[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
It was; but she thought Redcloak was a cowardly toady, and that she was surrounded by allies; not that Redcloak is a fanatically dedicated man on a mission, a manipulator, and that he could hijack her undead “friends”. Her understanding of the situation was completely off base, and it caused her to walk to her death.
[/QUOTE]
As a mystic theurge she had to have at least *some cleric levels, thus know about Rebuke Undead. If she didn’t figure that a) Redcloak could do the same thing and b) much better because he’s not a retarded multiclass, she’s a fucking idiot.
But we already established that
Besides, even *had *Redcloak been a cowardly toady she was giving him zero options but to try and kill her right there, no holds barred, win or die. What would he have had to lose ? So she even sucks at being a bully ! Any bully knows you don’t push the weak, snivelling pussy into a corner because that’s when they turn around and fight crazy. Trying to back him in a corner of his own bloody sanctum is just… ugh.
or druid, I guess, but I don’t think she’s the type and we’ve never seen her with an animal companion.
Tsukiko never understood the fundamental nature of Team Evil. Hell, I’m not sure she even recognized that they were evil. Look at what she says she expects Xykon to do once he learns that Redcloak is doublecrossing him: she says he’ll fire him. Where does she think they are, TGIFridays? Xykon’s default state is “murder everyone,” and that’s if you haven’t actively pissed him off. She had no idea at all what the stakes were when she confronted Redcloak. She expected him to back down, and slink away in shame. She didn’t realize that there are only two classes of people with Xykon: “perceived asset” and “target,” and what Redcloak would be forced to do if he was in danger of being moved out of that first class.
I think the whole thing stems from her fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of undead. She views them as cute, cuddly, childlike little things. So when she controls undead, that’s how they act. Consequently, she thinks that’s what undead are really like - including Xykon. She literally had no idea that she was surrounded by insatiable killing machines, until Redcloak took them out from under her control.
I’d say it’s unravelling fast, wouldn’t you say ?
Xykon is going to be pissed that his one arcane minion mysteriously disappeared. Ain’t like there are many suspects, even if Redcloak erased all traces - Tsukiko might have been dumber than a sack of gummy hammers, but she *was *powerful.
There could have been the Resistance I suppose, but RC crushed them in secret as well, and can’t say so to his boss because then he’d have to explain why. Oops.
But even if Xykon doesn’t suss him out he’s still, like **Miller **says, an insatiable killing machine. He’s going to take his monumental frustration on something. Something fragile. Something close at hand. Like a vase, or an entire goblin civilization.
Redcloak’s long con is fundamentally retarded, because it hinges on “controlling” Xykon. Who was murderously insane even when he was alive, and who has showed time and again that he wouldn’t be controlled and shouldn’t be underestimated. Which Redcloak does all the time, because he thinks he’s so s-m-r-t.
Then again, pretty much everyone in the strip consistently underestimates Xykon, so I’ll cut the Cloak some slack there.
Truth is, RC would have been better off allying with Tsukiko, by promising to make her a lich later or something. She sure would have been easier to manipulate than Xykon. All he needs for his big dumb Plan is a high level arcane spellcaster. The one reason he stuck with Xykon at all was that Xykon was the only one he and Right-Eye had found that was worth a damn.
But that was back when he was a little scrub. Now he’s nearing the Epic levels, it’s not like he can’t do divinations or even summon help. But nope. Gotta stick with the Plan. Gotta stick with every horrible decision made along the way in service of the Plan. Redcloak has tunnel vision so bad, he could be an honorary dwarf.
Where’s the “oops”? “Tsukiko disappeared, but when I single handedly wiped out the Resistance I got back both your phylactery and the arcane half of the Ritual.” Xykon already knows the phylactery had been found, so Redcloak has lost nothing and disposed of two enemies.
Isn’t that the whole point? Redcloak “crushed them in secret” and so (a) doesn’t need to “explain why” – but (b) can blame them for Tsukiko’s death: it was Tsukiko’s job to crush them; they apparently crushed her; why should Redcloak mention crushing 'em? Why not let Xykon believe they remain uncrushed?
But it’s a tricky balance; Redcloak needs a spellcaster evil enough to be tempted by the prospect of a pantheon-destroying weapon, gullible enough to be suckered by that prospect for thirty years, and mighty enough to dispatch anyone who gets in their way. (Even with Xykon they keep getting outgunned; you want Redcloak to swap in someone weaker, in hopes that they’ll be equally gullible and equally power-hungry?)
Personally I think Xykon would find the idea of Tsukiko getting eaten by her own undead minions hilaaaaaaarious as long as RC could sell it as “she lost control and they ate her” rather than “I made them do it”. Even better if he can blame it on the Resistance, claim that he then took care of the problem and hand over the spell. I’m not convinced Xykon had that much of a commitment to Tsukiko as long as whatever he needed her for gets done. But then Xykon plays his cards close to his ribcage too.
BTW, this whole “We want a place for goblins” thing: I haven’t read Start of Darkness and I know RC is a late convert to the “hobgoblins are goblins too” idea but given that the hobgoblins had an entire freaking valley up north filled with hundreds of thousands of them, what do they need Azure City for?
He needed her to figure out the arcane part of the ritual. Now, he either has to do his own damn homework or find somebody else – in either case, he’s not gonna be happy.
Start of Darkness indicates that the goblinoids are generally pushed onto marginal lands. Even if that isn’t entirely true (and we don’t really know how that valley compares to other places), Redcloak would still see taking Aziure City as a step toward letting his people have nice things for a change.
Because having been crushed, they won’t be conducting their usual operations, will they ? That’s sort of a giant hole in maintaining the illusion.
