OOTS #1220 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

Also, not going to do a bunch of banners or posts for it but the Holiday Ornament (https://www.cafepress.com/orderofthestick.637368513) is up, and they're having a 50% off (or more) sale on paper OOTS books at Ookoodook (https://ookoodook.com/).

[Peelee]

OK, theory that they'll get to the Gate by bypassing the trap is looking for and more likely.

[vonBoomslang]

Yup, definitely some sort of dimensional swap-in-and-out going on. The fact team evil didn't mention this trap though, hm.

[Peelee]

Yup, definitely some sort of dimensional swap-in-and-out going on. The fact team evil didn't mention this trap though, hm.

Probably means they don't know about it. I don't they got any sort of light show like the Order did.

[Schroeswald]

It’s looking to me like the trap does something to the dungeon to make it harder to get to the Gate, meaning there’s a decent chance this leads to the gate.

[Rogan]

There are obviously also drawbacks!

I love this kind of humour!

[Yxylu]

Quippie’s back!

Plus a link for easy navigation.

1220 - Think so (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1220.html )

[Worldsong]

Yup, definitely some sort of dimensional swap-in-and-out going on. The fact team evil didn't mention this trap though, hm.


Probably means they don't know about it. I don't they got any sort of light show like the Order did.

I'd say that Occam's Razor agrees.

I'd bet a lot of quatloos that if you don't disarm the trap like Haley did you won't even notice crossing it. It's not the kind of trap that detonates or betrays its presence.

Instead the difference in floor colours makes it extremely likely that if you manage to bypass this trap you're entering a different pathway than if you trigger the trap. Granted I doubt a high level rogue would leave it at that so they'll need to remain careful, but odds say that this is the first step you need to take to reach the Gate.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

‘Use your inside-head voice’, nice! :smallbiggrin: I also enjoyed Blackwing’s monologue.

[Raven777]

Definitely looks like a portal's what's going on.

Portals do not even need to be flashy and noticeable, in a game engine you can make them utterly invisible (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEB11PQ9Eo8).

[Coventry]

Belkar did not get to finish hiding their tracks. That will come back and bite them ...

[RMS Oceanic]

Looks like they just spawned an instance of the dungeon.

[HandofShadows]

"Minor" drawbacks. And a rat head? (No, not asking).

[deltamire]

Blackwing's soliloquy . . . the absolute nastiness of that rat head . . . Roy picking up Belkar like a misbehaving kitten . . . V changing and adapting from their past mistakes . . . the funky (Elan and I are on a far similar wavelength than I thought, because I was going to use that word to describe 'em before I remembered he used it) lineart around the telepathic speech bubbles . . . man, I love this silly little stick figure comic.

I concede that the portal theorists are probably right! Yis were on the right track, and I was not.

[WolvesbaneIII]

did they get blasted or teleported?

This looks cool.

[Windscion]

Definitely looks like a portal's what's going on.

Portals do not even need to be flashy and noticeable, in a game engine you can make them utterly invisible (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEB11PQ9Eo8).

(re:video) OMG "Uphill both ways!" Excellent.



Uh oh ...

Belkar did not get to finish hiding their tracks. That will come back and bite them ...
Meh, it could just as easily fuel distrust and/or paranoia in TE, since they lack a rogue and are unlikely to see the purpose of the rat head.

Edit to add: Blackwing will be isolated from the Order. Now who will save the two-legs when they get in over their heads?

[danielxcutter]

Meh, it could just as easily fuel distrust and/or paranoia in TE, since they lack a rogue and are unlikely to see the purpose of the rat head.

Especially since by the time they get there, the 20 seconds would be up so they’d be somewhat unlikely to notice the effects of the trap being disarmed.

[Malloon]

Definitely looks like a portal's what's going on.

Portals do not even need to be flashy and noticeable, in a game engine you can make them utterly invisible (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEB11PQ9Eo8).

Math is fun, isn't it? I've had a notion for 4D+ (Space) Creatures in my head for a while now, and a rendering engine could show what such a creature would look like in a 3D area, with pieces of the creature seemingly detached from the rest of it and pieces of it phasing in and out.


Regarding OotS, it does surely seem like the trap is an invisible portal. I had a lot of fun using those when creating Minecraft adventure maps, fitting rooms and corridors where they simply could not fit otherwise. I still have a Labyrinth of Crete-based map on the back burner that makes extensive use of that.

[Fnordius]

did they get blasted or teleported?

This looks cool.

A lack of damage marks on Haley and Roy despite flinching suggests the latter. Or that the room on the other side was swapped. Or simply that something "baked" the room on one side of the field.

[Morquard]

Ok, I admit I thought "disarming the trap leads them into a different part of the dungeon" was not going to work. But with the changed floor, that seems exactly whats going to happen.

[Hekko]

Watching them being all efficient and competent makes me feel really hyped up!

[Quild]

Seems unlikely to me that disarming the trap of "any door" leads to the right pass.

I mean, it means that anyone with a good enough rogue can find the right pass at first try? Not buying it.

[Elenna]

Fascinating. That definitely does seem like the dungeon was changed. Unfortunately, Blackwing is stuck on the other side of it. Fortunately, so is Team Evil.

Also LOL at "use your inside-head voice"

[Linneris]

Okay, by RAW, V couldn't have cast Telepathic Bond (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telepathicBond.htm) on that many creatures. We see seven other creatures affected beyond V: Roy, Durkon, Elan, Haley, Belkar, someone offscreen to Belkar's right (presumably Minrah), and Blackwing. By RAW, this would require V to be at least level 21.

[Ezekiel]

Okay, by RAW, V couldn't have cast Telepathic Bond (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telepathicBond.htm) on that many creatures. We see seven other creatures affected beyond V: Roy, Durkon, Elan, Haley, Belkar, someone offscreen to Belkar's right (presumably Minrah), and Blackwing. By RAW, this would require V to be at least level 21.

Maybe he skipped Belkar? :smallwink:

[2D8HP]

"You can count on me to be my most weepily melodramatic"

Done and Done (Raven after my own heart that one is)

[Hiro Quester]

Why would an evil team not have a rogue smart enough to bypass a trap? It would seem strange that this skill is the key to finding the gate.

Unless it requires a particular method of trap disabling, and Serini’s method of key- design and Hayley’s method of trap disabling just coincidentally match?

[Windscion]

Okay, by RAW, V couldn't have cast Telepathic Bond (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telepathicBond.htm) on that many creatures. We see seven other creatures affected beyond V: Roy, Durkon, Elan, Haley, Belkar, someone offscreen to Belkar's right (presumably Minrah), and Blackwing. By RAW, this would require V to be at least level 21.

Actually, Blackwing doesn't necessarily count. Are there not means to share spells with familiars automatically?

[Lorkas]

I'm looking forward to Redcloak discovering that Right-Eye is who he needed for this dungeon.

[deltamire]

Unfortunately, Blackwing is stuck on the other side of it.
That is a very good point, and I could definitely see it becoming a problem if not dealt with. Maybe Blackwing is going to be our eyes for seeing what happens to Team Evil, if the Order is currently shunted off to . . . wherever they are?

In 5E, a wizard's (or anyone with the find familiar spell) familiar can be summoned back to you as an action, and bringing it back when it's been killed takes a first level spell slot and ten minutes - what're the rules for 3.5? How much of a drain of resources would it take for V to re-summon Blackwing? They've done it instantly before (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0672.html), but how would the spell work if they're, say, in a different dimension?

[Zhorn]

No telepathic bond is complete without that one party member doing an inner monologue.

Great work, Giant.

[Eurus]

Why would an evil team not have a rogue smart enough to bypass a trap? It would seem strange that this skill is the key to finding the gate.

Unless it requires a particular method of trap disabling, and Serini’s method of key- design and Hayley’s method of trap disabling just coincidentally match?

Well, "why" is hard to say. My guess would be that Xykon and Redcloak assume that their magic is strong enough to deal with any obstacles and getting a rogue on board would be time consuming. Whatever the reason, they don't have a rogue, and non-rogues can't find or disarm magical traps iirc.

[Morquard]

Okay, by RAW, V couldn't have cast Telepathic Bond (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telepathicBond.htm) on that many creatures. We see seven other creatures affected beyond V: Roy, Durkon, Elan, Haley, Belkar, someone offscreen to Belkar's right (presumably Minrah), and Blackwing. By RAW, this would require V to be at least level 21.
V may have more than just the ioun stone/ring that increases his caster level for certain spells. Or you know the Giant ditched the rules like he said he'll do in a heartbeat if it makes for a better story. Or that he didn't care.

[Linneris]

Maybe he skipped Belkar? :smallwink:

The spell effect in panel 3 includes Belkar, as well as someone else off panel.

This is probably indeed just a case of story over rules, yes.

[danielxcutter]

I’ve not had that much experience with playing 3.5e much, but I don’t find “villains looking for the Gate might not have Trapfinding” too farfetched. There aren’t going to be many actual adventuring parties looking for it; the Linear Guild is honestly an outlier.

[Raven777]

Seems unlikely to me that disarming the trap of "any door" leads to the right pass.

I mean, it means that anyone with a good enough rogue can find the right pass at first try? Not buying it.

Well, Serini is/was a rogue. It would be reasonable that her dungeon would incorporate having rogue abilities as a component for success. Plus, if she had a similar mindset to Haley and Girard, layers of obfuscation could definitely be at play. A few threads back it was even discussed that layers of deception were a recurrent theme in the comic (Xykon's body doubles, for exemple).

Beyond there being a portal, my theory is that not disabling the trap puts you in "Kraagor mode", where the dungeon is a series of combat challenges that need to be brute forced through Barabrian style, as anyone tracking the gates while being aware of their lore would expect... But those are only to keep you busy until whoever watches the gate can observe and intervene.

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one. That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

[Thecommander236]

I swear, within 1 minute, there's already 2 pages of chat. How can I ever get a word in edge wise?

Also, we thinking they gave Belkar enough time to cover their tracks or not?

[Segev]

Belkar did not get to finish hiding their tracks. That will come back and bite them ...


Meh, it could just as easily fuel distrust and/or paranoia in TE, since they lack a rogue and are unlikely to see the purpose of the rat head.

Belkar not saying anything over the link and being busy doing something - casting the spell to hide their tracks? - when yoinked definitely will be important later. Not entirely sure how, but....

[M.A.D]

Why would an evil team not have a rogue smart enough to bypass a trap? It would seem strange that this skill is the key to finding the gate.

Unless it requires a particular method of trap disabling, and Serini’s method of key- design and Hayley’s method of trap disabling just coincidentally match?

Team E's former method was to throw underlings to their deaths until they whittled down all the defences. Now they just throw themselves, but that brute-force method seems to suit with Serini's belief in strength.

Unless, of course, she expects everyone to think so and do something completely different, like designing traps that would render the brute-force method useless, and that which would have required someone more perceptive to notice the finer details, like Haley.

[Malloon]

That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

I find that idea so compelling and so well tied into the themes of the story and the arcs of the characters that I believe and support this idea immediately and completely.

[Rogan]

I swear, within 1 minute, there's already 2 pages of chat. How can I ever get a word in edge wise?

Also, we thinking they gave Belkar enough time to cover their tracks or not?

Even if he could not cover all their tracks, they are now behind a magical trap. A trap which will be active again when Team Evil tries to follow. So, chances are, they will end up in a different dungeon than the heros, even if they take the same door.

[Thecommander236]

Seems unlikely to me that disarming the trap of "any door" leads to the right pass.

I mean, it means that anyone with a good enough rogue can find the right pass at first try? Not buying it.

I concur. Also, I doubt that the tribe of Bigbears who have been attacking this Dungeon for years, if not decades, or even generations never noticed this trap especially if it flashes light like that at the people who aren't the ones who set it off.

Haley doesn't seem to have "disarmed it" so much as she set it off using the object rather than setting it off herself. It seems the trap affects the environment of the not the person or object that triggers it. Even then, I'm not even sure what she was hoping to accomplish by setting it off at all. If you're going to set it off, why does it matter if it hits the first person to cross it or an inanimate object when it doesn't affect the person at all?

Furthermore, TE isn't stupid. It's very clearly a line drawn onto every floor in every tunnel. SOMEONE would have to notice it and RC is not the kind of person to 1. miss such an obvious detail and 2. not investigate it with every single magic possible. He tried literally every school of magic to try and dig up hidden information from O'Chul's mind out of sheer paranoia. He almost caught onto Durkon and Minrah's trick from a few pages ago. There's no way he hasn't been obsessively looking into those lines for weeks on end.

Plus, if all you have to do to set it off is throw an object through it, Xykon definitely threw a super bouncy ball through it at least once just to shut RC up.

[Thecommander236]

Why would an evil team not have a rogue smart enough to bypass a trap? It would seem strange that this skill is the key to finding the gate.

Unless it requires a particular method of trap disabling, and Serini’s method of key- design and Hayley’s method of trap disabling just coincidentally match?

To be fair, Serini was a rogue. Her journal (*cough* diary *cough*) says that she built the Dungeon to represent Kraagor's ideal of strength being everything and wrote that in code.

People seemed to be assuming that she is double bluffing like Haley would. Serini wrote that the temple represents strength and willpower, but that the Dungeon's real entrance is hidden by her roguish nature. Possible, I grant you. It would make sense, but again, if all you have to do to set the trap off is put an object through the trap, then why didn't Xykon just throw a bouncy ball through the damn thing?

There's no way in hell, in my opinion, that TE didn't notice this and no one lollygagged behind at least once so that they could see the very obvious flash of light when the first person stepped over the line. I do believe that Serini used her rogue skills to hide the portal even harder than just using brute monsters to do it. For instance, one of the tunnels may have a secret room or multiple tunnels have multiple secret rooms with switches, levers, puzzles, etc. that must ALL be solved to reveal the true path.

[isamaru]

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one. That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

I like this theory. Not only it makes sense in the world, but such dungeon also allows for a more interesting comic, with the whole gang participation.

[M.A.D]

Well, Serini is/was a rogue. It would be reasonable that her dungeon would incorporate having rogue abilities as a component for success. Plus, if she had a similar mindset to Haley and Girard, layers of obfuscation could definitely be at play. A few threads back it was even discussed that layers of deception were a recurrent theme in the comic (Xykon's body doubles, for exemple).

Beyond there being a portal, my theory is that not disabling the trap puts you in "Kraagor mode", where the dungeon is a series of combat challenges that need to be brute forced through Barabrian style, as anyone tracking the gates while being aware of their lore would expect... But those are only to keep you busy until whoever watches the gate can observe and intervene.

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one. That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

One would thing the purpose of setting up all these traps is to keep anyone at all off the Gates, rather than to challenge the ables and the strongs.

[Thecommander236]

Rereading it, Haley does mention that she needed to cover a very specific part of the trap to "disarm" it, but I still find it hard to believe that RC hasn't noticed the line and researched it. People are seeing you have to be a Rogue to find it, but Roy can see it just fine once it was pointed out to him. People might also bring up that there was no flash of light when TE went into the other door and that the ight only flashes when you "disarm" the trap like Haley. I'm not sure what to believe, rethinking it, but I feel a simple spot check would reveal the line to non-rogues. If that's the case, RC wouldn't just let it go. Even if you need a rogue to even notice the line, they have so much detect magic spells, they would notice a dimensional portal even it sent them into a hell pit full of monster spawn.

