What if Tsukiko never joined Team Evil?

[Anarion]

With Tsukiko's recent death and discussion of her importance as a character, I thought I would go back and look a bit at some of the earlier events in the comic, and I noticed that by joining in the Azure City Castle, Tsukiko had one particularly huge influence on the battle: She damaged the jail with her shout spell.

The damage to the jail led to a few things:
1) It definitely led to Nale, Sabine, and Thog escaping, which has set up the conflict for the current arc.
2) It might have also been the cause of the damage to the cell bars that allowed Miko to escape.

If that's right, then not recruiting Tsukiko could be the base of an entire alternate universe setting: Azure city would still be overrun with 20,000 hobgoblins, led by the bearded general, but Redcloak and Xykon would be dead and the throne room would be a tiny bastion of good due to Soon Kim's ghost being nearly impossible to defeat, even for an army of thousands of hobgoblins.

The Order might have been able to obtain Roy's corpse, although it's possible that the Monster in the Darkness would have taken it and wandered off somewhere, or even wandered into the city and joined the hobgoblins. Perhaps he even could have defeated Soon Kim and allowed Xykon to regenerate, in which case Xykon (lacking both Redcloak and Tsukiko) might now be teamed with Jirix and headed straight for Girard's gate.

What do people think? How would the OoTS world have turned out if Tsukiko had never been around?

[Idhan]

Interesting. Since the castle never blew up, the Linear Guild and Miko wouldn't have either died or escaped, leaving the hobgoblins under Jirix and the old hobgoblin general to find them.

Miko is probably ultimately a goner. Could they execute her from outside the cell with arrows, or just leave her in there to starve to death? If they go inside the cell to kill her, they're in for a nasty surprise. (Miko as a monk/paladin is more than a match for Redcloak. As a monk/fallen paladin, she'd still probably kill a legion's worth of hobgoblins before going down -- not to mention the possibility of her cutting a swath through them to the throne room, where she might either destroy the sapphire, or maybe this time listen to Soon (who would be less distracted with Xykon and Redcloak) and destroy the phylactery.

Nale? Also a goner, I think. I doubt the hobgoblin general or Jirix are as open-minded as Xykon about recruiting evil humans. (Redcloak pretty much hoped Tsukiko would die of chlorine poisoning, after all.)

Thog? Maybe he has a chance. Thog is probably too undisciplined and wild for hobgoblins to really feel comfortable with him, but they might be pragmatic and use him for missions against the resistance as a shock trooper ("Remember, Thog, for every five elf heads you bring us, you get an ice-cream cone, and if you manage to bag twenty-five, we'll give you a puppy!")

Sabine? Hard to say. They might not be hostile to her in the first place, or if they are, if she manages to get out of the anti-magic cell, she's probably fine. If she can get out of the immediate vicinity, she can just assume generic hobgoblin trooper form and no one will notice. She could just go back to her home plane, although they might have some harsh things in mind for her for screwing up her mission regarding Nale and getting him killed.

[The Pilgrim]

With Miko and the Linear Guild not being able to escape, the outcome could be one of those options:

1) Miko would escape anyway, since once the Hobgoblins had overrun the Jail she could easly self-justify her escape due to necessities of war. Sure, the bar wouldn't be cracked, but I don't think a paladin of her level really needs a bar to be cracked in order to escape.

The rest of the comic goes on more or less as happened, except that the Linear Guild either dies, or dies but Nale is later resurrected by Sabine (who just reforms in the lower planes), or manages to free themselves after the Hobbos had overrun the Jail, or survive the explosion of the Castle.


