I don’t think they have to. I think they just like it.
This part of the entry for Ghouls is a bit hard to jibe with what I quoted, yes:
Hungers for the flesh seems like eating to me. Perhaps it’s that they don’t take nourishment from the substance of their victims’ flesh, but rather their energy? Which makes no sense as a Negative-energy entity; you’d think that taking in Positive energy from their victims would be a bad thing. And then there’s the whole, “How do they talk if they don’t breathe?” thing.
They could help fix some of the contradiction, IMHO, by adding a qualifier to the Undead template that the undead are not required to do any of those things to exist. But “Do not” has a particular meaning, and as you point out, doesn’t seem to apply to certain types of Undead. Poor drafting.
Initially, I guess. But it’s not going to be a career-ending injury for Belkar necessarily, since he can wind up as seriously more badass than he was before. Of course, he might find that being Malack’s child cramps his style a bit, in which case, watch out Malack, because while Belkar may not be the sharpest dagger in between the fourth and fifth ribs, he could think his way through a corkscrew without scuffing on the bends when it comes to finding an advantage for himself.
You’re overthinking this. All you need to say is this:
Remember that Belkar gets a saving throw every round and he’s got two very sharp daggers. He’s in the perfect position to decapitate Malack.
Interesting to compare Malack’s use of “children” with Tsukiko’s.
You can’t kill a ghoul or a vampire by suffocating them, so no, I don’t think they need to breath.
Ditto eating/starvation, IMO.
Ghouls and vampires do not “need” to eat, in the sense that, if you lock one in a cell for a year and not feed it, it won’t starve to death. Similarly, a vampire doesn’t need to breath, but can still blow out a match.
If Belkar, in one form or another, survives to the end of the comic, I will be incredibly irritated. When we first got the prophecy, the forum had three dozen ways in which it could be subverted, many of which were stupid (I seem to remember Vow of Poverty being a popular one). Then, we went back to the Oracle, and he said that Belkar was a goner in, like, three or four more ways, as if to say, “No, really, there is no possible loophole.” So if there end up being three or four unexpected loopholes to keep Belkar around, it will feel like a retcon. To me, anyway. Here’s hoping Vamp Belkar ends up staked or disintegrated or something at some point.
Why you hatin’ on the sexy, shoeless god of war?
Perhaps a noble sacrifice at some point.
Anyway, I don’t get why everyone is trancing on Malack’s vulnerability to light. He’s been dealing with that for his entire life. He’s an albino. Even before he became a vampire he likely had some means of dealing with sunlight. An albino in a blazing desert is gonna need SOME form of help.
I still think V smokes him. I just like the “And as for the elf…” meaning s/he kills you."
Or, try this: Belkar becomes Count Belkula (Lol.). Malack controls him. Eventually, the Order starts sparring with the Linear Guild. Team Evil may or may not show up at this point. Belkar lets slip to V that he’s a vampire, and Malack did it. This shouldn’t be barred by the control Malack has. Malack is at this point trying to vampirize Durkon. V kills Death’s Little Helper and/or Durkon. Malack hulks out from the death of his “kid(s)” and kills V. All of this may or may not happen while the Fiends have control of V, though I don’t think that will happen until Kraagor’s Gate.
End result: dead Durkon, dead V, and enough dust to Raise one (if they can find a cleric to do it—somehow I don’t think Redcloak will play along). V’s death will therefore be a direct result of Belkar telling V some information, V acting on it, and the consequences of those actions leading to V’s death. It’s also even more convoluted than how Belkar killed the others in his list of victims he asked the Oracle about, continuing that theme.
I’d like Belkar to hang around awhile though. I’d like to see Burlew continue deconstructing the idea of always-evil races, even where the race requires a substance (blood) that almost always needs an evil act to procure. I think he can do that with Belkar more than Malack. It’ll probably mean the death of Malack, so Belkar can get his free will back, and I don’t think that’ll be easy to achieve, especially if Malack is a vampire lord.
What did Malack do to Belkar in the wordless 5th panel? Or was that Belkar attempting a saving throw?
It looks like Malack had decided to kill him while he was held (“On your master I confer the blessings of my own” (i.e., death). I assume the next sentence SHOULD have read “May your next (life) not lead you to such dangerous places as this.”) but then reconsidered. So I assume the black aura was the beginnings of a disintegration spell or something. The black aura in the last panel might be signalling the beginning of the change.
(After some quick research…) Yes, Malack’s magic is black, just like V’s is purple and Z’s is green.
He’s talking to Mr Scruffy, so “On your [the cat’s] master [Belkar] I confer the blessings of my own [Nergal]”, which is to say, death, and “May your [the cat’s] next [master] not lead you to such dangerous places as this.”
Also, I’m assuming that the black aura stuff is an undead energy drain; we’ve seen it before in the comic.
Ah, that makes more sense!
I’m digging the prequel story about Belkar Rich just sent out to all the Kickstarter backers.
Now I want to weld an ankh to my homebrew system.
The end was a bit forced but yeah, it was good.
And Rich got an appearance. I think.
I wonder if that was his good hand or his bad hand.
Wait, do they even have thumbs?
Something occurs to me about the door of magic traps in 867. I think that Haley might have fallen for a dupe. There may be nothing behind that door at all and the all the interconnected runic traps are there to waste a rogues time and possibly reduce or wear down an invading party.