Will destroying the world destroy Xykon?

[Lizard Lord]

Now obviously Roy, Eugene, and the others have no reason think otherwise since they still have every reason to believe Xykon's phylactery is still on the Material Realm. However, we know that Xykon stored it in a fortress he made in the astral plane. When the gods reset the world are they just resetting the material plane and, if so, does that mean that Xykon could survive the end of the world?

[nleseul]

Eugene has been scrying on Xykon fairly regularly (or, at least, he was supposed to be). Hence, he likely would be aware of the trip to the Astral Plane and the condition of the phylactery.

Eugene nonetheless currently believes that "destroying the world" would result in destroying Xykon.

Eugene probably has enough ranks in Knowledge: The Planes to be reasonably accurate in that belief.

Edit: As pointed out below, the real phylactery isn't in the Astral Plane anyway, and Eugene probably knows that too. So it's likely irrelevant anyway.

[Kish]

However, we know that Xykon stored it in a fortress he made in the astral plane.
Whoever comprise this We, they might want to reread the strips surrounding the events in question.

[Cizak]

Xykon put the fake phylactery in his fortress. Redcloak has the real one.

[Lord Raziere]

Yes.

His Phylactery is still in RC's hands, and RC is right next to him, so....when world go boom....well...

lets just say there are some things that no amount of lich-existence and abjurations can defend against.

[nleseul]

Hmm. Possible future plot point?

Roy: "Well, I just killed Xykon (again). Let's go raid his secret Astral Plane fortress so he can't regenerate! ...Wait, wasn't there something my dad said about destroying the world destroying Xykon? Would that work if his phylactery was on the Astral Plane?"
Vaarsuvius: "[long-winded explanation of why it wouldn't]"
Roy: "Great, so it actually can't be in the secret fortress! Let's go hunt down that nameless goblin in the red cloak instead. Thanks, dad!"
Eugene: "Grumble grumble."

[Peelee]

Hmm. Possible future plot point?

Roy: "Well, I just killed Xykon (again). Let's go raid his secret Astral Plane fortress so he can't regenerate!"

The "secret" part is kind of key here.

[Keltest]

It does raise an interesting question. If the gods need the threads of reality that make up the world to re-bind the Snarl properly, do mortal bodies count as being made of those threads? And by extension, do random things like gold pieces that have since left the plane count?

[Kish]

I think if Rich was going to draw the Order going through the astral fortress, he would have saved the "the phylactery's not actually in it" reveal for the end of that trip, not done it far before the beginning. As it is, he'd be drawing a plot arc which the audience had been effectively told to have zero investment in.

[Sylian]

This raises an interesting point. Wouldn't anyone with access to Plane Shift be able to avoid the destruction of the world, assuming they know the gods are going to destroy it?

[Aeson]

I'd be inclined to say that whether or not Xykon's phylactery is in the world at the time that the gods destroy the world doesn't greatly matter. The gods unmaking the world and incidentally destroying Xykon because he's in it at the time seems like it's not something that would come up in normal gameplay, and rules are really only there to cover the situations that the rule makers expect to come up in normal gameplay; beyond that, it's up to the players or, in this case, the author to decide whether or not the rules apply to the situation at hand.

Will unmaking the material plane destroy Xykon even if his phylactery was in the astral plane? I don't know. If Xykon's soul is in his body and his body is in the material plane, then presumably there's a potential for interaction between whatever magic binds Xykon's soul to his phylactery and whatever magic the gods are using to destroy the world. Is a former mortal's magic going to hold in that scenario? The SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lich.htm) says that "as a rule, the only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery." "As a rule" makes this statement a general case rather than an absolute truth, which means that there can be exceptions. A god unmaking the lich's body could very well be one of those exceptions.


This raises an interesting point. Wouldn't anyone with access to Plane Shift be able to avoid the destruction of the world, assuming they know the gods are going to destroy it?
One could argue that mortals of the kinds native to the material plane are part of the material plane, and that simply shifting to another plane does not change that. Real physics would say that discrete pieces of something which broke off of the main body and were somewhere else when the main body was destroyed survive the destruction of the main body even if the destruction of the main body was absolute, but metaphysics need not have any such requirement.

With the gods needing to recover the 'threads' of reality that went into making the world in order to build the new one, it could very well be argued that anything which contains (pieces of) such threads will be destroyed in the unmaking of the world regardless of where those things are at the time that the world is unmade, especially if you regard the metaphysical threads of reality as holding whether or not a physical connection between things actually exists.

[Roland Itiative]

Hmm. Possible future plot point?

Roy: "Well, I just killed Xykon (again). Let's go raid his secret Astral Plane fortress so he can't regenerate! ...Wait, wasn't there something my dad said about destroying the world destroying Xykon? Would that work if his phylactery was on the Astral Plane?"
Vaarsuvius: "[long-winded explanation of why it wouldn't]"
Roy: "Great, so it actually can't be in the secret fortress! Let's go hunt down that nameless goblin in the red cloak instead. Thanks, dad!"
Eugene: "Grumble grumble."

I imagine Eugene would actually give Roy that info if it ever becomes necessary. After all, he wants Xykon to be destroyed.

