Redcloak's Holy Symbol [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

FoE

2010-02-08, 06:23 PM

I just noticed that he isn't wearing Xykon's holy symbol anymore. Either it's still in the sewers or this is a further sign that Redcloak has fallen out of favour with the lich.

If ritual that Tsukiko is learning is the same ritual needed to "take control of the Snarl," then Redcloak might need to start thinking about contingency plans if Xykon says "You have failed me for the last time ..."

Acero

2010-02-08, 06:24 PM

OR....

Xykon doesn't understand his part and needs explaining

RMS Oceanic

2010-02-08, 06:30 PM

I suspect it's because they haven't found it yet, given Xykon's intention to blow this popsicle stand the moment they find it.

That said, I doubt he'd give it back to Redcloak when he finds it. I think any trust between them has flatlined.

Strawberries

2010-02-08, 06:42 PM

That said, I doubt he'd give it back to Redcloak when he finds it. I think any trust between them has flatlined.

Was there ever any real trust between them? Please note that as I haven't read start of darkness, the question isn't rethoric. (I don't mind spoilers)

Gift Jeraff

2010-02-08, 06:47 PM

Was there ever any real trust between them? Please note that as I haven't read start of darkness, the question isn't rethoric. (I don't mind spoilers)
Xykon greatly trusted Redcloak after the ending of SoD.Where Redcloak kills his own brother to ensure Xykon's safety, out of his own volition.

Strawberries

2010-02-08, 06:58 PM

Xykon greatly trusted Redcloak after the ending of SoD.Where Redcloak kills his own brother to ensure Xykon's safety, out of his own volition.

Oh. I was aware of that, though I wouldn't have called that trust.

From what I had read (in other spoilers), I got more a sense of smugness on Xycon part, as if he was so certain of his hold on Redcloack he never considered the possibility Redcloack would betray him

I guess I meant trust as in mutual trust. Thanks for answering!

Werbaer

2010-02-08, 07:04 PM

I just noticed that he isn't wearing Xykon's holy symbol anymore. Either it's still in the sewers or this is a further sign that Redcloak has fallen out of favour with the lich.
In the current strip, Redcloak says that after the 'elven terrorist attack', many are now helping him with a very secret 'project'.

They are searching the sewers.

Morthis

2010-02-09, 02:06 AM

Oh. I was aware of that, though I wouldn't have called that trust.

From what I had read (in other spoilers), I got more a sense of smugness on Xycon part, as if he was so certain of his hold on Redcloack he never considered the possibility Redcloack would betray him

I guess I meant trust as in mutual trust. Thanks for answering!

SoD
I wouldn't call it trust. Xykon did charm mitd and gave him specific instructions to eat Redcloak and spit out the phylactery if Redcloak ever betrayed him. Sure it's just an insurance/backup plan, but it does tell you something.

As for the Right-Eye thing. This was, again, insurance. He even explains this was his way to insure that if he was ever defeated, he knew he would be able to trust Redcloak with the phylactery while he regenerated.

Personally I don't think there's much trust in either direction. Redcloak most certainly doesn't trust Xykon, and mentions this in SoD. To RC, Xykon is just part of the plan, and of course RC has lied to Xykon about what will happen once they control a gate, since Xykon assumes he will control it, when in fact the Dark One will.

As for Xykon trusting RC, I doubt it. Xykon has made it clear RC is the "bitch" in the relationship. In that sense, Xykon believes RC is too cowardly to turn on him (because it would require that RC faces the reality of having killed his own brother along with tons of goblins for nothing), and Xykon really put RC in his place at the end of SoD, but that's not trust. I don't think that knowing your follower is too weak willed to resist you conveys any sense of trust, and in many movies/books this often leads to the eventual betrayal by the follower.

factotum

2010-02-09, 02:21 AM

The fact Redcloak is still in Azure City Gobbotopia means they haven't found the phylactery yet--remember, Xykon said they'd be teleporting out 2 rounds after it was found, and I don't think he was playing for laughs at the time!

