering is, how long was Roy dead, and how long did it take to find Xykon’s phylactery?
I thought that too, for years! But then I looked closely at the artwork in War and XPs a few days ago and realized that it’s not fangs, it’s just a triangular mouth with whiskers – a completely normal Hello Kitty picture!
In 3.5, the spell Speak with Dead (by far and away the lowest level such spell) doesn’t work to contact the spirits of dead creatures. It animates the body. The spell treats the body as a recording device which retains the knowledge known in life.
Disintegrating the body therefore renders it impossible to speak with the dead creature, as would (say) completely removing the jawbone.
There’s Contact Other Plane, but you can never be too sure who you get, or godbothering (aka Commune), but that’s asking your deity, who may or may not know the answer to your question, depending on how close the question is to his portfolio.
Also, disintegration ups the difficulty of restoring things to life, because Raise Dead requires that the body be substantially intact. Resurrection, however, could repair a Disintegrated body - provided you had the right dust molecules.
Okay, I just spend way too long rereading a bunch of strips (including the bonus strips in the book) and here’s what I got.
The story arcs:
The Battle of Azure City and Roy’s death (419-484) all one day
Roy goes to the afterlife (484-500)
Durkon, Elan, and Vaarsuvius on the fleet (501-509)
Roy (510)
Haley and Belkar in the resistance (511-535)
Haley, Belkar, and Celia on the road (537-540)
O-Chul, Xykon, and Redcloak in Azure City (541-550)
Durkon, Elan, and Vaarsuvius with the fleet (551-563)
Haley, Belkar, and Celia visit the Oracle (563-581) - also a one-day scene Elan with the fleet (572a-572f)
Durkon, Elan, and Vaarsuvius with the fleet (581-599)
Roy (600-601)
Haley, Belkar, and Celia in Greysky City (601-622)
Vaarsuvius on the island and becoming evil. Order is reunited and Roy is resurrected (623-671) also a one-day scene with Haley, Belkar, and Celia in Greysky City (642a-642h) - all one day
Order arrives in Sandsedge and travels to Girard’s supposed Gate (673-698)
Team Evil in Azure City (699-709)
Elan, Haley, and Vaarsuvius captured (710-716)
Empire of Blood (717-822)
Times mentioned in the strips:
Roy finds out he’s been in the afterlife for 103 days in 498. He then spends nine more days traveling back down the mountain (500). So the time between his death (and the fall of Azure City) and his first scrying of the fleet (on Kazumi and Daigo’s wedding day) is 112 days.
Hinjo makes a speech at the wedding and says the fleet’s been traveling “almost four months” (501). All the events in this fleet scene (500-509) take place in a single day.
Roy scrys on Haley. They rescue some slaves, Roy returns as a ghost, and Celia is summoned. It’s still the same day. Belkar mentions Mr Scruffy has been eating rice and mice for three months (530).
In 531, it’s the next day and Celia mentions it’s been three and a half months since the Order was separated. Haley says it’s been sixteen weeks since the city fell (532).
They hold the resistance summit meeting and leave the city. These probably aren’t all in one day but it appears to be only a few days. Belkar will later say he spent 113 days defending Azure City (665b). Haley said they were planning trip to Cliffport which will take “way more than four weeks” (532) although they never actually make it to Cliffport.
The scenes with O-Chul being tortured all occured in one day. Redcloak mentions it’s been four months since the rift was opened (545).
Scene with Elan, Durkon, Vaarsuvius, Daigo, Lien, and Therkla on the island. This is all a single day. It’s not clear how long this is after the wedding day scene but enough time has passed that Kazumi has become visibly pregnant.
Haley, Belkar, Celia, and Roy visit the Oracle. It’s not clear how long they have been on the road from Azure City. This scene is a single day. The Oracle repeats his prophecy that Belkar will “draw his last breath” before the end of the year.
It’s later shown the black dragon also visits the Oracle on this day (628) and then watches Vaarsuvius while she plans her revenge. This includes two visits to Vaarsuvius’ home but it’s not clear how long this watching went on.
Haley, Belkar, and Celia go to Greysky City. This scene all occurs in a single night. Haley mentions they’ve been arguing “this last week” (573) but it’s not clear when she counts that as starting from. But it could be the time they’ve been on the road. Haley says they could be in Cliffport “in a few days” if they had horses (579). The Cloister spell from Azure City is still in effect (it lasts five weeks but Haley thinks it only lasts four so they’ve been on the road for less than four weeks).
Elan, Therkla, Durkon, Vaarsuvius, Hinjo, and Lien fight the giant demon on the island. Kubota kills Therkla and is killed by Vaarsuvius in turn. This scene apparently takes place the same night as the Greysky City scene (581). Therkla says she’s been watching Elan for months (582) and Durkon says Vaarsuvius has been annoying him for six months (588). The morning after this scene Vaarsuvius leaves to go to the island.
