Whatever happened to "Buisness before Pleasure"?

[stavro375]

Given that "Buissness before Pleasure" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html) seems to be the main philosphy of Team Tarquin, if not Tarquin's personal mantra, why is he suddenly engaging in a time-wasting, resource-draining diversion while there's a scenery-chewing villain trying to take over the world? All for the sake of an ego he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of the mission (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0854.html)?

And why is the rest of his team going along with it? What's he going to say when Laurin asks why he's called the entire gang together to watch his army kill those 3 guys in the crater, "So my son can achieve his full heroic potential"?

[Gift Jeraff]

He's in the business of pleasing himself.

[Cerussite]

And that is why I fully expect Laurin and Miron to stay out of this engagement.

[NerdyKris]

For starters, at first there was very little chance of them winning before V showed up. Now that V, Elan, and Haley have joined the fight, I'd gather Team Tarquin might start objecting.


Secondly, you're assuming Tarquin isn't a raging hypocrite. It's entirely possible he is. But throwing faceless mooks at an enemy isn't really resource wasting when his entire grand plan actually includes killing those soldiers with the other team member's soldiers to keep up appearances.

[Mando Knight]

This is business. Team Tarquin's defeat by some "Roy Greenhilt and his Order of the Stick" would be terribly ignominious, while Elan has dramatic potential (at least, in Tarquin's mind). Furthermore, their defeat by said Order of the Stick appears to be possible, due to Tarquin's own previous assessments of Roy's ability, as well as TT losing one vampire cleric while OotS gained one. Before V appeared to help hold off the horde, the army would have eventually done the job of eliminating a threat while also furthering Elan's character growth.

[RadagastTheBrow]

He's in the business of pleasing himself.

Weird, he doesn't seem to have gone blind or anything. :smalltongue:

[Talvereaux]

Laurin and Miron have no personal stake in this, at least as far as we know. Most likely, even if they didn't approve of wasting soldiers, they're probably willing to let one another indulge their selves as long as there's no significant or personal conflict of interests.

Secondly, even if they did, he'd just try to talk his way out of it. It's obvious that Laurin was hurt by Malack's death, but Tarquin was planning to spare Nale anyway. The "business before pleasure" thing is a face he puts on to keep his allies loyal, not an actual philosophy he abides by. As soon as he caves in, which we've seen twice with Malack and Laurin put on the back-burner to serve his sons, he'll make his bluff check.

[CletusMusashi]

Exploring Girard's Gate in their backyard was Business. Worrying about what Xykon is up to in the north really isn't as big a deal to Tarquin. Supervillains are a dime a dozen. and exaggerating how dangerous they are is nothing unusual; he really has no idea how big a deal Tarquin actually is.

[Porthos]

Given that "Buissness before Pleasure" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html) seems to be the main philosphy of Team Tarquin, if not Tarquin's personal mantra, why is he suddenly engaging in a time-wasting, resource-draining diversion while there's a scenery-chewing villain trying to take over the world?

Because the 'scenery chewing villain' is no longer on his doorstep and thus no longer his concern.

And that's if you think he cared about Xykon in the slightest in the first place and just didn't want him on his doorstep with some sort of powerful whatchamacallit at its disposal.

If there is no business left to be taken care of, and there isn't when it comes to Xykon, then it's time to start getting Elan to realize his potential.

See, just because Elan cares about Xykon it doesn't necessarily follow that Tarquin should.

[David Argall]

Given that "Buissness before Pleasure" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html) seems to be the main philosphy of Team Tarquin, if not Tarquin's personal mantra, why is he suddenly engaging in a time-wasting, resource-draining diversion while there's a scenery-chewing villain trying to take over the world? All for the sake of an ego he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of the mission (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0854.html)?

And why is the rest of his team going along with it? What's he going to say when Laurin asks why he's called the entire gang together to watch his army kill those 3 guys in the crater, "So my son can achieve his full heroic potential"?
As others have suggested, Tarquin was business before pleasure. He summoned the other members of the party because of the business of the gate. That could have really changed their game plan. Now the gate is destroyed and the alarm is off. Business is done. So the others are willing to let Tarquin play. The army, by the way, is purely Tarquin's and his toys to waste. The others likely don't approve, but they have their own armies. [and this is only one division of Tarquin's army. He has thousands more, 500 of which are finishing some treachery, and other units are elsewhere.] It's really none of their business.
I'd say that the others will help Tarquin if he asks. It's not like he faces a real threat. The Order is way outclassed. But with the loss of Malack, their game plan is a bit shaky, and the loss of Tarquin could cause serious problems. So even if it is just his play, they may feel they have to make sure he wins the fight even if he can do it himself.

[Porthos]

I think a lot of the disconnect with how some people are seeing Tarquin's actions is fairly simple to explain.

A) Tarquin has been shown to dealing with things that he thinks are important in a fairly ruthless way.

B) The forum at large thinks Xkyon is pretty darn important.

therefore,

C) A large portion of the forum expects Tarquin to view Xkyon with the same amount of importance that we do and act accordingly.

But it seems that he doesn't view Xykon as that important after all.

And thus the disconnect forms between how some expect Tarquin to act and how he is actually acting.

As to why Tarquin doesn't think Xykon is all that important (note, not 'unimportant' just 'not that important)? Who knows. It's been discussed (pro and con) to death. Maybe he doesn't think he really can do much of anything with Kraagor's Gate and thus it is 'power that he can't use'. Or maybe Tarquin's playing some sort of long game when it comes to Xykon and the Gate and still has some sort of plan for it helping him, though I doubt it given commentary from Rich.

But the actual business with Girard's Gate? That's quite decided. Thus there's nothing left on that score. And Elan? Well that might be both business and pleasure given Tarquin's plans for Elan.

[LadyEowyn]

My issue is expecting Tarquin to regard Xykon as a major threat. It's that Laurin and Myron should have some kind of a problem with Tarquin committing substantial resources to a goal that not only is no use to them, but that is intended to end in their empires' ultimate defeat. While Tarquin may be happy with the idea that he'll be defeated someday but have had a good run of it and told a good story, that doesn't mean that all the other members of his team are so sanguine about potential defeat and death.

Plus, he's wasting large numbers of soldiers, and he's unnecessarily revealed their six-person con to a group of heroic adventurers, a choice he made due to personal considerations.

I'd expect them to start objecting at some point before this is over.

[thereaper]

Tarquin believes that killing the OotS (minus Haley and Elan) won't matter, because more adventurers would conveniently appear to fill the gap. Therefore, in his mind, killing them doesn't hurt him.

Obviously, he's wrong, but that's beside the point.

[Amphiox]

I strongly suspect that "business" for Team Tarquin means whatever Tarquin decides and manages to convince a majority of his teammates of, and "pleasure" means whatever is not in that first category.

We are, thus far, not privy to whatever conversation Tarquin had with Laurin and Miron prior to assembling this force and coming here with them. We don't know what specifically he told them about the Order or the mission.

It is entirely possible that Laurin and Miron currently believe that attacking the Order is part of a larger plan that counts as "business", while Tarquin's interest in Elan is just the secondary "icing on the cake" as it were, so that Tarquin, to their minds, is accomplishing business AND pleasure at the same time, which is probably allowable under their agreed-upon rules.

[factotum]

As far as Tarquin's concerned, Xykon is a second-string villain whose only narrative purpose is to act as a speed bump on Elan's way to defeating the main villain--who is Tarquin himself, of course. He doesn't see Xykon as a threat to that. He *does* see Roy as a threat to it (because he's holding back Elan's true heroic nature), which is why it *is* business for him to immediately deal with Roy and forget Xykon for the moment.

Tarquin is, of course, entirely deluded in this belief, but I don't think that telling him HE's the second-string villain would go down all that well at the moment!

[Lombard]

Why is Xykon important again... he has one city, Tarquin has an empire. Oh yeah Xykon keeps trying and failing to secure a gate so that he can perform a ritual to control a 'Snarl', a purportedly uber-powerful being that doesn't appear to actually exist. Yeah, Tarquin should just drop everything and go get involved in that.

[Yendor]

I strongly suspect that "business" for Team Tarquin means whatever Tarquin decides and manages to convince a majority of his teammates of, and "pleasure" means whatever is not in that first category.

We are, thus far, not privy to whatever conversation Tarquin had with Laurin and Miron prior to assembling this force and coming here with them. We don't know what specifically he told them about the Order or the mission.

It is entirely possible that Laurin and Miron currently believe that attacking the Order is part of a larger plan that counts as "business", while Tarquin's interest in Elan is just the secondary "icing on the cake" as it were, so that Tarquin, to their minds, is accomplishing business AND pleasure at the same time, which is probably allowable under their agreed-upon rules.

Exactly. "Business before pleasure" is just a means of manipulating his team. Anything that gets in the way of Tarquin's plans gets shoved aside for whatever long-term goal he can convince them of. Malack got dragged into this mission by an implied promise Tarquin had no intention of keeping. If Nale had succeeded, Malack would have to suck it up. Nale failed completely, and killed Malack first chance he got, and still Tarquin thought he could "smooth it over" with Laurin.

If I was in Haley's position, I'd be having a quiet word with Laurin about Malack's death, and the threat they're really up against, and what she thinks about Tarquin's egocentric villanous fantasy.

[Taelas]

I strongly suspect that "business" for Team Tarquin means whatever Tarquin decides and manages to convince a majority of his teammates of, and "pleasure" means whatever is not in that first category.

We are, thus far, not privy to whatever conversation Tarquin had with Laurin and Miron prior to assembling this force and coming here with them. We don't know what specifically he told them about the Order or the mission.

It is entirely possible that Laurin and Miron currently believe that attacking the Order is part of a larger plan that counts as "business", while Tarquin's interest in Elan is just the secondary "icing on the cake" as it were, so that Tarquin, to their minds, is accomplishing business AND pleasure at the same time, which is probably allowable under their agreed-upon rules.

Basically, he tries to get away with as much as possible by passing it off as "business", but if they call him on an inconsistency, he's more than willing to accept the reprimand (even going so far as to apologize immediately).

A lot of normal people I know would do exactly the same, so I'm not sure why this is particularly noteworthy...?

[Morty]

Tarquin obeys rules, including his own, only for as long as it's convenient for him. Man, who would have thought?

[Der_DWSage]

Because the business was explicitly thus:

1)The desire to secure a potentially useful magical maguffin, now exploded, as others have stated.

2)The desire to groom Nale into a capable 7th party member for them. Regarded as business because, as much as they may dislike Nale, it's still recruitment. And if nothing else, Nale could've been a glorious patsy. When he showed he was too erratic and self-serving to be useful, Tarquin would've had much more difficulty convincing the rest of them of his usefulness.

3)Groom Elan into playing the 'Hero' in this tale. Uncertain if he explicitly called it as such, but judging by the way the rest of Team Tarquin is simply standing around while Tarquin calmly tells Elan some key points implies that Tarquin might still not be telling him everything about his scheme with the Empire of Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Possibly still nursing hope that Elan can succeed him in the business, one way or another.

He's a villain, after all. They can, from time to time, lie to the heroes.

4)Killing off a potential future threat to Team Tarquin. Four high level adventurers against overwhelming odds? Certainly no way they can live...through...oh. Right. (Tarquin may have wanted to check his genre savvy there.) Still, killing off a potential future threat to Team Tarquin holds merit. Especially since they're the only other ones, so far as Tarquin knows, that has knowledge of the Gates beyond Xykon.

And finally, they may well be there for the fun of it. Yes, business before pleasure-but much of the business seems to be wrapped up, and they seem to trust Tarquin as far as they can throw him. After all, he's the one that came up with the scheme in the first place, at least according to his narration. Tarquin seems capable enough to smooth things over afterwards-just look at how the fight with him and the Lizgreaper went. He was dressed down, apologized, and they were best friends right after.

So why pleasure before business? Because business seems to be wrapped up, so they may as well catch something more interesting than the typical gladiatorial battle.

[Kish]

As Gift Jeraff, Amphiox, Yendor, and Morty said: What happened to it, is that it is and was always as fundamentally dishonest and self-serving as every other word out of Tarquin's mouth.

[pendell]

Given that "Buissness before Pleasure" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html) seems to be the main philosphy of Team Tarquin, if not Tarquin's personal mantra, why is he suddenly engaging in a time-wasting, resource-draining diversion while there's a scenery-chewing villain trying to take over the world? All for the sake of an ego he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of the mission (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0854.html)?

And why is the rest of his team going along with it? What's he going to say when Laurin asks why he's called the entire gang together to watch his army kill those 3 guys in the crater, "So my son can achieve his full heroic potential"?

Tarquin, being lawful evil, manipulates the rules for his own personal benefit. In this last few strips "business before pleasure" was nothing more than a pretext Tarquin used to keep Nale alive , like a lawyer using every angle at trial.

It should be noted that Tarquin hasn't actually involved the rest of his team in his own personal business yet -- only his troops. So 'business before pleasure isn't a factor right now'. Now, *I* would think he owes a debt of honor to them not to sacrifice them uselessly, but whatever my alignment it's a bit shallower on the evil scale than his is :).

Also, Tarquin doesn't think the way we do. He thinks he's in a story (true) and that Elan is the main protaganist (false) of which Tarquin is the main villain (false). Therefore he concludes Elan is fated to overcome this "cheesy side villain" before moving on to the main event.