Garion

2010-02-09, 04:48 AM

RMS Oceanic

2010-02-09, 04:53 AM

My advice (partially) based on SoD :

Since the V event, I am convinced that Redcloack will end up betraying Xykon. This is the only conclusion I can imagine for Redloack, finally realising how mistaken he was.

I don't think he's reached that point yet.

Remember his "conversation" with his reflection? "It will all be worth it." He's still unwilling to admit the wasted life and time is completely lost. Xykon is still the only arcane caster he knows who can complete the ritual and is willing to work with him. Abandoning Xykon at this stage means abandoning the plan, and he's not ready to do that.

No, I think it's going to take a little more dog kicking from Xykon, and another outside influence before Redcloak finally tries something else. That outside influence? Right-Eye's daughter.

Garion

2010-02-09, 05:01 AM

RMS Oceanic

2010-02-09, 05:44 AM

I agree with you. I said he was ultimatly going to betray Xykon, but I think it is going to happen at a crucial moment in a very long time, maybe even when fighting against the OOTS. Right-Eye's daughter could be the decivise factor, but I don't know if Rich wants to make his webcomic's plot that much SoD-dependant to understand.

I think any SoD points that are important to the story will be brought up in the main comic sooner or later. Remember how the Thieves Guild were referring to Origin of PCs?

Garion

2010-02-09, 06:54 AM

Maybe, I would love it since i'm a big fan of the whole Redcloak story. I can't help but think that the final blow to Redcloaks loyalty will be related to Gobbotopia though.
I realise I am feeling more interested with how team Evil will end up than the OOTS at the moment.

Ancalagon

2010-02-09, 06:59 AM

Maybe, I would love it since i'm a big fan of the whole Redcloak story. I realise I am feeling more interested with how team Evil will end up than the OOTS at the moment.

Has to do with the last, rather anti-climatic story we saw from the order. It's a "time passes" section. Yet, I don't really like those "they just barely missed each other and therefore it does not go on"-things.

Team Evil surely is "where stuff happens" at the moment.

factotum

2010-02-09, 07:24 AM

Maybe, I would love it since i'm a big fan of the whole Redcloak story. I can't help but think that the final blow to Redcloaks loyalty will be related to Gobbotopia though.

Not so sure, myself--I suspect anything bad that happens to Gobbotopia will happen after Xykon and Redcloak have left.

TriForce

2010-02-09, 09:47 AM

Optimystik

2010-02-09, 09:53 AM

hey, here is a idea... it wasnt xykon who asked tsukiki about the part of the ritual, it was redcloak in a disguise self/alter self/ ranom illusion spell that made him look and sound like xykon. he wants to know if she can learn that part of the ritual, he doesnt need xykon anymore :)

None of those are cleric spells, nor do they fit Redcloak's domains.

TriForce

2010-02-09, 05:10 PM

None of those are cleric spells, nor do they fit Redcloak's domains.

miracle, very cheap magic item, random skeleton under RC's control ( like in the battle of azure city) its not really TOO hard for him to fake it :)

Ancalagon

2010-02-09, 05:25 PM

The smartest thing Redcloak could do was to fake himself and vanish. Goblin, Eyepatch, some red cloak... Xykon would never know the difference. ;)

Optimystik

2010-02-09, 05:25 PM

miracle, very cheap magic item, random skeleton under RC's control ( like in the battle of azure city) its not really TOO hard for him to fake it :)

Other than Miracle being 9th level...

Ancalagon

2010-02-09, 05:44 PM

Redcloak should be able to cast level 9 spells quite soon. If he's not already able to. RC was "level 16ish" since the beginning of the comic and everyone seems to gain levels as they go.
Even if we assume he was level 15 or even level 14 at the beginning (Dungeon of Dorukan; 14 sounds quite low, though) he should hit level 17 by now or be very, very close to it. Especially if we assume that the Order (to which he is one of the main antagonists) is in the region of level 14 or 15 by now.