It's possible that RC or Xykon just decided "meh, it doesn't hurt us so who cares", but RC devised the shell game. He would investigate those lines. Maybe they DID have a rogue from the bugbear camp that showed them how to disarm the traps, but he died in one of the dungeons before Team Paladin arrived. We don't know. It's not like the zombie that TE would make from his corpse would survive long in conditions where Xykon is gaining experience from "some of those ugly bastards".

[Riftwolf]

I concur. Also, I doubt that the tribe of Bigbears who have been attacking this Dungeon for years, if not decades, or even generations never noticed this trap especially if it flashes light like that at the people who aren't the ones who set it off.

Haley doesn't seem to have "disarmed it" so much as she set it off using the object rather than setting it off herself. It seems the trap affects the environment of the not the person or object that triggers it. Even then, I'm not even sure what she was hoping to accomplish by setting it off at all. If you're going to set it off, why does it matter if it hits the first person to cross it or an inanimate object when it doesn't affect the person at all?

Furthermore, TE isn't stupid. It's very clearly a line drawn onto every floor in every tunnel. SOMEONE would have to notice it and RC is not the kind of person to 1. miss such an obvious detail and 2. not investigate it with every single magic possible. He tried literally every school of magic to try and dig up hidden information from O'Chul's mind out of sheer paranoia. He almost caught onto Durkon and Minrah's trick from a few pages ago. There's no way he hasn't been obsessively looking into those lines for weeks on end.

Plus, if all you have to do to set it off is throw an object through it, Xykon definitely threw a super bouncy ball through it at least once just to shut RC up.

The flash was from the trap being temporarily disarmed; that's what the rat head and the fiddling about were for (apparently trap disarming uses similar mechanics to old point-and-click adventures). If they'd tripped it, there wouldn't have been a flash and the floor wouldn't have changed.
As for team evil not noticing the line; that's precisely how trapfinding works in 3.5. Only rogues (and a few spells and alt-classes. And ACFs and prestige classes.) can detect magic traps, so Team Evil (Sorcerer, Cleric, unknown monster, warg and Probably-A-Ranger-but-under-debate-on-C&LG-thread) wouldn't notice it, even if they were searching.

[Thales]

never noticed this trap especially if it flashes light like that at the people who aren't the ones who set it off.

Furthermore, TE isn't stupid. It's very clearly a line drawn onto every floor in every tunnel. SOMEONE would have to notice it and RC is not the kind of person to 1. miss such an obvious detail and 2. not investigate it with every single magic possible.

Plus, if all you have to do to set it off is throw an object through it, Xykon definitely threw a super bouncy ball through it at least once just to shut RC up.
I don't think this is correct. I think in the trap's normal functioning, it's pretty invisible. The only reason there was a big flash of light was because Haley effectively short-circuited it, something that required a lot of rogue skills to accomplish. Merely throwing an object through wouldn't visibly trigger it, nor would it have the same short-circuiting effect.

I also don't think Team Evil saw the line. It's very clearly a line to us, the readers. But Roy couldn't see it in 1219 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1219.html) even with Haley specifically pointing it out to him. Of the people currently on Team Evil, only Oona probably has ranks in Spot. Redcloak has excellent Wisdom as a cleric, but probably not enough better than Roy to see the runes if Roy couldn't even with the advantage of someone telling him about them. If Oona has noticed it, she noticed it long before Team Evil arrived, it didn't seem to do anything, and thus she didn't see it worth mentioning.

I suspect that Haley's overloading the trap may tip Team Evil off, however. The line may be really hard to see (and Team Evil is probably more than 20 seconds behind the Order and therefore the trap will be functioning again by the time they get there), but if Haley leaves the dead rat head there, it'll be clearly visible, and even if she doesn't, there's still the blast mark on the ground around it that marks the line. Redcloak and Oona can definitely put it together with a big clue like that.

[Dr.Zero]

I, personally, can't see a reason to believe that disarming the trap by triggering it should lead to the gate and not to one of the monster loaded instances of the dungeon without any gate in it.
In that case every lame team who triggers that not on purpose, would end up being transferred to the gate too.

If anything, disarming the trap without triggering it should do the trick. Which maybe requires a very high level to be done, so possibly only for an epic level rogue (like Serini).

[Xihirli]

Well, I can’t see Team Evil missing that, so we can assume they know about the trap, whatever it is.

[JessmanCA]

I'd say that Occam's Razor agrees.

Sure Occam has a razor, but Rube Goldberg has devices!

(which are more fun in a comedic story)

[Dr.Zero]

The flash was from the trap being temporarily disarmed; that's what the rat head and the fiddling about were for (apparently trap disarming uses similar mechanics to old point-and-click adventures). If they'd tripped it, there wouldn't have been a flash and the floor wouldn't have changed.

Since the rat head is clearly scorched, I don't see any reason to think that Haley didn't just trigger the trap, to disarm it.
A trap that makes damage after being properly disabled without triggering makes little sense to me.
Anyway less than a trap that hides itself as a damaging trap, can be easily seen and disarmed by triggering, and instead -aside the damage- is really a portal trap.

Random team with a rogue: "Oh, look, triggering it with a rat was enough to disable it, no worries"
Serini: "Yeah, sure!"

[Fyraltari]

Welp looks like the people who thought disabling the trap was necessary to reach the Gate were on the right track.


I'm looking forward to Redcloak discovering that Right-Eye is who he needed for this dungeon.
Oh god!
And then Xykon will blame him for murdering him.

Beyond there being a portal, my theory is that not disabling the trap puts you in "Kraagor mode", where the dungeon is a series of combat challenges that need to be brute forced through Barabrian style, as anyone tracking the gates while being aware of their lore would expect... But those are only to keep you busy until whoever watches the gate can observe and intervene.

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one.
Maybe this is like the service tunnels in Girard's pyramid?

That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.
Why would Serini look for anyone being "worthy" the point of all these defences us to not let anyone through.
Edit: Serini isn't a DM who crafted a dungeon that is meant to be overcome through sufficient skill, she's a guardian who built a trap designed to kill anyone who comes a-knocking.

[Peelee]

Why would an evil team not have a rogue smart enough to bypass a trap? It would seem strange that this skill is the key to finding the gate.

Unless it requires a particular method of trap disabling, and Serini’s method of key- design and Hayley’s method of trap disabling just coincidentally match?

Because they're not an adventuring party. They're a "take over the world" party - at least as far as the party leader is concerned. And they have Serini's diary. As far as they're concerned, they're good for what they need.

[Windscion]

Wait a minute. Maybe the purpose of the line is not to keep people out. Maybe the purpose is to keep monsters in! If that's the case, our analysis is flawed.

[Thecommander236]

I don't think this is correct. I think in the trap's normal functioning, it's pretty invisible. The only reason there was a big flash of light was because Haley effectively short-circuited it, something that required a lot of rogue skills to accomplish. Merely throwing an object through wouldn't visibly trigger it, nor would it have the same short-circuiting effect.

I also don't think Team Evil saw the line. It's very clearly a line to us, the readers. But Roy couldn't see it in 1219 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1219.html) even with Haley specifically pointing it out to him. Of the people currently on Team Evil, only Oona probably has ranks in Spot. Redcloak has excellent Wisdom as a cleric, but probably not enough better than Roy to see the runes if Roy couldn't even with the advantage of someone telling him about them. If Oona has noticed it, she noticed it long before Team Evil arrived, it didn't seem to do anything, and thus she didn't see it worth mentioning.

I suspect that Haley's overloading the trap may tip Team Evil off, however. The line may be really hard to see (and Team Evil is probably more than 20 seconds behind the Order and therefore the trap will be functioning again by the time they get there), but if Haley leaves the dead rat head there, it'll be clearly visible, and even if she doesn't, there's still the blast mark on the ground around it that marks the line. Redcloak and Oona can definitely put it together with a big clue like that.

Roy is looking right at the line in the comic you cited after its pointed out. Plus everyone could see the magical glyphs in Draketooth's Dungeon. Just because it's a trap doesn't mean the symbols aren't visible. The comic plays fast and loose with the rules sometimes. It looks like Roy can see the line well enough to know where he would have to step to cross it. Just because RC can't disarm traps doesn't mean he wouldn't expect the line to be a trap. Especially since it's universal to every tunnel.

Plus given how much Oona likes to talk, if she did spot the lines in the dozens, if not hundreds of times she went into the Dungeon, she would mention it at least once.

[gerryq]

Fascinating. That definitely does seem like the dungeon was changed. Unfortunately, Blackwing is stuck on the other side of it. Fortunately, so is Team Evil.

Also LOL at "use your inside-head voice"

I don't see how anyone is stuck on the other side. Belkar isn't, and he was outside the dungeon altogether. If there's a portal, surely it just changed where the corridor goes to, and everyone who enters the dungeon can come?

[Peelee]

Rereading it, Haley does mention that she needed to cover a very specific part of the trap to "disarm" it, but I still find it hard to believe that RC hasn't noticed the line and researched it. People are seeing you have to be a Rogue to find it, but Roy can see it just fine once it was pointed out to him.


Trapfinding (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm#trapfinding) is indeed Rogue only. And Roy can't see it - Haley has to point it out to him the second time too. He's looking down, but that doesn't mean he sees it (and the fact that she had to tell him the second time implies he can't).

Do you have a theory on how Redcloak, a pure Cleric, can somehow use trapfinding, a Rogue-only skill?

[Fyraltari]

All these people mind-linked with Belkar and it's Blackwing's stream of thought that's a bother? Who wouldnhave thought?

[Deuce]

Welp looks like the people who thought disabling the trap was necessary to reach the Gate were on the right track.


Oh god!
And then Xykon will blame him for murdering him.

Maybe this is like the service tunnels in Girard's pyramid?

Why would Serini look for anyone being "worthy" the point of all these defences us to not let anyone through.
Edit: Serini isn't a DM who crafted a dungeon that is meant to be overcome through sufficient skill, she's a guardian who built a trap designed to kill anyone who comes a-knocking.

No, Xykon will blame Red Cloak for him having to murder Right Eye..

[Windscion]

Do you have a theory on how Redcloak, a pure Cleric, can somehow use trapfinding, a Rogue-only skill?
Magic? Specifically, Find Traps, a level 2 cleric spell.

[Fyraltari]

No, Xykon will blame Red Cloak for him having to murder Right Eye..

That is exactly what I said, is it not?

[Wannes]

I concur. Also, I doubt that the tribe of Bigbears who have been attacking this Dungeon for years, if not decades, or even generations never noticed this trap especially if it flashes light like that at the people who aren't the ones who set it off.

Or the ones that did noticed it and disarmed it completely (and not temporarily as Haley did) didn't see any effect at all from the disarming. Maybe only the temporary disable has an effect, as a sort of "trap-within-a trap".
So they thought "meh, we can just ignore it if it makes no difference", didn't think about temporarily disabling it and thus don't see any use in mentioning it any further.

[bunsen_h]

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one. That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

I really like this theory.


I suspect that Haley's overloading the trap may tip Team Evil off, however. The line may be really hard to see (and Team Evil is probably more than 20 seconds behind the Order and therefore the trap will be functioning again by the time they get there), but if Haley leaves the dead rat head there, it'll be clearly visible, and even if she doesn't, there's still the blast mark on the ground around it that marks the line. Redcloak and Oona can definitely put it together with a big clue like that.

How rigid is the "only rogues can see magical traps" rule? Roy couldn't see the line even when Haley pointed right at it and told him exactly what to look for. Team Evil has far weaker clues, but bonuses and magical enhancements.

It's sad to see one of Kandro's family heirlooms being treated so cavalierly. :smallbiggrin:

[gatemansgc]

if the floor changes color after the trap is activated team evil will for sure be suspicious when they find it.

[Saint-Just]

In 5E, a wizard's (or anyone with the find familiar spell) familiar can be summoned back to you as an action, and bringing it back when it's been killed takes a first level spell slot and ten minutes - what're the rules for 3.5? How much of a drain of resources would it take for V to re-summon Blackwing? They've done it instantly before (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0672.html), but how would the spell work if they're, say, in a different dimension?

In 3.5 if familiar dies you cannot gain a new one for a year and a day (and also lose some exp). You can raise\resurrect\true resurrect old one for the usual amount of diamond dust (and it doesn't lose constitution or any abilities when raised).

Blackwing appearing out of nowhere in the old comics is a joke. It's supposed to represent players (and even DMs) ignoring familiars and even forgetting where they are supposed to be until they need them for a specific task. Note the very first comic with Blackwing in it (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html)

[gatemansgc]

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one. That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

holy bleep, i like this theory.

[understatement]

Huh. Interesting.

I love how they're all colour-coded!

[Rack]

Okay, by RAW, V couldn't have cast Telepathic Bond (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telepathicBond.htm) on that many creatures. We see seven other creatures affected beyond V: Roy, Durkon, Elan, Haley, Belkar, someone offscreen to Belkar's right (presumably Minrah), and Blackwing. By RAW, this would require V to be at least level 21.

Level 18? V + 6 other creatures. One creature every 3 levels means V would need a ECL of 18.

[Grey Watcher]

I'd say that Occam's Razor agrees.

I'd bet a lot of quatloos that if you don't disarm the trap like Haley did you won't even notice crossing it. It's not the kind of trap that detonates or betrays its presence.

Instead the difference in floor colours makes it extremely likely that if you manage to bypass this trap you're entering a different pathway than if you trigger the trap. Granted I doubt a high level rogue would leave it at that so they'll need to remain careful, but odds say that this is the first step you need to take to reach the Gate.

I dunno. If using the rat skull gives them a few seconds like this, then unless Team Evil went in exactly abreast, whoever was in the back should have seen it hit whoever was I'm front. Though I don't know if we're seeing the usual function. I forget the exact rules around traps, so I don't know if she just tripped the trap or did some weird Rogue thing to it.

[Saint-Just]

Before that comic I was very skeptical of the "multidimensional stone" being more than a wizard-did-it blocker against going through the walls, but given the effect of disarming the trap it seems likely that indeed there is some sort pf shell game going on with those dungeons. It seems very likely that in the end of this dungeon is the Gate. most likely it can really be accessed from any door ( by activating "Serini mode") but even if it's dumb luck and you need to choose the right door and then disarm the trap, it's still likely to be the right door, because of the dramatic necessity.

[Kornaki]

Books -1 through 4 are 50% off (with 1 being 75% off!). Shipping on ookodook is not that cheap but I bought all six of them and saved a ton of money. Thanks for the heads up giant!

[Goblin_Priest]

OK, theory that they'll get to the Gate by bypassing the trap is looking for and more likely.

This strip does seem suggestive of that, despite the facts going against that theory that were elaborated upon earlier.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret what we just saw, though.

[Worldsong]

Why would an evil team not have a rogue smart enough to bypass a trap? It would seem strange that this skill is the key to finding the gate.

Unless it requires a particular method of trap disabling, and Serini’s method of key- design and Hayley’s method of trap disabling just coincidentally match?

The simple answer to this is the question "Who would be the rogue?"

It's not Redcloak. It's not Xykon. I really doubt it's MitD. Oona might have some tracking skills but she's some kind of beastmaster class, probably better at setting traps than finding them.

Logically speaking a high-level party should have a rogue but if they don't have one they don't have one.


Redcloak has excellent Wisdom as a cleric, but probably not enough better than Roy to see the runes if Roy couldn't even with the advantage of someone telling him about them.

Also Redcloak only has one eye. Might affect his ability to spot things.


Since the rat head is clearly scorched, I don't see any reason to think that Haley didn't just trigger the trap, to disarm it.
A trap that makes damage after being properly disabled without triggering makes little sense to me.
Anyway less than a trap that hides itself as a damaging trap, can be easily seen and disarmed by triggering, and instead -aside the damage- is really a portal trap.