As I've said before -- I would like to see a sequel with Tarquin and Elan, because I think Tarquin is right in this -- there IS a good story to be told in the overthrow of the empire of blood. But unlike Tarquin, i recognize that Xykon is the main villain of the strip (though he may be replaced by Redcloak or the Dark one). I would find it very unsatisfying for the Giant to spend all this time writing Tarquin into his world, only to kill him out of it at the end of this book. Tarquin hasn't *earned* his death yet, in story terms, so far as I'm concerned. In real life, people die randomly all the time in dramatically inappropriate ways, such that some have accused life of being a meaningless farce. Whatever the truth about the real world (and I don't believe it, but it's out of forum scope), it is definitely NOT true of OOTS. Tarquin is right: OOTSworld runs on drama first, then gaming, then science and magic. However, his oversized ego distorts his appreciation of this, causing him to take actions which may wind up destroying the world and everyone in it, himself included.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[foyrkopp]

If we watch it from his Teammates' point of view, this is propably not "business", since they're unlikely to be part of Tarquins Elan-shaped retirement plan - Malack certainly wasn't.

How much T is willing and able to twist that perspective is another matter entirely.

[Diadem]

Yeah I don't see an inconsistency here either.

There is no business here. The gate is gone, Nale is dead. We don't know what Laurin and Miron think of Tarquin's plan to create a legendary confrontation between father and son - they might unaware of it (though Tarquin seemed to have been pretty honest about it towards Malack at least), they might not care, they might even approve. We just don't know enough about them.

But regardless, it seems likely that they'll see it as something that has no direct relevance to them. Why should they object to Tarquin's hobbies when those hobbies don't involve them? I'm sure they all have t heir hobbies too.

And even if they do care: Tarquin is currently trying to kill several high level enemies who are aware of their grand scheme. They have absolutely no reason to object to that. Quite the contrary. And if the order does defeat Tarquin's army? Well that just proofs they are a genuine thread. Also, opportunities for gaining experience are probably rare, so why not get personally involved?

[King of Nowhere]

My issue is expecting Tarquin to regard Xykon as a major threat. It's that Laurin and Myron should have some kind of a problem with Tarquin committing substantial resources to a goal that not only is no use to them, but that is intended to end in their empires' ultimate defeat.

Maybe they all share tarquin's opinion that some hero would come along sooner or later and defeat them all, so it may as well be the son of the party leader to make a better story.

[Kish]

Maybe they all share tarquin's opinion that some hero would come along sooner or later and defeat them all, so it may as well be the son of the party leader to make a better story.
Malack didn't see it that way.

I suspect most of the others are closer to Malack's view than Tarquin's.

[stavro375]

Laurin and Miron have no personal stake in this, at least as far as we know. Most likely, even if they didn't approve of wasting soldiers, they're probably willing to let one another indulge their selves as long as there's no significant or personal conflict of interests.

Secondly, even if they did, he'd just try to talk his way out of it. It's obvious that Laurin was hurt by Malack's death, but Tarquin was planning to spare Nale anyway.
Fair enough. Tarquin's team may start asking questions when he gets personally involved in finishing off the Order (which he'll probably have to now that V, Elan, and Haley have/are about to regroup with Roy), but he's proven his ability to talk his way out of jams.

But one of the main reasons I'm befuddled by Tarquin is this:

As far as Tarquin's concerned, Xykon is a second-string villain whose only narrative purpose is to act as a speed bump on Elan's way to defeating the main villain--who is Tarquin himself, of course.
<snip>
Tarquin is, of course, entirely deluded in this belief, but I don't think that telling him HE's the second-string villain would go down all that well at the moment!
Tarquin doesn't know Xykon's capabilities, assets, or even location, but is assuming that he's not a threat based off narrative convention alone. It's as if he's never heard a story where some unassuming background character is suddenly revealed to be the main villain of the story.
And this comic may play fast-and-loose with the fourth wall, but there's only so far I as a reader am willing to let characters acknowledge that things happen because the author said so. And Tarquin's letting narrative convention not just influence, but dicate his planning goes beyond that point. Usually when characters in the strip acknowledge narrative convention, it's to explain recent events or choose from multiple courses of action... not choose an insane plan over a sensible one.

[Kish]

And this comic may play fast-and-loose with the fourth wall, but there's only so far I as a reader am willing to let characters [act on not-story-internal motivations]. And Tarquin's letting narrative convention not just influence, but dicate his planning goes beyond that point.
...Then you fundamentally reject Tarquin and you should either stop reading now because the story is too offensive to you, or try to ignore all the parts of the story with Tarquin in it.

I confess, I really do not understand the number of readers who have apparently been going, "Tarquin's so cool! So intelligent! He handed out a guard manual that said 'We do not have surprise inspections, the inspectors in front of you are intruders, get them!' yay! ...His narrative fixations are leading him to be wrong rather than right? No no no, that's too much of a breach in the fourth wall for this comic where a semi-major villain was out of the action for hundreds of strips after winning a battle and then being carted off by lawyers for being an intellectual property violation!"

(I also think "an ego he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of the mission" greatly overstates the amount of ego-mortification involved in mouthing an empty apology to Malack.)

[NerdyKris]

Fair enough. Tarquin's team may start asking questions when he gets personally involved in finishing off the Order (which he'll probably have to now that V, Elan, and Haley have/are about to regroup with Roy), but he's proven his ability to talk his way out of jams.

But one of the main reasons I'm befuddled by Tarquin is this:

Tarquin doesn't know Xykon's capabilities, assets, or even location, but is assuming that he's not a threat based off narrative convention alone. It's as if he's never heard a story where some unassuming background character is suddenly revealed to be the main villain of the story.
And this comic may play fast-and-loose with the fourth wall, but there's only so far I as a reader am willing to let characters acknowledge that things happen because the author said so. And Tarquin's letting narrative convention not just influence, but dicate his planning goes beyond that point. Usually when characters in the strip acknowledge narrative convention, it's to explain recent events or choose from multiple courses of action... not choose an insane plan over a sensible one.


Tarquin is an evil Bard. Not the class, but the concept of a person completely educated in the tradition of telling stories. He's insane.

He knows nothing of Xykon. He assumes he's a minor villain in the story because Tarquin is completely delusional that he is a legend. He's not seeing the narrative threads that bind the story. He's seeing what he believes are the narrative threads that bind the story. And he's completely wrong.

If you reject him, you'd have to reject Elan as well, since they are fundamentally seeing the same thing. It's just that where Elan sees uncertainty and suspense, Tarquin sees a roadmap that he can control.

[Reddish Mage]

Tarquin is an evil Bard. Not the class, but the concept of a person completely educated in the tradition of telling stories. He's insane.

He knows nothing of Xykon. He assumes he's a minor villain in the story because Tarquin is completely delusional that he is a legend. He's not seeing the narrative threads that bind the story. He's seeing what he believes are the narrative threads that bind the story. And he's completely wrong.

If you reject him, you'd have to reject Elan as well, since they are fundamentally seeing the same thing. It's just that where Elan sees uncertainty and suspense, Tarquin sees a roadmap that he can control.

I was with you up till the last paragraph. Elan sees the story for what it is and chooses to play his assigned role, whether it is as the hero or the clown. Tarquin sees a completely different story and tries to fit whatever he sees into that framework.

[Scow2]

Weird, he doesn't seem to have gone blind or anything. :smalltongue:Actually, Tarquin is very, very blind, especially toward Genre and his Role in the Narrative.

[Amphiox]

But one of the main reasons I'm befuddled by Tarquin is this:

Tarquin doesn't know Xykon's capabilities, assets, or even location, but is assuming that he's not a threat based off narrative convention alone. It's as if he's never heard a story where some unassuming background character is suddenly revealed to be the main villain of the story.
And this comic may play fast-and-loose with the fourth wall, but there's only so far I as a reader am willing to let characters acknowledge that things happen because the author said so. And Tarquin's letting narrative convention not just influence, but dicate his planning goes beyond that point. Usually when characters in the strip acknowledge narrative convention, it's to explain recent events or choose from multiple courses of action... not choose an insane plan over a sensible one.

You have to remember that in all likelihood, for Tarquin, himself being the main villain is not a conclusion he derived from any form of reasoning, whether it be from narrative convention or otherwise. It is his starting premise.

He is the main villain because his ego allows him to contemplate no other option. All his thinking is reasoning out from that starting point. But that premise he does not question. It is his *faith*.

[Amphiox]

We should also note that, from the perspective of Tarquin's teammates, Tarquin's defeat, whether at the hands of Elan or anyone else, does not necessarily mean their own falls.

They have divided the continent among themselves, and if Tarquin goes down, the scheme they've been using to suppress challenges to their power goes down. BUT, more likely than not, aside from Tarquin's one partner-du-jour, who might end up going down with him (and might not - he or she might escape to join the others), the others will still be in control of their own territories. They may well feel confident that they can make a go of it without Tarquin. They may even relish the thought of getting out from under Tarquin's thumb.

The attitude Laurin and Miron might be having right now with Tarquin wasting this particular unit is "it's your army. Do with it as you wish. Just remember that if you weaken yourself so much that you make yourself vulnerable in the future, don't expect us to bail you out. Business before pleasure, and if the scheme can not be maintained because of your weakness, then we will simply find another one, without you."

[stavro375]

...Then you fundamentally reject Tarquin and you should either stop reading now because the story is too offensive to you, or try to ignore all the parts of the story with Tarquin in it.

I confess, I really do not understand the number of readers who have apparently been going, "Tarquin's so cool! So intelligent! He handed out a guard manual that said 'We do not have surprise inspections, the inspectors in front of you are intruders, get them!' yay! ...His narrative fixations are leading him to be wrong rather than right? No no no, that's too much of a breach in the fourth wall for this comic where a semi-major villain was out of the action for hundreds of strips after winning a battle and then being carted off by lawyers for being an intellectual property violation!"

...You appear to misunderstand my argument on its most basic level. I find it incredibly distasteful that he has that level of "narrative fixation" at all. Tarquin, in relying on Elan to secure the final gate and then doing everything in his power to make Elan fail, is comitting to a course of action that only seems sane to someone who accepts that everything happens because the author says so. As someone trying to buy into The Giant's facade that there's an internal logic that dictates the story's events, I find Tarquin's motivations distasteful.

It's generally understood by all the characters in this strip that, in addition to all the physical, natural, and magical laws that define their world, there are also "narrative laws" that dictate that odd things can happen when dramatically appropriate. Most characters use this knowledge to explain recent events (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0246.html), or choose between multiple sane plans (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0901.html). There's an excess to Tarquin's blind assumptions that:
-There's ONE AND ONLY ONE story
-There can be ONE AND ONLY ONE villain
and
-All other villains (indeed, characters!) cannot change the course of the story
Which I am objecting to. And I cannot understand how Tarquin's explicitly calling attention to how things happen because of author fiat can even compare to Z's getting carted away because of an IP violation.



Tarquin is an evil Bard. Not the class, but the concept of a person completely educated in the tradition of telling stories. He's insane.

If he's insane how has he became the ruler of almost half a continent?

[Kish]

...You appear to misunderstand my argument on its most basic level. I find it incredibly distasteful that he has that level of "narrative fixation" at all.

Sorry, I must have misunderstood, probably because of mistakenly associating you with other people who think Tarquin just mysteriously stopped acting like the super-competent image they have of him rather than grasping that his core is fundamentally as irrational as either of his sons. If you recognize that Tarquin's narrative fixation has always been part of his character then the only thing left to say is that I'm puzzled you're reacting that way now, and not, say, when he was introduced, or when the lawyers carried off Zz'dtri...


If he's insane how has he became the ruler of almost half a continent?
...:smallconfused:

[Porthos]

If he's insane how has he became the ruler of almost half a continent?

If one is looking at it from a non-meta point of view, he guessed right when it came to how to take over things. Or call it gambler's luck if you will.

He's been guessing that he's the villain of 'the story' (one he is creating) and by doing things that a smart, savvy, Evil Overlord should do, he got into a position of power.

The problem is, his strength is his weakness. He's used all the tropes on how to be an Evil Overlord (using the [in]famous Evil Overlord list) to perfection. But in so doing, he's convinced himself that since he is A Evil Overlord, he must be THE Evil Overlord of the story. And thus whoever this Zyklon fellow is, he ultimately can't be that important.

If Tarquin hadn't been as successful as he had been up to this point, maybe he'd give more credance to the idea that Xykon is the bigger bad of 'the story'. But from where Tarquin is sitting, why wouldn't he presume he is bigger and badder than Xykon? And act accordingly.

[137beth]

...You appear to misunderstand my argument on its most basic level. I find it incredibly distasteful that he has that level of "narrative fixation" at all. Tarquin, in relying on Elan to secure the final gate and then doing everything in his power to make Elan fail, is comitting to a course of action that only seems sane to someone who accepts that everything happens because the author says so. As someone trying to buy into The Giant's facade that there's an internal logic that dictates the story's events, I find Tarquin's motivations distasteful.

It's generally understood by all the characters in this strip that, in addition to all the physical, natural, and magical laws that define their world, there are also "narrative laws" that dictate that odd things can happen when dramatically appropriate. Most characters use this knowledge to explain recent events (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0246.html), or choose between multiple sane plans (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0901.html). There's an excess to Tarquin's blind assumptions that:
-There's ONE AND ONLY ONE story
-There can be ONE AND ONLY ONE villain
and
-All other villains (indeed, characters!) cannot change the course of the story
Which I am objecting to. And I cannot understand how Tarquin's explicitly calling attention to how things happen because of author fiat can even compare to Z's getting carted away because of an IP violation.



If he's insane how has he became the ruler of almost half a continent?

As far as I remember Tarquin has never said anything about any "author", of any sort whatsoever.

