I think that even if Thor considered Durkon to be Durkon during that very brief moment in this strip and the last, he was in a battle and died during it. So that should count.
As to what happens to him now…you think he’s really out of it? I don’t know how much of a body one needs, but there’s always the option to resurrect. But even if that’s not done, it’s very possible that Durkon can influence things directly with Thor in Valhalla.
The other vampire left fled as well, plus Roy is going to want to plead his case to the Council before they vote so they’ll be going that way regardless.
Burlew went with plot contrivance over game mechanics. Which is basically how he’s been handling Stickworld vampires from the start.
Durkon looks at stake and vaporizes. There’s some vampiric stuff left on the chair, but I doubt whether Hilgya will be overeager to perform the rez. Plus, he’s with Thor.
I worried yesterday that while thematically things held together fine, they felt a little cheap because the reader couldn’t help but think about an unconvincing Grinch scenario. (As opposed to the perfectly executed version by the good Dr. Seuss.) But this strip clears that up.
In the published version, #1128 won’t be a cliffhanger, so this story flaw will be minor or less. I’m guessing that Burlew was aware of the problem, which explains his stepped up release schedule.
I’ve noticed that during times in the narrative when major action/plot points are occurring, the strip publication schedule rapidly increases. Not sure why. It could be because Burlew’s spent the downtime ironing the details out so that he can rapidly produce things when things come to a head. Alternatively, he actually does it as an additional narrative technique: things just feel more “actiony” when you get more frequent updates so he saves things up for that to occur.
He has a lot of things that he’s working on, not all of which go up on the main page. He’s also gradually getting closer to finishing off all of the Kickstarter rewards. And, of course, he also has ordinary human stuff in his life that doesn’t have anything to do with the Order of the Stick. So, like all of us, he has to prioritize. And when the strip is going through tense moments like this, he puts a higher priority on it, and then catches back up on the other things when he gets past the tense moments.
As for the vampire dusting from just the stake, I’m guessing that Belkar beheaded him in between panels. He’s got his dagger in hand and everything, and it’s trivial for the Sexy Shoeless God of War to kill an opponent who he can reach and who isn’t fighting back, so there’s no sense wasting a panel on that and taking away space from the important parts.
Wait, how are we determining which are spawn and which aren’t? I thought they were all spawn except Greg. Gontor seems to always call Greg “Master”, so that seems pretty spawn-y.
“Spawn” is a term of art when describing a type of vampire in D&D 3.5. See this description at the SRD for more details: Vampire :: d20srd.org
Though all vampires were created by Greg, not all of them were “spawn.” Spawn happen when a creature is blood drained to 0 Constitution—that kills them—and the creature had 4 Hit Dice or less. If the creature had 5 HD or more, like Durkon did when Malack drained and killed him, the dead creature comes back as a full-fledged vampire. Spawn are less powerful than full vampires. If the dead creature had character class levels, it can retain them as a vampire.
The vampirization process—being turned into undead—changes the creature’s stats. Mostly for the better: lots of things are bumped up, Hit Dice are d12 rather than d8 or whatever the creature’s class dictated, they don’t have to breath and they are immune to a slew of things that can cripple the living. But some things are worse: Undead do not have Constitution scores, so their Fortitude saves, which depend on a strong Constitution, are weaker. There’s the whole bursting into flames in the sun thing.
In the outset of the fight, I’m pretty sure the vampire spawn were in the front row, swarming V, while the full vampires with cleric levels were sitting on the dais with Greg. I think Roy said that all of the spawn there were dusted, which leaves the one that left with the Exarch. I think one of the vamps in the room got away, and then there’s the Exarch and whoever he took along.
EDIT: There’s also the concept of “thralldom”, also covered at that vampire SRD link. Basically, a vampire can control whatever spawn or vampire it created through blood drain. This power is limited though to a number of Hit Dice, depending on how many Hit Dice the creating vampire had. The creating vampire may cease its control at any time, and the new vampire (or spawn) is then self-willed. Otherwise, it obeys the creating vampire, as a “thrall,” sort of like what we saw with the Dominated Order.
But on the other hand, creatures without Con scores are also outright immune to most effects that require a Fort save, so it’s still mostly to the positive. The only ones that can effect them are those that can also effect objects, like Disintegrate, so those spells are especially effective against undead, but there aren’t very many of those. Oh, and also things that explicitly say they’re an exception, like an Arrow of Undead Slaying, but those are even rarer.
All of the undead, meanwhile, would have at least started off as thralls of Not-Durkon, just as Not-Durkon was a thrall of Malack until he got fried. But it’s possible that Not-Durkon released them from thralldom (like Malack was planning to do for Not-Durkon eventually), in which case they just call him “boss” or “master” because he’s their leader that they’re following, not too dissimilarly from how Haley or Vaarsuvius might call Roy “boss”.
Ah, now the weird timing is explained.
In OOTS so far, staking a vampire turns it into dust right away. Call it a narrative house-rule.
This, right here, is our next bit of character tension. Hilgya has to know by now just what the stakes are. She’s also entirely wrong about Durkon’s character vis-a-vis the baby. The Order will attest to that. He’s the most stand up guy in the world - possibly literally.
So Hilgya debating with herself whether to resurrect Durkon to gain an advantage against the coming trouble should be interesting.
Plus, you KNOW Durkon will ask to marry her and raise the child together. That’s just something he’d do. He knows all about being the child of a single mother.
IMHO, for whatever reason, Durkon will not be resurrected. He already brought back one Order member; he isn’t going to do it again. It doesn’t make sense from a storytelling point of view.
I wonder if the Thundershields have a family crypt? Greg’s gaseous form could go there.
Okay, I think I was mixing spawn with thrall. So all the vamps we see are thralls (or perhaps “were” with Greg poofed), but some are capital-V vamps and some are vamp-spawn.
Probably. The relevant rule from the link I gave—not that Burlew’s tied to them—reads: “At any given time a vampire may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice its own Hit Dice.” I really don’t like the word ‘spawn’ there, as it leads to confusion. Think, ‘thrall’ instead.
Anyway, Durkon was, best guess of the Class and Level Geekery crew at GITP forums, a 14th level Cleric. That means he could enthrall 28 hit dice of other vampires and vampire spawn.
But, and this is important, like Amway, his thralls could also create thralls, and those’d be under his ultimate control too. So, Durkon bleeds, creates, and enthralls 3 separate 9th level clerics at the 'Moot. Each of those clerics could then enthrall 18 Hit Dice of vampires and spawn, and all of those creatures would ultimately have to obey Durkon/Greg. Clear as mud?
I think Greg could have given some free will. I wonder if Hel was giving them orders after they were vamped. And if so, everybody’s on board with the Plan, right? So they’d then behave like Chronos described, above.
It’s called an ancestral tomb. And I never thought of that. Would it work, anyone?
Great sequence.
Hilgya seems pretty committed to her world view. I don’t think she’s going to be talked around on Durkon.
I think that a vampire’s coffin has to belong to it, personally. If there’s already a crypt specifically set aside for Durkon, that might count, but I don’t think it’s enough to just belong to the Thundershield family. And even having its own crypt might still not be enough, if it doesn’t contain a coffin.
But that’s only relevant if it’s knocked down by conventional damage. A staking, like Belkar did, should take care of it, coffin or no coffin.
Plus I suspect that Durkon’s gaseous form would currently head for the open air anyway.