Serini was Evil

[Olinser]

Actually just registered after reading the comic for quite a while, this has been bugging me and I'm bored, so I wanted to bring it up.

The theory is obvious from the title (also if you're into the comparisons between Scribble/Stick, Serini was Belkar).

At it's core, it is a fairly simple theory, supported by 3 points that I don't really see explained in any other way.

1) A logical reason that Serini had the location to EVERY gate, despite being the one to propose to the Order of the Scribble that they go their separate ways and never contact each other (OOTS 277). The idea that the Order of the Scribble knew the locations because they sealed them is jossed by the fact that Soon and the paladins had incorrect coordinates for Girard's gate (and Serini had the correct ones). So Serini would have had to contact every single one of the order AFTER they split up, to get the locations.

2) Xykon having Serini's journal. By the fact that neither he nor Redcloak knew there was more than 1 gate before Liriam let it slip in Start of Darkness, they clearly did not possess the journal prior to assaulting Liriam's gate.

After he returned to retake control of Redcloak and the goblins, he said he 'found' it. While it is reasonable they would have heavily researched the gates and whatnot - where the hell did Xykon get the journal? As Xykon has been shown to be PHENOMENALLY lazy, the chances of him decoding a random diary without motivation are somewhere between zero and nil. If he killed Serini at the gate she was guarding - why didn't he start with that gate? As random halfling journals are not generally carefully stored in wizard libraries, the only conclusion I can come to is that somebody GAVE Xykon the journal, knowing what he was after! As all the other members of the Order of the Scribble have been accounted for - Girard at the time concealed behind god knows how many epic illusions, possibly dead of old age at the time (Dorukan was extremely old, Girard would be the same age or a bit older), Liriam killed by Xykon and Dorukan consequently not capable of giving Xykon ANYTHING without trying to kill him, Soon being a paladin would clearly not deal with a lich, and Kraagar dead. Who else would possibly know that the encoded journal of a random halfling would be so important?

3) More circumstantial than anything - it is SERINI'S DIARY. The diary doesn't have in depth knowledge of anybody else's gate's defenses, and while it doesn't necessarily have in depth info on Serini's defenses, which would you rather fight:
A) A gate guarded by a tribe of epic illusionists, with the extremely probable outcome you won't find the gate to begin with, even WITH coordinates (apparently option C)
B) A gate guarded by an epic archmage who has had decades to refine his magical defenses (the one Xykon chose - arguably because it was closest)
C) A gate guarded by an entire city of paladins (option B for Xykon)
or
D) A gate guarded by whatever random creatures a halfling female manages to capture and reliably keep prisoner?

So between those 4 options... they save the gate location of the person that WROTE the diary for last? Something doesn't smell right there to me, as that is the only gate location GUARANTEED to be correct.


As for motivation, my thinking is fairly simple: when Liriam's gate was destroyed, Serini investigated, came across Xykon, and found out that Xykon and Redcloak knew how to completely control the Snarl (they Xykon genuinely believes he can control it - only Redcloak knew better). Having dedicated her life to defending a gate in Kraagar's honor, she suddenly sees the opportunity to bring Kraagar back! I don't think it's an unreasonable leap of logic to believe that the Snarl, capable of killing gods themselves, would be capable of tossing somebody back out (Kraagar isn't necessarily dead, he was sealed in the rift, we never saw a body). So she makes a deal with Xykon, evil to evil - I'll tell you where the gates are, you bring my stabbity buddy back. She gives him the journal and the means to decode it for plausible deniability if Xykon is defeated - why, it's not HER fault she misplaced her diary and an evil lich got ahold of it - she was off with her own gate!.

This will all lead to the final epic showdown at Serini's gate, where she 'helps' the Order of the Stick, and backstabs them at the last second as they engage Xykon, possibly killing Belkar as her first shot, evil halfling to evil halfling, if you will, a karmic death for the Belkster. Then the IFCC intervenes and takes control of V at the same time. Now the OOTS is down 2 members, and is fighting a team of an epic lich, badass (possibly epic by that time) cleric Redcloak, epic halfling (not unreasonable to assume since the entire rest of the Scribble was epic), and the return of Darth V - separate theory, that if they take control of V, they can resplice as many souls as they want onto the body. Not a good day for the Order of the Stick!

[Forikroder]

Soon travelled with Serini for a undertiminable (but non nelgigible) amount of time and Soon is like Miko not Roy if Serini was evil Soon would have killed her


1) A logical reason that Serini had the location to EVERY gate, despite being the one to propose to the Order of the Scribble that they go their separate ways and never contact each other (OOTS 277). The idea that the Order of the Scribble knew the locations because they sealed them is jossed by the fact that Soon and the paladins had incorrect coordinates for Girard's gate (and Serini had the correct ones). So Serini would have had to contact every single one of the order AFTER they split up, to get the locations.

or unlike Soon took the time to jot them down or asked Girard for them and Girard didnt lie (unlike with Soon)


After he returned to retake control of Redcloak and the goblins, he said he 'found' it. While it is reasonable they would have heavily researched the gates and whatnot - where the hell did Xykon get the journal?

in the tower, hes an epic level lich sorcerer hes quite capable to be able to find things like that


As Xykon has been shown to be PHENOMENALLY lazy, the chances of him decoding a random diary without motivation are somewhere between zero and nil.

ya hes so lazy hes not even willing to try and take over the world.... wait....
or hes too lazy to make a vault for his Phylactery.... wait...


If he killed Serini at the gate she was guarding - why didn't he start with that gate?

Serini isnt at a gate she chucked monsters in it and called it a day and went adventuring


Liriam killed by Xykon and Dorukan consequently not capable of giving Xykon ANYTHING without trying to kill him

maybe he went back to Lirians forest found mention of Serini (or learned of her through some other means) then used his arcane might and other connections to find areas she was seen


D) A gate guarded by whatever random creatures a halfling female manages to capture and reliably keep prisoner?

far more dangerous then Azure city since his army would be completely useless here there are some scary dangerous monsters in existance Kraagars gate could conceivably be the strongest guarded gate, but could also be the least guarded gate for Xykon it would easier to use his army to fight an army and his own magical power to fight magical defenses, if he had a standard part including meat shield then he might be more willing to tackle the monsters

[Olinser]

Halflings carry around big lead sheets, and paladins need to stop oppressing their cultures!!!! :P

But seriously, while that is true, there are 2 ways around it:

1) Serini turned evil after the order split up. Sitting up there by the gate, brooding about how it was the fault of Soon (and paladins in general) that Kraagar was dead, and they were horrible people, it's entirely possible over the course of 40, 50, 60? years? not sure exactly, forget the Start of Darkness timeline, but thats a long time for an alignment change. Nothing in my theory requires her to be evil while the Scribble was sealing the gates - she could have started gathering gate locations after her big jump into the deep end of the alignment pool, as per the Belkster.

2) Serini was able to conceal her alignment from Soon. It's been a while since I played D&D, but correct me if I'm wrong, if Xykon has a crown that causes anybody carrying it to register as evil, I don't think its outside the realm of possibility Serini found an item that made her register as good (or as not evil). As long as she refrained from obviously evil acts in his presence, he would have no reason to suspect she was evil.

[Forikroder]

Halflings carry around big lead sheets, and paladins need to stop oppressing their cultures!!!! :P

But seriously, while that is true, there are 2 ways around it:

1) Serini turned evil after the order split up. Sitting up there by the gate, brooding about how it was the fault of Soon (and paladins in general) that Kraagar was dead, and they were horrible people, it's entirely possible over the course of 40, 50, 60? years? not sure exactly, forget the Start of Darkness timeline, but thats a long time for an alignment change. Nothing in my theory requires her to be evil while the Scribble was sealing the gates - she could have started gathering gate locations after her big jump into the deep end of the alignment pool, as per the Belkster.

2) Serini was able to conceal her alignment from Soon. It's been a while since I played D&D, but correct me if I'm wrong, if Xykon has a crown that causes anybody carrying it to register as evil, I don't think its outside the realm of possibility Serini found an item that made her register as good (or as not evil). As long as she refrained from obviously evil acts in his presence, he would have no reason to suspect she was evil.

Serini would havent been able to fool Soon, Belkar was completely unable to fool Miko (her honour just prevented her from dealing the final blow before confirming) Soon would have figured out she was evil if she kept flipping up a lead sheet whenever he cast detect evil and the other party members wouldnt be willing to cover for her so theyd figure out if she was carrying an item that would obscure her alignment

and one final thing

where do you have the slightest scrap of information that Serini cares about Kraagar that much?

it seems like you came up with an end result (Serini is evil and is working with Xykon) and are doing everything you can to twist the actions and facts in order to support that end result with no evidence to back it up

[rgrekejin]

A couple of points...

There are lots of good explanations for Serini having a full set of coordinates that don't involve her being evil. In fact, from the way Girard's illusion talked about it back out in the desert, I got the distinct impression that all the members of the Order of the Scribble knew the coordinates for everyone else's Gates, even if they weren't allowed to interfere with them.

Second, with respect to Xykon being lazy... yeah, this is brought up a lot in the comic, but I think it's a fair question at this point to ask exactly how much of his supposed laziness actually is laziness and how much of it is Xykon sandbagging. When he really puts his mind to it, he has been shown to be capable of some pretty impressive stuff.

There are also plenty of entirely reasonable explanations for how Xykon came upon Serini's diary... I mean, for all we know, she simply died of old age and Xykon tracked down her next of kin. I think the truth is probably more exciting than that, and the reason that we don't know exactly how it happened yet is that it is a future plot point. It is possible that Serini may have turned evil eventually, but at the moment, the evidence to support that seems pretty thin on the ground to me.

...and given Rich's dislike for all races being painted with the same brush, it would feel odd to me if the only two major halfling characters in the comic both turned out to be evil. This is just a gut feeling, though, not something I'm suggesting constitutes evidence in any way.

[Olinser]

in the tower, hes an epic level lich sorcerer hes quite capable to be able to find things like that


I agree, he's quite capable of finding and decoding the journal on his own - but the question is the MOTIVATION. He's insanely lazy, unless he knew for a fact that decoding it would give him a tangible gain, I can't see him decoding random halfling journals for kicks. How did he know that a halfling journal had anything interesting at all in it?



ya hes so lazy hes not even willing to try and take over the world.... wait....
or hes too lazy to make a vault for his Phylactery.... wait...


As for your 2 examples, Xykon has ADD, HARD. While yes, taking over the world is a stated goal, he gets distracted EASILY (as the IFCC have noted). Instead of making any real serious attempts to get through Dorukan's protection other than chucking goblins through it, he spends an inordinate amount of time plotting the death of a random ragtag group of adventurers (the OOTS), because he was bored. Redcloak really didn't have to work that hard to keep Xykon in Azure City for MONTHS with no tangible results, and Xykon was perfectly willing to feed a potentially valuable prisoner to an acid shark because he was bored. It took O'Chul's phylactery thievery and Darth V's assault to snap him back on track.

And Xykon didn't make a vault for his Phylactery until O'Chul came within inches of destroying it - again because of laziness. Why should he bother? It's probably fine hanging on Redcloak's neck, it's not like he's run across epic paladin ghosts that easily identified it was his phylactery and would have destroyed him for good if it weren't for an idiot Fallen paladin.... wait...



where do you have the slightest scrap of information that Serini cares about Kraagar that much?


OOTS 277 - she's sobbing over his statue (significantly after his death, it takes time to build a statue), seems to be the only one that actually cares that he's dead (Dorukan and Girard seem more interested in blaming Soon than actually grieving for Kraagar), and the fact that she allegedly built her entire defense of the gate around Kraagar's life philosophy.



Serini isnt at a gate she chucked monsters in it and called it a day and went adventuring


That actually lends credence to my theory - she is charged with defending a gate sealing something that has the potential to END THE WORLD... and she just puts some monsters in front of it and wanders off?



Serini would havent been able to fool Soon, Belkar was completely unable to fool Miko (her honour just prevented her from dealing the final blow before confirming) Soon would have figured out she was evil if she kept flipping up a lead sheet whenever he cast detect evil and the other party members wouldnt be willing to cover for her so theyd figure out if she was carrying an item that would obscure her alignment


The lead sheet thing was a joke, dude. If she was evil at the time of the adventure (not required), I go back to Xykon's crown. If there is an item that makes anybody that holds it register as Evil, it is therefore completely logical that an item can exist that makes anybody that holds it register as Good. A major reason Belkar was unable to fool Miko was the fact that he enjoyed rubbing his evilness in her face.

[oppyu]

A fun epileptic tree, although it's still an epileptic tree. Just as possible as any other ending I suppose.

[Olinser]

A couple of points...
There are lots of good explanations for Serini having a full set of coordinates that don't involve her being evil. In fact, from the way Girard's illusion talked about it back out in the desert, I got the distinct impression that all the members of the Order of the Scribble knew the coordinates for everyone else's Gates, even if they weren't allowed to interfere with them.


I agree, there are plenty of reasons she could have had the coordinates (Soon did appear to have the correct coordinates for both Liriam and Dorukan's gates), but why are they written in her diary, and how did Xykon get it without seizing control of Serini's gate at the same time?


A couple of points...
There are also plenty of entirely reasonable explanations for how Xykon came upon Serini's diary... and I think the reason that we don't know exactly which one it was yet is that it is a future plot point. It is possible that Serini may have turned evil eventually, but at the moment, the evidence in support seems pretty thin on the ground to me.


Sure, there are (foremost among them he just killed her and took it), but keep in mind, when he found the diary, the first gate he went for was Dorukan's gate. If Serini's diary was anywhere near where her gate was, or he killed her and took it, why wouldn't he have just taken control of Serini's gate and hauled Redcloak up there, instead of screwing around with an epic Archmage dug in to a fortress?

It just seems extremely strange to me that we have a Gate Guardian who has written down in her diary the locations of all the gates, and her travels, and the last gate that gets fought over is that of the diary author?

