At least this strip settled the long standing debate over whether Belkar was a mod or a rocker.
Funniest strip in quite awhile.
Seriously, I do wonder if Belkar doesn’t have a shadow of a point here (since this isn’t the first time that the author of the strip has deigned to spend significant amounts of time on the issue)-what would cause Durkon to go full-blooded evil and betray his companions? I know we’ve had that discussion before, and apparently vamps in this universe are not Buffy-vamps, but more like Forever Knight-vamps. Apparently. But if the appropriate trigger exists somewhere is this universe…
Create Food and Water wouldn’t work, but Heroes’ Feast should, as well as provide a variety of other benefits to the party: It just says “Feast for one creature/level”, with no restrictions on creature type, or even size. It’s a higher level than Restoration, but it also doesn’t have a price tag attached to it: Every casting of Restoration costs 100 GP worth of diamond dust. Adventurers of the Order’s level can afford that on an as-needed basis, but casting each and every day, even during boring downtime, can really add up.
I normally don’t laugh out loud at Rich’s jokes, but “I gave blood before it went mainstream” did it to me.
Well, Durkon is still presumably Lawful and thus less likely to abruptly slaughter his teammates, and he also recognizes the need for OotS to succeed in saving the world if only for his own selfish purposes. After Xykon is defeated, however, things are likely to change in ways that Roy may not expect or enjoy.
Presumably, elves and dwarves and orcs can eat human food just fine, it’s just not what they’d pick if they had a choice. What the undead eat is quite different, though.
There are plenty of vampire mythos where vampires feed on donated blood kept in medical pouches (Hellsing and Blade come to mind). Seems like this would be a decent solution.
Durkon said he’s “Right as Thor’s rain” and prayed for/received his spells. I wonder if he’s still praying to Thor or some other power/deity. I know there’s allowances for agnostic priests and all that in D&D but, at least in Durkon’s spheres, previous strips have shown he’s always relied on a bona fide divine presence.
I was mainly just smirking at the idea of an elven or goblin deity saying “Ok, you have food but it’s gotta be human food. Here, Gloranthius the Willow-Keeper, have a cheeseburger…”
This was an awesome strip.
I notice that Durkon still has the fang marks on his head, while Belkar’s fang marks are gone now that he’s been Restoration-ed. Are Durkon’s a permanent fixture of his vampirehood, or will they go away if he blasts himself with a Harm spell, or what?
Given Thor’s lack of attention to his followers, I could easily see him granting spells in a “yea, yea, whatever” manner… only for this to pop up a few weeks later in a “One of my clerics is a WHAT!?” statement. 
Mark that one, it sounds like something that could happen.
If Durkon gets staked, that’s an automatic ticket to Vahalla based on tree-death.
Do AD&D vampires really *need *to feed? What happens if they don’t?
Don’t know where he’s getting his spells from (I like the down thread theory that Thor just hasn’t noticed he’s a vamp yet), but I imagine even if he were praying elsewhere, years of speech patterns aren’t going to be easily overcome. I’d guess a lot of new atheists let loose with “God bless/bless you” after someone sneezes.
No, not really, although they do get a hit point “buffer” for a short while after they do.
There are optional rules for playing/DMing “real” blood junkies, but the baseline is just regular, natively immortal undead with fangs (and a ton of abilities, and weird weaknesses).
New strip
That’s that dealt with.
Yup, one less loose end from this book. Any left? ETA: besides Laurin’s Tarquin favor?
Whoa! I did not expect this subplot to get wrapped up so quickly. Is the peglegged guy who has so obviously been betraying Ian to the authorities coming along, too, or did he get knocked out by the doorknob and is about to be left behind, I wonder?
He’s Ian’s brother or brother-in-law (Haley referred to him as her uncle). It’s ironic that the only people Ian trusts are family members and that’s who he’s being betrayed by.
I don’t remember that discussion. How do we know he’s betraying Ian?
Here ya go: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0774.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0779.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0815.html
It’s not openly stated, but it’s pretty clear that Geoff (I remembered that he was Ian’s brother-in-law, I just couldn’t quite remember his name and I was too lazy to look it up before) is under Bozzak’s orders to keep Ian in prison and out of Bozzak’s hair. Look at Geoff’s dialogue in that second link in particular.