Order of the Stick - Book 5 Discussion Thread

Cafe Society
6322

The Giant drew back the curtain yesterday:
[QUOTE=The Giant]
Just to give an idea of how much the plot is planned, here’s a story that will likely end up in the commentary for the next book in a different format:

One of the things I may have mentioned in Dungeon Crawlin’ Fools is that while strip #1 was always the first comic, strip #4 was actually the next one produced. Before I posted it, however, I produced another strip that has never been posted; we’ll call it #A.

The events depicted in #A can be summarized as follows: Elan and Haley walk on stage to where Roy is waiting. Looking sad and crying, they inform Roy that they met some undead, and Durkon turned undead. Roy is confused, they reiterate. Roy gets annoyed, says that Durkon’s a cleric, so of course he turned undead, stop being so stupid. Haley and Elan walk back to the left where V and Belkar are restraining a Durkon that is a vampire—he literally turned into an undead. They make a crack about how Roy took it really well. Ba dum bump.

I did not post this strip; instead, I went back and decided that rather than one-off gags, I wanted each strip to feed into the events of the next. So I wrote #2 and #3 to get from the already-posted #1 to the already-finished (and now renumbered) #4. But that left me with #A, which if I posted it, would derail my fledgling sense of continuity, because I had no way to undo Durkon’s vampirism. In the end, I tabled the joke and drew #5 instead.

However, as a result of that comic, it has always been true that someday, Durkon was going to turn into a vampire. At first, I was just going to save the joke for a day when they would have access to the means to undo it, and then later, I decided to drop the punchline and really make it a major part of what happens. But as a plot element, it literally predates the existence of the Snarl, or the Gates, or any other aspect of the plot—even Xykon himself! All of Durkon’s characterization and plot, since 2003, has been leading to him becoming a vampire and the story that would spin out of that. It has influenced hundreds of decisions going back ten years of comic.

So when I post the comic where Malack kills Durkon, and then raises him as a vampire, it is not a valid criticism to come here and say, “You shouldn’t have done that, you ruined the comic, Durkon should have won.” The comic you’re reading is the way it is for the purpose of turning Durkon into a vampire! *Malack was created *for the purpose of turning Durkon into a vampire! There was no possible scenario where you would be reading a Malack vs. Durkon fight scene that didn’t end with Durkon getting vamped.
[/QUOTE]
So Durkon was destined to be vamped since 2003.

6323

:eek: Wow.

I think Durkon’s devil will also have a change in priorities. I’m not sure if it will attack the daemon, Nale, or the Sand elemental.

6324

Ugh. That’s why I try to avoid any sort of Burlew commentary. Rather than giving us insight into the world of his comic, he’d rather be petulant and bitchy.

And it’s a perfectly valid criticism to say that Durkon shouldn’t have been vamped if you can support your opinion by drawing from the actual work. Whether he intended it from the beginning or not is irrelevant. The story is what matters, not his personal timeline.

6325

Well, I had to quote him in the midst of a conversation. I didn’t read that particular thread (I linked to it from another) but in general I perceive a lot of dross at the Oots forum, with a few gems. And as much as I like Malack, Burlew isn’t going to modify the major plot outline this far into the story. Over in Japan, manga characters can come and go on the basis of reader polling. But typically that sort of strategy is built into the story from the beginning.

6326

I don’t like it when authors engage in a dialog with readers. Ruins the suspension of disbelief. After all, if I can affect the outcome of a story, then it’s obviously something that’s being made up, right?

6327

Well, Nale certainly gains a level in badass for that one.

6328

Well, that sure blindsided me.

6329

You know, if Malack was alive for 200 years, but couldn’t figure out that keeping Word of Recall memorized might be a good idea—for a Vampire in a friggin’ desert!—then he’s too stupid to live. Also, if Malack gave the command to Durkferatu to kill Nale, could Durk kill both Nale and Z? I think he’d have a decent chance. Finally, I love how a vampire that’s strong enough to grapple and pin a martial cleric like Durkon, is still so weak that Nale’s able to grab his staff from him.

Still glad he’s dead.

6330

I think the staff-grabbing was successful becuase it was unexpected.

