So if you were interviewing for the position of Thor's Divine Agent.....

[Mad Humanist]

Or to put it another way, let's suppose you are Durkon and are sent back to the world as Thor's Divine Agent. How would you approach the task of bringing Redcloak and the Dark One on side? How would you get Xykon out of the way? Would it largely be a matter of killing Xykon without killing Redcloak? But what would you say then? Would there be any issues with friendly paladins?

[The Pilgrim]

I would try to speak to him under a White Flag as an envoy from Thor, telling him that my God wanted parley with him's.

If he refuses, I would kill him and expect the next bearer of the Crimson Mantle to be more reasonable.

[Synesthesy]

I would try to find a way to speak with Redcloak alone, to convince him that we can be better allies than Xykon. Remember that, at the moment, we would have no way to know that Redcloak wants to betray Xykon sooner or later.

Redcloak would not trust humans, or northern gods, but we could offer him very good conditions. Arranging a secret meeting could be enough. The agreement would be: help us kill Xykon and leave the gates area; we'll leave Gobbotopia alone, the Gods will tell all their follower to recognize that as a sovereign nation. Then the Dark One would need to accept the gods' rules and help closing the rift, and in exchange we'll give goblinoids and other sentient monster races the same status humans and demihumans have. We could even build a new continent for them, that would be better then a single ruined city.

[Bad Wolf]

Here's how i think it's going down.

The order meets Redcloak and company near the last gate. Durkon tries to get him on their side. Redcloak predictably refuses. They fight.

As the order is losing, Durkon makes an offhanded remark about what Thor told him about their plans. Xykon stops and is pissed at Redcloak.

From there he leaves for the gate on his own after trouncing the order, deciding that if he can't have the Snarl, no one can. So he decides to go and break the last gate.

[woweedd]

Be honest. He has a Wisdom somewhere around the stratosphere. Bluff is not gonna work ogn him. Lay out the facts, as Durkon would know them: The Dark One is the first of a new pantheon, adn is needed to stop The Snarl. He has the Northern God's support, the other gods need him, and he'll have a major voice in whatever world may come after. Thor, and, if all goes according to plan, the rest of the Northern Pantheon, and followers, will work to give Goblins a voice equivalent to the other demihumans. Gobtopia will be permitted to survive, provided they lay off the Anti-Human rhetoric and cut the slavery crap out, and Goblins shall be treated the same as any other race. In exchange, Redcloak shall help in the defeat of Xykon, and, as quite-possibly the highest-level Cleric in the world, will help with a ritual to seal the gates, possibly with V serving as Arcane caster. If he rejects..Hm. My instinctive reaction is to kick him into the rift, but not in character for Durkon. Still, fight it is.

[rbetieh]

Or to put it another way, let's suppose you are Durkon and are sent back to the world as Thor's Divine Agent. How would you approach the task of bringing Redcloak and the Dark One on side? How would you get Xykon out of the way? Would it largely be a matter of killing Xykon without killing Redcloak? But what would you say then? Would there be any issues with friendly paladins?
Monster in the darkness will do it. They convince redcloack through O-Chul

[Rynael]

I have already put myself on the record as being of the opinion that the Order will have to successfully negotiate with Redcloak to save the world, that there is no other way, and that it will have to be the Redcloak we've been following since the beginning of the comic and not some new goblinoid who's just gotten the Crimson Mantle and had the history of the goblins freshly etched into their brain. If nothing else, it's a more interesting conflict alongside the generic "stab the murderous lich in the face until he goes away" half.

I am also of the opinion that some people may be vastly underestimating the difficulty of this task, that it may be even more difficult than taking down an epic-level sorcerer lich. For one, it's worth remembering that between Redcloak and Xykon, it's Redcloak who has the more determined hatred for the Order, both as humans and as his known enemies (Xykon barely knows or cares about them at all). In particular, Blood Runs in the Family made a strong effort to reinforce both Redcloak's growing power, but that power's still not going to be nearly enough to defeat Xykon. [citation needed] Therefore, a battle between Redcloak and the Order is all but inevitable in my eyes, although I doubt that the Order will kill their one ticket to world salvation.

