The first time, I can’t tell you.
The second time, though, Durkula probably studied it because he thought it might come useful when travelling in an airship. And he was right!
Now I know that Rich is just fucking with us. He has the story plotted out, major set pieces blocked, but reads the various discussions going on about the story and then delights in screwing with us.
The first time Durkon cast Control Weather, it was from a scroll.
And OotS-Thor isn’t based on any of the D&D sourcebooks. He may well have a different alignment and domains. In any event, the High Priest of Hel certainly isn’t casting Control Weather as a domain spell-- He doesn’t have that domain, and he specifically points out that it’s from the standard cleric spell list.
If Control Weather is a non-eyebrow-raising method of a cleric handling a storm then Durkon is holding a gigantic idiot ball and it’s slightly disappointing and strikes me as out of character.
It’s on the standard spell list for clerics, which means almost all clerics, regardless of their patron deity, are able to pray for it. That doesn’t mean that many do. As someone noted before, when it’s following the rules, it’s not a terribly useful or dramatic spell. “It’ll stop raining. Eventually.”
As someone else noted, when Durkon cast it before, he cast from a scroll. Mostly because even clerics of Thor don’t pray for Control Weather very often. So Durkon did miss a trick in that he didn’t expect Durkula to pray for Control Weather (since NOBODY prays for Control Weather). But it’s not idiot-ball-level stupidity.
But even then, it’s not as though Good-Durkon has a better hotline to Thor’s Storm Control than the Control Weather spell either. Even if Durkon wasn’t possessed by evil vampire spirits, his answer would be either “I have a scroll” or “Ask me again in seven hours, gotta go pray…”
Then it’s not the panacea that Durkula thinks it is. If it’s so unusual that it’s literally unthinkable for a cleric to assume it was prayed for that day then Durkula’s casting it should be a gigantic red flag to every cleric or cleric leaning character on that ship that something hinky is going on.
So Durkon’s taunting is because he assumed Durkula would have to go pray for it and didn’t realize that Hel could grant it as well? Then I maintain, idiot ball. I would think clerics would know pretty quickly what’s on the standard list.
I guess. Really, everyone seemed to assume that Durkon would just be able to pick up the phone and say “Thor, knock it down a notch” but Durkon’s only method of doing so would be the same spell Evil-Durkon owned anyway. You could argue whether it would be enough to dispel a storm caused by the Storm God but then I suppose Hel loses souls due to Raise Dead and Resurrection and she’s the Death Goddess. Just how it goes in D&D Land.
Really though, I think it was mainly but Burlow playing with the expectation that Thor would sense Evil-Durkon and quickly reveal him.
Control Weather would be the standard response to an undesired natural storm, but the evidence is that this storm isn’t natural. It struck without meteorological warning, on a ship carrying a high-level cleric of a storm god, right exactly when that ship entered said god’s jurisdiction, and bypassed the ship’s mundane storm defenses. What Thor can do, Thor can undo, and so the reasonable response in this case would have been to pray to Thor directly, not to cast the spell.
And the primary reason that Durkon used a scroll before was that at the time, he wasn’t high enough level to cast it directly himself.
But… Durkon sees/is aware of everything Durkula does with his body, right ? And we’ve seen that in the OOTSverse, memorizing priest spells is not an internal monologue - you actually get on a direct Holy Hotline with your god and say pretty please for each spell slot. Then press # :).
So it is kind of idiot ball. Or plot hole, anyway.
[QUOTE=Chronos]
Control Weather would be the standard response to an undesired natural storm, but the evidence is that this storm isn’t natural. It struck without meteorological warning, on a ship carrying a high-level cleric of a storm god, right exactly when that ship entered said god’s jurisdiction, and bypassed the ship’s mundane storm defenses. What Thor can do, Thor can undo, and so the reasonable response in this case would have been to pray to Thor directly, not to cast the spell.
[/QUOTE]
For all intents and purposes, in D&D casting holy spells *is *praying. Mechanics-wise you have to do your prayers in advance for game balance (if you’re a cleric - there are spontaneous priests), but the fundamental concept is that you ask your god to affect the world for you and he/she/it/they/ftaghn do. That’s what a prayer is, no ?
It’d be kind of broken if clerics could cast spells AND ask for additional direct, world-warping favours on top of that. Besides, communicating directly with your god when they’re not the ones initiating the dialogue… requires a 5th level spell (Commune) :).
No, you can always initiate communications with your god and ask for special favors. It’s just that they’ll usually just ignore you if you don’t go through channels.
But it looks like for once, Thor isn’t just ignoring Durkon.
Strip update! http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0954.html
Belkar certainly still smells a rat!
I love how Greenhilt is basically holding him up by the scruff of his neck. Well, collar. Useless arm and leg thrashing!
Once again, Roy is succumbing to his greatest weakness. When he thinks he’s got things figured out, he becomes blind to any other possibility.
Hehe, did Belkar jump past Genre savvy to hit meta-Genre savvy?
He and Miko were perfectly suited.
This is actually true to a certain extent. I think seeing an extreme version of this flaw in Miko was one of the things that made Roy more aware of it in himself. Roy does question his assumptions more than he used to (and he now occasionally runs his assumptions by other people for a second opinion). So he’s making progress but, as we’re seeing, he still backslides.
The interesting thing to me would be how far Durkferatu would have to go before Thor would be willing to intervene in a portfolio change.
Nonetheless, Control Weather only has a range of 10 miles or so. I would think that if Thor plops a new storm every 10 miles, either Durkferatu is out all his 7th level spell slots for the day just to move, or someone’s going to get the message.
Or Thor could have a nice chat with his prophet, and put out an ABP on staking the vampire as a crusade for all followers of Thor. Which would certainly get the rest of the order’s attention.
But that would take the solution out of the control of the Order, who are Our Heroes. Contra-indicated, plotting-wise. Rich will string this along for quite awhile, I’ll bet.