Optimystik

2010-02-09, 05:52 PM

Yes, but there's nothing to suggest he can do it yet, and he would have already had to use Miracle to trick Tsukiko like TF is suggesting.

He'll be pretty dangerous once gets 9ths... I hope the Order is ready.

ClockShock

2010-02-09, 05:57 PM

hey, here is a idea... it wasnt xykon who asked tsukiki about the part of the ritual, it was redcloak in a disguise self/alter self/ ranom illusion spell that made him look and sound like xykon. he wants to know if she can learn that part of the ritual, he doesnt need xykon anymore :)

So Tsukiko solves the ritual, then goes to find the real Xykon. Confusion & Hilarity ensue, and Redcloak is in serious trouble when they work it out.

Ancalagon

2010-02-09, 06:01 PM

Actually, I hope he'll be able to cast those spells for the final confrontation. He'll have his full potential then which will result in a VERY interesting fight.

So far we have seen no evidence for level-9-spells but he really should be there or very close before it. If he does not gain them "soon" it'll cause some believability-issues.
Xykon is in his mid to high 20s and it can be assume he gained a few of those long after becoming a lich (when Redcloak was mostly with him; yet there is a span of three years in which they were seperated (when Xykon was not in the tower in SoD). He could have gained the bulk of his levels then and left Redcloak behind - point is: I doubt he left Redcloak THAT far behind).

FoE

2010-02-09, 06:16 PM

Xykon is still the only arcane caster he knows who can complete the ritual and is willing to work with him.

Given that he's now the ruler of his own nation, I doubt very highly that Redcloak could not find a suitable arcane caster to ally with him. There must be some other evil-doer that he can bully into subservience. But that would mean betraying Xykon and effectively admitting he was wrong to ever work with the lich.

Snake-Aes

2010-02-09, 06:31 PM

Given that he's now the ruler of his own nation, I doubt very highly that Redcloak could not find a suitable arcane caster to ally with him. There must be some other evil-doer that he can bully into subservience. But that would mean betraying Xykon and effectively admitting he was wrong to ever work with the lich.

He could not. High level casters are extremely rare. Take Tormenta for example, a national setting where the adventurer:nonadventurer ratio is insanely high(10% of the population in the world is level 1 in a pc class). The ratio between level:nextLevel tends to be 2:1, so if you have 300 million people in the planet, that's 30m lvl 1 adventurers. And 15m 2, 7.5m 3, 3.75m 4, 1.875 5, 937500 level 6s, 468750 level 7s, 234375 8s, 117187 9s, 58593 9s, 29296 10s, 14648 11s, 7324 12s, 3662 13s, 1831 14s, 915 15s, 457 16s, 228 17s, 114 18s. 57 19s, and 28 20s.

28 level 20 people in 300 million, 427 level 17+ people. Redcloak has maybe 50k people under his control right now. In a world of perfect statistics, there would be 0.000001423 people capable of casting level 9 spells, and only if they were purely casters. Redcloak cannot count on other people.

And this is being done using a disproportionately large ratio of adventurers per commoner.

factotum

2010-02-10, 02:37 AM

Given that he's now the ruler of his own nation, I doubt very highly that Redcloak could not find a suitable arcane caster to ally with him.

Goblins are not natural arcane spellcasters. The highest level arcane caster they found in SoD was a drooling imbecile, and there's no evidence that the hobgoblins have anyone much better--the only hobgoblin wizard we've seen cast one cantrip before being killed by Haley, so we have no idea what level he was.

RMS Oceanic

2010-02-10, 02:50 AM

slayerx

2010-02-10, 03:24 AM

I just noticed that he isn't wearing Xykon's holy symbol anymore. Either it's still in the sewers or this is a further sign that Redcloak has fallen out of favour with the lich.

