OOTS #1139 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

[Itrogash]

I did not expect that O.o

[Flame of Anor]

That's, uh. That's a lot of worlds.

That destroy-the-world solution is looking a bit more reasonable, considering what happened to the first ones. I wonder if the gods did it to any of the previous worlds, or were they all eaten by the Snarl?

[Fyraltari]

That's ... overwhelming.

[Xianthe]

Ho. Ly. #$(*

I've rarely been left speechless by a comic, but this is right up there.

[Resileaf]

I was expecting that the Order's world wasn't the second one, seeing as during the crayon retelling of the Snarl's creation, there was something about "We agreed to have a medieval European world this time" or something.

That's a lot more worlds than I expected, however.

A LOT more.

[Keltest]

Ah. Well. Uh... crap.

[ZeroCool]

Golly. I did not see that coming.

[Great Dane]

Just how old are the Gods?

[Giggling Ghast]

Shocking, but what’s the point in showing Durkon this graveyard?

[Deuce]

Oh, that's, um, not encouraging. Hopefully this isn't the story of losing another one.

Getting eaten by the Snarl isn't a happy ending, right Elan?

[TruDivination]

I don't think I've ever been hit so hard by a visual panel before. Amazing job.

[Resileaf]

I wonder if those gravestones wouldn't represent all the campaign worlds that have been abandonned over the years once the GM and players got bored and started playing a different game.

[GrayDeath]

Ohhh fuuu......

OK, I did expect another 2-3 worlds, but that?



........speechless.


Edit: And first time on first Page?

[isocum]

So why isn't hel is the most powerfull goddess already, if that many worlds died, and their dwarfs feeding her? Is this the first iteration of dwarfs?

[Fyraltari]

The gods made a monument to each one. They really do care after all.

[Gwynfrid]

Wow. Double wow... Triple wow with whipped cream and a cherry on the top.

[D.One]

WOW...

WOOOOW....

WOOOOOOOOW!!!

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Bravo, Giant! This one blew my mind completely.

[Fyraltari]

So why isn't hel is the most powerfull goddess already, if that many worlds died, and their dwarfs feeding her? Is this the first iteration of dwarfs?

Probably not, but it's the first iteration of the Bet.



Do we know for sure, that the Dark One was born on the current world?

[Worldsong]

If it wasn't for the page where Durkon overwhelmed the vampire this might have been my most favourite page in the entirety of OotS.

Actually, it's still a pretty good contender.

Thor being so blatantly Chaotic Good is great.

The graveyard is heartbreaking but also amazing.

[Forikroder]

That's, uh. That's a lot of worlds.

That destroy-the-world solution is looking a bit more reasonable, considering what happened to the first ones. I wonder if the gods did it to any of the previous worlds, or were they all eaten by the Snarl?

on the other hand, the snarl has escaped this many times and the gods are all still fine

[Fitzclowningham]

If all these worlds were destroyed, wouldn't the addition of the dwarves' souls to Hel from the current one be a drop in the bucket? How could they possibly be enough to make a difference? That is, I mean, if the Dwarven honor arrangement applied only to the current world.

[Lord Torath]

Wow. That is a LOT of broken prisons.

I wonder if this is the first world with Gates blocking the rifts...

Presumably the Dark One has not yet participated in creating a world, or he wouldn't have needed Rat and Tiamat to tell him about the Snarl.

And the Snarl is one heck of an escape artist...

Thanks, Giant!


If all these worlds were destroyed, wouldn't the addition of the dwarves' souls to Hel from the current one be a drop in the bucket? How could they possibly be enough to make a difference? That is, I mean, if the Dwarven honor arrangement applied only to the current world.Rich said that new souls provide more power than old souls. If you want to do the math to figure out the required decay rate of a soul, be my guest. If you get a result that shows the power Hel gets from destroying the current world is less than the other gods all have, you'll need to re-check your math until it agrees with how Rich has said his afterlife works.

[ad_astra]

I can understand why so many of the gods were willing to destroy the world now, and honestly, I can't blame them.

[aramis604]

So why isn't hel is the most powerfull goddess already, if that many worlds died, and their dwarfs feeding her? Is this the first iteration of dwarfs?

Because the Snarl devoured all of the souls from each of the lost worlds.

[Resileaf]

So why isn't hel is the most powerfull goddess already, if that many worlds died, and their dwarfs feeding her? Is this the first iteration of dwarfs?

I assume that Hel only made her bet in recent history when this world was created. In the previous worlds, she had the usual deal.

[ad_astra]

If all these worlds were destroyed, wouldn't the addition of the dwarves' souls to Hel from the current one be a drop in the bucket? How could they possibly be enough to make a difference? That is, I mean, if the Dwarven honor arrangement applied only to the current world.

All of the souls in the previous worlds were eaten.

[Ruck]

Huh.

I guess maybe this both explains why some of the gods are more cavalier about destroying this world, and why others want to keep giving the mortals a chance. (1184 years has to be a record, yeah?)

I also wonder if we're going to find out that some of the gods simply want to give up if this one doesn't work out. (Despite what some of them said about rebuilding a new one.) Could this be the Last World?

[Xihirli]

If all these worlds were destroyed, wouldn't the addition of the dwarves' souls to Hel from the current one be a drop in the bucket? How could they possibly be enough to make a difference? That is, I mean, if the Dwarven honor arrangement applied only to the current world.

The other worlds died before the bet was made that gave her the dishonored dead.
Hel explicitly said in her speech that the bets and deals ended with this world when talking about the next one.

[GudBelkarIsGud]

...And we now have a new contender, if not outright winner, for most shocking moment in the comic.

That literally made my jaw drop.

[PirateMonk]

Nice!

So did they eventually decide to start nesting the worlds to slow the Snarl's escape, or is something else going on with the world in the rift?

[hamishspence]

I'm guessing the elf and dwarf ascended deities are also unique to this world. Raising the question - what's made this world so different from the past ones?

[Keltest]

So is the deific version of that monty python skit?

"We built a world. It sank into the swamp. So we built another one! That sank into the swamp. So we built another one! That one burned down, fell over and then sank into the swamp! But the four-quintillionth one stayed up! And that's the world you mortals will inherit one day."

[King of Nowhere]

Holy...

I feel a sense of... AGE. A time abyss. those are millions and millions of years of worlds. Of people forgotten, whose lives mattered nothing. It's huge. How old are the gods anyway?

[Resileaf]

...And we now have a new contender, if not outright winner, for most shocking moment in the comic.

That literally made my jaw drop.

This arc is shocking moment after shocking moment!

[carborundum]

Woah. Their chances seem a bit slimmer now!

PS I was reading on my phone in landscape and the scrolling... and scrolling... and scrolling was awesome :D

[D.One]

So why isn't hel is the most powerfull goddess already, if that many worlds died, and their dwarfs feeding her? Is this the first iteration of dwarfs?

It's not clear if The Bet wasn't made just before the making of current world.

Also, It seems the monuments are to honor worlds and souls devoured by the Snarl, so no souls for Hel.

And now I start to think if The Bet and Durkon's prophecy aren't part of a big Odin&Loki Con Act to try to solve the Snarl Problem once and for all. It made me remember American Gods, those who have read it will know why...

[Quinton250]

I think Hel only gets the dwarf souls if the gods destroyed the planet voluntarily(which we haven’t been given any indication that has happened yet). If the snarl escapes, everyone’s souls are destroyed.

[RMS Oceanic]

...oh my.

It's like all the Ace Rimmers but reversed

[Worldsong]

I'm guessing the elf and dwarf ascended deities are also unique to this world. Raising the question - what's made this world so different from the past ones?

Do we know for sure that this world is truly that different?

[Hamste]

I wonder why they even bothered having a speech portion during the Godsmoot? They must have had a conversation like that who knows how many times already.

[Daelach]

So, is this going to be a fold-out page in the printed version? :smallcool:

It also makes for some interesting theories about what the Snarl has done with the other worlds. There are clearly others inside the rift. Maybe the Snarl hasn't been "eating" them so much as "collecting"?

[Talion]

I...ah...wow. Yeah, consider my jaw dropped. Did not see that coming.

What that tells me is that this isn't something they can fix by putting up a new world again. At best, that'd be a temporary solution. What they need is a way to untangle the Snarl once and for all. Someth...

How long are the odds on "The Dark One is actually the Snarl"?

[Tom Tearcamel]

Well, I just laughed maniacally in the break room and got a bunch of stares. I wonder if Rich thanks Odin for the copy/paste tool. Beautiful.

[Worldsong]

I wonder why they even bothered having a speech portion during the Godsmoot? They must have had a conversation like that who knows how many times already.

I can personally attest that you can have the same argument many times and still try again each time.

Also, maybe the gods don't always vote the same so those speeches still hold weight. I'd be surprised if Loki was the defender of the world every single time, for instance.

[Keltest]

I wonder why they even bothered having a speech portion during the Godsmoot? They must have had a conversation like that who knows how many times already.

Given that the souls were destroyed, that would seem to suggest that they were not sufficiently prepared to remake the world on their own. Which really makes Loki's argument that they have enough time to end the world and fix things anyway sound hollow, come to think of it.


If I had to guess whats different on this world, I would say the gates. This is the first time anyone has actually successfully plugged the gaps, to any meaningful degree.

[King of Nowhere]

I also wonder if we're going to find out that some of the gods simply want to give up if this one doesn't work out. (Despite what some of them said about rebuilding a new one.) Could this be the Last World?

I think gods need a world populated by mortals because they need prayers and souls to sustain themselves. They have to keep making new worlds to survive


If all these worlds were destroyed, wouldn't the addition of the dwarves' souls to Hel from the current one be a drop in the bucket? How could they possibly be enough to make a difference?

Because the power from dead souls don't last forever. All those dead worlds are like dead batteries. If you have 2 live batteries and hel has 3 live batteries, that's 50% more. it doesn't matter than both have thousands of spent batteries.

EDIT: assumign the gods managed to pull the plug on time and save the souls there. if they were eaten by the snarl, then they would not matter anyway

[Forikroder]

Given that the souls were destroyed, that would seem to suggest that they were not sufficiently prepared to remake the world on their own. Which really makes Loki's argument that they have enough time to end the world and fix things anyway sound hollow, come to think of it.


If I had to guess whats different on this world, I would say the gates. This is the first time anyone has actually successfully plugged the gaps, to any meaningful degree.

seems like the snarl has escaped an uncountable amount of times and each time the gods just make a new prison around him

honestly Lokis argument if anything carries more weight, this is a problem there used to solved and mulliganing isnt going to help anything

[Yendor]

Holy <bleep>.

That is horrifying.

[Gift Jeraff]

I'm guessing the elf and dwarf ascended deities are also unique to this world. Raising the question - what's made this world so different from the past ones?

Could be that mortals becoming deities was a newer rule they implemented, possibly after losing several more gods (or even pantheons).

If that's not the case, it could mean the Dark One ascended from another world and that's why the details of his mortal days are unknown. Or perhaps he never was an ascended mortal and is instead the sole survivor of a purple aura pantheon. Though him apparently being ignorant of the other 4 Gates makes it seem likely he is indeed from the current world.

[Emperor Time]

Wow, so the Snarl has devoured that many worlds. :smalleek:

[Kareasint]

Given that the souls were destroyed, that would seem to suggest that they were not sufficiently prepared to remake the world on their own. Which really makes Loki's argument that they have enough time to end the world and fix things anyway sound hollow, come to think of it.


