V's Deal: The Full Consequences

[Sunken Valley]

Want to tell all a theory I have about V's deal.

The fiends say they will be "getting" V's soul for the time period. V assumes this means they'll get it in death. The fiends have said "if the elf dies its a waste of time" and meticulously divided his (V's a guy) minutes up. So the reader thinks that the fiends will control Vaarsuuvius.

But what if it means something more. The fiends say they can only enter the material plane when "making" a deal. What if the making involves the pay-off of the deal on their side. Meaning, that instead of them getting V's soul in the afterlife, or control of his body, the fiends may be able to bring their immense power into the material plane!

What do you think?

[Kish]

If this was the case, there would be no reason for the fiends not to have made their deal with Kubota, or a random first-level commoner.

[KillianHawkeye]

If this was the case, there would be no reason for the fiends not to have made their deal with Kubota, or a random first-level commoner.

I think the reason was that Vaarsuvius is likely to be near one of the gates again sometime quite soon, where a random commoner probably won't ever be near one.

[Winter]

Meaning, that instead of them getting V's soul in the afterlife, or control of his body, the fiends may be able to bring their immense power into the material plane!

What do you think?

This is not what it is.

First, they could use anyone for that, which contradicts what we know about the deal (they were watching Vaarsuvius already) and it also contradicts they have specific plans for the gate.

Second, they have already shown they can teleport to the Material Plane and cast mega-epic spells (attach at least 63, probably 80+, HD from multiple soul to a mortal and cast some cheated up Extended Timestops). If that does not already count as "bringing immense power to the material plane" then I do not know what could.

[Snails]

I think the reason was that Vaarsuvius is likely to be near one of the gates again sometime quite soon, where a random commoner probably won't ever be near one.

The (almost) new suggestion in the OP is "...the fiends may be able to bring their immense power into the material plane!" If that is really the game, then why not just seduce a commoner and seize the Gate, steamrolling over Xykon like a speedbump?

Now, it is possible that the OP is actually correct -- we cannot disprove it. But we do not have data pointing in that particular direction, and it actually creates many more difficult quandaries than it solves.

[Xelbiuj]

Meh, I think they're going to use their time when she is on the material plane. The deal doesn't make much sense if it was just to corrupt V's soul for the afterlife.

Personally, I think they're going to take V over at critical moments throughout the rest of the story.
Once here, next at Kraagor's gate, then at Xykon's uber dungeon.


Regardless though, I like the fiends, they keep the story going. Without the unnecessary conflict that they (and we) love so much, we'd have no comic. They're sort of like refs or the guy that says, "Can we just get back to the game?" when there's an argument.
Their side is literally our side. /not really the topic for it

[Mike Havran]

If this was the case, there would be no reason for the fiends not to have made their deal with Kubota, or a random first-level commoner.

The important part of the deal was that they can manifest for only as long as their "partner" holds the splices. I don't think either Kubota of lv.1 commoner would have enough willpower to contain souls of three epic arcane casters for more than a few bits of a second. That's why the IFCC needed a powerful mage, and one that was willing to actually accept such a deal.

[The Dark Fiddler]

The important part of the deal was that they can manifest for only as long as their "partner" holds the splices.

If the goal was just to manifest in the Material Plane, they could easily have made some other deal not involving the Soul Splice to get control of the hypothetical commoner's soul. Hell, who knows how many souls you could get for, say, 1,000 gp?

[Kornaki]

There might be a possibility that the fiends can only manifest their powers within a certain distance of the person whose soul they possess/are dealing with (so they could cast a time stop to deal with V, but couldn't have just teleported themselves to the black dragon and killed him). So they had to make a deal with someone who would be near a gate

[Kish]

couldn't have just teleported themselves to the black dragon and killed him).
...Him? What male black dragon are you talking about?

[Mike Havran]

Hell, who knows how many souls you could get for, say, 1,000 gp?

Good question. I don't know. It didn't occur to me that souls (while the "owner" still lives) could be on sale in the OotS-verse.

[Snails]

There might be a possibility that the fiends can only manifest their powers within a certain distance of the person whose soul they possess/are dealing with (so they could cast a time stop to deal with V, but couldn't have just teleported themselves to the black dragon and killed him). So they had to make a deal with someone who would be near a gate

For three demigod-like beings who are working together and have studied the situation, getting a Commoner1 next to a Gate is a trivial problem.

We do not really know, but it is highly likely that the IFCC set V up specifically so that Familicide would annihilate Clan Draketooth. All they had to do was help a few of the right scrolls fall into the hands of that Black Dragon, help her find the target for her revenge, and include the right epic soul within the splice deal.