My WAGs for what happens next depends on how Durkferatu reacts to Malack’s death and the presumed return of his free will. We could get:

  • a strip’s worth of existential angst as he comes to term with his new (and self-aware) existence;
  • Nale attacking him (as Nale has every reason to need him dead-dead too) and him either fleeing to join the OotS or summoning his devil back to help him (thus inadvertently aiding Roy);
  • Him attacking Nale from behind with some interesting spell from the staff while Nale is recovering from the fight with Malack;
  • the return of Tarquin to stop them fighting at all; or
  • the appearance of a swarm of sandworms that eat everyone from both teams, while Rich absconds to Brazil with the Kickstarter money he claims to have spent but actually has stashed in a large battered leather suitcase.

At this point I’m pretty sure the answer will be “none of the above” but it’s fun to speculate.

6331

Wow. Just wow.

Some musing:

We’ve got a Chekov’s Gun here: Nale’s potions. Durkon will at some point relay this to Haley, who will swap out the potion, and Nale will get accidentally drained. (cf Redcloak getting rid of Tsukiko’s ring)

And the staff is now a plot device for Durkon to rejoin the OoTS and operate in sunlight. Just because he’s now a vampire doesn’t mean he’s automatically aligned with Xykon and Redcloak. Roy & co will defend vampire Durkon in the same way that they defend Belkar. Plus they want to get him unvamped.

And we can now expect a lot of angsty-vampire jokes.

6332

I’m not sure that Roy will protect Vamp-Durkon. In fact, I can see him making a special effort to destroy him, not just because of his LG nature, but also because he’d think that that’s what Durkon would want.

Remember that Belkar is a special case. He was already part of the party by the time everyone realized how evil he actually was, and as Roy asked, what could they do then - stab him in his sleep?

6333

I disagree: they’ll want to turn him back into a normal dwarf.

6334

If they can. But given the choice between killing him without the chance of resurrection or letting him go, they’ll kill him. Roy wouldn’t let a powerful vampire cleric roam the world if he could help it, even at the cost of his friend’s life.

6335

I have a feeling this is going to be were Burlew makes one of his points that “your race is not your alignment”.

He’s mentioned several times that he doesn’t like the idea of “well, it’s ok to slaughter orc families because they’re always evil” (the manual entry for them is “mostly chaotic evil” not “always chaotic evil” as it is for demons). I could see this being a point where Durkon, despite being a vampire, overcomes his evil urges through a sense of loyalty to his team and devotion to Thor. I wonder if a casting of Atonement from a paladin of the Sapphire Guard would help.

We all know Durkon is returning to his homeland posthumously and will bring death and destruction when he does so. I would also argue that Kraagor’s Tomb (and thus Serini’s gate) is in the Dwarven homelands. Him being a vampire fulfills the “posthumous” qualifier and Xykon showing up to try and control the last of the gates would certainly fulfill the “death and destruction” qualifier.

Either out of frustration with the death of his master, or to protect Roy, I can see him going berzerker on Nale and Z. In fact, he still can cast Righteous Might since he didn’t cast Thor’s version in the Temple. Which would turn him into CoDzilla, plus his new vampire abilities. Which would allow him to smack around a injured and missing members Linear Guild. Hell, probably the elemental too.

6336

Malack told Durkferatu that his Protection From Sunlight spell was also in his staff. Will Durkferatu need to (or be.able to) invoke this, in the event that Z casts Greater Dispell Magic again? Also, as Malack’s thrall, should he be able to wield the staff as a magic weapon?

6337

Maybe. But if I follow that d20 entry, Malack had time to do exactly one thing; he chose to attack Nale. At that point, his death was sealed; he could take no other actions before being consumed. So we don’t know for sure if he had Word of Recall available or not.

I don’t know the answer to the rest of your question, but Durkon is no longer Malack’s thrall.

6338

I think that’s sort of the point – there’s several actions Malack could have theoretically taken to delay/avoid his death but he went for a suicidal final attack. Whether that was because Malack panicked and didn’t think straight or just had none of the appropriate spells available, we’ll never know.

6339

He sure took longer than one round to die. :slight_smile:

6340

A dramatic death scene is a free action.

6341

Ah. They must be using 3.5… I haven’t upgraded yet.