If I had to guess whats different on this world, I would say the gates. This is the first time anyone has actually successfully plugged the gaps, to any meaningful degree.

That was my guess as well. I think that the message here is that the deities will not hesitate to pull the trigger if the Order fails. Thor may also impart some knowledge as to how the prison is built. This would lead Durkon to develop better locks.

[hamishspence]

"Time for gaps to form" probably increases with each new world - 4 years for the first, 1100-odd for the latest. Maybe more, if there's a big gap between "creation" and "start of calendar".

[Agnostik]

That's, uh. That's a lot of worlds.

comic way too worldy for chief grukgruk sometimes

[Quinton250]

I think Hel only gets the dwarf souls if the gods destroyed the planet voluntarily(which we haven’t been given any indication that has happened yet). If the snarl escapes, everyone’s souls are destroyed.

I’ll add to this and say this means the gods have never voted on the fate of the world before, since every destroyed world has been ended by the snarl and not by the gods. It’s possible that the world building process was an iterative one that the gods improved on each time and slowly increased the lifespan each time but I don’t think this is the case. I feel like most of those worlds didn’t last long at all and eventually they got lucky and created a world where the gates were created and this world has existed substantially longer than any previous one. This the decision to end the first successful world voluntarily carries the same weight we thought it did originally. No one knows how many more tries it will take to reestablish another successful world.

[Derian]

Oh... wow...

Uh... I can just imagine the guilt that the good deities must be feeling if Thor's words about Marduk weeping and his own comments about 'we couldn't play nice' were true.

So... no worlds before this one ever had ascended deities?

Or is it that without any souls to sustain them, the ascended gods die out when a world ends?

....Redcloak and the Dark One's obsession with 'The Plan' may well end up not with goblinoid ascension but goblinoid *genocide.*

[Fyraltari]

I wonder why they even bothered having a speech portion during the Godsmoot? They must have had a conversation like that who knows how many times already.

They probably have to act all together to unmake the world without the Snarl escaping. And they have to follow the rules, and they are split nearly 50/50 on the issue. And the Gates may be a new thing.

Some of the graves appear bigger than graves "in front" of them. Assuming this is not an error I ownder why a world would get a bigger graves than another? More people on it? Its souls were nommed by the Snarl rather than killed by the Gods?

[Lord Raziere]

Oh.

Oh no.

That is not good.

it seems the rifts are just a thing that will always happen as long as the Snarl is around, and that the world will always erode, and they had to get better and better at designing the world. The Gates were something that could perhaps finally break that cycle and make sure the rifts didn't grow anymore. this also explains the debate Loki and Heimdall had and why Heimdall said it with such resignation while Loki said it as if this has happened so many times before. because it has happened, like millions of times it seems.

question is, does Redcloak know this? does HE know how many times it has happened?? does he even think its an important detail? because Redcloak is the one manipulating Xykon, so he is the bad guy who'd know the most.

either way, it seems that the Gods recreating the world-prison doesn't seem to be a permanent solution. We're just going to end up right back where we started, hopefully with a longer timeframe between rifts but.....doesn't change the fact that its going to keep happening. Hm.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Oh. My. Gods and Goddesses.

That's taking Gardens of Stone to near infinite levels.

[lcavalheiro]

Shocking, but what’s the point in showing Durkon this graveyard?

I would bet the point is telling to Durkon something like "we screwed things very hard, please help us to not screw it again."

[Nith]

Wow. The bottom part is completely grey, there must be millions of worlds. This just feels massive.

But I wonder about the world within the rift, this comic doesn't explain it. There must be further mysteries, possibly some that the gods don't know about themselves.



It also makes for some interesting theories about what the Snarl has done with the other worlds. There are clearly others inside the rift. Maybe the Snarl hasn't been "eating" them so much as "collecting"?

Are there others inside the rift? I thought we only knew about there being lots of water inside. Laurin didn't sense any living beings.

[NRSASD]

Well... um... uh... dang. That's a lot of corpses. The mind boggles trying to comprehend that actually.

This doesn't bode well for our heroes. That and their trademark tactic of being "too stupid to know when to quit." Looks like the gods have that covered.

Props to Mr. Burlew for making me burst out laughing in dawning, horrified comprehension. Wow...

[Agi Hammerthief]

well I‘m lost for worlds

[Resileaf]

Oh.

Oh no.

That is not good.

it seems the rifts are just a thing that will always happen as long as the Snarl is around, and that the world will always erode, and they had to get better and better at designing the world. The Gates were something that could perhaps finally break that cycle and make sure the rifts didn't grow anymore. this also explains the debate Loki and Heimdall had and why Heimdall said it with such resignation while Loki said it as if this has happened so many times before. because it has happened, like millions of times it seems.

question is, does Redcloak know this? does HE know how many times it has happened?? does he even think its an important detail? because Redcloak is the one manipulating Xykon, so he is the bad guy who'd know the most.

either way, it seems that the Gods recreating the world-prison doesn't seem to be a permanent solution. We're just going to end up right back where we started, hopefully with a longer timeframe between rifts but.....doesn't change the fact that its going to keep happening. Hm.

Redcloak definitely doesn't know. I don,t think the Dark One does either, since he seems to barely have any information on the Snarl in the first place except what it did to the first world.

[Eldritch Queen]

I have no words left. I'll just use post icons to describe my feelings.

:smalleek::smalleek::smalleek::smalleek::smalleek: :smalleek:

[Hildegard]

That was legitimately overwhelming. I had to join the forum just to be with other people who got how overwhelming that was.

[The Pilgrim]

That's far more worlds than editions of D&D.

[FrankNorman]

One thing I noticed - the monument things are not all the same size. Some are clearly larger than others, because we can see small ones in front of larger ones.
So maybe they do not all represent the same things.

[Lord Torath]

I’ll add to this and say this means the gods have never voted on the fate of the world before, since every destroyed world has been ended by the snarl and not by the gods. It’s possible that the world building process was an iterative one that the gods improved on each time and slowly increased the lifespan each time but I don’t think this is the case. I feel like most of those worlds didn’t last long at all and eventually they got lucky and created a world where the gates were created and this world has existed substantially longer than any previous one. This the decision to end the first successful world voluntarily carries the same weight we thought it did originally. No one knows how many more tries it will take to reestablish another successful world.Do we really know that all those worlds were destroyed by the Snarl, and not by the gods before the Snarl could do so? All we know is that the first three worlds were destroyed by the Snarl, and that there have been probably millions of worlds before this one. Thor never says "These are tombstones for all the worlds destroyed by the Snarl", just that the gods haven't stopped trying to imprison it, and that they create a memorial for each world destroyed.

One thing I noticed - the monument things are not all the same size. Some are clearly larger than others, because we can see small ones in front of larger ones.
So maybe they do not all represent the same things.Good catch!

[ruy343]

This is an amazing piece of work. I never expected the Gods to have been trying this for so long, and for them to still have hope.

What I want to know now is: Why keep making worlds? Could they not make a specific snarl prison, and then make a world somewhere else so that the Snarl doesn't know about it?

Also, is that other world inside this one actually a nested prison? One world encasing another world, encasing another world, encasing the snarl for as long as possible until it broke out of each one in sequence?

[Forikroder]

This is an amazing piece of work. I never expected the Gods to have been trying this for so long, and for them to still have hope.

What I want to know now is: Why keep making worlds? Could they not make a specific snarl prison, and then make a world somewhere else so that the Snarl doesn't know about it?

Also, is that other world inside this one actually a nested prison? One world encasing another world, encasing another world, encasing the snarl for as long as possible until it broke out of each one in sequence?

they need the threads of reality to make the prison, they dont have enough

[2D8HP]

Oh my sweet lord, so many worlds!

:eek:
I really wasn't expecting that reveal!

[Fyraltari]

What I want to know now is: Why keep making worlds? Could they not make a specific snarl prison, and then make a world somewhere else so that the Snarl doesn't know about it?

I am going to guess that they can't for magicobabble reasons.

[Quinton250]

Do we really know that all those worlds were destroyed by the Snarl, and not by the gods before the Snarl could do so? All we know is that the first three worlds were destroyed by the Snarl, and that there have been probably millions of worlds before this one. Thor never says "These are tombstones for all the worlds destroyed by the Snarl", just that the gods haven't stopped trying to imprison it, and that they create a memorial for each world destroyed.

We don’t know for sure, I just feel like it would have been mentioned if that was the case. Combined with the fact that half the gods voted to keep this world alive and the vote seemed like an exceptional event, i doubt this is something that has happened thousands of times.

[The MunchKING]

That is... Pretty horrifying.

How long until they can make a world solely out of the Monuments for the previous worlds? :D

[Resileaf]

they need the threads of reality to make the prison, they dont have enough

Not to mention the Snarl is made of the threads of reality.
They're making a prison with the snarl itself.

[hroþila]

That was sobering.

I guess that puts the lore of the Sapphire Guard in context now. They believe the gods had to choose between starting anew to make a prison the Snarl couldn't escape from, or going with the Gates thing even though they knew that wouldn't fix the problem forever. Clearly, that's not the case, because any remade prison is liable to become unstable and fail after all. It's pretty obvious why the Twelve would keep that particular detail hidden from their followers, though.

At some point, maybe the gods should have given up on populating their worlds, out of a sense of moral responsibility. But I imagine they simply can't - that creative impulse must be part of their natures. And hey, maybe they figured out early on how to do a controlled demolition of the world and save everyone's souls, so that only the first few cases resulted in everybody being eaten by the Snarl, in which case maybe they could argue that it was still worth it.

I wonder why they even bothered having a speech portion during the Godsmoot? They must have had a conversation like that who knows how many times already.
In fact, that not all the gods have become blasé about the whole thing yet is a testament to how much more Good than they're usually given credit for at least some of the gods are. And similarly, it explains why many of the gods can appear to be uncaring, even those who aren't necessarily Evil.

[Lathund]

That's... just... :smallfrown:

[TynamMerise]

I wonder why they even bothered having a speech portion during the Godsmoot? They must have had a conversation like that who knows how many times already.

Because they still don't agree. So the conversation they've had how many times already is an argument, and they all know it.

Having their arguments in the Godsmoot via proxies summoned by mortal clerics is obviously one of the rules - probably the most important precaution - that they use to avoid creating another Snarl.

[warmachine]

When you fail that many times, you have to rethink your approach.

[Aotrs Commander]

At first I was like, "well, that's not good..." from just happening to have scrolled to the point I was seeing tthe top of that last panel, where there was just four of them in sight alongside that last close-up panel.

And then I scrolled down.

And down.

And down.

I was then like "ohhhhh. Ohh hoho. That is REALLY not good."

That effect was beautifully executed.



The, er... The gods aren't very good at this, are they...?

[Fyraltari]

At some point, maybe the gods should have given up on populating their worlds, out of a sense of moral responsibility. But I imagine they simply can't - that creative impulse must be part of their natures.

That would probably be suicide. They need those souls, after all.

[masamune1]

I'm...not sure I liked this twist, if I'm being honest. It feels a bit like a "shocking swerve" (well, maybe not THAT bad) that just raises too many questions and might actually make the stakes feel a bit "lower" or make me think something else is going on.

Most of all, it makes the gods look absolutely bonkers and incompetent- obsessive and yet incapable. Mostly due to the sheer scale of the repeated failures rather than the failures themselves.