He has said that he wants people to write about his 'legendary' story. He doesn't think, nor has he implied, that Xykon is weak and not a threat due to some mysterious author, he thinks Xykon is not a threat because he has such high self-esteem that he assumes he is the most important person in the universe. In fact, if he could actually break the 4th wall, then he would understand that the story is about Xykon. His assumptions about his own importance depend on not knowing he is in a comic. He wants to create a story that Elan can write about. Not only does that have virtually nothing to do with breaking the fourth wall, it only works because he doesn't have 4th-wall knowledge!

[veti]

You have to remember that in all likelihood, for Tarquin, himself being the main villain is not a conclusion he derived from any form of reasoning, whether it be from narrative convention or otherwise. It is his starting premise.

He is the main villain because his ego allows him to contemplate no other option. All his thinking is reasoning out from that starting point. But that premise he does not question. It is his *faith*.

Another way of looking at it is: it's his goal. If he's not the main villain, then his fall isn't the climax of Elan's story, and he can be swept aside like the second-stringer (we generally assume) he is.

So "making the plot all about himself" is a necessary part of his plan. It prolongs his own life expectancy, which is the entire point of everything he does.


It's that Laurin and Myron should have some kind of a problem with Tarquin committing substantial resources to a goal that not only is no use to them, but that is intended to end in their empires' ultimate defeat. While Tarquin may be happy with the idea that he'll be defeated someday but have had a good run of it and told a good story, that doesn't mean that all the other members of his team are so sanguine about potential defeat and death.

If (as seems likely) Laurin and Myron don't share Tarquin's obsession with narrative, then they'll see the situation quite differently. From their perspective, what Tarquin's doing is eliminating, not strengthening, a potential threat to them. So again, no conflict there.

As for the "waste of resources" - it's entirely possible Tarquin simply has no further use for this particular (regiment, is it?), and killing them off is cheaper than paying them off.

[stavro375]

Sorry, I must have misunderstood, probably because of mistakenly associating you with other people who think Tarquin just mysteriously stopped acting like the super-competent image they have of him rather than grasping that his core is fundamentally as irrational as either of his sons.

I've always been confused by people who claim he's "fundamentally irrational". From where I stand, someone who has been ruling (by proxy) one of the largest nations in the world for many decades in a region notorious for political instability is by definition "super-competent."


Although I do admit that this:

If one is looking at it from a non-meta point of view, he guessed right when it came to how to take over things. Or call it gambler's luck if you will.

He's been guessing that he's the villain of 'the story' (one he is creating) and by doing things that a smart, savvy, Evil Overlord should do, he got into a position of power.

The problem is, his strength is his weakness. He's used all the tropes on how to be an Evil Overlord (using the famous Evil Overlord list) to perfection. But in so doing, he's convinced himself that since he is A Evil Overlord, he must be THE Evil Overlord of the story. And thus whoever this Zyklon fellow is, he ultimately can't be that important.

If Tarquin hadn't been as successful as he had been up to this point, maybe he'd give more credance to the idea that Xykon is the bigger bad of 'the story'. But from where Tarquin is sitting, why wouldn't he presume he is bigger and badder than Xykon? And act accordingly.
Is a fairly good thesis statement for the "Tarquin isn't as smart as he seems" camp.




As far as I remember Tarquin has never said anything about any "author", of any sort whatsoever.

He has said that he [I]wants people to write about his 'legendary' story. He doesn't think, nor has he implied, that Xykon is weak and not a threat due to some mysterious author, he thinks Xykon is not a threat because he has such high self-esteem that he assumes he is the most important person in the universe.
Tarquin hasn't explicitly confessed he's relying on Author Fiat to save him when Xykon tries to seize the last gate, but he is still saying it. We don't know how much he's been told about Xykon, but given that Nale used to work for the lich (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0057.html) it's reasonable to assume that he told Tarquin that some sort of powerful lich sorcerer is racing the Order to secure the final gate. Of course, Tarquin's far from the only character to recognize that Dramatic Causality is a powerful force, but his plan is literally "Cripple Elan's ability to defeat Xykon, and then blindly hope that the lich doesn't take over the world before Elan can rebuild his team" -- it's pretty clear that he's expecting the internal logic of his story to be completely ignored by what the narrative requires. Which is more-or-less the definition of Author Fiat.

[137beth]

Tarquin hasn't explicitly confessed he's relying on Author Fiat to save him when Xykon tries to seize the last gate, but he is still saying it. We don't know how much he's been told about Xykon, but given that Nale used to work for the lich (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0057.html) it's reasonable to assume that he told Tarquin that some sort of powerful lich sorcerer is racing the Order to secure the final gate. Of course, Tarquin's far from the only character to recognize that Dramatic Causality is a powerful force, but his plan is literally "Cripple Elan's ability to defeat Xykon, and then blindly hope that the lich doesn't take over the world before Elan can rebuild his team" -- it's pretty clear that he's expecting the internal logic of his story to be completely ignored by what the narrative requires. Which is more-or-less the definition of Author Fiat.
It is highly unlikely that Nale gave Tarquin anything resembling an accurate idea of how powerful Xykon was:
if Tarquin knew how strong Xykon was, he would know there would be no way to get the ritual from him, and Nale would know Tarquin would realize that. Tarquin would try to play down Xykon's power, to convince Tarquin that there was even a chance Nale might be able to get the ritual from him.
Tarquin has no reason to think that Xykon is as powerful as he is--
and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Tarquin just assumes that he is the center of everything, because that is how he behaves.

And no, he never said, or implied, anything about 'author fiat'. He's working purely from the assumption that he is the most powerful villain in the world. If he knew anything about the 'author', he would know he wasn't the main villain. Again, his current mindset depends on NOT knowing he is in a webcomic. There is virtually no time he has said, explicitly or otherwise, anything about author fiat--because he is completely ignorant of the story he is in.

[Poppatomus]

Of course, Tarquin's far from the only character to recognize that Dramatic Causality is a powerful force, but his plan is literally "Cripple Elan's ability to defeat Xykon, and then blindly hope that the lich doesn't take over the world before Elan can rebuild his team" -- it's pretty clear that he's expecting the internal logic of his story to be completely ignored by what the narrative requires. Which is more-or-less the definition of Author Fiat.

Except he doesn't see it as crippling Elan. He sees it more as killing Batman's parents: A way of motivating the "main" protagonist to be even more effectivel later. In his mind, Elan has to be the key part of the OoTS, the same way Nale once assumed that Elan had to be the leader of the party.

It's not blind trust in authorial fiat, it's run-of-the-mill evil overconfidence. He thinks he has things figured out, and part of his understanding is that there couldn't be a story as important as his story.

You're right that he is being foolish in not more accurately assessing Xykon, but he doesn't think he needs to, because he thinks that understanding the story is more important than understanding reality. (at least his fictional reality.)

[Lombard]

While it would seem odd since Xykon's been with us since the very beginning, I'm struggling trying to figure out why Tarquin is not the most dangerous/powerful villain at this point. Isn't it possible that Tarquin is actually right about that?

Certainly Xykon is probably, one on one, the baddest mofo in the setting. However, Tarquin has far more resources at his disposal, and seems much better equipped mentally and temperamentally towards being able to leverage the resources he has towards his evil goals. The biggest threat Xykon presented, i.e. the control of a gate and the Snarl ritual, doesn't seem to be much of a threat at all anymore.

[Forikroder]

Given that "Buissness before Pleasure" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html) seems to be the main philosphy of Team Tarquin, if not Tarquin's personal mantra, why is he suddenly engaging in a time-wasting, resource-draining diversion while there's a scenery-chewing villain trying to take over the world? All for the sake of an ego he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of the mission (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0854.html)?

And why is the rest of his team going along with it? What's he going to say when Laurin asks why he's called the entire gang together to watch his army kill those 3 guys in the crater, "So my son can achieve his full heroic potential"?

what there doing isnt hindering bussiness in any way so its fully under the pleasure category

as for why the rest if the team is going along with it, there probably enjoying the spectacle maybe eying up the vampire cleric in the crater there are down a member


While it would seem odd since Xykon's been with us since the very beginning, I'm struggling trying to figure out why Tarquin is not the most dangerous/powerful villain at this point. Isn't it possible that Tarquin is actually right about that?

Certainly Xykon is probably, one on one, the baddest mofo in the setting. However, Tarquin has far more resources at his disposal, and seems much better equipped mentally and temperamentally towards being able to leverage the resources he has towards his evil goals. The biggest threat Xykon presented, i.e. the control of a gate and the Snarl ritual, doesn't seem to be much of a threat at all anymore.

Xykon is not the most dangerous villain, thats the IFCC since we dont know what there planning

Xykon is the most powerful villain, epic level sorcerers are scary especially with the MiTD backing him up

Tarquin is probably going to be the hardest one to deal with since hes focusing on maintaining the status quo using the power hes already obtained VS Xykon whos trying to obtain power still and therefore vulnerable

[veti]

Remember, Tarquin thinks he's a Xanatos grandmaster, turning every plot twist to his advantage. From his point of view, the most recent relevant plot twist was Elan's arrival and his declaration of enmity.

It took Tarquin all of about two panels to see how that could be turned to his advantage. Dramatic Convention now requires (a) that Elan be the one to defeat him, and (b) that this shouldn't happen any time soon, because that would just be anticlimactic. Great! He gets to continue his plan for another ten years ("http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html), before he even has to worry about being deposed!

However, he knows there are two possible, quite different, stories that could be going on:

The OOTS, of which Elan is just one member, is on a world-saving quest to stop Xykon. Epic, sure, but in that story Elan is just a sidekick, and Tarquin a sub-boss. So he's got no plot armour, and can be wiped out any moment now.
Elan, in the course of his quest to stop Xykon, discovers his true nemesis - his own father - who needs to be defeated in order to complete Elan's story. In this story, Tarquin is the final boss, and he can't be defeated until the end, which he "estimates" as about ten more years away.


So it makes perfect sense (to Tarquin) that all Tarquin's energy is now devoted to making sure that he's in Story 2. This Zykon dude may or may not be a threat to the entire world, but Elan is going to defeat him anyway - we know that, it's implied by the very existence of the story. What's in doubt is Tarquin's life expectancy.

He's just doing what he has to do...

[KillianHawkeye]

I've always been confused by people who claim he's "fundamentally irrational". From where I stand, someone who has been ruling (by proxy) one of the largest nations in the world for many decades in a region notorious for political instability is by definition "super-competent."

There is a flaw in your logic. You believe that someone who is irrational cannot also be competent, when in fact the two qualities have no relationship whatsoever.

[Forikroder]

Remember, Tarquin thinks he's a Xanatos grandmaster, turning every plot twist to his advantage. From his point of view, the most recent relevant plot twist was Elan's arrival and his declaration of enmity.

It took Tarquin all of about two panels to see how that could be turned to his advantage. Dramatic Convention now requires (a) that Elan be the one to defeat him, and (b) that this shouldn't happen any time soon, because that would just be anticlimactic. Great! He gets to continue his plan for another ten years ("http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html), before he even has to worry about being deposed!

However, he knows there are two possible, quite different, stories that could be going on:

The OOTS, of which Elan is just one member, is on a world-saving quest to stop Xykon. Epic, sure, but in that story Elan is just a sidekick, and Tarquin a sub-boss. So he's got no plot armour, and can be wiped out any moment now.
Elan, in the course of his quest to stop Xykon, discovers his true nemesis - his own father - who needs to be defeated in order to complete Elan's story. In this story, Tarquin is the final boss, and he can't be defeated until the end, which he "estimates" as about ten more years away.


So it makes perfect sense (to Tarquin) that all Tarquin's energy is now devoted to making sure that he's in Story 2. This Zykon dude may or may not be a threat to the entire world, but Elan is going to defeat him anyway - we know that, it's implied by the very existence of the story. What's in doubt is Tarquin's life expectancy.

He's just doing what he has to do...
his life expectancy was never a problem, noone ever kills the evil king before he becomes King, Tarquin was always guranteed to survive long enough to control the entire desert


There is a flaw in your logic. You believe that someone who is irrational cannot also be competent, when in fact the two qualities have no relationship whatsoever.

Tarquin is completely rational, hes just insane

[Tvtyrant]

his life expectancy was never a problem, noone ever kills the evil king before he becomes King, Tarquin was always guranteed to survive long enough to control the entire desert



Tarquin is completely rational, hes just insane

I don't think he is insane or irrational... He is simply wrong. He has been extremely successful at his scheme so far, he practically beat the entire band (minus V) of adventurers singlehanded before, and his friends are all extremely high level. Nothing so far has shaken his world view that he is the most important thing in existence.

That is because he is a frog at the bottom of a well ruling the reflection of a moon, never looking up to see the real thing.

[Forikroder]

I don't think he is insane or irrational... He is simply wrong. He has been extremely successful at his scheme so far, he practically beat the entire band (minus V) of adventurers singlehanded before, and his friends are all extremely high level. Nothing so far has shaken his world view that he is the most important thing in existence.

That is because he is a frog at the bottom of a well ruling the reflection of a moon, never looking up to see the real thing.

no hes no frog at the bottom of the well, hes an extremely powerful travelled adventurers with extremely powerful travelled partners

hes insane becuase he thinks the rules of narrative can, and should, be applied to the real world, he thinks the world is just a story and by knowing how storys go he knows whats going to happen next and takes actions based entirely on that

[Tvtyrant]

no hes no frog at the bottom of the well, hes an extremely powerful travelled adventurers with extremely powerful travelled partners

hes insane becuase he thinks the rules of narrative can, and should, be applied to the real world, he thinks the world is just a story and by knowing how storys go he knows whats going to happen next and takes actions based entirely on that
Nativity can strike even the most well traveled individual.

In a world ruled entirely by narratives. It makes perfect sense, the heroes often resort to it as well. The whole drama and probability line? In a world where everything really is governed by stories it is sane to follow the conventions of them; he just happens to be in the wrong story.

