# Order of the Stick - Book 6 Discussion Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755 "2014-03-03T16:07:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 260
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5182 "2018-09-24T13:18:03Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > It’s pretty icy, maybe it is just coming out of Snowball-Snarl-World and advanced animal life hasn’t developed yet. I think some of that’s meant to be cloud, not ice - you can see the coastlines and topography underneath, which you shouldn’t with an icecap. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5183 "2018-09-24T13:31:15Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I’m wondering if [Laurin](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0945.html) is going to be a key conduit for communicating with the Snarl at some point several plot arc resolutions down the road. While _ **I** _ wonder if Laurin and Myron are even still alive. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5184 "2018-09-24T13:53:23Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I think some of that’s meant to be cloud, not ice - you can see the coastlines and topography underneath, which you shouldn’t with an icecap. No, it’s ice. There’s clouds shown and they look different. As for the coastlines showing through, [the Giant went to art school and they don’t teach science in art school](http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?164350-Is-there-an-eclipse-occurring). ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5185 "2018-09-24T19:03:22Z")
“And if you knew how many times Njord has changed his mind ten minutes after we finished, you’d know that’d never work.” Nice brick joke here: Njord [was the one](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0999.html) who said, “I’m bored with this world anyway. Ooo! I could try out that new idea I had for a coastline!” ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5186 "2018-09-24T19:26:20Z")
I’m thinking out loud more than anything. If it took all four pantheons to create the most real thing, mortals, how have they done that since the eastern pantheon is gone? Shouldn’t each successive world have been worse and lasted less? Or once mortals were created, were they independent from the gods? How does that even work? Shouldn’t all mortals have the quiddity of the gods they worship? Especially clerics? If Thor has yellow quiddity, then doesn’t that mean that any spell he grants mortals has yellow quiddity? I guess I’m trying to understand, since we have seen raise dead happen, how one quiddity would allow that? Wouldn’t it take more than one pantheon? I guess what I’m saying is that if it took all four pantheons to make mortals, who are the most real thing the gods created, then how can one god repair a mortal? Not just big spells like raise dead but healing spells? Wouldn’t that yellow quiddity slowly take over if Durkon healed the group often? In a nice twist, a pantheon sharing a quiddity would make it easy for Hel or Loki to trick someone in their own area but not another pantheon. I do like that idea. Now, certainly this could be hand waved away easily enough in Thor saying he dumbed it down for mortals and it’s much more complex than that. It’s still got me wondering about things. Personally, I don’t care if I get the answers to these, other than I like to think about these things and am sharing. Funny on the Giant going to art school instead of science school! 🙂 Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5187 "2018-09-24T19:44:26Z")
> [@vislor](#): > > If Thor has yellow quiddity, then doesn’t that mean that any spell he grants mortals has yellow quiddity? I guess I’m trying to understand, since we have seen raise dead happen, how one quiddity would allow that? Wouldn’t it take more than one pantheon? All deities in general (major ones anyway) have a certain catalog of divine magic they can bestow on their priests which, in D&D terms, are the [core](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0953.html) [cleric](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0954.html) spells, despite specific deities having supreme power over their portfolio. So Thor can grant the power to _Raise Dead_, as can all the other deities. In Stickworld, I assume each pantheon has a deity covering the major portfolios (life, death, fire, wind, war, peace, yadda yadda) so the clerics of those pantheons are able to tap into all the regular cleric spells without having to go outside their pantheon. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5188 "2018-09-24T19:47:35Z")
Three quiddities is enough to make something as real as Stickworld mortals. But four-quiddity creations are even more real. And presumably, clerics do have a greater than normal share of their deity’s quiddity, but they still have free will, and could choose to worship a different deity, and so they still have their full complement of color. One does wonder, though, if any of the goblins already have purple quiddity incorporated into their essence. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5189 "2018-09-24T20:00:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One does wonder, though, if any of the goblins already have purple quiddity incorporated into their essence. Maybe the race that everyone hates is actually more real that the others? (Note that killing them does not necessarily mean they are destroyed, just that they no longer have a body. Resurrection works on them, so they seem to have souls.) ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5190 "2018-09-24T23:28:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One does wonder, though, if any of the goblins already have purple quiddity incorporated into their essence. I doubt it. The Dark One didn’t create the goblins - they created him. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5191 "2018-09-24T23:56:47Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I doubt it. The Dark One didn’t create the goblins - they created him. Yeah, which makes it interesting - obviously the goblins must have been created by some of the “normal” coloured gods, if only as XP fodder. And yet those creations somehow in turn created a god of an entirely new colour. How, why, and why did such a thing never happen on a trillion worlds before ? Surely there must have been other mortal races to have invented new gods beyond the “real” ones before, no ? And yes, the way these things typically resolve is “oh but it retroactively became another aspect of Existing God A” but again : a trillion worlds. