Me, too.
Also, vampires can be any evil alignment. So lawful, neutral, or chaotic. I’m betting Durkula is lawful.
Durkon assures Hel that he’ll arrive in the north in time to “carry out her orders” and Hel says that she will “Bring this world to ruin and drive that buffoon Thor to his knees”.
That doesn’t sound like just wanting a seat at the grown-ups table.
As far as Roy believes, the only reason to bring Durkula to the Godsmoot is to unvamp him. Shouldn’t Roy be a bit concerned about why Durkula was so adamant about actually attending the conference instead of just waiting with Roy and Belkar?
Adamant enough that he dropped his accent to say “But not for me” instead of “But ne fer me” or something like it.
Unlike his talk in the hallway with the Elemental Earth guy where Durkon has no reason to fake it, his drop with Roy was obviously accidental since he picks it back up when he’s leaving Roy and says that they’ll hook up later.
He *can’t *fake an accent while crossing the circle of truth. It’s a nice subtle touch.
Good point about his accent and the circle of truth. I had missed that.
Now that it’s pointed out however, I notice “Durkon” waited until he was out of the circle to tell Roy what his plans were.
Ooh, nice catch.
True, but then Tarquin at least always scrupulously told the truth. Sometimes with important bits missing, and sometimes in such a way that the listener would understand something else entirely or baiting them into wrong conclusions (e.g. putting on Thog’s helmet and axe), but I don’t recall *active *deception on his part.
Beyond that, their Lawful status was really about obeying the laws of narrative imperative, which supercede (in their minds) any other. Neither Hel nor Durkon are into that.
You know, Roy was standing right there in the circle too; I wonder if he made his own Listen check to hear what Durkula said? Roy’s suspicions have already been raised by Belkar.
Never mind - this is contradicted on the second page.
Although, as an undead, he should be immune to mind-affecting magic.
Even if he wasn’t, he could have made his save on the Zone of Truth. Which seems like an awfully big loophole, especially for clerics who would have a good save.
Regardless, you would think someone guarding the clerics would know this particular weakness of the zone of truth, although I could understand them not expecting any undead to show up.
So the spell is actually Greater Zone of Truth, which doesn’t offer a save. The Giant has done that sort of thing before, like with Belkar’s Mark of Justice.
Could be nearly anything. When you get the chief representatives of several whole pantheons together, on the boss’s business, Wishes are probably a bit easier to come by than your average Thursday.
Yes – but it’s too late now, and clearly Durkula is about to drop the pretense – since he’s attending the Godsmoot as Hel’s official delegate, and it will be hard to keep that secret with Roy watching from the gallery (assuming they bothered to follow the naming conventions of Gothic architecture, etc.).
Because Roy trusts Durkon, more than he trusts anyone else in the world. It’ll take a lot to get him to stop trusting him.
That’s Roy’s biggest character flaw - he doesn’t believe people can change. Makes sense, considering his father.
I think it’s subtly different. Roy’s biggest character flaw is he’s too self-assured. Once he thinks he’s got something or somebody figured out, he stops considering alternative explanations. Roy’s very much an “end of discussion” type of guy.
That said, he’s getting better. He’s begun to be willing to listen to other people when they disagree with him and consider the possibility he’s wrong. It still goes against his character but he’s at least working on it.
In strip 990, Roy seems to acknowledge “every felling, every instinct in my body tells me yes, that’s Durkon - just changed a little.” He remains “of two guts” on the matter.
However, I think that Roy feels that with all the high level clerics around in the G4 summit, he doesn’t need to worry about a vampire getting out of hand. I am afraid that that assumption will turn out to be a poor one. I assume Durkula (and Hel) has a plan. We have seen how well-thought-out plans can help mitigate steep odds in the past.
What level is Hel’s high priest, anyway?
He was at least 13th level when he *Resurrected * Roy. I assume he still is since there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for experience gain between then and when Malack killed him (mostly just Tarquin’s palace hijinks).