But, as it stands, the Order have no knowledge about the astral fortress at all. If they manage to destroy Xykon with their current knowledge, they'll just assume the phylactery is in Redcloak's hands, and they'd be most likely right (unless RC hid it somewhere else and is using another holy symbol).

[nleseul]

I imagine Eugene would actually give Roy that info if it ever becomes necessary. After all, he wants Xykon to be destroyed.

But there are rules to that sort of thing (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0078.html).

[factotum]

This raises an interesting point. Wouldn't anyone with access to Plane Shift be able to avoid the destruction of the world, assuming they know the gods are going to destroy it?

Depends where they Shift to. The Outer Planes are explicitly the homes of the Gods, so they'd be safe, but it's unclear on whether the destruction of the world would also include things like the Astral and Ethereal Planes, and since Xykon's fortress is on the Astral it may or may not be included.

[Lizard Lord]

Edit: As pointed out below, the real phylactery isn't in the Astral Plane anyway

Oh. Right. :smallsigh::smallredface:

[Goblin_Priest]

Xykon put the fake phylactery in his fortress. Redcloak has the real one.

Or so Xykon wants Redcloak to believe!

[Mandor]

Or so Xykon wants Redcloak to believe!

"So I can clearly NOT choose the phylactery in front of me!" :)

[The Unlucky One]

Eugene has been scrying on Xykon fairly regularly (or, at least, he was supposed to be). Hence, he likely would be aware of the trip to the Astral Plane and the condition of the phylactery.

Eugene nonetheless currently believes that "destroying the world" would result in destroying Xykon.

Eugene probably has enough ranks in Knowledge: The Planes to be reasonably accurate in that belief.

Edit: As pointed out below, the real phylactery isn't in the Astral Plane anyway, and Eugene probably knows that too. So it's likely irrelevant anyway.

It's Eugene... He was probably to busy yelling from the clouds (instead of at clouds) to scry competently. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Eugene hasn't even told Roy that Xykon has started playing the luck game with the doors. He probably did to scrying what he did to his blood oath in his adventuring days.

But it's a moot point anyway as other have mentionned, though I don't even think Eugene knows where the real phylactery is with all the spell put on both the fake and real one (so unless he was scrying Recloak exactly at 831, there is no real way to know where the good one is).

[Misery Esquire]

This raises an interesting point. Wouldn't anyone with access to Plane Shift be able to avoid the destruction of the world, assuming they know the gods are going to destroy it?

Unlikely. The Gods don't have a reason to leave anyone alive who knows that World 2.0 existed.

[Keltest]

Unlikely. The Gods don't have a reason to leave anyone alive who knows that World 2.0 existed.

I suspect that if the gods had the power to completely destroy any given individual on any given plane, they would have just vaporized Xykon and Redcloak after the second gate fell.

[dancrilis]

I suspect that if the gods had the power to completely destroy any given individual on any given plane, they would have just vaporized Xykon and Redcloak after the second gate fell.

... it wasn't Xykon or Redcloak that destroyed the Gate, in fact they were actually gone when the gate self-destruct was activated.

Seperately Redcloak is the high priest of a god - smiting him likely would break more rules than merely smiting some regular guy.

[hamishspence]

Mike wouldn't have destroyed it if there hadn't been a roomful of massacred paladins, a paralysed O-Chul, and Xykon and Redcloak in the room, clearly responsible.

Admittedly they were being pounded by Soon, but apparently she didn't notice that.

Once Soon had "faded to the Celestial realm" in the aftermath of that gate destruction - he could have communicated the increasing seriousness of the situation to the gods.

[dancrilis]

Mike wouldn't have destroyed it if there hadn't been a roomful of massacred paladins, a paralysed O-Chul, and Xykon and Redcloak in the room, clearly responsible.

Admittedly they were being pounded by Soon, but apparently she didn't notice that.

Once Soon had "faded to the Celestial realm" in the aftermath of that gate destruction - he could have communicated the increasing seriousness of the situation to the gods.

That would be the third gate.

But fine - Xykon had no intention of destroying the gate, Redcloak had no intention of destroying the gate, nobody with an Evil alignment wanted any gate destroyed from what we know.

The security of the world would likely be in a better place if heros stopped breaking the pillars that support the world.

[factotum]

But fine - Xykon had no intention of destroying the gate, Redcloak had no intention of destroying the gate, nobody with an Evil alignment wanted any gate destroyed from what we know.


Destroying the gates isn't Redcloak's plan A, but he's perfectly fine with the world getting destroyed so long as the goblinoid people get a better shake of the stick in World 3.0--which he believes will be the case, since the Dark One will be directly involved in that world's creation, unlike 2.0.

[Jay R]

There's no way to answer without a little more information.

What is "the world" in this context? Will the gods have to destroy a planet, and leave the Prime Material Plane alone, or destroy one plane out of many, or destroy all the planes (except the ones they live on, presumably)?

[Kish]

But fine - Xykon had no intention of destroying the gate, Redcloak had no intention of destroying the gate, nobody with an Evil alignment wanted any gate destroyed from what we know.
Preeeety sure the archfiends of the IFCC are evil-aligned, somehow.