No, that comment he made wasn’t really for the Monster’s benefit. He said it in an aside during another explanation, in a smaller font. I think he was sincere.
No, the real answer is that two little eyes in a big black space are intended to look like the MITD.
And here I thought they were playing Othello…
There is one way, but it’s highly unlikely. If a wizard uses Disjunction on an artifact, there’s a chance that the artifact will be destroyed, and if that happens, then there’s a chance that the caster of the Disjunction will lose all spellcasting abilities irrevocably.
In an interesting coincidence, Vaarsuvius is known to currently have access to Disjunction, is in a situation where e’s likely to consider it useful, and happens to be standing right in front of someone wearing an artifact.
Naahh…
Ooh. Now that’s interesting. (To put it mildly.)
Another thought that strikes me as a result of your comment. What if V. doesn’t kill Xykon – which I don’t think any of us really expects, since it’s just Too Soon to lose such a major villain, especially at the hands of a troubled character like V. – but V. does destroy the phylactery (sp)? This way we wouldn’t lose Xykon as a villain, and V. wouldn’t have the outright victory, but this would be a considerable coup and leaves V. some dignity, which I think s/he deserves after so many humiliations. Plus it keeps Xykon in play so he’s available for Roy (who does have the blood oath to fulfill, after all) in a final showdown whenever the comic ends.
Then the other scenario kicks in, i.e. V. loses his/her skillz, and faces this ultimate personal struggle to rehabilitate him/herself.
Wow. I actually like this possibility and it seems to work to solve the problems of not killing V. and not killing Xykon, while handing each a major blow. What do you think?
For a reason I can’t quite articulate, one of my favorite parts was the demon roach yelling at the CitD, trying to keep it on Team Evil.
Oh, I see. Thanks very much for the Go lesson, JoseB and JSG.
I just want it to be on the record that I made this prediction first. (Right after one of your posts, in fact. Don’t steal my ideas! :p)
It’s a pretty good bet that V will go for the phylactery first. V is intelligent enough to know about such things and can conceivably correctly deduce that the holy symbol is the phylactery.
Could it be something ridiculous but somewhat well known like Pun-Pun the kobold? I doubt he’d stretch it that far (not to mention the Pun-Pun build came out two years after OOTS started, but that partially involves wagering Rich had the WHOLE story planned out by then, and that he wasn’t willing to modify stuff). Note that it may not be Pun-Pun, but something else similarly overpowered and known.
Another unlikely possibility is that the monster is “the DM.” The Earthquake, for instance, could be a play on the old line “rocks fall, everyone dies.”
I really don’t believe these, but I like making stuff up.
I thought that destroying an artifact simply had a high chance of gaining the attention of the deity it was attached to, and then said deity could manifest (or, really, do whatever they damn well please) in retaliation.
Edit: Just looked it up, yeah, Disjunction loses spell powers on a failed Will save, but ALSO gains a very ornery deity’s attention.
!!! Wow, I really missed that! Well, you’ll get credit for it then, should it come to pass. 
I’m still gonna claim the call if V. loses some or all spellcasting ability, though. I just think it would be one of those ironic twists that would both devastate the character (in a 'serves ‘im right’ sorta way) and result as an interesting development moving forward for the strip. Rich seems to gravitate toward plot twists that have longterm effects.
In thinking about V’s fate, I can’t imagine him/her dying outright; that doesn’t give the demons as much to work with. It’s more painful if V’s debt isn’t just due upon death, it’s whenever the demons want to call it in.
Or maybe I’m just flailing to come up with ideas where V doesn’t die a really ugly death. Considering s/he’s up against Xykon, Redcloak and the Creature in the Dark, and s/he’s been set up for a Tragic Error Due to Hubris … I’m still very worried, epic level soul splices or not.
Two things though:
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Does it count as the vessel or the soul casting the spell? Will V lose his power, or the soul that the specific spell that broke the artifact came from?
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Note that magic lost from Disjunction cannot come back by any MORTAL magic or cure, fiends are… less than mortal.
Oy, I have no idea, but that’s a good question. (Hey, just because I’m posting on two of the geekiest threads in Cafe Society– this and my LOTR thread – doesn’t mean I know what I’m talking about!) D&D experts, little help here?
Oh dear. So hypothetically in this scenario, V. could be in for even more of a debt, if s/he is so desperate to get some magic back that s/he keeps the splice?
Man. Rich has really built up a complex web rife with possibilities for intriguing plot twists. All from a bunch of stick figures romping around the D&D universe!
Personally I’d put money on guess that we never find out what the CITD is because there isn’t anything that it is. Just a McGuffin to screw with people’s heads.
There’s another more obvious way. All Xykon has to do is shock Vaarsuvius to the point where the other two souls are able to break free. Then Vaarsuvius is down to his normal magical abilities which are far below Xykon’s.
I dunno, he didn’t twig before, and IIRC was just as surprised as everyone else when news got around that Xykon wasn’t dead. I mean, he was but not *dead *dead ;).
As for figuring out that Redcloak’s symbol is the phylactery, it’s not a given either - IANALich, but traditionally these things are hidden in a deep, dangerous dungeon half-way across the globe. Distance is important, because the lich is the first to know its soul hidey-place got busted, and thus can immediately start making a new one. Keeping one’s philactery in the same *room *one is in is… well, it’s just stupid, really. Which also makes it a clever gambit, of course (it’s the last place anybody would look), but the danger far outweighs the benefits IMO.
The soul binding isn’t in the D&D rules anywhere, so there is no way to know how it would interact with such an obscure disjunction rules effect.
I think it very unlikely it will ever come up, though. Rich uses broader humor in this strip, and the kicker to V’s hubris won’t hinge on an obscure rule that only a tiny fraction of only the D&D grognards reading the strip will get. (He saves those types of jokes for strip titles.)
V’s comeuppance will be something immediately recognizable as an obvious consequence to the vast majority of readers.
Pay attention to these two strips: 448 and 462. And now who’s coincidentally there in the room again?
442 reminds me just how delightfully evil Xykon is.
It’s definitely not a kobold, that much we know. Belkar couldn’t recognize the tracks (they were completely unlike anything he knew), and even with his poor Survival check, he should be able to recognize the tracks of one of his favored enemies.
Ooh, good catch. And I think we’re probably about due for the Monster doing something heroic, too, which might be what V needs to survive this fight.
Dammit to hell, I meant 448. Sorry.