Et Tu Gaudere? “Definitely”
Since the spellcaster has no visible Holy symbol, and does have a jeweled headband such as is worn by Vaarsuvius, the late Zz’dtri, and the even more late Dorukan, I’m going to call her as a wizard.
I notice, FWIW, that Belkar is still at 1hp at the end of this strip.
And now we know. That’s an impressive army.
I don’t think there’s enough left to resurrect. Reincarnation is a possibility but that means just the same “mind” back. It can be packaged in any species, either sex.
Whatever Tarquin’s motives are, coming back with a dino-mounted army definitely places him in the King of Kewl list.
Well, that brings up the open question of whether or not vampires have an afterlife or are simply annihilated at death (as Malack arguably implies here). This is still an important question because it affects the possible willingness of Vampire Durkon to go along with the kill-and-raise plan to get old Durkon back. If he knows or figures out that doing so will result in his annihilation, then he’s far less likely to go along with it.
My theory: Tarquin is going through the rift, and is taking an army to ensure he can rule once on the other side.
I don’t think Tarquin is reckless enough to walk himself and his troops into an unknown sea. The force he’s leading gives him immense superiority in the desert, but not a large body of water in an unknown world with unknown inhabitants. He’s there with the army to secure what’s left of the gate. Nale had his chance and he blew it, now Tarquin is back to clean up the mess.
I’m looking forward to seeing Nale’s answer to why he fell for the oldest trick in the book and let Order destroy the gate.
Umm… no. He says it’s not available to everyone, not anyone. So some people can have it.
Why? He’s yet to see what’s on the other side of the rift.
OTOH this is a desert, and if it were a source of fresh water…
Tarquin does have pterodactyls. He could send one or two through to scout the other side of the rift - for all we know, the rift happens to be facing away from a beach that’s 5ft behind it.
Good point. Same with the water. Even if the water is salt water, I’m sure Tarquin has, or can acquire, large purifiers.
Still, we’ve got no concrete indication that Tarquin knows any more about the situation than the destruction of the gate. He was probably expecting Nale to screw the pooch and left early to get the cavalry.
Malack says “the person I am today” will be annihilated. He (in my opinion) is referring to his power gain from his vampirism, his long term goals aided by his eternal ‘life’ span and status. A resurrected Malack wouldn’t be as powerful or able to carry out his goal of outliving Tarquin, taking the kingdom and starting a reign of death in Nergal’s name.
I expect to see the same from Durkon; his mind is Lawful Evil now and his goals will shift that way as well. He’ll appreciate the increase in power. An offer to slay/resurrect him will be saying “Hey, let us kill you so you can return to the weaker Durkon who doesn’t want to do your stuff any longer”.
Is there any possible way to bring back somebody who has died of old age?
I don’t know about D&D in general, but in OotS, it’s touched on in On the Origin of PCs:
When Eugene passes the Blood Oath of Vengeance to Roy, he mentions that he’s on the verge of dying of old age, and so can’t be resurrected.
That’s certainly the general case with dying of old age in D&D - when your time’s up, it’s up.
Yes, thats straight out of the spell description for resurrection. So far as I know, there’s no way around it.
Once someone has actually died of old age, no, it’s too late. However, if someone on the verge of dying of old age is killed in some other way, you can use Reincarnate to get them a new young adult body (some side effects may occur).
This doesn’t result in a lot of people cheating death by committing suicide and reincarnating near the end of their life? Is reincarnation a rare or expensive enough spell to prevent such abuse?
I believe, if I am reading the Reincarnate page correctly, that you must roll a die and the value determines the race of the new body so you have to be willing to trust to fate to give you a useful race.