Also, the Snarl is out already, so this world just seems yet further screwed.

I wonder if the Snarl is somehow behind all of these failures though? Since it's the actions of people like Xykon and Redcloak that are bringing it about this time, does that mean that every time a new world comes about the Snarl somehow finds villains (or heroes?!?) to manipulate it into freeing it? Sort of like Ruin in the Mistborn series?

[UrielAwakened]

Avengers: Infinity War has killed the most implied fictional characters of any work of entertainment.

Rich Burlew: Hold my beer.

[King of Nowhere]

One thing I noticed - the monument things are not all the same size. Some are clearly larger than others, because we can see small ones in front of larger ones.
So maybe they do not all represent the same things.

It may just be an art error, though. I assume the page was made by rich copypasting the monument thousands of times, then changing size and repeating. Some mistakes can be made in such a process

[Arkku]

Ok, so statistically this world is almost certainly doomed.

But now the world seen in the rift becomes more interesting…

[UrielAwakened]

If all these worlds were destroyed, wouldn't the addition of the dwarves' souls to Hel from the current one be a drop in the bucket? How could they possibly be enough to make a difference? That is, I mean, if the Dwarven honor arrangement applied only to the current world.

Pretty sure the Snarl obliterates souls. Like, no after-life.

[Aquillion]

I'm surprised there weren't more gods killed during the death of some of those worlds, given how many of them they are and given that the Snarl can kill gods if it escapes.

[Coyote0715]

My God! It's full of (dead) stars! :eek:

[RMS Oceanic]

I'm surprised there weren't more gods killed during the death of some of those worlds, given how many of them they are and given that the Snarl can kill gods if it escapes.

I dunno, who says there were only four pantheons in the first world?

[hroþila]

That would probably be suicide. They need those souls, after all.
Good point. Even if some of the more altruistic Good gods were up for it, they would probably lose any vote to that effect.

[Fyraltari]

I'm...not sure I liked this twist, if I'm being honest. It feels a bit like a "shocking swerve" (well, maybe not THAT bad) that just raises too many questions and might actually make the stakes feel a bit "lower" or make me think something else is going on.
How? The number of people at risk is the same.


Most of all, it makes the gods look absolutely bonkers and incompetent- obsessive and yet incapable. Mostly due to the sheer scale of the repeated failures rather than the failures themselves.
It implies they are getting better at it, though, I mean, they went from 4 minutes to 11 centuries, that's a lot of people who got to enjoy a full life.
Also is there even a better solution?

Also, the Snarl is out already, so this world just seems yet further screwed.
That's hardly new information.

I wonder if the Snarl is somehow behind all of these failures though? Since it's the actions of people like Xykon and Redcloak that are bringing it about this time, does that mean that every time a new world comes about the Snarl somehow finds villains (or heroes?!?) to manipulate it into freeing it? Sort of like Ruin in the Mistborn series?
That's an interesting theory. It seems to have reached out to Laurin's mind. Maybe the Dark One went looking to see what the fuss was about and the Snarl gave hum the idea of the Plan.

Avengers: Infinity War has killed the most implied fictional characters of any work of entertainment.

Rich Burlew: Hold my beer.
Nice one.

[Cazero]

Looks like the gods can't solve the problem. Probably related to the very nature of their divine energy and how the Snarl reacts to it.

[Nith]

I'm surprised there weren't more gods killed during the death of some of those worlds, given how many of them they are and given that the Snarl can kill gods if it escapes.

My guess is that since the destruction of the first world the gods have found a way to avoid being killed by the Snarl. Probably it cannot move to their planes and they can create new worlds without putting themselves at risk. So no new deicides have happened since world one, at least among the original gods.

Or, I might be completely wrong.

[Ulthwithian]

Breathtaking in scope. I am quite impressed.

But I think I know what's going on, now. The Snarl is, indeed, 'collecting' worlds for its prison, as others have suggested... it's basically our Universe.

IOW, Mr. Burlew has figured out how our Universe is expanding... on the efforts of the Gods... how very interesting. Does that make RPG designers somehow psychically aware of this fact? ;)

[Lkctgo]

Hmm, assuming that Hel had a pseudo-equal share of the souls in the past, every god should have millions or billions of souls. Given that millions of worlds have been destroyed by the snarl (or destroyed by the gods and their souls absorbed), how could one world put Hel on top of the entire pantheon? Especially if it's only 1 of 1,000,001 worlds destroyed? Unless the Gods lose a lot of power every time they create a new world (which seems likely), it seems like Hel's boost would only be a teardrop in an ocean of souls.

[Nith]

Good point. Even if some of the more altruistic Good gods were up for it, they would probably lose any vote to that effect.

It's not altruistic to just not create new worlds, just because they might not last forever.

[Gorgon_Heap]

Avengers: Infinity War has killed the most implied fictional characters of any work of entertainment.

Rich Burlew: Hold my beer.



Ha!


And yeah, this one got me with a gobsmacked, wide-eyed, prolonged gasp.

[HalfTangible]

...

So many gods were so cavalier about destroying this world, even those who would (judging by archetypes) balk at it. Others were outright flippant about potentially losing this world and having to make another. ("Oooh, I could try out that idea I had for a new coastline!")

And now we know why.

*very slow Imperial March*

[Fyraltari]

Hmm, assuming that Hel had a pseudo-equal share of the souls in the past, every god should have millions or billions of souls. Given that millions of worlds have been destroyed by the snarl (or destroyed by the gods and their souls absorbed), how could one world put Hel on top of the entire pantheon? Especially if it's only 1 of 1,000,001 worlds destroyed? Unless the Gods lose a lot of power every time they create a new world (which seems likely), it seems like Hel's boost would only be a teardrop in an ocean of souls.

Because the Gos used those souls to power their magic. Millions of world means millions of Clerics getting spells and using the energy from those souls.

[hroþila]

My guess is that since the destruction of the first world the gods have found a way to avoid being killed by the Snarl. Probably it cannot move to their planes and they can create new worlds without putting themselves at risk. So no new deicides have happened since world one, at least among the original gods.

Or, I might be completely wrong.
Not-serious theory:

They use raised gods as meatshields!

It's not altruistic to just not create new worlds, just because they might not last forever.
It is, if that leads directly to your death. And the problem is not that they might not last forever, but that everybody's souls might be unmade, which is pretty horrible in this context.

[Windscion]

Wow. Double wow... Triple wow with whipped cream and a cherry on the top.
Ayup.

Re: Souls.
We don't know that the Snarl ate the souls from more than those first two worlds. Given the number of worlds ... brrr! ... I imagine some (probably most) were dismantled by the gods (based on Loki's remarks in 998).

New gods arising (Elven gods, Dark One) is nowhere hinted at from previous Kalpa, but such could have blended into one pantheon or another.

Theory
This storyline suggests that the current world might be exceptional. Possibly this world has lasted the longest, or else the existence of goblinoids, etc may have caused the overall success rate of adventuring to skyrocket. If no other world ever had epic casters aware of the rifts, the gates anchoring the rifts may be a new thing, and they want to see where it leads. Arcane magic may be able to do what the gods cannot, simply because the Snarl is a god-birthed abomination.

Of course this campaign may be the longest running simply because the GM is that good. :smallwink:

[Fyraltari]

Not-serious theory:

They use raised gods as meatshields!

I can totally see Loki throwing Dvalin at the Snarl and making a break for it yelling.

"I don't need to outrun it! I need to outrun you!"

[jdb-44]

So is the deific version of that monty python skit?

"We built a world. It sank into the swamp. So we built another one! That sank into the swamp. So we built another one! That one burned down, fell over and then sank into the swamp! But the four-quintillionth one stayed up! And that's the world you mortals will inherit one day."

"But, Mother..."
"Father!"

[Verappo]

You can almost hear the hollow sound of "Ooo! I could try out that new idea I had for a coastline!" ringing through the stone and grey mist

[Goremplotz]

Shocking, but what’s the point in showing Durkon this graveyard?

Because it's uplifting that Durkon was/will not be inhabiting a third world region?

But honestly, the strip reveals why the very thought of destroying a world may not be so totally shocking to the gods. It has been done before countless times. They may even regard it as a tried and trusted means of suppressing the snarl. Destroying a world may to the gods just look like an unavoidable inconvenience which needs to be repeated every now and then. :smalleek:

Also, we can infer that the gods have already tried a lot of ways to prevent the snarl from escaping, none of which have succeeded so far. This either reflects poorly on the gods' creativity (pun intended), or puts the odds of the Order to succeed into perspective.

[HalfTangible]

It is, if that leads directly to your death. And the problem is not that they might not last forever, but that everybody's souls might be unmade, which is pretty horrible in this context.You can potentially be unmade or never exist in the first place.

I'd take the first, especially since (judging from this most recent world compared to the 2nd) we've got an actual bit of progress each time, and several of the souls from each world make it to the planar domains.


Hmm, assuming that Hel had a pseudo-equal share of the souls in the past, every god should have millions or billions of souls. Given that millions of worlds have been destroyed by the snarl (or destroyed by the gods and their souls absorbed), how could one world put Hel on top of the entire pantheon? Especially if it's only 1 of 1,000,001 worlds destroyed? Unless the Gods lose a lot of power every time they create a new world (which seems likely), it seems like Hel's boost would only be a teardrop in an ocean of souls.

Yeah, ALL OF THEM should have roughly the same number of souls. Hel's going to get a sudden surge of them that the other gods aren't going to get, plus whatever winnings she got from her bet with Thor. Which probably involves how the next world will be run.

[Ninja Dragon]

This puts into perspective how small some of the conflicts in this comic are.

Hel wanting to create a world where she rules all the dwarves? Will last maybe a few centuries, of the billions of years of existance she has.

Redcloak wanting to create a world where goblins can live free? Who cares, they might as well let this world get destroyed and hope the Dark One's negotiating skills are good when they make the next one. And all the ones after it.

Xykon wanting to rule the world? Dude, three panteons of gods have tried and failed to keep a planet from being destroyed by the Snarl thousands of times, what makes you think you can control the beast itself?

The Order of the Scribble protecting the rifts? Useless. Nobody can protect the rifts. Your petty disagreements are nothing compared to the history of existance.

[Nith]

It is, if that leads directly to your death. And the problem is not that they might not last forever, but that everybody's souls might be unmade, which is pretty horrible in this context.

I think arguments about ethics, in comic or real world, is against the rules so I'll just say that I disagree.

[Fyraltari]

It is, if that leads directly to your death. And the problem is not that they might not last forever, but that everybody's souls might be unmade, which is pretty horrible in this context.

Not everybody's souls. Only the latest generation's. Horace's, Eugene's, Sarah's, Eric's and even Nale's is safe from the Snarl and the first three lived long lives.

Is it wrong to sacrifice a billion souls so that billions more will have a life... Is a question I have no answer to.

[Doug Lampert]

I wonder why they even bothered having a speech portion during the Godsmoot? They must have had a conversation like that who knows how many times already.

This world may well be very different.

At least one god ascended in this world's history (do we have any proof that the elven gods or Dvalin are from this world)?

If most worlds added gods there'd be a lot of ascended mortals. If most worlds don't last all that long then there might not be, but the rarer a world that lasts over a thousand years is, the more significant it is and the more worthy of letting it have a chance to stabilize itself.

The gates were invented, we don't know if that's ever happened before; the world lasted well over a thousand years, we don't know if that might not already be a record.