Random team with a rogue: "Oh, look, triggering it with a rat was enough to disable it, no worries"
Serini: "Yeah, sure!"

My theory would be that if you trigger the trap unintentionally you don't notice it. It's supposed to be an invisible portal.

Haley didn't activate the trap, she used a method of disarming that resulted in the magic trap misfiring and exploding. It's like when Blackwing intentionally miscast Vaarsuvius's scroll to cause an explosion (#1020 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1020.html)).

Of course this trap is significantly higher level than Vaarsuvius's scroll and would require more effort to blow up, which is why it requires Haley carefully working on it while the rest of the party discusses how to proceed (she wouldn't have to say that she 'figured it out' if it was as straightforward as triggering it with an inanimate object).


Roy is looking right at the line in the comic you cited after its pointed out. Plus everyone could see the magical glyphs in Draketooth's Dungeon. Just because it's a trap doesn't mean the symbols aren't visible. The comic plays fast and loose with the rules sometimes. It looks like Roy can see the line well enough to know where he would have to step to cross it. Just because RC can't disarm traps doesn't mean he wouldn't expect the line to be a trap. Especially since it's universal to every tunnel.

Plus given how much Oona likes to talk, if she did spot the lines in the dozens, if not hundreds of times she went into the Dungeon, she would mention it at least once.

He's looking right at the line and when asked by Haley if he can see it he answers "No." He has a rough idea where it is because Haley pointed at it. Also just because everyone could see the magical glyphs in Draketooth's Dungeon doesn't mean all magic traps are visible.


I dunno. If using the rat skull gives them a few seconds like this, then unless Team Evil went in exactly abreast, whoever was in the back should have seen it hit whoever was I'm front. Though I don't know if we're seeing the usual function. I forget the exact rules around traps, so I don't know if she just tripped the trap or did some weird Rogue thing to it.

Basically everything Hyoi said.


I feel like y'all are all dancing around the most likely explanation of the trap's mechanics: it's not a trap at all, just an always-on portal that links the door to its associated dungeon crawl, which is located somewhere else. Disarming the trap temporarily turns off the portal, so the different-colored floor behind it is just what is actually there behind the portal. Team evil hasn't noticed the trap because simply walking in doesn't trigger any detectable change. The OOTS might have made the same mistake if Haley hadn't stopped Roy before he could step over the trap. After the 20 seconds are up, the portal will turn back on, so anyone following the OOTS will end up on the standard path.

Bonus points if the runes don't actually create the portal, just provide a means to turn it off, so the dungeon fails safe if someone just destroys the runes. That would mean that without a rogue team evil has no way to bypass the trap even if they know it is there.

I like that last part. It would also explain why Redcloak and Xykon couldn't bypass it even if they used Truesight or whatever to detect the runes. Might have tried dispelling it and dismissed it when it didn't seem to change anything.

[Akrasiel]

V+ 6 others (1 per 3x caster levels). As a familiar, Blackwing is a freebie.

[Saint-Just]

This strip does seem suggestive of that, despite the facts going against that theory that were elaborated upon earlier.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret what we just saw, though.

Some sort of portal (either always-on disableable as suggested earlier, or a portal which appears only when trap is disarmed/disabled) seems likely. Either that or multidimensionality leads to timey-whimey things (Gaia did that impressively, but it is less likely for self-aware RPG fantasy pastiche).

[Psyren]

Okay, by RAW, V couldn't have cast Telepathic Bond (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telepathicBond.htm) on that many creatures. We see seven other creatures affected beyond V: Roy, Durkon, Elan, Haley, Belkar, someone offscreen to Belkar's right (presumably Minrah), and Blackwing. By RAW, this would require V to be at least level 21.

Let's check the math on that:

"Targets: You plus one willing creature per three levels, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart"

So we've got V, Blackwing, Roy, Haley, Elan, Belkar, Durkon, Minrah (off-screen).

CL0: "You" - covers both V and Blackwing for free, through Share Spells.
CL3: Roy
CL6: Haley
CL9: Elan
CL12: Belkar
CL15: Durkon
CL18: Minrah

V having a CL of 18 after boosters (like Laurin's Ioun Stone) is not farfetched. So it seems the math checks out.


Maybe he skipped Belkar? :smallwink:

Belkar was definitely hit by it (panel 3).

[Dr.Zero]

My theory would be that if you trigger the trap unintentionally you don't notice it. It's supposed to be an invisible portal.


I don't know. Your theory surely makes the story move onward, and in that it makes sense.

But as a trap...
Let's take as an example what the order did in DCF: a trapped door (even if they were not sure it was trapped, anyway let's assume they use the same modus operandi) triggered on purpose by the meat shield. Maybe with the justification "Come on, we're plenty of healing potions."

The meat shield walks in and the trap doesn't do anything (apparently, but creates a portal secretly). Doing nothing (apparently) would be a great hint to the party that the trap did something secretly.

Instead if the trap adds a damage effect for good measure, the party will think that the damage was the purpose of the trap and will ignore the possibility of it doing something else secretly.

[JSSheridan]

Thanks Giant!

Team Evil would have had a high level rogue if Xykon hadn't been a total jerk all this time.

[Thecommander236]

Trapfinding (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm#trapfinding) is indeed Rogue only. And Roy can't see it - Haley has to point it out to him the second time too. He's looking down, but that doesn't mean he sees it (and the fact that she had to tell him the second time implies he can't).

Do you have a theory on how Redcloak, a pure Cleric, can somehow use trapfinding, a Rogue-only skill?


Yes, because I pointed out that everyone could see the trap in Draketooth's Dungeon. I made a point of that.


Magic? Specifically, Find Traps, a level 2 cleric spell.

Also, thank you DnD nerds! I didn't know that existed.


I feel like y'all are all dancing around the most likely explanation of the trap's mechanics: it's not a trap at all, just an always-on portal that links the door to its associated dungeon crawl, which is located somewhere else. Disarming the trap temporarily turns off the portal, so the different-colored floor behind it is just what is actually there behind the portal. Team evil hasn't noticed the trap because simply walking in doesn't trigger any detectable change. The OOTS might have made the same mistake if Haley hadn't stopped Roy before he could step over the trap. After the 20 seconds are up, the portal will turn back on, so anyone following the OOTS will end up on the standard path.

Bonus points if the runes don't actually create the portal, just provide a means to turn it off, so the dungeon fails safe if someone just destroys the runes. That would mean that without a rogue team evil has no way to bypass the trap even if they know it is there.

Now that is the more reasonable explanation. That I can buy. If the flash is the portal turning off, then that explains why there wasn't a flash when TE went in the other door. Still, I can't see an epic level sorcerer who regularly plain shifts to not notice that he just walked through a magic portal a few dozen times and never question it.




He's looking right at the line and when asked by Haley if he can see it he answers "No." He has a rough idea where it is because Haley pointed at it. Also just because everyone could see the magical glyphs in Draketooth's Dungeon doesn't mean all magic traps are visible.



Basically everything Hyoi said.



I like that last part. It would also explain why Redcloak and Xykon couldn't bypass it even if they used Truesight or whatever to detect the runes. Might have tried dispelling it and dismissed it when it didn't seem to change anything.

I did miss that. Okay, maybe Roy can't see it, but he also has no spot. He does say he can't see the first one, the second one he could reroll a spot check, though and maybe he did see the second one. Regardless, Oona has spot and RC may have the aforementioned detect traps spell.

[Saint-Just]

Also Redcloak only has one eye. Might affect his ability to spot things.


Unlikely. There was a joke that there is no penalty for having one eye (probably by the Right-Eye in the SoD, but maybe it was Worng-Eye in the webcomic)

[Thecommander236]

Also, I was under the impression that anyone can do a spot check, it's just you need ranks in spot to have more than a hail Mary's chance of seeing anything.

[drazen]

I really like this theory.



How rigid is the "only rogues can see magical traps" rule? Roy couldn't see the line even when Haley pointed right at it and told him exactly what to look for. Team Evil has far weaker clues, but bonuses and magical enhancements.

It's sad to see one of Kandro's family heirlooms being treated so cavalierly. :smallbiggrin:


I have long suspected and predicted that the final dungeon will incorporate all of the Scribblers' beliefs somehow, but I really like this explanation for why it would do so.

So far we've seen a rogue's deception, Kraagor's might, and the invisible creatures could be like Lirian's guardians. Maybe the trap magic is meant to resemble Durokan's belief in magic, leaving only Soon's honor left to come into play.

Also, I guess V leveled up against the Nightcrawler in Firmament, because with the +1 from the ioun stone, that would require Level 17 from the calcuations I'm seeing, and the forcecage in the tunnel was "34 hours" which would have been level 16 -- twice (level +1) from the ioun stone at the time.

[Rogan]

Now that is the more reasonable explanation. That I can buy. If the flash is the portal turning off, then that explains why there wasn't a flash when TE went in the other door. Still, I can't see an epic level sorcerer who regularly plain shifts to not notice that he just walked through a magic portal a few dozen times and never question it.


Maybe this is kind of an anti trap? It does not do anything (or deal some damage) if you fall for it. It does nothing if you disable or dispell it.
But Harley activated the real function by trying to bypass it. And this real function is to open a portal.

This would explain a lot.
- nobody (TE) notice any kind of spell effect, since usually, there is no effect (or some kind of effect you would expect from a trap) No plane shift or other kind of travel.
- the color of the floor changed after 'bypassing' the trap. This seems to be more likely if the dungeon leads to another pane/dimension/location NOW.
- even if TE could notice the runes (I'm not sure they can) they might just burn a dispell on it in order to render it inactive. This is especially likely if the trap has some kind of visible effect (like damage) when activated normally.

[Worldsong]

I don't know. Your theory surely makes the story move onward, and in that it makes sense.

But as a trap...
Let's take as an example what the order did in DCF: a trapped door (even if they were not sure it was trapped, anyway let's assume they use the same modus operandi) triggered on purpose by the meat shield. Maybe with the justification "Come on, we're plenty of healing potions."

The meat shield walks in and the trap doesn't do anything (apparently, but creates a portal secretly). Doing nothing (apparently) would be a great hint to the party that the trap did something secretly.

Instead if the trap adds a damage effect for good measure, the party will think that the damage was the purpose of the trap and will ignore the possibility of it doing something else secretly.

I've got two ideas for that.

The first one is that having the meatshield try to intentionally trigger the trap (only to find that it does nothing because the line just marks where two different locations are linked by means of portal) would still require noticing the line first. If the odds are low of any intruders spotting the trap that's possibly even better than a portal which disguises itself as an explosive trap.

The second idea is that even if you notice the line but it doesn't appear to do anything when you step over it that might tip you off that it does something secretly but that would still leave you guessing what exactly the secret effect is, especially if you can't manage to disarm or sabotage it.

An important part of this would be that Serini might have been a high-level rogue but she would still have to work with ultimately limited resources. Weighing all her options she went for an approach which both fits the mindset of a rogue and which would require a high-level rogue to bypass (and there's probably many other tricks and challenges on the way, so bypassing the portal doesn't mean you've beaten the dungeon). And I believe it's been stated before that the Stickworld tends towards low-average levels (the imp at least was impressed by Vaarsuvius's level as a Wizard).


I did miss that. Okay, maybe Roy can't see it, but he also has no spot. He does say he can't see the first one, the second one he could reroll a spot check, though and maybe he did see the second one. Regardless, Oona has spot and RC may have the aforementioned detect traps spell.


Also, I was under the impression that anyone can do a spot check, it's just you need ranks in spot to have more than a hail Mary's chance of seeing anything.

In 3.5 Spot checks don't detect traps which are meant to be hidden (so most of them). You need Trapfinding, which is a type of Search check which is unique to rogues (below Weapon Proficiency and Sneak Attack (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm)).

Find Traps (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/findTraps.htm) allows a cleric to mimic a rogue's Trapfinding ability but it doesn't guarantee success, and most likely is not as good as a rogue of the same level (due to them investing skill points into the Search skill). On top of that finding the trap doesn't necessarily allow the cleric to disarm it.

Disarming a trap, similar to finding one, is a unique feature for Rogues where they use a Disable Device check. With magic traps dispel magic can temporarily suppress the trap, although you'd need to roll high enough (bottom of the page. (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/disableDevice.htm)).

EDIT: Correction, you don't need to be a rogue to find simple traps but given that this is an endgame level dungeon this almost definitely falls under the category of a high-level trap which requires a rogue's Trapfinding ability.

In addition, Search is an INT-based skill, which given that clerics are WIS-based means that even if they use Find Traps they don't have a very high ability modifier to help them out. In contrast, I've always found it pretty convenient to have some INT as a rogue given that INT is good for skills and rogues are meant to be skill monkeys.


Maybe this is kind of an anti trap? It does not do anything (or deal some damage) if you fall for it. It does nothing if you disable or dispell it.
But Harley activated the real function by trying to bypass it. And this real function is to open a portal.

This would explain a lot.
- nobody (TE) notice any kind of spell effect, since usually, there is no effect (or some kind of effect you would expect from a trap) No plane shift or other kind of travel.
- the color of the floor changed after 'bypassing' the trap. This seems to be more likely if the dungeon leads to another pane/dimension/location NOW.
- even if TE could notice the runes (I'm not sure they can) they might just burn a dispell on it in order to render it inactive. This is especially likely if the trap has some kind of visible effect (like damage) when activated normally.

Hmmm... That would be interesting although at the same time I feel like Haley might have caught that. As it is she seems to believe that it's a trap which is triggered upon stepping over it (resetting itself immediately after). Of course it could be that she's good enough to detect and activate it but not good enough to understand its exact workings... do we know how Haley compares to Serini at this point?

[Elenna]

I don't see how anyone is stuck on the other side. Belkar isn't, and he was outside the dungeon altogether. If there's a portal, surely it just changed where the corridor goes to, and everyone who enters the dungeon can come?

Haley specifically says it will go back to normal in 20 seconds. Belkar was dragged through before those 20 seconds were up.

[Blatt]

When Hayley triggers the portal by placing the rat skull, the skull is on both sides of the portal at the same time, i.e., it's half "ported". I think this indicates that an authorized visitor would simply tread on the exact right part of the trap as he walked in, in order to get to the "significant" dungeon.

So, maybe, plot twist - it's not that the gate is in none of the dungeons. It's effectively in all of them.

Assuming the trap is a portal of course.

[Peelee]

Yes, because I pointed out that everyone could see the trap in Draketooth's Dungeon. I made a point of that.

Counterpoint: this isn't Draketooth's Dungeon, even in Draketooth's Dungeon nobody could see them until Haley pointed them out, and regardless, different traps don't have to function similarly. Just because the audience gets to see the traps as a visual guide by the author does not mean characters csn see them, just as we saw invisibly Vaarsuvius in Xykon's tower, but Xykon couldn't see them.

If the characters act like they can't see the trap, you should probably believe them.

[Psyren]

Also, I was under the impression that anyone can do a spot check, it's just you need ranks in spot to have more than a hail Mary's chance of seeing anything.

It's 3.5 - Search, rather than Spot, is used for trap detection. And even then, you need a rogue if the trap is tough enough.

I find it unlikely Redcloak wouldn't be prepping Find Traps though. Perhaps the dimensional stone interferes with that magic in some way that can't fool Trapfinding?

