Actually, I’m pretty sure Elan has gotten a LOT of Happy Endings. Beginning with this one.
I assumed that’s the New High Priest one.
For being a bunch of high clerics, the combined Wisdom score in that room right now is about 7.
Nope, the new High Priestess has a morningstar. That one does not. I’m going to guess that that vampire will accompany Durkula when he teleports away. The High Priestess needs to stay in the room to keep Hel’s vote valid. She’ll probably have to mistform to stay out of Roy’s reach, but still not leave the room.
Ah, I’ll admit that I didn’t bother looking too hard (or double checking). Having the new High Priest be protected from Roy’s attack in the shell made sense to me so I just assumed.
Wait, how is Roy able to kill a vampire with a sword? Or the cleric via a flame strike for that matter? SRD says:
So shouldn’t some of these ‘dead’ vampires instead be gaseous clouds (for a couple of hours), not exes-in-eyes? Even if they have no coffin?
(For that matter, how did Roy chop one in two? I thought the ‘ushers’ were all high level clerics, like everyone else in the meeting? Should Roy really be able to cream-puff one?)
The ushers are all clerics, but there’s no particular reason to assume that they’re all high level.
They are gaseous clouds, which they go to after the XX-eyes. In panel 5, for example, there’s a blackish vapor swirling around where there wasn’t one in panel 3. That’s the mistform of the one killed in panel 3. I’m going to guess that there’s no eyes/mouth (unlike the mistform that Gontor had) on these because of the zero HP. There’s more of these blackish clouds in the last panel.
nm
Technically the pro-end-of-world clerics don’t need to support the vamps - in fact, they could fight against them given that the vampires are violating the Godsmoot rules. However, I suppose in a Big Picture sense they have a motivation for inconveniencing Roy, who is trying to save the world.
Gaah. Now I sound like Roy. Talky-man think too much.
At least one pro-end-of-the-world cleric is fighting the vampires. The first one to throw a Flamestrike (in panel 4) is the HP of Sunna, who voted Yes.
It’s a good opportunity for clerics of gods that are having second thoughts about their vote (like Loki) to alter the outcome without altering their vote.
Loki isn’t having second thoughts about his vote. He wanted to save the world, and now he has even more reason to want that. Heimdall and his cleric probably are having second thoughts, though.
Yip. Unless they just didn’t hear what Durkula* said, it seems that Clerics don’t have high Wisdom or Intelligence. Obviously Roy is an acceptable loss–they can even res him later. The guy who is going to manipulate the vote to force the end of the world should be the target for anyone who doesn’t want it to end.
*I insist on separating the characters
Yeah, these clerics are all morons. I’m sure the Burlew reason is “Roy & the Order are the heroes so the clerics can’t toast Durkon because it’s not their story to save the world and blah blah etc” but the set-up makes you scratch your head.
Still, I like the idea of Neutral Evil using Lawful Neutral to accomplish its goals.
And because any alignment conversation inevitably creates arguments, I’ll put out my reasoning here: Yes, I don’t see Hel as lawful evil. She is beholden to laws, but not of her own choice. So she constantly sets out finding loopholes. I almost said Chaotic Evil, but Chaotic Evil has no goals beyond evil and chaos. (And, believe me, I wish I could have said Chaotic evil. It would have been more satisfying.)
And, of course, if the system were Lawful Good, then her evil goal and manipulating of the law would be enough to invalidate Hel’s schemes. And if the system were Lawful Evil, there would not be the possibility of a Good outcome. The Godsmoot rules are clearly Lawful Neutral.
“Finding loopholes to do what you want,” is pretty much the definition of Lawful Evil. And Chaotic Evil can certainly have goals beyond “chaos and evil.” Alignment doesn’t dictate your goals, it describes how you go about attaining them.
Yeah, compare Belkar’s version of a loophole, which is basically “I don’t give a damn what the rules say”. Chaotic doesn’t care about loopholes at all, because they’re going to ignore the rules with or without loopholes. Neutral might take advantage of a loophole if there’s one easily available, but isn’t going to spend too much effort looking for one. Lawful, however, thrives on loopholes. As Asmodeus said after signing the Pact Primeval, “Read the fine print.”.
Perhaps the high priests failed their Listen Checks when Gontula revealed the plan. So to them, one vampire target is as good as another. Besides which Durkula was a forbidden target just a couple rounds ago, and perhaps they haven’t adjusted their thinking on that yet.
BTW, the vampires are not attacking Roy or anyone else. They’re just running towards Durkevil. (Note that the new High Priestess says “you know what to do”, not “Attack, my pretties!”.) I expect he’ll soon teleport out with whichever ones make it through the gantlet of Roy and the HP’s spells.
1019 is up.
Too bad Roy only bothered to try throwing his sword when it was too late.