Actually, when you consider the fact that O'Chul knew that redcloak's holy symbol was Xykon's soul and that he managed to escape alive, we can consider that the holy symbol has been compromised... Xykon may not know where o'chul went but he knows that someone knows his weakness

As such, there is a chance that any heroe's that come after him might target redcloak's holy symbol to get at Xykon's weakness... so all in all, even if Xykon still trusts redcloak, the holy symbol is no longer safe with him

essentially, Xykon's got to find a new place to hide redcloak's holy symbol

Math_Mage

2010-02-10, 03:41 AM

There's also the whole if-I-dump-Xykon-those-30-years-and-thousands-of-goblin-deaths-would-be-a-waist issue.

And the if-I-dump-Xykon-I-can-kiss-my-nation-goodbye issue.

factotum

2010-02-10, 07:25 AM

Actually, when you consider the fact that O'Chul knew that redcloak's holy symbol was Xykon's soul and that he managed to escape alive, we can consider that the holy symbol has been compromised... Xykon may not know where o'chul went but he knows that someone knows his weakness

Xykon's soul is in Xykon's body. Only if the body is destroyed will his soul retreat to the phylactery, so it's not as much of a weakness as you're implying.

RMS Oceanic

2010-02-10, 07:54 AM

Xykon's soul is in Xykon's body. Only if the body is destroyed will his soul retreat to the phylactery, so it's not as much of a weakness as you're implying.

It's not a "weakness" in the sense of a "small thermal exhaust port only two metres wide", but it is a vulnerability. To truly defeat him you have to destroy it. Attacking the main man himself will always be just as difficult whether or not you destroy it, but destroying the phylactery ensures he stays down.

Optimystik

2010-02-10, 08:46 AM

It's not a "weakness" in the sense of a "small thermal exhaust port only two metres wide", but it is a vulnerability. To truly defeat him you have to destroy it. Attacking the main man himself will always be just as difficult whether or not you destroy it, but destroying the phylactery ensures he stays down.

Not only that, destroying it first might be more dangerous, as he will take every fight seriously and even retreat if necessary.

factotum

2010-02-10, 01:27 PM

Not only that, destroying it first might be more dangerous, as he will take every fight seriously and even retreat if necessary.

Or, conversely, he might get so angry at whoever destroyed the thing that he goes into a frenzy like he did when O-Chul and V escaped.

slayerx

2010-02-10, 01:44 PM

Xykon's soul is in Xykon's body. Only if the body is destroyed will his soul retreat to the phylactery, so it's not as much of a weakness as you're implying.

Pheh, same difference...
Point is that destroying the holy symbol is key to destorying Xykon once and for all... so the last thing Xykon wants is to have his little safety net destoryed... as such he would not want to keep it in the first place that the heroe's will look; around redcloak's neck

megabyter5

2010-02-10, 04:11 PM

Redcloak has a HOLY symbol? Are we forgetting which god he's working for? I'm choosing to ignore the purpose of the topic and focus on silly details like how evil deities would have unholy symbols.

...Crap, that makes me a troll, doesn't it?

Ancalagon

2010-02-10, 04:16 PM

Pheh, same difference...

Nah, might be a big difference. Depends on if Xykon knows something happend to the thing or not (his soul might not be in there but there IS a might connection with the phylactery and the lich).

If he can know that his soul-hiding-place is gone, it might be MUCH harder to kill him. He might not even go out anymore but lock himself in in a mean castle with SERIOUS defense (not fun-defense like Xykon had in the Dungeon of Dorukan) and some real plans for fight and retreat should things go badly.

Whacking an epic caster who has prepared two or four emergency plans to get out of his own house to other safe places might be much more difficult than one who thinks he has another option left.

edit: As we speak about it... something that just came to my mind:
We don't know if Xykon can make a new phylactery. But there is ONE way how he can safe himself, no matter what. Even with a destroyed phylactery, he can go the way to demi-lich... becoming one does not necessarily need your old phylactery - and you gain the ability to create more of those.
Actually, should Xykon go that way (would be a bit uncool to draw in a stick-comic, though) - the real trouble begins.

hamishspence

2010-02-10, 04:21 PM

While the PHB does refer to holy & unholy symbols, in general the term "holy symbol" seems to apply to both- the sample Evil High Priest in DMG2 comes with a "silver holy symbol".

