No, not this strip, Start of Darkness right after he becomes a lich. He accidentally paralyzes Right-Eye. Ura-Maru said that new lich might not have full control of his power.
Well yes, but who’s to say that she hasn’t already done that? And in canonical D&D you enact the lichdom rituals and they only take effect when you die. Like she has just done. And don’t you think this would make Redcloak’s comments all the more horrific as she now knows what she has done to herself?
From a purely dramatic viewpoint I think we’re done with Tsukiko. She’s served her purpose and we’re moving on.
A lich-Tsukiko starts a whole new character arc with a powerful new player. The focus is clearly now on the Redcloak-Xykon conflict in that circle, and with the OotS/Linear Guild/Tarquin & Co three-way battle and with Draketooth (or whomever) yet to be introduced and the ultimate plan of the Evil Three/Sabine/Imp Guy (I can’t remember his name at the moment) yet to be revealed, there’s a lot to get through before the end of this story. Lich-Tsukiko is one new development too much.
I completely agree. Tsukiko had her moments but she had a part to play in the story and now, with the exposition of Redcloak’s true plan and the demonstration of how badass he can be, she’s done. I love this quote from Little Nemo from a couple of pages back:
She was in way over her head and was too stupid and arrogant to realize it until it was way too late.
Maybe he can do what Howard Taylor has done with hisSchlock Mercenary books, put them out through Baen books.
Do you need an intact skeleton to become a lich? I think that was one reason RC wanted her devoured and not just dead.
That doesn’t appear to be how it works in the Stickverse, though. In Start of Darkness, Xykon transformed into a lich the moment the ritual was complete. On top of that, liches are corporeal undead, and Tsukiko didn’t leave a corpus. It happened “off panel,” sure, but instead of seeing her get eaten, we saw Redcloak stand there and watch it happen until it was done. That’s about as definitively dead as you can get in this strip.
Excellent point, and another indication that Tsukiko won’t be returning: the focus while she was dying was not on her, but on Redcloak’s (lack of) reaction as it happened. She’s consumed with horror and panic and having her life drained one level at a time, but the important element is Redcloak, not her. She literally disappears from the continuing story.
Well, not necessarily. Just picture it: the Order Of The Stick has been narrowly defeated through a tremendous exchange of magic, and Redcloak and Xykon are about to cast the spell that will threaten the gods themselves by threatening the universe itself, when suddenly a shrouded figure with mis-matched eyes steps out of the shadows to announce herself as an ageless and mighty harbinger of –
– actually, she never gets to finish the sentence, as that’s when Tarquin dramatically arrives to clobber her from behind; dude carries an enchanted shield that pumps out antimagic or something, and so starts cheerfully knocking heads like a fighter fighting non-fighters: lich #1 is down, lich #2 is down, cleric is down…
I just have to share my excitement – the Kickstarter drive has been blowing through all the goals shortly after each has been announced, and Rich Burlew just posted a couple of new rewards, and I was lucky enough to snag a signed 8x10 print of his poster showing all the characters in OotS. Yay! My timing was spot-on – I checked for updates and jumped on the offer the minute I saw it, before the email with the update had even been sent, and three minutes later, all the signed prints had been spoken for. Hot dog!
Not really. She wouldn’t gain any new spells. Lich is +2 CR IIRC. Would Xykon even notice if she were a lich?
Lucky bastard. I didn’t see the email until I got home from work, so all the good stuff was gone. I’m still in with my original pledge, of course.
Get to pledging, people! We’re a few days away from getting all 7 books in print at the same time.
The comic on the Kickstarter page is funny.
I can’t afford any of the books, much less to pledge, and was disappointed that NONE of them are available at the library, not even though the inter-library loan system. 
I see what you did there.
I’ve decided to just be happy with the mystery stuff and the book the original drive was for. Hopefully the prints of all the otehrs will stay in stock long enough for me to get em. Just have the 2 prequels so far and The Dragon one.
832 is up!
New one’s up, and it’s brilliant. I laughed at literally every panel except #3 and #7. Not gonna lie, though, I expected Redcloak to at least try to cover up Tsukiko’s death a little bit. I can’t tell if Xykon’s mad about it, or if his eyes are just always like that.
It’s quite the strategy: just admit it straight up. I’m curious what explanation he will conjure, though.
And seriously, yeah. I laughed out loud at the punchline.
Yeah, same here on the punchline. He doesn’t even need to lie. “I found her snooping around in my study, so I fed her to her own wights.”
There’s not a single person in that room who would see that as an unreasonable action.
Well. I was expecting a comic tonight, but I certainly wasn’t expecting that comic tonight.