Alternative Ploy for Durkula

[Mike Havran]

Immediately after gaining free will, Durkula's main focus was to convince the rest of the Order that nothing has changed, that he is simply the same old Durkon Thundershield, cleric of Thor, "only wit fangs and a new outlook." He then manipulated Roy into bringing him to the godsmoot by pretending he wants to be brought back to life. He then managed to evade ploy reveal by whispering to the exarch and got separated before his bodyguards could react.

The ploy was successful, in the end. However, Durkula had a lot of luck at his side, since his ploy had several weak points:

1. Perhaps the most glaring one: It was obvious to anybody that Durkula has negative spontaneous casting, while Thor is decidedly a Good deity. It takes a pretty easy Knowledge(Religion) check to know that this has to mean Durkon is lying about his spiritual connection to Thor. Anybody from the Adad the Thunderer's guy on deck to low level temple clerics could have pointed this out and the ploy would have been over.
2. Durkula took a big risk with his temple tour, he narrowly prevented the knowledgeable gnome in white from revealing his secret, and had there been a level 13 cleric somewhere, Durkula would have been screwed.
3. The same with Veldrina and her class of Favoured soul instead of a hierarchical cleric.
4. The exarch could just declare Durkula's parton deity aloud, causing some havoc.

So I wonder if another approach by Durkula would provide safer success. He could easily pretend that:

1. He is still Durkon, but Thor has rejected him due to his undeath and due to dwarven rules, which make all the undead fall under Hel's supervision.
2. Hel has embraced him and now he is her priest. She is not that bad, just has a bad reputation.
3. Hel gave Durkon a premonition that there will be a major gathering of high priests where they would discuss how to defeat Xykon and his plan for gates. (this lie sounds pretty reasonable given preceeding events)
4. The Order of the Stick should arrive there as vital witnesses and could be easily accepted into a "Xykon Elimination Squad" Durkon would get the priests to listen since he's a Hel's legitimate representative. They have to hurry, since the godsmoot will begin shortly.

I believe such ploy would eliminate many risks Durkula had to take now. On the other hand, it would give some credit to Belkar's angry claims and would make Roy slightly more careful.

Would it Durkula even consider, given what he had learned from Durkon's memories? Would it work more smoothly than his current ploy? Would it make a better story?

What do you think?

[King of Nowhere]

it probably would have worked better and been less risky.

Hoowever, what durkula actually did made for a better story.

also, he is the kind of person who will resort to manipulation spontaneously, even when more direct routes are safer

[Rift_Wolf]

The spontaneous casting was bought up before the reveal of Hel. People claimed he was casting as a non-theistic cleric. It's possible that the Order, having no ranks in Knowledge Religion, would accept this as an answer if Durkon was quizzed. As to Adads Priest or the temple priests giving Roy the information, it's not like they know everything we know; they wouldn't know by looking that Durkon was a former cleric of Thor, that he used to spontaneously cast cure spells, that he now casts inflict spells, and that he's secretly a cleric of Hel. The only information the clerics had was that hes now a Vampire and only one cleric had a vital Insight as to what that meant.

Durkon's plan has needed some luck thus far, but it's not stretching incredulity. In answer to your final comment; the comic would've had a slightly different story, but the same outcome. The Order would've still gone to the Godsmoot, Durkon would've still cast his vote, Roy would still get his Rage on to save the world. Paths are less important than destinations.