Girard's Gate: What should we expect?

[Dire Moose]

So what could be lying between the Order and the next gate, anyway?

We know the theme is going to be that of illusion and misdirection. To that end, I would predict that the entire dungeon could have been constructed simply to frustrate the heroes and waste their time, while the actual gate has been disguised as something completely innocuous and likely to be ignored.

For example: The order enters the dungeon. The first strip or two involves Elan gushing about a little happy face drawn on the wall and everyone else getting annoyed about being held up. They proceed underground, feeling around on the walls to determine which ones are fake, bracing themselves against charging monsters that turn out to be illusions (only for Belkar to get eaten by the one non-illusory one that Girard put among the fakes, then have to cut himself out of its belly), and finally finding themself in a room with seven gates and having to determine which one is the real gate.

Eventually, it turns out that they're at a dead end. The real gate was none other than the happy face near the entrance.

So those are my thoughts. What about you guys?

[AlfredAmeoba]

I've heard a reasonable theory of having a permanent programmed image of Girard that is all that remains of him.

[Edwin]

I've heard a reasonable theory of having a permanent programmed image of Girard that is all that remains of him.

Yeah. Total imprint of memory and personality.

I'm a fan of that too. :smallwink:

[Hatchet]

I'm hoping to see a few mimics, because I LOVE MIMICS. And hey look at that, Elan just bumped into a "treasure chest" :smallwink:

Also, I'm guessing the Order will meet the Linear Guild again and dismiss them as illusions :smallsmile:

[iTookUrNick]

I'm hoping to see a few mimics, because I LOVE MIMICS. And hey look at that, Elan just bumped into a "treasure chest" :smallwink:

Also, I'm guessing the Order will meet the Linear Guild again and dismiss them as illusions :smallsmile:

Or meet both the illusion and the real LG, at different times, and vice versa (illusion of OotS for the LG). "Ilarity ensues", as the bard (our bard, at least) says.

[archon_huskie]

I expect the unexpected therefore leaving only the expected as to surprise me. But then with the Expected being now the unexpected I expect that as I expect the unexpected.

Anything can happen if it is an illusion.

[TheBST]

possibilities:


1. Girard fed someone faulty information on purpose and it's not there.
2. They find it and Nale's swanky new army has it under his control.
3. Girard someone found a way to move the gate around the country,
denying people the chance to camp out and exploit it.

[HotAndCold]

Girard fed someone faulty information on purpose and it's not there.

To whom? Roy got the coordinates for the Gate from Shojo, who got them from Soon (or from his father who got them from Soon, same dif.), who was there when the Gate was originally sealed.

[El Llamita]

I bet there're mirrors.


So people can fix their hair.


Like in bathrooms.


That means that Girard's Gate has profanities written all over it.

[Acero]

sand. they can expect a lot of sand

[Warren Dew]

I'm not sure what we should expect, but I'm pretty sure we should not expect that nonepic seeing spells will work well against epic illusions.

Maybe they've been standing on top of the gate all along, and just can't see it.

[PirateMonk]

I think the original rift was an illusion, conjured by Girard to waste the Order of the Scribble's time.

Does it need spoiler tags if it doesn't make sense?

[HotAndCold]

Does it need spoiler tags if it's just a guess and not, y'know, a spoiler?

[ericgrau]

Based on these crayon drawings the gate is/was above ground:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html

And still they haven't even bumped into it by accident in spite of a grid pattern search. I'm not sure how Girard pulled this off but this should be interesting.

[Herald Alberich]

After seeing the number of days the Order has spent there already, I wouldn't be surprised if the "illusion of the sky" idea is right, and they've been led to the wrong place.


Does it need spoiler tags if it's just a guess and not, y'know, a spoiler?

Because the Giant has expressed an urge to change upcoming events if someone guesses them correctly, convention has been to use spoiler tags on speculation so he can avoid reading it. Of course, given the thread title, it's probably not necessary, but it's become habit for some people.

[ScottishDragon]

There are only three things that we can expect for now.
1.Illusions,and lots of them prob.
2.Monsters,if its a dungeon,even made by a wizard,there are monsters.Xykons tower had monsters that just moved in when he left.
3.A gate that holds the snarl in.

[Moff Chumley]

*rolls will save against invoking Captain Obvious meme*

*succeeds*

:smallamused:

[Prowl]

Well, you definitely should not expect the Crayon Exposition.






(Nobody expects the Crayon Exposition!)