Thor said they learned from their mistakes and that the third world was stronger than the second. They may well be iteratively improving. This world could easily have lasted enough longer than the others to make them think it might be permanent.

[Gareth235]

Avengers: Infinity War has killed the most implied fictional characters of any work of entertainment.

Rich Burlew: Hold my beer.

Ha! Brilliant.

[laranjashtear]

Are those gravestones kinda similar to booty plugs or is my mind somewhat polluted? :smallbiggrin:

[Goblin_Priest]

Daaaaaaaaaamn, what a tweest. :smalltongue:

Was not expecting this.

[EmperorSarda]

If Redcloak ever learns of this he is going to be pissed.

His whole plan is for the Dark One to force concessions for the goblin people. Using it as a threat only.

If only he, and the Dark One, knew about all the worlds created before. None of the goblin sacrifices are necessary.

[Fyraltari]

This puts into perspective how small some of the conflicts in this comic are.

Hel wanting to create a world where she rules all the dwarves? Will last maybe a few centuries, of the billions of years of existance she has.

Redcloak wanting to create a world where goblins can live free? Who cares, they might as well let this world get destroyed and hope the Dark One's negotiating skills are good when they make the next one. And all the ones after it.

Xykon wanting to rule the world? Dude, three panteons of gods have tried and failed to keep a planet from being destroyed by the Snarl thousands of times, what makes you think you can control the beast itself?

The Order of the Scribble protecting the rifts? Useless. Nobody can protect the rifts. Your petty disagreements are nothing compared to the history of existance.
WarCraft III's Acolyte: "Where's the harm? In 100 years they'd all be dead anyway."
Discworld's St Brutha: "Maybe so. But, right here, right now, we are alive."*

Every conflict is insignificant at the scale of the universe. That doesn't make them unimportant.

[Quinton250]

The earliest vision we have of a rift is when Mijung is killed by the snarl through the rift that would become Lirian’s gate. We haven’t seen the rifts left by Lirian or Dorukan’s gate recently but it’s implied each gate destroyed and the passage of time is making the rifts larger. We saw an entire planet in the Azure rift and saw a close up of the ocean in the desert rift. This lends credence to the idea posted a few times above that there is a planet within the planet to provide an additional safeguard from the snarl.

If this is true, then why could the snarl kill Mijung through the rift before the construction of the gates and we only see the world within the rifts now (with no evidence anyone saw this before the gates were created)? I think that the world within the rifts is Girard’s contribution to the magical gates Lirian and Dorukan created to hold the snarl in. The snarl is trapped in an illusion in which it is successfully destroying world after world as it has done thousands of times before, content that it is continuing to destroy souls and not looking for a way to escape.

[Gareth235]

Are those gravestones kinda similar to booty plugs or is my mind somewhat polluted? :smallbiggrin:

Glad I’m not the only one with a smutty mind. Mind you, when Norse Gods are involved, you never know...

[CoffeeIncluded]

...oh god. Oh god. The moment I saw the marker for the second world my heart dropped. I knew where this was going. But so many.

[Adrastos42]

Oh. Oh no.


Yeah, this definitely adds some perspective to how willing many of the gods were to destroy this world. I might go back and reread the vote with this in mind.

[Nith]

On the topic of why it matters that Hel gets all currently living dwarves if there are millions of previous worlds. Maybe the "soul power" of dead souls diminish over time. This would make the sudden influx of dead dwarven souls constitute a large portion of total "soul power" even though they are only a small part of all souls ever (not killed by the Snarl). Hel could use that to elevate herself to the top position of the Northern pantheon and thereafter use her new powers over the pantheon (whatever they are) to maintain that position.

[Fyraltari]

Are those gravestones kinda similar to booty plugs or is my mind somewhat polluted? :smallbiggrin:
I thought they looked like markers on a map, and that it pointed to "where" in space the first world was. Draw your own conclusions.

If Redcloak ever learns of this he is going to be pissed.

His whole plan is for the Dark One to force concessions for the goblin people. Using it as a threat only.

If only he, and the Dark One, knew about all the worlds created before. None of the goblin sacrifices are necessary.
How so? The plan is to threaten to release the Snarl on the gods' own planes. We have no indication that has ever happened.

[Crisis21]

Ho...ly... *bleep*...

[Derian]

Ayup.


Theory
This storyline suggests that the current world might be exceptional. Possibly this world has lasted the longest, or else the existence of goblinoids, etc may have caused the overall success rate of adventuring to skyrocket. If no other world ever had epic casters aware of the rifts, the gates anchoring the rifts may be a new thing, and they want to see where it leads. Arcane magic may be able to do what the gods cannot, simply because the Snarl is a god-birthed abomination.

:

Which is the reason why the gods created the goblins! So that enough casters could level up high enough to be able to contain the Snarl in the rifts!

[RMS Oceanic]

On the topic of why it matters that Hel gets all currently living dwarves if there are millions of previous worlds. Maybe the "soul power" of dead souls diminish over time. This would make the sudden influx of dead dwarven souls constitute a large portion of total "soul power" even though they are only a small part of all souls ever (not killed by the Snarl). Hel could use that to elevate herself to the top position of the Northern pantheon and thereafter use her new powers over the pantheon (whatever they are) to maintain that position.

The snarl destroys the souls of those it slays, so the gods don't benefit.

Also:

https://i.imgur.com/CDeUhrF.gif

[Flying Turtle]

well I‘m lost for worlds

Nice pun and even better use of strike through.

[EmperorSarda]

I thought they looked like markers on a map, and that it pointed to "where" in space the first world was. Draw your own conclusions.

How so? The plan is to threaten to release the Snarl on the gods' own planes. We have no indication that has ever happened.

Because now that the Dark One is a god, when this world is destroyed and a new one created he is going to be involved in the creation process. No gate ritual needed to get the gods on board to improve goblin people when that will be hammered out at the next planet's iteration.

[Shining Wrath]

Oh my dear gods.

The Snarl always gets out. It's inevitable. The gods have done this so many times before even Odin has probably lost count. One assumes that sometimes the Snarl eats all the souls, and sometimes it doesn't, but ...

Wow.

On the one hand, this means that when Loki says there will be time between when the last Gate falls and the Snarl breaks free, he speaks from experience. We now need explanation, though, as to why Hel is not head of the Northern Pantheon. Did the bet not exist before this? Or did prior worlds ends with the destruction of all dwarven souls so she didn't gain the power?

[LibraryOgre]

Burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.

[LasVegasLawyer]

I feel as if this belongs here:

"When I first came here, this was all Snarl. Everyone said I was daft to build a world on a Snarl, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It was eaten by the Snarl. So I built a second one. And that one was eaten by the Snarl. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then got eaten by the Snarl. But the 500th one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to save, Durkon, the strongest world in all of the planes."

[Nith]

The snarl destroys the souls of those it slays, so the gods don't benefit.

Also:

https://i.imgur.com/CDeUhrF.gif

Yes, that's why I wrote "(not killed by the Snarl)". Assuming there has been a large number of worlds that have reached close to this world's age, most people born will have died in a different way before the Snarl destroyed their respective worlds.

Edit: I could not see whatever was in your spoiler tag.

[CoffeeIncluded]

This puts into perspective how small some of the conflicts in this comic are.

Hel wanting to create a world where she rules all the dwarves? Will last maybe a few centuries, of the billions of years of existance she has.

Redcloak wanting to create a world where goblins can live free? Who cares, they might as well let this world get destroyed and hope the Dark One's negotiating skills are good when they make the next one. And all the ones after it.

Xykon wanting to rule the world? Dude, three panteons of gods have tried and failed to keep a planet from being destroyed by the Snarl thousands of times, what makes you think you can control the beast itself?

The Order of the Scribble protecting the rifts? Useless. Nobody can protect the rifts. Your petty disagreements are nothing compared to the history of existance.

But here and now, they are alive.

[AutomatedTeller]

I did not see that coming.

Whenever I see a comic like this, Roy's words "what if what we needed was Durkon?" pop into my head...

Well, there are no comics like this, but you know what I mean.

[Sky_Schemer]

It's turtles monuments all the way down.

[JoseB]

Oh my sflarging gods..........

This... This is overwhelming.

Good grief.......

[hroþila]

Not everybody's souls. Only the latest generation's. Horace's, Eugene's, Sarah's, Eric's and even Nale's is safe from the Snarl and the first three lived long lives.


You can potentially be unmade or never exist in the first place.

I'd take the first, especially since (judging from this most recent world compared to the 2nd) we've got an actual bit of progress each time, and several of the souls from each world make it to the planar domains.
Yeah, good points.

[Delta]

I... did not see that one coming. Wow.


Are those gravestones kinda similar to booty plugs or is my mind somewhat polluted? :smallbiggrin:

Well I guess my mind is kind of dirty, but rest assured you weren't the only one to think of that...

[braveheart]

Oh! :smalleek:

[Calmen1]

Does anyone remembers that Snarl is not exactly eating the worlds? The wording is devouring and more important: Blackwing saw a planet of its own inside the Rift. I guess the Snarl is carving it´s own world and using the previous worlds as prime material(or prime ideas...) for this world.

The Snarl is made from the anger of the gods but is also made from a creativity desagreement, so It is a creative being of sort.

I mean... that is the only way I can see this amount of worlds matters to the OOTS story, right?

P.S.: This also answer the Hel question. Hel doesn´t get the souls that the Snarls devours. They are not exactly dead.

[colanderman]

I am reminded of Nicholas Gurewitch's fantastic Mushroom Kingdom of Heaven (https://youtu.be/Qhx7-R3FdOY).

[Fyraltari]

Because now that the Dark One is a god, when this world is destroyed and a new one created he is going to be involved in the creation process. No gate ritual needed to get the gods on board to improve goblin people when that will be hammered out at the next planet's iteration.
That's plan B. That there was numerous worlds before does not change that. Redcloak and the Dark One prefers plan A because
1) All goblins don't die in it.
2) TDO becomes king of all cosmos instaed of one god among around forties.

Oh my dear gods.

The Snarl always gets out. It's inevitable.
Nah, there's a first for everything.


Did the bet not exist before this?
Hel expects the Bet to end with this world so that's probably the only world it ever applied to.

But here and now, they are alive.



WarCraft III's Acolyte: "Where's the harm? In 100 years they'd all be dead anyway."
Discworld's St Brutha: "Maybe so. But, right here, right now, we are alive."*

Every conflict is insignificant at the scale of the universe. That doesn't make them unimportant.
High five?

[runeghost]

I...ah...wow. Yeah, consider my jaw dropped. Did not see that coming.

What that tells me is that this isn't something they can fix by putting up a new world again. At best, that'd be a temporary solution. What they need is a way to untangle the Snarl once and for all. Someth...

How long are the odds on "The Dark One is actually the Snarl"?

Don't their color pallets match?

[umrguy42]

My God! It's full of (dead) stars! :eek:

Well, now that Durkon's there, yeah it is. ;p

[Talion]

Don't their color pallets match?

As far as I know, but I'm not versed in art programs to confirm that for a fact, and I wouldn't trust my color vision for it at all.

On the other hand, those are still probably obscenely long odds, and not in the "One in a million is a guarantee" sense. On the other hand, an emissary, servant, or creation of the Snarl could still be on the table. Heck, I'm not particularly convinced that the Dark One's "Plan A" stops at "Threaten".