Roy’s Archon says it’s been weeks since Roy visited the Oracle (600). Eugene says Celia and Haley have been waiting in Greysky City for eight days (601). Haley, Belkar, and Celia battle the Thieves Guild. This all occurs in a single night. Belkar says they’ll be raiding Grubwiggler’s in a few days (622)
The big day (623-671). Vaarsuvius has been on the island for at least four days (624). Vaarsuvius is attacked by the black dragon and accepts the deal with the three fiends. V then attacks and kills the dragon. The raid on Grubwiggler’s gets Roy’s body back. The Order reunites in Greysky City. Vaarsuvius teleports everyone to an island and goes off to unsuccesfully attack Xykon. Roy is resurrected. Roy says he expects Belkar to be dead within seven weeks (666). The fiends say that the total time Vaarsuvius was using their spell (634-653) was twenty minutes and thirty-five seconds (667). In a flashback scene, it was eight months ago that Shinjo put the Mark of Justice on Belkar (665b). Haley says her information on the Azure City resistance is several months old (670).
The day after the big day, the Order sets out for Girard’s Gate. They go to Sandsedge first. Blackwing says it is only two days after Vaarsuvius was home during the dragon attack (678).
They set out and encounter slavers on what appears to be the next day. Roy says they will split off on their own the next day (687). They arrive at Girard’s Gate in a few hours via sandworm (690). Durkon says it would have taken them a few weeks to walk there. They appear to spend six days looking for the “gate” before finding it (692). When they realize it’s a fake they head towards the nearest city to look for information. This trip will take them at least four days (698).
Redcloak announces the founding of Gobbotopia and says it’s been forty-six weeks since they captured Azure City. He also says that the attack on Xykon had occurred within the last week (702). The resistance attacks a jail and Tsukiko researchs a spell. This scene is all one day. Xykon has left, apparently to visit the Oracle (737) to find the location of his phylactary.
The Order is in a city looking for information. Elan, Haley, and Vaarsuvius are captured by Enor and Gannji and taken to Bleedingham in the Empire of Blood. Elan says Nale was killed “almost a year ago” during the battle of Azure City (720). They meet Tarquin and Malack. Tarquin says his wife Penelope passed away recently and they had a funeral last week (727). Tarquin schedules a three day festival for Elan. Roy, Belkar, and Durkon arrive in Bleedingham. Roy and Belkar are arrested for not having the proper entry papers. Gannji and Enor are set up by Tarquin and also arrested. All are sentenced to be gladiators. Durkon gets an entry pass good for thirty strips (732).
Everyone spends the day in Bleedingham, doing various things including attending a parade. Elan figures out Tarquin is evil. Elan and Haley break into the arena.
Day 3 in Bleedingham. Roy and Belkar fight in the arena. The Linear Guild returns. Nale says he’s been in Bleedingham for months and the Order was in the middle of the desert “last week” (801). Tarquin says that his late wife Penelope got information about her missing daughter a few weeks ago (816). Tarquin says it will take the Order two days to get to Windy Canyon (817).
Unfortunately when you put the pieces together, the timeline doesn’t appear to fit.
We were given a few firm days that are dated from the battle of Azure City. Roy scryed on Belkar and Haley 112 days after the battle. Belkar and Haley left the city the next day. Belkar says he defended the city for 113 days. So those dates fit.
Haley though the cloister spell would effect her for four weeks after she left Azure City. She said it was still in effect the night they arrived in Greysky City. So the arrival in Greysky City must have been less than 141 days after the battle.
Haley, Belkar, and Celia hide in Greysky City for eight days before their fight with the Thieves Guild - so we’re still less than 149 days after the battle. They raid Grubwiggler’s “a few days” after this fight. And the same night they raid Grubwiggler’s is the night they reunite with the rest of the Order.
But the other fixed date we have is Redcloak’s announcement of the founding of Gobbotopia. He says it’s forty-six weeks (322 days) after the battle. And he says the night of Vaarsuvius’ attack on Xykon was the week before, so it had to be around 315 days after the battle.
But the night of Vaarsuvius’ attack was also the night of the Order’s reunion. The two events happened during Vaarsuvius’ twenty minute period under the spell. The only way you can make this fit is if the “few days” they spent planning the raid was actually at least 160 days. And it seems impossible that Haley and Celia would have hung around in the Thieves Guild for five months when they were supposedly in a huge hurry to recover Roy’s body and the Thieves Guild was in a hurry to betray Haley.
I’m not going to go through the strips right now, but there are also some inconsistencies in Shojo’s various stories of when the Order of the Scribble went adventuring. It’s unfortunate, but just not that big a deal IMO.
Redcloak must be the Wizard of Osmium.
You could fanwank this speeded up time as a side-effect of the rift.
Oh fuck.