The fact that Redcloak always refers to it as a "holy symbol" is probably just a case of it being the default term.

slayerx

2010-02-10, 04:23 PM

If he can know that his soul-hiding-place is gone, it might be MUCH harder to kill him. He might not even go out anymore but lock himself in in a mean castle with SERIOUS defense (not fun-defense like Xykon had in the Dungeon of Dorukan) and some real plans for fight and retreat should things go badly.

Whacking an epic caster who has prepared two or four emergency plans to get out of his own house to other safe places might be much more difficult than one who thinks he has another option left.

Except Xykon would not do that... locking himself away in a castle like that means abandoning his plans for world domination and not ever being able to go out to cause mayhem... What's the point of still existing if he can't enjoy it

Ancalagon

2010-02-10, 04:24 PM

That's always a matter of how much "fear" comes into play... and if the fortress is big enough with a high enough influx of new minions... why not?

"Never" is always a big word. ;)

factotum

2010-02-11, 02:32 AM

Actually, should Xykon go that way (would be a bit uncool to draw in a stick-comic, though) - the real trouble begins.

Be quite easy to draw, I should think--we've already seen a disembodied skull (the Eye of Fear and Flame after Belkar decapitated it), so you just need to draw that with gemstone teeth and hovering in mid-air. :smallwink:

On a more serious note, I'm not sure Xykon would want to take that route. He's been prone to using more physical means (apart from his magic) all his life (remember him killing Master Fyron by crushing his skull with his own Wizzie award?); I don't think he's quite ready to go entirely magic-based just yet.

Ancalagon

2010-02-11, 05:30 AM

Be quite easy to draw, I should think--we've already seen a disembodied skull (the Eye of Fear and Flame after Belkar decapitated it), so you just need to draw that with gemstone teeth and hovering in mid-air. :smallwink:

I don't say "hard to draw". I say it's probably "less cool than a skeleton". Really... did the head of the Eye of Fear & Flame look scary in any way?
I'm not saying it's impossible but I say that I currently think the lich comes over as more impressive than a tiny skull hoovering in the air.

Dvandemon

2010-02-12, 02:46 PM

I don't say "hard to draw". I say it's probably "less cool than a skeleton". Really... did the head of the Eye of Fear & Flame look scary in any way?
I'm not saying it's impossible but I say that I currently think the lich comes over as more impressive than a tiny skull hoovering in the air.

Why would an undead skull worry about how dirty the air is?

ThePhantasm

2010-02-20, 04:26 PM

Why would an undead skull worry about how dirty the air is?

Maybe the skull was making a dam in the air.

Gift Jeraff

2010-02-20, 06:06 PM

If Xykon goes the way of the demilich, I'm sure Rich would break from the rules a little bit and make him look cool* just to make things more dramatic. Or maybe leave it lame-looking for comedic purposes. :smallbiggrin:

I can imagine demilichdom being Xykon's final form (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneWingedAngel), with Rich bending the rules involving the creation of one. A cool final super-enemy will be needed if there is no more Snarl for our heroes to defeat.
*Maybe a floating, cracked/fractured (for bad@$$ery) skull surrounded by a a giant, eldritch mass of negative energy/arcane magic (Xykon's colour)/pure evil/something like that.

the_tick_rules

2010-02-20, 06:39 PM

I don't see demilich. That'd take a lot of time and effort to make, Xykon is busy. Plus if he goes demilich the OOTS has 0 chance against him.

factotum

2010-02-21, 02:24 AM

I don't see demilich. That'd take a lot of time and effort to make, Xykon is busy. Plus if he goes demilich the OOTS has 0 chance against him.

By strict D&D rules the Order have 0 chance against him anyway. He's an epic level lich (at least 21st level, and some suggest he's got to be at least 27th) accompanied by a cleric who is at least 15th level and probably higher. I don't know what the EL on that is, but I bet it's way higher than a party of around 14th level (we'll assume they've all gone up since Azure City) could handle.