EDIT:


I think that the world within the rifts is Girard’s contribution to the magical gates Lirian and Dorukan created to hold the snarl in. The snarl is trapped in an illusion in which it is successfully destroying world after world as it has done thousands of times before, content that it is continuing to destroy souls and not looking for a way to escape.

While I like the feel of theory, I would have to discredit it because of the following:


It's not Epic, it's simply a 9th-level illusion—since there aren't many 9th-level illusions in core, there's conceptual room for one that is pretty heavy-hitting that would still be way above anything Eugene ever tried. My closest rules-based analogy was Microcosm, which is a 9th level psionic power. This spell doesn't seem to have a hit point limit, but it does offer a possible means of escape through internal realization. Because, you know, story.

I don't see Girard as having taken the Epic Spellcasting feat, simply because that was more Dorukan's shtick. And as a multi-class ranger/sorcerer, he would have gotten access to it later and he's not really the type to spend all his time studying (when he could be out "recruiting" his defensive team). But I don't think it's necessary for it to be explicitly Epic to be "really powerful." We're getting to the point where the difference between the high-level OOTS and the low-epic Order of the Scribble is mostly one of degrees anyway.

In short, at this point we don't have reason to believe that Girard had the actual (Epic) spellcasting power to pull that kind of illusion off. Could he have? Sure. Is it possible that even a 9th level spell could do it? In theory. Do I like the odds of either? Not at all.

[Barmoz]

Oh... wow...

Uh... I can just imagine the guilt that the good deities must be feeling if Thor's words about Marduk weeping and his own comments about 'we couldn't play nice' were true.



My guess is very little, D&D gods are representations of ideals, and are really only capable of acting according to them. So the good gods are mad and frustrated with the evil gods for not acting according to "good" principles, and the evil deities can't believe the good gods have such sticks up their backsides. I know Thor is showing some remorse, but I doubt that it's what we as humans would feel is guilt. The gods aren't supposed to get along, they might at times be capable of some degree of compromise, but they aren't capable of seeing things from the other side, because they only exist as the personification of their own side.

[georgie_leech]

Re: Ascended Deities...

How do we know the current crop aren't ascended mortals from previous worlds?

[Windscion]

Heck, I'm not particularly convinced that the Dark One's "Plan A" stops at "Threaten".
Well, that's one genie never going back in the bottle if he tries it. And ... we can hope not, but who knows? He's kinda pissed off, but if he pushes too far, he must know his people will pay the price before he does. He seems more "lead from the front" than that.

[Ninja Dragon]

But here and now, they are alive.

I know but, some of those things don't even make sense when you have all the information.

Just how long does Hel expect to hold power, and why does it even matter compared to all the time she has lived?

And the others... Redcloak would probably give up and switch to a plan that involved negotiating future worlds if he knew what was coming. Xykon would go back to mudering random people.

Maybe the Order of the Scribble could actually accomplish something with the gates, I don't know. But if they can't, what was the point?

If you know you'll be dead in a few years, you'll spend that time enjoying life, not trying to secure a lifetime of power.

I guess the Order of the Stick are the first ones who can break this pattern, and for that reason they should fight. But the others... why bother?

[Worldsong]

My guess is very little, D&D gods are representations of ideals, and are really only capable of acting according to them. So the good gods are mad and frustrated with the evil gods for not acting according to "good" principles, and the evil deities can't believe the good gods have such sticks up their backsides. I know Thor is showing some remorse, but I doubt that it's what we as humans would feel is guilt. The gods aren't supposed to get along, they might at times be capable of some degree of compromise, but they aren't capable of seeing things from the other side, because they only exist as the personification of their own side.

This sounds like you've exchanged "Good vs Evil" with "Order vs Chaos"

Compassion is an extremely important part of being Good. Even if you're a representation of the concept of Good I highly doubt you'd stop caring because you're too busy being mad at the Evil gods.

[Ninja Dragon]

Heck, the dwarves probably have the most practical approach for how to live life, because they spend all of it trying to find a way to die with honor so they can go to the plane where they get to live Snarl-free.

[Doug Lampert]

WarCraft III's Acolyte: "Where's the harm? In 100 years they'd all be dead anyway."
Discworld's St Brutha: "Maybe so. But, right here, right now, we are alive."*

Every conflict is insignificant at the scale of the universe. That doesn't make them unimportant.

Yeah, just last comic (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1138.html) we had a demonstration of which alignment can have "nothing matters" as its motto. In our world, they issue you a death when they issue you a life. Date of delivery of the death is all that's uncertain about the death part.

But what you do in between is still important.

But, right here, right now, we are alive.

[Chantelune]

Woah... That actually sent a chill down my spine. :smalleek:

[Worldsong]

If you know you'll be dead in a few years, you'll spend that time enjoying life, not trying to secure a lifetime of power.

We're all aware we're going to die, but that's not stopping some people from spending all their time trying to get as powerful and influential as possible.

[Shining Wrath]

Given the Law of Large Numbers, there must have been times the Snarl got free and the gods had to flee, and other times the gods destroyed the world and remade it. Evidently the Snarl can't reach the astral plane (does it have no thoughts?) so the gods can simply flee and make a new world to contain it; perhaps, like hags, they can touch something on the Prime Material Plane without entering it.

Now ... Thor told Durkon he needed Durkon to do something for him. And as part of that request, he's showing Durkon this graveyard of dead worlds.

Either Thor wants Durkon to save the world by resealing the Gates, or Thor wants Durkon to let the Snarl out so it can eat all the gods and end this cycle of destruction and recreation.

[Windscion]

I guess the Order of the Stick are the first ones who can break this pattern, and for that reason they should fight. But the others... why bother?
Because otherwise nothing will get better, and hope is what gets a lot of people out of bed in the morning. Compare Therkla's reaction (in GDGU) to having her future told.

[Skull the Troll]

I wonder if those gravestones wouldn't represent all the campaign worlds that have been abandonned over the years once the GM and players got bored and started playing a different game.

Or perhaps the ones where the players argued until no one wanted to play anymore? Probably too meta, but its a fun idea.

[Alaska Fan]

Ha!


And yeah, this one got me with a gobsmacked, wide-eyed, prolonged gasp.

I want to commend Rich on his use of the medium of the computer screen. Part of what makes this such a shocker is that you keep scrolling and scrolling and more and more tombstones are revealed. A powerful piece of reveal is made still more powerful by the technique used to convey it. Nice!

[Ninja Dragon]

That was sobering.

I guess that puts the lore of the Sapphire Guard in context now. They believe the gods had to choose between starting anew to make a prison the Snarl couldn't escape from, or going with the Gates thing even though they knew that wouldn't fix the problem forever. Clearly, that's not the case, because any remade prison is liable to become unstable and fail after all. It's pretty obvious why the Twelve would keep that particular detail hidden from their followers, though.

At some point, maybe the gods should have given up on populating their worlds, out of a sense of moral responsibility. But I imagine they simply can't - that creative impulse must be part of their natures. And hey, maybe they figured out early on how to do a controlled demolition of the world and save everyone's souls, so that only the first few cases resulted in everybody being eaten by the Snarl, in which case maybe they could argue that it was still worth it.

I think the gods are locked into representing ideas and pursuing their default goals, because that's just what they do. Thor is a hero, he helps the mortals and he fights monsters. Loki schemes against other gods. Hel tries to collect souls and become more powerful than Odin. And so on.

They can't do differently, because they exist to do those things. And they can't help trying to create new worlds, because they exist to do that too. It's what their being is about. So they never quit.

It's the mortals who can make changes. The only hope for defeating the Snarl and creating a permanent world lies with the mortals, because only them have the ability to break from patterns. They gods can only keep repeating their patterns over and over.

[Lord_Drayakir]

Wow. Look at what happens when you stop virtue signalling and focusing on characters nobody cares about - you get actual plot and an interesting complication! I'm actually mildly interested now!

[rkyeun]

On the topic of why it matters that Hel gets all currently living dwarves if there are millions of previous worlds. Maybe the "soul power" of dead souls diminish over time. This would make the sudden influx of dead dwarven souls constitute a large portion of total "soul power" even though they are only a small part of all souls ever (not killed by the Snarl). Hel could use that to elevate herself to the top position of the Northern pantheon and thereafter use her new powers over the pantheon (whatever they are) to maintain that position.

It... it really is just a bet, with no ulterior motive, just for gambling points and chips. Don't you see? It doesn't MATTER how powerful they are or aren't. Power is MEANINGLESS. Let's say Hel is the most powerful, and has a thousand worlds of dwarf souls behind her. SHE CAN'T DO GREASE WITH IT, because conflict creates another Snarl. The bet is POINTLESS. Aside from keeping gods alive and making new worlds, the ACQUISITION OF SOULS is pointless. You can't FIGHT each other. If you just have a disagreement too hard while making worlds, you get Snarls.

[137beth]

Wow! I did not expect that we were on anything but the second world.

[Mightymosy]

Wow. That's the bleakest comic since #84. Ugh.:smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrow n::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown: :smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::s mallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::sma llfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::small frown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfr own::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrow n::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown: :smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::s mallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::sma llfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::small frown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfr own::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrow n::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown: :smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::s mallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::sma llfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::small frown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfr own::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrown::smallfrow 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[Ninja Dragon]

Because otherwise nothing will get better, and hope is what gets a lot of people out of bed in the morning. Compare Therkla's reaction (in GDGU) to having her future told.

My point isn't that mortals shouldn't try anything, it's that the specific things they are trying are pointless given the lack of information they have about the bigger picture.

Xykon is the best example of that. He believes he's in some grand scheme of power grabbing but he's only speeding up his own death.

[Cinnibar]

Holy.....

The very end result of "Never give up, never surrender!"

[NRSASD]

Yeah, just last comic (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1138.html) we had a demonstration of which alignment can have "nothing matters" as its motto. In our world, they issue you a death when they issue you a life. Date of delivery of the death is all that's uncertain about the death part.

But what you do in between is still important.

But, right here, right now, we are alive.

To quote Babylon 5:

Dr. Stephen Franklin: I realize that I always defined myself in terms of what I wasn't. I wasn't a good soldier like my father. I wasn't the job. I wasn't a good prospect for marriage or kids. Always what I wasn't, never what I was. And when you do that, you miss the moments. And the moments are all we've got. When I thought I was going to die, even after everything that's happened, I realized I didn't want to let go. I was willing to do it all over again, and this time I could appreciate the moments. I can't go back, but I can appreciate what I have right now. And I can define myself by what I am instead of what I'm not.

Captain John Sheridan: And what are you?

Dr. Stephen Franklin: Alive. Everything else is negotiable.


I think Thor's final sentence would make a good epitaph for humanity. "We gods humans may have a lot of bad qualities, but we sure aren't quitters."

[Fyraltari]

I know but, some of those things don't even make sense when you have all the information.

Just how long does Hel expect to hold power, and why does it even matter compared to all the time she has lived?
How long has Odin held it?


And the others... Redcloak would probably give up and switch to a plan that involved negotiating future worlds if he knew what was coming.
Why? The Goblins alive now can be at the top if plan A suceeds.

Xykon would go back to mudering random people.
That's what Xykon plans to do once he's emperor of the world, anyway.

Maybe the Order of the Scribble could actually accomplish something with the gates, I don't know. But if they can't, what was the point?

Saving as much people from the Snarl as possible?

