How would OOTS defend the gates?

[fwiffo]

So, after the long and arduous campaign, during which the members of OOTS fought against many fantastic foes and reached epic levels, all five rifts were sealed and gates were finally in place. It took many trials and hardships, but it was done. And that is when the trouble started. Nobody could agree how gates should be guarded. Sure, Roy was the leader and his word counted for much. Still, everyone had his favorite method and didn't think that something as important as this should be decided just on chain on command.

Things were about to come to blows, when Elan (yes, Elan, of all people) suggested that perhaps each of them should give it a try. Surely, by now they possessed enough knowledge and experience to put up a good defense. And so, the team split up and each one took enough treasure accumulated during the long campaign to implement what they wanted.

And they all agreed that nobody would interfere. Roy can defend his gate with whatever methods he thought right, as did Durkon, Vaarsuvius, Belkar and the team of Haley and Elan. Roy insisted that Haley was the one to come up with the method of gate defense and Elan had no part of it, but the winks and glances the two lovebirds gave to each other made him doubt that it would be her plan alone.

And so, OOTS was a team no more. They all went their own way and....





The premise of this thread is to see what would OOTS do if they found themselves in charge of the task that Soon and company had to undertake. We know what Order of the Scribble ended up doing, but what do you think members of Order of the Stick would do in their place?

[martinkou]

They don't.

The Snarl will destroy the current realm; the gods will destroy The Snarl's realm; The Snarl will kill all the gods; the gods will kill The Snarl. OOtS somehow survives because the story needs to continue. OOtS become overpowers of the realm because nobody else is left to pull the threads. OOtS proclaims Vecna an epic loser.

So, rock falls, everybody except the PCs dies. :smallbiggrin:

[Somniloquist]

I'd like to think that the Order (or Roy at least) would learn from their predecessors' mistake. The whole splitting up thing hasn't been working so well.

That said: Belkar would have the dungeon filled with super powerful monsters, with an alarm set to warn him of intruders. No way would he want to just hang out in the dungeon for the rest of his (short) life, but if a fight brings itself there he wouldn't want to miss that either.

And then the monsters kill him. Because he's still a nincompoop.

Haley and Elan would prefer tricks and illusions, combining his magic with her more mundane traps. When deciding the dungeon's design, Haley would ask Elan what would be the coolest and most dramatically appropriate for an adventure. She'd then plan the opposite (i.e. a design that would make no sense to a typical evil adventurer), and Elan would reluctantly agree.

[SoC175]

Well, if you have Durkon, en epic level divine caster, and V, an epic level arcane caster, wouldn't it be sensible of Thor to just tell Durkon what the Dark One told Redcloak and let them transfer the ability to move the gates to the deities so that they can store them somewhere save?

[Kish]

Well, if you have Durkon, en epic level divine caster, and V, an epic level arcane caster, wouldn't it be sensible of Thor to just tell Durkon what the Dark One told Redcloak and let them transfer the ability to move the gates to the deities so that they can store them somewhere save?
No. Gods no. The deities of the OotS universe are the last people who should be able to move the rifts around at will. It starts with Thor, as the one Durkon would actually give that power to, moving one of them into Loki's home plane, and it goes downhill from there.

[Atronach]

They don't.

The Snarl will destroy the current realm; the gods will destroy The Snarl's realm; The Snarl will kill all the gods; the gods will kill The Snarl. OOtS somehow survives because the story needs to continue. OOtS become overpowers of the realm because nobody else is left to pull the threads. OOtS proclaims Vecna an epic loser.

So, rock falls, everybody except the PCs dies. :smallbiggrin:

Elan gets his happy ending, right? So I do believe that most people surviving the threat of the snarl would go with the happy ending.

[ScottishDragon]

Well one things for shure,Durkon's would have an immence beer cellar hidden somewhere inside.

[Aldrakan]

They don't.

Thank you for giving an alternate, totally irrelevant hypothetical situation in answer to this question about a hypothetical situation.

Belkar: Frankly his gate defense would probably be terrible, because he'd get bored anytime something difficult came up. He has no magic and doesn't have the personal skills to get people working for him for extended periods (see the skull which quickly decided death was preferable). He'd probably end up hiring some people to dig a bog standard dungeon and stick a few monsters in it.
If he were taking it seriously there might be some nasty traps in there, he's shown aptitude towards those.