[Whiffet]

Why would Xykon decode a random halfling's diary? Well, the whole thing isn't encoded. Just the locations. We don't know how he got the diary in the first place, but once he had it he would realize it was related to the gates. He'd have a good reason to decode it. You can see a page from it here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0196.html).

EDIT: You know Serini went out adventuring some more, right? Wherever the diary was before Xykon found it, it probably was far from the gate.

[Olinser]

A fun epileptic tree, although it's still an epileptic tree. Just as possible as any other ending I suppose.

I did put the disclaimer at the start of the threat that I was bringing it up because I was bored :smallbiggrin:

[Olinser]

Why would Xykon decode a random halfling's diary? Well, the whole thing isn't encoded. Just the locations. We don't know how he got the diary in the first place, but once he had it he would realize it was related to the gates. He'd have a good reason to decode it. You can see a page from it here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0196.html).

EDIT: You know Serini went out adventuring some more, right? Wherever the diary was before Xykon found it, it probably was far from the gate.

Hmm, you bring up an excellent point with that page being unencoded - I missed that one, that would definitely give him motivation to decipher the rest to find the gates.

Question though - where does it say that Serini went back out adventuring more? I don't remember that being in the comic at all.

[Forikroder]

I agree, he's quite capable of finding and decoding the journal on his own - but the question is the MOTIVATION. He's insanely lazy, unless he knew for a fact that decoding it would give him a tangible gain, I can't see him decoding random halfling journals for kicks. How did he know that a halfling journal had anything interesting at all in it?

do you know what wouldnt give him a gain? sitting on his ass

do you know what would give him a gain? trying to figure out about the gates


Xykon was perfectly willing to feed a potentially valuable prisoner to an acid shark because he was bored.

well Xykon didnt know about how Ochul had to be willing to return and we all know Ochul wasnt actually valuable at all


OOTS 277 - she's sobbing over his statue (significantly after his death, it takes time to build a statue), seems to be the only one that actually cares that he's dead (Dorukan and Girard seem more interested in blaming Soon than actually grieving for Kraagar), and the fact that she allegedly built her entire defense of the gate around Kraagar's life philosophy.

omg she was close enough to someone shed been adventuring with for years to shed some tears over his death and make him a badass monument she was in lvoe with Girard not Kraagar


That actually lends credence to my theory - she is charged with defending a gate sealing something that has the potential to END THE WORLD... and she just puts some monsters in front of it and wanders off?

the scribble never thought someone would try and take control of the snarl, they only worried about people unsealing the rifts so the importance of guarding each specific gate isnt as big for them since theres 4 more to fall back on

plus the monsters are a badass defence and she probably doesnt even think anyones going to attack her gate and might have systems set up to summon there if they do get attacked


The lead sheet thing was a joke, dude. If she was evil at the time of the adventure (not required), I go back to Xykon's crown. If there is an item that makes anybody that holds it register as Evil, it is therefore completely logical that an item can exist that makes anybody that holds it register as Good. A major reason Belkar was unable to fool Miko was the fact that he enjoyed rubbing his evilness in her face.

yes there are items to hide your alignment which means jack since int he years the scribble spent together one of them would have seen it and reconized it its not like the OoTS where Roy knew Belkar was evil but too dumb to be a threat, if they had been travelling with Serini and found out she was evil and magicly hiding her alignment theyd lynch her right there


I agree, there are plenty of reasons she could have had the coordinates (Soon did appear to have the correct coordinates for both Liriam and Dorukan's gates), but why are they written in her diary, and how did Xykon get it without seizing control of Serini's gate at the same time?

1. its a diary, the purpose of a diary is to write down what youve done in it so obviously thats where shed put it

2. she never lived at Kraagars gate she built it then started adventuring again the diary was probably hidden at some hideout or home of hers she returned to every now and then


Sure, there are (foremost among them he just killed her and took it), but keep in mind, when he found the diary, the first gate he went for was Dorukan's gate. If Serini's diary was anywhere near where her gate was, or he killed her and took it, why wouldn't he have just taken control of Serini's gate and hauled Redcloak up there, instead of screwing around with an epic Archmage dug in to a fortress?

becuase monsters could be more dangerous to him then an epic level archmage, monsters tend to have abilities and such to prevent wizards from completely carving a bloody path through them and team evil has literally no physical back up aside from summoned reinforcements plus didnt Xykon use Lirian to somehow lure Durokon out? and Xykon has his whole love of crushing spellcasters so he also would ahve picked Durokons for the personal satisfaction


You can see a page from it here

(http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0196.html page in question)
if you look at the pic theres hearts over Girard and "mean GRRR" pointing at Kraagar so obviously she doesnt love him so much shes willing to try and tear down creation to see him again

[Whiffet]

Hmm, you bring up and excellent point with that page being unencoded - I missed that one, that would definitely give him motivation to decipher the rest to find the gates.

Question though - where does it say that Serini went back out adventuring more? I don't remember that being in the comic at all.

Well, it doesn't come right out and say "she kept on adventuring" but it does tell us that she wasn't the type to retire. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html)

[Olinser]

Well, it doesn't come right out and say "she kept on adventuring" but it does tell us that she wasn't the type to retire. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html)

Hmm, arguable, but also a good point, that could put her in a position to leave it lying around. Looking less likely, but I stand by my WMG!!

[Kish]

Actually just registered after reading the comic for quite a while, this has been bugging me and I'm bored, so I wanted to bring it up.

The theory is obvious from the title (also if you're into the comparisons between Scribble/Stick, Serini was Belkar).

At it's core, it is a fairly simple theory, supported by 3 points that I don't really see explained in any other way.

1) A logical reason that Serini had the location to EVERY gate, despite being the one to propose to the Order of the Scribble that they go their separate ways and never contact each other (OOTS 277). The idea that the Order of the Scribble knew the locations because they sealed them is jossed

Not what the term means. Rich has not come out on the forum and said "The Order of the Scribble did not all know the locations of each others' Gates, except for Girard lying to Soon."


by the fact that Soon and the paladins had incorrect coordinates for Girard's gate (and Serini had the correct ones). So Serini would have had to contact every single one of the order AFTER they split up, to get the locations.

No, the members of the Order were supposed to be able to contact each other if, say, their Gates were destroyed by a lich and an evil high priest. Girard gave Soon false coordinates. Whether he gave the right coordinates to Lirian or Dorukan, he certainly gave them coordinates, just as he knew the location of each of the other four Gates, just as Dorukan knew the locations of Lirian's, Kraagor's, and Soon's Gates, and so on.


2) Xykon having Serini's journal. By the fact that neither he nor Redcloak knew there was more than 1 gate before Liriam let it slip in Start of Darkness, they clearly did not possess the journal prior to assaulting Liriam's gate.

After he returned to retake control of Redcloak and the goblins, he said he 'found' it. While it is reasonable they would have heavily researched the gates and whatnot - where the hell did Xykon get the journal? As Xykon has been shown to be PHENOMENALLY lazy, the chances of him decoding a random diary without motivation are somewhere between zero and nil. If he killed Serini at the gate she was guarding - why didn't he start with that gate?

Serini was never guarding a Gate herself. She didn't want to retire.


3) More circumstantial than anything - it is SERINI'S DIARY. The diary doesn't have in depth knowledge of anybody else's gate's defenses, and while it doesn't necessarily have in depth info on Serini's defenses, which would you rather fight:
A) A gate guarded by a tribe of epic illusionists, with the extremely probable outcome you won't find the gate to begin with, even WITH coordinates (apparently option C)
B) A gate guarded by an epic archmage who has had decades to refine his magical defenses (the one Xykon chose - arguably because it was closest)
C) A gate guarded by an entire city of paladins (option B for Xykon)
or
D) A gate guarded by whatever random creatures a halfling female manages to capture and reliably keep prisoner?

Setting aside the reasons given in the comic for Xykon's choice of order which you're ignoring. Why does your description of Kraagor's Gate include the irrelevant information that Serini was a halfling and the REALLY irrelevant information that Serini was female, instead of the relevant information that she was an epic-level rogue?

Also, the members of the Order of the Scribble were named Lirian, Soon, Girard, Serini, Kraagor, and Dorukan. No Liriam, no Kraagar.

[Hiro Protagonest]

OOTS 277 - she's sobbing over his statue (significantly after his death, it takes time to build a statue), seems to be the only one that actually cares that he's dead (Dorukan and Girard seem more interested in blaming Soon than actually grieving for Kraagar), and the fact that she allegedly built her entire defense of the gate around Kraagar's life philosophy.
Girard was grieving. But his grieving is different. It doesn't express itself in tears, it expresses itself in blame and anger at someone he already dislikes.

The lead sheet thing was a joke, dude. If she was evil at the time of the adventure (not required), I go back to Xykon's crown. If there is an item that makes anybody that holds it register as Evil, it is therefore completely logical that an item can exist that makes anybody that holds it register as Good. A major reason Belkar was unable to fool Miko was the fact that he enjoyed rubbing his evilness in her face.

In Start of Darkness, it is revealed that the crown is non-magical. D&D also has rules for traces of alignment left over in areas from a strong presence, and since the comic doesn't always follow the rules, it would be reasonable to say that there is alignment residue still on it.

[Olinser]

Setting aside the reasons given in the comic for Xykon's choice of order which you're ignoring. Why does your description of Kraagor's Gate include the irrelevant information that Serini was a halfling and the REALLY irrelevant information that Serini was female, instead of the relevant information that she was an epic-level rogue?


I pointed it out because the title of her journal was, "The Life and Times of Serini Toormuck, halfling rogue." Given Xykon's attention span, I surmised he wouldn't read more than the title to see if he was interested. It doesn't say, "Complete diary of epic halfling rogue responsible for sealing world destroying entity!" Although it has since been pointed out that apparently parts of the journal (at least the pages we saw) were untranslated, I had not realized that at the time I initially posted.

[TimelordSimone]

(also if you're into the comparisons between Scribble/Stick, Serini was Belkar)
Serini has more in common with Haley (female Rogue in love with the party illusionist) than Belkar (Halfling) to my mind.

[Forikroder]

I pointed it out because the title of her journal was, "The Life and Times of Serini Toormuck, halfling rogue." Given Xykon's attention span, I surmised he wouldn't read more than the title to see if he was interested. It doesn't say, "Complete diary of epic halfling rogue responsible for sealing world destroying entity!" Although it has since been pointed out that apparently parts of the journal (at least the pages we saw) were untranslated, I had not realized that at the time I initially posted.

the odds that the title of the book is what piqued his interest is slim to none, the odds of him stumbling across that book is slim to none wherever the book was he knew it was there (or knew something useful is probably there) and went there specifically for clues

[Olinser]

Girard was grieving. But his grieving is different. It doesn't express itself in tears, it expresses itself in blame and anger at someone he already dislikes.

In Start of Darkness, it is revealed that the crown is non-magical. D&D also has rules for traces of alignment left over in areas from a strong presence, and since the comic doesn't always follow the rules, it would be reasonable to say that there is alignment residue still on it.

Right, I'm with you on Girard, but the other guy wanted evidence that she cared about Kraagar - sobbing on his monument and building essentially a shrine to him certainly qualifies as caring about him.

As for the crown, I agree, it is nonmagical - which doesn't mean it can't be useful. If one exists that rubs Evil off, wouldn't it be logical to assume that there could be one that had Good rubbed off on it? Considering Serini was a rogue, I think it would be entirely possible that she stole some mundane item from a famous paladin/cleric, and while fleeing with the loot discovered, "Holy crap! This belt buckle makes paladins unable to tell I'm evil! SCORE!!!" In fact, being nonmagical would make it even LESS likely that the item would be detected! Miko, Durkon and V certainly didn't notice the crown until Durkon realized what was interfering with Miko's Detect Evil spell.

[Forikroder]

Right, I'm with you on Girard, but the other guy wanted evidence that she cared about Kraagar - sobbing on his monument and building essentially a shrine to him certainly qualifies as caring about him.

As for the crown, I agree, it is nonmagical - which doesn't mean it can't be useful. If one exists that rubs Evil off, wouldn't it be logical to assume that there could be one that had Good rubbed off on it? Considering Serini was a rogue, I think it would be entirely possible that she stole some mundane item from a famous paladin/cleric, and while fleeing with the loot discovered, "Holy crap! This belt buckle makes paladins unable to tell I'm evil! SCORE!!!" In fact, being nonmagical would make it even LESS likely that the item would be detected! Miko, Durkon and V certainly didn't notice the crown until Durkon realized what was interfering with Miko's Detect Evil spell.

since the crown was nonmagical it would have lasted, it was still working when they met Miko becuase such a short amount of time passed but eventually all the evil would have rubbed of the crown

which again doesnt matter because eventually someone would have figured out that Serini was hiding her real alignment


Right, I'm with you on Girard, but the other guy wanted evidence that she cared about Kraagar - sobbing on his monument and building essentially a shrine to him certainly qualifies as caring about him.

and what does labelling him as mean in her diary mean? she didnt hate Kraagar but she didnt love him either she would ahve cried if any of the members bit it that day

[rgrekejin]

and what does labelling him as mean in her diary mean? she didnt hate Kraagar but she didnt love him either she would ahve cried if any of the members bit it that day

I agree with your basic point here, but I'd like to point out here that, from the labelling of Dorukan as the "new kid", we can safely say that this segment of her diary was from early on in their adventures together. By the time Kraagor died, at the end of their time together, it is possible her opinions of him may have shifted as she got to know him better.

This is also why I caution anybody from reading too much in to the fact that Serini appears to be crushing on Girard in these pages, too. He's some handsome new guy she only met recently. Maybe, two weeks hence, there's a page describing in great detail what a complete jerk Girard turned out to be.