[Tuhlore]

This has already been mentioned, but there's no means for TE to find this trap. Find Traps is possible, but RC definitely has very few ranks, which would make finding this trap difficult.
For those who mentioned "RC definitely would have obsessed over it", he is also a heavyweight in confirmation bias. "This doesn't do anything, it's just a line" is much more likely.

Also, I had to make sure Minrah was coming along. I was worried!

[Rogan]

Hmmm... That would be interesting although at the same time I feel like Haley might have caught that. As it is she seems to believe that it's a trap which is triggered upon stepping over it (resetting itself immediately after). Of course it could be that she's good enough to detect and activate it but not good enough to understand its exact workings... do we know how Haley compares to Serini at this point?

Okay, this is a good point. My idea does not fit Haleys description of the trap.
On the other hand, she does not seem to know in detail what this trap is supposed to do. In the pyramid, she knew exactly what every part of the trap would do (meteor swarm, stoneskin etc)
So, this trap seems to be an unusual kind. Haley might really be just high level enough to find the trap and work with it, without understanding the details.
On the other hand, bypassing a trap is harder than disabling it completely. If Haley felt she had a good chance at bypassing, the trap could not be THAT complicated.


About the level difference between H. and S.
I think, S is supposed to be low epic, while H is high-non-epic. So a difference of about 5 levels?

[Toper]

CL0: "You" - covers both V and Blackwing for free, through Share Spells.
That stops working if the familiar moves more than 5 feet from the caster. Doesn't really matter to the story, though.

[bunsen_h]

Perhaps the trap is in two parts. Haley disabled the first one. The second, harder to detect, activates a portal only if the first one is disarmed or disabled.

[Arthaiser]

there is something in the character arc of a wizard that becomes cocky, then fails, theb acknowledges his cockiness and admits that he was wrong, then becomes super helpful to the party that i simply love. in the case of V is been done masterfully

[Feruk]

My quatloos are that they're going to run into - maybe literally - the paladin-stealing invisible peoples. Might be on their way to the gate, might not be (I'm not convinced that this is the gate route yet), but might be interesting. Downside is that the invisible voices didn't seem to head into a door, but maybe they can teleport into their lair, or there's another entrance.

[Ghosty]

It's 3.5 - Search, rather than Spot, is used for trap detection. And even then, you need a rogue if the trap is tough enough.

I find it unlikely Redcloak wouldn't be prepping Find Traps though. Perhaps the dimensional stone interferes with that magic in some way that can't fool Trapfinding?

I'd agree, except Find Traps doesn't last very long, 1 minute per level. Even Extended, it doesn't sound like the kind of buff he could constantly keep running. Plus, as noted, even if he could now Search for traps like a Rogue, he likely doesn't have a high Search skill.

The more I think about it, the more likely it seems that there are very few obvious traps requiring a Rogue, in any of the dungeons. If there were, Oona would have had them bring a Rogue along, and since Rogue is the favored class of Bugbears, there's likely one or two of them around. Even in an isolated village like theirs. TE seems fine dungeon crawling w/o one, and they've gone through a bunch of doors already, so there likely aren't many or any obvious traps at all. Versus the trapfest the Pyramid was.

If Rogues aren't needed, Rogues won't be brought along, and the entrance magic runes are likely to not have been discovered.

For the poster who mentioned V and six other entities getting the telepathic link, does that imply a 17th level for V? And if so, does that mean V can throw 9th level spells around now? Like Wish, or Disjunction?

EDIT: Oh, and doesn't the Ioun Stone bauble on Blackwing need to be "close" to V in order to get the Caster Level bump?

[Petrocorus]

Am i the only one who thinks they should remove the rat head?

I also notice there is a line on the wall after the trap is disarmed. I'm more and more convinced by the dimensional portal theory.


Quippie’s back!
Quippie?


Actually, Blackwing doesn't necessarily count. Are there not means to share spells with familiars automatically?
The Share Spells feature only work as long as the familiar remains within 5 feet.



In 5E, a wizard's (or anyone with the find familiar spell) familiar can be summoned back to you as an action, and bringing it back when it's been killed takes a first level spell slot and ten minutes - what're the rules for 3.5? How much of a drain of resources would it take for V to re-summon Blackwing?
Familiars in 3.5 are not spirits that take the form of an animal, they're actual animals being improved by magic.
As someone else said, if Blackwing is killed, V will have to get him raised with usual cost, and cannot have another one for a year and a day.
He will also lose a significant number of XP. 100 XP per level if he succeed a Fortitude save, 200 XP per level if he doesn't.
Quite a blast.


there is something in the character arc of a wizard that becomes cocky, then fails, theb acknowledges his cockiness and admits that he was wrong, then becomes super helpful to the party that i simply love. in the case of V is been done masterfully
Coming to think of it, maybe V didn't achieve ultimate arcane power with the soul splice. Maybe he will achieve ultimate arcane power one day thanks to the character growth he started because of the soul splice.

[Bisqwit]

Aww, Team Good is teaming real good.

[Sebastian]

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one. That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. :smallbiggrin:

[Raven777]

One would thing the purpose of setting up all these traps is to keep anyone at all off the Gates, rather than to challenge the ables and the strongs.

Serini isn't a DM who crafted a dungeon that is meant to be overcome through sufficient skill, she's a guardian who built a trap designed to kill anyone who comes a-knocking.

For any sufficient level of "challenge", these are not mutually exclusive. :smalltongue:

And the means to challenge or destroy can still be designed to target a broad range of skills (or weaknesses). One could argue this approach would actually make for a stronger defense anyway. :smallsmile:


Because they're not an adventuring party. They're a "take over the world" party - at least as far as the party leader is concerned. And they have Serini's diary. As far as they're concerned, they're good for what they need.

I think this is key to the above. Elan and Thor made clear the world runs on narrative tropes.

A villain will probably attack the dungeon in kind with the dungeon's defenses. Xykon overtook the Dungeon of Dorukan by winning an epic arcane duel... just like Dorukan would have it. Xykon captured the Sapphire Throne by overwhelming Azure City's military... just like Soon would have it. Xykon tries to fight his way through Monster Hollow... just like Kraagor would have it. Just another challenge met head on in the obvious way it presents itself.

But a genuine adventuring party fumbling their way through? Chances are they're here to save the world.

[Dr.Zero]

It's 3.5 - Search, rather than Spot, is used for trap detection. And even then, you need a rogue if the trap is tough enough.

Frankly I don't know how much adherent to the rules is, but in our groups "search" is an active skill, spot is a passive one.
You can search a whole room, with time, for traps.
You can spot immediately (no turn wasted) something out of place in that room, like some tiny holes in the wall.

At that point you say to the rogue to search for traps, and the rogue can find if the holes are effectively a trap, the kind of trap, the mechanism and sometimes a little more.

So basically we detect possible traps with spot and identify them (if they are traps at all) with search.

But, again, that was how we did it when I started to play, this is how we did it when I GMered, and everything seemed logical, but I'm not sure the rules agree with our logic.

[Yxylu]

Quippie?

Uncle Kandro’s great-grandfather’s pet osquip, whose mummified head was bequeathed to Haley in 1182a.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

So Serini wasn't able to reach her own gate post-construction? That seems counter-productive.

GW

[elros]

Maybe he skipped Belkar? :smallwink:
I think he skipped Belkar, which is why the Giant showed Roy dragging him back in.

[Fyraltari]

Maybe he skipped Belkar? :smallwink:


I think he skipped Belkar, which is why the Giant showed Roy dragging him back in.

Panel 3 disagrees.

[RMS Oceanic]

Oh god!
And then Xykon will blame him for murdering him.

Disagree for two reasons

1. Xykon's only gotten truly mad from two sources: a direct threat to continued existence, and wizardly belittling of his class. His reaction to "we need a rogue" is more likely to be "dang, better find one".

2. Right-Eye was years ago now, but more importantly, Xykon was totally clued in to his desire to kill him, hence the anti-undead sneak attack ring. Odds are Right-Eye would not be around Team Evil right now even if Redcloak didn't intervene.

[Mobius Twist]

Panel 7, Haley says "OK, I've got it figured it out". Is that meant to be "I've got it figured out" or "I've got it; I figured it out"?

[Akrasiel]

With regard to Find Traps, it's great for the stated purpose, but doesn't grant the ability to disarm anything.

[ManuelSacha]

Why is everyone assuming that the trick here is "being good at spotting traps"?
What this page strongly implies is that you have to understand the trick, after you've spotted (and not necessarily disarmed) the trap.

That's why Haley left the rat skull there. She'll explain later, but it's probably to keep the "new path" open, or something.

And it would make a lot of sense for the answer to the question "which of these doors is the real entrance?" to be "none of the above".
Because anyone would be naturally drawn to the conclusion that they have to try a different door... whether they have a high level rogue in their party or not.

[mjasghar]

All these people mind-linked with Belkar and it's Blackwing's stream of thought that's a bother? Who wouldnhave thought?

Belkar is very much brain to mouth - no filters and no introspection internally
His confused feelings are all worked out aloud - which may be a facet of the comic visual medium, but that’s what it is.

[Shining Wrath]

Telepathic Bond is indeed a very fine spell. Except when telepathically bonded with Blackwing.

[137beth]

Telepathic Bond is indeed a very fine spell. Except when telepathically bonded with Blackwing.

Seems like telepathically bonding to Belkar or Elan could have its own disadvantages.

[RatElemental]

So since telepathic bond was used and there are targets on both sides of what appears to be some kind of portal, I'm calling it now: When the 20 seconds are up and the trap reverts back to before Haley messed with it, Blackwing is going to get cut off because the party is on either on another plane or somewhere completely encased in multidimensional stone.

[albertonykus]

As a birder, seeing a raven described as "very small" is funny to me.

[Goblin_Priest]

Because they're not an adventuring party. They're a "take over the world" party - at least as far as the party leader is concerned. And they have Serini's diary. As far as they're concerned, they're good for what they need.

I was going to say exactly this.

They are the two most powerful bad guys with a shared agenda that happened to survive every other trial so far. Underlings are disposible, and rarely revived. See: Tsukiko.

Basically, they aren't the the kind to find a rogue and have him level with them, reviving him if need be. They just take whatever allies stumble upon them, for the time they last, and just move on afterwards.

[Peelee]

I was going to say exactly this.

They are the two most powerful bad guys with a shared agenda that happened to survive every other trial so far. Underlings are disposible, and rarely revived. See: Tsukiko.

Basically, they aren't the the kind to find a rogue and have him level with them, reviving him if need be. They just take whatever allies stumble upon them, for the time they last, and just move on afterwards.

I still love how nicely you were able to expound upon it. You got the words I couldn't find.

[Riftwolf]

As a birder, seeing a raven described as "very small" is funny to me.

Also it's a raven with an orange beak!

[Peelee]

E l an should have Prestidigitated Blackwing to be blue or white or Grey. Sky camo, basically.

[skim172]

Also it's a raven with an orange beak!

Spoiler: Blackwing isn't actually a raven, he's a Eurasian blackbird.

It's gonna break his heart when he finds out the truth...



"A blackbird!? That's not even Corvus! I'm but a common thrush!"

[Jaxzan Proditor]

That is quite the rat head!

I'm very excited to see where all this stuff with the trap goes. I also love the little passive-aggressive telepathy in this strip.

[Goblin_Priest]

Level 18? V + 6 other creatures. One creature every 3 levels means V would need a ECL of 18.

Oh, nice, so V finally has level 9 spell slots?

[The MunchKING]

Oh, nice, so V finally has level 9 spell slots?

Well it could be ECL but still not actual caster level, because she has the Ioun Stone amongst any other things she has.

[rTicWolf]

The floor colour changed... I'm thinking maybe the corridor got magically swapped with another one? Hopefully not the same one Xykon and Team Evil are in right now...

Also, R.I.P the door... it clearly has Xs where its eyes should be...

[mormon_soldier]

Also it's a raven with an orange beak!

They have to paint the tip like that to distinguish it from a real bird.

[Silent Wrangler]

Well, Serini is/was a rogue. It would be reasonable that her dungeon would incorporate having rogue abilities as a component for success. Plus, if she had a similar mindset to Haley and Girard, layers of obfuscation could definitely be at play. A few threads back it was even discussed that layers of deception were a recurrent theme in the comic (Xykon's body doubles, for exemple).

Beyond there being a portal, my theory is that not disabling the trap puts you in "Kraagor mode", where the dungeon is a series of combat challenges that need to be brute forced through Barabrian style, as anyone tracking the gates while being aware of their lore would expect... But those are only to keep you busy until whoever watches the gate can observe and intervene.

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one. That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

Your theory has my support. Also checks out with disabled trap being inactive for 3 rounds --- given width of the tunnel, just enough for a party of 5-6 to cross.

[Peelee]

Also, R.I.P the door... it clearly has Xs where its eyes should be...

I, for one, greatly appreciated this joke.

[B. Pseudonym]

What do you suppose is at the end of this tunnel?

It seems a little early for the Gate, but then again, the whole deal with the rift planet is probably going to take up a decent chunk of plot, so maybe it'll be brought back into focus earlier than expected.

The disembodied voices and captured paladins are another fairly obvious pick, but they seemed to be going up when they left, so maybe not.

Probably the most out-there theory I'm willing to put forward is that Serini Toormuck is still alive, and living in the tunnel complex. It's unlikely, but halflings can live for like a hundred and fifty years in 3.5, so it might be possible depending on long ago the crayon segments with the Order of the Scribble took place.
...do we actually know how long ago those were? The main hint I can think of is that Girard was pretty thoroughly decomposed, but I think that could've happened in well under a hundred and fifty years.

[hamishspence]

Probably the most out-there theory I'm willing to put forward is that Serini Toormuck is still alive, and living in the tunnel complex. It's unlikely, but halflings can live for like a hundred and fifty years in 3.5, so it might be possible depending on long ago the crayon segments with the Order of the Scribble took place.
...do we actually know how long ago those were?

"66 years ago" or slightly less:

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

[Bedinsis]

Disabling the trap puts you into "Serini mode", which might be more tuned to the skillset of a rogue, or at least a balanced party that includes one. That would play into Serini's possible mindset too: wishing for a functional whole party in order to overcome a holistic suite of challenges, rather than how her beloved group ended up fracturing with everyone focusing on their own preference for their dungeon. In Serini's mind, being worthy of reaching the gate might demand a whole cooperating party, not a single kind of skills.

Like many other people in this thread, I really like this theory. It also makes sense that she'd go by what she thought collectively the party would do, since the canon explanation so far is that she designed a dungeon based on Kraagor's, aka. not her own beliefs.


I have long suspected and predicted that the final dungeon will incorporate all of the Scribblers' beliefs somehow, but I really like [Raven777's] explanation for why it would do so.

So far we've seen a rogue's deception, Kraagor's might, and the invisible creatures could be like Lirian's guardians. Maybe the trap magic is meant to resemble Durokan's belief in magic, leaving only Soon's honor left to come into play.


Soon's honor... well in his case it was manifested in him being honorbound to guard the gate in perpetuity. I wonder if



Serini wasn't really the type for retiring. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html)


Wait... does this mean...



Probably the most out-there theory I'm willing to put forward is that Serini Toormuck is still alive, and living in the tunnel complex.

^_ The precise conclusion I just reached. Although I should say "theory", this is hardly substantive.

[Sebastian]

I was going to say exactly this.

They are the two most powerful bad guys with a shared agenda that happened to survive every other trial so far. Underlings are disposible, and rarely revived. See: Tsukiko.

Basically, they aren't the the kind to find a rogue and have him level with them, reviving him if need be. They just take whatever allies stumble upon them, for the time they last, and just move on afterwards.