[Forikroder]

Nativity can strike even the most well traveled individual.

In a world ruled entirely by narratives. It makes perfect sense, the heroes often resort to it as well. The whole drama and probability line? In a world where everything really is governed by stories it is sane to follow the conventions of them; he just happens to be in the wrong story.

the world is not ruled by Narratives Roy is not guranted to defeat Xykon he can fail

[Tvtyrant]

the world is not ruled by Narratives Roy is not guranted to defeat Xykon he can fail

Really? You think Xykon is going to succeed? Interesting.

The comics characters have repeatedly pointed out how narrative driven their world is, including the arrow scene, the demon summoning, surviving an explosion by turning their back to it, etc. Ignoring that kind of direct interference in their lives would be insane, while living in it at least makes rational sense.

[Forikroder]

Really? You think Xykon is going to succeed? Interesting.

The comics characters have repeatedly pointed out how narrative driven their world is, including the arrow scene, the demon summoning, surviving an explosion by turning their back to it, etc. Ignoring that kind of direct interference in their lives would be insane, while living in it at least makes rational sense.

your not getting it at all

yes OoTS is a story so its pretty much inevitable that good triumphs over evil yadda yadda yadda

but for the OoTS its not a story, its real life good doesnt always win hence, Durkons new fasion statement

if someone came up to you in real life and said "lets dress up in tights and run around fighting crime, dont worry about being killed Heros never die in story" would you think that person was sane?

[Poppatomus]

Really? You think Xykon is going to succeed? Interesting.

The comics characters have repeatedly pointed out how narrative driven their world is, including the arrow scene, the demon summoning, surviving an explosion by turning their back to it, etc. Ignoring that kind of direct interference in their lives would be insane, while living in it at least makes rational sense.

Agree with you completely on the latter (and would add that the identification of PCs and NPCs is probably the best evidence of this) but disagree on the conclusion in this instance.

That the world is narrative driven does not mean that the bad guys can't win, or that the good guys will always win. It just changes what matters to your planning and to your tactics.

[Poppatomus]

your not getting it at all
if someone came up to you in real life and said "lets dress up in tights and run around fighting crime, dont worry about being killed Heros never die in story" would you think that person was sane?

They do say that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.

[Forikroder]

Agree with you completely on the latter (and would add that the identification of PCs and NPCs is probably the best evidence of this) but disagree on the conclusion in this instance.

That the world is narrative driven does not mean that the bad guys can't win, or that the good guys will always win. It just changes what matters to your planning and to your tactics.

actually thats exactly what it means, narratively the good guys always win, no matter how grim or how terrible it gets, the good guys always win

no matter how deep the author digs a hole the good guy always climbs out even if the heroine has to randomly smash apart time/space with a hammer

[Poppatomus]

actually thats exactly what it means, narratively the good guys always win, no matter how grim or how terrible it gets, the good guys always win

no matter how deep the author digs a hole the good guy always climbs out even if the heroine has to randomly smash apart time/space with a hammer

I was agreeing with your point there. My intended meaning was that, within a story, knowing that you are the hero doesn't allow you to rest on your laurels, because it might turn out that you aren't meant to win now, or in this way, or without paying some much greater cost.

That's why Tarqin can rule the Western continent, and why Xykon can taunt Roy on the dragon's back about needing to go grab some more levels before facing him, time that might well allow Xykon to seize a rift (making the story less Lord of the Rings and more Empire Strikes back).

[Forikroder]

I was agreeing with your point there. My intended meaning was that, within a story, knowing that you are the hero doesn't allow you to rest on your laurels, because it might turn out that you aren't meant to win now, or in this way, or without paying some much greater cost.

That's why Tarqin can rule the Western continent, and why Xykon can taunt Roy on the dragon's back about needing to go grab some more levels before facing him, time that might well allow Xykon to seize a rift (making the story less Lord of the Rings and more Empire Strikes back).

they can only do that because Tarquin is fine with being immortalized and Xykons not insane enough to think that the laws of narrative are real

Xykon said that to Roy not because he knew he would eventually lose, but because it wouldnt be fun just killing Roy he wanted a challenge

noone in the OoTS verse (aside from Tarquin) thinks that narrative rules are real rules (because there not) just like how noone in this world (aside from the insane) think that there real rules

[Poppatomus]

they can only do that because Tarquin is fine with being immortalized and Xykons not insane enough to think that the laws of narrative are real

Xykon said that to Roy not because he knew he would eventually lose, but because it wouldnt be fun just killing Roy he wanted a challenge

noone in the OoTS verse (aside from Tarquin) thinks that narrative rules are real rules (because there not) just like how noone in this world (aside from the insane) think that there real rules

Thinking on this, I am persuaded. It's been too long with Tarqin (and Elan, to a large extent, as he seems to have a very similar approach as his father on this point) dominating this kind of expository stuff, and I'd been lulled into reinterpreting some of the earlier material through that lens. But you are right that even if others are aware of certain conventions, they don't believe that those conventions actually control outcomes.

[Lombard]

noone in the OoTS verse (aside from Tarquin) thinks that narrative rules are real rules (because there not) just like how noone in this world (aside from the insane) think that there real rules

Elan. Also, stop acting like you don't know the difference between there, they're, and their. Dumbed-down trope of second Bush term is passé as hell by now. :miko:

[Kish]

I've always been confused by people who claim he's "fundamentally irrational". From where I stand, someone who has been ruling (by proxy) one of the largest nations in the world for many decades in a region notorious for political instability is by definition "super-competent."
Always been confused, and then he acts in a way that isn't super-competent and you come onto the forum and complain about it instead of considering that maybe, just maybe, there was something fundamentally mistaken in your assumption that the fact that Tarquin's scam is working means Tarquin is rational.

Try rereading the comics since he's been introduced, with an eye to what he actually does. He flaunts being as cartoonishly evil as Xykon to the extent that he can't even eat food that isn't horrifically evil. He forces women who hate him to marry him instead of charming a woman who would be thrilled to be the General's wife. As long as you were taking the attitude, "Dangerous mistake=something Tarquin doesn't make," the only question was when your image of him was going to meet an extinction-level clash with the image in the comic, or to put it another way, when one of his myriad compulsions was going to actually cause him harm rather than being absorbed by the raw power of his position.

[Werbaer]

Really? You think Xykon is going to succeed? Interesting.
What happens if Xykon is winning?
He can't control the Snarl, even if he controls the last gate.
If he completes the ritual together with Redcloak, this is not necessary the end of the world; the blackmail of the Dark One might be successfull.

So even if Xykon "wins" the fight for the gates, maybe all that happens is that goblins are no longer XP fodder for the other races.

(ok, there's still an epic evil lich out there somewhere, who needs to be stopped)

[F.Harr]

Given that "Buissness before Pleasure" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html) seems to be the main philosphy of Team Tarquin, if not Tarquin's personal mantra, why is he suddenly engaging in a time-wasting, resource-draining diversion while there's a scenery-chewing villain trying to take over the world? All for the sake of an ego he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of the mission (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0854.html)?

And why is the rest of his team going along with it? What's he going to say when Laurin asks why he's called the entire gang together to watch his army kill those 3 guys in the crater, "So my son can achieve his full heroic potential"?

He's evil and in charge. His definition of "business" is not necessarily the same as other people's. Remember Malek's chastisement?

[Skarn]

your not getting it at all

yes OoTS is a story so its pretty much inevitable that good triumphs over evil yadda yadda yadda

but for the OoTS its not a story, its real life good doesnt always win hence, Durkons new fasion statement
OoTS does know it's a story and a comic though. They break the fourth wall all the time, and they make repeated references to reading the speech bubbles rather than hearing things, and so on(heck, Haley solved a story problem (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0649.html) by robbing the cast page (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootscast.html)!) . Also, Elan isn't always right in his predictions, but he is often enough to warrant notice.

if someone came up to you in real life and said "lets dress up in tights and run around fighting crime, dont worry about being killed Heros never die in story" would you think that person was sane? I would wisely insist on being the protagonist, as that raises my odds quite a bit. The sidekick is often expendable :smalltongue:

Truthfully though, I would assume they're joking and humor them, but point out that heroes only get plot armor in poorly-written stories and ask who the author is. >_>

[Shale]

I'm a bit surprised Tarquin hasn't considered that he could be the villain of the sequel, where Elan and Haley take center stage after the team disbands, their mission accomplished. 10 years is more than enough time for that to happen.

Other than that, I find this to be entirely in keeping with what I know of him. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0412.html)

[allenw]

Weird, he doesn't seem to have gone blind or anything. :smalltongue:

That's why he needs the "Ring of True Seeing."

[F.Harr]

I'm a bit surprised Tarquin hasn't considered that he could be the villain of the sequel, where Elan and Haley take center stage after the team disbands, their mission accomplished. 10 years is more than enough time for that to happen.

Other than that, I find this to be entirely in keeping with what I know of him. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0412.html)

I think he has. But he specifically wants Elan to grow as a hero and to further that growth instead of giving him a side-quest or signing him up for a correspondence course or something, he's willing to kill Elan's best friend and surrogate older-brother.

Like I've said, Tarquin loves his sons and wants the best for them. He's just evil about it.

[Forikroder]

OoTS does know it's a story and a comic though. They break the fourth wall all the time, and they make repeated references to reading the speech bubbles rather than hearing things, and so on(heck, Haley solved a story problem by robbing the cast page!) . Also, Elan isn't always right in his predictions, but he is often enough to warrant notice.

only for Rich to make metahumour jokes about DnD and stories


Truthfully though, I would assume they're joking and humor them, but point out that heroes only get plot armor in poorly-written stories and ask who the author is. >_>

oh come on what story does the main character die?


Always been confused, and then he acts in a way that isn't super-competent and you come onto the forum and complain about it instead of considering that maybe, just maybe, there was something fundamentally mistaken in your assumption that the fact that Tarquin's scam is working means Tarquin is rational.

Try rereading the comics since he's been introduced, with an eye to what he actually does. He flaunts being as cartoonishly evil as Xykon to the extent that he can't even eat food that isn't horrifically evil. He forces women who hate him to marry him instead of charming a woman who would be thrilled to be the General's wife. As long as you were taking the attitude, "Dangerous mistake=something Tarquin doesn't make," the only question was when your image of him was going to meet an extinction-level clash with the image in the comic, or to put it another way, when one of his myriad compulsions was going to actually cause him harm rather than being absorbed by the raw power of his position.

hes like Kimbley, he understands how society works and knows how to pretend to follow there rules to blend in and seem like a sane rational person

[Shale]

oh come on what story does the main character die?



Well...uh...*cough* (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0443.html)

[Forikroder]

Well...uh...*cough* (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0443.html)

he got better that doesnt count and remained as the main character due to the coverage of his adventurers in skyland

[Amphiox]

Just because the characters are aware of narrative convention does not mean that the good guys triumph. Tragedy is a form of narrative too. Epic heroic fantasy not infrequently ends with disappointment if not death and failure for the hero (Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, etc). Empire narratives can end with the Evil Empire winning. Even a comedy can end with the world destroyed (anyone remember 'Mostly Harmless')?

[AKA_Bait]

he got better that doesnt count and remained as the main character due to the coverage of his adventurers in skyland

I can think of several where a/the main character dies during or at the end of the story. It happens for lots of reasons too.

See, e.g.,

Ned, Catelyn, and Robb Stark in the Game of Thrones series.
Kelsier in Mistborn.
Rorschach in Watchmen.
Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem (at least, before Conan Doyle caved to his fans).
Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin.
William Wallace in Braveheart.
Luke in Cool Hand Luke.
Donnie in Donnie Darko.
V in V for Vendetta.
Optimus Prime in Transformers:the movie.

[Forikroder]

I can think of several where a/the main character dies during or at the end of the story. It happens for lots of reasons too.

See, e.g.,

Ned, Catelyn, and Robb Stark in the Game of Thrones series.
Kelsier in Mistborn.
Rorschach in Watchmen.
Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem (at least, before Conan Doyle caved to his fans).
Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin.
William Wallace in Braveheart.
Luke in Cool Hand Luke.
Donnie in Donnie Darko.
V in V for Vendetta.
Optimus Prime in Transformers:the movie.



1. listing 3 people dieing makes it pretty obvious the MAIN character didnt die

2. unless your talking about the 3rd movie Optimus isnt dead

[David Argall]

While it would seem odd since Xykon's been with us since the very beginning, I'm struggling trying to figure out why Tarquin is not the most dangerous/powerful villain at this point. Isn't it possible that Tarquin is actually right about that?

Oh definitely. Now the odds are long, but there are several ways for the story to reveal that X is not a real threat. Say the Snarl has unraveled, making the rifts just a magical oddity. X retires to some remote castle where he amuses himself by killing minions. [Jobs must be really hard to find for evil minions if they are willing to work for him, but he does offer guaranteed life time careers.] Or Elan manages to tell X the real nature of the ritual, resulting in hilarity between X & Redcloak, and then X again becoming the "harmless" owner of that castle. We have had several others suggested. But there are a bunch of ways to center the story on the struggle to topple Tarquin.

[AKA_Bait]

1. listing 3 people dieing makes it pretty obvious the MAIN character didnt die

Did you read those books? At the point where those three characters are killed in their respective books, they are unquestionably main characters.

Alternatively, your definition is circular. i.e., an author never kills the main character, because once killed they can no longer be the main character regardless of what position they held in the story up until that point.


unless your talking about the 3rd movie Optimus isnt dead

I'm actually talking about the first movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092106/).

[Forikroder]

Did you read those books? At the point where those three characters are killed in their respective books, they are unquestionably main characters.