[Steward]

That's an excellent point. If you compare the relationships between the OOTS characters in comic 1 to their relationship in comic 700, you would find that comic 1 is a lot shallower and more utilatarian while comic 700 is much deeper and more intense simply because of all the experiences they've been through and the way they've changed and become more serious since then. Roy thought of Haley as just a thief that he recruited from a guild back then; now, she's a trusted ally, his designated second in command for when things go south -- or north, as the case may be -- and they keep much fewer secrets from each other. It's probably the same with the others.

As far as the OP goes, it's definitely an interesting concept, and I'm not saying it's impossible... but your evidence is basically stacking assumptions on top of each other. Sure, it could happen, but then again Belkar could be a sex-changed Serini since we don't have a clear backstory for him and Rich hasn't come out to explicitly say that he isn't.

[Forikroder]

I agree with your basic point here, but I'd like to point out here that, from the labelling of Dorukan as the "new kid", we can safely say that this segment of her diary was from early on in their adventures together. By the time Kraagor died, at the end of their time together, it is possible her opinions of him may have shifted as she got to know him better.

This is also why I caution anybody from reading too much in to the fact that Serini appears to be crushing on Girard in these pages, too. He's some handsome new guy she only met recently. Maybe, two weeks hence, there's a page describing in great detail what a complete jerk Girard turned out to be.

i agree it isnt rock solid proof since we dont know when they drew that picture (the page mentions Lirian talking about making the gates so it must have been after they went to all the gates and started research on them so it was after they all spent a good amount of time together) however without any further evidence its much more accurate to assume they had a relationship like V and Belkar though probably a little less unprovoked attacks

[WindStruck]

So your whole idea is... Xykon seemed to have "found" that diary way too easily. You think Serini was somehow purposely involved for some ulterior reason in letting her diary fall in Xykon's lap.

But if that was really the case, why would Redcloak say, "Lord Xykon went through a great deal of trouble to secure this book in the first place."

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0195.html

So I think obviously things are not how you paint them to be. Even if you think Xykon is lazy and chances are he would have never blah blah blah... well, obviously in this case he wasn't lazy, as he hasn't been a few other key times.

[Kish]

I pointed it out because the title of her journal was, "The Life and Times of Serini Toormuck, halfling rogue."
I'm guessing "it" is that she was a halfling. Leaving why you mentioned that she's female and didn't mention she's a rogue mystifying.

(I wouldn't be commenting on it this second time, except that I wish you'd own the implication that a female could not have captured monsters as dangerous as a male could have captured.)

That said, what you're now claiming doesn't hold water at all--that Xykon would have gotten from the diary enough information to know that Girard's Gate was guarded by a tribe of epic illusionists*, Soon's Gate by an entire city of paladins*, Dorukan's Gate by an epic archmage, and Kraagar's[sic] Gate by...whatever random creatures could be captured by a halfling. A female halfling.

*These are also not true. Girard's Gate was guarded by an extended family of which a number of members were apparently illusionists and the founder was epic-level; Soon's Gate by a city which contained an order of paladins.

[ManuelSacha]

Elan is a Walrus

[rgrekejin]

i agree it isnt rock solid proof since we dont know when they drew that picture (the page mentions Lirian talking about making the gates so it must have been after they went to all the gates and started research on them so it was after they all spent a good amount of time together) however without any further evidence its much more accurate to assume they had a relationship like V and Belkar though probably a little less unprovoked attacks

I think it would be more accurate still not to assume anything at all about what sort of relationship they had, let alone anything as specific as V and Belkar's relationship. I mean, all we have to go on is a vague dairy entry that implies that Serini, at that point in time, thought Kraagor was kind of mean, and the fact that she openly wept when he died. Any assumption about the kind of relationship they had would have to be based almost entirely on guesswork.

Also, what Lirian is talking about in that passage is sealing the rifts, not making the Gates. The Gates are not the seals. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11686931&postcount=83) So there's no reason to think it was after they had already visited all the Gate sites, either. The only thing we know for sure is that Dorukan has just recently joined the party, so it must have been early on in their adventures together.

[Forikroder]

I think it would be more accurate still not to assume anything at all about what sort of relationship they had, let alone anything as specific as V and Belkar's relationship. I mean, all we have to go on is a vague dairy entry that implies that Serini, at that point in time, thought Kraagor was kind of mean, and the fact that she openly wept when he died. Any assumption about the kind of relationship they had would have to be based almost entirely on guesswork.

Also, what Lirian is talking about in that passage is sealing the rifts,not making the Gates. The Gates are not the seals. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11686931&postcount=83) So there's no reason to think it was after they had already visited all the Gate sites, either. The only thing we know for sure is that Dorukan has just recently joined the party, so it must have been early on in their adventures together.

not neccesarily its not like Durokan was a healer or meat shield he was jsut some added firepower to the party (and possibly some sort of specialist at creating seals and things) we dont know when he joined the party but theres no reason to assume it was early on if it was early on calling him the new kid would be a bit odd since they all only knew each other for short time

[snikrept]

In the flashback story Serini mentions to Soon a desire (perhaps in jest) to take a level of Paladin next.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html

Weak evidence for her being Good, anyhow

[martianmister]

"Was"? But Serini is alive according to your theory. :smallconfused:

[King of Nowhere]

I really don't see any evidence of Serini being evil at all.
I also got the impression the op did not read or did not remember well enough Start of Darkness, because it covers a lot of those points.

For example, it is mentioned in SoD that at some point Xykon disappeared for 3 years and came back with serini's diary and the location of Dorukan's gate. So, it seems much more likely that Xykon found and killed serini and got her diary, and after a while he was able to decypher the code. Remember, Xykon is not lazy per se. He just laks motivation, he don't care enough to do things. When he is motivated enough, he will not stop until he reaches his goal. I really liked at the beginning of SoD, his phrase "and as you can see, I already figured out the lightning thing on my own". Xykon failed math 3 times, but he managed to cast 3rd level spells at age 13. It is clear that Xykon had more than enough brainpower to pass math, but he did not care to study, while he cared about spellcasting and so he did learn to cast spells.

Also, about the gate coordinates, everyone had everyone else's coordinates. It's just that girard gave soon the wrong ones, taking advantage of being the guy who drew the map. Maybe someone else had wrong coordinates too, but all the order of the scribble was supposed to have the coordinates for all the gates.
And Serini, as other people pointed out already, filled kraagor's gate with monsters and then went away adventuring. As far as we know, Kraagor's may be the best defended gate: a few epic monsters are likely to be much more of a treath than the whole azurite army and sapphire guard together. Especially if some of them has a good sr.

Let's consider the "serini is evil" idea: if serini is evil, then where is she? What happened to her? why giving the diary to Xykon in the first place? around strip 300 (too lazy to found the exact one right now), Redcloak mentions decoding the locations of the last 3 gates. Redcloak is smarter than Xykon, so he took far less time. If serini gave the diary to xykon, Why not decoding it all? If Xykon already got all the coordinates from Serini, why pretend with redcloak that he did not? Why ask him to decipher the diary again?

And what would Serini gain in helping Xykon conquer the world? Money? as an epic adventurer, she has more than enough. Power? Xykon would keep all the power from himself, Serini can't be that stupid to not understand it. I can'think of any reason Serini would want to help Xykon, even if swhe was evil. Redcloak and Tsukiko both had their reasons, but serini?

All in all, I don't think there is any merit to the theory.

[martianmister]

I also got the impression the op did not read or did not remember well enough Start of Darkness, because it covers a lot of those points.

For example, it is mentioned in SoD that at some point Xykon disappeared for 3 years and came back with serini's diary and the location of Dorukan's gate.

I think you're the one who didn't read or didn't remember well OP's post...

[Dr.Epic]

An evil person was adventuring with a paladin? How? And don't say lead sheet. She didn't have that.

[KrytenKoro]

An evil person was adventuring with a paladin? How? And don't say lead sheet. She didn't have that.

I'm not familiar with D&D rules, but would it be possible for a Paladin to adventure with an evil character if he was unable to discover she was evil?

[Querzis]

I'm not familiar with D&D rules, but would it be possible for a Paladin to adventure with an evil character if he was unable to discover she was evil?

Because any paladin got detect evil and are usually very trigger happy with it. You cant hide being evil from a pally and a pally wont travel with an evil character.

[Kish]

More of a concern is, well.

Think about the evil characters in the comic.

Assuming that, for whatever reason, a paladin was unable or unwilling to use Detect Evil on them.

Which one would you bet on to pass for anything-but-evil for the entirety of the Order of the Scribble's campaign together? Being evil means something. It doesn't mean you act just like a good or neutral character until your primary campaign is over, and then you go, "Muahaha, I was evil all along!"

[Gift Jeraff]

More of a concern is, well.

Think about the evil characters in the comic.

Assuming that, for whatever reason, a paladin was unable or unwilling to use Detect Evil on them.

Which one would you bet on to pass for anything-but-evil for the entirety of the Order of the Scribble's campaign together?Well, if various forum debates are anything to go by, Belkar, Redcloak, Tarquin, and Thog can pass as non-evil for some people... :smalltongue:

[orrion]

2 major problems with the original theories here:

1) The order of the decoding. Xykon decoded Durokan's Gate location first, and then he and Redcloak went there. Redcloak decoded the rest later, in-comic, and they decided to hit Azure City because it was the path of least resistance (western continent being over water and 7 human nations being in the way of Kraagor's Gate).

Xykon didn't decode the 4 locations and then go to the one Serini told them to go to or anything. I mean, if you think Serini gave Xykon the diary, why wouldn't she have just told him the locations? Or, going back a step further, if Serini was evil, what point would there be in encoding the locations of the Gates in the first place?

2) They don't know how the gates are defended. The third point in the OP, there's a "which would you rather fight" scenario. That doesn't make any sense. Team evil doesn't know anything at that point or even now about how the last 2 gates are defended.


The thing that debunks it for me is Serini saying she's thinking of taking a level of Paladin. Can't do that if she's evil. True, she could have changed alignments since, but there's no evidence of Serini's activities whatsoever, which makes that a shot in the dark.

[Mike Havran]

Also, about the gate coordinates, everyone had everyone else's coordinates. It's just that girard gave soon the wrong ones, taking advantage of being the guy who drew the map. Maybe someone else had wrong coordinates too, but all the order of the scribble was supposed to have the coordinates for all the gates.


I don't think that is correct. Girard singles out Serini as the only one to have the true coordinates. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0695.html) That means the other members have either false coordinates, or no coordinates at all. I believe the Scribble members know only the condition of the gates, not their location. Only Soon wanted the coordinates, and Girard lied to him (which also implies that Roy's coordinates for Kraagor's gate are false as well - why would Girard lie to Soon just once, when he was convinced Soon will be after all the gates?).

On the main topic, I don't think Serini is/was evil - if she was, she would let Soon, Dorukan and Girard beat the hell out of each other on the first place.

[skaddix]

She could have but just because she is evil does not mean she wants someone taking the gates and destroying the world. Unless she is chaotic and even then that does not necessarily mean she wants to be wreck reality even Xykon is not aiming for that. She is the only one that did not stay to guard her gate personally though she put some monsters in and left.

[Kish]

I don't think that is correct. Girard singles out Serini as the only one to have the true coordinates. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0695.html) That means the other members have either false coordinates, or no coordinates at all. I believe the Scribble members know only the condition of the gates, not their location.
They were all supposed to have a monitoring system.

Girard does single out Serini, which suggests that he gave false coordinates to everyone but Serini...or that he has some reason to cross off Soon getting the coordinates from Dorukan or Lirian.

[ferrodoxin]

I was going to ask whether OP was just trolling, and I find people actually arguing here...

Belkar is a psychopathic halfling that the rest of the OOTS refers to as "inconvenience" or worse. Serini is in good standing with a lot of Scribble member that are known to be good...
Scribble and OOTS are not mirrored at all, but even if they were Serini would probably be "Elan"- diplomatic person in the party that constantly annoys the rest with his/her stupid comments.


Who else would possibly know that the encoded journal of a random halfling would be so important?

It has already been said that Xykon went through a lot of effort for the diary, but I think there is one thing that wasn't pointed out:
Though I can't find the comic now Redcloak says that Xykon disappears sometimes (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0704.html) and comes back with a new trick up his sleeve.
There is also a comic in which he visits the Oracle, when the Oracle is away and he says "Nuts" but I can't find it now.
Xykon may well have found out about the diary thanks to the Oracle, or I don't know another billion ways that someone with access to epic magic could....

So the theory says that somehow an entire party of adventurers - one of them a paladin - had traveled all across the world together without realizing one among them was evil, trusted that same person so much as she could forge a truce between them.
And we know this because Girard lied to Soon about his coordinates, Belkar is a halfling and what else?

Oh, and the poster didn't even bother reading the comic - in which the means by which Xykon acquired Serini's diary was strongly hinted.
Instead we are to believe that Xykon - who dueled Dorukan with ease - does not a halfling rouge that probably doesn't even have proper means to destroy a lich;
Not because her gate is well defended - the gate is weak
Not because her gate is distant - he has contacted Serini
Because he -Xykon- HONORS A FREAKING DEAL.....

And also he had to decode the diary because Serini wanted to hide her involvement... It did not occur to Serini that she didn't have to give Xykon HER diary, she could just give him the coordinates written on a random piece of paper and preferably written in someone else's handwriting.
NO! She gave him her diary, which is possibly the MOST PERSONAL ITEM a person can have..

You know I have decided to go ahead with it:
May I ask the original poster, are you trolling?

[Lucid Inebriate]

I'm guessing "it" is that she was a halfling. Leaving why you mentioned that she's female and didn't mention she's a rogue mystifying.

(I wouldn't be commenting on it this second time, except that I wish you'd own the implication that a female could not have captured monsters as dangerous as a male could have captured.)

