I’m with Redcloak: Ewwwwwww.
BTW, it’s “Bigsby” in OOTS. 
Bigsby’s Finger Down The Throat!
Hey, now you guys are making me remember Evan’s Tentacles of Forced Intrusion. Bad Dopers.
Excellent update. I’m wondering how long it’ll take the Order to get to New Goblinton. And also, how they’ll get past the barriers on the city. Or are the barriers just magical?
And I also wonder how Redcloak’s negatiation attempts with fellow evil neighbors for trade were working out. Call me a square, but I would totally read a comic about Redcloak’s adventures in municipal administration.
And lastly, Erfworld was pretty awesome too. Mostly, I feel rather validated that despite all the crazy conspiracy theories on the board, it was indeed Stanley who attacked Faq (with an assist from a traitorous Wanda. It made much more sense than Wanda suddenly being some poor, misunderstood good girl who joined Stanley out of desperation, and Ansom suddenly being some bad guy who attacked Faq for no apparent reason.
Check out the Erfworld thread.
Thanks. I left off right after Var. made his/her/it deal with the 3, so I’m intrigued as to what happens. It’s actually been a blessing because now I can get a dozen or so comics in on sitting instead of having to deal with the pain of waiting for each panel.
I did not see that. I even looked on the front page of Cafe Society. That’s thorough enough, right? Right guys?
This is pretty much what I expected to happen…V has spent several strips being an arrogant dumbass (even mroe so than usual)…stretching hirself thin for several days (weeks?) without trancing, not to mention the mutliple emotional shocks and frustrations as the OOTS reform themselves without hir Amesome Cosmic Power. She/he’s been throwing spells around left and right, and then decises to teleport in by hirself to take on Xycon, Redcloak, plus any number of unknowns (She couldn’t be bothered to scry beforehand. Hell, he could be bothered to wait ten freaking minutes for Roy to be rezzed–for good reason though as the Splice Meter is running).
Any other result besides V getting curbstomped would have been out of character for V, Redcloack AND Xycon.
What cracks me up are the handful of munchins throwing a full blown fit on the Giant’s forums becuase V isn’t winning. Some folks don’t seem to understand the difference between a gaming session and a STORY.
I suspect that once they (or at least Redcloak) sees who their mystery black-cloaked opponent was, Team Evil will be interested in the soul splice, thus keeping V alive for a while as at least a prisoner.
One question; does Dispel Magic dispel Shape Change ? If not, Vaarsuvius might still have a way to escape.
It does. In addition, Superior Dispel, not being core, is presumably one of Xykon’s Epic spells.
grumbles If V had been in any one of a number of defensive Shapechanges, he could have laughed at even Epic magic. Sadly, the Plot appears to have cast Mind Fog on V preemptively.
which does make sense. V was not in good mental shape pre-splice.
Dispelling works with a roll of 1D20 + your caster level (up to +40 for Superb Dispelling) vs. a DC of 11 + your opponent’s caster level (with no limit). So even assuming that Xykon has a caster level of 40 or higher, the absolute highest caster level he could defeat would be 49. Note that this is the caster level at the time the spell was cast, not V’s lower caster level once the first spirit got away.
And on top of that, V has always believed in the power of magic, and went in with magical guns blazing, not thinking that the brute force approach wouldn’t work here. If V survives this encounter, s/he has a very bitter pill to swallow, along with a world of pride.
Totally wandering off-topic here, but a question for Sealemon2.0 - are you the same guy that used to be Sealemon? If so, welcome back.
The actual irony was that going all guns blazing should have worked fine (or at least had a chance of working, depending on how Epic Xykon actually is), and that V had the correct gun in his holster, and it was unsnapped and loaded. V just got hung up on Evoking Xykon to death.
And he probably came close. Xykon took 37.5d6 Empowered Sunburst + 1d8+11 Clenched Fist + 10d6 backlash damage during that dust-up. That’s 181 point of damage; enough to send a stock 26th-or-less level lich to their grave. If V has an Empowered Magic Missle up his sleeve, he might pull off a hilarious last-minute victory.
Nah, Redcloak is standing right there with all the spontaneous inflict spells an undead could want. Heck, Redcloak gets disintegrate, and all V’s magical defenses are knocked down. There’s no way for V to pull this one out.
On the plus side, Xykon may have another entry for “World’s Funniest Protagonist Deaths”…
A while back in this thread we were guessing (okay, I was guessing) that V might wind up getting lichified to achieve ultimate power. Instead V made a deal with the devils.
But Xykon made the point during the fight that the souls were those who didn’t have what it takes to stay in the game. They weren’t awesome because they let themselves go to Hell. And then he completely destroyed V and the souls, backing up his words.
I’m thinking V might live, but if this venture hasn’t changed V’s mind on the wisdom of “magical might makes right”, then it’s possible V will take Xykon’s words to heart and set about getting lichified anyway.
That or V will die stupidly. Either way.
I’m assuming that V’s change in costume in the last panel means that, aside from what he owes the devils, his alignment has reverted back to his good ol’ Neutral ways (right?).* Therefore - again, aside from what he owes the devils, which could be very, very steep indeed - he’s not in danger of the Big Fire anyway, is he? Most likely, he’s off to one of the neutral planes after he dies.**
*Admittedly, this raises even more questions about the D&D alignment system and the inner workings and interpretations thereof.
**Standard “don’t know nuthin’, am trying to remember my D&D days” boilerplate applies.
Depends. I don’t know what the cosmology of the OOTS world looks like. They’ve apparently got a few sets of gods, and a couple of baddies, but I don’t know if elves would go to an alignment plane or the plane where the elf gods (which I’m not sure are the Seldarine in this cosmology (or even exist, for that matter…Durkon worships Thor, who isn’t a specifically “dwarven” god)) live, regardless of alignment. Other than the Azure City folks, Durkon’s devotion to Thor, and the glimpses we’ve gotten of the Outer Planes (Roy’s visit to the upper planes (did they specifically call them the Seven Heavens or Celestia? I can’t remember.) and the rec room of the three fiends), religion hasn’t played much of a role in the strip other than backstory. Even Redcloak doesn’t pay much lip service to his god(s)…he just exists as a priest.