I expect Z has a Clone salted away and will thus be back. And Thog is too dumb to die.
Not evil spellcasters - undead. Redcloak uses Heal on himself but Harm on Xykon.
Nah. We already had one surprise comeback from Z. I don’t see Burlew playing that card again.
There may be a legal issue, too. Parody may be protected speech, but there are limits.
What are the chances there’ll be a big misunderstanding next strip about Haley and Elan thinking Durkon is trying to kill Roy? I doubt they’d hear their conversation, so all they’d see is Durkon attacking Roy with a touch attack.
Maybe but I doubt it would go far. Haley, Elan and Belkar are in no shape to take on a healthy vampire cleric and Durkon could fight defensively until it gets explained/sorted out.
I feel your pain, pup. I’ve been hankering to beat folks on the draw in this thread, too.
I think people must have set up some kind of “alert” (email or text) when a new strip goes up on OOTS.
They should also note that the devil is no longer attacking. Elan has seen the piscodaemon vanish and Haley probably has more on her mind at the moment. I’d bet that Durkon can stomp the Si elemental without too much ado, even if his “… Might” spell no longer invokes Thor. Take his base martial-cleric build, give him the Strength bonuses for the spell and for being a vampire, and that’s a lot of damage he’s handing out now. That should assuage any misgivings Haley might have had (if she’s not suffocated already).
Question:
In the meta-story – where everything in OOTS is actually a DM and five players sitting around a table in one of their basements – would the DM be controlling Durkon now, or is he back in the player’s hands?
It’s likely that he’s back under player control since Malack was destroyed and he regained free will. Prior to that, he was probably under DM control. In 3.5, players can actually play “monster” characters…I’d guess Durkon is currently under a “Vampire” template.
ETA: It should probably be noted that the assumed meta-story has never actually been shown to be the operative paradigm, unlike other game-related webcomics like “The Noob”. We’ve never seen any scene where there are real-world players playing these PCs. The conceit of the strip is just that their universe runs on D&D rules, not that they’re being controlled by players in some kind of real world.
Did Rich use a little bit of artistic license here?
[QUOTE=3.5 System Reference Document]
Create Spawn (Su)
A humanoid or monstrous humanoid slain by a vampire’s energy drain rises as a vampire spawn 1d4 days after burial.
If the vampire instead drains the victim’s Constitution to 0 or lower, the victim returns as a spawn if it had 4 or less HD and as a vampire if it had 5 or more HD. In either case, the new vampire or spawn is under the command of the vampire that created it and remains enslaved until its master’s destruction. At any given time a vampire may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice its own Hit Dice; any spawn it creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed vampires or vampire spawn. A vampire that is enslaved may create and enslave spawn of its own, so a master vampire can control a number of lesser vampires in this fashion. A vampire may voluntarily free an enslaved spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, a vampire or vampire spawn cannot be enslaved again.
[/QUOTE]
Instead, Durkon is reraised as a vampire pretty much immediately.
Just curious.
Well, yes, but he advanced a plausible mechanism for it, rather than just ignore it and pretend all vampires rose immediately after being killed. The story wouldn’t have adapted well to a 1 - 4 day wait followed by who knows how long before Malack bought it.
There is artistic license, but it is explained away by Malack on the 5th panel of that particular strip
[QUOTE=Malack, evil vampiric high priest of Nergal, god of death, destruction and (perhaps) waffles]
Sadly, three days in the grave is time we do not have, refreshing though it is.
My staff contains many obscure spells that I have unearthed in the course of my research, though – including one to hasten the process.
[/QUOTE]
(emphasis mine)
So, what we have here is the equivalent of a house-rule – Malack has had hundreds of years as a vampire to research vampire-related stuff, and apparently he has either devised or found some kind of obscure spell that eschews the three-day waiting period before becoming a fully-fledged vampire.
(EDIT: Aaaaannnnnd… NINJAED! Curse my penchant for detailed quotes!)
Five players? Which one of the original six is a NPC?
I’ve had a DM tell a player that his/her character is now going to have to act in a certain way, yet the DM will allow the player to continue to somewhat control the character, as well. So, for instance, while Durkon was a thrall, his player might have asked if Durkon should summon a demon/fiend too.
And no matter where Durkon is on the good/evil axis, he’s clearly still lawful.
I think that Burlew is probably making a point that Evil doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is repulsive to be around. Tarquin is one of the most charming characters in the strip, for instance. Belkar is not annoying because he’s evil, but because he’s Belkar.
Yep, panel 6 of this strip pretty explicitly states there are no players.
Killing an unconsious opponent?
Eeeeville. 
PS: Wasn’t Durkon’s magic spell glow “white”? Now it’s red…
The color is similar to the aura of the evil cleric’s Inflict and Cure Critical spells in strip 611. Durkon’s new casting aura is darker orange, though.
You can see the new color as far back as 883, when he summons that Barbed Devil.
Ack! I missed it!