Alternatively, your definition is circular. i.e., an author never kills the main character, because once killed they can no longer be the main character regardless of what position they held in the story up until that point.



I'm actually talking about the first movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092106/).

considering optimus was alive at the end of the second movie, he obviously wasnt killed off

depsite a few books/movies bucking the trend the vast vast majority of literature does not have the main character die

[F.Harr]

Just because the characters are aware of narrative convention does not mean that the good guys triumph. Tragedy is a form of narrative too. Epic heroic fantasy not infrequently ends with disappointment if not death and failure for the hero (Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, etc). Empire narratives can end with the Evil Empire winning. Even a comedy can end with the world destroyed (anyone remember 'Mostly Harmless')?

Yup. Agamemnon dies. Hamlet dies. Romeo AND Juliet die. Pyrimus and Thisbe die. Sigfried and all the gods die. Orestes makes it out O.K., but it's a close thing and, I think, only to flatter the Athenian audience. Jason dies. Etc. etc. etc.

[hamishspence]

considering optimus was alive at the end of the second movie, he obviously wasnt killed off

Not the Michael Bay movie- the first cartoon movie.

[NerdyKris]

considering optimus was alive at the end of the second movie, he obviously wasnt killed off

depsite a few books/movies bucking the trend the vast vast majority of literature does not have the main character die

HE IS TALKING ABOUT THE CARTOON MOVIE. Did you click the link?

[AKA_Bait]

considering optimus was alive at the end of the second movie, he obviously wasnt killed off

The film I am referring to had no sequel. You are thinking about the 2007 onward live action reboot. I'm referring to the 1986 cartoon, which if you clicked on the link you would have seen.

Edit: Ninja'd (Unicron'd?)


depsite a few books/movies bucking the trend the vast vast majority of literature does not have the main character die

Agreed, but lots of good literature does kill off one or several main characters. That was not an exhaustive list. As I consider OotS to be good literature, and The Giant an excellent writer, I don't see how your narrative convention argument supports your assertion about plot armor when lots of good literature also bucks the convention you are using for support.

[Forikroder]

The film I am referring to had no sequel. You are thinking about the 2007 onward live action reboot. I'm referring to the 1986 cartoon, which if you clicked on the link you would have seen.

Edit: Ninja'd (Unicron'd?)



Agreed, but lots of good literature does kill off one or several main characters. That was not an exhaustive list. As I consider OotS to be good literature, and The Giant an excellent writer, I don't see how your narrative convention argument supports your assertion about plot armor when lots of good literature also bucks the convention you are using for support.

because for every one piece of literature that bucks the trend theres a thousand others that doesnt

[hamishspence]

Beowulf is pretty classic literature (Older Than Fuedalism) where the hero dies.

[AKA_Bait]

because for every one piece of literature that bucks the trend theres a thousand others that doesnt

Can you then explain why you think that OotS is more likely to follow the convention than buck the convention? i.e., what other than the fact that there is a convention, makes you think that Rich Burlew in particular is going to follow that convention?

[Forikroder]

Can you then explain why you think that OotS is more likely to follow the convention than buck the convention? i.e., what other than the fact that there is a convention, makes you think that Rich Burlew in particular is going to follow that convention?

you must ahve resonded to the wrong person since i never said that

[AKA_Bait]

you must ahve resonded to the wrong person since i never said that

Right you are. I misunderstood. So, to be clear, you were actually disputing the point that "heroes only get plot armor in poorly-written stories"?

[Forikroder]

Right you are. I misunderstood. So, to be clear, you were actually disputing the point that "heroes only get plot armor in poorly-written stories"?

thats correct

[Kish]

Right you are. I misunderstood. So, to be clear, you were actually disputing the point that "heroes only get plot armor in poorly-written stories"?
I don't know about Forikroder, but I sure would.

Then again, I'd also dispute the position "Heroes only die in poorly-written stories."

[Knaight]

because for every one piece of literature that bucks the trend theres a thousand others that doesnt

That would certainly explain why Tragedy is a titanic genre, familiar enough to people for its name to be one of the most well known literary terms. Being a rare genre, outnumbered 1000 to 1, bucking a trend instead of being one is exactly the sort of thing noticeable enough to be the center of large amounts of study as well, so that makes sense too. That it is also the typical end to literary epic after literary epic makes lots of sense as well, as those stand out.

Alternately, stories which have main characters, and in which main characters die are common. Fantasy just happens to be a genre which sees somewhat less of it.

Also:
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo316/Knaighte/Capitalize.jpg

[AKA_Bait]

Then again, I'd also dispute the position "Heroes only die in poorly-written stories."

Agreed. Protagonists die, or not, in both well and poorly written stories.


That would certainly explain why Tragedy is a titanic genre, familiar enough to people for its name to be one of the most well known literary terms. Being a rare genre, outnumbered 1000 to 1, bucking a trend instead of being one is exactly the sort of thing noticeable enough to be the center of large amounts of study as well, so that makes sense too. That it is also the typical end to literary epic after literary epic makes lots of sense as well, as those stand out.


I might just be woefully uneducated, but how many new, decent tragedies do we see these days? I can only think of a handful that were (a) written/created in the past 25 years or so and (b) any good.

[Porthos]

TV Tropes link and I am unapologetic about it:

The Hero Dies (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheHeroDies)

Yes. Quite uncommon.


Fantasy just happens to be a genre which sees somewhat less of it.

I'd amend that to 'modern fantasy'. In classical fantasy work, the hero dying was one of the standard endings. Either as the Ultimate Sacrifice or to Let The Next Generation Have Its Time In The Sun.

The cycle of life and death and all that good stuff is a powerful motivator when it comes to works of art.

Even Lord of the Rings had the Hero metaphorically die in the end when Frodo sailed to the Undying Lands.

[F.Harr]

Beowulf is pretty classic literature (Older Than Fuedalism) where the hero dies.

Oo, I'd forgotten that one.


I don't know about Forikroder, but I sure would.

Then again, I'd also dispute the position "Heroes only die in poorly-written stories."

Fair point, both.




I might just be woefully uneducated, but how many new, decent tragedies do we see these days? I can only think of a handful that were (a) written/created in the past 25 years or so and (b) any good.

Bad narrative art always outnumbers good in any age. We just forget the bad stuff.

[Mattias]

Am I the only one who thinks that this actually is a case of business before pleasure? I don't think that Tarquin would send one of his legions to the slaughterhouse that is a mid/high level adventuring party just for his personal thing with Elan.

He probably wants to use this dead army as a pretext for a war against one of the still-remaining independent tyrannies on the continent. He's been looking for a 'just cause' to go to war.

Which means that, if Tarquin really wants the Order (minus Elan) dead, then he will step in to make it so, should his army fail.

[Shale]

Why would he need a pretext? The entire region is in a perpetual state of warfare. "I'm big, you're tiny, meet my army" would be all the reason whichever empire actually invades would need.

[Mattias]

Why would he need a pretext? The entire region is in a perpetual state of warfare. "I'm big, you're tiny, meet my army" would be all the reason whichever empire actually invades would need.

Tarquin needs his people to support his war if he is ever to build a stable, lasting tyranny. That's why he's framed Haley's dad for example. You can't just conquer another country because you happen to have a big enough army. You need a reason, however flimsy, to sell it to your people.

[AKA_Bait]

Tarquin needs his people to support his war if he is ever to build a stable, lasting tyranny. That's why he's framed Haley's dad for example. You can't just conquer another country because you happen to have a big enough army. You need a reason, however flimsy, to sell it to your people.

You also need a reason to keep the other countries from ganging up on you. Tarquin learned that lesson the hard way.

[Kish]

Tarquin needs his people to support his war if he is ever to build a stable, lasting tyranny.
He's not trying to build a stable, lasting tyranny. The Empire of Blood will last until it's time to move to a new name and a new figurehead and not one second longer.

[Mattias]

He's not trying to build a stable, lasting tyranny. The Empire of Blood will last until it's time to move to a new name and a new figurehead and not one second longer.

Sure, but that's all part of the process of conquering every empire that is not ruled by team Tarquin. Tarquin's three-empire scheme is the endgame for him. That scheme will allow him to bring his type of order which, as he said, everyone needs. To get to that point he needs to crush every empire not under his teams control.

[Taelas]

He's not trying to build a stable, lasting tyranny. The Empire of Blood will last until it's time to move to a new name and a new figurehead and not one second longer.

No, he is exactly trying to build a stable, lasting tyranny. He just doesn't make it immediately apparent that it IS that.

The individual governments aren't integral to his tyranny, as he leads from behind the throne.

[hamishspence]

The constant overthrows every few years (even if the puppet leaders are always controlled by Tarquin's team) don't seem like they'd contribute much to the stability of the lives of the ordinary citizens.

[veti]

I was agreeing with your point there. My intended meaning was that, within a story, knowing that you are the hero doesn't allow you to rest on your laurels, because it might turn out that you aren't meant to win now, or in this way, or without paying some much greater cost.

Or alternatively: if you're the hero and you start resting on your laurels, you might suddenly find out you're not the hero any more, because the audience or the narrator got fed up with your story and decided to follow someone else.

(Did you play Morrowind? There's a prophecy about a saviour-figure, and you can fulfil it, but it's made clear that this is entirely optional on your part. Several "potentials" have come before you, and failed. And if you do choose to ignore the main quest, then in another hundred years or so it'll be offered to someone else. And so on.)


Sure, but that's all part of the process of conquering every empire that is not ruled by team Tarquin. Tarquin's three-empire scheme is the endgame for him. That scheme will allow him to bring his type of order which, as he said, everyone needs. To get to that point he needs to crush every empire not under his teams control.

Tarquin's plan relies on (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0758.html) instability. "They find a patsy to "topple" one of the three kingdoms every few years". Instability is key to the whole plan. If the situation ever grew stable, then everyone would be able to see what's been going on, and everything would get a lot harder.

[Skarn]

actually thats exactly what it means, narratively the good guys always win, no matter how grim or how terrible it gets, the good guys always win

no matter how deep the author digs a hole the good guy always climbs out even if the heroine has to randomly smash apart time/space with a hammer
Do they really though?

Think about it.
Sometimes the bad guy gets away, sometimes repeatedly.
Sometimes heroes sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
Sometimes heroes get killed off, especially if they're not the main protagonist.
Sometimes the heroes make mistakes and someone dies because of it. Not every show has a magical fix for that.
Sometimes the heroes do everything right, but fate just makes darn sure to kill this one person anyway...
Sometimes the world gets half-destroyed and the heroes only barely manage to salvage the pieces.
Sometimes rewriting time/space removes the heroine from it retroactively and permanently to the point where only the person that saw it happen knew she ever existed. Long story. >_>

There is such a thing as defeat in storylines. And sometimes there's pyrrhic victories. But of course, as with any story, the tone is decided by where you end it rather than a singular outcome.
If you want to be technical (spoiler) everyone dies eventually. :smalltongue:

Besides that, Xykon may well get the chance to carry out his plan. Doubly so since we know it won't work.

[Kish]

Besides that, Xykon may well get the chance to carry out his plan. Doubly so since we know it won't work.
If you mean "we know it won't work for Xykon," true.

If, on the other hand, you mean "We know the Plan won't work," we don't. We don't know that the Snarl isn't still in the rifts as well as the world, or that the Dark One's win condition will not still be achieved if the ritual is completed...or that the Dark One doesn't know more about exactly what's in the rifts than anyone else not named Rich Burlew.

[Mattias]

Tarquin's plan relies on (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0758.html) instability. "They find a patsy to "topple" one of the three kingdoms every few years". Instability is key to the whole plan. If the situation ever grew stable, then everyone would be able to see what's been going on, and everything would get a lot harder.

I respectfully disagree. In that selfsame comic Tarquin literally states that the endgame is to consolidate the human and lizardfolk lands into three kingdoms that have no incentive to fight each other and then quietly rule these kingdoms until his party grows old and/or dies.

The instability is his method towards three stable kingdoms. In order to get three stable kingdoms, they need to swallow up every kingdom that is not led by one of his team-members. However, this has to happen in a way not to make it seem obvious. That is why they don't just go out and conquer the territory and divvy it up three ways. No, he needs 'legitimate' reasons to go to war, both to keep his own people 'happy' and so that the other kingdoms on the Western continent don't find the war especially suspicious or dangerous. Which brings me back to my point: I believe that this senseless sacrifice of mooks right now is not just about Tarquins personal family matters. It is part of the plan to consolidate the entire Western Continent. The death of so many loyal soldiers of the Empire of Blood is pretext for a legitimate punitive expedition by that Empire against whatever country Tarquin wants to swallow up next.

[Uniqueorn]

Do they really though?

Think about it.

Sometimes rewriting time/space removes the heroine from it retroactively and permanently to the point where only the person that saw it happen knew she ever existed. Long story. >_>


Alas, poor Kara Zor-El, we knew her.

[stavro375]

[Replying to "Tarquin needs a stable Empire of Blood"]He's not trying to build a stable, lasting tyranny. The Empire of Blood will last until it's time to move to a new name and a new figurehead and not one second longer.
Except Tarquin can't afford his countries going kaput just whenever -- he needs an easily-manipulated patsy to overthrow the Empress, not a regime-changing coalition of smaller countries or some sort of strong-willed populist.

[Tom Lehmann]

oh come on what story does the main character die?
Let me introduce you to the field of literature known as Tragedy -- populated by such people as Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet...

[Kish]

[...]
Actually, I was replying to "Tarquin needs his people to support his war."

[veti]

I respectfully disagree. In that selfsame comic Tarquin literally states that the endgame is to consolidate the human and lizardfolk lands into three kingdoms that have no incentive to fight each other and then quietly rule these kingdoms until his party grows old and/or dies.