You are right. if Xykon need to find traps he 'd send in some zombie. Or some minion. or some zombified minion.

No, wait, first he send minions, then make zombies of their corpses and send them forward. Much less wasteful.

[danielxcutter]

I mean Dorukan was still alive until Xykon killed him a few months before the comic started. Since as mentioned earlier halflings live longer than humans, it’s hardly impossible for Serini to be still alive, albeit probably with a considerable penalty to her physical points and on her last age category or something.

[locksmith of lo]

so does this mean that i was right for once in my rampant speculation? that the answer to this shell game is all of them, rather than none of them? :smallbiggrin:

[alowe]

Sneaky sneaky. They have not entered the tomb behind the door they went through. That "trap" is a seamless teleport. That's why the floor on the other side is a different colour. Cause it's the colour of the floor of the tomb they're teleporting to.

I figure there is only one real tomb that keeps resetting and all the other's are just doors with a corridor.

Has someone been playing the original Doom?

[jayem]

Serini would want it to be secure against brute force or rogues without knowledge, while accessible by those Serini wants to let in.
We know she was a rogue who liked co-operation.
We know the team are co-operating more
We know the paladin's are somewhere (on the same side of a divide as blackwing?)

It makes some sense that she'd be able to get each of the other scribblers to help just a bit, or otherwise do something inspired by them.
It makes a lot of sense that there is some trick in the presentation of the puzzle.
It makes sense that it would be intend to require co-operation
It makes a lot of sense that regardless it will be solved by co-operation
Any shell-game trick shouldn't leave the gate vulnerable to random discovery
Any trick shouldn't be (completely) solvable by a rogue being roguey (e.g. just a spot check)

The text in the Scribbler story is odd. "Serini wasn't the type for retiring, so she built a tomb to honour Kragaar". At the time I half read that as being and then she went back adventuring (and then became Belkor's mum /s). Technically it doesn't even imply that the gate and tomb are related (though if there wasn't ever a gate it would be game over...).

[Lex]

While I agree that there must be a way to reach the gate, be it by brute force or cunning or whatever (otherwise the story would be unable to go on), I still think that this is due to the defenses not being 100% perfect rather than being a considerate choice from Serini's part in allowing the right kind of party to succeed.
Having said that, I'm still not sure about what the trap would exactly do. Teleport into the real dungeon? Give access to Serini's maintenance access? Prevent the monsters from escaping (in that case, it could be bad news for the bug bears...)? I can wait for the next strip.

[Hiro Quester]

I still find it somewhat doubtful that Serini would assume that only a good save-the-world team would have an advanced rogue and good teamwork, and that an evil use-the-gates-to-take-over-the-world team would lack an advanced rogue, and would not have the required levels of cooperation.

Designing the tombs’ protection system based on that assumption seems risky. The kind of risk that a rogue like Serini would avoid.

She would have redundancies on her redundancies, and contingencies on her contingencies

Edit: don’t get me wrong, I like this theory. I want it to be true. So I’m waiting for more layers of only-a-good-team-would-be-able-to-solve-this type puzzles, curious what they will be.

[Hiro Quester]

Well it could be ECL but still not actual caster level, because she has the Ioun Stone amongst any other things she has.

Would V lose a caster level for their spells if Blackwing, with the Ioun stone, is outside on watch, and so out of range?

[Ezekiel]

That is quite the rat head!

I'm very excited to see where all this stuff with the trap goes. I also love the little passive-aggressive telepathy in this strip.

If I remember correctly it's an osquip's head.

[Metastachydium]

Spoiler: Blackwing isn't actually a raven, he's a Eurasian blackbird.

It's gonna break his heart when he finds out the truth...



"A blackbird!? That's not even Corvus! I'm but a common thrush!"

Nah, he's not built like a thrush (or a raven for that matter). Obviously, he's a chough hybrid (so technically a corvid) with an ongoing identity crisis.

[bunsen_h]

E l an should have Prestidigitated Blackwing to be blue or white or Grey. Sky camo, basically.

I like that idea. "Not a lot of birds at the North Pole" makes Blackwing rather noticeable as a tiny black dot in a sky full of nothing but light colour, apart from the occasional yrthak flier. Elsewhere, there would be other small flying things around.

[BruceGee]

If Oona has noticed it, she noticed it long before Team Evil arrived, it didn't seem to do anything, and thus she didn't see it worth mentioning.

I wonder if Oona might know about the trap, but feel no obligation to mention it. She has no particular interest in finding the Gate, after all -- she's just along for the EP and treasure from clearing out all the tunnels.

I wouldn't be surprised if the MitD wasn't the only one on team evil who is playing dumb for their own ends, in other words.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Why would an evil team not have a rogue smart enough to bypass a trap? It would seem strange that this skill is the key to finding the gate.

Unless it requires a particular method of trap disabling, and Serini’s method of key- design and Hayley’s method of trap disabling just coincidentally match?
It's not a matter of having a particular "style" or being "smart" enough; it's a matter of having a good enough Search and Disable Device skill (which are admittedly both Int-based skills), and the Trapfinding ability that lets you disable magical traps. Team Evil has a sorcerer, a cleric, a...druid?...and a big friendly monster. None of them have either Disable Device or Search as class skills. And magical traps are f*ing hard to find and disable—they can't just grab an apprentice from the local Goblin Thieves' Guild and call it a day. They would need a high-level rogue to find and disable the traps, which requires expecting that there would be a lot of nasty magical traps alongside the monsters—which certainly wasn't reflected in the description Soon got of her Gate's defenses (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html), and if she was clever she would have left the traps out of her diary.


To summarize in less game-ey terms: Team Evil doesn't have someone who can deal with magical traps because that's a very specialized skill and they didn't expect magical traps.

[Ghosty]

They have to paint the tip like that to distinguish it from a real bird.

"I understood that reference."

So, when TE tracks the Order to this door (because Belkar didn't have enough time to sufficiently obscure their trail), do we think that when the Order looks behind them, they can see TE walk through the door? Or will the Order not see anything at all besides another dungeon corridor?

[ratfox]

By curiosity, is the dead rat an actual D&D reference, like the bat guano? Or is it just a random item?

[Petrocorus]

I still find it somewhat doubtful that Serini would assume that only a good save-the-world team would have an advanced rogue and good teamwork, and that an evil use-the-gates-to-take-over-the-world team would lack an advanced rogue, and would not have the required levels of cooperation.

I agree.
The Vector Legion is a notable example of an evil party who would use the gates to their own ends if they could and who has (or had) good teamwork and may have a rogue.


Would V lose a caster level for their spells if Blackwing, with the Ioun stone, is outside on watch, and so out of range?
No. The Ioun Stone don't give additional spells. It only improves the effective caster level for the purpose of calculating the spells' effect and caster level checks.

[bunsen_h]

To summarize in less game-ey terms: Team Evil doesn't have someone who can deal with magical traps because that's a very specialized skill and they didn't expect magical traps.

And the traps have never done anything obvious. If they were set up properly -- that is, they didn't do anything unless they were messed with by a skilled rogue -- Team Evil never had any sign that they should be looking for traps there. Now... there's the partially-obscured trail leading towards the doors, and the mummified osquip skull (a tunnel dweller, arguably a normal creature at that location?) with an underlying scent of generations of dwarves (if that scent can be detected under that of the skull itself) showing some signs of "blast" damage. It's not a lot to go on, but it's a clue that something odd happened at that location.

EDIT:


By curiosity, is the dead rat an actual D&D reference, like the bat guano? Or is it just a random item?

It's from the bonus material in Utterly Dwarfed. It's a mummified osquip skull.

[BarakDeathBlade]

So does Blackwing make it back in time?

What's his air speed?

He has a bauble, is he laden or unladen?

[bunsen_h]

And the traps have never done anything obvious. If they were set up properly -- that is, they didn't do anything unless they were messed with by a skilled rogue -- Team Evil never had any sign that they should be looking for traps there. Now... there's the partially-obscured trail leading towards the doors, and the mummified osquip skull (a tunnel dweller, arguably a normal creature at that location?) with an underlying scent of generations of dwarves (if that scent can be detected under that of the skull itself) showing some signs of "blast" damage. It's not a lot to go on, but it's a clue that something odd happened at that location.

On further thought: they've left a clear trail to the first door they entered, and a partially-obscured trail from there to this one. Which muddies the water considerably: what level of bluff are they playing? Did they really double back? Did they choose some other route altogether?

I don't suppose there's any magic along the lines of "scry the recent history of a location", AKA "video surveillance"?

[jayem]

I still find it somewhat doubtful that Serini would assume that only a good save-the-world team would have an advanced rogue and good teamwork, and that an evil use-the-gates-to-take-over-the-world team would lack an advanced rogue, and would not have the required levels of cooperation.

Designing the tombsÂ’ protection system based on that assumption seems risky. The kind of risk that a rogue like Serini would avoid.


Yes,
It does make sense that the order having both those features, enables them to be more likely to succeed despite Serini's designs, and aesthetically makes a nice story. But it can't be the whole picture.

While I totally think Serini's Rogue&Co-operation is going to be important, and the groups Rogue&Co-operation is going to be important, it can't be everything.

The rogue out-rogueing the rogue can only get you so far (especially if you are following the first rogues footsteps). And if there is no reason at all why all the same things couldn't be done by an evil rogue, that makes an unsatisfying ending.

As regards the co-operation side it (seems like it) has to be in two mostly unconnected ways. Evil being fundamentally selfish does at least make more sense...
(with a possibility that each member of the scribble has a contribution that is worked round by each member of the stick, but I can't see that being intentional)

[Badend]

The rat head was left on the trap line, half over. If the trap line is in fact an invisible portal, that means when it activates again the rat head may be cut in half, or at least appear to exist only on one side of the portal. That would certainly let team evil figure out what is happening.

[ebarde]

Each gate was defended in a way that reflected the values of whoever made them. While this one at first seemed to be strength above all else, I still think there's still a bit of Serini's own values here, and I think what she valued the most from the little snippets that we had of her is teamwork and companionship. I feel she was the one in the party that most liked being an adventurer, considering she seemed to be the only one that didn't just retired. So I wouldn't be surprised if this gate wasn't themed around that in some way, maybe testing the skills of a balanced adventuring party like the one she was a part of.

[RatElemental]

Each gate was defended in a way that reflected the values of whoever made them. While this one at first seemed to be strength above all else, I still think there's still a bit of Serini's own values here, and I think what she valued the most from the little snippets that we had of her is teamwork and companionship. I feel she was the one in the party that most liked being an adventurer, considering she seemed to be the only one that didn't just retired. So I wouldn't be surprised if this gate wasn't themed around that in some way, maybe testing the skills of a balanced adventuring party like the one she was a part of.

It could also have been designed such that her old party reconciling their differences and working together would be the only way for any of them to access the gate. It just so happens that the Order matches their party composition enough to also make it work.

[ebarde]

Yep! That was what I posited in another thread, I think this dungeon is specifically made to be an adventure.

[Phhase]

:haley: "The con isn't in getting you to pick the wrong shell. The con is in getting you to accept that the basic premise of the game is still being followed. The con is in getting you to pick a shell at all."

:roy: "Why should they give us a 33% chance to pick the right one when they can give us a 0% chance? If they can create two decoys, why not three?"

Why not hundreds upon hundreds...

[Ghosty]

It could also have been designed such that her old party reconciling their differences and working together would be the only way for any of them to access the gate. It just so happens that the Order matches their party composition enough to also make it work.

FWIW, I like this theory a lot. Fits what we know of her character.

[Algeh]

I like that idea. "Not a lot of birds at the North Pole" makes Blackwing rather noticeable as a tiny black dot in a sky full of nothing but light colour, apart from the occasional yrthak flier. Elsewhere, there would be other small flying things around.

Not that it being a reasonable place to find a bird has always helped poor Blackwing... (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0154.html)


On further thought: they've left a clear trail to the first door they entered, and a partially-obscured trail from there to this one. Which muddies the water considerably: what level of bluff are they playing? Did they really double back? Did they choose some other route altogether?

I don't suppose there's any magic along the lines of "scry the recent history of a location", AKA "video surveillance"?

I thought I remembered there being a spell for this, but I can't seem to find it it the online SRD. Might be a 2rd edition thing, might not be in the SRD, might be cross-pollination from GURPS, might be that it just has a non-intuitive name, but I'll look more later if no one else finds one.

[InvisibleBison]

Each gate was defended in a way that reflected the values of whoever made them. While this one at first seemed to be strength above all else, I still think there's still a bit of Serini's own values here, and I think what she valued the most from the little snippets that we had of her is teamwork and companionship. I feel she was the one in the party that most liked being an adventurer, considering she seemed to be the only one that didn't just retired. So I wouldn't be surprised if this gate wasn't themed around that in some way, maybe testing the skills of a balanced adventuring party like the one she was a part of.

What purpose would Serini have for testing the skills of people trying to get access to her gate? The purpose of the defenses isn't to find some sort of successor or next generation of gate guardian; the purpose of the defenses is kill everyone who tries to access the gate. Everyone seems to think that Monster Hollow is serving as some sort of secret test of character for some reason, and I find this attitude very confusing, as as far as I can tell it is completely unsupported by anything in the actual story.

[Hiro Quester]

I agree.
No. The Ioun Stone don't give additional spells. It only improves the effective caster level for the purpose of calculating the spells' effect and caster level checks.

That’s what I meant. One less ECL for their spells because Blackwing is far away.

[The Shadow]

Is this the first time someone other than Vaarsuvius has directly addressed Blackwing? Even if not, it's quite rare.

We never did get any explanation why there was a period after Azure City where the party forgot about Blackwing, did we?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

What purpose would Serini have for testing the skills of people trying to get access to her gate? The purpose of the defenses isn't to find some sort of successor or next generation of gate guardian; the purpose of the defenses is kill everyone who tries to access the gate. Everyone seems to think that Monster Hollow is serving as some sort of secret test of character for some reason, and I find this attitude very confusing, as as far as I can tell it is completely unsupported by anything in the actual story.

The story supports it from the dungeon of Dorukan and his self-destruct mechanism based on the goodness of one's heart (as well as his similar process for obtaining a random amulet he seem to find precious enough to protect). There is also the fact that none of the gates where simply encased, buried and then unmarked - in all cases, there is a way of reaching the gate, however difficult. I honestly cannot remember at this point if it is canon or just my headcanon that repairs are occasionally needed, but even if it is the latter, I think it is a reasonable explanation to why the gates remain accessible, but protected.

In any case, for whatever reason, we know that all other gates are accessible in some way, and we know that "some way" is tailored by the "owner" of the gate - Dorukan trusted people of good heart, Soon trusted his Paladins, Whats-his-face trusted his family, etc. So it is reasonable to assume that Serini too left a way to the gate, and tailored the defences in such way that someone she trusted would be able to access her gate.

My problem with the idea that she trusted a balanced party, apart from the obvious "that's not a temple to Kraagor's physical might" however, is that the other thing every ex-Scribbler did was to retain their own access to their own gate while they were alive. Serini did not have a balanced party anymore (if she ever did at all), so any mechanism of accessing the gate that required her to have a competent party means that she locked herself out of her own gate. Instead, what I proposed last thread is rather the opposite: that there is a way for brute force to get to the gate, as Kraagor would have wanted, but that Serini also had to install a way for a rogue to get to it, because she needed it, what with her being a rogue and not a dwarven barbarian.


