Mass Death Ward and Girard's Gate Showdown Theories

[Tre of the Wood]

In http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0672.html, Durkon mentions researching a spell, most likely mass death ward. This is important to defeating Xykon, and cannot be unintentional. Assuming he comes back, he now knows that it is majorly flawed, though Xykon may not. Where does this go, then? Individual death wards? Or perhaps my personal hope -- without Durkon the Order retreats, allowing the LG to control the gates and defend them against the oncoming onslaught that is Team Evil. Alternately, the LG aligns with the Order for some time, or at least Malack and possibly Tarquin, thanks to Durkon as a betting chip/ally. Together they actually stand a chance against Xykon, and Malack and Tarquin have a vested interest in keeping Xykon out of their kingdom.

One way or another, the gate gets destroyed. I would guess by the OOTS sneakily after letting Team Evil and the LG battle it out, and we move on to Kragar's gate, finishing up the plotline.

[Nightmarenny]

Just want to point out that it would probably very bad to destroy anymore gates. I doubt Roy will consider it short of Xykon actively about to take the thing.

[factotum]

The spell having a backdoor that requires someone to speak a certain (extremely non-obvious) word to dispel it is hardly a major flaw--so long as Xykon doesn't know the command word (or even that such a command word exists) then the spell works as advertised and there should be no issue at all.

I don't think the question is relevant, though, because I don't think Durkon is coming back, at least not as we knew him...

[SavageWombat]

Just want to point out that it would probably very bad to destroy anymore gates. I doubt Roy will consider it short of Xykon actively about to take the thing.

Which actually is the situation at this point, if you think about it.

[Chantelune]

Bad or not, the Order doesn't have the ressources to protect the gate anymore. TE only would be quite a challenge even at full power, but with the LG lurking around ? Leaving the two to fight would be a bad idea too. First, there's still a small chance that they team up and even if they don't and they fight each other, the Order would still need to deal with the remaining side. Leaving for the last gate would mean abandoning this one to either the LG or TE, which would be both bad and useless. If Xykon takes control of this gate, he'll do the ritual, not go for the last one.

As for MDW, it's only useless againts the LG as long as Malack is amongst them. Xykon wouldn't know that Durkon's spell have a backdoor and don't know the password. Plus, if he really want to get rid of MDW : superb dispel.

[factotum]

even if they don't and they fight each other, the Order would still need to deal with the remaining side.

Which is a GOOD thing, surely--the remaining side will be down on spells and injured from the first fight, making them weaker for the Order!

Of course, in the current situation Xykon et al. are going to come in fresh to fight a pair of groups who are both down members--Sabine is gone, Malack is low on spells, Durkon is likely entirely out of them, Belkar is both level- and Constitution-drained; even if the Order and the LG realised the new threat immediately and joined up to fight it, I don't think they've got the power to stop Xykon alone, much less Xykon and Redcloak.

[Chantelune]

Yeah, that would still be better than facing them off fresh, but I doubt the order is in any shape to even fight a weakened TE, who might have the upper and in some TE vs LG showdown.

The best chance for the order I see right now, beside blowing up the gate, would be a teaming up with the LG, but with Malack having vamped Durkon, I doubt Roy will be able to see past his friends death. Unless he keep in mind that the threat is big enough to put aside his grief.

[Olinser]

In http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0672.html, Durkon mentions researching a spell, most likely mass death ward. This is important to defeating Xykon, and cannot be unintentional. Assuming he comes back, he now knows that it is majorly flawed, though Xykon may not. Where does this go, then? Individual death wards? Or perhaps my personal hope -- without Durkon the Order retreats, allowing the LG to control the gates and defend them against the oncoming onslaught that is Team Evil. Alternately, the LG aligns with the Order for some time, or at least Malack and possibly Tarquin, thanks to Durkon as a betting chip/ally. Together they actually stand a chance against Xykon, and Malack and Tarquin have a vested interest in keeping Xykon out of their kingdom.

One way or another, the gate gets destroyed. I would guess by the OOTS sneakily after letting Team Evil and the LG battle it out, and we move on to Kragar's gate, finishing up the plotline.

I posted this in another thread, but I think it's relevant here.

I don't think the OOTS is going to destroy the gate intentionally. Given the well-documented paranoid conspiracy theorist that Girard was, the most likely scenario is that the Gate is trapped and will blow up if anybody comes within 100 feet of the Gate and doesn't say the password, perform the elaborate secret handshake, walk a specific, convoluted and totally unmarked path towards it, and isn't wearing at least 3 separate articles of purple clothing with a set of undergarments embroidered with the phrase, "Soon Eats Poo And Likes It."

[SavageWombat]

I posted this in another thread, but I think it's relevant here.

I don't think the OOTS is going to destroy the gate intentionally. Given the well-documented paranoid conspiracy theorist that Girard was, the most likely scenario is that the Gate is trapped and will blow up if anybody comes within 100 feet of the Gate and doesn't say the password, perform the elaborate secret handshake, walk a specific, convoluted and totally unmarked path towards it, and isn't wearing at least 3 separate articles of purple clothing with a set of undergarments embroidered with the phrase, "Soon Eats Poo And Likes It."

Which pretty well describes the massive door trap that Haley is working on disarming.

She could probably blow the gate just by looking at the door the wrong way.