"Tarquin states" and "the truth is" are... not synonymous. Tarquin is trying to get Elan to sympathise with him at that point. Heck, the strip title is "Spins of the Father".

On the other hand, we have the testimony of the cart-o-gophers (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0680.html), who says: "Every year, half a dozen new hotshot military "geniuses" raise an army each and conquer themselves a new kingdom."

Obviously this is completely interpretive, but I don't think Tarquin's plan requires, or foresees, that process stopping, ever. He doesn't mind a bit if new kingdoms pop up every couple of months - from his point of view, it maintains the equilibrium.

[Mattias]

"Tarquin states" and "the truth is" are... not synonymous. Tarquin is trying to get Elan to sympathise with him at that point. Heck, the strip title is "Spins of the Father". [...] I don't think Tarquin's plan requires, or foresees, that process stopping, ever. He doesn't mind a bit if new kingdoms pop up every couple of months - from his point of view, it maintains the equilibrium.

Meh... I'm not convinced. Firstly it has been established that Tarquin is of the lawful persuasion. I think he does mind the chaos of new kingdoms popping up. Tarquin's idea of equilibrium is establishing three major kingdoms, all under his teams control, without people really being aware of that. That would effectively allow him to impose his iron fist on the entire continent unhindered, creating the type of order that he believes everyone needs. Secondly it doesn't seem to really fit with the whole 'major villain exposing his masterplan to the hero'-trope to lie about these kind of trivial details. Moreover, Haley's dad is convinced of exactly the same thing: that Tarquin is bent on ruling the whole Western Continent through his clever 'three kingdoms slowly swallowing up the entire continent' plan.

So to get back to my first point: if we're assuming that Tarquin does believe that business goes before pleasure and if we're also assuming that he is about to launch an attack on Reptilia, then why not consider that he is sending his mooks towards their death in order to establish a pretext for that attack? We've already seen in the arena that he doesn't like to waste perfectly good soldiers, so why would he do the least efficient thing he can in this situation: order his mooks to kill a band of high lvl PC's, rather than doing it himself?

[AKA_Bait]

We've already seen in the arena that he doesn't like to waste perfectly good soldiers, so why would he do the least efficient thing he can in this situation: order his mooks to kill a band of high lvl PC's, rather than doing it himself?

As has been noted in the D&D armies thread, Tarquin might be using the mooks to wear down the order first. No reason to take chances with another member of Team Tarquin dying right? Let them slaughter some mooks and use up spells and potions in the process.

After all, to get the appropriate dramatic tension for what Tarquin wants his final confrontation with Elan to be like, doesn't he have to kill Roy himself (possibly after letting Roy heroically take out a bunch of mooks)?

[David Argall]

if we're assuming that Tarquin does believe that business goes before pleasure and if we're also assuming that he is about to launch an attack on Reptilia, then why not consider that he is sending his mooks towards their death in order to establish a pretext for that attack?
Because there is no reason to think he is. We have two unrelated events. Now Tarquin may try to connect them, but why? He obviously has much better provocations, such as the Reptilian Ambassador's attempt to assassinate the empress [Oh wait, we wanted to frame Ian for the assassination of the ambassador. Do you suppose he will co-operate if we declare him a national hero for saving the empress? Well, there are plenty of events that already involve the Reptilians.]

[Sir_Leorik]

Just because the characters are aware of narrative convention does not mean that the good guys triumph. Tragedy is a form of narrative too. Epic heroic fantasy not infrequently ends with disappointment if not death and failure for the hero (Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, etc). Empire narratives can end with the Evil Empire winning. Even a comedy can end with the world destroyed (anyone remember 'Mostly Harmless')?

True, but a) that wasn't the first time the Vogons destroyed Earth, and b) in And Another Thing, the protagonists are revealed to have survived both the destruction of Earth and Author Existence Failure.

[Sir_Leorik]

considering optimus was alive at the end of the second movie, he obviously wasnt killed off

You are confusing "The Transformers: The Movie", released in 1986, with "Transformers" (2007) "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (2009) and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon".

In "Transformers: the Movie" Optimus Prime dies before the twenty minute mark, from fatal wounds he incurred fighting Megatron. He passes the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus, and by the end of the movie Hot Rod opens the Matrix and becomes Rodimus Prime.

Optimus Prime returned to life in the season three season finale of "The Transformers", titled "The Return of Optimus Prime".

[stavro375]

As has been noted in the D&D armies thread, Tarquin might be using the mooks to wear down the order first. No reason to take chances with another member of Team Tarquin dying right?
Another thing -- why was it necessary to send his army charging into the canyon? How would things have been different if he gave his archers more time to wear down the order before sending his minions into the meatgrinder?

[NerdyKris]

Another thing -- why was it necessary to send his army charging into the canyon? How would things have been different if he gave his archers more time to wear down the order before sending his minions into the meatgrinder?

Because he doesn't care about the army. People are making the assumption that this is a major part of Tarquin's force. It's not. He has two other nations and whole battalions left over even if this one gets wiped out. Heck, he stated that he even regularly lets his nations lose just to keep up appearances. He can lose this entire group and not even blink.

If he didn't send them in, then Roy and Durkon would have brought the battle to the archers. This way, the archers stay safe to rain down arrows on them.

[stavro375]

Because he doesn't care about the army. People are making the assumption that this is a major part of Tarquin's force. It's not. He has two other nations and whole battalions left over even if this one gets wiped out. Heck, he stated that he even regularly lets his nations lose just to keep up appearances. He can lose this entire group and not even blink.

If he didn't send them in, then Roy and Durkon would have brought the battle to the archers. This way, the archers stay safe to rain down arrows on them.
The army might not be a strong part of Tarquin's strength, but I would expect a smart general to try and avoid needless casualties. How long would it take Roy and Durkon to charge out of the crater far enough to make friendly fire a problem?

Although I do concede the possibility that the archers are the only part of *this* army Tarquin's invested any serious amount of resources into, and the melee troops had to be sacrificed by the dozens to protect the squishy and expensive snipers.

[Kish]

The army might not be a strong part of Tarquin's strength, but I would expect a smart general to try and avoid needless casualties. How long would it take Roy and Durkon to charge out of the crater far enough to make friendly fire a problem?
This question seems related to an entirely different game system. Tarquin has every reason not to want Roy, Durkon, and Belkar to get a chance to close with his archers, because an archer isn't useful in melee and a melee fighter isn't useful at range. That's setting aside the fact that if he let them have free movement in the name of preserving the lives of his soldiers (because that's totally the kind of person Tarquin is), they would be able to start moving away or, alternatively, attack Tarquin or one of his actually valuable possessionsteammates and dear friends.

[F.Harr]

It seems to me that evil generals wouldn't REALLY worry about unnecessary casualties. That seems like more of a neutral or even good general's thing.

Also, assuming NATO definitions for formation sizes, Tarquin's elite story-revealing division should be 10,000 to 30,000 troops. I'm not sure that he's committed much more than a couple of companies of 80 to 225 people each to this particular mission. We haven't seen any supplies, field hospitals or anything else to support a larger force in the field for any length of time.

[stavro375]

It seems to me that evil generals wouldn't REALLY worry about unnecessary casualties. That seems like more of a neutral or even good general's thing.

But a smart general would, if only because a 20,000-soldier strong army is usually more useful than a 19,000-soldier army. How much damage is the order actually capable of doing to the army, anyway? Would three high-level adventurers be capable of inflicting significant damage to Tarquin's army before being finally killed, or is even the worst they're capable of doing little more than "chump change", so to speak?

Put in other terms, what's a reasonable estimate of how many men he and durkon can kill every round, how many damaging hits can the army get off every round, and how many hits would it take to kill one of the adventurers? Roy's mentioned plan A is "survive until dusk", if Roy, Durkon, and Belkar can last 8 hours (4,800 rounds) and kill 2 soldiers per round that's almost 10,000 casualties -- comparable in size to the whole of Azure City's military (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0413.html).

[Kish]

If they could kill only two soldiers per round between them, they would be doing awfully.

If Roy alone kills only two soldiers in a given round, his dice have decided they hate him.

[Dwy]

It seems to me that evil generals wouldn't REALLY worry about unnecessary casualties. That seems like more of a neutral or even good general's thing.

Also, assuming NATO definitions for formation sizes, Tarquin's elite story-revealing division should be 10,000 to 30,000 troops. I'm not sure that he's committed much more than a couple of companies of 80 to 225 people to this particular mission. We haven't seen any supplies, field hospitals or anything else to support a larger force in the field for any length of time.

Now, the Giant is not so far from being a real hippie. Assuming NATO definitions would thus not be a reasonable assumption.

[Copperdragon]

Also, assuming NATO definitions for formation sizes, Tarquin's elite story-revealing division should be 10,000 to 30,000 troops.

What this NATO you are speaking about? I have read many rulebooks but I cannot remember reading it anywhere within D&D?

For serious: Comparing a post-industrialisation international, continent-spanning military organisation that was created to fight a world war where involved troops were going to get counted in millions or even 10s of millions to some sort of semi-medival setting seems wrong at best at to me.

[Shale]

But a smart general would, if only because a 20,000-soldier strong army is usually more useful than a 19,000-soldier army.

You don't have an army if you're afraid to ever get any of your soldiers killed. From Tarquin's point of view, this is every bit as important as conquering another part of the content. Furthering Tarquin's Great Dramatic Destiny is what this entire plan is for.

[stavro375]

You don't have an army if you're afraid to ever get any of your soldiers killed.
You also don't have an army if you don't give a damn about losses. Why didn't WWI or WWII Germany ever try to invade Britain? Because they'd lose lots of soldiers for no gain. Why did WWII Germany stop bombing Britain? Because they decided their bombing efforts weren't worth the casualties.



If they could kill only two soldiers per round between them, they would be doing awfully.

If Roy alone kills only two soldiers in a given round, his dice have decided they hate him.
What would a realistic estimate of the damage the Order could do every round then? 5 kills for Roy (Great Cleave? Full attack?) and 7 for Durkon (Vampiric domination?)?

[F.Harr]

But a smart general would [care about unnecessary losses], if only because a 20,000-soldier strong army is usually more useful than a 19,000-soldier army.

Assuming Tarquin has a total force of 200,000 (just for the fun of it) and that his population is easily convertible to MORE soldiers, and furthermore, I doubt there's more than a few hundred on-scene, then loosing every one of these guys shouldn't cause him to blink an eye.


Now, the Giant is not so far from being a real hippie. Assuming NATO definitions would thus not be a reasonable assumption.


What this NATO you are speaking about? I have read many rulebooks but I cannot remember reading it anywhere within D&D?

For serious: Comparing a post-industrialisation international, continent-spanning military organisation that was created to fight a world war where involved troops were going to get counted in millions or even 10s of millions to some sort of semi-medival setting seems wrong at best at to me.



Midievel warfare didn't use things like divisions or brigades or even, for that matter, dinosaurs or mages or clerics (in the D&D sense) or much of anything else that we'd recognize from D&D, either. NATO is the only place where I can start to get my barrings. If the Giant at some point decides to flesh out how Tarquin organizes his fighting forces, then w will have more information to go on. Until then, I can only extrapalate from what I know.

[stavro375]

Assuming Tarquin has a total force of 200,000 (just for the fun of it) and that his population is easily convertible to MORE soldiers, and furthermore, I doubt there's more than a few hundred on-scene, then loosing every one of these guys shouldn't cause him to blink an eye.

Given that the entire military of Azure City was on the order of 10,000 men, and Hinjo had trouble recruiting allies to help him re-take a city guarded by less than 30,000 hobgoblins (and, to be fair, a single epic-level lich), I'd say that it's at least a little doubtful that Tarquin can field an army of 200,000. It's surely possible -- the Empire of Blood may be that large -- but even then, as I pointed out earlier it's possible that less than a day's combat could cost him 10,000 soldiers, about 5% of his force in a single day of combat. IMHO, that's not the sort of risk intelligent generals take if there's another option -- like giving the archers even a few additional rounds to wear down the Order.

Do any D&D players have the numbers on how many (say) level 3 soldiers a group of three level 15 adventurers could take down in a heroic last stand?


ETA:
"...[If Tarquin's plan succeeds] he'll have enough money to raise an army of ten thousand men! For the sake of everyone on the continent, we cannot fail! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0816.html)"
If this quote is meant to be taken anywhere approaching literally, than an army of 10,000 must be very powerful in the world of OoTS.

[F.Harr]

I just counted. If I'm not wrong, I got 340 people who had either marched through the wormhole or were in the process of it.



Given that the entire military of Azure City was on the order of 10,000 men, and Hinjo had trouble recruiting allies to help him re-take a city guarded by less than 30,000 hobgoblins (and, to be fair, a single epic-level lich), I'd say that it's at least a little doubtful that Tarquin can field an army of 200,000. It's surely possible -- the Empire of Blood may be that large -- but even then, as I pointed out earlier it's possible that less than a day's combat could cost him 10,000 soldiers, about 5% of his force in a single day of combat. IMHO, that's not the sort of risk intelligent generals take if there's another option -- like giving the archers even a few additional rounds to wear down the Order.



Azure City was only one city. Tarquin has maybe a quarter of the continent to draw on. And in one of his cities, he can get come pretty impressive crowds. That stadium could easily hold 20 to 40 thousand spectators. A 200,000-person army, I'd say, is lowballing it.

Also, he did NOT bring 10,000 soldiers with him. Even having a fewthousand people to watch a three hour play or baseball game requires food, toilets, security, people to direct you, etc. It's stopped being productive at, maybe, five hundred.

