Durkevil’s arrogance in the pre-break strip signals his eventual demise. But who can take him down? (Tropes demand that Durkon do the deed, but set that aside for now.)
Belkar isn’t smart enough to articulate his incoherent suspicions persuasively.
Roy is blinded by wishful thinking.
V might have sufficient arcane knowledge to suspect that something is up. The idea that a bearer of negative energy still gains sustenance from Thor is a red flag.
Haley is also blinded by wishful thinking and Durkevil’s status is a bit outside her central concerns. But she is also deceit-saavy and Durkevil is young and somewhat naive. Certainly inexperienced.
Elan: I can’t see how genre saavy would help, at least until the mid-game or end-game.
Someone outside Oots has a shot of course. Ironically, Tarquin might work out exactly what’s going on - and may have even understood it instantly. O’Chul doesn’t seem like the suspicious sort. The late Miko Miyazaki would have of course correctly IDd Durkevil’s reliability - even paranoids have enemies after all.
Durkon, OTOH, might have access to certain spells. He can pray to Thor. Material components could only be gathered opportunistically. Somatic components are unusable unless Durkevil does them coincidentally. Ditto for verbal components - presumably. Divine Focus: Maybe Durkevil’s holy symbol is just for show - maybe his real holy symbol is something else. Maybe Durkon could still use his holy symbol. Any insight from game players?
It’s obviously a sticky situation: Durkon will reveal anything if asked - but Durkevil may be too arrogant/naive to inquire, “How are you plotting against me?”
ETA: Blackwing…
So from this strip it seems reasonably likely that Durkpire will run into people he knew – perhaps his mum! – when he was alive and in the Dwarven lands, now that he’s traveling back north. He’ll avoid that at all costs of course, but it’ll happen and that’s partly how Durkpire will be detected as a forgery.
Uncovering DurkEvil will be hard. It’s not enough to perceive that something is off, since most irregularities can be explained away by the infusion of negative energy. Comprehensive memory can paper over a lot. To perceive the situation accurately requires at a minimum that the observer has familiarity with soul trapping, like Xykon did with Lirian and Dorukan. Otherwise they will lack a sufficient frame of reference. Every member of Oots might possess a piece of the puzzle, even if all lack the ability to synthesize the answer.
Redcloak would have a decent chance of obtaining such insight. I imagine he lies awake nights forming contingency plans against Xykon. Redcloak isn’t an especially quick thinker, but he is methodical, wary and familiar with things going very wrong. The problem is there’s no reason why he should care what Durkon’s true state is.
Durkevil might very well be naive enough to reveal all as Hel’s grand plans come to fruition.
Then again, Durkevil might have access to Durkon’s memories, but not necessarily his true opinions. Or not.
Malack might have kept his barbarian core hidden of course. Or he might not have had a barbarian core: maybe you only get dual personalities if the original version was of good alignment. At any rate the barbarian core may very well had reached a point of exhaustion a hundred years back.
Hilgya! Burlew loves hauling in stuff that you thought had been forgotten 800 strips ago. And Hilgya has cleric training and might be more hip to how undead actually work than the remaining OOTSers.
I like artistic development. Seriously: no snark. I like tracking how directors, musicians and graphic artists change over time. Each ratchet gives a different feel to the work, and to me the compare and contrast is part of the fun.
But Hilgya might like Durkevil… they both worship Hel for example. Then again, if she knows how vampires work, she might respond differently. Actually, if anybody knew how vampires work, they …well I guess they’d try to hide that fact until they were far away from Durkevil.
Tarq had a ring of true seeing. Would that or any other magical device or spell reveal Durkon’s situation? Is this a case of possession?
Question: What was Durkon’s “prophecy?” That he’d return to his homeland after he died? So, presuming they do go back to his homeland, does this count?
I’m just wondering about potential loopholes / twists.
True Seeing allows you to see through illusions, invisibility, see a Polymorphed object’s true state (like V when he was a lizard), etc. It wouldn’t reveal a creature to be charmed, under a Suggestion or possessed though.
I can’t think of a spell that would reveal what’s up with Durkon aside from divination commune-style magic with an explicitly stated “Hey, is Durkon possessed by a negative energy spirit while his true mind is trapped and helpless?” sort of question. Passive styles of divination such as Detect Undead or Detect Evil will just understandably state that he’s a vampire so, yeah, he’s “evil” as a state of being. Maybe something direct like Discern Lies or Probe Thoughts but those suggest enough suspicion to cast them and then start questioning Dukron and they aren’t really “detect vampire spirit” magic like you’re asking about. Part of the issue is that, as we went over in the last book, there’s no actual rules for what Burlew is doing so there aren’t really spells designed around it. Closest I could find would be Soul Dominion but that doesn’t say that it’s detectable by anything special.
The first was sent to a cleric from Odin. It said that when Durkon returned to his home he would bring destruction. (I don’t have the book in front of me but that’s the basic message.) So the cleric sent Durkon off on a mission - he told Durkon to go out in the world and not return until the cleric sent for him. He knew Durkon was dutiful and would not return until he was told he could and the cleric did not intend to ever call him back. Durkon himself is not aware of this and the cleric has since died without passing this information on to his successor.
The second prophecy is the one Der Trihs referred to. Durkon asked the Oracle when he would return home and was told “posthumously”.
So it looks like both prophecies can come true just by Durkon returning home. Rich plays a long game, indeed. I also imagine that Durkon is going to be witness to a lot of heartbreak as his possessor causes mayhem at at the old dwarven home.
