Comic 841, Predicting the Deaths

[EpicLevelDM]

The latest comic is starting to finally get to me. It's a lot more intense then what I originally thought, because maybe another side is about to pop up.

------------Inspecting the Crime Scene-------------------
-----Time of Death
-Assuming from the bodies, this happened a while ago. The body is rotting, their skin is dark, and decaying. :smalleek:
-The bodies must have been decaying because those beetles might be eating them or the left over food.
-The food they have are rotted, that doesn't happen until a few days later. Unless this is a certain type of food.
-This happened during dinner, lunch, or breakfast.

-----Cause of Death
-Let's think about physical damage, it doesn't look like they were assault by weapons. There aren't any arrows or swords, or scratch marks for that matter.
-Now let's think of magical damage, evocation is out because there isn't any kind of spell I know of that doesn't leave some kind of trail behind.
-Conjuration may have been part of this, but again. There has to be SOME kind of evidence left behind, again I don't know a spell that can't leave a trail in this set.
-Enchantment? This has been a possibility to me, it's actually a curious one. Perhaps someone enchanted the Draketooths so that they do not breath or eat, so then they would suffocate or die of hunger, leaving no trail behind. This I believe is a very possible method, I could be wrong though.
-Transmutation, there aren't much damaging transmutation spells. The ones that do (like disintegration) turn people into different elements.
-Necromancy, this is the most possible cause of death. Necromancy usually doesn't leave a trail, and certain spells instantly kill a target without leaving evidence, like yanking out souls.
-Illusions? Perhaps there IS evidence, but someone (maybe even one of the Draketooths committed heresy among them), has disguised it. This isn't very supported.

-----The Suspect
-We cannot assume Team Evil. I doubt they actually KNOW where the Gate IS, in the first place. Also, Redcloak was busy defeating the resistance, I guess he was overseering the search for the phylactery.
Tsukiko was busy rummaging in Redcloak's stuff, besides, she uses spells that leaves a kind of trail. I also don't remember her using an illusion spell.
Xykon was building a fortress in the Astral Plane, knowing him, he'll leave an obvious trail and just lay waste on the place. Maybe even place a ball of insanity. It can't be him
-We cannot assume the Linear Guild either. The Linear Guild was in the Empire of Blood the whole time. Plus they were spending months pinpointing Girard's location to Windy Canyon.
-This has been a very possible suspect. Vaarsuvius. The evidence is this. First of all; I said that Necromancy may be a possibility to kill the Draketooths, the DRAKEtooths may be related to dragons, now the way to connect these clues is to think of familicide. Remember that spell? It killed the dragon's relatives, I believe it didn't matter how far they were related. So if the Draketooths were part dragon, this is a very good theory.
-A Draketooth betrayed one of their own, this is another very good theory. Not the best, but it's possible a Draketooth had murdered the rest of them, and used illusions to cover it up. This doesn't have MUCH evidence, because the betrayer must have been smart enough to mask the scent.
-A third side? This is a possibility, despite the lack of evidence. Perhaps there's a third side looming on the horizon.

What's your theory?

[Lvl45DM!]

They dont smell like rotting corpses (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0838.html)
Perhaps some sort of mummification effect?
Of course you left out poison in your list of causes of death.

Some nitpicks with your logic though: Team Evil knows the location of all the gates thanks to Serini's diary. Tsukiko is a Necromancy specialist and can cast Invisibility, an Illusion spell

[rrgg]

If you were going to Elan it, I think that they were killed by a fellow draketooth makes the most sense. It would fit in well with the theme of deception and paranoia that this entire arc has been about. We just got done learning about haley's dad and the dangers of excessive mistrust, and now we're moving on to a cult of people who have been raised from birth immersed in a culture of deception? Yeah, nothing will have gone wrong.

[gallagher]

someone was scrying the area when the bomb went off, an alert to either serini or draketooth. it seemed like it was being actively controlled, so i think that it was a spell cast after being alerted, instead of as part of it. therefor, i think that at least one draketooth with spellcasting ability is still around, and that this mess hall is a large hoax

[Goosefarble]

someone was scrying the area when the bomb went off, an alert to either serini or draketooth. it seemed like it was being actively controlled, so i think that it was a spell cast after being alerted, instead of as part of it. therefor, i think that at least one draketooth with spellcasting ability is still around, and that this mess hall is a large hoax

Actually, I believe the Scrying spell was Zz'dtri. I thought it was Serini too, but this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0801.html) implies that it was Zz'dtri.

[gallagher]

Actually, I believe the Scrying spell was Zz'dtri. I thought it was Serini too, but this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0801.html) implies that it was Zz'dtri.while true, it came after the explosion was triggered, and timing is never coincidental in this world.

there are many other ways that they could know that he was in the desert

[M.A.D]

Looking carefully at the art work, you can see that all of the corpse's eyes and cheeks were sunken, but intact, instead of being half eaten or decomposing. Given that all of the windows were open and the constant wind blowing, I think we can assume that it was natural mummification. This also explains why they didn't smell like rotting corpses: because they're drying, not rotting.


while true, it came after the explosion was triggered, and timing is never coincidental in this world.

there are many other ways that they could know that he was in the desert

It was probably not a coincident. They were scried after setting off a a huge explosion. Nale could have detected the explosion and scried the area to find the source. Normally, I'd expect V to be able to shield the entire OoTS from enemy's scying, but Nale accidentally bypassed it by simply searching the area.

[sparkyinbozo]

One thing we can conclude: it was sudden and immediate. Otherwise, the gentleman in the back would have not been carrying/have dropped that tray of food.