Sexual dimorphism (in terms of strength and athletic ability) is a visible feature of many species including humans - not something invented by the patriarchy in the 1950's. The dramatic size difference between halflings and humans makes the case more extreme; I challenge you to find a 3-foot tall woman who can perform better at most physical tasks than a man twice her height.

I think that the poster is wrong. Xykon is too intelligent to dismiss a threat offhand based on appearances alone. But I don't think he's the chauvinist you make him out to be; meta-game, what appears to be a little girl may have as much strength and as many health points as what appears to a big lumbering dude, but in real life, this isn't the case. Roleplaying needs to reflect this to some limited extent; if a fictional society exists, wherein a man punching a woman in the street is considered exactly the same as him punching another man, that would seem quite improbable to me. If a character saw a couple, and decided that the 5ft 5in woman, displaying average muscle tone and health, was just as capable of fistfighting as her 5ft 10in husband, because "she might have rolled like, 20 strength", I would say immersion has been fully broken.

OOTS being a humorous work, this might not apply; but ultimately, I think your implication that his post was an expression of prejudice is warranted. All he really did was suggest (however erroneously) that Xykon might have displayed what amounts to a natural psychological reaction in humans. In in-game terms, not meta-game. That I consider the poster wrong, and Xykon too intelligent to have acted on any such potential reaction, is fairly irrelevant.

[Lucid Inebriate]

I'm guessing "it" is that she was a halfling. Leaving why you mentioned that she's female and didn't mention she's a rogue mystifying.

(I wouldn't be commenting on it this second time, except that I wish you'd own the implication that a female could not have captured monsters as dangerous as a male could have captured.)

Sexual dimorphism (in terms of strength and athletic ability) is a visible feature of many species including humans - not something invented by the patriarchy in the 1950's. The dramatic size difference between halflings and humans makes the case more extreme; I challenge you to find a 3-foot tall woman who can perform better at most physical tasks than a man twice her height.

I think that the poster is wrong. Xykon is too intelligent to dismiss a threat offhand based on appearances alone. But I don't think he's the chauvinist you make him out to be; meta-game, what appears to be a little girl may have as much strength and as many health points as what appears to a big lumbering dude, but in real life, this isn't the case. Roleplaying needs to reflect this to some limited extent; if a fictional society exists, wherein a man punching a woman in the street is considered exactly the same as him punching another man, that would seem quite improbable to me. If a character saw a couple, and decided that the 5ft 5in woman, displaying average muscle tone and health, was just as capable of fistfighting as her 5ft 10in husband, because "she might have rolled like, 20 strength", I would say immersion has been fully broken.

OOTS being a humorous work, this might not apply; but ultimately, I think your implication that his post was an expression of prejudice is warranted. All he really did was suggest (however erroneously) that Xykon might have displayed what amounts to a natural psychological reaction in humans. In in-game terms, not meta-game. That I consider the poster wrong, and Xykon too intelligent to have acted on any such potential reaction, is fairly irrelevant.

Edit: 5ft 5in and 5ft 10in are the average heights for males and females in Australia. I chose Australia at random (really because it was near the top of Wikipedia's list)

[Gift Jeraff]

Sexual dimorphism (in terms of strength and athletic ability) is a visible feature of many species including humans - not something invented by the patriarchy in the 1950's. The dramatic size difference between halflings and humans makes the case more extreme; I challenge you to find a 3-foot tall woman who can perform better at most physical tasks than a man twice her height.

I think that the poster is wrong. Xykon is too intelligent to dismiss a threat offhand based on appearances alone. But I don't think he's the chauvinist you make him out to be; meta-game, what appears to be a little girl may have as much strength and as many health points as what appears to a big lumbering dude, but in real life, this isn't the case. Roleplaying needs to reflect this to some limited extent; if a fictional society exists, wherein a man punching a woman in the street is considered exactly the same as him punching another man, that would seem quite improbable to me. If a character saw a couple, and decided that the 5ft 5in woman, displaying average muscle tone and health, was just as capable of fistfighting as her 5ft 10in husband, because "she might have rolled like, 20 strength", I would say immersion has been fully broken.

OOTS being a humorous work, this might not apply; but ultimately, I think your implication that his post was an expression of prejudice is warranted. All he really did was suggest (however erroneously) that Xykon might have displayed what amounts to a natural psychological reaction in humans. In in-game terms, not meta-game. That I consider the poster wrong, and Xykon too intelligent to have acted on any such potential reaction, is fairly irrelevant.How do you know halflings are sexually dimorphic? Or what if the females are bigger? After all, the largest animals on Earth are female blue whales.

Juss nitpickin'.

[Olinser]

So the theory says that somehow an entire party of adventurers - one of them a paladin - had traveled all across the world together without realizing one among them was evil, trusted that same person so much as she could forge a truce between them.
And we know this because Girard lied to Soon about his coordinates, Belkar is a halfling and what else?

I've already covered the 'masked evil' angle in earlier posts. If a nonmagical item exists that can mask Lawful Goods Roy and Durkon without them realizing anything was wrong until somebody else SPECIFICALLY pointed it out to them, it stands to reason that another item can exist that masks Evil as Good (or Neutral). If she refrained from Belkar's brand of retarded Evilness, they would have no reason to suspect otherwise.

Girard not only states that Soon had the wrong coordinates, but he implies that the ONLY PERSON that had the true coordinates was Serini. That's unusually specific - why wouldn't he want Liriam, or at least Dorukan, who appears to have hated Soon just as much as him, have the coordinates?


And also he had to decode the diary because Serini wanted to hide her involvement... It did not occur to Serini that she didn't have to give Xykon HER diary, she could just give him the coordinates written on a random piece of paper and preferably written in someone else's handwriting.
NO! She gave him her diary, which is possibly the MOST PERSONAL ITEM a person can have..

Two words - PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. Girard stated outright that only Serini had the true coordinates. Then an Evil Lich turns up with the true coordinates written on a scrap of paper. There aren't a lot of explanations how that happens. On the other hand, the diary gives a PERFECT alibi as to why he had the coordinates - Serini encoded them, its not her fault she lost it and somebody happened to decode it! Now she's a dumbass, instead of evil.

Not only that - who says the diary is even an actual diary? If she is evil, it could well be that she wrote a false diary purposely to give to Xykon.


Oh, and the poster didn't even bother reading the comic - in which the means by which Xykon acquired Serini's diary was strongly hinted.
Instead we are to believe that Xykon - who dueled Dorukan with ease - does not a halfling rouge that probably doesn't even have proper means to destroy a lich;
Not because her gate is well defended - the gate is weak
Not because her gate is distant - he has contacted Serini
Because he -Xykon- HONORS A FREAKING DEAL.....

First off, it's rogue, not rouge, I don't usually correct grammar, but that's one of my pet peeves, and drives me crazy.

Where was it strongly hinted he killed her - Xykon appears with the diary, with no explanation how he got it.

You're a little scattered there, but I think you're asking why Xykon didn't just kill her. How powerful Serini may or may not be is never covered in the current comic. Certainly Xykon handed Liriam and Dorukan's collective asses to them, but as a ghost Soon tore him apart pretty handily, even with Redcloak on his side. Serini may well have been at or near the top in terms of party power, and if she came to him offering a deal, what makes you think she wouldn't have shown up ready to destroy him if necessary?



{Scrubbed}

[Kish]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
Ah, I see I misjudged you! You're not implying that being female interferes with Serini's ability to capture monsters, you're saying that it makes her diary less interesting! Or possibly that writing boring diaries is female-specific!

[Forikroder]

Xykon appears with the diary, with no explanation how he got it.

never explained how he made his fortress, he must have been given it by... Eugene whos actually evil and is on a super secret plan to pretend to be good and trick the gods of good into letting him into there plane so he can corrupt it from the inside


and we dont know how he got the MiTD so it must have also been a gift from.... Girard who is actually evil and gave him the MiTD as a plant so he could swoop in and take the gate before he did

if Rich took the time to explain everything Xykon ever did then 1) it would completely kill alot of the drama and suspense and 2) would make Xykon alot less cool


Ok, dude, take off your feminist hat and read what I wrote. You can tell she's a female halfling rogue from the title of the diary. The point I was trying to get across is that GENERALLY, when females write a diary, they are not exactly the most gripping and groundbreaking stories in the world. Unless Xykon had prior knowledge of who and what Serini was, why would he bother reading some random person's diary?

well on account of his EPIC LEVEL MAGIC he figured out the diary had some connection to lirian or the gates and flipped through it and saw the big picture in it that had Lirian in it

all he had to do was figure out the names of Lirians group and he finds the diary, hes epic level you dont hide stuff from epic level sorcerers without epic level magic to hide it from there epic level magic

Serini had no magic, pretty sure epic level magic trumps lack of magic

[Emperordaniel]

and we dont know how he got the MiTD so it must have also been a gift from.... Girard who is actually evil and gave him the MiTD as a plant so he could swoop in and take the gate before he did

So, :mitd: is a plant? That explains a lot of things. :smalltongue:

...just don't tell :durkon:.

[coineineagh]

Or she is neutral, and chose to deal with a lich to save herself, or Kraagor as was suggested.
That wouldn't be unlike V's dealings with the IFCC.

Still, it's quite unlikely. A far stretch from the character originally portrayed, with loads of clues that suggest she wasn't anything like that.

What I definitely agree with, is that Xykon finding Serini's diary is and always has been strange and unexplained. It's a mystery that has eluded us from the very beginning, and I'm guessing Rich will only reveal the truth behind it in the final chapter. That's a cue for him to come in with some half-clues and teasers:smallwink:

Serini evil? Only possible if her alignment was switched by making evil decisions.

I like how 'evil' is defined in the OotS world as 'whatever threatens reality', and that the plight of the goblinoid races (the Dark One's cause) is considered irrelevant.

[Kish]

I like how 'evil' is defined in the OotS world as 'whatever threatens reality', and that the plight of the goblinoid races (the Dark One's cause) is considered irrelevant.
Correct. Every evil character in the comic is an established threat to reality and that is the reason for them being classified as evil. Especially Belkar, Nale and the other evil members of the Linear Guild, Samantha, and Tarquin.

[lio45]

Ah, I see I misjudged you! You're not implying that being female interferes with Serini's ability to capture monsters, you're saying that it makes her diary less interesting! Or possibly that writing boring diaries is female-specific!

Writing diaries is mostly a female thing, yes.

And diaries, in general, are usually boring.

So... yes.




More on topic, regarding the idea of Belkar being a sex-changed Serini, I'm a fan and will be voicing my support as soon as someone starts a thread on that.

[Caractacus]

Writing diaries is mostly a female thing, yes.

And diaries, in general, are usually boring.

So... yes.



The problem with generalisations being applied to specific individuals is that they are not a guide.

Which diary would you rather read:

a) an epic female halfling rogue's, or

b) a random male human one?

So, no, writing boring diaries is not an attribute that is applicable here using basic principles.

However, Serini is presented in the comic as being a little air-headed and is perhaps somewhat immature in the writings we are shown from her diary, so THIS is the evidence you need to cite.

Sadly, that is not known to anyone prior to reading the diary if they haven't met her personally...

[oppyu]

Behold the process that can transform a thread about an epileptic tree into a discussion on girls writing diaries, and how sexism plays into societal perception of the act.

[Bobb]

....Soon is like Miko not Roy if Serini was evil Soon would have killed herI don't think there is a lot of evidence to support this.

[Cuvalwen]

Elan is a Walrus

Goo goo g'joob?

[King of Nowhere]

So, we already ascertained that the idea of Serini giving Xykon her diary makes not much sense... so we are starting to argue that maybe she did it exactly because it did not make sense, so she would have a better cover story to mask the fact that she did... something that makes completely no sense. Forgive me in case I missed it, but I still haven't seen any idea on why Serini would help Xykon with the gates.

Since we're far into epilectic trees territory, I'll give you another one: Roy is actually evil, and trying to help Xykon conquer the gates. He's sabotaging the efforts of the good guys by leading them. Surely Xykon could not hope to try his world conquest plan without a band of heroes trying to oppose him, and by leading that band roy can make sure Xykon succeeds. After all, everyone keeps pointing at how many mistakes the oots make on a regular base. Coincidence? Or is everything orchestrated?
And all this, Roy is doing for getting back at his father: if Xykon controls the snarl, there's no way he'll ever be destroied, so eugene would be stuck out of the afterlife forever.

Wow... it almost sounds reasonable now that I put it that way...

[Forikroder]

I don't think there is a lot of evidence to support this.

your right, he only started a crusade to kill every being anywhere close to Azure City that he believed could pose a threat to the gate (jsut like Miko killing anything that shows up as evil on her detect-o-meter) and he had such a stick up his ass that he pissed of girard enough to refuse to even tell him the correct coordinates for his gate (jsut like Miko pissed of the Order enough that (aside from Durkon) none of them were willing to go to Azure city anymore)


but I still haven't seen any idea on why Serini would help Xykon with the gates.

i think the idea was she loved Kraagar so much she wanted to control the snarl to get him back


Wow... it almost sounds reasonable now that I put it that way...

blood oath is for his kids too, if he makes Xykon unkillable then him (and possibly his sister) get locked out of the afterlife too so he spends an eternity getting nagged

hopefully that will prevent a "roy is actually evil and miko was right" thread from popping up tomorrow

[Onyavar]

and we dont know how he got the MiTD so it must have also been a gift from.... Girard who is actually evil and gave him the MiTD as a plant so he could swoop in and take the gate before he did

Xykon got the MitD
in SoD via Redcloak. Theory busted.

Back on topic:
The most likely alignments of the Order of the Scribble as I would define them on in-comic appearance - and it would really surprise me if the Giant would have them greatly different. The Scribble was also less homogenous alignment-wise in comparison to the Stick, which might have been the reason for their
Serini: NG or CG.
Girard: CN - maybe CG, but I don't really believe that
Kraagor: non-lawful and non-evil, I estimate CN
Dorukan: NG, LG or LN?
Soon: LG
Lirian: TN

The OP theory is in my opinion both a windy idea and a windy, far-fetched one.

