Parallels between the Snarl and Elder Evils?

[danielxcutter]

Sooo... is is just me, or is the Snarl a lot like the Elder Evils from the sourcebook named, of course, Elder Evils? Origin dates to ancient primodial times? Check. Quasi-divine being that the gods can't handle but really powerful mortals can? Check. Oh, is going to entirely screw over the whole friggin' world if it gets loose? Check. Heck, even the "get killed by the Snarl and you die for good" thing is similar to the True Death malefic property.

Thoughts?

[martianmister]

Sooo... is is just me, or is the Snarl a lot like the Elder Evils from the sourcebook named, of course, Elder Evils? Origin dates to ancient primodial times? Check. Quasi-divine being that the gods can't handle but really powerful mortals can? Check. Oh, is going to entirely screw over the whole friggin' world if it gets loose? Check. Heck, even the "get killed by the Snarl and you die for good" thing is similar to the True Death malefic property.

Thoughts?

You can say same for the Chaos from Dragonlance.

[Fyraltari]

That kind of sounds like every über-threat in fantasy since H.P. Lovecraft.

[KorvinStarmast]

That kind of sounds like every über-threat in fantasy since H.P. Lovecraft.
Yeah. *shudders*

[AceOfFools]

If the Giant was so inclined, he could pretty easily write up the Snarl as an Elder Evil, with signs and whatever else that entails.

Elder Evil's was attempting to codify and inspire a GM on the kind of story that the Snarl IS. There's a long tradition of this sort of thing, especially in heroic fantasy.

[factotum]

Quasi-divine being that the gods can't handle but really powerful mortals can? Check.

We don't have any evidence that even a powerful mortal could "handle" the Snarl. Shojo's only comment was that the Gods are more vulnerable to the Snarl than an equivalent level mortal would be (a statement reinforced by what Thor told us), but I don't think it's actually possible for a mortal to achieve the same sort of level that a God is--the most powerful mortals we've seen in the strip were all at the beck and call of the IFCC, who are themselves not gods and would presumably lose in a direct confrontation with them.

[danielxcutter]

We don't have any evidence that even a powerful mortal could "handle" the Snarl. Shojo's only comment was that the Gods are more vulnerable to the Snarl than an equivalent level mortal would be (a statement reinforced by what Thor told us), but I don't think it's actually possible for a mortal to achieve the same sort of level that a God is--the most powerful mortals we've seen in the strip were all at the beck and call of the IFCC, who are themselves not gods and would presumably lose in a direct confrontation with them.

"Handle" as in not get ripped to shreds like Ares and Apollo were in the first round of combat.

[Synesthesy]

Cthulhu, C'Thun, Eldrazi, .... the list is long.

Actually, while the Snarl is parth of this archetype, it is one of the most original of them.

[danielxcutter]

Cthulhu, C'Thun, Eldrazi, .... the list is long.

Actually, while the Snarl is parth of this archetype, it is one of the most original of them.

Fair enough!

[RatElemental]

Theoretically, by raw, a mortal could invoke the epic rules and keep climbing levels as long as they could find challenges capable of giving them exp.

Most deities are 20 HD outsiders with 30-50 class levels on top of that, and that's not even counting their divine ranks, which have no actual rules for calculating how challenging they are to deal with but the "guideline" given is to just add the ranks to hit dice.

This means that by these rules Odin, being the greater deity of the northern pantheon, is powerful enough to give a party of four characters leveled anywhere from 66 to 90 a run for their money, but is probably actually far, far more difficult to take on than that.

There are monsters with CRs that creep all the way up to 90 and beyond, without even factoring templates, so it would be theoretically possible for a character that has somehow become immune to death from old age to keep fighting things forever and eventually reach a level that can "challenge" a god. But somehow I don't think this story is going to end from Roy going on the mother of all grinding sprees to hit level 300 and take the Snarl on in a fistfight.

I might have to commission someone to draw that, though...

[factotum]

There are monsters with CRs that creep all the way up to 90 and beyond

Assuming those monsters exist in the Stickverse, which I'm inclined to suspect they don't--if a Purple Worm (CR12) is considered tough enough to go into Serini's dungeon, that suggests Stickworld is not a particularly high powered world.

[hamishspence]

Assuming those monsters exist in the Stickverse, which I'm inclined to suspect they don't--if a Purple Worm (CR12) is considered tough enough to go into Serini's dungeon, that suggests Stickworld is not a particularly high powered world.

Or the powerful ones just aren't used by others to "stock dungeons". We see an Ancient Black Dragon, and (in bonus strips) an Ancient Silver Dragon.

As to Serini's dungeon Xykon himself is an epic monster, and gained XP from some of the encounters in it. Possibly the purple worm is at the low end of the scale.

I would agree that the heavy-duty monsters tend to be found off-plane. You probably wouldn't find a Primal Elemental anywhere but the most remote reaches of the Elemental Planes, for example.

[RatElemental]

My little speculation there was mostly just looking at the raw rules themselves, and I have to agree it is exceedingly unlikely that you'd be able to find enough high CR creatures to stock more than a handful of encounters past whatever level range Xykon is in, at least on the material. I feel pretty confident pegging Odin at greater deity range though, as the leader of his pantheon. There doesn't seem to be any overdeities in the ootsverse as far as we know.

In some interpretations of the rules, two high power characters nonlethally sparring each other might grant exp to the victor though, which if that interpretation was being used means you could theoretically get to any level you wanted eventually by forming a fight club in your basement. I doubt the giant would use that interpretation even if he was sticking hard to the rules.

[Emanick]

Assuming those monsters exist in the Stickverse, which I'm inclined to suspect they don't--if a Purple Worm (CR12) is considered tough enough to go into Serini's dungeon, that suggests Stickworld is not a particularly high powered world.

I agree that there aren't a lot of epic monsters running around (except maybe in parts of the Outer Planes), but even if there were, Serini probably wouldn't be able to capture the tougher ones. A low-epic character is probably not going to be kidnapping CR 30 aberrations. It's just not realistic.

[hamishspence]

I agree that there aren't a lot of epic monsters running around (except maybe in parts of the Outer Planes), but even if there were, Serini probably wouldn't be able to capture the tougher ones. A low-epic character is probably not going to be kidnapping CR 30 aberrations. It's just not realistic.

That might depend on how high their Will Save is and their Spell Resistance. A Wish spell can kidnap anything, in theory:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm

Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.

so Serini might have paid for some wishes.