You’d think it would also weaken his position with them. Taking no action against Nale when he killed one of their own and his best friend, then just letting him walk away. They’d have to question his loyalty to the group.
This. Regardless of Tarquin’s personal predilection for actually running things, I don’t think his guild/league/order is on a boss/subordinate basis so much as a first-among-equals basis. Malack didn’t automatically defer to Tarquin…they argued a fair amount over the issue of Malack working with Nale. I don’t think any of them are Tarquin’s “minions”, as such. So he has to do SOMETHING to make sure they know that he’s not going to just let them be killed without consequences if someone he’s connected to makes the attempt.
Seems pretty straightforward to me. Tarquin genuinely cared for Nale, similar to how he genuinely considered Malack a friend. Just because he’s evil doesn’t mean he’s incapable of emotion. However, Nale finally proved himself to be too much of a liability and if he rejects his father’s help, well, that’s the result he should have predicted. That’s just the way the game is played.
In retrospect, #860 is probably a pretty strong indication Nale’s not coming back. His goodbye moment with Sabine is much more dramatically indicative of a final goodbye, rather than a simple one day separation. As for the rest of the Linear Guild, Sabine is already working for the fiends, Zz’dtri is dead, Thog is a wildcard (though his affection for Elan may well come into play), Hilgya will most likely have some dwarven homeland related plot, and the druid guy with the apprentice from Cliffport have no reason to reappear. Nale just isn’t needed as a villain anymore.
I’d forgotten that Belkar was TWICE Commanded/Dominated to attack Durkon (even if he couldn’t hear the Command the first time).
Three times, actually.
“I love being evil!”
I won’t miss the guy, but he did have his moments.
Q for role-players (I have dabbled but that was years ago): do you, as a character with a low wisdom, play your character in the way exemplified by Nale, even if it would get him killed and/or screw up the mission of your party?
My guess:
Tarquin killed Nale to appease Laurin and the other members of his gang. However, he will have Nale rezzed in secret. Further speculation - he will have Nale’s body disintegrated, then use Nale’s blood on the dagger for the rez. And he’s been planning something similar all along. Note: The bountyfor Nale alive was 35,000. The bounty for him dead was 10,000. The difference between them is the price of a true rez. (Or so I’ve been told). People speculated back then about Tarquin having him raised.
I haven’t played for years either, and it usually wasn’t D&D I played. But no. Sometimes I played stupid character. And I, as a player sometimes solved puzzles or spotted clues that my character was too dumb to see.
Yeah, that part hurt.
I try, but it can be hard to do. Of course, sometimes I would do stuff that like that even when I had a high wisdom score. 
Why? How does it possibly serve his ends?
My current character has an excellent Wis and a pretty good Int, but an abyssmal Cha. So I often find myself figuring things out, but then being incapable of communicating them to my party.
Look, this isn’t a superhero comic, where bad guys keep on coming back over and over and over again. It’s a fantasy epic, with a defined ending. Nale has to die, permanently, at some point. Why not now?
I think everybody expected it to be more epic with a final sword duel between Elan and Nale, not with Nale getting knifed in the chest by Dad.
Why? Nale was a loser. He deserved a loser’s death.
I’ve seen it played a number of different ways. I have one player who interprets his low Wis as impatience and impulsiveness, and a tendency to go for immediate reward over long term gains.
Since Wis modifies your perception-related skills, I’ve played low Wis characters as oblivious. A had a wizard once with a high Int and crappy Wis, who had a tendency to walk into trees because he kept reading while walking, and had a knack for bringing up exactly the wrong topics during conversations. “Gosh, it was really nice of the dwarven king to take down all the elf skulls before the elven diplomats arrived. Don’t you think so, Mr. Silverleaf?”
Yeah, but once dad was on the scene, that possibility was off the table. Never settle for a climactic battle with your brother, when you can have a climactic battle with your dad, instead.
Incidentally, given how heavy they were hitting the Star Wars jokes when Tarquin showed up, what does everyone thing the odds are of Elan getting out of this storyline with both hands intact?
In my general experience, most players don’t know (or aren’t interested in) how to play low wisdom. Low intelligence is easy, derp derp, but most sort of ignore their character’s inability to make good choices and WIS only comes up for saving throws and priest spell slots.
Nale said that he wanted Tarquin to stop protecting him and let him succeed or fail on his own merits. And Tarquin gave him what he asked for.
Called it!
(Ok, not in public, but after reading #912, I most definitely did say to my wife “Tarquin is totally going to murder Nale within two comics. Probably in the next one”.)