If you know you'll be dead in a few years, you'll spend that time enjoying life, not trying to secure a lifetime of power.
Who said anything about a few years?

I guess the Order of the Stick are the first ones who can break this pattern, and for that reason they should fight. But the others... why bother?
Why not?

Evidently the Snarl can't reach the astral plane (does it have no thoughts?)
Roy can't reach the Astral plane either and yet he has thoughts.

Either Thor wants Durkon to save the world by resealing the Gates, or Thor wants Durkon to let the Snarl out so it can eat all the gods and end this cycle of destruction and recreation.
Why would Thor do that? He doesn't appear particularly depressed and he cares for his followers individually. Yeah the worlds keeping getting destroyed suck majorly, but if the Gods had stopped making worlds, Minrah, for example would have never been alive in the first place?

Or perhaps the ones where the players argued until no one wanted to play anymore? Probably too meta, but its a fun idea.
That's the Order of the Scribble, though.
:smalltongue:

[Minty]

Wow.

Although, oddly similar to the resting place of the Ace Rimmers in Red Dwarf...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUmB0sUUSk

"They all did it. They all became Ace..."

[Barmoz]

This sounds like you've exchanged "Good vs Evil" with "Order vs Chaos"

Compassion is an extremely important part of being Good. Even if you're a representation of the concept of Good I highly doubt you'd stop caring because you're too busy being mad at the Evil gods.

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree. I might have not explained my thought well enough. Compassion is absolutely part of being good, but a being of pure good, be they chaotic or lawful etc. can't ever act evil, because they exist as foundational stones of a specific morality, they don't have the flexibility. Because a deity knows it always acts according to good, it can't possibly feel personal guilt, because it wouldn't change it's opinions or behaviors.

Look at the godsmoot, the gods appoint proxies to act on their behalf etc. and as someone earlier in the thread suggested it's probably to prevent the creation of another snarl, they take steps to avoid bringing their reality altering powers into direct conflict, but they don't do anything to change their own natures, because they aren't capable of it. Taking steps to prevent another snarl is the closest they can come, because they aren't capable of second guessing themselves.

[Worldsong]

I think Thor's final sentence would make a good epitaph for humanity. "We gods humans may have a lot of bad qualities, but we sure aren't quitters."

I feel like that's the story of life in general.

Life is many things, but it doesn't give up easily. Very much so, since everything which DOES give up easily is dead.

[hamishspence]

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree. I might have not explained my thought well enough. Compassion is absolutely part of being good, but a being of pure good, be they chaotic or lawful etc. can't ever act evil, because they exist as foundational stones of a specific morality, they don't have the flexibility.

Since when were D&D deities ever portrayed as "beings of pure good"? Mostly they tend to be "as morally flexible as mortals".

[Ninja Dragon]

Who said anything about a few years?


The gods, and the fact they just had a voting to decide if they should unmake the world given the incoming Snarl escape.

[Psychronia]

I'm getting chills. Good Thor this is...what even is this? Should I be horrified? Terrified? Angry and indignant? Whatever the case, it definitely worked and kudos to The Giant.

...Well, hey. On the bright side, it turns out history is a lot, lot longer than what Blackwing thought.

[Darkhands]

How long are the odds on "The Dark One is actually the Snarl"?

I mean... He wants the gates destroyed. He wants to become a god. He has (potentially) quintillions of souls saved up, and with that much soul power, would be a god to the gods...

[JavaScribe]

Is this one of the first few worlds that was stable enough to produce ascended mortals? Or is the Dark One's backup plan doomed to failure, since there don't exactly seem to be thousands of ascended mortals from previous worlds?

[Rawr]

Holy @#%$!

[Seto]

Wow, big surprise. Wasn't expecting that at all - I'll need to take a moment to consider all the implications and ramifications.

Also, I have some newfound respect for the gods. If not right, it now seems more understandable that they're considering destroying the world - they have witnessed countless worlds being destroyed, what's another one? And even more respect for the gods who DIDN'T adopt that train of thought, who voted "No", who are proving capable of valuing mortal lives and worlds enough to still give them a chance, even when lesser creatures would have given up long before.

[Worldsong]

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree. I might have not explained my thought well enough. Compassion is absolutely part of being good, but a being of pure good, be they chaotic or lawful etc. can't ever act evil, because they exist as foundational stones of a specific morality, they don't have the flexibility. Because a deity knows it always acts according to good, it can't possibly feel personal guilt, because it wouldn't change it's opinions or behaviors.

Look at the godsmoot, the gods appoint proxies to act on their behalf etc. and as someone earlier in the thread suggested it's probably to prevent the creation of another snarl, they take steps to avoid bringing their reality altering powers into direct conflict, but they don't do anything to change their own natures, because they aren't capable of it. Taking steps to prevent another snarl is the closest they can come, because they aren't capable of second guessing themselves.

I understand the line of reasoning and it does make sense, but I would still like to provide two arguments for my own position.

The first one is that even if a Good god is incapable of being Evil they might still be capable of being wrong, not caused by malicious intent but by incompetence or limited information. A Good god could look at the gravestone of a lost world and think about how even if every action they took was ethically correct, they still didn't save as many souls as they would have liked. They can think about what other completely ethical actions they could take that might be more successful (since the idea of there being only one correct path is usually assigned to Lawful Neutral, possibly Lawful Good).

The second is that you don't need to be locked into only being able to take certain types of actions to be incapable of changing your ways for the better. People seem to do that all the time and we humans are supposed to have full freedom of choice.

[Emperor Time]

I know but, some of those things don't even make sense when you have all the information.

Just how long does Hel expect to hold power, and why does it even matter compared to all the time she has lived?

And the others... Redcloak would probably give up and switch to a plan that involved negotiating future worlds if he knew what was coming. Xykon would go back to mudering random people.

Maybe the Order of the Scribble could actually accomplish something with the gates, I don't know. But if they can't, what was the point?

If you know you'll be dead in a few years, you'll spend that time enjoying life, not trying to secure a lifetime of power.

I guess the Order of the Stick are the first ones who can break this pattern, and for that reason they should fight. But the others... why bother?

And we know that the Order will have some kind of victory or else the Oracle saying that at least Elan will have a happy ending will not come to pass which is impossible.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm guessing the elf and dwarf ascended deities are also unique to this world. Raising the question - what's made this world so different from the past ones?

They depend on the belief of the mortals to exist. Any previous such deities probably died when the souls of the believers got devoured.

Bit of an oversight for the Dark One, I'd say, but that's what you get when you trust the info provided by other Evil deities.



This does put Loki's argument about waiting for the Snarl to set itself free in a new light, I think. If they blow up the world now, everyone's souls in it get to go to an afterlife. If they wait for the Snarl, the souls get eaten. A small price to pay for Loki, but quite the bill for any god that gives half a damn about their followers.

Grey Wolf

[Snails]

"They all did it. They all became Ace..."

Good catch. Kudos and thanks, for providing link!

[nolongeralurker]

Reaction:

Holy ----!

...And delighted laughter* because, of course, the Giant managed to surprise everyone AGAIN.

(I think I might've been thinking earlier that this wouldn't be a Wham Episode because we were already prepared for a big revelation, but if so, boy was I wrong!)

Also, for what it's worth, unless I missed something, Soon only refers to the current world as "the new world" in the Crayons of Time flashback, not as World 2.0 (though that's the comic title for one of the pages). Yes, of course Soon did think this was only the second world, but still, it's cool that his story is technically correct (though very incomplete, as it turns out, but we were all expecting that).

...And now I'm gonna actually bother to catch up on this thread, as it should be very worth it!!

*I guess that may not seem to be the most appropriate reaction when learning of millions of fictional people's deaths, but I swear I'm not a psychopath!

(Edit: formatting)

[Zonkerbl]

Wow.

That gave me goosebumps.

[HandofShadows]

(jaw hits floor)

Holey &*(*$*^&^(*%).

:eek::frown::eek:

how, how..... All those worlds and people.......

[Worldsong]

And we know that the Order will have some kind of victory or else the Oracle saying that at least Elan will have a happy ending will not come to pass which is impossible.

In The Wheel of Time they had a suggestion to how having such a prophecy doesn't guarantee a victory for the good guys (in-story at least, the readers obviously know it's going to happen anyway).

Basically the only way to subvert such a prophecy with an accuracy rating of 100% is to have some kind of natural enemy of creation unravel reality, thereby also ruining the threads of fate which would otherwise have made the prophecy come true.

So a prophecy is fully accurate as long as it concerns anything within the system, but the moment something from outside the system (like the Snarl) comes in and destroys the entire system (the world and threads of reality it's woven out of) it's off the rails again.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Oh. My. Gods. :eek:

So the party is fighting even more odds than they thought. More than a Million/1...

[Snails]

The second is that you don't need to be locked into only being able to take certain types of actions to be incapable of changing your ways for the better. People seem to do that all the time and we humans are supposed to have full freedom of choice.

Tangent: It is an interesting question whether things like celestials, devils, gods actually possess the same degree of volition as humanoids. The answer is not obvious. Perhaps that is because there are many possible reasonable self-consistent positions here.

[Evergone]

Ok...

So, I was expecting a twist. Something along the lines of, "the whole Snarl-thing happened before, and this world is not actually the world's Second Edition. It's the Third Edition." Because, you know, it's based on Third Edition D&D rules. Heck, it's the 3.5 Edition because the Order of the Scribble papered over some of the cracks.

Something along those lines.

This though... :smalleek:

[The MunchKING]

They depend on the belief of the mortals to exist. Any previous such deities probably died when the souls of the believers got devoured.

Bit of an oversight for the Dark One, I'd say, but that's what you get when you trust the info provided by other Evil deities.


Well he's got the souls of his army-thing to keep him going until the next world if they can sustain him. He's been racking up Goblin souls for a while now, and they breed fast.

[Yana]

I think my hair is going to stay on end for the foreseeable future for... Unrelated reasons.

[hamishspence]

So the party is fighting even more odds than they thought. More than a Million/1...

Or perhaps, exactly a million to one (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0584.html), so a sure thing?

[knag]

Given that we know that:
1) The gods create one world at a time after each failure
2) The Snarl has consumed an uncountable number of worlds
3) The Azure City rift contained a world

I wonder if the Order of the Stick will tell the story of the origin of the multiverse of Material Planes. Right now there is only one Prime Material Plane. But if the Snarl doesn't destroy each world the gods create, but rather consumes it whole, and these worlds continue to exist within the Snarl, then perhaps if it were to be defeated (unraveled?) all the worlds the gods created would be liberated. Perhaps Roy and company are not trying to save the world, but to save all worlds.

[Crisis21]

On the general topic of 'the gods aren't all that good at making worlds to keep the Snarl locked up':

Progress comes in two (general) flavors: breakthrough and incremental.

Breakthrough progress is the giant leaps forwards, the discoveries that alter our understanding of at least one field of knowledge forever. They're among the most celebrated advancements of humanity's history, but they're also the rarest.

Incremental progress is what most people work with. Taking what we already know and making it just a little bit better each time we use it. Take batteries for example: The industry is constantly attempting to make batteries that contain more energy, last longer, and are in general better than previous examples of batteries while remaining the same size. The progress is slow and improvements can often be considered minimal, but over time they add up to something significant.