Is this the first time someone other than Vaarsuvius has directly addressed Blackwing? Even if not, it's quite rare.

We never did get any explanation why there was a period after Azure City where the party forgot about Blackwing, did we?

IIRC, Haley admitted she never forgot, and was just messing with V?

Grey Wolf

[Hiro Quester]

Is this the first time someone other than Vaarsuvius has directly addressed Blackwing? Even if not, it's quite rare.


To be fair, Hayley talked to Blackwing, in#154 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0154.html), BW’s second appearance, when she named the bird, too.

[Necris Omega]

You are right. if Xykon need to find traps he 'd send in some zombie. Or some minion. or some zombified minion.

No, wait, first he send minions, then make zombies of their corpses and send them forward. Much less wasteful.

I think that's probably why the entryway trap (or traps, assuming the other doors operate them same way) function repeatedly and more importantly subtly so as to counter that kind of brute-force methodology. You can't escape a trap if you can never realize you've been trapped in the first place - team evil is being fleeced without even realizing it.

"Evil overlord zergs the gate with fodder" would be one of the more obvious scenarios considered for defending said gates - that the epic Rogue would devise a way around that which is both entirely within the rogue wheelhouse and so effective it goes unnoticed is very cunning.

Kudos to Haley for both noticing and having a means around it. I'd like to think her specific methodology goes beyond "huck random thing in there and set it off" like a goober, and has actual rogue-trap specific connotations that couldn't be blundered into by any novice or trundling minion who happened to get lucky. That head isn't something she'd carry without good reason - that it plays into her professional craft makes more sense than not.

[bunsen_h]

"Evil overlord zergs the gate with fodder" would be one of the more obvious scenarios considered for defending said gates - that the epic Rogue would devise a way around that which is both entirely within the rogue wheelhouse and so effective it goes unnoticed is very cunning.

Whatever the mechanism is, it also has to "fail safe" in the case of someone neutralizing all magic in the entry area, e.g. with Dispel Magic or Anti-Magic Shell. That's part of why I suspect a two-part "trap": one to be neutralized by a rogue, another to detect that neutralization and trigger the shift to the alternate passageway, however that works.

[danielxcutter]

The story supports it from the dungeon of Dorukan and his self-destruct mechanism based on the goodness of one's heart (as well as his similar process for obtaining a random amulet he seem to find precious enough to protect). There is also the fact that none of the gates where simply encased, buried and then unmarked - in all cases, there is a way of reaching the gate, however difficult. I honestly cannot remember at this point if it is canon or just my headcanon that repairs are occasionally needed, but even if it is the latter, I think it is a reasonable explanation to why the gates remain accessible, but protected.

In any case, for whatever reason, we know that all other gates are accessible in some way, and we know that "some way" is tailored by the "owner" of the gate - Dorukan trusted people of good heart, Soon trusted his Paladins, Whats-his-face trusted his family, etc. So it is reasonable to assume that Serini too left a way to the gate, and tailored the defences in such way that someone she trusted would be able to access her gate.

My problem with the idea that she trusted a balanced party, apart from the obvious "that's not a temple to Kraagor's physical might" however, is that the other thing every ex-Scribbler did was to retain their own access to their own gate while they were alive. Serini did not have a balanced party anymore (if she ever did at all), so any mechanism of accessing the gate that required her to have a competent party means that she locked herself out of her own gate. Instead, what I proposed last thread is rather the opposite: that there is a way for brute force to get to the gate, as Kraagor would have wanted, but that Serini also had to install a way for a rogue to get to it, because she needed it, what with her being a rogue and not a dwarven barbarian.

Lirian isn't mentioned here, I see, but the general method is similar to Soon's Gate, just with different creatures. In both cases, you could literally waltz up to the Gate unopposed if they let you through for some reason, which isn't the same as leaving it unprotected. I mean, the paladins let the Order into the throne room.

In short, "a way to access it" is not the same as "defeating the purpose of the defenses", in the sense that putting a lock on a vault is not pointless because it can be opened with a key. By that logic you should put valuables in seamless blocks of concrete and forget about them.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Lirian isn't mentioned here, I see, but the general method is similar to Soon's Gate, just with different creatures. In both cases, you could literally waltz up to the Gate unopposed if they let you through for some reason, which isn't the same as leaving it unprotected. I mean, the paladins let the Order into the throne room.
Yeah, I tend to forget about her gate. Sorry. I suspect she was the one least interested in a successor selection on the basis that, being an elf, it's the kind of thing they can push off, unlike the others that, by the end of their adventures together, where within a few decades of their max age, but if push came to shove, I'd imagine she'd trust druids above all others.

GW

[danielxcutter]

Whatever the mechanism is, it also has to "fail safe" in the case of someone neutralizing all magic in the entry area, e.g. with Dispel Magic or Anti-Magic Shell. That's part of why I suspect a two-part "trap": one to be neutralized by a rogue, another to detect that neutralization and trigger the shift to the alternate passageway, however that works.

Does Detect Magic and the like help detect magic traps, incidentally?

Also Anti-Magic Shell isn't a 3.5e spell, but Anti-Magic Field has the slight drawback of negating the caster's own magic and that of their allies which may make them vulnerable to the monsters inside. Of course if you cast it when going in, then dismiss it once everyone's through it could work.

Edit:


Yeah, I tend to forget about her gate. Sorry. I suspect she was the one least interested in a successor selection on the basis that, being an elf, it's the kind of thing they can push off, unlike the others that, by the end of their adventures together, where within a few decades of their age max, but if push came to shoe, I'd imagine she'd trust druids above all others.

GW

Or other creatures of the forest in general. I think a lot of the intelligent creatures she'd call her allies are also extremely long-lived if not flat-out immortal.

Also yeah Lirian seemed to not be nearly old enough to worry about succession. Maybe in a couple centuries, but considering her power then squatting on top of her Gate may indeed be the best strategy for quite a long time before that.

[Throknor]

The rat head was left on the trap line, half over. If the trap line is in fact an invisible portal, that means when it activates again the rat head may be cut in half, or at least appear to exist only on one side of the portal. That would certainly let team evil figure out what is happening.
If they leave it, sure. But it's also on their side of the line and they still have time to grab it.

[Mic_128]

I wonder if Oona might know about the trap, but feel no obligation to mention it. She has no particular interest in finding the Gate, after all -- she's just along for the EP and treasure from clearing out all the tunnels.

Assuming she, or one of the other bugbears had even noticed, they might simply have assumed if it was a trap, that it didn't work. "We've been going in and out of there for years. It doesn't do anything, so why bother telling the new people about it?"

Or hell, they could have spotted the runes and just assumed it was decoration.

[tigerusthegreat]

Rogues (and only rogues) can disable magic traps. Magic traps beaten by a high enough disable device check can be temporarily bypassed instead. What if our tricky dungeon creator rigged a spell/trap that would only work if bypassed by a skilled enough rogue?

Someone barreling through wouldnt get to the right area.

Someone disabling traps wouldnt get to the right area.

Someone bypassing a resetable trap would.

Combine that with the shell game of 100 doors and you have the 'rock isn't hidden under any of the cups" scenario. It would take a very long time for anyone to figure out that they arent eliminating wrong options.

[danielxcutter]

Actually, there's not much reason for the bugbears to take levels in Rogue even if that is their favored class. Aside from Sneak Attack, UMD, and sometimes the social skills there really isn't much that it contributes to in this environment. If they needed stealthy combatants, there's always Ranger.

[hamishspence]

Scout class from Complete Adventurer fills the "rogue/ranger" niche fairly well.

[danielxcutter]

Scout class from Complete Adventurer fills the "rogue/ranger" niche fairly well.

Hmm, I suppose. I can't find the "complex classes" part where it's unlikely to, say, find a wizard in a smaller or less civilized settlement so I don't know where Scout falls on that, but it's probably either the same as Rogue or Ranger and those are "simple" enough for some of the bugbears to possibly have levels in I think.

[Saint-Just]

Hmm, I suppose. I can't find the "complex classes" part where it's unlikely to, say, find a wizard in a smaller or less civilized settlement so I don't know where Scout falls on that, but it's probably either the same as Rogue or Ranger and those are "simple" enough for some of the bugbears to possibly have levels in I think.

"NPCs in the community" is in DMG, so it only contains the core classes. I do not think that it was ever updated to include non-Core classes. It's also too generic, so the highest-level Rogue gets 1d8 + community modifier, and the highest-level Ranger is 1d3 + community modifier, which makes sense for cities, but not for hamlets/villages. Also thorp's (less than 80 people) community modifier is -3 so there is never a Ranger in a normal small community.

[Peelee]

That’s what I meant. One less ECL for their spells because Blackwing is far away.

I don't believe the distance rule is in effect here.

[Roland Itiative]

The rat head definitely got damaged in that flashy display, so I guess that trap is actually two traps. There's a damage component, which Haley identified and counteracted, and then the "floors changed colour" teleportation component, which is the real trap. The first one distracts any rogue, and the limited time to act makes them not think through the second one. Well played.

[Petrocorus]

I don't believe the distance rule is in effect here.

It does, the Ioun Stone effect works only as long as Blackwing remains close to V (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0967.html).

Which incidently is another example of BW talking to people.

Unless i misunderstand you and you're saying it wouldn't work anyway because of the dimensional shift/displacement/interference/thing?

[Peelee]

It does, the Ioun Stone effect works only as long as Blackwing remains close to V (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0967.html).

Which incidently is another example of BW talking to people.

Unless i misunderstand you and you're saying it wouldn't work anyway because of the dimensional shift/displacement/interference/thing?

No, you understood perfectly and rebutted my claim quite inarguably.

[B. Pseudonym]

I honestly cannot remember at this point if it is canon or just my headcanon that repairs are occasionally needed, but even if it is the latter, I think it is a reasonable explanation to why the gates remain accessible, but protected.



I'm pretty sure that's not canon, but then again, I have very recently proven unreliable on this topic.



My problem with the idea that she trusted a balanced party, apart from the obvious "that's not a temple to Kraagor's physical might" however, is that the other thing every ex-Scribbler did was to retain their own access to their own gate while they were alive. Serini did not have a balanced party anymore (if she ever did at all), so any mechanism of accessing the gate that required her to have a competent party means that she locked herself out of her own gate. Instead, what I proposed last thread is rather the opposite: that there is a way for brute force to get to the gate, as Kraagor would have wanted, but that Serini also had to install a way for a rogue to get to it, because she needed it, what with her being a rogue and not a dwarven barbarian.


As for her lack of a balanced party, maybe she made some new friends. After all, she's shown shouting at someone offscreen for a brief gag in the crayon segments. If I remember correctly, it's showing the construction of the Tomb, and she's saying something like "yeah, just set the purple worms down over there." I'll admit that that was pretty clearly a gag panel, but still- one halfling rogue couldn't have built the whole tomb. Maybe she knows a couple spellcasters now?

[Hiro Quester]

So this seems clearly a rogue’s deception/misdirection.

Serini tells everyone (the other guardians, and perhaps even her own diary, which Xykon acquired, right?) that the game is about strength, in defeating monsters.

But the real path to the gate requires (hopefully among other things) a rogue’s skill in bypassing traps.

[skim172]

What purpose would Serini have for testing the skills of people trying to get access to her gate? The purpose of the defenses isn't to find some sort of successor or next generation of gate guardian; the purpose of the defenses is kill everyone who tries to access the gate. Everyone seems to think that Monster Hollow is serving as some sort of secret test of character for some reason, and I find this attitude very confusing, as as far as I can tell it is completely unsupported by anything in the actual story.

I wouldn't say the gates were some sort of test. But I could see this idea work in the premise of "This is what they believed would form the strongest defense". Dorukan believed in magic, Lirian believed in nature, Soon believed in honor, Girard believed in deception - and they built their defenses based on what they believed. Not because they were testing anyone, but simply because they believed this was what made the most sense.

So I could see the argument that Serini believed teamwork and diversity of approaches was the strongest of all, and constructed a dungeon defended upon that basis.

[mehs]

Rereading it, Haley does mention that she needed to cover a very specific part of the trap to "disarm" it, but I still find it hard to believe that RC hasn't noticed the line and researched it. People are seeing you have to be a Rogue to find it, but Roy can see it just fine once it was pointed out to him. People might also bring up that there was no flash of light when TE went into the other door and that the ight only flashes when you "disarm" the trap like Haley. I'm not sure what to believe, rethinking it, but I feel a simple spot check would reveal the line to non-rogues. If that's the case, RC wouldn't just let it go. Even if you need a rogue to even notice the line, they have so much detect magic spells, they would notice a dimensional portal even it sent them into a hell pit full of monster spawn.

It's possible that RC or Xykon just decided "meh, it doesn't hurt us so who cares", but RC devised the shell game. He would investigate those lines. Maybe they DID have a rogue from the bugbear camp that showed them how to disarm the traps, but he died in one of the dungeons before Team Paladin arrived. We don't know. It's not like the zombie that TE would make from his corpse would survive long in conditions where Xykon is gaining experience from "some of those ugly bastards".

Reread the page before, Roy DID NOT notice it, even after it was pointed out. He trusts Haley that it is there.

[jayem]

I wouldn't say the gates were some sort of test. But I could see this idea work in the premise of "This is what they believed would form the strongest defense". Dorukan believed in magic, Lirian believed in nature, Soon believed in honor, Girard believed in deception - and they built their defenses based on what they believed. Not because they were testing anyone, but simply because they believed this was what made the most sense.

So I could see the argument that Serini believed teamwork and diversity of approaches was the strongest of all, and constructed a dungeon defended upon that basis.
That is kind of my approach. I believe that Serini built a dungeon using who beliefs in teamwork.
But I would point out that the statements "Serini built a dungeon defended on that basis", and "Serini built a dungeon to be accessed on that basis" are two different things.

I also think, because it's a narrative arc, that the order will access the dungeon through teamwork. I am not sure how those two statements will resolve.
(one way is for Serini also to use teamwork as a proxy for goodness, another is that each member of the team can contribute to othercoming one aspect of defence, both of these are a bit corny).

I also don't believe Serini would try and defend things using a fair shell game. Nor will her solution be easier (without some form of secure inside knowledge) than a fair shell game (even for a rogue).

[Ruck]

Kudos to Haley for both noticing and having a means around it. I'd like to think her specific methodology goes beyond "huck random thing in there and set it off" like a goober, and has actual rogue-trap specific connotations that couldn't be blundered into by any novice or trundling minion who happened to get lucky. That head isn't something she'd carry without good reason - that it plays into her professional craft makes more sense than not.

Well, I agree that Haley is probably rather skilled, but we do have a reason why she's carrying the head; as several people have noted already, a bonus strip from the last book explains this.

[BruceGee]

As for her lack of a balanced party, maybe she made some new friends. After all, she's shown shouting at someone offscreen for a brief gag in the crayon segments. If I remember correctly, it's showing the construction of the Tomb, and she's saying something like "yeah, just set the purple worms down over there." I'll admit that that was pretty clearly a gag panel, but still- one halfling rogue couldn't have built the whole tomb. Maybe she knows a couple spellcasters now?