Edit for clarification: that means a charm, such as to stop eating or breathing, is less likely the culprit.

[Forealms]

A concern about the smell:

Dead bodies will smell terrible shortly after death. However, after a couple of weeks in a place that is easily accessed by a dry wind (such as that in a desert), the smell of the dead bodies would mostly be gone. Really, a dry climate is the biggest factor in this. My thought is the smell comes from the food, though I don't know how long spoiled food would smell. Maybe longer?

[Rohar]

Just pointing out, albeit this means all of these guys were pretty low level, that I can think of at least two spells, conjuration's cloudkill and necromancy's circle of death, that would work and leave no trace.

And there's no reason an illusionist wouldn't be able to cast other spells. One of the Draketooth family went mad? although where this would lead in the story is still confusing.

[Tass]

OP forgot one possibility under illusions, namely that they weren't killed by an illusion, but that this scene is an illusion.

I haven't made up my mind yet between V's familicide or deceptive illusion, but I believe that it is one of the two.

[Capt Spanner]

Is this the hiding place of an entire family? They all have the same, or similar shades of hair.

I know two characters sharing a hair colour could be written off as coincidence, but there's 20 of them there, which doesn't count Haley or the two bald corpses. Allowing for four "distinct colours" of hair, two characters is only a 1 in 4 chance - well within the bounds of "likely", but 20 is odds of 274,000,000,000 to 1. Truly astronomical.

Furthermore, there are all ages represented - a white haired woman (with some red strands), another person going white haired, all the way down to a small girl in pigtails. It would seem particularly likely this is an extended family, probably Girard's.

[Alagaesian]

If it was a spell that killed everyone, whoever cast it must have either done so outside of the room or been invisible. Otherwise, some of the bodies would have been turned to focus on the same direction, or possibly some people would have tried to flee. The scene pretty much shows everyone dying in the middle of sitting, probably talking at their tables, and not facing any particular direction.

Thus, if a spell was cast, one of two things must have occurred. Either the caster was covered by Greater Invisibility (not unlikely if this is a clan of illusionists) or the range of the spell was able to cover all creatures within a radius that was the distance between the door and the farthest corpse - about 35 feet.

[Detrinex]

Hairbrained idea 1: The dead people thing is an illusion, but the smell is real because Belkar identified it as humans, inferring live humans (but knowing him, he's killed so many he could mean dead ones too, because he's gotten within knifing range of victims, therefore smelling range).

Hairbrained idea 2 (but the most obvious one): The hostile beetles suddenly attacked without warning, giving way to massacre without much chance of response. In 842, if this theory is correct, OotS will be attacked by the beetles.

Hair brained idea 3: The brown statue of Girard is his tombstone, and the altar it is on is his gravestone. With Girard dead (possibly long-dead), the Draketooth clan was possibly tied to his life force (like Howl's Moving Castle) and when he died, they died.

Hair brained idea 4: Old age.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Hair brained idea 3: The brown statue of Girard is his tombstone, and the altar it is on is his gravestone. With Girard dead (possibly long-dead), the Draketooth clan was possibly tied to his life force (like Howl's Moving Castle) and when he died, they died.

Hair brained idea 4: Old age.

3 I don't see how his clan and/or descendants would be tied to the life of an extremly old Human, even if he's an Epic level Illusionist or why they would do so. The point it seems, in siring a clan was to create a never ending supply of defenders for the gate who are loyal and will far outlast Girard.

4 makes no sense period. They is a child and most of the bodies still have a full head of red hair indicating they were no where near old age at the time of death.

[IrnBruAddict]

Its unlikely to be the beetles, notice they are only eating the rotting food, none are eating the corpses. If this is due to the mummification or something else I'm not sure but it doesn't look like they caused it.

[Eigenclass]

Well of course they're not eating the bodies - figments, even epic ones that include tactile and olfactory senses (which I believe even Permanent Image can produce), can not provide nourishment. The rotting food's probably real, and the beetles are either real (and trigger something terrible when interacted with) or are shadow conjurations.

How would those little guys with their tiny wings have gotten into the Windy Canyon, anyway, when even V was blown down when she tried to fly?

This guy is possibly epic illusionist that's already fooled the OOTS once with the fake coordinates in the desert, and was paranoid enough to suspect paladins of breaking their word. Having been left unmolested by Team Evil/undistracted by booty calls on former adventuring companions, Girard's likely had his entire lifetime to spin up layer upon layer of illusions, more than one likely leading to dead ends. I think the smart money is on nothing being as it seems.

It is reasonable to suspect that whomever's taken over his mantle's inherited those traits - considering Haley inherited her father's paranoia, and only started to open up after traveling with the mostly uber-good OOTS, whereas the Draketoothlings live in the middle of several chaotic/likely chaotic evil regimes where mistrust and betrayal seem to be the societal norm across all levels of society.

For these reasons, I think it's going to be Turtles all the way down (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down) with the illusions, unless the OOTS camps for the night and Eugene Greenhilt shows up to provide some enlightenment, or some other plot event occurs where Haley shares her newly discovered epiphany about trust - or Elan shares some bizarrely translated version of it.

[IrnBruAddict]

I agree that the only possibility that this being an illusion to make sense would be to have the food be real and the beetles be real, but that seems unlikely to me. If the bodies are an illusion then why are the beetles there. Why don't the bodies smell right? And why leave real food to rot if you could make the beetles an illusion and the food too? Make it all make more sense.
If Girard was still alive, why make an illusion that doesn't make any sense when you could make a perfect illusion that would make sense? If he or someone else made it then the beetles should be eating the bodies to make it seem more real.