Note also the weird "coincidence" of the imp successfully summoning a monstrously powerful and huge demon. A one in a million chance? The IFCC could have arranged it to be a one in one chance -- that is their department, isn't it? The only person with the kind of firepower on hand to contend with such a monster was V. Hir best spells were depleted when the Dragon arrived, making the result a near certainty.

[Yendor]

So they had to make a deal with someone who would be near a gate

What, like Kubota?

[Holy_Knight]

Note also the weird "coincidence" of the imp successfully summoning a monstrously powerful and huge demon. A one in a million chance? The IFCC could have arranged it to be a one in one chance -- that is their department, isn't it? The only person with the kind of firepower on hand to contend with such a monster was V. Hir best spells were depleted when the Dragon arrived, making the result a near certainty.
That was a one in one chance, because the demon lost a future service marker to Qarr in a poker game (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0585.html).

[FujinAkari]

We do not really know, but it is highly likely that the IFCC set V up specifically so that Familicide would annihilate Clan Draketooth. All they had to do was help a few of the right scrolls fall into the hands of that Black Dragon, help her find the target for her revenge, and include the right epic soul within the splice deal.


No, they said specifically that they didn't actually expect V's alignment to change, they were very much NOT planning for Familicide.

[asphias]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0668.html

they needed V and not some random schmunck because they wanted the lich to stop sitting on his tailbone and the order to get together so they could start their race for the gate.

i think there are a few important quotes within that comic:
"If our plan for the gates really works, such a slaughter(5 good aligned dragons for every black one) will be trivial"

"the truly important thing is the overall struggle between xykon and the order of the stick"

"the truth is we don't want either side to win"

"we want conflict. destructive unnecessary conflict"

and last: "yes, the elfs soul is little more than the free soup-or-salad to our main course of wickedness" "we have a 50-50 chance of ending up with it anyway".

it seems that we can conclude from this: they have some plan with the gates, which will allow the slaughter of lots of dragons. for this plan they need the order and xykon to stay in conflict somehow.

and the elfs soul was not the main part of the plan, just a nice extra. plus, they make it sound like they might end up with it anyway, meaning that its not really relevant to have those minutes if he goes to hell.

what i'm mostly currious about is what their plan with the gate is, but really, it seems like the elfs soul will not be vital to their plan, and thus i doubt they'll use it while he is alive.

[Kurald Galain]

Second, they have already shown they can teleport to the Material Plane and cast mega-epic spells (attach at least 63, probably 80+, HD from multiple soul to a mortal and cast some cheated up Extended Timestops). If that does not already count as "bringing immense power to the material plane" then I do not know what could.

Ah, but they can only appear in the Prime Material when offering a deal to a mortal (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0656.html).

[Winter]

Ah, but they can only appear in the Prime Material when offering a deal to a mortal (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0656.html).

Good point.

They could probably loophole this but I find that unlikely. Yet, it seems very much likely they targetted Vaarsuvius in specific due to the gate-business. They did not want anyone and they did not want any caster. They wanted time on a "caster who is going to be near the gate".
If anything, that limitation makes the case even stronger they want to cast a spell/ritual/plotmagic through Vaarsuvius to affect the gate (I'm pretty sure they want to steal Redcloak's Plan, probably not realising that Redcloak currently doublecrosses Xykon).

What I find interesting: If they want to steal Redcloak's plan, they need to know they can only cast the arcane part of any ritual. Does this mean they have a own ritual in mind?

[FujinAkari]

If anything, that limitation makes the case even stronger they want to cast a spell/ritual/plotmagic through Vaarsuvius to affect the gate (I'm pretty sure they want to steal Redcloak's Plan, probably not realising that Redcloak currently doublecrosses Xykon).

This implies they are going to be casting Redcloak's spell without bothering to check what it does, which I find unlikely.

More often, they are plenty-powerful enough to engineer their own spell to do whatever they want.

[Winter]

This implies they are going to be casting Redcloak's spell without bothering to check what it does, which I find unlikely.

They are not, but they are stealing the general idea. Given what they say, it seems very likely they plan something similar as well (control the Snarl to destroy they enemies).

Assuming they know what we do (yes, yes...) they have to assume the Snarl was an uncontrollable killing machine (which is pretty useful for their purpose).

So it indeed seems right now they are somewhat stealing Redcloak's idea (even if they give the ritual some sort of own twist). They surely are not going for the very same ritual as, as it seems for now, they lack the divine caster.

[Italian Hippy]

True that, but the divine caster can know the spell only if s/he's a priest of the Dark One and wears the Crimson Mantle, as Tsukiko's death taught us. Also, it wasn't the bout with the "one in a million" demon that made V expend all of his high-level spells. Remember, he takes out the demon by lowering its saving throws and then petrifying it with a Prismatic spray. Then he leaves the boat, he goes to a random island to study and research how to find Haley/Belkar/Roy, he replenishes his spells and "addresses the first point on today's agenda: why is an imp lurking invisibly about this island?", then proceeds to miss with Disintegrate 3 or 4 times, and then, after hitting the imp once, the Black Dragon rises out of the water and kindly asks: "Say Disintegrate for me, Vaarsuvius. One more time."