Vaarsuvius: I'd expect, again, a lot of traps. Various triggered effects along Explosive Runes lines. Maybe some kind of outer ring of wards that simply conceal or keep people out, then increasing deadly effects the closer you get to the gate. Partially it depends on how much his attitude towards the supremacy of magical power changes. He might include golems or something, to provide physical threat.

Haley (and Elan): I'd agree with Somniloquist on this.

Durkon: Not entirely sure. Possibly create a mountain to bury it under.It would be rather amusing if then dwarves came to live in it, dug too deep, and unleashed the Snarl.

Roy: I'd expect something a bit like the Sapphire Guard, though less specialized. An organization of multiple classes dedicated to protecting the site of the gate. Roy can be rather deceptive though, I'd not be entirely surprised if he put something else there that they would be publicly guarding, with the real reason for it known only to the current head, or for the secret even to die with him.

[Shale]

Belkar I'd expect to just stand in front of the gate until he got bored, whereupon he would wander away and never come back to it again.

[Dixieboy]

That said: Belkar.

Woul not be allowed to have control of a gate.

[DBJack]

The problem is that there are 5 rifts, and there are going to be at most 4 members of the party at the end. Belkar and Durkon are out. V might be too, depending on what happens.

I could see V in the elvin forests leaving the gate to his master whose name starts with an A while he stays with Kyrie, but the others would be less certain.

I don't think the Order has the levels or resources to defend the gates...

[martinkou]

The usual raised plate, trapped door, or "I prepared explosive rune this morning" traps are totally crappy as far as DnD goes - a higher level rouge than you can always search and disarm it. Even if the rouge critical fails at disarming it - evasion.



I don't think the Order has the levels or resources to defend the gates...

Agree. Which is why I think both the Snarl and Xykon would somehow got killed by an epic +20 plot device is much more likely.

[veti]

Belkar could disguise the gate as (say) a chandelier, then build a brothel around it. And probably a casino as well. When he got bored - about two months, perhaps - he'd simply sell the whole operation to the nearest Thieves' Guild, without telling them about the gate at all, and they'd protect it because it'd be a great investment for them.

I can see Roy going the honeypot route: publish the location and encourage bad guys to come and have a go at it. Where they would, of course, be met with everything in the way of tricks, traps and tarrasques that the combined efforts of just about every good guy on the continent could come up with.

Durkon I would imagine building a massive temple on top of it, and ensuring that it's protected by the highest-level clerics of all members of the dwarfish pantheon. Including Loki.

Vaarsuvius might hide the gate inside a flaming labyrinth of magical traps, misdirections and general damage-doing, then seal the whole thing shut so that nobody, herself included, could get in, and set up a monitoring system that would alert every elven arch-mage she knows when (inevitably) someone does breach the first line of defence. But that feels pretty lame, I think she could come up with better than that.

Haley and Elan would leave their rift open, and charge people to come and look at the world within it.

[ocdscale]

I'm of the mind that the whole point of this current arc is to show how dysfunctional the Order of the Scribble was. The Order of the Stick is going to learn from their mistakes and their own.

If they are charged with sealing and guarding the remaining rifts, they are going to work cooperatively instead of separately. Each gate with be warded with as much arcane magic as V can muster and filled with Elan and Haley's traps and illusions, etc.

Personally though, I don't think that's what it's going to boil down to. The whole planet-within-the-rift is too big of a deal. I don't think the world is going back to normal.

[magic9mushroom]

The problem is that there are 5 rifts, and there are going to be at most 4 members of the party at the end. Belkar and Durkon are out. V might be too, depending on what happens.

I could see V in the elvin forests leaving the gate to his master whose name starts with an A while he stays with Kyrie, but the others would be less certain.

I don't think the Order has the levels or resources to defend the gates...

Durkon is going to die, Belkar "will draw his last breath ever", "should savour his next birthday cake", "isn't long for this world", and "shouldn't bother funding his IRA".

Durkon's says he'll die but doesn't say anything about resurrection, Belkar's seems to outlaw resurrection but dances around saying he'll actually die.