It’s ok, you can just say “Midi-chlorians” 
That’s a completely different wank, and not a fan one, either.
Honestly, even without trying to make sense of Vancian magic (which is its own supplementary bag of silly), trying to find any sort of consistency between observable reality and the concept of levels is pre-failed.
For example : we’ve talked earlier about the mechanical effects of negative levels, which is a small drop in HP and slight negative modifiers to everything, as if the character was one level below without *actually *doing all that annoying bookkeeping. And some of it kinda works in-universe : if a vampire or ghost drains your energy then it’s conceivable that you might not hit as hard (hence the damage reduction) or as fast/accurately (there goes your BaB). Getting zapped with the pure mojo of Death probably doesn’t do one’s health any good, so fine, HP loss, and a malus on saves.
But then there’s skills, which also get the modifier. Sooooo does that mean a vampire touches you and suddenly you start singing out of tune and forget how to say “sycophant” in High Dwarfish ? Conversely, the friendly priest touches you in the good soul place and instantly you remember how to lie convincingly or the answer to the question “fucking locks, how do they work ?” ? I guess one could make the tentative case that having Death mojo coursing through one’s system makes it marginally harder to concentrate or hands out bad karma, but still.
Other example : priest mojo is governed by Wisdom. But Wisdom is a total hodge podge of a stat. In practical terms, a drooling imbecile who can nevertheless hear the flight of a bumblebee at 500 paces and a wizened old mystic who’s reached divine enlightenment but is blinder than a Dire Mole could have comparable Wisdom scores, and thus channel god mojo just as well.
Shit’s just nonsensical, poorly thought out and weird. Roll with it :).
Oh, I already said that I’m along for the ride. But, you know, we need something to talk about between now and the next comic.
So Durkon’s body isn’t controlled by a wholly alien force, but rather an entity born from his worst day. Given what transpired, I can’t see Durkevil being lawful - too much hurt there. Neutral maybe, if only to stay within a step of Hel’s alignment. Conceivably Hel could be NE and her high priest CE, but Durkevil seems a little too disciplined to be chaotic.
Judging from her letter in strip 375, Thor’s high priest may have only a vague idea what happened. She does seem to be better in many ways than her predecessor.
“Hey bro, I just learned of this new game called D&D. It has a 200 page rulebook. Wanna play?”
So… midichlorians?
Edit: Gah! and I was so pleased with my cleverness!
Why did the dwarfs exile Durkon? I don’t recall that coming up before in the strip – his exile may have been mentioned, but not the reason for it.
There was a prophecy that Durkon would bring death and destruction the next time returned to the dwarven homelands. The then high priest of Thor sent him out with orders not to return until called for, with the intention of never calling him back again.
It was prophesied (by Odin, apparently) that when he “next returned home” he would bring with him “death and destruction”. The High Priest of Odin had the bright idea of permanently exiling him to remove the threat rather than have Durkon bring death and destruction back the next time he popped to the store for milk. Not what you’d call sound reasoning but that’s OotS characters for you.
Durkon wasn’t told this, however; he was just told that Thor required him to leave immediately (VERY immediately) to become a liaison to the human lands and not to return until sent for (i.e. never). He thence got dumped in the snow in his robes, with some clothes and his hammer tossed out after him.
All set out in On the Origin of PCs.
It’s part of The Origin of the PCs and not (yet) mentioned in the main comic. Oft wears hats gave the two-sentence version.
Which, even in the OOTS universe, makes totally no sense. For example, if you wanted to piss someone off royally enough that they’d raise an army for the purposes of coming back and razing everything to the ground, you couldn’t find a better start than tossing someone out in the snow with nothing but the clothes on their back.
Unless there were specific parts of the prophecy that we’re not privy to, there’s no actual reason for the dwarfs to be such dicks about the whole thing.
Well, I guess they figured Durkon was low risk for that. They do say that Durkon’s honor would keep him from returning unbidden.
It’s also implied that Durkon was annoying and they weren’t exactly unhappy to see him off forever but I don’t think they gave any real examples. The same book mentions Durkon’s first adventuring party (where he later meets Roy) keeps sending him on suicide missions because they find him annoying as well.
The view Durkula gives of Durkon’s exile is considerably different from the one in OotPCs.
Is it? I don’t have the book on hand to check, but IIRC he is told that he must embark to the human lands immediately, and is then tossed out the door with his hammer and armor. We never saw him being carried to the gates, nor how he reacted after they tossed him his gear.
Is it? I don’t have access to Origins at the moment but I remember them giving him the bum’s rush over his protests (didn’t even get to say goodbye to his mother) and then tossing his hammer and shield out after him.
After that it skips to him meeting Roy and leaves out the scene of him crying but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
The adventuring party where he met Roy did find him annoying, but that was mostly on account of his accent. Presumably, that wouldn’t be an issue among other dwarves. Not stated, but it was also probably at least in part because he treated “Lawful Good” as more than just something he wrote on his character sheet.
Yes.
Exactly.
“Even in the OOTS universe”? Are you suggesting that in our universe, leaders never make completely boneheaded decisions that cause a lot more problems than they solve? I mean, not to get all political, but I’m pretty sure every one of us can think of far dumber things that human leaders have done in our world.
The implication of your observation isn’t that it’s unrealistic; the implication is that the dwarfish leaders are morons, like many real-world leaders.
I don’t remember him having any problems with the other dwarves - the high priest seemed to have a high opinion of Durkon’s lawfulness, and the other acolyte stopped to drink a beer with him on the way to see the high priest. He definitely didn’t get on too well with humans at first, though.
They could have just told Durkon about the prophecy, though. Given his personality he would have considered it his duty to leave and never return.
You may be right. As I said, I don’t have Origins handy here at work.