Going on what’s in the prequel books, Xykon’s transformation to lich couldn’t have been much more than a year before the start of the plot.
As long as we’re talking Xykon’s level here, don’t forget that the Lich template adds +8 to your ECL. Are we assuming that he had reached Epic levels prior to lichdom?
Actually, it looks like level adjustment for Lich is +4. Demilich is +8.
It had to have been a minimum of 20 since that’s how long Right-Eye was in hiding before Redcloak showed up in Start of Darkness. And that’s assuming there’s no space in the narrative for other things to have happened in between, which there probably was.
Xykon became a lich in 1156. The comic strip continuity began in 1183 and it’s currently 1184.
Thanks! But wow, you’re totally right. I thought he and Celia decided to call it quits at the end of the last book. Re-reading #669, it’s not a farewell or parting-of-the-ways conversation at all, just a “I don’t understand or approve of what you do, but that’s okay” conversation. It seemed to me at the time like an amicable parting of the ways. (Actually maybe I was distracted because that strip annoyed me by the implied religious talk at the end.)
Sorry! Well, I guess even the fact that they’re together-yet-apart doesn’t seem to matter much! I know with the weird timing of this strip it’s probably been fewer than two weeks (if that!) since they parted, but we haven’t seen or heard of her for, what, two or three years? Again, it just doesn’t seem to be a very significant relationship–they kinda just fell into it, really. They have sex and are attracted to one another, but there’s no real sense that they belong together, or that this is a Love Story. It’s just… someone Roy has sex with sometimes. At least Celia seems to care since she shlepped all that way to rez Roy. But what does she love about him? What does he love about her? Celestia only knows.
Actually, I thought the bit at the end was fun satire. The joke is that mortals wouldn’t be as violent if they didn’t know for sure there was an afterlife. And we in the real world don’t know - for sure - that there is an afterlife, so we’re utterly non-violent, right? Bzzzt! Wrong. It’s a joke that’s been done before, but still fun. And no implied religion at all - the afterlife in OOTS is part of the rules of D&D. Therefore fictional. Perhaps just like ours. 
Huh. FWIW, I didn’t agree with your initial remarks, but they registered and I occasionally allude to them in my mind when thinking of the strip. Which is sort of unusual: generally posters need to repeat their point a couple of times for it to sink in.
Meta aside,
Yeah, yeah, yeah: Roy is still the protagonist and Elan is the sidekick. And for my taste Elan is way to much of a duffus for me to admire him.
You’ve got the story arch stuff right though. But I think you and Tarq are making a similar error: you are assuming this is a typical story. But it’s not: it’s a story based upon a role playing game. That means that every PC has the potential to be their own story, to have their own story arch. And because Burlew is a good DM (metaphorically) and he has experienced players (metaphorically) each PC does. You are correct that Roy has fairly minimal character development: I think in many ways he is a stand-in for some of the author’s POV and commentary. He’s also the straight man in the story, but he was never sufficiently rigid to give him scope for expansive personal growth. He was always too smart to be lawful stupid and too ethical to be homicidally good.
That would definitely be a justifiable reading. It just got preempted by the illustrations a couple strips later.
Whatever it is, he seems pretty happy about it.
Also, in Girard’s illusion, they are still a couple in the future. Granted it was an illusion but it was based on what Roy believed should happen.
I think it’s also a meta joke on gamers speculating about how access to Raise Dead spells and the ability to physically visit the afterlife would change people’s conceptions of morality.
This is an awesome post.
It might even be worthy of being included in an academic paper (I’d be a very poor judge of such things; I just know I liked it a lot).
I have to disagree with squeegee’s post. Elan may be the most interesting character but that doesn’t make him the protagonist.
It’s the slit skirt. Rowr.
I think you meant choie? 
No new update (sorry), but I haven’t been able to respond for a while and felt the need to defend Roy a bit.
I think choie has forgotten some of Roy’s development. That’s easy to do since most of it happened more than five years ago. In the forest bandit quest Roy learned how leadership cuts both ways. With Miko, Roy came to understand that a Good alignment does not necessarily make you a good person. And more gradually, he has learned that alignment in general does not control the content of your character. He has also lost some of his arrogance and accepted that other team members can be just as right as he is. Roy of Dungeon Crawling Fools would not have accepted Durkon back. And his growth is not over. One of Roy’s last blinders is lack of notice of subtle change. Specifically what’s been going on with V and Belkar. At this point I am not sure if he is going to recognize what is happening to Belkar before or after he checks out. I am curious to see where that will take him as a character and how that will affect his feelings about Durkon and V.
Roy also has the most fully developed backstory of the entire party - Elan included. Despite the prominence of his family in the current plot, they don’t show up at all in his life until they’re encountered in the comic. Elan’s life story prior joining the Order is, “Had a mom who was basically okay.” Roy, on the other hand, has a fully fleshed out family dynamic, whose effects are clearly visible on his character at the beginning of the story, and which underlie much of his character growth as the story progresses.
Very true. Elan’s biggest tragedy that we know of from before the story begins is being raised by a single Mom. Roy has guilt over his younger brother’s death, his issues with Eugene, and his sister who is everything his father wanted Roy to be.
I don’t think that Elan is especially important; it’s just that right now Tarquin and his relationship with Elan is a major factor in the story. Back during the Soul Splice storyline it was V that the comic mostly focused on; that didn’t make the comic as a whole about V. And I expect that pretty soon we are going to see a lot of Durkon-centric comics; that doesn’t mean the comic is about Durkon either.
It’s an ensemble work.