But one aspect is indeed suspicious: Xykons order of attacking gates. (First two SoD spoiler)
- The first was Lirian, because he didn't knew about others
- The second was Dorukan, because he decoded only that one and then directly rushed off to get that Gate.
- The third one was explained in-comic: He had an army and getting the army to AC was easier than to the western continent or the north pole.
- The forth... WHY did he choose Girards Gate? We know that he chooses Girard since the Oracle told us so, but the WHY still eludes me.

As far as we know, Redcloak only tortured O-Chul for Girards Gate. Bringing the army wasn't a topic anymore (note also: Xykon knows Greater Teleport and can just pop over there). Both Gates would certainly have a certain defense, and Team Evil is now wary.
Redcloak and Xykon (with their amazing combined fire power and intellects) have the choice to either challenge a Gate guarded by epic illusions, a Gate which they might not find, and where the defenses are practically unknown...
or a Gate which is guarded by monsters, which they only need to blast? Okay, no-one knows the type of monsters yet, but which monsters are such a hassle to an 17th level cleric (the highest ranking cleric in the world known, btw!), a high-epic-level sorceror and the MitD (whatever it is, Team Evil doesn't consider it to be the lamest monster in the book either). So, why did Redcloak discard Kraagor right away?

[Forikroder]

Serini: NG or CG.
Girard: CN - maybe CG, but I don't really believe that
Kraagor: non-lawful and non-evil, I estimate CN
Dorukan: NG, LG or LN?
Soon: LG
Lirian: TN

i would love to hear how willing to travel with total starngers, to visit unknown but extremely dangerous rifts, and spending years researching and defending the rifts from evil then dedicating the rest of your life to sitting in a pyramid in the Desert watching the rift to ensure it is never threatened doesnt qualify Girard as a good person

im actually flabbergasted how many of the scribbles you listed as neutral especially Kraagar who we know nothing about except he gave his life to ensure the rifts were sealed


The forth... WHY did he choose Girards Gate? We know that he chooses Girard since the Oracle told us so, but the WHY still eludes me.

maybe he wanted to fight the last epic spellcaster he knew of and show hes the biggest toughest baddest SOB in the world even before he takes the snarl

maybe he knows of some creatures that are completely immune to magic and doesnt want to recruit some fighters to help him mow them down

maybe he hates the cold but loves the desert

maybe he flipped a coin

all valid reasons, are far more likely then Serini gave him the journal, and if Serini gave him the journal.... why? why didnt she jsut show him the back door in the defenses she created and lead him straight to the gate?


As far as we know, Redcloak only tortured O-Chul for Girards Gate. Bringing the army wasn't a topic anymore (note also: Xykon knows Greater Teleport and can just pop over there). Both Gates would certainly have a certain defense, and Team Evil is now wary.

Kraagars is a nest of monsters, thats all they need to know because its dumb to think Ochul would know the inventory and it doesnt matter if they do know what kind of monsters are in the dungeon when it comes to monsters theres only 2 strategys, sneak around them or blast through them but if they know what type of illusions then there more likely to realise whats real and whats fake and they hoped Ochul might know the answers to some of the riddles

[Kish]

Serini: NG or CG.

I'd say most likely Lawful Good, as per her implication that she could easily take a level of paladin at will.

Girard's lack of hostility toward her may be counterevidence.


Girard: CN - maybe CG, but I don't really believe that

Indeed.


Kraagor: non-lawful and non-evil, I estimate CN

Considering the affection the others apparently held for him and the mildness of his line in the "Serini multiclassing" exchange, I'd say Chaotic or Neutral Good.


Dorukan: NG, LG or LN?

Neutral Good sounds likely.


Soon: LG

Definitionally.


Lirian: TN

The most unambiguously Good person in the Order of the Scribble, even to the point of being unwilling to execute Xykon and Redcloak. Neutral Good.

[Forikroder]

I'd say most likely Lawful Good, as per her implication that she could easily take a level of paladin at will.

Girard's lack of hostility toward her may be counterevidence.

she seems like a bit of dunce IMO so she probably doesnt know anything about being a paladin and her inability to stay at the gate points towards Chaotic imo

[Kalrany]

Since people are focusing on the journal....

I figured that Serini is dead. Less difficult to get a dead adventures journal than a live one. Especially if you are the one to kill her. And, really, X seems like the type to do it.

Besides, we know that the Sapphire Guild knew of the destroyed gates, and G had a monitoring device, so it stands to reason that S did as well. If that is true, don't you think we would have seen SOMEthing of her still existing if she was alive? G I can get -- his isolationistic policies and dislike of the Guild would have kept his group from investigating, but I get a different feel from S than that. So it is possible that, as an adventurer, she was dead before the current stories took place, either through natural causes, death-by-lich, or some "mysterious circumstance".

I think a bit more plausible than that she was secretly evil.

[ferrodoxin]

You're a little scattered there, but I think you're asking why Xykon didn't just kill her. How powerful Serini may or may not be is never covered in the current comic. Certainly Xykon handed Liriam and Dorukan's collective asses to them, but as a ghost Soon tore him apart pretty handily, even with Redcloak on his side. Serini may well have been at or near the top in terms of party power, and if she came to him offering a deal, what makes you think she wouldn't have shown up ready to destroy him if necessary?
Hello?
If you think Serini truly challanges Xykon..
Then who wrote this:

D) A gate guarded by whatever random creatures a halfling female manages to capture and reliably keep prisoner?

So between those 4 options... they save the gate location of the person that WROTE the diary for last? Something doesn't smell right there to me, as that is the only gate location GUARANTEED to be correct.
You are the one that suggests Serini's gate is a juicy target for Xykon, and you go ahead and claim that the reason Xykon does not target Serini's gate is because she has a deal with him.

Hence my response.

If you think Serini can easily scare Xykon away, then you may start by erasing argument number three from your post.


If a nonmagical item exists that can mask Lawful Goods Roy and Durkon without them realizing an....



Two words - PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. Girard stated outright that only Serini had the true coordinates. Then an Evil Lich turns up with the true coordinates written on a scrap of paper. There aren't a lot of explanations how that happens. On the other hand, the diary gives a PERFECT alibi as to why he had the coordinates - Serini encoded them, its not her fault she lost it and somebody happened to decode it! Now she's a dumbass, instead of evil.

Not only that - who says the diary is even an actual diary? If she is evil, it could well be that she wrote a false diary purposely to give to Xykon.
Two words: needlessly complicated
Your theory is just as valid as saying that Serini is actually a shapeshifter from another dimension.
Sure it could be? Why not...

If you look at one little thing you think proves your theory and then interpret everything else we know as "could be fabricated", you could make anything come true....

Maybe Serini is actually the manifestation of Snarl itself. Doesn't it seem so convenient that Scribble found out about the gates? I mean you seem to think it is impossible for Xykon to find out about the gates without inside help, how about Scribblers? Maybe one of them was Snarl in disguise, think about it.
They even figured out a way to seal the gates, even gods couldn't do that.
The only was this is explained is if we think Serini is Snarl....

:)

You gave 3 points and none of them are validly "unexplained in any other way". All of them were very nicely explained by people posting here already, so your forced interpretation that Serini was an avatar of deception has no point at all.
1) The logical reason that Serini has the location of every gate is because every Scribble member should have the location of every gate. Only Girard lied about his gate location, and HE told Serini the truth by his own choice.
Could be because he trusts her more, could be because he think Serini can hide it better than Dorukan or Lirian, could be because of anything actually.
But THIS was Girard's doing not Serini's.
The fact that gate locations are supposed to be unknown to Scribble members is completely your imagination.

You do realize that every Scribble member have BEEN to the gates personally.
We know that Dorukan was the last to join them and we know that Dorukan took part in sealing the gates, so everyone was probably present in every gate.

It would take some level of deception for any one of them NOT to know the location of any gate - and that deception was performed by, Girard Draketooth - no suprises.
This has absolutely nothing to with Serini, keeping secrets someone else gave you is not evil you know...

2)Xykon knows about the oracle and it is also stated here that he has gone through a lot to take that diary.
3)Probably because that is the way Xykon could have found out about the gates, and he asked the oracle something like "How will I find out more about the gates"


Where was it strongly hinted he killed her - Xykon appears with the diary, with no explanation how he got it.
Who says Xykon killed her?

What I said was that it was likely Xykon consulted the Oracle on how he would find more about the gates.
If Roy can dangle him out of a window to get a straight answer, there is no reason to think Xykon cannot acquire good information from our beloved kobold.....
According to the Oracle "Dude is freaking scary"


First off, it's rogue, not rouge
Sorry about that, English is not my native language and when you learn something wrong once it is very difficult to correct it afterwards...
I "know" it is faulty I just can't naturally apply it all the time when I'm writing.

[Forikroder]

What I said was that it was likely Xykon consulted the Oracle on how he would find more about the gates.
If Roy can dangle him out of a window to get a straight answer, there is no reason to think Xykon cannot acquire good information from our beloved kobold.....
According to the Oracle "Dude is freaking scary"

extremely likely, weve seen Xykon go to the oracle once, therefore we know he knows the oracle is there

we also saw the oracel purposely avoid him which means the oracle knows how dangerous Xykon is

therefore its very likely that Xykon visited the oracle once and traumatized him so much that the Oracle never wanted to see him again

[Kalrany]

therefore its very likely that Xykon visited the oracle once and traumatized him so much that the Oracle never wanted to see him again

Alternativly, the Oracle decided that he didn't want to deal with X and just skipped out each time. Something tells me that the fact that X does just kill people, but zombifies them as well might make it less appealing to be killed. We have no indication how many times he went, or if he ever met face-to-face with the Oracle. At least, I can't find a strip referencing such a meeting.

[Euodiachloris]

Alternativly, the Oracle decided that he didn't want to deal with X and just skipped out each time. Something tells me that the fact that X does just kill people, but zombifies them as well might make it less appealing to be killed. We have no indication how many times he went, or if he ever met face-to-face with the Oracle. At least, I can't find a strip referencing such a meeting.

We're both of the same opinion. Should Xykon ever get the wish to pop 'round, I think he'll always find the Oracle has skipped out to... oh... visit his mother. Get new supplies. Plane shift to give his regards to Tiamat. Or whatever. Anything rather than face him.

Bad news like Xykon's Bad Boss tendencies would probably ripple backwards in the ether quite strongly for those with even a smidge of second sight.

[Yoyoyo]

Correct. Every evil character in the comic is an established threat to reality and that is the reason for them being classified as evil. Especially Belkar, Nale and the other evil members of the Linear Guild, Samantha, and Tarquin.

Not to quibble, but wasn't Belkar evil before being a threat to reality was cool or even known to him? He joined OOTS as CE and presumably he is only a possible threat to reality as a member of OOTS. I think the reason evil characters are classified as evil is that they are, um, evil. I guess? I admit, that's a horrible definition, but qualifying as evil has to be more encompassing than only those who are a threat to reality. Heck, Tarquin has been evil for many years, but he only just learned about the Gates and even told Elan he wanted to protect reality.

[Kish]

Not to quibble, but wasn't Belkar evil before being a threat to reality was cool or even known to him?
You might want to cast Detect Sarcasm on my post.

[Yoyoyo]

You might want to cast Detect Sarcasm on my post.

I didn't prepare that spell today. I am slow. :smallredface:

[ferrodoxin]

Alternativly, the Oracle decided that he didn't want to deal with X and just skipped out each time.
So Xykon goes to the oracle for answers because in his experience so far he is an evasive little kobold that never helped him at all?

Plus:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0704.html

He does this sometimes, disappears only to return with some new trick.

[Kalrany]

Just throwing out another idea, that is all.

For all we know the panels where he is looking at the gone sign was the 1st time he was there. It may have been the5th or the 100th, and the Oracle was gone each time.

Maybe X persisted because he only had second hand knowledge that the individual (since everyone remembers the Oracle differently) would be able to help him and no personal experience either way yet.

It might be the 2nd time after he had gotten his question answered before and it worked.

That image only carried the information that the particular time that X went, the Oracle was out.

[Kish]

I would be rather surprised if it wasn't the first time Xykon had gone to see the Oracle.

If you saw Xykon coming to where you were in your future and knew exactly when he would be there, wouldn't you be somewhere else?

[Kalrany]

I would be rather surprised if it wasn't the first time Xykon had gone to see the Oracle.

If you saw Xykon coming to where you were in your future and knew exactly when he would be there, wouldn't you be somewhere else?

Totally agree. It is the most logical and likely. I would run as well.

[martianmister]

I would be rather surprised if it wasn't the first time Xykon had gone to see the Oracle.

If you saw Xykon coming to where you were in your future and knew exactly when he would be there, wouldn't you be somewhere else?

"So Xykon goes to the oracle for answers because in his experience so far he is an evasive little kobold that never helped him at all?"

[orrion]

"So Xykon goes to the oracle for answers because in his experience so far he is an evasive little kobold that never helped him at all?"

No, Xykon goes to the oracle because he heard that the oracle could probably tell him where his phylactery is.

Oracle sees when Xykon will show up and makes sure to be somewhere else.

[Forikroder]

"So Xykon goes to the oracle for answers because in his experience so far he is an evasive little kobold that never helped him at all?"

what part of the Oracles character makes you think he has the balls to give a riddle or be intentially misleading or unhelpful to Xykon?

if Xykon showed up (and actually found the oracle) the Oracle would answer any question Xykon asked in the most direct and obvious way possible

[Kish]

"So Xykon goes to the oracle for answers because in his experience so far he is an evasive little kobold that never helped him at all?"
If everyone who goes to the Oracle does so because they have previous experience with the Oracle being helpful, then no one would ever go to the Oracle. One of those recursion things. We have absolutely no evidence that Xykon tried to go to see the Oracle more than the once we saw.