My theory is that the green voice in #1189 is Serini, (I'm sure others have guessed this, but I wasn't following the forums at the time) and the orange voice is her ally -- specifically, an ancient Good dragon.
Evidence for Serini:
1. A poison like the one used on O-chul would make most sense coming from a high-level rogue.
2. Meeting an original Scribbler would be dramatically appropriate, and would give the Order an opportunity to learn a lot of "behind the scenes" info about them.
3. As was said earlier in this thread, Dorukan, a human, was alive until recently, and halflings live longer. Also, what is there up at the pole to kill her? She should be presumed alive unless proven dead.
Evidence for Dragon:
1. Dragons usually have magic. We know that Serini had some kind of access to magic, both from the rune trap and (assuming she is green-voice) invisibility.
2. In #1186, green voice says "grab them" to red voice. In the next panel, the the two paladins look like they are being carried and are rather far apart. Either they are being carried by two flying invisible things, or one large flying invisible thing. What is large and has magic?
3. The quote above about putting down purple worms. What can carry purple worms?
4. It seems very likely that red voice, Serini's ally, is a new character. This late in the story, it doesn't make sense to introduce a new powerful humanoid spellcaster with a whole tangle of motivations, especially as a sidekick. A noble steed, however -- that makes sense.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Rogues (and only rogues) can disable magic traps. Magic traps beaten by a high enough disable device check can be temporarily bypassed instead. What if our tricky dungeon creator rigged a spell/trap that would only work if bypassed by a skilled enough rogue?

Someone barreling through wouldnt get to the right area.

Someone disabling traps wouldnt get to the right area.

Someone bypassing a resetable trap would.

Combine that with the shell game of 100 doors and you have the 'rock isn't hidden under any of the cups" scenario. It would take a very long time for anyone to figure out that they arent eliminating wrong options.

Still doesn't answer the first objection. If the point of the defenses is to keep anybody from getting to the Gates, why include a gaping security hole that lets somebody get to the Gate?

[InvisibleBison]

4. It seems very likely that red voice, Serini's ally, is a new character. This late in the story, it doesn't make sense to introduce a new powerful humanoid spellcaster with a whole tangle of motivations, especially as a sidekick. A noble steed, however -- that makes sense.

Why on earth would you think that a dragon would have any fewer motivations than a humanoid? Especially since that completely contradicts how dragons have been depicted both in OOTS specifically and in all of fiction in general.

[Wunderhund]

Y'all have it backwards. Way back in #277 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html), Shojo says that Serini designed this dungeon to "reflect his [Kraagor's] belief in the power of physical might." That means that the only way to get to Kraagor's Gate is to not use any rogue abilities, or magic, or shortcuts of any kind to get through. The only way through is physical force, and lots of it.

As soon as you bypass that trap at the door, you are redirected into a generic dungeon instance that does not lead to the Gate at all. There are probably other tests like this where taking the easy path is the wrong one. Serini's deisgn with the multiple doors isn't a misdirection like Girard's illusions; probably every door leads to the Gate, but only if you go toe-to-toe with every monster, trap, and difficulty along the way. This is what Xykon, Redcloak, et al have not yet figured out, because they're too clever for such a straightforward setup.

Shojo also said that Serini was going to fill it with the nastiest monsters in the world, so whatever final monster is guarding the actual Gate is going to be something even Xykon's team would have trouble with...

[Kornaki]

You seem to think they aren't currently fighting the dungeon all the way to the end before giving up and moving on to the next one, which seems like a crazy theory to have.

[Hiro Quester]

Y'all have it backwards. Way back in #277, Shojo says that Serini designed this dungeon to "reflect his [Kraagor's] belief in the power of physical might." That means that the only way to get to Kraagor's Gate is to not use any rogue abilities, or magic, or shortcuts of any kind to get through. The only way through is physical force, and lots of it.

This is what the Paladins were led to believe, by Serini. It’s a fake-out, what a rogue would want everyone to believe, so people try to brute-force their way through.

Like Hayley’s point about a shell game (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0428.html). It’s a ruse that relies on the mark’s acceptance of the rules presented to him.

The actual route to the gate requires playing a different game altogether, using a rogue’s finesse, in temporarily bypassing traps.

[understatement]

Why would there be any route to the gate at all? Serini's dungeon is unique in that there's multiple passageways (and it's undoubtedly the largest out of all the Gates). She doesn't need to be near the Gate to defend it.

Instead, all she would need is a quick route to a rune/item that would destroy the Gate if she has to, similar to Dorukan's rune. This way, the Order would be portaled into an "empty" dungeon that would lead straight to the rune, which won't be something any evil teams would actively search for.

My two cents.

[Schroeswald]

I feel like it's definitely not going to take just Haley doing this to get to the gate. It's clearly a worse defense than the original one. That's why all the gates not being hidden anywhere but where it actually is have not worked for me, hoping that literally anyone who could ever approach the gate doesn't bother to scan around the valley or ever include a decently leveled rogue is a much worse strategy than hoping that they don't consist of a high enough level party to go through the whole gate complex without being destroyed. The trap is very likely another layer, you also need to be smart in addition to being strong, but the whole thing can't rely on that. However the Order and Team Evil make it to this gate, it will be through their unique properties as a team and not just having a rogue or being able to think slightly sneakily.

[BruceGee]

Why on earth would you think that a dragon would have any fewer motivations than a humanoid? Especially since that completely contradicts how dragons have been depicted both in OOTS specifically and in all of fiction in general.

The way they are depicted in fiction (Tolkien mostly, but going back to Beowulf) is that dragons seem to be perfectly happy to lie around on their hoard in an out-of-the-way spot for centuries until someone shows up to bother them, whereupon they make a ruckus. Even the highly intelligent ones mostly seem to want
a) treasure
b) to be left alone
c) vengeance on anyone who fails b
This describes two of the three dragons we've seen in OotS so far (the one at the top of the Draketooth family tree, admittedly, seems to have had...other motivations).

I suppose there is a more recent literary tradition of dragons banding together, making alliances, playing politics, and that sort of thing, but it's hardly true in "all of fiction."

Powerful humanoid wizards tend to make a ruckus for most of their lives. People tell stories about them -- they feature prominently in history books. They require elaborate backstories. Dragons don't.

We've also been given some pretty strong hints that the protagonists and antagonists of the comic are among the highest level humanoids with combat classes in the world right now. But there will still always be monsters out there that can give them a challenge, and dragons are monsters.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Why would there be any route to the gate at all?

If it was at all feasible to completely eliminate all routes to the gate, why didn't any of the others do that? Why not build mountains of this impregnable rock around every gate, without any way to get there?

Answer: because there must be a reason why he scribblers couldn't just do that - they must have foreseen valid reasons why they or their successors would need to be able to reach the gates. For example, maintenance but feel free to suggests other reasons.

GW

[InvisibleBison]

The way they are depicted in fiction (Tolkien mostly, but going back to Beowulf) is that dragons seem to be perfectly happy to lie around on their hoard in an out-of-the-way spot for centuries until someone shows up to bother them, whereupon they make a ruckus. Even the highly intelligent ones mostly seem to want
a) treasure
b) to be left alone
c) vengeance on anyone who fails b
This describes two of the three dragons we've seen in OotS so far (the one at the top of the Draketooth family tree, admittedly, seems to have had...other motivations).

I suppose there is a more recent literary tradition of dragons banding together, making alliances, playing politics, and that sort of thing, but it's hardly true in "all of fiction."

Okay, yes, "all of fiction" was a bit of hyperbole. However:


dragons are monsters.

This is simply not (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0628.html) true in OOTS (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html).

[Grand Arbiter]

Y'all have it backwards. Way back in #277 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html), Shojo says that Serini designed this dungeon to "reflect his [Kraagor's] belief in the power of physical might." That means that the only way to get to Kraagor's Gate is to not use any rogue abilities, or magic, or shortcuts of any kind to get through. The only way through is physical force, and lots of it.

The exact words used for Serini's panel are as follows:


Even though it had been her idea, Serini wasn't really the type for retiring.


She decided that she would build a tomb for Kraagor, and fill it with the nastiest monsters in the world, to reflect his belief in physical might.

Serini's panel specifies nothing about the gate defenses. She only told Soon, and by extension the Sapphire Guard, about how she would prepare Kraagor's tomb. I find it very believable she omitted the gate details; withholding information doesn't require a bluff check afaik and the tomb statement was true.

A supporting detail is the fact that Girard's hatred/distrust of Soon (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0694.html) led to him entrusting his gate coordinates with her (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0695.html), and he was confident she wouldn't spill the secret. If the super-paranoid Gerard trusted her to keep his gate's location secret from Soon, she could easily keep her own secret(s).

[understatement]

If it was at all feasible to completely eliminate all routes to the gate, why didn't any of the others do that? Why not build mountains of this impregnable rock around every gate, without any way to get there?

Answer: because there must be a reason why he scribblers couldn't just do that - they must have foreseen valid reasons why they or their successors would need to be able to reach the gates. For example, maintenance but feel free to suggests other reasons.

GW

Maybe? For the other gates the Scribblers themselves were immensely crucial to its defense, considering they settled down and dedicated their lives to them. Not so much for Serini; she's not an active part of the defense and none of Kraagor's gate hinges on any specific group of people.

[Raven777]

and none of Kraagor's gate hinges on any specific group of people.

Well, except for our two invisible friends.

I find it easier to believe they are the local gate keepers rather than some outsiders, until new information confirms their status either way.

[tanonev]

Still doesn't answer the first objection. If the point of the defenses is to keep anybody from getting to the Gates, why include a gaping security hole that lets somebody get to the Gate?

Because that's not the point of the defenses. "The party agreed that the gates could not be allowed to fall into the hands of evil." (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html). The Order of the Scribble knew they weren't immortal, and bad blood notwithstanding, at least some of them knew they weren't infallible. With sufficient wisdom (Wisdom?) one should be able to recognize that in the future, someone who isn't connected to the Order of the Scribble might need to get to a Gate for a good yet unforeseen reason, and making indiscriminate defenses is incompatible with that in that it means power (physical, mental, magical, social) rather than motivation (respect, goodness, honor, family, teamwork) becomes the determining factor for access.

As a simple example, if your goal is to defend an artifact against Evil, putting a ward around it that grants -5 to all Evil creatures and +5 to all Good creatures is generally (though not universally) more effective at achieving your goal than putting a ward around it that just grants -5 to all creatures.

[Dion]

This is simply not (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0628.html) true in OOTS (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html).

Depends on your definition of monster. Grendel’s mom was certainly a monster. Didn’t stop her from having relatives, or loving her kid, or trying to get revenge on her kids killer.

Still a monster.

[locksmith of lo]

The exact words used for Serini's panel are as follows:

Serini's panel specifies nothing about the gate defenses. She only told Soon, and by extension the Sapphire Guard, about how she would prepare Kraagor's tomb. I find it very believable she omitted the gate details; withholding information doesn't require a bluff check afaik and the tomb statement was true.

yes, thank you! nor is there any indication that the tomb is where he fell either.

[BruceGee]

Depends on your definition of monster. Grendel’s mom was certainly a monster. Didn’t stop her from having relatives, or loving her kid, or trying to get revenge on her kids killer.

Still a monster.

OK, yes, just because someone is a monster doesn't mean they can't have complex motivations or character growth (eg. the MONSTER in the darkness).

But part of being a monster in a D&D setting is that we don't question its backstory too much. "Hi, I'm Serini and this is the polar drake Feerkin that I befriended after my adventuring group broke up, and he helped me build this dungeon" doesn't need a whole lot more explanation. "Hi, I'm Serini and this is my friend Foozblat the Wizard, who I met...somewhere...and he was doing...something...and before that he came from...somewhere" just requires a heckuva lot more story to explain what he's doing up there.

Monsters, by definition, come from outside our social order, so we don't have to worry about all that stuff.

[danielxcutter]

On the one hand, I do think that's rather reductive and totally not the point that was being made.

On the other hand, I do suppose it's somewhat unlikely for the Voices to be humanoids, if only because of the speech bubbles were colored. Also, even considering that Serini was one of the longer-living members of the Scribblers, she'd probably have managed other guardians to look over the Tomb even after she was gone. If they really are on her side, then there's a considerable chance that they're not mortals, or at the least beings that live really long(which indeed does include dragons).

I mean, Soon and Girard both left successors to guard their Gates after they'd died(and ain't it ironic how the two most opposed were so similar in many ways), Dorukan contracted a bunch of outsiders and probably would have made more permanent deals if he'd thought he was close to croaking, and in Lirian's case it was honestly way too early to worry about that and squatting on top of it herself likely was the most optimal choice in terms of "watch over her own Gate".

[ijuinkun]

As a birder, seeing a raven described as "very small" is funny to me.

Blackwing is of a size category that is smaller than the category named "Small". He would be in the "Tiny" (1-2 feet) or "Diminutive" (6-12 inches) category, measuring by body length rather than wingspan.


The floor colour changed... I'm thinking maybe the corridor got magically swapped with another one? Hopefully not the same one Xykon and Team Evil are in right now...

Also, R.I.P the door... it clearly has Xs where its eyes should be...

It's as dead as a doornail.


"66 years ago" or slightly less:

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

Plus the one year that's elapsed in between that scene and the present.


So does Blackwing make it back in time?

What's his air speed?

He has a bauble, is he laden or unladen?

He's a raven, not a swallow.

[danielxcutter]

Also in a world where rocs are a thing, ravens really are very small birds.

[albertonykus]

Oh, I'd surmised that it was a consequence of the setting. My amusement simply came from the contrast with how ravens are generally perceived compared to most other birds in our world. (To wit, Cornell University's bird ID website describes common ravens as "not just large but massive".)

[danielxcutter]

Oh, I'd surmised that it was a consequence of the setting. My amusement simply came from the contrast with how ravens are generally perceived compared to most other birds in our world. (To wit, Cornell University's bird ID website describes common ravens as "not just large but massive".)

Also Blackwing is one of the smallest creatures in the Order. I think only lizard!Bloodfeast is smaller, and he can't fly.

Actually do we know that Bloodfeast is a male? For all we know Belkar might have blown his Knowledge(Nature) check.

[Ghosty]

...Not so much for Serini; she's not an active part of the defense and none of Kraagor's gate hinges on any specific group of people.

So far as we know, but it hasn't been ruled out. Perhaps the first test that tells Serini & Friends that they need to defend the Gate, is successfully disabling or stalling the initial door trap?

We don't know anything about the corridor the Order has found themselves in, other than it has a different color floor than it used to. The remainder of this dungeon, wherever it leads, may have challenges as great or greater than the first set of dungeons, the ones you see if you walk over the door trap as is. For one, I find it very likely that, unlike the dungeons in the first set, the second set of dungeons are heavily laden with Epic Rogue trap stuff..

As far as her helpers go, and assuming Green Voice is her, the Orange doesn't sound the cleverest. Metallic Dragons are supposed to be extremely bright, by contrast. I'm sure there's some form of long-lived assistant that would fit though.

[Peelee]

Oh, I'd surmised that it was a consequence of the setting. My amusement simply came from the contrast with how ravens are generally perceived compared to most other birds in our world. (To wit, Cornell University's bird ID website describes common ravens as "not just large but massive".)

Rebuttal: Cornell is a barn.

[danielxcutter]

Considering Serini was presumably a mortal halfling, I doubt either voice belongs to her. Though they might work for her...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Maybe? For the other gates the Scribblers themselves were immensely crucial to its defense, considering they settled down and dedicated their lives to them. Not so much for Serini; she's not an active part of the defense and none of Kraagor's gate hinges on any specific group of people.

All the other scribblers could have set up defences without having direct access to the gate themselves - Dorukan, for example, didn't need to set up his throne room there. He could have buried the door, then created his tower around it, but without a way to get to it. If, like you claim, there is no reason to have a way to reach the gate, only to reach the self-destruct, why did every other gate remain accessible? Again, the answer is that there must have been a reason why they had to retain access. And if there was a reason for all the other gates, then it is likely true for Serini's gate too. Even if she set up defences that didn't need her there all the time so she could go adventuring, she still would need a way for her or a designated successor to be able to reach the gate just in case.


