Let’s just say, if the little gnome ornaments people put in their lawns and gardens looked like her …
…
Profit!
I think this is showing Belkar stepping away from Chaos, not Evil - bedding her would be a Chaotic act.
Yes, he’s become or becoming Neutral Evil rather than Chaotic Evil.
Or…he decides to use the clasp to expose Durkula…
Expose, no. Everyone knows all vampires will show up as evil no matter what. All Undead do.
However, stick the clasp on the vamp’s back where those stubby little dwarf arms can’t reach and activate it…
Re turning down lunch with the Gnome girl - my take was that Belkar had just ripped her off by getting 1/2 price off the amulet-thing. She turned around and offered to buy him lunch and he was so startled by the kindness - and guilty at what he’d just done in the face of that kindness - that he begged off.
There was no deeper meaning, and it wasn’t about getting/not getting Gnome tail (though it might have led to that, obviously). Belkar just had an unexpected (unexpected to us AND Belkar) attack of conscience, very much in keeping with his character development, e.g. his unexpected conscience/kindness re Gannji and Enor at the Arena that saved their lives. Belkar was just as weirded about that situation -when he tried to explain it away to Roy - as he was explaining this situation away to Mr Scruffy in this strip.
There are many kinds of evil and Belkar’s is intimately tied with his protozoa level wisdom. Gag comic. Unfortunately for our sociopathic hobbit’s equanimity, wisdom can be acquired over time, sometime involuntarily.
Actually, Belkar has a Wisdom of 9 or 10 - average. He had Owl’s Wisdom cast on him to enable him to cast a 3rd level spell from a scroll. Therefore his Wisdom was raised to 13. Given that Owl’s Wisdom gives a bonus of +4, it means that his Wisdom at the time was 9. It’s possible that Belkar has added a point to Wisdom from level increase,
The exact meaning of the Owl’s Wisdom scene is subject to some debate, but much later, when he was making stew for Monster-San, he explicitly stated that he had a Wis penalty.
Favorite line from last few comics has got to be “They’re very tasty wafers.”
Maybe because of the French accent I read it in, and maybe because they are wafer thin.
A Wisdom of 9 gives a -1 which counts as a penalty, and he hit level 16 after that episode, and he might have put his level 16 stat bump into Wis - Belkar is famously non-optimised.
Yeah, the message he got in his visions was not to be good, but to pretend to follow the rules. That’s becoming more lawful rather than more good.
ALL of them are famously non-optimized. Except maybe Haley.
If it’s a simple Protection from Evil clasp, it’s an astonishingly good item, for one reason only: absolute immunity from Dominate Person cast by an evil caster.
My WAG: Durkula dominates Belkar to do something awful. Belkar pretends to go along with it until a key moment, at which point he reveals he’s under no compulsion in the stabbiest way possible.
And be suffering from the pain of the clasp the whole time?
Belkar has hated Durkon since when he was alive. Given the chance to screw the dwarf over bigtime? Absolutely he’ll suffer the pain for that.
I assume V is pretty solid. Aside from getting hosed on Teleport when it changed spell schools.
So… I assume the pain isn’t applied 24/7: it appears to have tapered off. Does it only work when activated, i.e. when it is rubbed or when someone evil casts a dominate spell on the bearer?
Either way, it’s not a bad joy buzzer for those with evil friends.
Separately, Burlew’s depiction of the naive earnestness of the gnomes is pretty funny.
This is rather tricky. Standard Protection From Evil only holds off a dominate effect as long as the PFE is in effect. Durkula’s effect is equivalent to a Dominate Person with a duration of 12 days. The Dominate will take hold as soon as the PFE is not in effect, for example if Belkar attacks Durkula or even approaches closer than 1 foot to him. The PFE +2 resist save bonus doesn’t even stack with the +3 vest resist save bonus so there’s not any extra help there, and even if Belkar saves, it only costs Durkula a standard action to attempt another Dominate until it targets and locks. Belkar might get in one free attack, but he gets no sneak bonus damage – undead are immune to sneak attacks.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this one plays out – it really feels like Rich has something up his proverbial sleeve. For example, I wonder if getting the PFE on Durkula would inhibit the mental domination by Hel’s minion for the duration.
Interesting. I’d assumed it was an always-on item, but the “rub it” bit suggests it’s use-activated or charged or something, which makes it far less useful, and makes my WAG worthless. I suppose he could still use it to lure Durkon into making an ineffective Dominate attack at him, but he’d need to act quickly once it happened in order to make use of the surprise.
Or maybe someone else will get dominated, and Belkar will slap the clasp on the new victim, and hijinks will ensue.
The PFE clasp will be used to show that Belkar’s no longer evil.