"If you saw Xykon coming to where you were in your future and knew exactly when he would be there, wouldn't you be somewhere else?"

[ferrodoxin]

If everyone who goes to the Oracle does so because they have previous experience with the Oracle being helpful, then no one would ever go to the Oracle.

Belkar would have something to say about that...
And Haley would argue otherwise...

We have absolutely no evidence that Xykon tried to go to see the Oracle more than the once we saw.
Of course we don't have SOLID evidence that Xykon has visited the oracle before. That could be one of the many possible ways that Xykon gets intel on the location of items that he thinks are important.

But the oracle has been used as a plot device for explaining the knowledge of antagonists before, so I find it likely.
There are also other reasons.

Redcloak didn't seem to know where Xykon went, and I think this makes it unlikely that Xykon gained the intel of the oracle after the invasion of Azure City.
Redcloak also strongly implied that Xykon had a source of information unknown to him....

It is possible that these are unrelated but I find it unlikely.


"If you saw Xykon coming to where you were in your future and knew exactly when he would be there, wouldn't you be somewhere else?"
We are talking about the oracle, so I'm gonna have to ask
"If you saw a druid tear you apart into peaces in your future and knew exactly when he would be there, wouldn't you be somewhere else?"

Oracle must have his own reasons for not appearing to Xykon, but I doubt those reasons are fear of death. And I reckon Xykon wouldn't bother soul binding a powerless kobold.....

It is possible that Tiamat is aware of IFCC's doings and has her own interest in the Gates, in a way that she benefit from Xykon's delay in finding the phylactery. We don't know.
There are unknown sides in this conflict, remember?
:)

[Kish]

Belkar would have something to say about that...
And Haley would argue otherwise...

Neither one of them would say that the first time they went to see the Oracle, it was because they had previous experience with the Oracle being helpful. Try again.


Oracle must have his own reasons for not appearing to Xykon, but I doubt those reasons are fear of death. And I reckon Xykon wouldn't bother soul binding a powerless kobold.....

You can argue that the Oracle is powerless or that the Oracle is the source of much of Xykon's knowledge, but I don't get arguing both. (I don't actually get arguing the former at all, but I especially don't get arguing both at once.)


There are unknown sides in this conflict, remember?
:)
I think people read way too much into a throwaway line by a demon roach. I doubt very much that Rich has figured out exactly nine sides; what does it take to constitute a "side" for the purposes of the roach's line, anyway?

[Forikroder]

You can argue that the Oracle is powerless or that the Oracle is the source of much of Xykon's knowledge, but I don't get arguing both. (I don't actually get arguing the former at all, but I especially don't get arguing both at once.)

you can be powerless and a source of knowledge, my high school teachers knew alot more then me but pretty sure i would win in a fist fight

the oracle has demonstrated he doenst mind dieing for money

in fact he doesnt mind dieing to piss people off (belkar) in fact we dont even know he was purposely avoiding Xykon, maybe he was just legit busy with other things

[Pokemaster20001]

na thats diddle dosh:smallbiggrin:

[Math_Mage]

The Oracle was definitely intentionally absent when Xykon visited, in order to avoid dealing with Xykon. At least when Belkar killed him he could expect a rez. Xykon would zombify him for laughs. Also, just because the Oracle is beloved of Tiamat and willing to give a prophecy to someone like Belkar doesn't mean he's willing to help out someone like Xykon. There is no evidence, strong or otherwise, that Xykon had previously sought the Oracle. I would have been surprised to see argument on this point, except that no amount of nitpickery on this forum surprises me anymore.

[Forikroder]

The Oracle was definitely intentionally absent when Xykon visited, in order to avoid dealing with Xykon. At least when Belkar killed him he could expect a rez. Xykon would zombify him for laughs. Also, just because the Oracle is beloved of Tiamat and willing to give a prophecy to someone like Belkar doesn't mean he's willing to help out someone like Xykon. There is no evidence, strong or otherwise, that Xykon had previously sought the Oracle. I would have been surprised to see argument on this point, except that no amount of nitpickery on this forum surprises me anymore.

Xykon isnt that trigger happy with zombiefieing, if he brought back the oracle hed have a small type undead which he probably wouldnt want he doesnt zombify people for laughs he zombiefys them to throw them against an enemy or fight to death for amusement

though Xykon would have definite reasons to want the oracle off the mortal plane for good

[Math_Mage]

Xykon isnt that trigger happy with zombiefieing, if he brought back the oracle hed have a small type undead which he probably wouldnt want he doesnt zombify people for laughs he zombiefys them to throw them against an enemy or fight to death for amusement

though Xykon would have definite reasons to want the oracle off the mortal plane for good

Actually, despite the lengthy debate on this subject in a different thread, Xykon's zombifying habits are one area where I WOULD describe him as "trigger-happy". I hope it's not too spoiler-y for me to point to Master Fyron and the crown as an example--I mean, there aren't THAT many ways for a necromancer to make it so a high-level wizard can't get a rez from his mid-level apprentice.

Also, I don't really see the distinction between "zombify people for laughs" and "zombify people so they can fight to the death for his amusement."

This is quite apart from the good reason you mentioned for Xykon to take out the Oracle.

[Forikroder]

Actually, despite the lengthy debate on this subject in a different thread, Xykon's zombifying habits are one area where I WOULD describe him as "trigger-happy". I hope it's not too spoiler-y for me to point to Master Fyron and the crown as an example--I mean, there aren't THAT many ways for a necromancer to make it so a high-level wizard can't get a rez from his mid-level apprentice.

Also, I don't really see the distinction between "zombify people for laughs" and "zombify people so they can fight to the death for his amusement."

This is quite apart from the good reason you mentioned for Xykon to take out the Oracle.

i forget there was alot of him zombifying in SoD as i havent read it

[ferrodoxin]

You can argue that the Oracle is powerless or that the Oracle is the source of much of Xykon's knowledge, but I don't get arguing both.

Tiamat grants the Oracle his visions as a special bonus.
So he is useful, never said he wasn't.

By his own power - he is useless.
Why on ootsland would Tiamat grant visions to a soul-trapped kobold?

Look...
Things got very confusing because someone else used my argument:)
Originally I said that "evasive little kobold" bit in response to someone who said "The oracle skipped out each time" indicating previous experience with the oracle.


There is no evidence, strong or otherwise, that Xykon had previously sought the Oracle. I would have been surprised to see argument on this point, except that no amount of nitpickery on this forum surprises me anymore.
I just said it was strongly hinted.

And look at your own argument.
"Rich draw Xykon visiting the oracle and not getting anything because?....."
Maybe Xykon could just have heard about the oracle when he was hanging around and wanted to drop by and the oracle didn't wanna see him so .. Rich thought that deserved a panel.

Maybe next time he will draw oracle rejecting plot critical customers because he is taking a dump.
Without any jokes.... well any funny jokes.

That seems likely. Why not?
Lets not nitpick over these stuff.
Move along people, nothing to see here....

[Kish]

By his own power - he is useless.

That explains why Belkar's Mark of Justice got activated. Why the Oracle got resurrected, apparently multiple times already, and will get resurrected in the future. His ability to see the future is completely useless to him.


Why on ootsland would Tiamat grant visions to a soul-trapped kobold?

So the Oracle, regardless of what his power tells him, has nothing to fear from meeting with Xykon because even if Xykon killed him, Xykon would conclude "You are, present-tense, powerless and I will not soul-bind you" based on a belief that if he soul-bound the Oracle the Oracle would lose his power? That makes exactly as much sense as, "If I kill you, you will be dead, therefore there is no reason to kill you because I have proven with logic that you are already dead." Exactly as much.


Things got very confusing because someone else used my argument:)
Originally I said that "evasive little kobold" bit in response to someone who said "The oracle skipped out each time" indicating previous experience with the oracle.

There is no indication that Xykon ever tried to go to the Oracle more than once. Consider that directed to you and to anyone else in this thread who has indicated such an indication.


I just said it was strongly hinted.

And Math_Mage just said, correctly, that it bleeding well isn't.

[Forikroder]

That explains why Belkar's Mark of Justice got activated. Why the Oracle got resurrected, apparently multiple times already, and will get resurrected in the future. His ability to see the future is completely useless to him.

evidently since it cant even prevent him from being killed

he is powerless, thats why he needed to set up a village in order to punish Belkar (ya he totally regretted killing the oracle /sarcasm) and why he had to set up the deal with the 2 lizardfolk to get ressurected

alone he is powerless in any sort of combative sense, just becasue he has power in an information sense doesnt make him as a character powerful because probably any character weve seen could kill him he has no combative power which what i believe was what was being reffered to as power

[Kish]

You can believe that being able to stand on your head is what was being referred to as power if you want. I decline to let you or ferrodoxin redefine the term in this goofy being-able-to-see-and-plan-for-the-future-is-not-power way.

[Forikroder]

You can believe that being able to stand on your head is what was being referred to as power if you want. I decline to let you or ferrodoxin redefine the term in this goofy being-able-to-see-and-plan-for-the-future-is-not-power way.

if he had the ability to actually affect the future he wouldnt die so much

he can see the future but hes powerless to change it so he can only make plans around whats going to happen like setting up the village and hiring a cleric in advance

[lio45]

if he had the ability to actually affect the future he wouldnt die so much

he can see the future but hes powerless to change it so he can only make plans around whats going to happen like setting up the village and hiring a cleric in advance

You're contradicting yourself big time here. If he can change the future by making adapted plans, which you're admitting he can, then he's not powerless to change the future: he does it.

"Setting up the village" and "hiring a cleric in advance" is exactly that, changing the future. So yes, the Oracle used his substantial power to change the future and screw Belkar.

[Olinser]

Why does the Oracle ever die? There is a very simple explanation:

He charges for his predictions up front. And he charges more than his resurrection costs, so if his customer kills him, he still turns a profit.

Why was he there for Belkar to kill? Because he wanted to activate Belkar's Mark of Justice, because Belkar pissed him off (and killed him).

If you apply this logic, then he's actually way up on his deals with Belkar, he charged him an exorbitant fee for a useless prediction when Belkar was there. When Belkar kills him over it, he's still turning a profit off him - AND gets the pleasure of watching him suffer immensely due to the Mark.

Why was he not there for Xykon? Because he can see the future, and can presumably see that Xykon would do something that would prevent him getting ressurected (soul binding, making a Golem out of him has been proven to thwart ressurection in OOTSland, etc). Or he's seen that his helping Xykon would eventually result in the Snarl being released and the world being destroyed... not a good outcome for ole Oracle either.

[Forikroder]

You're contradicting yourself big time here. If he can change the future by making adapted plans, which you're admitting he can, then he's not powerless to change the future: he does it.

"Setting up the village" and "hiring a cleric in advance" is exactly that, changing the future. So yes, the Oracle used his substantial power to change the future and screw Belkar.

no thats not changing the future, thats accepting the future (Belkar killing him) and planning around it

if he stopped Belkar or the druid from killing him that would be changing the future because he saw it happeneing then stopped it from happening


Why does the Oracle ever die? There is a very simple explanation:

He charges for his predictions up front. And he charges more than his resurrection costs, so if his customer kills him, he still turns a profit.

Why was he there for Belkar to kill? Because he wanted to activate Belkar's Mark of Justice, because Belkar pissed him off (and killed him).

If you apply this logic, then he's actually way up on his deals with Belkar, he charged him an exorbitant fee for a useless prediction when Belkar was there. When Belkar kills him over it, he's still turning a profit off him - AND gets the pleasure of watching him suffer immensely due to the Mark.

Why was he not there for Xykon? Because he can see the future, and can presumably see that Xykon would do something that would prevent him getting ressurected (soul binding, making a Golem out of him has been proven to thwart ressurection in OOTSland, etc). Or he's seen that his helping Xykon would eventually result in the Snarl being released and the world being destroyed... not a good outcome for ole Oracle either.

hed make alot more if he didnt have to spend 10k+ and take the pain of death and then have to earn back the level he lost everytime

im sure if he had the ability to prevent his death he wouldnt let himself get eaten by the druid next time

[rgrekejin]

no thats not changing the future, thats accepting the future (Belkar killing him) and planning around it

if he stopped Belkar or the druid from killing him that would be changing the future because he saw it happeneing then stopped it from happening

That's a nonsensical argument. If the Oracle can manipulate the events that surround a future event, such as whether he gets raised or not, then he is, by default, changing the future. In Hypothetical Future A, where the Oracle takes no action, the Oracle is killed by Belkar, and remains dead. In Hypothetical Future B, where the Oracle arranges for a team of spellcasters to raise him from the dead, the Oracle is alive. You cannot tell me he didn't change the course of future events with his powers.

What he didn't do is change the outcome of one specific event (namely, his death at Belkar's hands). Why he didn't change the outcome of that specific event is an open question. Perhaps some events are permanently fixed. Perhaps they become fixed once the Oracle makes a prediction about them, and he then has to make plans around them. We don't know, and there is no way to find out. Exactly how the Oracle's powers work is left intentionally vague.

[Forikroder]

That's a nonsensical argument. If the Oracle can manipulate the events that surround a future event, such as whether he gets raised or not, then he is, by default, changing the future. In Hypothetical Future A, where the Oracle takes no action, the Oracle is killed by Belkar, and remains dead. In Hypothetical Future B, where the Oracle arranges for a team of spellcasters to raise him from the dead, the Oracle is alive. You cannot tell me he didn't change the course of future events with his powers.