If Redcloak is to help, he'll have to face a variety of ugly facts about himself and hard choices for what he wants:
A) All the sunk cost fallacy stuff. That's a dead horse on this forum by now, but Redcloak will have to face it himself sometime too. Anything I could say has been said many times already.
B) The fact that he'd have to work with humans (Durkon doesn't get a pass, he worships Thor, who tried to murder the newly ascended Dark One and maybe did worse; we'll find out), his mortal enemy. He's made the decision before, with Xykon, but if anything, that just makes things worse.
C) A human-led group is asking to negotiate on good terms with the goblin leader. Sound familiar? How well did that end last time? Because I remember something about "one million dead."
D) Above all, what will he really care about most, when he's forced to choose? A genuine care for the welfare of the goblin people? Please, as if. How many goblins has Redcloak murdered, now? The Plan itself? Maybe, but he's already moving against Xykon, who is key to the Plan. Is this about achieving his overall goal, even if his methods change, if only to justify to himself everything he's done? That's one of my bets. Unfortunately, there is also another bet: His hatred of humans. It might be as insurmountable as Tarquin's need for control....

Durkon, and indeed, the Order as a whole, knows, like, none of this. With what little knowledge they have, the best bet they can likely think of is the basic "negotiate under truce" plan. I doubt it'll work, at least not at first. It'll take something changing. Maybe Xykon betraying him over hiding the phylactery ("don't confuse not knowing for not caring"), maybe the hypnotized Monster in the Darkness attacking Redcloak, maybe the last gate being destroyed and everyone having to cobble together a last-ditch plan while the gods prepare to unmake the world, or something entirely new and unexpected, perhaps involving the world in the rift. Whatever it is, it's no wonder that the Giant's admitted to the possibility of Book 7 looking like a phone book, but in the end, I think the Order can do it.

[Mad Humanist]

I have already put myself on the record as being of the opinion that the Order will have to successfully negotiate with Redcloak to save the world, that there is no other way, and that it will have to be the Redcloak we've been following since the beginning of the comic and not some new goblinoid who's just gotten the Crimson Mantle and had the history of the goblins freshly etched into their brain. If nothing else, it's a more interesting conflict alongside the generic "stab the murderous lich in the face until he goes away" half.

I am also of the opinion that some people may be vastly underestimating the difficulty of this task, that it may be even more difficult than taking down an epic-level sorcerer lich. For one, it's worth remembering that between Redcloak and Xykon, it's Redcloak who has the more determined hatred for the Order, both as humans and as his known enemies (Xykon barely knows or cares about them at all). In particular, Blood Runs in the Family made a strong effort to reinforce both Redcloak's growing power, but that power's still not going to be nearly enough to defeat Xykon. [citation needed] Therefore, a battle between Redcloak and the Order is all but inevitable in my eyes, although I doubt that the Order will kill their one ticket to world salvation.

If Redcloak is to help, he'll have to face a variety of ugly facts about himself and hard choices for what he wants:
A) All the sunk cost fallacy stuff. That's a dead horse on this forum by now, but Redcloak will have to face it himself sometime too. Anything I could say has been said many times already.
B) The fact that he'd have to work with humans (Durkon doesn't get a pass, he worships Thor, who tried to murder the newly ascended Dark One and maybe did worse; we'll find out), his mortal enemy. He's made the decision before, with Xykon, but if anything, that just makes things worse.
C) A human-led group is asking to negotiate on good terms with the goblin leader. Sound familiar? How well did that end last time? Because I remember something about "one million dead."
D) Above all, what will he really care about most, when he's forced to choose? A genuine care for the welfare of the goblin people? Please, as if. How many goblins has Redcloak murdered, now? The Plan itself? Maybe, but he's already moving against Xykon, who is key to the Plan. Is this about achieving his overall goal, even if his methods change, if only to justify to himself everything he's done? That's one of my bets. Unfortunately, there is also another bet: His hatred of humans. It might be as insurmountable as Tarquin's need for control....

Durkon, and indeed, the Order as a whole, knows, like, none of this. With what little knowledge they have, the best bet they can likely think of is the basic "negotiate under truce" plan. I doubt it'll work, at least not at first. It'll take something changing. Maybe Xykon betraying him over hiding the phylactery ("don't confuse not knowing for not caring"), maybe the hypnotized Monster in the Darkness attacking Redcloak, maybe the last gate being destroyed and everyone having to cobble together a last-ditch plan while the gods prepare to unmake the world, or something entirely new and unexpected, perhaps involving the world in the rift. Whatever it is, it's no wonder that the Giant's admitted to the possibility of Book 7 looking like a phone book, but in the end, I think the Order can do it.

I think this is a very good analysis. It does not actually answer the question but it does explain why the question is so hard to answer.

It occurs to me why the gods can't just destroy the world and include the Dark One into the next one. They first need to have a working arrangement with the Dark One and at that point it is too late. In fact he might be able to interfere with the next creation risking a worse snarl. I reckon Thor has pretty much spelt all that out and will do soon to the extent he hasn't. So not only is there hope in this world, but it is probably their only hope.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Dormammu Redcloak, I’ve come to bargain!