[factotum]

Tarquin has maybe a quarter of the continent to draw on. And in one of his cities, he can get come pretty impressive crowds.

The map in #698 shows only four clearly-marked large towns/cities in the Empire of Blood. There are considerably more than that in the map at the end of the third book, showing Azure City and its surrounding territories--the land controlled by Azure City was pretty vast, all told, probably considerably more than the tiny strip along the edge of the desert that's all the EoB can claim--we also see from the globe shown in Familicide that the Western Continent is considerably smaller than the Eastern one, after all.

The same map also tells us that Azure City had a population of 530,000, and it was the biggest city in the Southern Lands. You're suggesting the cities of the Empire of Blood had to be *much* bigger in order to support a standing army of 200,000 men--on what evidence? A stadium that can seat 40,000 means absolutely nothing, especially if (as is likely) attendance at the events is compulsory. For all we know, 40,000 people is pretty much the entire adult non-military population of Bleedingham.

[stavro375]

Azure City was only one city. Tarquin has maybe a quarter of the continent to draw on. And in one of his cities, he can get come pretty impressive crowds. That stadium could easily hold 20 to 40 thousand spectators. A 200,000-person army, I'd say, is lowballing it.

Fair enough. What do you make of the "army of ten thousand men" quote?



Also, he did NOT bring 10,000 soldiers with him. Even having a fewthousand people to watch a three hour play or base-ball game requires food, toilets, security, people to direct you, etc. It's stopped being productive at, maybe, five hundred.
I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that medieval-era logistics could support a force much larger than 500 men on the march. (For reference, Wikipedia lists the Persian force a the battle of Thermopylae as being at least 70,000 strong.)

[NerdyKris]

Also, he did NOT bring 10,000 soldiers with him. Even having a fewthousand people to watch a three hour play or base-ball game requires food, toilets, security, people to direct you, etc. It's stopped being productive at, maybe, five hundred.

That's apples and oranges. One is a crowd of random people with no loyalty, training, or chain of command. The other is a highly regimented, trained unit with a distinct line of command designed to efficiently disseminate orders to the troops. Also, historically, yes, there are literally thousands of examples of 10,000 soldier strong troop movements.

[stavro375]

That's apples and oranges. One is a crowd of random people with no loyalty, training, or chain of command. The other is a highly regimented, trained unit with a distinct line of command designed to efficiently disseminate orders to the troops. Also, historically, yes, there are literally thousands of examples of 10,000 soldier strong troop movements.
Basically this. There may have only been 340 people in the panel factotum looked at, but we don't know how long Tarquin's army was marching through the portal before that panel -- or after.

[David Argall]

Given that the entire military of Azure City was on the order of 10,000 men, and Hinjo had trouble recruiting allies to help him re-take a city guarded by less than 30,000 hobgoblins (and, to be fair, a single epic-level lich),
The only figure we are given on the Azure Military is those close enough to be involved in the battle. Since most armies are unable to move at all in a day [and are pretty slow thereafter], we can posit an army of far larger than 10,000. [We are aware of Azure City having a number of small posts, and the hobgoblins should have made contact with only a small percentage of these.] Nor is the unwillingness of allies to send troops a major limit. That happens under all sorts of conditions.
Now the fact that there were only about 20,000 hobgoblins left does put a limit well below 100,000 for Azure, but even another 20,000 Azure City troops are subject to defeat in detail when the central command is gone.

[veti]

I don't want to get too categorical about this, but...

There is no conceivable way, economically, logistically or demographically, that Tarquin could field anything remotely close to the type of industrial-era army being posited here. According to the map (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0698.html), Tarquin doesn't have anything like a quarter of a continent to draw on - more like one-twentieth. And even if he did, it's (a) not a very large continent, and (b) mostly desert anyway, so it can't be that densely populated.

A reasonable comparison may be with Ancient Egypt, which fielded an army of about 20,000 at its height (that's wartime strength, not full-time).

In this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0742.html), we learn that "500 dragoons" is considered a serious contribution to a major battle. (If its size on the map is anything to go by, the Free City of Doom was not a negligible power.) If armies were numbered in the hundreds of thousands, that number wouldn't even be noticed.

[Porthos]

I might just be woefully uneducated, but how many new, decent tragedies do we see these days? I can only think of a handful that were (a) written/created in the past 25 years or so and (b) any good.

Pulling this up from a few days ago as a quick comment, but as I think about some of the discussion about it in other threads that was raised today, I think Breaking Bad qualifies. Especially if I'm right about how it is all going to end.

[factotum]

There may have only been 340 people in the panel factotum looked at

I think you're confusing me with someone else--I didn't see 340 people in any panel. :smallconfused:

[Yendor]

At the height of its power, the Roman Empire had around 400,000 men in its armed forces and a population of about 60 million. (Making it not far off that of the UK, if you include reserves, but spread over a far larger area.) There's no way a place as chaotic and inhospitable as the Western Continent could support anywhere near that large an army.

Getting back to the topic: business before pleasure is now seemingly working against Tarquin. If he wants to indulge himself, that's his deal. There's nothing in it for Laurin and Miron; why should they get involved and put themselves at risk?

[F.Harr]

The map in #698 shows only four clearly-marked large towns/cities in the Empire of Blood. There are considerably more than that in the map at the end of the third book, showing Azure City and its surrounding territories--the land controlled by Azure City was pretty vast, all told, probably considerably more than the tiny strip along the edge of the desert that's all the EoB can claim--we also see from the globe shown in Familicide that the Western Continent is considerably smaller than the Eastern one, after all.

The same map also tells us that Azure City had a population of 530,000, and it was the biggest city in the Southern Lands. You're suggesting the cities of the Empire of Blood had to be *much* bigger in order to support a standing army of 200,000 men--on what evidence? A stadium that can seat 40,000 means absolutely nothing, especially if (as is likely) attendance at the events is compulsory. For all we know, 40,000 people is pretty much the entire adult non-military population of Bleedingham.


Fair enough. What do you make of the "army of ten thousand men" quote?


I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that medieval-era logistics could support a force much larger than 500 men on the march. (For reference, Wikipedia lists the Persian force a the battle of Thermopylae as being at least 70,000 strong.)


That's apples and oranges. One is a crowd of random people with no loyalty, training, or chain of command. The other is a highly regimented, trained unit with a distinct line of command designed to efficiently disseminate orders to the troops. Also, historically, yes, there are literally thousands of examples of 10,000 soldier strong troop movements.


I don't want to get too categorical about this, but...

There is no conceivable way, economically, logistically or demographically, that Tarquin could field anything remotely close to the type of industrial-era army being posited here. According to the map (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0698.html), Tarquin doesn't have anything like a quarter of a continent to draw on - more like one-twentieth. And even if he did, it's (a) not a very large continent, and (b) mostly desert anyway, so it can't be that densely populated.

A reasonable comparison may be with Ancient Egypt, which fielded an army of about 20,000 at its height (that's wartime strength, not full-time).

In this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0742.html), we learn that "500 dragoons" is considered a serious contribution to a major battle. (If its size on the map is anything to go by, the Free City of Doom was not a negligible power.) If armies were numbered in the hundreds of thousands, that number wouldn't even be noticed.


At the height of its power, the Roman Empire had around 400,000 men in its armed forces and a population of about 60 million. (Making it not far off that of the UK, if you include reserves, but spread over a far larger area.) There's no way a place as chaotic and inhospitable as the Western Continent could support anywhere near that large an army.

Getting back to the topic: business before pleasure is now seemingly working against Tarquin. If he wants to indulge himself, that's his deal. There's nothing in it for Laurin and Miron; why should they get involved and put themselves at risk?

Sigh.

1. The map is not necessarily a map of all the major populations centers. There are maps that show Albany New York but not New York city. But more to the point, a LOT of people can be diffused into a landscape, even a desert.

2. 10,000 men was in the context of Tarquin beginning his program of conquest, not of his current flowering of power. He has more people to draw on, now.

3. Two thousand people, even if they are disiplined, yadas, etceteras still need to use the toilet at inconvenient times and have something to do while waiting to enter the pit of death.

4. You guys are confusing a D&D parody world with Medeival Europe. And if we're going to be pedantic about it, get rid of the dinosourse, stop attacking one-at-a-time, get Vaarsuviosu out of the freaking sky, let Durkon be dead and Roy should have died in the initial cross-bow barrage.

[factotum]

4. You guys are confusing a D&D parody world with Medeival Europe.

And you appear to be confusing it with 19th century Europe...which of us is more likely to be accurate, considering the level of technology they possess?

[F.Harr]

No, I'm confusing it with now. Because me and the Giant both live now.

And seeing as V is able to shoot pterasaurs out of the sky, I'm much more likely to be right.

[factotum]

No, I'm confusing it with now. Because me and the Giant both live now.

What does the time period the *author* lives in have to do with the time period the *story* is set in? Are you suggesting that if the Giant chose to sit down and write a story about cavemen fighting 10,000 years ago, he'd have them with 200,000 strong armies because that's what we have now?

[veti]

1. The map is not necessarily a map of all the major populations centers. There are maps that show Albany New York but not New York city. But more to the point, a LOT of people can be diffused into a landscape, even a desert.

Well, Roy thinks it's showing all the major population centres. And since he's the one who bought it, I'll trust his judgement over your completely unfounded speculation, thanks.


2. 10,000 men was in the context of Tarquin beginning his program of conquest, not of his current flowering of power. He has more people to draw on, now.

And on a continent where people raised armies in the hundreds of thousands, Tarquin being able to field 10,000 would have been disastrous because...?

Once again: whatever the population density of the landscape is, the EoB isn't that much bigger than its neighbours. If Tarquin can muster 200,000, then somewhere like Dictatoria - not part of Tarquin's group - should be able to field at least 60,000 at wartime strength, so it would have had no trouble putting down the proto-Tarquinian force before it got started.


3. Two thousand people, even if they are disiplined, yadas, etceteras still need to use the toilet at inconvenient times and have something to do while waiting to enter the pit of death.

... Okay. So your conclusion is that - nobody has ever really fielded more than about 500 in a battle? Seriously, where are you going with this?


4. You guys are confusing a D&D parody world with Medeival Europe. And if we're going to be pedantic about it, get rid of the dinosourse, stop attacking one-at-a-time, get Vaarsuviosu out of the freaking sky, let Durkon be dead and Roy should have died in the initial cross-bow barrage.

And you're confusing it with an industrialised modern world. So let's get rid of the swords and the armour, let's get those troops aboard trains and give them (at least) breech-loading rifles, and... you know what? This argument is too silly to live.

[NerdyKris]

3. Two thousand people, even if they are disiplined, yadas, etceteras still need to use the toilet at inconvenient times and have something to do while waiting to enter the pit of death.



Alright. Clearly at this point you're just ignoring historical fact. Please go to Wikipedia and look up troop movements, and you'll clearly see plenty of examples of 2,000 or more troops existing in medieval Europe. Or, just keep going "sigh" and telling everyone they're wrong, despite all historical evidence to the contrary.

[F.Harr]

"Originally Posted by F.Harr View Post

" '4. You guys are confusing a D&D parody world with Medeival Europe.'

" 'And you appear to be confusing it with 19th century Europe...which of us is more likely to be accurate, considering the level of technology they possess? ' "

"Originally Posted by F.Harr View Post

" 'No, I'm confusing it with now. Because me and the Giant both live now.' "








What does the time period the *author* lives in have to do with the time period the *story* is set in?

Because art is an act of communication and an artist is most-likely talking to his contemporaries, not people living two to one-hundred years ago.


Are you suggesting that if the Giant chose to sit down and write a story about cavemen fighting 10,000 years ago, he'd have them with 200,000 strong armies because that's what we have now?

No. I'm stating that the claim that I'm mixing up a D&D parody with the 19th Century is completely wrong.

I'm also stating that given we're NOT talking about a conscious effort to model Medevial warfare, it's less relevant than the forms of warfare we are currently familiar with. Hence the Giant's use of the term "division" which wasn't used until the early modern period and the existence of an air core which was not possible until the 20th Century.


And on a continent where people raised armies in the hundreds of thousands, Tarquin being able to field 10,000 would have been disastrous because...?


I'm not saying it would have been disasterous. I'm saying there isn't any evidence that he HAS on this day.


Once again: whatever the population density of the landscape is, the EoB isn't that much bigger than its neighbours. If Tarquin can muster 200,000, then somewhere like Dictatoria - not part of Tarquin's group - should be able to field at least 60,000 at wartime strength, so it would have had no trouble putting down the proto-Tarquinian force before it got started.

And that's a problem because. . .?


... Okay. So your conclusion is that - nobody has ever really fielded more than about 500 in a battle? Seriously, where are you going with this?

Absolutely nowhere because that's got nothing to do with my conclusion. My conclusion is that on this day, for this mission, Taquin doesn't look like he's mobelised more than a few hundred people.


And you're confusing it with an industrialised modern world.

No I am not. I am simply not confusing it with the War of the Roses.



This argument is too silly to live.

I agree with you, but for VASTLY different reasons than you think that.


Alright. Clearly at this point you're just ignoring historical fact. Please go to Wikipedia and look up troop movements, and you'll clearly see plenty of examples of 2,000 or more troops existing in medieval Europe. Or, just keep going "sigh" and telling everyone they're wrong, despite all historical evidence to the contrary.

Historical evidence is not relevant, here. Internal consistency with the story IS.

And by the way, just so no one gets any more weird idea about what I mean, what I'm saying that it's FAR more likely that Tarquin brought with him a force numbering in the hundreds out of a total military might numbering in the hundreds of thousands than he brought a force numbering in the thousands out of a total military might numbering in the tens of thousands.