[Moff Chumley]

Nicely played. *awards cookie*

[waterpenguin43]

My suggestion:
Maybe Girard left several small illusional cacti, potholes or something as "landmarks" that are actually illusions, so you can't see them with true seeing, and you wouldn't notice because they're minor when you take true seeing off, so you need to be an expert tracker like him to find him. On the way there are plenty of illusional moral dillemas to test your alignment, which become deadly if you're evil, and if you pass those, than he greets you if you're good and duels you if you're evil.

[Brendan]

Perhaps all of the paths that are so intricately hidden but can be overcame by epic magic lead to the gate. However, it is protected by an epic spell so strong that it could only be cast by girard by mitigating it to killing him and devouring the soul. And anyone who goes down the path unwittingly go flying into the gate, being snarlified immediately. I like the idea of it being hidden so that people walk into it and get flayed alive by the snarl.
Also, are there any conclusions we can draw jump to from the image of when he created the image in the scribble comics?

[Shortgeek]

Well, looking at this from the dramatic standpoint -- Rich has his tradition of destroying gates based on the maker's beliefs. Lirian believed in the power of nature, her gate was destroyed by fire. Dorukan believed in magic, his gate was destroyed by a rune. Soon believed in honor, and his gate was destroyed by Miko. It's likely that this pattern will continue, so what is a sort of flawed for m of illusion that could destroy the gate? Likely, somebody will hit the gate, thinking it's an enemy or something like that. My personal guess is that Belkar will step in it and die, but I digress.

What this means for what we should expect, though, is the obvious: lots and lots of illusions. However, it means we should probably expect very few of the simple false-wall, invisible-pit kind of illusions. I expect things like, as mentioned, the fake sky. I expect a lone fake gate which, if you try to do something "evil" (destroying, performing sacred rituals) to it, tries to kill you in some way. I expect completely empty areas where the only way out is exactly the way in -- but you can't figure out where you came in. I expect things like that, and I expect them to be in a series of illusions that have absolutely nothing to do with the actual gate.

I expect the Order to not find the gate until another group shows up, and I don't expect Girard to show up at all. I expect, as I have said before, Belkar to die destroying the gate -- and I expect Belkar to be doing something strange and "character development"-y throughout the adventure beforehand.

Mostly, though, what I expect is to be pleasantly surprised by something I did not expect.

[KillerQueen]

Epic level illusion: desert.

[derfenrirwolv]

Girard is really Suzy finklestien, who inhereted the position from her mother, who was the original Girard Draketooth.

[TheBlackShadow]

I'm going to go with my theory that, apart from the Epic-level illusions, that in the years between the Order of the Scribble and the Order of the Stick, the Gate has been covered by the sand dunes ('cause that's what deserts are like - the dunes are always shifting), and that the OotS has been standing on top of the Dungeon all along.

So expect lots of sand, and lots of digging, on top of the inevitable monsters, traps, and epic-level illusions. Happy days.

[kpenguin]

Epic level illusion: desert.

Woah... that would be quite a twist.

[itaibn]

There are two magical gates that Xykon might try to control next: Girard's Gate, on the western continent, or Kraagor's Gate, near the northern polar caps.

If the lich commonly referred to as "Xykon" will ever be, at some future point in time, within a 1000-foot radius of one of these two magical gates, I expect of those locations he will be within said radius of Girard's gate first, chronologically.
But I'm not completely sure :smallwink:.

[Harr]

Epic level illusion: desert.

/wins the thread.

I am now officially hoping for this (which officially means it'll never happen, but hey).

[KillerQueen]

/wins the thread.

I am now officially hoping for this (which officially means it'll never happen, but hey).

It's an honor to accept this thread! I'd like to thank the academy, the Giant, the SRD, and finally my family, without any whom none of this would be possible.

[valce]

The gate is buried.

Probably not even magically -- sand, you know, kind of moves around a lot :P
<the above was 'ninja'd' by which I mean I can't read :D>

Now, any bets as to how the OotS will accidentally find a buried gate? The cat chases something that disappears down a burrow? V gets ticked off? Durkon tries to pray for a 'cure sunburn' and gets a 'tsure-nambi' = tsunami instead? :P

Yes, I realize the latter is a horrible, horrible affront even to bad puns.

[AsteriskAmp]

I think there is or was a dungeon, it became covered with sand, inside the illsuions and probably Girard are still there, only the dungeon is now covered with sand.