What he didn't do is change the outcome of one specific event (namely, his death at Belkar's hands). Why he didn't change the outcome of that specific event is an open question. Perhaps some events are permanently fixed. Perhaps they become fixed once the Oracle makes a prediction about them, and he then has to make plans around them. We don't know, and there is no way to find out. Exactly how the Oracle's powers work is left intentionally vague.

no its not, he looks into the future sees belkar killing him, realises hes completely powerless to actually deal with the event so he uses a back up plan of a cleric that checks in every now and then to see if he needs a raise

what he did to solve the problem of him dieing doesnt require him to look forward in time there are tons of other ways he could get ressed immediately upon dieing without relying on future sight

the oracle is powerless, he can only pass on the information he gains to others with power to help them do whatever they plan to do

[rgrekejin]

no its not, he looks into the future sees belkar killing him, realises hes completely powerless to actually deal with the event so he uses a back up plan of a cleric that checks in every now and then to see if he needs a raise

what he did to solve the problem of him dieing doesnt require him to look forward in time there are tons of other ways he could get ressed immediately upon dieing without relying on future sight

the oracle is powerless, he can only pass on the information he gains to others with power to help them do whatever they plan to do

Forikroder, I pose this question to you: If the Oracle had not asked those two lizardfolk to come raise him once he discovered that he would be killed by Belkar, would those same two lizardfolk have randomly shown up to raise him from the dead regardless? Unless your answer is "yes", then the Oracle has changed the future as a result of his prophetic knowledge. That he didn't prevent Belkar from killing him (for whatever reason) does not change that fact.

[Forikroder]

Forikroder, I pose this question to you: If the Oracle had not asked those two lizardfolk to come raise him once he discovered that he would be killed by Belkar, would those same two lizardfolk have randomly shown up to raise him from the dead regardless? Unless your answer is "yes", then the Oracle has changed the future as a result of his prophetic knowledge. That he didn't prevent Belkar from killing him (for whatever reason) does not change that fact.

unless he hired them to raise him before he learned when he was going to die so when he looked forward to let them know when to show up he saw them apear and took note of the time instead of looking forward to when he died and then gave them time

either way, he himself was still powerless to prevent his death or really do anything about it he could only ask the cleric to show up if the cleric failed to show up then he remains dead especially if the cleric just soul binds him or something and takes all his gold

like i said, the oracle is powerless by himself and can only grant power in the form of knowledge to other people to take advantage of the knowledge of the future does nothing for the oracle himself

[Caractacus]

unless he hired them to raise him before he learned when he was going to die so when he looked forward to let them know when to show up he saw them apear and took note of the time instead of looking forward to when he died and then gave them time

either way, he himself was still powerless to prevent his death or really do anything about it he could only ask the cleric to show up if the cleric failed to show up then he remains dead especially if the cleric just soul binds him or something and takes all his gold

like i said, the oracle is powerless by himself and can only grant power in the form of knowledge to other people to take advantage of the knowledge of the future does nothing for the oracle himself

This is wrong. But nothing anyone is explaining is changing your arguments, so I am not going to try either. If you want to know what I would have said, reread most of the above posts.

Can this thread move on to something much more sensible now - like 'Serini is evil'? :smallsigh:

[Forikroder]

This is wrong. But nothing anyone is explaining is changing your arguments, so I am not going to try either. If you want to know what I would have said, reread most of the above posts.

Can this thread move on to something much more sensible now - like 'Serini is evil'? :smallsigh:
sensible? there hasnt been anything sensible discussed in this thread since it was opened im constantly amazed people keep bumping it

[lio45]

no its not, he looks into the future sees belkar killing him, realises hes completely powerless to actually deal with the event so he uses a back up plan of a cleric that checks in every now and then to see if he needs a raise

Actually... He looks into the future, sees Belkar killing him + leaving scot-free, and then he makes plans to CHANGE that and play with the little evil bastard so the little evil bastard gets what he deserves. Oracle 1, Belkar 0.

Or you could say, he looks into the future, sees the ghost of Roy Greenhilt annoyingly sticking around longer than he should, and then he makes plans to CHANGE that by making sure he's got the very right magic item on himself.

Accurate knowledge of the future IS power. Period. End of discussion.


the oracle is powerless, he can only pass on the information he gains to others with power to help them do whatever they plan to do

OR change his plans (a.k.a. changing the future) accordingly. A very powerful ability.




In retrospect, I probably should've followed Caractacus' wise advice, but this post is already typed. You're wrong, but from what I've seen you're certainly going to be able to outlast our collective will to argue, so I suppose you'll have final word. But you will still be wrong.

[Forikroder]

Actually... He looks into the future, sees Belkar killing him + leaving scot-free, and then he makes plans to CHANGE that and play with the little evil bastard so the little evil bastard gets what he deserves. Oracle 1, Belkar 0.

Or you could say, he looks into the future, sees the ghost of Roy Greenhilt annoyingly sticking around longer than he should, and then he makes plans to CHANGE that by making sure he's got the very right magic item on himself.

Accurate knowledge of the future IS power. Period. End of discussion.

the oracle got to die a painful death, cough up 10k gold pieces, had to go re-earn a special level and for that Belkar threw up a bit and got to ride around in the cart

belkar 1 oracle 0

oh ya and the oracle got to mop up all of his blood

changing the future would ahve been him stopping belkar from doing what he knew was going to happen, but he cant because hes powerless to do that he can only stand there and get stabbed and pray for a rez because hes powerless to do anything about it

all he had the power to do was make Roy leave which benefited Roy since taht bypassed the memory charm letting him remember everything that happened there so
Roy 1 Oracle 0

oh ya and in the future a druid is going to literally eat the oracle alive so

Druid 1 Oracle 0

[rgrekejin]

unless he hired them to raise him before he learned when he was going to die so when he looked forward to let them know when to show up he saw them apear and took note of the time instead of looking forward to when he died and then gave them time

You haven't solved the problem, you've just moved the regression back one step. Now instead of the spellcasters being there only because he foresaw his own death, they are there only because he foresaw them being there. Maybe he didn't foresee their next appearance at all, maybe he just looked in to the future and saw himself telling the spellcasters when they needed to show up! Maybe he looked into the future and saw himself looking in to the future to see himself telling them to show up... and so on and so forth ad infinitum. It doesn't matter how many steps you use to get there. The point is, in any scenario, the spellcasters wouldn't be there if he didn't in some way use his power of foresight to tell them they needed to be. And because they were there, a different result occurred than would have if they had been absent. These are brute facts.

[martianmister]

Oracle can't change his own future.

So, let's pretend that he see himself as killed and soul-trapped by Xykon. What will he do? Will he wait for Xykon, or simply runaway?

[Olinser]

You haven't solved the problem, you've just moved the regression back one step. Now instead of the spellcasters being there only because he foresaw his own death, they are there only because he foresaw them being there. Maybe he didn't foresee their next appearance at all, maybe he just looked in to the future and saw himself telling the spellcasters when they needed to show up! Maybe he looked into the future and saw himself looking in to the future to see himself telling them to show up... and so on and so forth ad infinitum. It doesn't matter how many steps you use to get there. The point is, in any scenario, the spellcasters wouldn't be there if he didn't in some way use his power of foresight to tell them they needed to be. And because they were there, a different result occurred than would have if they had been absent. These are brute facts.

Forikroder is doing a terrible job of making his case, and seems to have recently veered into 'who cares, it's not important,' rather than admit he could be wrong, but I will attempt to make his case for him:

When the Oracle makes a Prophecy 'on the record', it HAS to come true. He put Belkar's prophecy (that would be fulfilled by killing the Oracle), 'on record,' so to speak, so he can't do anything that would prevent that prophecy from occuring - so he has to die. However, he's not prevented from doing things OUTSIDE that prophecy - so he sets up the town of "Lickmyorangeballshalfling" to screw Belkar over, and arranges for the clerics to ressurect him so he can keep on profitting.

Where he is CLEARLY wrong is that he can't change ANYTHING he sees - and that the clerics just 'happen' to be there - comic 571 - (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0571.html). The oracle gives them an EXACT TIME AND DATE to show up and ressurect him each time. If that isn't changing the future, I don't know WHAT is.

As for why he lets the druid kill him - I've already covered that, OOTS has never specified exactly how much he gets paid, and the obvious conclusion is that the druid is going to pay him more than it costs him to have the lizards rez him. Less likely, but still plausible, is that, like with Belkar, he just enjoys screwing somebody over, and presumably after the druid finishes tearing him apart, he's going back to have a deathmatch with his familiar, and regardless of who wins, everybody's going to end up miserable.

[Mike Havran]

As for why he lets the druid kill him - I've already covered that, OOTS has never specified exactly how much he gets paid, and the obvious conclusion is that the druid is going to pay him more than it costs him to have the lizards rez him. Less likely, but still plausible, is that, like with Belkar, he just enjoys screwing somebody over, and presumably after the druid finishes tearing him apart, he's going back to have a deathmatch with his familiar, and regardless of who wins, everybody's going to end up miserable.

I believe that the Oracle, as a loyal servant of Tiamat, is doing things that favor her goals. So he is not willing to get killed by the druid because of profit or "fun" of screwing someone, he just accept it beacuse it has consequences that are more desirable to his deity than him not being torn apart.

I completely agree with you on that Belkar's prophecy part.

[Forikroder]

So, let's pretend that he see himself as killed and soul-trapped by Xykon. What will he do? Will he wait for Xykon, or simply runaway?

well since we have no idea at all if that was what Xykon was doing, nor do we know that the Oracle actually was purposely avoiding Xykon i think thats a pointless question

hed probably run, but then Xykon would just scry him and then teleport to where he is then kill him in an extra painful way for trying to run


Where he is CLEARLY wrong is that he can't change ANYTHING he sees - and that the clerics just 'happen' to be there - comic 571 - (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0571.html). The oracle gives them an EXACT TIME AND DATE to show up and ressurect him each time. If that isn't changing the future, I don't know WHAT is.

actually since hes using Tiamats special divination, maybe when he looked forward he saw them arrive so looked for them to hire them (kinda like greek prophecys that are fulfilled because the people learn about them) but when he looks forward and sees Belkar kill him he cant do anything about that

so he cant actually change the future but he sees the future that hes already done something in (like he can never see a future where the cleric doesnt show up to rez him because he already made sure the cleric would be there so the things he sees in the future already take account him knowing whats going to happen)

[B. Dandelion]

I'm thinking the whole business of the Oracle changing the future is closely related to the issues that come up with time travel. It usually works in one of two ways: Either you can go back and actually change things by creating a new timeline, or the act of going back was already a part of the original timeline and everything you did was what you'd already done. The first kind is called a "temporal paradox" and the second is a "stable time loop".

If it's a temporal paradox model, the Oracle can change the future but is constrained against preventing certain events. He can't stop Belkar from killing him, but he can work around it.

If it's a stable time loop model, the Oracle's actions to resurrect himself were just as pre-ordained as his death in the first place. No, the guys didn't show up out of nowhere, they showed up because he told them to -- but he didn't tell them to show up and thereby change the future, he told them and in so doing set up the future that was meant to happen in the first place. No future in which he was killed but not resurrected ever existed.

So in the one scenario he has power, in the other he doesn't really. Unless there's something that makes it clear which model OOTS operates under the debate can't be conclusive in that regard.

[Forikroder]

I'm thinking the whole business of the Oracle changing the future is closely related to the issues that come up with time travel. It usually works in one of two ways: Either you can go back and actually change things by creating a new timeline, or the act of going back was already a part of the original timeline and everything you did was what you'd already done. The first kind is called a "temporal paradox" and the second is a "stable time loop".

If it's a temporal paradox model, the Oracle can change the future but is constrained against preventing certain events. He can't stop Belkar from killing him, but he can work around it.

If it's a stable time loop model, the Oracle's actions to resurrect himself were just as pre-ordained as his death in the first place. No, the guys didn't show up out of nowhere, they showed up because he told them to -- but he didn't tell them to show up and thereby change the future, he told them and in so doing set up the future that was meant to happen in the first place. No future in which he was killed but not resurrected ever existed.

So in the one scenario he has power, in the other he doesn't really. Unless there's something that makes it clear which model OOTS operates under the debate can't be conclusive in that regard.

time travel, giving people headaches since the start of the universe

[B. Dandelion]

time travel, giving people headaches since the start of the universe

You said it. Or rather, you will have already had been saying it.

[Math_Mage]

However, in neither situation is the Oracle 'powerless' in the sense that he has no knowledge Xykon would find either useful or dangerous. And in neither situation is there any shadow of a hint that Xykon visited Sunken Valley more than once. And in neither situation does the Oracle 'just happen' to be elsewhere. So the substance of the issue is entirely unchanged.

[martianmister]

well since we have no idea at all if that was what Xykon was doing, nor do we know that the Oracle actually was purposely avoiding Xykon i think thats a pointless question

No it's not. Let's "pretend" that, in Oracle's vision, Xykon visited his tower and killed/soultrapped him. What will he do?

[B. Dandelion]

However, in neither situation is the Oracle 'powerless' in the sense that he has no knowledge Xykon would find either useful or dangerous. And in neither situation is there any shadow of a hint that Xykon visited Sunken Valley more than once. And in neither situation does the Oracle 'just happen' to be elsewhere. So the substance of the issue is entirely unchanged.

I just wanted to address and isolate the particular tangent which was going in circles and assuming facts not in evidence. If we don't know whether there are multiple possible futures or just one, certain interpretations can't yet be ruled out or confirmed. I wasn't defending all of Forikroder's points, since as you say many weren't actually contingent upon that issue. (Although even he wasn't arguing the Oracle would be useless to Xykon.)


No it's not. Let's "pretend" that, in Oracle's vision, Xykon visited his tower and killed/soultrapped him. What will he do?

I apologize for answering a question not addressed to me, but I'd like to try and field it if I may. If the Oracle saw Xykon visiting his tower and then killing/soultrapping him, what he would do is get killed and soultrapped. Whether or not the future is actually changeable, to do otherwise would be contradictory to his established behavior thus far. If he could escape than clearly the future is changeable, but we'd also need to explain why he didn't duck out of previous brutal treatment.