The Snarl's prison is, as of the latest comic, clearly an example of incremental progress. Each time the gods remake the world, it lasts a little bit longer, the Snarl takes just a bit more time to break free after rifts appear, the Gods get a little bit faster at 'pulling the plug' before the Snarl unmakes all the inhabitants' souls. It's agonizing to think about, but given that the first world lasted 4 years with all souls lost and the current one has lasted at least 1184 with the expectation that (almost) all souls will be able reach an afterlife in the event the Snarl escapes, the gods are getting better at this. Slowly, for certain, but still better.

Also, the longer you spend performing incremental progress, the more likely you are to stumble across a breakthrough. Who knows? Maybe this time there will be a breakthrough in containing the Snarl.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Well he's got the souls of his army-thing to keep him going until the next world if they can sustain him. He's been racking up Goblin souls for a while now, and they breed fast.

It could be, but the bottom line is that there don't seem to be leftover ascended deities from previous worlds, so something stops them from surviving (I think it is well past plausibility that this is the only world where there have been ascensions). I find my hypothesis that "they need living believers to continue to exist" a simple Occam-y explanation, but if you want to offer your own, I'm all ears.

Grey Wolf

[Worldsong]

I wonder if not every god who's part of the current Pantheons was actually present at the beginning?

[Shining Wrath]

It appears that the gods think a world which lasts longer, and contains the Snarl, is better. Even though they can all escape to the Astral Plane if they have any warning (one presumes that changing planes for a god is a Move Action or a Swift Action).

We don't have any in-strip testimony that the Snarl has ever managed to devour a god other than the Eastern Pantheon in the initial attack.

What we don't know is how unique this iteration of the world is. Is the bet a one-off? Is the Dark One new? Or is this a Wheel of Time sort of story where the same actors keep telling the same story over and over, hoping that this time it will be different?

[TARINunit9]

It's easy to forget how long ago the dawn of time really was

[denthor]

It seems funny to me that anyone would know about the gods of Greece (East) if that many worlds were created and they were eradicated in the first one as crayons seem to indicate.

They can not talk about the snarl unless someone knows about it. But .... I am easily confused. Each world had the knowledge.

[ti'esar]

WHAT.

I got nothing else to say.

[Emperor Time]

In The Wheel of Time they had a suggestion to how having such a prophecy doesn't guarantee a victory for the good guys (in-story at least, the readers obviously know it's going to happen anyway).

Basically the only way to subvert such a prophecy with an accuracy rating of 100% is to have some kind of natural enemy of creation unravel reality, thereby also ruining the threads of fate which would otherwise have made the prophecy come true.

So a prophecy is fully accurate as long as it concerns anything within the system, but the moment something from outside the system (like the Snarl) comes in and destroys the entire system (the world and threads of reality it's woven out of) it's off the rails again.

But if that the case then there is a possibility that everything will be destroyed. Of the living, dead and every single god. And if that happens then all that will be left is the Snarl and nothing else. :smalleek:

[gamingfreak10]

I dunno, who says there were only four pantheons in the first world?

The same person that told us there were two worlds i suppose

[Shining Wrath]

It could be, but the bottom line is that there don't seem to be leftover ascended deities from previous worlds, so something stops them from surviving (I think it is well past plausibility that this is the only world where there have been ascensions). I find my hypothesis that "they need living believers to continue to exist" a simple Occam-y explanation, but if you want to offer your own, I'm all ears.

Grey Wolf

Another possibility is that not every god knows how to flee to the astral plane, or that the other gods can somehow throw the ascended deities to the Snarl to buy time to escape.

[Silverraptor]

Wow. Is all I have to say. I guess when you are immortal facing your only possible means of death, just keep creating to prevent it is all you can do.

On a different note, I think we now know why there is a planet in the rift of Azure City now...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It seems funny to me that anyone would know about the gods of Greece (East) if that many worlds were created and they were eradicated in the first one as crayons seem to indicate.

They can not talk about the snarl unless someone knows about it. But .... I am easily confused. Each world had the knowledge.

People in each world that learn of the Snarl, or the rifts are told the same story: "The first world got et, we lost a pantheon in the process". They simply don't tell about the number of other worlds - that's the bit they keep secret.

Grey Wolf

[Chei]

So, if Thor is shrunk down and simplified right now, how big would these markers actually be relative to the gods that created them? Knee-high? Waist-high? I'm thinking knee, but I'm bad at perspective.

[Nightcanon]

My God! It's full of (dead) stars! :eek:

It's gravestones all the way down...

Fans of Doctor Who may also be reminded of the Capaldi-era story Heaven Sent.

[Emanick]

It's gravestones all the way down...

Fans of Doctor Who may also be reminded of the Capaldi-era story Heaven Sent.

That's exactly what I thought of as I kept scrolling down. Here's hoping this story, too, ends with
the kind of spectacular breakthrough that makes all that death worth something.

[Marcotix]

I...ah...wow. Yeah, consider my jaw dropped. Did not see that coming.

What that tells me is that this isn't something they can fix by putting up a new world again. At best, that'd be a temporary solution. What they need is a way to untangle the Snarl once and for all. Someth...

How long are the odds on "The Dark One is actually the Snarl"?

Whatever they were they became a lot shorter.

The snarl is super old and super smart (i'm guessing) it's very likely that the dark one figured out a way to act as a god in some respects.

It wouldn't even surprise me to find out that he invented the goblinoids at some point, and other gods have been running with it.

Good thought!

[Worldsong]

But if that the case then there is a possibility that everything will be destroyed. Of the living, dead and every single god. And if that happens then all that will be left is the Snarl and nothing else. :smalleek:

I was counting the gods as also being outside of the system technically (since they're not created out of reality threads so far as we know) so it'd just be this world getting pulled apart but yeah that's the threat you face when dealing with something which unravels reality.

[knag]

On a different note, I think we now know why there is a planet in the rift of Azure City now...

Care to enlighten us?

[Slingsby]

Genuinely dumbstruck by that splash panel. Even when it was clear what the comic was leading to, I didn't expect it to be so... full...

[Fyraltari]

It could be, but the bottom line is that there don't seem to be leftover ascended deities from previous worlds, so something stops them from surviving (I think it is well past plausibility that this is the only world where there have been ascensions). I find my hypothesis that "they need living believers to continue to exist" a simple Occam-y explanation, but if you want to offer your own, I'm all ears.

Grey Wolf
We know that the Dark One is from this World (assuming he didn't lie to Red) but not the others. Dvalin and the elven gods may be from other worlds and it's possible that Thrym or Surtur are ascended mortals, maybe from other worlds. Apotheosis is probably a very rare thing and the first worlds probably weren't there long enough for it to happen. And the more it happens the less likely it is to happen again. The goblins have a messiah figure in the form of the Dark One, they don't need two.

[nolongeralurker]

Well... um... uh... dang. That's a lot of corpses. The mind boggles trying to comprehend that actually.

Worse yet, there are no corpses, as they were destroyed by the Snarl, who also ate their souls!! (and possibly the corpses themselves too, but that's a bit unclear)

[KorvinStarmast]

I wonder if those gravestones wouldn't represent all the campaign worlds that have been abandonned over the years once the GM and players got bored and started playing a different game. That was my first thought.

Nice one Giant, really nice. :smallsmile:

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I was counting the gods as also being outside of the system technically (since they're not created out of reality threads so far as we know) so it'd just be this world getting pulled apart but yeah that's the threat you face when dealing with something which unravels reality.

... And this is now my answer to why ascended gods don't survive to the next iteration: they are NOT outside the world. When the threads of reality are re-spun into a new world, the gods ascended from that world are still made up of those reality threads, and they get unraveled together with everything else.

Grey Wolf

[Draconi Redfir]

This whole "stop the snarl" slash "Prevent the world from being destroyed" missions suddenly feels... a lot less do-able.


Suddenly the world being consumed by the Snarl seems to be more like an inevitable part of nature, then some tragedy that needs to be avoided.

[Barbarian MD]

Ho. Ly. #$(*

My words exactly. I don't normally comment on these threads, but this one is different. Did not see that coming.

[jwhouk]

(Checks new strip)

...Hoooo ...leee ... CRAP. :eek:

World n3+(x*y), anyone?

[Lord Of Mantas]

"You know, Durkon, I built this planet up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was a snarl. All the other gods said we were daft to build a planet over a snarl, but I built it all the same, just to show then. It got eaten by the snarl. So we built a second one. It got eaten by the snarl. So we built a third one. It got eaten by the snarl...

...so we built a five millionth, three hundreth, twenty first one. That one burned down, fell over, then got eaten by the snarl, but the five millionth, three hundreth, and twenty second one stayed up! Or at least, it has been until now."

[allenw]

Wow.

Although, oddly similar to the resting place of the Ace Rimmers in Red Dwarf...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUmB0sUUSk

"They all did it. They all became Ace..."

What a guy!


Well, that's one genie never going back in the bottle if he tries it. And ... we can hope not, but who knows? He's kinda pissed off, but if he pushes too far, he must know his people will pay the price before he does. He seems more "lead from the front" than that.

But!
If the Dark One is a tool (witting or unwitting) of the Snarl, then the Plan is really the *Snarl's* Plan.
So, once the ritual gives the Dark One the ability to release the Snarl anywhere he wants, he (or the Snarl) almost certainly *will* try to kill all of the other Gods (assuming that that really is the Snarl's goal).

[Nifft]

New comic is up.

That last panel is a really excellent use of the browser's scrolling pane as media. Kudos.

I hope you can figure out a way to give the eventual book version the same impact.

[Nion]

I'm guessing the elf and dwarf ascended deities are also unique to this world. Raising the question - what's made this world so different from the past ones?

This is the first world that used the 3.5 ruleset.

[renovator]

What are the shapes of the tombstone called ?
is it statement about something about a transition from a half completed to full world ?
Is it a famous sculpture or a piercing ?

[npc revolution]

This is the first world that used the 3.5 ruleset.

A weird artifact of the conversion-to-3.5 joke is that the gods decided to update the rules partway through a world, rather than in between worlds.

Also, first page, bottom row, middle panel, Thor's glove is behind his arm.

[knag]

This is the first world that used the 3.5 ruleset.

The most enduring of D&D rulesets? 0e lasted what, 3 years? 1e lasted 13 years. 2e lasted 11 years. 3/3.5 lasted only 7 years, but with Pathfinder and other OGL material has lived on 18 years and counting!

[unbeliever536]

On a different note, I think we now know why there is a planet in the rift of Azure City now...

Hard disagree. Three mutually contradictory proposed reasons from the #1139 discussion thread:

- The gods improve the Snarl's prison by building it with extra layers. The internal world is why the rifts took so long to appear in this iteration of the world.
- The internal world is a part of the mechanism of the gates, and is the reason the Snarl did not notice the unsealed rift(s) until Laurin started poking around.
- The Snarl, a being formed from a mass of creative disagreements, is itself creating one or more worlds within its prison ("worlds within worlds and yarn winding yarn"), using the power it gained from the souls it devoured in the past (or something to that effect), and/or from the gods it killed.

I think you're implying that the world within is a partially built replacement world, or a template for the same, which would bring the total number of theories to (at least) four. The third is my personal favorite, and I think the first is probably the weakest, but we don't really have much to go on. All four are at least somewhat plausible, and this particular comic does very little to distinguish them, other than (kind of) raising the idea of the fourth.

[happycrow]

So... the Snarl is basically Twitter?