[stavro375]

Sigh.
4. You guys are confusing a D&D parody world with Medeival Europe.
Here's the thing: because The Giant hasn't described things like how large armies are, what the average lvl 1 commoner does for a living, how densely populated land is, etc., if we're going to have any serious debate on anything we need a way to estimate the values of things we don't know -- the alternative is to say "well, neither The Giant nor D&D rulebooks provide an explanation, so there's no point thinking up one ourselves". Medieval Europe seems *close enough* to what we've seen of the OoTS world to be a useful baseline, and we can use information from the comic and D&D rulebooks to account for the differences.

As an aside, I want to inject some concrete numbers into the "How many losses did Tarquin expect to take" debate. I don't play D&D, so I'm using values from the SRD to estimate:
-Tarquin knows that there are three level ~15 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282328) adventures in the crater. He might not know their exact classes, but it's reasonable to assume each has about 15d8+30 hp (97.5 average). Therefore, the Order has about 300 hp between them.

-The long swords most of his army seems to use do 1d8 damage per successful attack, but the AC of the adventurers should be high enough that the soldiers only do damage on a natural 20. If he can get 8 soldiers attacking each member of the order per round, then his army can do 5.4 hp (4.5/20*24) damage per round, and it'll take 56 rounds for it to wipe out the Order.

-If each member of the order can kill 4 soldiers per round, and combat lasts for 56 rounds, then unless the order has access to healing magic or potions they can kill about 670 soldiers before finally succumbing to the onslaught.

So maybe the cost to his army -- ignoring vampire Durkon, healing potions, and V's reappearance -- isn't as high as it seems...

[Amphiox]

It is entirely internally consistent for the single largest city state of the most fertile and populated continent to have a larger standing army than even a large empire on a continent that has a harsh environment and is sparsely populated. Given the canonical statements that Tarquin conquered his first empire with a total force of 10000 and Azure City had an army of 10000, the total size of the EoB's army could reasonably be anywhere from 15000 to maybe 50000.

200000 seems unreasonably high even fir all three of TT's empires combined.

When we factor in the need for the EoB to have its troops hold a larger territory than Azure City, it is quite unlikely that the current force is equal or greater in number than 10000.

[hamishspence]

It is entirely internally consistent for the single largest city state of the most fertile and populated continent to have a larger standing army than even a large empire on a continent that has a harsh environment and is sparsely populated. Given the canonical statements that Tarquin conquered his first empire with a total force of 10000 and Azure City had an army of 10000, the total size of the EoB's army could reasonably be anywhere from 15000 to maybe 50000.

According to the DMG, the typical D&D community has 1 full-time guard or soldier per 100 people, and 1 militia member or conscript (that can be called up in time of crisis) per 20 people.

In War & XPs, we find that the nation of Azure City has a population of 530,000, but only about half of that actually reside in the city.

Assuming that none of the "outside the city" subcommunities were reachable- the city should have an army on the order of: 2,150 full time soldiers and 10,750 militia.

That's not too far off the figure of 9000 given-

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0413.html

some may have been reinforcing the frontier in a time of increased tension before the big invasion:

[The MunchKING]

ETA:
"...[If Tarquin's plan succeeds] he'll have enough money to raise an army of ten thousand men! For the sake of everyone on the continent, we cannot fail! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0816.html)"
If this quote is meant to be taken anywhere approaching literally, than an army of 10,000 must be very powerful in the world of OoTS.

Well that AND Tarquin's reputation as a military genius. I mean Sun Tzu or Chuko Liang might be able to make a lot more out of ten thousand men, than say Custard or John.

[F.Harr]

Here's the thing: because The Giant hasn't described things like how large armies are, what the average lvl 1 commoner does for a living, how densely populated land is, etc., if we're going to have any serious debate on anything[.]

What about the above looks anything like a reasonable discussion? All I did was suggest that Tarquin brought hundreds of soldiers with him and that the total fighting force of the Empire of Blood might about 200,000. Ever since, I've caught flak, been strawmanned, been ridiculed by using irrelevant references to European history and caught more flak.

And yes, I understand that this just the way how I view what happened.


Well that AND Tarquin's reputation as a military genius. I mean Sun Tzu or Chuko Liang might be able to make a lot more out of ten thousand men, than say Custard or John.

He probably started by taking over smaller or otherwise more vulnerable entities then moved on to larger targets. I highly doubt that 10,000 was the largest army he ever lead.


It is entirely internally consistent for the single largest city state of the most fertile and populated continent to have a larger standing army than even a large empire on a continent that has a harsh environment and is sparsely populated. Given the canonical statements that Tarquin conquered his first empire with a total force of 10000 and Azure City had an army of 10000, the total size of the EoB's army could reasonably be anywhere from 15000 to maybe 50000.

200000 seems unreasonably high even fir all three of TT's empires combined.

When we factor in the need for the EoB to have its troops hold a larger territory than Azure City, it is quite unlikely that the current force is equal or greater in number than 10000.

It was just a guess on my part. But 10,000 sounds WAY too small, specially given the fact that the three Empires are almost-constantly at war.

Also, and I'm shocked that I missed it, The Map has a smaller Empire of Blood than I'd remembered. However, most of it is in two river vallies. I think they've got plenty of people.



According to the DMG, the typical D&D community has 1 full-time guard or soldier per 100 people, and 1 militia member or conscript (that can be called up in time of crisis) per 20 people.

In War & XPs, we find that the nation of Azure City has a population of 530,000, but only about half of that actually reside in the city.

Assuming that none of the "outside the city" subcommunities were reachable- the city should have an army on the order of: 2,150 full time soldiers and 10,750 militia.

That's not too far off the figure of 9000 given-

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0413.html

some may have been reinforcing the frontier in a time of increased tension before the big invasion:

They live in a different poltical reality. Azure City was the only civilization of any size anyweyre around. They were at peace with the exception of the goblinoids. The Empire of Blood, on the other hand, is set up for near-continuous battle.

[stavro375]

What about the above looks anything like a reasonable discussion? All I did was suggest that Tarquin brought hundreds of soldiers with him and that the total fighting force of the Empire of Blood might about 200,000. Ever since, I've caught flak, been strawmanned, been ridiculed by using irrelevant references to European history and caught more flak.
I've been reading what's been posted and I'm starting to think that your 200,000 number is at least somewhat reasonable -- as hamishspence points out, information from War and XPs implies that Azure City's military is about 25,000 strong (I don't have the book, and thought that its territory didn't extend far beyond the city itself), and it's reasonable to think that a larger entity (we don't know how large or densely populated the Western Continent is) that more-or-less constantly at war could have a military four, or even eight, times larger.
As for the strawmans -- what did you mean by "No, I'm confusing it with now. Because me and the Giant both live now" did you mean? IMHO, we've seen that the OotS world vaguely resembles medieval Europe both technologically (longswords and crossbows are the bread&butter weapons armies use, most of the 1st lvl commoners seem to be some sort of farmer, etc) and politically (most nations are ruled by either monarchs or despots; the only democracy we've seen is Someplace Else (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0226.html)) and when we can't use information from the comic or D&D rulebooks to estimate something analogues from medieval Europe are probably the best. (You mentioned a familiarity with NATO, but again IMO its military organization assumes member states have several million citizens, nothing like what we've seen in-comic).



He probably started by taking over smaller or otherwise more vulnerable entities then moved on to larger targets. I highly doubt that 10,000 was the largest army he ever lead.


It was just a guess on my part. But 10,000 sounds WAY too small, specially given the fact that the three Empires are almost-constantly at war.

Now that I think about it, the "army of ten thousand men" quote could easily have been meant more in the sense of "he'll have a lot of dudes" than "he'll have this specific number of dudes."



They live in a different poltical reality. Azure City was the only civilization of any size anyweyre around. They were at peace with the exception of the goblinoids.
I want to be clear on this -- does the map in War and XPs (which I sadly do not have) show any of Azure City's borders? Or is it just small enough to show all of its holdings? Is "only civilization of any size anywhere around" based on the map, or information from the comic, or something else?


About the size of the force Tarquin took to the gate... my gut says 500 is too small -- my old high school gym could fit twice that many people, and Tarquin has more than enough soldiers to encircle the crater left by Girard's pyramid. While the logistics of supporting several thousand soldiers in the field could be problematic, it clearly wasn't an issue for the 30,000 large Hobgoblin horde Xykon lead to Azure City (and its general didn't seem surprised assembling such a host was possible at all). Across how many panels did you count those 340 soldiers emerge from the portal?

[Kish]

While the logistics of supporting several thousand soldiers in the field could be problematic, it clearly wasn't an issue for the 30,000 large Hobgoblin horde Xykon lead to Azure City (and its general didn't seem surprised assembling such a host was possible at all).
Actually, bonus content in War and XPs clarifies that Xykon and Redcloak mobilized 90% of the hobgoblins' population without concern for logistics because they simply didn't care about the death toll among the hobgoblins.

[stavro375]

Actually, bonus content in War and XPs clarifies that Xykon and Redcloak mobilized 90% of the hobgoblins' population without concern for logistics because they simply didn't care about the death toll among the hobgoblins.
Oh? At the very least, the 30k horde shows that, in principal, it's possible to create organized armies of that scale in the OotS world. Maybe a general who cares about the lives of their soldiers would be limited to mobilizing smaller armies on the march...

EDIT: To reiterate, Azure City's general didn't seem surprised that the horde was 30,000 large, so it must be at least theoretically possible to sustain that large a host, although pillaging the countryside might be necessary to keep it fed.

[archon_huskie]

If we are going to estimate the size of Tarquin's force, the best resources we have are The last panel of 917, panel 6 of 921, panel 10 of 916, panel 8 of 913, panel 4 of 911, and panel 10 of 910.

From these panels, we can see that Tarquin's force has made a ring of soldiers around the pit. the front ring are crossbows and the back two are infantry. He sends the back two rings in to fight Roy and co.

910 gives us 340 visible soldiers.

If we assume 911 shows us exactly half of the pit containing the rift then the first row of crossbow men has approximately 120. The second would also have 120 and the third would have 120.

That's 360 archers/infantry. Let's give Tarquin an extra 40 to make it an even 400 infantry. plus calvary and air force. the most Flying units I see in one panel are nine. and he has 4 visible groups of 5 raptor riders 2 alleosaurus and the triceratops he is riding. I will double each of those as I did the infantry. that puts his fighting force at 400 infantry, 80 raptor calvary, 20 Flying, and 4 Alleosaurus.

That gives us 504.

Now if you want it to be larger, we could say the pit in 911 shows a third of the pit that raises to 180 archers, 360 infantry, 120 raptor riders, 6 alleosaurus, and 30 Flying units.
That's 696.

Think it should be larger still? we could say the pit in 911 shows a quarter of the pit, that raises it to 240 archers, 580 infantry, 160 raptors riders, 8 Alleosaurus, and 40 Flying Units.
That's 1028

From my estimation on the number of visible units and its formation, It would be a stretch to go much higher than a thousand units.

[JT]

You mentioned http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0917.html but then didn't use its info at all.

When I counted up the circle of death in 917s last panel, I got 500+ mooks surrounding R, B, D, and Spikey. That didn't include any mook that was presumably under the white text balloon, nor did it count any mooks still in the rectangular formations. Obviously, it also didn't count any mook who was off-panel.

From that, I'd say that 500 is clearly too low a number, and that 1000 is probably lowball as well. My guess would be more like 2000, though I'll readily admit that it's little more than a guess.

[Doug Lampert]

Midievel warfare didn't use things like divisions or brigades

They did use the word division to indicate a portion of an army. It wasn't a permanent organization, but rather just something you divided the army into (hence any unit smaller than a single field army).

The English army at Agincourt for example formed its men-at-arms in three divisions of roughly 330 men each. (The more numerous archers were in a separate organization).

The Vanguard, Center, and Rearguard could be referred to as the three divisions of a force, or the Right, Center, and Left. (Note that these are typically the same groups, the vanguard on march is supposed to become the right in battleline in this sort of warfare.)

The French around the revolution formed permanent organizations called divisions, and others copied them, but the term was a pre-existing military term for something like a third of an army's heavy combatants.

I seriously doubt that this is how Rich meant, it "sounded" to me like Tarquin was talking about a permanent unit. But assuming that it means a permanent military unit smaller than a single field army (which is my suspected meaning) then for an empire such as Tarquin's a division is almost by definition an expendable unit.

You're spread out enough and the logistics of a dessert are miserable enough that you have multiple field armies, and a division as a term makes sense only if it is PART of one of these multiple field armies. The word division is derived from the fact that it is a part of something bigger. (AKA a full sized field army/corps/whatever).

Thus if a division is 10,000 men (unlikely) it means a field army is 30,000+ men and that Tarquin has many such armies. If a division is 2,000 men, then it means a field army is 6,000+ men and that Tarquin has many such armies. ext.... Whatever size a division is, it's not more than 10% or so of the total force available to the army that created such a unit and probably much less (having created the permanent division the French mobilized about a hundred within the decade).

[F.Harr]

As for the strawmans -- what did you mean by "No, I'm confusing it with now. Because me and the Giant both live now" did you mean?

I meant, "I didn't confuse OotS with the 19th Century".

And yeah, 500, might be low and 1,000 might be closes, Archon and J. But it can't be a significant portion of this fighting forces.

[Amphiox]

Actually, bonus content in War and XPs clarifies that Xykon and Redcloak mobilized 90% of the hobgoblins' population without concern for logistics because they simply didn't care about the death toll among the hobgoblins.

Specifically, Xykon and Redcloak did not have to worry about the death toll reducing their fighting force because they were zombifying any who did die.