Also because if Redcloak goes “yeah the Resistance killed or captured her, I dunno shrug”, Xykon is going to want a Resistance to crush himself, “you incompetent buffoon, I will handle this myself !”-style. What’s Reddie to do then, put fake pointy ears on a handful of gobbos and call it a day ?
Outgunned ? How have they ever been outgunned ?
I mean, yeah, they tend to win in ways that still let them lose (i.e. setting fire to Lyrian’s gate, exploding Azure castle, losing Xykon’s Precious), but apart from that one time when that one dude (Bluepommel ? Redsword ?) blew a gasket and sucker-punched Xykon into a magical zappy ward, Team Evil’s got a perfect record.
Hell, Xykon single-handedly made a rules-breakingly powerful deus ex machina, who had annihilated most black dragons just a moment before, wear his-or-her own ass for a hat. Ain’t much more gun than that out there
Here’s a more amusing trick question for ya: now that the goblinoids have founded Gobbotopia, what do they need the Plan for ?
Which is why one of the first things RC is going to do when X gets back is show the phylactery and say, “Look! Shiny! See what I brought you! Let’s go to the Gate!” Get X as far away from Gobbotopia, as fast as possible.
As everybody else has noted, tell X that she lost control of her kids (True) and they ate her (Also True). Mention that there’s no body, hence, no Raising. And with no mouth, there’s no corpse to Speak To. (Even if there was a body, would the fact that she’d been level-drained, prohibit raising her? I was confused by the discussion of that topic. If you could Raise her, could you Restore the levels she’d lose from failing any of the Fortitude saves she’d have to make? If you couldn’t, then I couldn’t see X bothering to have her Raised.)
Leave the ritual half in her room if she didn’t leave any notes on it; burn it if there are. (Claim it got eaten along with the rest of her stuff.) Pocket the Ring of Death Ward/Negative Plane Protection. Pound a bunch of buffs to Bluff beforehand so X will buy all of this.
Oh, no: a resistance that’s lying low and is hard to find! I sure hope Xykon won’t just start killing elves upon suspecting his foes swim like fish in the sea of the people! Thus provoking the resistance he’s looking for! Unless he instead decides to fortify his defenses, waiting for them come to him as he moves to capture the gate! All kinds of ways this could play out, I guess.
How is Redcloak the incompetent buffoon? Crushing the resistance was Tsukiko’s job; she was, apparently, incompetent. Redcloak’s job was to get the phylactery.
Yeah, those are pretty much the ones I had in mind: over and over and over and over and over, Team Evil clashes with adventurers who foil their plans and get away to foil their plans again. You call that winning in ways that still let them lose; I see it the other way around.
Exactly. So if even that guy ain’t powerful enough to actually get the win and secure a gate, then who the heck is Redcloak going to trade Xykon in for?
Respect. The gods still don’t respect them. That s the point of the whole “control the Snarl” exercise. Just because they now control a city-state doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be attacked by everybody in creation. They need the nuclear option.
It occurs to me that Tsukiko was a lot like Miko in certain ways. Both were helplessly delusional, unable to tell who the bad guys and good guys were, and both died because of their misguided notions.
That is an absolutely correct distinction.
That won’t matter one bit to Xykon. Remember how he held Redcloak entirely and personally responsible for the loss of his phylactery ?
Foil, schmoil.
Lyrian’s gate got burned because Redcloak got a bit fire-happy in the final mop-up. Azure City got blown up because one third-rate, insane, fallen Paladin gummed up the works - that one had literally *nothing *to do with adventurers or any action by the PCs or Good NPCs whatsoever. Had they had their way, Miko would have stayed in jail and Team Evil’s triumph would have been utter. The phylactery… well, that one doesn’t even really matter - it’s not like Xykon couldn’t get on with whatever it is he’s doing off-panel without it.
My point is, whenever they “lose”, it’s due to some freak accident or Butterfly Effect chain reaction, never to the concerted plans and actions of the heroes. Those consistently fail - like Roy jumping on the dragon, Vaarsuvius making giant soldiers, the Ghost Martyrs, Lyrian thinking an unsupervised eco-friendly prison was good enough, and of course Evil V and O-Chul only got saved by Plot happening - they were thoroughly beaten. As was the Resistance, come to think of it, but I guess they had flimsier plot armour.
That won’t matter one bit to Redcloak, so long as ‘holding him responsible’ again means ‘keeping him on the team heading for the next gate.’ Remember how that’s what it meant the last time? That’s presumably what it would mean this time.
And that’s what’s being set up yet again, right? The Order Of The Stick will (a) probably show up to fight it out with Team Evil, and will (b) probably fail to get a win despite their concerted plans and actions, but will (c) probably do well enough to leave both sides in bad shape – right when Tarquin hopes to swoop in like a genre-savvy opportunist with a rested-and-ready crew out to exploit narrative conventions.
If we thus assume Xykon will again be almost-but-not-quite-powerful enough to forestall yet another such outcome, then who do you figure Redcloak should swap him out for? Someone even less powerful?
Ah. I see in 828 Redcloak had the Phylactory on his belt. He sticks it in his left pants pocket as he strides thru the door. I didn’t notice that at first.
I don’t think so. Xykon only cares about Xykon. Maybe Redcloak can claim that the girl was planning on diublecrossing Team Evil. Xykon just wanted help with the ritual. If Redcloak can offer some tidbit about the ritual, erasing the need to have Tsukiko around, Xykon will not greive. (He may keep a closer eye on Redcloak anyway. Xykon is probably paranoid of everyone in a healthy way.)
