Succubi are Chaotic Evil, so they should end up in the same corner of the Great Psychedelic Diagram naturally.
Didn’t an earlier strip have Sabine mention that she’s lawful?
Nale: Of course, I’m Lawful Evil, so I see no reason not to honor my contract with Xykon and kill you.
Well, those efforts could be disposed of with a single panel of exposition, more or less the same way they dealt with trying to bring back Lord Shojo. “I tried to find Nale, but I couldn’t because X,” and on with the action, without ever showing the jerk in-panel again.
I think that’s one of the least likely scenarios, as it would be a pretty big departure from vanilla D&D. While the game has come up with a lot of different approaches to dealing with souls in the afterlife, it’s generally been pretty consistent in demons not just being a dead person with horns stuck on. Even when they’re presented as being made from the souls of dead mortals, it always involves a process that strips away virtually all memories of their mortal lives, either because it takes millennia to complete, or is horrifically torturous, or (most commonly) both at the same time.
Thinking that Sabine is chaotic, and Rich is an unpredictable storyteller, hell all there is no way I can predict what chaos will ensue when she confronts Daddy Tarq.
I do love his Imperial posture of his hands behind his back when he’s addressing his inferiors.
That’s what he says he is - but his actions say otherwise, and Burlew’s response to people pointing that out have been suspiciously non-specific; “isn’t that interesting” or something like that IIRC.
Indeed, but that was many hundreds of strips ago, and he may well have been LE at that point. Who’s to say that Sabine didn’t influence him towards CE?
I’m not familiar with how people play Chaotic Evil vs. Lawful Evil characters, since I’ve never actually been able to play D&D. What kinds of things did he do that indicate he wasn’t really Lawful?
[quote=“Gray_Ghost, post:6946, topic:508323”]
[li]1) take a piece of Nale’s body and get somebody to cast ordinary Resurrection. The problem with that is there isn’t any piece left, other than maybe some blood on Tarq’s dagger.[/li][li]2) get someone to cast True Resurrection or some Wish/Miracle combo. Problem with that is the author’s on record saying that he hates the spell. Despite having characters in strip discuss its availability and who can cast it. And the wanted poster with the 25,000 GP difference between Nale alive and Nale dead. One interesting bit of speculation at the OOTS forums is for Sabine to try and team up with the only known 17th level cleric in Stickworld, RedCloak.[/li][li]3) get the Directors to make Nale some form of free-willed outsider. Why would they?[/li][/LIST]
I don’t think we’re giving possibility #2 enough credit. The passing mention of Redcloak back in strip 579 is exactly the kind of foreshadowing that Burlew is fond of, and Sabine making a temporary alliance with someone whose interests are quasi-opposed to her employers’ is exactly the kind of plot development that Burlew is fond of. I would never have thought of it myself, but I will actually be kind of surprised if a Sabine/Redcloak plot doesn’t show up in the next book.
In terms of story arc, however, I do think Elan is going to have to in some way overcome his father (whether physically or morally) before Tarquin dies. It will be interesting to see how that happens.
Sorry, hash tags got screwed up. That should read:
I don’t think we’re giving possibility #2 enough credit. The passing mention of Redcloak back in strip 579 is exactly the kind of foreshadowing that Burlew is fond of, and Sabine making a temporary alliance with someone whose interests are quasi-opposed to her employers’ is exactly the kind of plot development that Burlew is fond of. I would never have thought of it myself, but I will actually be kind of surprised if a Sabine/Redcloak plot doesn’t show up in the next book.
In terms of story arc, however, I do think Elan is going to have to in some way overcome his father (whether physically or morally) before Tarquin dies. It will be interesting to see how that happens.
[Emphasis added]
Me neither. The OOTS forums are great for this sort of thing. They get bogged down in moralistic B.S. a lot, but if you can sift through that, there’s an awful lot of creative people there, analyzing and deconstructing Burlew’s work. (and helpfully correcting my 3.5 interpretation errors.)
I just can’t see why she’d go to the Order when the power that she needs is elsewhere. Durkula can’t do squat w/o the dagger, but RedCloak can.
I’m really interested in seeing Burlew’s take on the Evil afterlives. Especially since it doesn’t look like we’re going to get any crises of faith from Durkula. I just can’t see how Burlew can fit it into this book. Which already will be larger than any of the others this far.
The most glaring example that comes to mind is his rejection of all authority, culminating in the speech that got him killed. “I am my own man, not some cog in your latest oh-so-clever scheme!” That sounds Chaotic to me.
Actually, no. Discussions about whether such and such is morally justified are forbidden, and closed down as soon as they start.
You’d think so. And the TOS do say so. But every other friggin’ discussion gets into “So and so is this alignment, and here’s what the character did and why it’s so horrible.” Or, “Here’s why [this character] isn’t motivated by how everyone else thinks.” Ad infinitum. It’s just not that interesting to me, some poster’s ruminations on why so and so is horrible. Or not. That’s what I meant by moralistic.
But you’re right that any topic tying in-comic events too close to Real Life, gets smacked fairly quickly with the banhammer. I don’t remember, but did anyone crack Burlew for echoing the Holocaust with Malack’s whole, “I will sacrifice 1000 people a day to Nergal, in chambers specially built for the purpose.” I did not find his, “but it was supposed to be a statement on factory farming…” all that convincing.
Can a character think they’re one alignment and be another?
(I’m definitely not thinking of Belkar, who I can’t see being all that interested in this; Belkar’s alignment is “Belkar”, whatever that means on any day. And, yes, it’s obviously changing, in ways we don’t understand. But I was thinking of characters in general.)
Roy definitely had no doubt that he was LG. However the Deva let him know he was this close to being NG. If someone as rational as Roy can almost make a mistake, someone with the lack of self-awareness that Nale has could probably be on the opposite end of the L/C spectrum to what he thinks.
Seems like it; it almost happened to Roy:
Miko is probably the ur-example of this in the strip. Right up until the end, she was absolutely convinced that her actions were in accordance with a lawful good alignment. Even direct intervention by the Gods themselves didn’t get through to her.
It’s not. Being Lawful only requires that you follow a authority. You don’t need to follow every authority. Someone with a meticulous plan to take over the world, who has the self-control to follow that plan, is Lawful, even if that plan requires violating other people’s laws.
Good is the only alignment that has any inherent obligation to work together. Lawful characters can be cogs in different machines, Evil characters can tear each other down to raise themselves up, and Chaotic characters do as they please.
And in Nale’s case that would be?
And rejecting an authority when doing so is suicidal doesn’t strike me as LE at all.