It’s been implied that what got Thor’s attention was the way his supposedly pious cleric has been acting out of character.
Yelling “Thor’s Nuts” didn’t trigger the lightning storm but notice how Belkar and Roy react with surprise. This isn’t something they’d expect Durkon to do. And in the conversation between Durkon and the spirit we were told Durkon had initially been resisting giving the spirit any information but then switched to feeding him long memories. It appears that Durkon has been manipulating the spirit’s actions by the memories he chooses to show him.
If Belkar and Roy have noticed Durkon’s been acting strange, presumably Thor has noticed as well.
Why on earth wouldn’t they expect Durkon to do that? He yells stuff like that all the time.
I assumed Thor was upset because he can tell Durkon’s soul is no longer in the driver’s seat… but I don’t know, gods seem to be a lot less knowledgeable and reliable in the OOTS-verse than you would normally expect.
Seems a bit un-Occam to me. We’ve got a storm that appears suddenly as soon as a cleric of the god of storms, currently possessed by the demonic servant of the god of storms’ arch-enemy, passes into the land controlled by the god of storms. Suggesting that this isn’t an action of the god of storms seems like a stretch.
No, probably not, with the possible but unlikely alternative of true neutral.
I still think he would have reacted to the vampire Durkon quite differently in the past. His concern for the well-being of the team and its mission, and his hostility towards threats against them, has a different quality. Almost like sincerity, less and less like he’s still faking it. It’s not just about the loot, XP, and violence anymore.
But Thor does love a good fight and likes to see his guys win. After all the asskicking Durkon has done in his name recently, Thor might be miffed that his little asskicker doesn’t belong to him anymore.
Who knows, maybe Hel has been bragging and Thor is pissed she took one of his dudes.
There’s also the rules of narrative. Durkon’s flashback scene was the opening page in the sixth volume of this entire story. It seems unlikely that it was just meaningless filler.
And even if Thor doesn’t consciously pay attention to mortal affairs, he might still pay subconscious attention to them and so send appropriate storms even without realizing it. He’s a god; they do things like that.
If Durkon isn’t Thor’s top cleric (and he might be), he’s almost certainly in the top 5 or 10. And it’s been established that Thor lawyers Hel for stewardship over even minor posthumous souls. My take is that Durkon can still pray (though his spell casting ability is severely limited), Thor is aware of the unnatural situation and is thoroughly pissed (in the American sense, but also the British sense though that goes without saying), and the ship could even go down because of it.
But Thor is also easily distracted, so in 20 minutes his attention might be elsewhere.
Level-wise ? Maybe. But hierarchy-wise he was a peon back when he got kicked out of the dwarven lands and nothing has changed since then (on that specific front).
But as a chaotic deity, Thor’s probably less concerned with the hierarchy of his church then he is about the individual performance of his worshipers.
Also, IIRC, we’ve basically seen Thor in two kinds of strips: he’s either comically uninterested in what’s happening on the Prime Material, or he’s comically over-involved in what happens to his worshipers after they die. Which makes a lot of sense - a god would likely view most of what happens on the Prime Material as prologue, but the afterlife is forever. So, in this case, one of Thor’s top followers has died, but his soul hasn’t shown up in the afterlife. That’s likely something that would get Thor’s attention, whereas being beat up by a jerk paladin doesn’t really rate.
Don’t upper level cleric spells get granted directly by the deity? It seems that a deity would know who you are if you’re requesting a Resurrection, Planar Ally or Holy Word regardless of your spot on the earthly org chart.
I realize that various comics have depicted this in various ways ranging from a automated ‘phone’ service to Thor getting direct requests for first level spells when he’s supposed to be fighting fire giants.
Thor is chaotic? I thought the rule was that a cleric couldn’t be more than one step away from their deity, so as a Lawful Good character, Durkon could only worship a Lawful Good, Neutral Good, or Lawful Neutral deity. Is that not the case in the OOTS-verse?
ETA: Or were you just describing his behavior (which certainly is chaotic) rather than his alignment?
Which is presumably why, after Durkon’s awesome Control Weather display in this strip, the author felt the need to immediately lampshade it in the next strip.
Well, his behavior and his alignment should be the same thing - if he’s acting in a chaotic manner, it’s because he has a chaotic alignment. Most D&D systems that include Thor as a deity, list him as Chaotic Good, and that seems to best describe his behavior in the original Norse myths.
Technically, this means that Durkon shouldn’t be able to be a priest of Thor, but Burlew has said before he’s not going to let rules get in the way of the story.
But this being the second time raises a worrying concern about Durkon. Namely, who the hell routinely memorizes Control Weather ?
It’s a 7th level spell. It’s a completely useless 7th level spell (when your god doesn’t cheat). And sure, it’s probably one of Durkon’s domain spells, what with the whole storm god thing, but Thor’s *other *domains are Protection (Repulsion), Good (Holy Word), Strength (Bigsby’s Grasping Hand) and War (Power Word:Blind). All of which are 10x more useful than stupid, screams-for-a-scroll-you’ll-never-actually-use Control Weather ! :smack:
