I thought we’d decided that it was [del]Z’zzdr[/del] [del]Zzt[/del] the drow who was scrying on them, not Draketooth? And they don’t all have to be Draketooth’s direct descendants - they could be extended family. Or indeed other part-dragon people.
That said, how long ago in comic time was the Familicide? I’ve lost track but I agree it must have been a while - too long for them to be this freshly dead. Although with the artistic liberties of stick figures and a desert setting, who knows? It’d be a neat twist.
FWIW, there’s a class in D&D3.5 that is just that (the Favoured Soul) and another in Pathfinder (the Oracle). There is also a 3.5 version for Druid magic (the Spirit Shaman). Basically they’re the divine magic equivalent of a Sorceror. They do lose out on some cleric/druid features to pay for their flexibility though.
Gunpowder always works on my worlds. The fact that gunpowder smoke is identical to Red Dragon pheromones is a nasty discovery for any wannabe-Bacon PCs to make…
…which doesn’t bother dwarfs when they use the stuff in their deep mines, but explains why the gunpowder-using lawn ornaments never managed to rule the world. And why their ventilation shafts always have one or two very …shall we say frustrated? … young adult dragons permanently camped out there.
Familicide happened on the same day that V attacked Xykon, which was the same day that Redcloak lost his eye. From the dialogue herethat appears to be less than 6 months.
Since Familicide, the Order have crossed to the western continent, marched across the desert to the false co-ordinates, gone back to the nearest city to look for Draketooth’s clan, spent 3 days in the Empire of Blood and then left for the Windy (or Windy) Canyon. 3 months max? And the bodies don’t look very fresh - certainly the food is well rotted, and there’s a healthy insect population. With the fudge factor of dry desert air I think it’s plausible enough to work.
more like 2-3 weeks.
My own theory - It’s not V’s familicide that killed them. It’s another familicide by Haerta, who escaped and has not been recaptured in-strip.
I assumed at the time that was a black dragon in the middle of its own Darkness spell. I don’t know that’s still not the more plausible explanation. There’s only one pair of eyes, and why would the whole clan have been eating dinner in the dark?
Which is why I thought she might make an appearance by possessing Tsukiko. Obviously that’s out now…
I am surprised that Belkar misidentified the smell. Roy out and out asks him if it’s rotting corpses he smells, and Belkar says no. You’d think Belkar would have more than a passing familiarity with the odor… Perhaps desert mummification makes them smell different somehow? Or maybe it’s an artifact of how they died? Their end looked incredibly sudden—no one has gone for their weapons/armor, no one looks distressed/choking/aware they were under attack and one looks like he was struck down as he was walking with a tray of food. It looks like someone just set off an insta-kill, e.g. Symbol of Death, in the room. In addition, the bodies don’t look like they’ve been looted/disturbed. Maybe it was due to the Familicide? Good work on hashing out the timeline, Stanislaus. It seems the most likely explanation so far.
Or the whole thing is one of Girard’s illusions, though why you’d make that particular one, I don’t know. Nice artwork on the beetles; I’m guessing they’re supposed to be scarab beetles? In any event, it seems like it’s time to break out the Speak with Dead.
I am perplexed by the whole temple complex. You’d think that the sanctum of an Epic Illusionist’s progeny would have traps sufficient to kill someone right off the bat. So, I’m surprised that Yukyuk was able to take three of them, without any energy dissipating buffs at all, and still be alive. Then again, I’d think you couldn’t dispel his illusions either, despite V being a pretty high level. Perhaps they were cast by one of his kids?
Edit: Does anyone think there’s significance to the runes on the exterior of the pyramid, beyond decoration?
We’re all assuming that the three fiends would possess Vaarsuvius at some future date. But what if they did it while he/she was on his/her rampage? They only needed possession of V long enough to cast the familicide spell on the Draketooth family. And we saw they can stop the flow of time anyway.
Outside of the Order of the Stick, the group that seems to benefit the most from the death of the Draketooths is the Linear Guild. Which, as we’ve seen, is the unwitting tool of the three fiends.
Anyone else wondering the significance of the desert beetles ? AFAIK they’re coprophages, not necrophages. I’m wondering if we’re not due an appearance by Buggy Lou’s bigger, meaner brother or something like that.
Or possibly it could be the end-result of an epic version of the Creeping Doom spell ? Something to do with Lyrian, maybe ?
Nifty idea, but I didn’t think that Creeping Down or Crown of Vermin could strike down an entire room of people quite that fast. I thought the beetles might be the polymorphed members of the clan, but you’d think Durkon’s True Seeing would be able to cut through all of that? If they search the rest of the complex, and find a treasure room that’s hard, but not too hard, to open, (like the opening traps) then I’ll buy that this is all an Epic Illusion and they’re going to have to find a Draketooth somewhere to show them the way. Related to the traps, it’s nice that they got around to healing Yukyuk.
One thing, if it was Familicide that killed everyone, I guess that puts paid to the idea that either Haley or Elan or Nale were related to the Draketooth’s in any way.
Edit: Anyone else have the scene remind them of the cafeteria scene in the first part of Stephen King’s “The Stand”?