2) Miko and the LG don't escape. Soon kills Redcloack and Xykon. But he can't destroy the Phylactery. The Hobgoblins can't enter the Throne Room as Soon's Level is too high for them. But they have at their disposal, in the dungeons of former Azure City, a whole party of evil adventurers, high level enough to make kick work of Soon. So...
- The Hobbos buy the services of the LG in exchange for their freedom and a lot of the gold they have just ransacked from Azure City.
- The LG kills Soon. (Nale IS lawful)
- Nale would then either leave, or try to force the low-level Hobbos to accept him as their ruler, or just strike a deal that gives him control of the Throne Room - and the Gate.
- However, as Nale doesn't know anything about liches, he wouldn't notice the Phylactery. So whatever he does, doesn't matter very much. Xykon reforms. Obliterates the Linear Guild if they are still there and are too fool to not collaborate.
- Xykon raises Redcloack or just passes the mantle to Jyrix.
- The Ritual to Warp the Gates is Performed
- At this point, unless the whole Snarl thing is just a big load of hockey (which I TOTALLY expect it to be), then the Game is Over.

- Miko would be just sent with the rest of the Prisoners and forced into slavery. Would quickly escape and join the Resistance, then help samurai guy (whose interpretation of the events matchs perfectly with hers (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0530.html)) to execute Haley and obliterate her branch of the Resistance. Would probably kill Eyepatch Girl and her branch, too. Not that it means so much since the Goblins had just conquered the World by fulfilling the Dark One's Plan.

[Idhan]

Uh, LG beats Soon? How does that happen? If Soon could beat friggin' Xykon and Redcloak, I think he'd turn the Linear Guild into shashimi. Especially considering that Thog would probably be (almost?) useless against an incorporeal, Nale would be worse (he has mostly enchantment spells, and Soon's will save is probably through the roof if he isn't immune to [mind-affecting] spells outright thanks to being kinda-undead. He can sneak attack, which is also worthless against an incorporeal. He has some limited fighter-y stuff, also useless.), and Sabine... well, I don't really know what Sabine can do besides fly, drain energy, and shapechange, but I see no reason to think she'd prevail against Soon.

Update: I guess Nale probably wouldn't go for a head-on assault on Soon, and would probably come up with some elaborate and (in his mind) cunning plan to defeat him indirectly. However, given Nale's track record, there's no reason to think that would work either.

[Emulgator]

Wasn't there a low level spell allowing the user to bring a light item close to them a'la telekinesis? Because if there was, then they just need a goblin spellcaser seeing the phylactery, while standing outside Soon's attack radius.


Also Nale would propably talk his way out of this situation. Maybe by telling about his past dealings with Xykon, maybe by providing them something. I believe he'd survive, along with the rest of the LG.

[Auron]

Tsukiko did also heal Xykon before he went to the throne room. This doesn`t seem that likely, but I wonder if the extra damage from Roy would have been enough for the ghosts to destroy Xykon before Redcloak reached the throne room. Xykon looks like he has taken a lot of damage here: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0459.html.

[FujinAkari]

1) Miko would escape anyway, since once the Hobgoblins had overrun the Jail she could easly self-justify her escape due to necessities of war. Sure, the bar wouldn't be cracked, but I don't think a paladin of her level really needs a bar to be cracked in order to escape.

The rest of the comic goes on more or less as happened.

No, without Miko reaching the throneroom at precisely the moment she did, then she wouldn't have concluded that all hope was lost and destroyed the sapphire. The delay in her escape would have lead to Xykon's defeat and so she would not have thought she had to destroy it to keep it from falling into Xykon's hands.

However, this is all an exercise in futility. If Tsukiko hadn't existed then the jail would have been weakened by a Titanium Elemental. Rich had Miko's entire character arc planned before he even introduced her, and so while the circumstances would have had to adjust around Tsukiko's absense, the story would have remained the same.

Same goes for every character, although some are a heck of a lot harder to replace :P

[BaronOfHell]

However, this is all an exercise in futility. If Tsukiko hadn't existed then the jail would have been weakened by a Titanium Elemental.