P.S.: Don't remember exactly the numbers of the strips, I'm working from memory here.

[Winter]

We knew that since SoD had come out.

And I doubt The Dark One is the only one who can come up with a ritual around the gates. I'm pretty sure any divine (near)epic caster could develop some unique ritual for fiddling with those gates (and I am very sure the other gods/fiends could as well).

Vaarsuvius has been much longer than 8 hours on the island, so whatever has happened with the Big Devil isn't important here. Vaarsuvius squandered many spells in the fight with the Imp (which is when the Dragon went in to attack).

[Thrillhouse]

(I should clarify I don't play DND)

But something rather big is being missed here. Specifically, this here:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0634.html

Right before V is about to take the deal, one of the fiends STOPS him/her and proposes a completely viable alternate plan. If the plan is only to get V to attack Xykon so he'll get moving and to gain control of someone near the gates, why risk this? They must have NEEDED V to take the power for selfish reasons.

Furthermore, this comic provides another key piece of information:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0640.html

First, we have the fiends saying that they LIED about the "alignment feedback" because "A good way to get a decent person to something horrible is to convince them that they're not responsible for their actions." This, combined with the alternate plan, suggests that CORRUPTING V is also a part of this plan, and given the risk they took by offering the alternate plan, a SIGNIFICANT part of the plan. (Significant enough that it was worth risking V's refusal)

So, what might the reason be? One possibility is that the Familicide spell was a part of the plan, but I think we can easily dismiss this. Sure, they would have known that Haaerta could cast the spell. But just hoping that V would cast it, and not some other spell, seems very unlikely, unless Haaerta is in on the plan and was asked to suggest it. But more importantly, we can clearly see that the fiends are SHOCKED when V uses Familicide in the second comic I linked.

Instead, I would propose that this is a much longer term action that we cannot entirely predict. Recall that the fiends had psychological profilers analyze V's actions and determined that he was likely to attack the most powerful available foe, given enough power(Xykon). It's not inconcievable that they've also looked into how V might respond, long term, to an action of great evil on his/her part, (or how his/her moral character could be corrupted) which would explain why the deal needed to be done, as the comic title reads, "For the Wrong Reasons".

[Koo Rehtorb]

So, what might the reason be?

Frankly I think the reason is "for fun". They're fiends. Why not damn someone as well if you get the chance? It's just a bonus!

[Thrillhouse]

Potentially. But in doing so they risked having V not take their deal, and in doing so, not getting Xykon off his keister, which does seem to have been at least one of the main reasons for doing it.

[JennTora]

I think it is possible they planned for the draketooth's death. They might have been able to kill xykon, we don't really know their levels do we? If the Draketooths are dead there's another big fight and maybe the gate goes kraaackakoom. alive and we're looking at a number of(probably) formidable sorcerers In addition to the oots who now probably have some way of defending against most of xykon's spells. If V is under their control during this time they can also influence the battle as they see fit.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Potentially. But in doing so they risked having V not take their deal, and in doing so, not getting Xykon off his keister, which does seem to have been at least one of the main reasons for doing it.

I don't think they thought there was any chance of her not taking the deal, the alternative plan was ridiculous. Qarr even calls it ridiculous here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0637.html).

It wasn't supposed to be a viable alternative plan, it was just supposed to sound plausible enough that V thought it was a real possibility so that she'd further damn herself by rejecting it.

[FujinAkari]

So, what might the reason be?

One of the IFCC, Director Lee, is Lawful Evil.

Because he is -lawful- it is CRUCIALLY important to him that all aspects of a deal be clear, and if V is entering the deal under false assumptions, a Lawful character is required to correct them.

However, Lee is also EVIL, so he intentionally picked a laughably implausible and unlikely plan which he knew V would reject. However, V did need to accept the deal out of his own will, not due to coercion, otherwise it wouldn't sit right with a Devil like Lee.

As for the potential to shift alignments... they're evil. They would like to see a powerful caster like V become evil and serve them in death. It isn't some crucial part of their plan, its business as usual.

[Koo Rehtorb]

It makes you wonder how the IFCC even manages to hold itself together. Lee is practically required to get his way over the other two because Lee really could not go along with a CE plan. Cedric would be more flexible but following the lead of a LE guy has to be incredibly grating.

Nero is probably not that bothered by it though.

[hamishspence]

They're not exactly exemplars though. Lee may be Lawful- but not as much as your average devil, just as Cedrik's not as Chaotic as your average demon. That's how they're able to work together in the first place.

The DStP commentaries discuss it in more detail.

