Order of the Stick - Book 6 Discussion Thread

Ok I stepped on that one. Call out the goat for punishment of improper use of grammer. :o

I think the word you were looking for is allusion. Close enough to alliteration that it’s easy to confuse the two.

Absolutely–allusion’s almost alliteration.

Is there a simple Levitate spell or scroll? That might do the trick.

Only works on willing targets.

And we’ll need another goat to punish your spelling.

A goat named Kelsey.

Stepped on myself trying to correct myself.

hangs head in shame
(Should I have somehow used me, my or I?:))
C’mon Rich save me with a new page …

Say, what are those weapons the gnome troops are carrying, that look like rifles but couldn’t be?

At a guess, they are the rifle version of the dwarf assassin’s magic missile gun.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0240.html

I think that’s just a primitive gun. Do Magic Missiles go “Boom” when they fire?

Likewise, gnomes in D&D these days equal contraptions (thanks, Krynn…) so it makes sense that they’d have technological-style weapons. Some sort of weak musket or flintlock rifle that’s longer to load and less effective than a bow or crossbow.

Or just plain old muskets. In recent DnD lore Gnomes have taken to wearing the “crazy tinkerers/proto-steampunk” hat. And making gunpowder ain’t exactly rocket science (see what I did there ?).

EDIT : half-orc ninja’d !

I’m wondering what the backpack with the smoke stack is for. A steam-powered megaphone?

That sucks. They need a Wingardium Leviosa spell to immobilize a threat.

Well, maybe so, but the projectile looks like the same shape, size and colour of a magic missile. See here for reference:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0112.html

Magic missiles can’t be blocked by normal shields, so that’s not a magic missile the dwarf is shooting out of his gun. It only looks like Xykon’s magic missiles from earlier because all of Xykon’s spells use gray-colored magic energy, and lead shot also happens to be gray. When Varsuuvius casts magic missile, by contrast, the missiles are pink.

Something minor but interesting I just noticed.

Here’s the website version of this strip. But the book version is longer. And in the additional panels, it’s revealed that one of the demons saw Niu escaping and was trying to warn Redcloak when he dismissed them.

I noted once before that Redcloak’s line about how “the exact details here need to remain between me and our god” didn’t make much sense. Redcloak was plotting against Xykon at this time but none of his plot was evident in the cave attack. To all appearances, he was doing what Xykon ordered and recovering the phylactery. The substitution of a fake phylactery for the real one happened elsewhere.

So what did Redcloak do in the cave that he felt needed to stay secret? Not the attack itself - he openly talked about that. The fact that he used planar allies? The fact that he now knows the Implosion spell? The fact that he had a polymorphed spy working in the resistance? None of these seem like significant secrets but one of them was important enough that Redcloak was willing to kill his own follower if it had been necessary.

And whatever it is, Redcloak thinks the secret was kept. But Niu knows and she reported it to Hinjo and the Order.

Wait, even webcomics have a Director’s Cut now ? I think we might have reached peak fuckery.

Is that the point where the world’s demand for fuckery outstrips its ability to produce it?

Redcloak wanted to recover the phylactery and let word of that reach the elven army. Because he probably doesn’t want to be alone with Xykon at the last gate: far better for betrayal to take place when Xykon is distracted by battle.

If Xykon found out that Redcloak had intentionally let the word leak out, the jig would be up. But if it was just him and Redcloak performing the ritual in front of the gate, Xykon might learn of the betrayal before it could be completed. That would be bad for Redcloak.

It would also be bad if a zany band of player characters destroyed the final gate. Redcloak requires less erratic third parties.