Wait just a moment here. Are you saying that the universe, which governs the story of the OotS, bends around to the will of some kind of intelligent creator?:smallconfused:

What's next? No free will?? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x3PQ5QhMJs):smallfrown:

Edit: Had Tsukiko not been hired by Xykon, I imagine he'd still get her to heal him first. Heck, I'd imagine he'd get her to fight for him as well. The only difference I imagine is that Xykon doesn't write his note so easily copy-able that Red Cloak realise it got to be real. All for the lulz of this girl getting her comeupance when she thinks she's part of team evil. Then she still battles the chlorine elemental, as Red Cloak hardly seems to bother with her anyhow and shouts the prison. She can't enter the to the palace and now when Xykon and RC comes out again, either Red Cloak finishes her off or Xykon either recruits her anyway or finishes her off himself.
So I don't think the difference would have been major in the early parts, but it certainly could have been. I do imagine that a lot of the later stuff would be very very different. Among other things, Xykon wouldn't be nearly as entertained, which maybe would mean Red Cloak and Xykon would have been at Girards Gate even before Roy was resurrected. Then again, who knows, it's just guessing.

[B. Dandelion]

In exercises like this I think it's a bad idea to argue for "meta-thinking" -- the needs of the story, the desires of the author, and so forth, because the entire premise requires that we accept the setup as given and not treat its underlying causes as "contrived" in origin. It only works in a Watsonian (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WatsonianVersusDoylist) context. Of course it's pointless in the sense that it's not what the author intended to happen, on that level we say the Order is a team because the author wants them to be a team and the bad guys are evil because that's what the story requires. It's the testament to good writing that we can believe the in-story reasons things happened.

Incidentally, if Xykon had made it out of there but Redcloak hadn't, I think things might have gotten really ugly in the aftermath... the Crimson Mantle infodumps The Plan on the wearer, but I don't think that includes Redcloak's specific plan, which involvs lying to Xykon about what the actual ritual does. Jirix or whoever, given the cloak, would very likely have no idea why Xykon would think the ritual could control the Snarl and might oh-so-innocently correct him. I can easily see Xykon leveling the newly-occupied city in retribution...

[BaronOfHell]

Wouldn't TDO specify the necessary details for his high priest, so Xykon doesn't blow up in the face of his plan?

Heh, I'm writing with girls about D&D.:smallredface::smallredface:

[NinjaStylerobot]

Soon still blows up throneroom. Just destroying Phylactery, mantle and everybody else in Process.

Victory for the speciesist forcess of good VS the horrible forces of evil!

[Anarion]

In exercises like this I think it's a bad idea to argue for "meta-thinking" -- the needs of the story, the desires of the author, and so forth, because the entire premise requires that we accept the setup as given and not treat its underlying causes as "contrived" in origin. It only works in a Watsonian (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WatsonianVersusDoylist) context. Of course it's pointless in the sense that it's not what the author intended to happen, on that level we say the Order is a team because the author wants them to be a team and the bad guys are evil because that's what the story requires. It's the testament to good writing that we can believe the in-story reasons things happened.

Incidentally, if Xykon had made it out of there but Redcloak hadn't, I think things might have gotten really ugly in the aftermath... the Crimson Mantle infodumps The Plan on the wearer, but I don't think that includes Redcloak's specific plan, which involvs lying to Xykon about what the actual ritual does. Jirix or whoever, given the cloak, would very likely have no idea why Xykon would think the ritual could control the Snarl and might oh-so-innocently correct him. I can easily see Xykon leveling the newly-occupied city in retribution...

That's an interesting idea. I assume it would be Jirix as the most likely to receive the crimson mantle, even if he was a nameless character at the time of the Soon fight. Jirix expressed surprise here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0548.html) that they were lying to Xykon, so I definitely believe your theory. In that case though, Xykon would probably keep the crimson mantle and immediately begin researching a spell to warp the ritual. I doubt he would give up on something as powerful as the snarl, and once he had a way to take control of it, he could mind control a goblin and force that goblin to perform the ritual with him.


Wouldn't TDO specify the necessary details for his high priest, so Xykon doesn't blow up in the face of his plan?