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5192 "2018-09-25T00:29:28Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Yeah, which makes it interesting - obviously the goblins must have been created by some of the “normal” coloured gods, if only as XP fodder. And yet those creations somehow in turn created a god of an entirely new colour. How, why, and why did such a thing never happen on a trillion worlds before ? Surely there must have been other mortal races to have invented new gods beyond the “real” ones before, no ? And yes, the way these things typically resolve is “oh but it retroactively became another aspect of Existing God A” but again : a trillion worlds. I’ll offer this as support for my previous theory. There probably have been other “off-color” gods that arose. But their existence alone wasn’t enough to save the universe they were in or contain the Snarl. So the Snarl would escape and destroy the world - including the new god. The only gods that survived were the regular three pantheons who were aware of the Snarl and knew enough to flee from it and hide. When they emerged to create a new world and retrap the Snarl, the new god wasn’t around to assist them. This is what Thor is trying to change. He wants to bring the Dark One into the loose alliance the other pantheons have. This way, when the Snarl escapes the Dark One can hide alongside the other three pantheons. And then four colors will be available to create the next universe and that supposedly will be enough to hold the Snarl permanently. ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5193 "2018-09-25T01:17:33Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > All deities in general (major ones anyway) have a certain catalog of divine magic they can bestow on their priests which, in D&D terms, are the [core](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0953.html) [cleric](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0954.html) spells, despite specific deities having supreme power over their portfolio. So Thor can grant the power to _Raise Dead_, as can all the other deities. > > In Stickworld, I assume each pantheon has a deity covering the major portfolios (life, death, fire, wind, war, peace, yadda yadda) so the clerics of those pantheons are able to tap into all the regular cleric spells without having to go outside their pantheon. Oh, I’m not arguing that. I’m wondering if their spells are formed from their quiddity? Thor says that one god makes something, it’s little more than when a wizard makes it. Now, I assume he’s talking on a large scale but it’s still there. So, if a cleric raises someone with a single quiddity spell, how does that quiddity not make up the mortal? Isn’t raising a mortal (or resurrection, as that wouldn’t require much in the way of remains) basically creating a mortal? And isn’t that more real than just one quiddity from one god? Now, obviously not, because Roy is just as real as before. As I said, this is just fun musing for me. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5194 "2018-09-25T05:10:30Z")
Does MitD possess the fifth color? Maybe. He’s shrouded in the dark after all. Some who have seen him say he is “Horrible”, while others say, “And yet… beautiful!” Some are sickened. No mention of any glowing. So I am doubtful. But calling MitD “Beautiful” seems out of place. So while that is a thin reed… maybe. I would expected Rich to have telegraphed any glowy effects by now. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5195 "2018-09-25T14:11:43Z")
> [@vislor](#): > > Oh, I’m not arguing that. I’m wondering if their spells are formed from their quiddity? Thor says that one god makes something, it’s little more than when a wizard makes it. Now, I assume he’s talking on a large scale but it’s still there. So, if a cleric raises someone with a single quiddity spell, how does that quiddity not make up the mortal? Isn’t raising a mortal (or resurrection, as that wouldn’t require much in the way of remains) basically creating a mortal? And isn’t that more real than just one quiddity from one god? I think I got ya. I would think of it in the same way as magical effects that are instantaneous and permanent. For example, if a wizard casts _Wall of Stone_ then you get a big rock wall. You can’t _Dispel_ it or otherwise make its magic go away because the magic is already done. Now it’s just a big mass of stone. In the same way, when you _Raise_ someone or heal their wounds, the quiddity is in the effect as it occurs but doesn’t become a lasting feature. Just like you can’t _Dispel_ someone’s resurrection and make them dead again, there isn’t a lasting quiddity from the spell. You sealed the wound or restored the soul just like making a giant wall of stone. Even in a case like _Resurrection_ where you largely reform the body, I’d say that the singular quiddity is present in pushing the matter back into place but the matter itself is still made of the multiple essences of all the pantheons. Continuous divine magic effects such as a _Light_ or _Bless_ spell would be made of of that pantheon’s quiddity for as long as the spell effect persists. That’s my take on it, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5196 "2018-09-25T17:40:17Z")
Good points! Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![TaoPilot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TaoPilot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TaoPilot)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5197 "2018-09-29T15:32:21Z")
[1142!](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1142.html) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5198 "2018-09-29T15:39:57Z")
Looks like Durkon will be on his way to The Dark One on a peace mission of some sort. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5199 "2018-09-29T16:22:41Z")
Well, not directly to the Dark One. But to Redcloak, probably. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5200 "2018-09-29T19:05:53Z")
I just thought of a good reason why the “destroy this world and build a new 4-color world” idea won’t work. Without some kind of agreement between the Dark One and the three pantheons, they’ll just end up making another 4-color Snarl. Which will likely combine with the current Snarl to make a 5-color one, so they’ll be worse off than before. But with an agreement, there’s no need to destroy the world and risk all that, since there’s a way to patch the current world. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755/5201 "2018-09-29T19:11:35Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Looks like Durkon will be on his way to The Dark One on a peace mission of some sort. That’d be a hell of a twist, wouldn’t it? Instead of beating the bad guys by force, they find a way to peacefully settle their disagreements? I’m pretty sure Xykon’s gotta go down, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755.md?page=259) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-6-discussion-thread/682755.md?page=261)