[Winter]

Right before V is about to take the deal, one of the fiends STOPS him/her and proposes a completely viable alternate plan.

That alternate plan has been discussed to death and beyond. Rich also comments in the books. It is not an alternate plan, it could never work, it was ridiculous for many reasons.
The point of that plan was to give Vaarsuvius an alternative so he believed he had a choice and still made a conscious Deal with the Devil. That deal loses it's impact when you are "forced" into it, so what the fiends did was that they dangled an alternative that seemed valid before Vaarusuvius - and then he willingly chose to sell his soul.

The alternative was not meant to work but to give Vaarsuvius a choice.

There is no loophole or oversight.

[JennTora]

Which I don't get. She can figure out the dragon is the mother of the other dragon, but not that a race known for tricking people into damnation is trying to trick her into damnation?

[Kurald Galain]

Which I don't get. She can figure out the dragon is the mother of the other dragon, but not that a race known for tricking people into damnation is trying to trick her into damnation?

The former is a Knowledge check, the latter a Sense Motive. Guess which of the two V is trained in...

[JennTora]

The former is a Knowledge check, the latter a Sense Motive. Guess which of the two V is trained in...

Right. Forgot to think of it in terms of game mechanics.

[Winter]

Right. Forgot to think of it in terms of game mechanics.

Then think in terms of what mental traits Vaarsuvius has shown. He's pretty smart in regard to mental abilities but has no sense at all about reality.
He also was under massive stress in that situation and in that small moment, all his over life accumulated arrogance cumulated in a very tragic mistake (he took the deal).

[SteveDJ]

This implies they are going to be casting Redcloak's spell without bothering to check what it does, which I find unlikely.

More often, they are plenty-powerful enough to engineer their own spell to do whatever they want.


They are not, but they are stealing the general idea. Given what they say, it seems very likely they plan something similar as well (control the Snarl to destroy they enemies).

Assuming they know what we do (yes, yes...) they have to assume the Snarl was an uncontrollable killing machine (which is pretty useful for their purpose).

So it indeed seems right now they are somewhat stealing Redcloak's idea (even if they give the ritual some sort of own twist). They surely are not going for the very same ritual as, as it seems for now, they lack the divine caster.


True that, but the divine caster can know the spell only if s/he's a priest of the Dark One and wears the Crimson Mantle, as Tsukiko's death taught us.

I re-read the description that Redcloak gives for his part of the spell, and it is truly very powerful! Basically, it gives control of an entire plane to one of the gods. That's right - not control of some gate, but control of a plane! And as Redcloak described, it isn't something one can 'steal'. (Edit: and I think more powerful than what the demons could discover on their own, even as powerful as they are).

I also imagine that just as the demons had been watching V for quite some time, they probably have been watching Redcloak as well, and know they cannot get that spell unless/until Redcloak casts it.

So could it be that the demons hope (well, perhaps 'expect', as they could just steer things that way) that V and Redcloak meet up - likely in front of the gate (probably the final gate, but that's another theory/discussion altogether). Perhaps V is restrained, much like Tsukiko was (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0830.html)- and Redcloak finally casts his part of the spell ... in front of seemingly-helpless V of course to taunt hir. But just then, the demons take over for their few minutes, defeat Redcloak/Xykon and proceed to cast their own spells ... moving the gate to their OWN plane... ???

[Thrillhouse]

Then think in terms of what mental traits Vaarsuvius has shown. He's pretty smart in regard to mental abilities but has no sense at all about reality.
He also was under massive stress in that situation and in that small moment, all his over life accumulated arrogance cumulated in a very tragic mistake (he took the deal).

There could also be a degree of willful blindness (probably semi-subconscious). On some level, V is probably smart enough to know that beings of pure evil are not going to offer you a deal that will truly "benefit" you in the long run. But he wants to save his family, and wants to taste that ultimate arcana power, so he isn't interested in devoting too much mental energy to really thinking through what the consequences could be, what the fiends are really after, loopholes, etc.

[Winter]

There could also be a degree of willful blindness (probably semi-subconscious).

Of course. He took A Deal You Should Not Take for all the wrong reasons. That it were the wrong reasons is part of the story.

[Snails]

Which I don't get. She can figure out the dragon is the mother of the other dragon, but not that a race known for tricking people into damnation is trying to trick her into damnation?

That V ultimately might be damned by the Deal, regardless of the apparent nature of the contract, was simply a known risk that V took. From the IFCC's POV that issue is a useful distraction, to further addle the thinking of someone already under immense stress from the imminent threat upon hir family.

The IFCC absolutely wants V to be thinking that this dragon problem is personal, and that the Deal is personal, and that V should just think about the risks and costs to hirself. It is exactly that kind of self-centerness that is V's weakness, and the IFCC expects will be easy to play on.