Heh, I'm writing with girls about D&D.:smallredface::smallredface:

Also possible, although my understanding of the crimson mantle is that it has pre-programmed instructions in it. It's not a short-term direct line to the Dark One, but rather a set of encoded directions that repeated verbatim every time a new goblin puts on that cloak.

Also, care to explain that last line? :smalltongue:

[King of Nowhere]

if she hadn't joined team evil xykon would have smoked her along with the rest of the tower defensors. He would have had a few less hp, which may or may not have made the difference in the figth. Actually, they would have probably done the difference in the end: soon would have smashed xykon with his last blow. back to this in a moment.

Miko and the linear guild would have still broken out of prison. the prison would have been weakened by somthing else. if you are familiar with terry pratchett, think of it as narrativium at work: miko was bound to be set free and arrive in the throne room in the niche of time. the story required it. narrativium required it.
So, miko would have still shattered the gate, because at that moment she wasn't looking soon.
redcloak, without xykon to fly him, would have died too.
But xykon would have regenerated, and he would have found a way to raise redcloak, even if the army didn't alreay have a cleric capable of it. So, in the long run, not much difference.

[PhantomDennis]

It's not likely that Tsukiko would have ever made a different decision than what she did. On the other hand, Tsukiko should have never been let out of her holding cell. I imagine if she'd been in the cellblock with The Linnear Guild and Miko, there might have been some interesting interactions. For the people who arguing that all the players are essentially Banjos of the Giant's plot, we've seen with the Darth V arc and what I know of SoD's Redcloak story that people are responible for their own actions, no matter who is manipulating them. The IFCC specifically told the Imp that V was responsible for her own actions which means she could have taken a different path. Also the Giant is in on record as stating that the destruction of Azure City is a direct consequence of the destruction of Redcloak's village. Never mind that the plot required that the second gate be destroyed.

It's silly to argue that anything was inevitable without some in-universe modifier. For example we now know that Sabine is working with the IFCC who is presumably interested in Nale's Eeeevil potential. Perhaps enough to intervene discreetly without tipping off anyone including the audience. I'd have to review the events to see if Miko's intervention was inevitable presuming a jailbreak which was always possibility with the fortress under assault.

[The Pilgrim]

Uh, LG beats Soon? How does that happen? If Soon could beat friggin' Xykon and Redcloak, I think he'd turn the Linear Guild into shashimi. Especially considering that Thog would probably be (almost?) useless against an incorporeal, Nale would be worse (he has mostly enchantment spells, and Soon's will save is probably through the roof if he isn't immune to [mind-affecting] spells outright thanks to being kinda-undead. He can sneak attack, which is also worthless against an incorporeal. He has some limited fighter-y stuff, also useless.), and Sabine... well, I don't really know what Sabine can do besides fly, drain energy, and shapechange, but I see no reason to think she'd prevail against Soon.

Soon AND a legion of other paladin ghost-spirits did beat Xykon and Redcloak. But at the time of the final blow, he was alone, the legion of Paladins had been destroyed.

Thog wouldn't be useless against Soon. All it takes for a fighter to damage an incorporeal (50% chance) is a +1 weapon, which I'm pretty sure the Hobbos can more than provide. Same for Nale.

Sabine would be very effective as Energy Drain has been proved in the comic to be a successful tactic against incorporeal creatures - See Xykon vs Darth Varsuuvius.

They would have also the backup of an army of Hobbos and all the equipment they could loot from Azure City, a major city of the OOTS world. So, yep, they have a good chance of defeating Soon.

[shaddy_24]

Soon AND a legion of other paladin ghost-spirits did beat Xykon and Redcloak. But at the time of the final blow, he was alone, the legion of Paladins had been destroyed.

Thog wouldn't be useless against Soon. All it takes for a fighter to damage an incorporeal (50% chance) is a +1 weapon, which I'm pretty sure the Hobbos can more than provide. Same for Nale.