If the stable time loop model is correct and there's only one future, the Oracle never could have had a vision of Xykon killing and soultrapping him. He would have had a vision of Xykon visiting the tower and then acted to be absent from the tower at that time. It's possible he would have seen Xykon visiting an empty tower, with himself safe in some other location, and then acted on that. In that case he clearly preferred the non-death outcome but it has no bearing on the ability to which he could alter his own destiny.

[deltaproximus]

registered just to add to and get back to the original Serini is evil debate.

First, Serini is probably alive (or has an organization to continue her work like Girard). Evidence: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0698.html - the scrying that occurs at the bottom of the strip. At this point, Girard (most likely) and family are dead due to familicide. The illusion and trap at the fake location was set up to notify both Girard and Serini. Since Girard is likely dead, that means only Serini could have gotten the message, and only Serini would have reason to scry on the OOTS there.

Second, Serini hasn't responded to Girard and family's deaths. After seeing the OOTS at the trap site, she should have notified Girard that it wasn't in deed Soon's paladins, but rather a group of adventurers. At that point, she would (or should) have realized that Girard and company are dead. A good (or arguably even neutral) aligned adventurer that wants to prevent the destruction of the world should have intervened.

I admit, it's not the strongest argument that she's evil. And forgive me if it's already been made, I didn't see mention of the scrying when I skimmed through the 4 pages and got buggered by all the Oracle is powerless nonsense.

[Whiffet]

registered just to add to and get back to the original Serini is evil debate.

First, Serini is probably alive (or has an organization to continue her work like Girard). Evidence: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0698.html - the scrying that occurs at the bottom of the strip. At this point, Girard (most likely) and family are dead due to familicide. The illusion and trap at the fake location was set up to notify both Girard and Serini. Since Girard is likely dead, that means only Serini could have gotten the message, and only Serini would have reason to scry on the OOTS there.

Second, Serini hasn't responded to Girard and family's deaths. After seeing the OOTS at the trap site, she should have notified Girard that it wasn't in deed Soon's paladins, but rather a group of adventurers. At that point, she would (or should) have realized that Girard and company are dead. A good (or arguably even neutral) aligned adventurer that wants to prevent the destruction of the world should have intervened.

I admit, it's not the strongest argument that she's evil. And forgive me if it's already been made, I didn't see mention of the scrying when I skimmed through the 4 pages and got buggered by all the Oracle is powerless nonsense.

Most of us think Zz'dtri was the character responsible for the scrying. The magic is the right color, and Nale had to know the OOTS was in the middle of the desert (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0801.html) somehow.

[B. Dandelion]

registered just to add to and get back to the original Serini is evil debate.

First, Serini is probably alive (or has an organization to continue her work like Girard). Evidence: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0698.html - the scrying that occurs at the bottom of the strip. At this point, Girard (most likely) and family are dead due to familicide. The illusion and trap at the fake location was set up to notify both Girard and Serini. Since Girard is likely dead, that means only Serini could have gotten the message, and only Serini would have reason to scry on the OOTS there.

Second, Serini hasn't responded to Girard and family's deaths. After seeing the OOTS at the trap site, she should have notified Girard that it wasn't in deed Soon's paladins, but rather a group of adventurers. At that point, she would (or should) have realized that Girard and company are dead. A good (or arguably even neutral) aligned adventurer that wants to prevent the destruction of the world should have intervened.

I admit, it's not the strongest argument that she's evil. And forgive me if it's already been made, I didn't see mention of the scrying when I skimmed through the 4 pages and got buggered by all the Oracle is powerless nonsense.

Well, not in this thread, but the scier-in-the-desert topic actually has been done to death elsewhere. It was Zz'dtri -- it's the right color magic and it explains how Nale knew (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0801.html) the OOTS had been blundering about in the desert.

Ah, I've been goblin ninja'd.

[deltaproximus]

Well, not in this thread, but the scier-in-the-desert topic actually has been done to death elsewhere. It was Zz'dtri -- it's the right color magic and it explains how Nale knew (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0801.html) the OOTS had been blundering about in the desert.

Ah, I've been goblin ninja'd.

Weird. Scrying usually provides sound, too - Nale and Zz'dtri ought to have heard why the OOTS was going to the city. Still, Nale's ego may have prevented him from acknowledging that. Well, I still have problems with accepting it was Zz'dtri since he should have no reason to scry out there, but if it's been argued to death I'll let it drop here and wait for the inevitable encounter at Kraagor's gate to set me straight.

[Whiffet]

Weird. Scrying usually provides sound, too - Nale and Zz'dtri ought to have heard why the OOTS was going to the city. Still, Nale's ego may have prevented him from acknowledging that. Well, I still have problems with accepting it was Zz'dtri since he should have no reason to scry out there, but if it's been argued to death I'll let it drop here and wait for the inevitable encounter at Kraagor's gate to set me straight.

Maybe the commentary in the book will confirm it.

[Mike Havran]

Weird. Scrying usually provides sound, too - Nale and Zz'dtri ought to have heard why the OOTS was going to the city. Still, Nale's ego may have prevented him from acknowledging that. Well, I still have problems with accepting it was Zz'dtri since he should have no reason to scry out there, but if it's been argued to death I'll let it drop here and wait for the inevitable encounter at Kraagor's gate to set me straight.

That part of arc is somewhat confusing, here's my theory:

Scrying was done by Zz'dtri. He was scrying the entire desert after all. It's a wierd coincidence he happened to scry at the moment the Order was around but hey, such things happen :smallsmile:

The Order was actually not planning to go to Bleedingham instantly, and the Guild didn't hear anything conclussive. Thet city was only one of the five or so that were on the Order's list. Haley, Elan and V were not captured in Bleedingham, but somewhere else. Gannji teleported them to Bleedingham, and Roy&others followed them there because they deduced it from the "wanted" poster.

[Forikroder]

However, in neither situation is the Oracle 'powerless' in the sense that he has no knowledge Xykon would find either useful or dangerous. And in neither situation is there any shadow of a hint that Xykon visited Sunken Valley more than once. And in neither situation does the Oracle 'just happen' to be elsewhere. So the substance of the issue is entirely unchanged.

if he sees the "true future" as in the future that is going to happen since he looked in the future then hes unable to change the future because he sees the future thats 100% going to happen no matter what


No it's not. Let's "pretend" that, in Oracle's vision, Xykon visited his tower and killed/soultrapped him. What will he do?

already answered that question


Scrying was done by Zz'dtri. He was scrying the entire desert after all. It's a wierd coincidence he happened to scry at the moment the Order was around but hey, such things happen

in this case he would ahve been specifically scrying them, he scried the entire desert only while Penelope was alive (and she died before the Order set foot in the desert) so in this case it was Z occasionaly scrying the order to figure out where they are so the LG can plan accordingly and figure out how much time they have before they have to cut and run

as for the audio, they did get audio but they never mentioned going to the empire of blood or anything like that plus Elan didnt know about there dad so for Nale all of a sudden Elan apears in the palace acting all chummy with the father he never even knew existed so of course he would get suspicious

[Math_Mage]

if he sees the "true future" as in the future that is going to happen since he looked in the future then hes unable to change the future because he sees the future thats 100% going to happen no matter what

That doesn't change anything I said.

[Forikroder]

That doesn't change anything I said.

you must be arguing about something else and i missed the shift in conversation then

[kickassfrog]

3) More circumstantial than anything - it is SERINI'S DIARY. The diary doesn't have in depth knowledge of anybody else's gate's defenses, and while it doesn't necessarily have in depth info on Serini's defenses, which would you rather fight:
A) A gate guarded by a tribe of epic illusionists, with the extremely probable outcome you won't find the gate to begin with, even WITH coordinates (apparently option C)
B) A gate guarded by an epic archmage who has had decades to refine his magical defenses (the one Xykon chose - arguably because it was closest)
C) A gate guarded by an entire city of paladins (option B for Xykon)
or
D) A gate guarded by whatever random creatures a halfling female manages to capture and reliably keep prisoner?

So between those 4 options... they save the gate location of the person that WROTE the diary for last? Something doesn't smell right there to me, as that is the only gate location GUARANTEED to be correct.


He deciphered the locations of 2 of the gates. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0196.html)

And then Soon's gate was most convenient because they only had to conquer 1 nation to get there (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0300.html)

[Math_Mage]

you must be arguing about something else and i missed the shift in conversation then

The possibility (POSSIBILITY, mind you. NOT fact) that the Oracle sees, not just the future, but the only possible future, does not change the fact that he has knowledge Xykon would find useful or dangerous. It does not provide any hint that Xykon visited Sunken Valley more than once. And it does not tell us that the Oracle 'just happened' to be absent when Xykon showed up.

Ergo, your postulation about whether the Oracle sees the 'true future' or not makes no difference whatsoever to anything I said.

[Forikroder]

The possibility (POSSIBILITY, mind you. NOT fact) that the Oracle sees, not just the future, but the only possible future, does not change the fact that he has knowledge Xykon would find useful or dangerous. It does not provide any hint that Xykon visited Sunken Valley more than once. And it does not tell us that the Oracle 'just happened' to be absent when Xykon showed up.

Ergo, your postulation about whether the Oracle sees the 'true future' or not makes no difference whatsoever to anything I said.

always hate it when a thread gets necrod like this and people pick up age old arguments like there was no break at all

if the Oracle sees the "true" future then he is incapable of changing the future because what he sees is already whats going to happen with his attempts to change the future (he sees Belkar kill him despite his attempts to convince him otherwise)

so if he does see the true future then it is impossible for him to change the future making him powerless to do anything about any problems he sees (for instance if he sees Xykon come to his tower and kill him hes powerless to stop it, if he sees Belkar stab his daggers into him hes powerless to stop it)

wether he has knowledge Xykon would find useful or dangerous or wether he did avoid Xykon on purpose are null points and rely on off panel information we dont have which is why we stopped discussing that we were discussing wether the Oracle could change the future or not

[veti]

always hate it when a thread gets necrod like this and people pick up age old arguments like there was no break at all

Posting to a week-old thread is hardly 'necromancy'. Not everyone can post every day, y'know?


if the Oracle sees the "true" future then he is incapable of changing the future because what he sees is already whats going to happen with his attempts to change the future (he sees Belkar kill him despite his attempts to convince him otherwise)

I think I see what's going on here. You're treating "the future" as one huge monolithic thing. Your argument holds true if you assume that because one aspect of the future is fixed, the whole thing must be.

Let's assume for the moment that you're right in so far as the Oracle can't avoid being stabbed by Belkar. However, that doesn't make him "powerless to do anything about the problems he sees". On the contrary, he did do something about it - he arranged for his resurrection. Just because he couldn't prevent that one event, doesn't mean he couldn't do anything about it.

Analogy: one day I'm going to die. I can't prevent that. But that doesn't mean I'm powerless to do anything about it: I can make a will, I can insure my life, I can make sure my finances are in order and my family is provided for after I'm gone. I'm not "powerless" just because I have no control over that one event - there's a lot I can do that will change the future.

[B. Dandelion]

wether he has knowledge Xykon would find useful or dangerous or wether he did avoid Xykon on purpose are null points and rely on off panel information we dont have which is why we stopped discussing that we were discussing wether the Oracle could change the future or not

True, those points are largely irrelevant to the discussion of whether or not there's multiple possible futures, but I think that makes your earlier positions unsustainable rather than inconclusive. There's absolutely no reason to think Xykon has visited the Oracle before. Since the Oracle's on the record of not really liking Xykon it's a safe bet he left because of his visit, as well -- I mean, you could argue that if he looked into the future and saw himself leaving, he left because he was always destined to leave, but that logic reduces all choices made in a "one true future" setting to ones completely removed from personal desire and free will, and that everything happens only because it was always going to happen. The Oracle would have wanted to leave in any case. If he only saw so far as Xykon visiting the tower, he wouldn't have to see himself leave it to know that was what he'd want to do, and so he would do that, based on what he wanted to do. He wouldn't have the power to alter the future, but he wouldn't need it.


I think I see what's going on here. You're treating "the future" as one huge monolithic thing. Your argument holds true if you assume that because one aspect of the future is fixed, the whole thing must be.

Let's assume for the moment that you're right in so far as the Oracle can't avoid being stabbed by Belkar. However, that doesn't make him "powerless to do anything about the problems he sees". On the contrary, he did do something about it - he arranged for his resurrection. Just because he couldn't prevent that one event, doesn't mean he couldn't do anything about it.

Analogy: one day I'm going to die. I can't prevent that. But that doesn't mean I'm powerless to do anything about it: I can make a will, I can insure my life, I can make sure my finances are in order and my family is provided for after I'm gone. I'm not "powerless" just because I have no control over that one event - there's a lot I can do that will change the future.

"There is only one future" does literally mean all aspects of the future are set in stone and unchangeable.

Like I was saying, it tends to get a bit headache-inducing and inevitably leads to a discussion about the nature of free will and whether it actually exists if the universe is such that all the "choices" you will make have actually been pre-determined the entire time. (Yes, there are ways around this. Most likely, they have free will, no matter how many possible futures do or do not exist.) This goes doubly so for an Oracle -- in fact their ability to make choices at all requires them to deliberately remain ignorant about certain facts. So for instance, if there's only one future the Oracle certainly did not look at it and see the name of his newly-created kobold village, or else he wouldn't have said to Roy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0572.html) he almost named it something different.

Since we don't have proof "there's only one future" it could be instead that some aspects are set in stone and some are not, in which case the Oracle can change certain things. But the "only one future" model means he by definition never "changes" anything.

[Kish]

always hate it when a thread gets necrod like this and people pick up age old arguments like there was no break at all
You know, Forikroder, if you want the argument to stop, you could concede that you're wrong--or just stop posting to it without any concession. You have no obligation to keep repeating your assertions and try to stretch a week to an age just because otherwise you won't get the last word.

[Forikroder]

{{Scrubbed}}