[briantmeyer]

I think the gods are locked into representing ideas and pursuing their default goals, because that's just what they do. Thor is a hero, he helps the mortals and he fights monsters. Loki schemes against other gods. Hel tries to collect souls and become more powerful than Odin. And so on.

They can't do differently, because they exist to do those things. And they can't help trying to create new worlds, because they exist to do that too. It's what their being is about. So they never quit.

It's the mortals who can make changes. The only hope for defeating the Snarl and creating a permanent world lies with the mortals, because only them have the ability to break from patterns. They gods can only keep repeating their patterns over and over.

If as a God you don't represent an ideal, why would mortals worship you.

Mortals tend to want simple religious rules - ie trees are evil for example. If you give them nuance they stare at you with wide eyes waiting for something they can mentally relate to.

However if a mortal figures something out, hmm trees might not be evil, after studying trees, or traveling outside of the mountain to forest regions, it allows the gods to also be a bit more complicated.

I participate in a watercolor forum where we give advice to new artists. Often we see this pattern, beginners always asking the same questions. We know where they are headed, but they only want the answers to their questions on their terms. They cannot be just told what they need to know, unless they are ready to hear it, anything you say just goes right on past them, instead you have to wait to tell them when they seem ready to understand. It's almost like they cannot learn a given technique until they received enough XP to unlock it ( XP is earned thru practice ), and there seems to be a certain progression in growth.

This seems similar to understandings of ethics, morals, beliefs, myths, of just wisdom in how they progress, the Gods are not only powered by their followers, they cannot actually go faster than those worshippers, they are stuck with them.

It's a circular bit of logic that goes both ways. What the Gods are is limited by their worshippers, and the worshippers are shaped by their Gods, its a co-dependency. A mortal does not have the same rules, thus has a freedom that all powerful deities don't.

[jwhouk]

How long are the odds on "The Dark One is actually the Snarl"?

Whatever they are, I'll put a million quatloos on it.

[KorvinStarmast]

I guess maybe this both explains why some of the gods are more cavalier about destroying this world, and why others want to keep giving the mortals a chance. (1184 years has to be a record, yeah?)-snip- Could this be the Last World? Could be.

I feel a sense of... AGE. A time abyss. those are millions and millions of years of worlds. Of people forgotten, whose lives mattered nothing. It's huge. How old are the gods anyway? As old as time itself.

I think gods need a world populated by mortals because they need prayers and souls to sustain themselves. They have to keep making new worlds to survive I'd like to see Rich confirm that. Sounds plausible.
And similarly, it explains why many of the gods can appear to be uncaring, even those who aren't necessarily Evil. Weary, they might be.

Avengers: Infinity War has killed the most implied fictional characters of any work of entertainment.
Rich Burlew: Hold my beer. Heh, nice one. :smallsmile:


Theory
This storyline suggests that the current world might be exceptional. Possibly this world has lasted the longest, or else the existence of goblinoids, etc may have caused the overall success rate of adventuring to skyrocket. Fits with the meta explanation of what the Snarl is, per Rich.

Does anyone remembers that Snarl is not exactly eating the worlds? The wording is devouring and more important: Blackwing saw a planet of its own inside the Rift. I guess the Snarl is carving it´s own world and using the previous worlds as prime material(or prime ideas...) for this world.

The Snarl is made from the anger of the gods but is also made from a creativity desagreement, so It is a creative being of sort. Nice take. This goes back to V "Perhaps we do not know everything we ought to regarding the task which we are undertaking. " ... talking to black wing at the end of book 5 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0672.html)

Or perhaps the ones where the players argued until no one wanted to play anymore? Probably too meta, but its a fun idea. That too.

Or as Belkar put it, "Maybe someone's been yanking everyone's chain (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0900.html)."

Or as Roy put it, "the truth is, we don't know what is really going on anymore (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0945.html)"

[GregTD]

Did not see THAT coming.

Wow!

[Werbaer]

When Loki talked in #998 about "there will still be, like, ten to fifteen minutes", i assumed he pulled some numbers out of thin air.

No, that was based on empirical data.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Or perhaps, exactly a million to one (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0584.html), so a sure thing?

Thanks for picking up on my reference. :smallamused:

[Name Lips]

And when you have created all those worlds, and waited the thousands of years it took each of them to die, the first second in the life of an immortal will have passed.

[Gordreg]

Wow. Holy Cheese.

...could this explain the 'monstrous humanoids' situation of this world? The Gods creating an attempt to try and power level some clerics high enough to do something about the snarl before it eats the world again? Sure, you're consigning untold billions to meaningless, painful deaths; but if those are the price paid against the untold mega-trillions the snarl gobbles with every world, the gods might have seen it as a price worth paying to delay or rid themselves of snarl-issues.

[Kish]

Because now that the Dark One is a god, when this world is destroyed and a new one created he is going to be involved in the creation process. No gate ritual needed to get the gods on board to improve goblin people when that will be hammered out at the next planet's iteration.

My point isn't that mortals shouldn't try anything, it's that the specific things they are trying are pointless given the lack of information they have about the bigger picture.

Xykon is the best example of that. He believes he's in some grand scheme of power grabbing but he's only speeding up his own death.
I don't get why both of you seem to think this strip says, "This world will inevitably be destroyed soon, no matter what the Order of the Stick or anyone in it does!"

Nothing has changed for the Dark One, for Xykon, for the Order, or for anyone who's been in the comic thus far. One claim by Lord Shojo has been refuted: the current world is not uniquely flawed and a replacement world would still allow the Snarl a chance to escape. In fact, if anything, mortals have more power to affect the situation than previously thought, if the Order of the Scribble's construction of the gates is the only reason why the world didn't come apart shortly after the rifts appeared.

[Rogar Demonblud]

That last panel is a really excellent use of the browser's scrolling pane as media. Kudos.

I hope you can figure out a way to give the eventual book version the same impact.

It didn't work out with the 'infinite canvas' of Roy's fall during War & XPs. I'm pretty sure the same will happen here. Changing the medium alters the art.

[DaggerPen]

Oh.

Dear.

God.

I. Wow. I don't know what I was expecting but it. Was. Not that. Holy crap.

[Ironsmith]

Excuse me a minute, I need to go find my jaw. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

[Sky Shadowing]

As for "where are the other ascended gods", I suspect that they fade and die when their worshippers fade and die because unlike the Regular Pantheon Gods, they're powered strictly by belief.

Thor, Odin, Marduk, Tiamat, Rat, Dragon, and the rest of the Three Pantheons each lay claim to power by a fundamental idea... if that makes sense. They are the ones granted actual Portfolios by a Higher Power (the Overgod for a Forgotten Realms example, the writers for a meta DND example).

The Elven God of Knowledge, as an example, what power do they if there are no more elves? The other Gods represent things set forth in the Rules Of Creation. Knowledge might be a part of one of their Portfolios. Who's to say they might next time say "eh let's try making Elves completely evil this time around!" and all of a sudden that God is completely invalid.

So the Dark One's belief that he can argue about the fate of the Goblinoids in the (what he believes to be) "Third" World is invalid because he will no longer exist, he is a God of World 631,532,242,125 and once no Goblins are left to believe in him he dies and the souls of his followers go to the Outer Realm that most favors their Alignment (as is standard in The Rules for all other mortals)... or fade into nothing because they're not Player Races.

[hamishspence]

One claim by Lord Shojo has been refuted: the current world is not uniquely flawed and a replacement world would still allow the Snarl a chance to escape.


Yup:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html

which does make me wonder - how did he come to believe that in the first place?

[Anarion]

This is fascinating. It completely throws the supposedly known plans of all the villains into question. It also raises some serious questions about the meeting of the gods. Why even have the debate about destroying the planet now? Even if Hel gets a lot of souls and a leading role in her pantheon, they'll loop that around in a few more worlds if they're playing the long game. I wonder if the Gates are something new though, that Dorukan's and Lirian's creation might have been a first among all these many, many worlds.

[hamishspence]

I wonder if the Gates are something new though, that Dorukan's and Lirian's creation might have been a first among all these many, many worlds.

I think that's an intriguing possibility.

[Jaros]

So... How do people feel about "Mandelbrot Graveyard" as a name for this place?

[Nith]

Yup:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html

which does make me wonder - how did he come to believe that in the first place?

My guess is that the Order of the Scribble found out enough about the gates and the snarl that when they at some point had contact with a god (they were epic level adventurers) said god gave the story of the creation of the world, death of the Eastern pantheon, and the current situation, without mentioning that this wasn't the second world. OotS the first then drew the wrong conclusions from this, thinking there could be a permanent solution though it required the deliberate destruction of the world.
I note that the fact that there is no permanent solution doesn't weaken the case made by Shojo.

[The Pilgrim]

Also note that the rifts appeared about 66 years ago. Meaning the OOTS world did made it to over a thousand years before the expiry date kicked in.

So, yep, the Gods are getting slowly better at this. Veeery slowly.

[Cleverusername7]

Does anyone remembers that Snarl is not exactly eating the worlds? The wording is devouring and more important: Blackwing saw a planet of its own inside the Rift. I guess the Snarl is carving it´s own world and using the previous worlds as prime material(or prime ideas...) for this world.

The Snarl is made from the anger of the gods but is also made from a creativity desagreement, so It is a creative being of sort.

I was rereading the Godsmoot comics to get a better sense of the god's attitudes and Odin's quote alongside his vote in #999 gets me the most: "I see worlds within worlds and yarn winding yarn." Since he's all about prophecies and seeing stuff, perhaps he's seeing what the Snarl is doing? Yarn winding yarn sounds like the Snarl is indeed creating things of its own.

[The MunchKING]

Whatever they are, I'll put a million quatloos on it.

What really? Seems pretty long odds.

I'll take a piece of that action.

[KishouTheBadger]

Holy ****. Wham Page material right there.

Almost makes the whole "destroy the world for the safety of everyone" sound futile and insane if they made hundreds? thousands? millions of worlds consumed by the Snarl. But that doesn't QUITE match the story Shojo told us. At least in missing a key detail that they remade the world countless times.

[knag]

Hard disagree. Three mutually contradictory proposed reasons from the #1139 discussion thread:

- The gods improve the Snarl's prison by building it with extra layers. The internal world is why the rifts took so long to appear in this iteration of the world.
- The internal world is a part of the mechanism of the gates, and is the reason the Snarl did not notice the unsealed rift(s) until Laurin started poking around.
- The Snarl, a being formed from a mass of creative disagreements, is itself creating one or more worlds within its prison ("worlds within worlds and yarn winding yarn"), using the power it gained from the souls it devoured in the past (or something to that effect), and/or from the gods it killed.

I think you're implying that the world within is a partially built replacement world, or a template for the same, which would bring the total number of theories to (at least) four. The third is my personal favorite, and I think the first is probably the weakest, but we don't really have much to go on. All four are at least somewhat plausible, and this particular comic does very little to distinguish them, other than (kind of) raising the idea of the fourth.

I'll offer a fifth. The world within the rift is world n-1, where the current world is the nth world created by the gods. The Snarl does not destroy worlds when it consumes them, but rather they are entangled within it. All the previous worlds are contained within the Snarl, and were it to be unraveled, the multiverse would be flooded with a multitude of new Material Planes.

[RMS Oceanic]

Yup:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html

which does make me wonder - how did he come to believe that in the first place?

Well we know the Gods have a collective NDA about the Snarl. When the Scribbles' were digging, they must have made assumptions on very obviously incomplete data.