Sabine would be very effective as Energy Drain has been proved in the comic to be a successful tactic against incorporeal creatures - See Xykon vs Darth Varsuuvius.

They would have also the backup of an army of Hobbos and all the equipment they could loot from Azure City, a major city of the OOTS world. So, yep, they have a good chance of defeating Soon.

Soon would most likely be able to drop any of the LG in one hit, maybe a few more for Thog. He's an epic leveled paladin ghost-thing, there's no way any of the LG would be able to do anything to him, even with a bunch of hobgoblins. I wouldn't bet on them having anywhere near enough magic items to make a difference, sending 30 or so people in with +1 swords won't cut it, and there won't be anywhere near enough magical bows and such. That's assuming they can even go after him with bows, he could just hide in a wall and prevent any of them from being able to target him. Then, if they try to enter the room, he could wipe them out. Soon could hold that room for years before they could build up the force required to beat him. Soon could defeat Xykon one on one, and I don't think the combined forces of every other creature in Azure City could take out the lich.

[Dark Matter]

Miko gets out later. By that time Xykon and Redcloak are dead at Soon's hands.

Miko goes to the thrown room to check on the gate, she's ordered by Soon to destroy the Phylactery (and also told exactly how). She does so.

[Idhan]

If Tsukiko's inflict critical spell kept Xykon intact until Redcloak arrived, then without it, maybe Xykon would have been destroyed by the ghost-paladins before he arrived. If that were the case, then he could have told Redcloak (from his phylactery) "hey, super-tough goodies in the throne room. I got beaten. Since I'm out of commission and won't cast the ritual for 1d10 days anyway, let's not go there until we come up with a plan on how to beat them." This would have left Redcloak alive, Xykon destroyed but with an intact phylactery, and the hobbos in control of Azure City outside the throne room -- and Team Evil planning to take the throne room, and its intact gate, at their leisure.

(Except maybe Soon and company have a trick up their sleeve that leaves Team Evil with less strategic initiative than they think?)

[Anarion]

If Tsukiko's inflict critical spell kept Xykon intact until Redcloak arrived, then without it, maybe Xykon would have been destroyed by the ghost-paladins before he arrived. If that were the case, then he could have told Redcloak (from his phylactery) "hey, super-tough goodies in the throne room. I got beaten. Since I'm out of commission and won't cast the ritual for 1d10 days anyway, let's not go there until we come up with a plan on how to beat them." This would have left Redcloak alive, Xykon destroyed but with an intact phylactery, and the hobbos in control of Azure City outside the throne room -- and Team Evil planning to take the throne room, and its intact gate, at their leisure.

(Except maybe Soon and company have a trick up their sleeve that leaves Team Evil with less strategic initiative than they think?)

The big questions here are what happens to Miko and what happens to the Order of the Stick. First, if Miko managed to fight her way into the throne room, especially if she was careful and waited until Redcloak was gone, then she could destroy the phylactery at Soon's instruction.

Similarly, if the order with Hinjo stuck to the city and snuck around underground (certainly possible if Haley could keep a whole resistance going for as long as she did), they could get to the throne room within a couple days and destroy the phylactery. Moreover, the Order, depleted as they were, could probably have taken Redcloak, and therefore have had a reasonable chance of escaping afterwards and coming back with help.

[Idhan]

The big questions here are what happens to Miko and what happens to the Order of the Stick. First, if Miko managed to fight her way into the throne room, especially if she was careful and waited until Redcloak was gone, then she could destroy the phylactery at Soon's instruction.

Sorry. I think my writing was unclear. My hypothetical is that, with Xykon damaged from fighting Roy, and without Tsukiko casting inflict critical wounds on Xykon, Xykon might have been destroyed before Redcloak arrived in the throne room, cast harm on Xykon, and started negative-turning the ghost-martyrs. With Redcloak still not in the throne room, Xykon could have told Redcloak to call off the attack on the throne room from his phylactery, giving Team Evil time to plan how to deal with the ghost-martyrs.