Considering Serini was presumably a mortal halfling, I doubt either voice belongs to her. Though they might work for her...
The general argument goes that, Watsonianly, that's a fair assessment. But Doyleally ("Doyly"?), if we are to get some kind of resolution to the Scribbler thread, we need to meet one of them, and Serini is the last possible one, so she seems a likely candidate. I myself would not be surprised if that jewel with Dorukan and the druid comes into play instead, though.

GW

[Ghosty]

Considering Serini was presumably a mortal halfling, I doubt either voice belongs to her. Though they might work for her...

Because she's likely no longer alive? Or because if she were alive, she'd be Venerable, and unlikely to be up to the physicality of ambushing two high-level Paladins?

Age chart from the SRD: https://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#age

Considering she was 'the kid' of the Scribble, I think it likely old age wouldn't have taken her yet. Though the point about the Soul Trapped or Bound Lirian/Dorukan being the ones to ultimately fill us in, is a good one.

[Metastachydium]

Considering Serini was presumably a mortal halfling, I doubt either voice belongs to her.

Seconded. Wholeheartedly. As I keep saying, they are most likely both dragons or half-dragons. It would explain the speech bubbles, the flight, the magic, the size of the creature carrying the paladins and (here's a new one I've just noticed) the wind. On panels no. 2, 3, 4 and 6 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1189.html) there's a wind moving Lien's cloak. It could be caused by wings (cf. the battle of Azure City), and (based on what we saw there) possibly two sets of them, since the wind keeps changing its direction (left-to-right on no. 2 and 4, right-to left on no. 3 and 6; incidentally, since Serini definitely does not have wings, let alone wings large enough to do that this might give further weight to the idea that Green is not her).


Though they might work for her...

I don't think so. As, again, I keep saying, I believe they might be working for Team Tiamat (especially if they are indeed dragons). It would be weird if the one character who knows the future and is sane enough to actually use this knowledge would refrain from interfering with the stuff of cosmic significance which is happening around the Tomb.
(Side note: I like Grey Wolf's theory about the gemstone better than the Serini is a flying high-powered spellcaster kind of theories.)

Addendum:

the orange voice is her ally -- specifically, an ancient Good dragon.
(…) as a sidekick. A noble steed

Ancient dragons are 30 to 35 HD creatures with 800-1000 years behind them. Serini's importance as a Gatekeeper aside, I don't see one as a sidekick or steed of some halfling with twentysomething levels who could be their great-great-grandchild.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not sure if Rich noticed this, but the speech balloon in panel seven is incorrectly phrased. As a native speaker, this comes off as awkward.

Haley says
OK, I've got it figured it out.
That is not quite correct.

It's either
OK, I've got it figured out.
Or
OK, I've figured it out.
Or
OK, I've got it. I figured it out.
Or
OK, I've got it - figured it out.

Any of those passes muster. What's on the page does not quite work.

That said, I love the sound effects and the FX in general on panel 9.

[Ghosty]

I don't think so. As, again, I keep saying, I believe they might be working for Team Tiamat (especially if they are indeed dragons)....

How many times have we seen Tiamat in the entire strip? I only remember her coming out of the telephone to scorch poor Lee. Or was it Cedrik?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

How many times have we seen Tiamat in the entire strip? I only remember her coming out of the telephone to scorch poor Lee. Or was it Cedrik?

Tiamat was in the Snarl crayon story and was also part of the gaggle of Evil gods who tried to reach out to TDO, and of course is the one that gives the predictions to the Oracle, so she showed up when he put on the full show.

GW

[KorvinStarmast]

Wait a minute. Maybe the purpose of the line is not to keep people out. Maybe the purpose is to keep monsters in! If that's the case, our analysis is flawed. I like this line of thinking.

... it's not a trap at all, just an always-on portal that links the door to its associated dungeon crawl, which is located somewhere else. Dungeons with areas that move you to somewhere else in the dungeon (or even somewhere else) is a great D&D tradition. (There's an example in the three little brown books, Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, in the sample dungeon on page 4; transporters are mentioned in note 5 on page 5)

Perhaps the trap is in two parts. Haley disabled the first one. The second, harder to detect, activates a portal only if the first one is disarmed or disabled. Not a bad design.

My quatloos are that they're going to run into - maybe literally - the paladin-stealing invisible peoples. Who were last seen flying/floating up and away from the rift. Not seeing this one.

Panel 7, Haley says "OK, I've got it figured it out". Is that meant to be "I've got it figured out" or "I've got it; I figured it out"? Ah, so somone else did notice it.

You can't escape a trap if you can never realize you've been trapped in the first place - team evil is being fleeced without even realizing it.
I like where you are headed with this line of inquiry.

"Evil overlord zergs the gate with fodder"
IIRC, someone survived the original Tomb of Horrors by getting a herd of cattle and driving them before the party, triggering traps along the way ... not sure where I heard that, but it sounds like an old school way to deal with that death trap.

[Ghosty]

Tiamat was in the Snarl crayon story and was also part of the gaggle of Evil gods who tried to reach out to TDO, and of course is the one that gives the predictions to the Oracle, so she showed up when he put on the full show.

GW

I was unsure about whether crayons appearances counted, but yeah, I completely forgot about the Oracle having her show up in spirit. Just feels like that point of the Sweeping Fantasy Epic where seeing entities like Tiamat isn't unexpected. (I expect The Dark One to show up in person, for instance. Right after V Disjoins the Crimson Mantle.)

And I think, despite Lee saying he'd gotten her to put her vengeance against Darth V on the back burner, I'm not sure that's the case. Guess it'll be some other creature that actually has had one appearance so far.

[danielxcutter]

All the other scribblers could have set up defences without having direct access to the gate themselves - Dorukan, for example, didn't need to set up his throne room there. He could have buried the door, then created his tower around it, but without a way to get to it. If, like you claim, there is no reason to have a way to reach the gate, only to reach the self-destruct, why did every other gate remain accessible? Again, the answer is that there must have been a reason why they had to retain access. And if there was a reason for all the other gates, then it is likely true for Serini's gate too. Even if she set up defences that didn't need her there all the time so she could go adventuring, she still would need a way for her or a designated successor to be able to reach the gate just in case.

Er... I agree with your actual point, but did Dorukan actually build a throne room? Or did you confuse that particular thing with Azure City?


The general argument goes that, Watsonianly, that's a fair assessment. But Doyleally ("Doyly"?), if we are to get some kind of resolution to the Scribbler thread, we need to meet one of them, and Serini is the last possible one, so she seems a likely candidate. I myself would not be surprised if that jewel with Dorukan and the druid comes into play instead, though.

GW

I mean... why not both? And seriously, even if we don't end up seeing Serini herself, I don't think Rich would totally leave us hanging as to what happened to her. I think it'd be best for the last Scribbler the Order learn about to be alive, though. Actually, hold up, they didn't actually meet Soon either. Maybe the whole Azure City arc fills in for that?

I would certainly love seeing the souls of Dorukan and Lirian in the actual comic, though.


Because she's likely no longer alive? Or because if she were alive, she'd be Venerable, and unlikely to be up to the physicality of ambushing two high-level Paladins?

Age chart from the SRD: https://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#age

Sneak Attack doesn't go weaken with age, and Serini was so high-level it might not be that much of an obstacle. Heck, I'm not sure if Lien and O-Chul could really be called much more than mid-level, depending on how you define that.


Considering she was 'the kid' of the Scribble, I think it likely old age wouldn't have taken her yet. Though the point about the Soul Trapped or Bound Lirian/Dorukan being the ones to ultimately fill us in, is a good one.

I can buy this, yeah.


Seconded. Wholeheartedly. As I keep saying, they are most likely both dragons or half-dragons. It would explain the speech bubbles, the flight, the magic, the size of the creature carrying the paladins and (here's a new one I've just noticed) the wind. On panels no. 2, 3, 4 and 6 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1189.html) there's a wind moving Lien's cloak. It could be caused by wings (cf. the battle of Azure City), and (based on what we saw there) possibly two sets of them, since the wind keeps changing its direction (left-to-right on no. 2 and 4, right-to left on no. 3 and 6; incidentally, since Serini definitely does not have wings, let alone wings large enough to do that this might give further weight to the idea that Green is not her).

Dragons or half-dragons could work. If so, Orange is probably a bronze and Green... self-explanatory, to be honest.




I was going to argue about that, but... if you're right, then there's someone from each pantheon here at the Pole. Durkon is here on behalf of Thor and at least a couple of deities are working with him, Lien and O-Chul are paladins of the Twelve Gods, and Tiamat is part of the Western Pantheon.

Huh. Might make it a bit easier to sway Redcloak once Xykon's down, then.

[quote]Addendum:


Ancient dragons are 30 to 35 HD creatures with 800-1000 years behind them. Serini's importance as a Gatekeeper aside, I don't see one as a sidekick or steed of some halfling with twentysomething levels who could be their great-great-grandchild.

Also this, yeah. If Orange is a copper dragon then they might be a fairly young dragon, though. Actually the "typical personality" of a copper dragon given in various sourcebooks does suggest that they might get along fairly well with Serini, but considering how Rich already treated black dragons I'm hesitant to assume that.

One of them being Serini's half-dragon child could work though, maybe? I mean, she did used to have the hots for Girard...

[KorvinStarmast]

Well, except for our two invisible friends.

I find it easier to believe they are the local gate keepers rather than some outsiders, until new information confirms their status either way. Likewise.
(I expect The Dark One to show up in person, for instance. Right after V Disjoins the Crimson Mantle.) Here's hoping. :smallcool:

One of them being Serini's half-dragon child could work though, maybe? I mean, she did used to have the hots for Girard. Oooh, I'd forgotten her hearts around Girard in the diary. Yeah, could be. There's a bit of an ick factor, though, so my head canon is "crush" not "actual romantic relationship"

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Er... I agree with your actual point, but did Dorukan actually build a throne room? Or did you confuse that particular thing with Azure City?
No, I am definitely talking about this room with a throne in it (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0105.html). Sure, it might have been put there by Xykon instead, but the room was put there by Dorukan.


I mean... why not both? And seriously, even if we don't end up seeing Serini herself, I don't think Rich would totally leave us hanging as to what happened to her. I think it'd be best for the last Scribbler the Order learn about to be alive, though. Actually, hold up, they didn't actually meet Soon either. Maybe the whole Azure City arc fills in for that?
Just like with whats-his-face, she could have already be dead and entombed near to the gate, so learning what happened to her does not require her to be alive.

Sorry, not sure how the azure city arc filled in "what happened to the scribblers". Quite the opposite: it is the section that tells us that there is a thread needing tying.

Grey Wolf

[danielxcutter]

Probably not Girard's kid, since I'm not even sure if humans and halflings can have children together, and Girard is both descended from a black dragon(which have white-on-purple speech bubbles) and is at most a draconic human so even if that guess was right Orange can't be a Draketooth.

Oh wait if they were they'd have been killed by Familicide anyways unless they also have a healer. I mean, dragons can get high UMD checks I guess...

Edit:


No, I am definitely talking about this room with a throne in it (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0105.html). Sure, it might have been put there by Xykon instead, but the room was put there by Dorukan.

I'm betting on "Xykon put it there" honestly.


Just like with whats-his-face, we could she could have already be dead and entombed near to the gate, so learning what happened to her does not require her to be alive.

Sorry, not sure how the azure city arc filled in "what happened to the scribblers". Quite the opposite: it is the section that tells us that there is a thread needing tying.

Grey Wolf

I mean the Azure City arc filled the Order in on what happened to Soon, like how Blood Runs In the Family did so for Girard.

[Metastachydium]

I was going to argue about that, but... if you're right, then there's someone from each pantheon here at the Pole. Durkon is here on behalf of Thor and at least a couple of deities are working with him, Lien and O-Chul are paladins of the Twelve Gods, and Tiamat is part of the Western Pantheon.

Huh. Might make it a bit easier to sway Redcloak once Xykon's down, then.

That would be pretty sweet, you know.


One of them being Serini's half-dragon child could work though, maybe? I mean, she did used to have the hots for Girard...

Yeah, well, a crush on handsome dragon-blooded human Girard is one thing, and intercourse with something that could give their child the Large+ size required for wings is another. (Also, isn't half-dragon applied to the race of the other parent? In that case, we would get a Small-sized half-dragon here and that doesn't really fit what we've seen.)



I'm betting on "Xykon put it there" honestly.

Unless Dorukan was into the bones-and-fanged-skulls theme for some reason, I'll have to agree.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Oh wait if they were they'd have been killed by Familicide anyways unless they also have a healer. I mean, dragons can get high UMD checks I guess...

Whatever a high UMD means in practice, it does not seem to have helped any of these dragons (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html).

GW

[danielxcutter]

That would be pretty sweet, you know.

Indeed.


Yeah, well, a crush on handsome dragon-blooded human Girard is one thing, and intercourse with something that could give their child the Large+ size required for wings is another. (Also, isn't half-dragon applied to the race of the other parent? In that case, we would get a Small-sized half-dragon here and that doesn't really fit what we've seen.)

Well maybe the half-dragon progeny of Serini has an item that lets them fly or something I dunno. That was always just wild guessing anyways.


Unless Dorukan was into the bones-and-fanged-skulls theme for some reason, I'll have to agree.

He was a conjurer, right? I think he barred necromancy but I'm not sure.


Whatever a high UMD means in practice, it does not seem to have helped any of these dragons (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html).

GW

In the sense that they can use scrolls of Raise Dead et al. easily, but yeah now that I think of it that would require survivors in the first place.

[Metastachydium]

He was a conjurer, right? I think he barred necromancy but I'm not sure.

I don't remember him mentioning anything which would have told us what his barred school is, but yeah, he definitely sounds like a guy who would do that.


In the sense that they can use scrolls of Raise Dead et al. easily, but yeah now that I think of it that would require survivors in the first place.

Like a nice green dragon girl in the next wood over?

[danielxcutter]

I don't remember him mentioning anything which would have told us what his barred school is, but yeah, he definitely sounds like a guy who would do that.

Oh wait, there isn't actually anything to say if he even specialized or not. Animate Dead et al. is (Evil) though. He seemed more about summoning and doing elemental stuff, though.


Like a nice green dragon girl in the next wood over?

Heh. In that case, though, the young black dragon would have needed at least a Resurrection even if his ashes hadn't dissolved into the swamp. Those scrolls probably aren't that easy to get and True Res must be nigh-impossible even for an ancient black dragon.

[Metastachydium]

Oh wait, there isn't actually anything to say if he even specialized or not. Animate Dead et al. is (Evil) though. He seemed more about summoning and doing elemental stuff, though.

True, but if the sigils (which are probably the most powerful stuff he's ever done) are anything to go by, I suppose he might also be an abjurer.


Heh. In that case, though, the young black dragon would have needed at least a Resurrection even if his ashes hadn't dissolved into the swamp. Those scrolls probably aren't that easy to get and True Res must be nigh-impossible even for an ancient black dragon.

Familicide doesn't kill through disintegration, though, so I guess today's lesson is that if you must be a dragon, try to be open-minded about it.

[Dion]

But part of being a monster in a D&D setting is that we don't question its backstory too much.

But the monsters they’re fighting in this book (redcloak and Xykon) have huge amounts of backstory!

And in the last book, they fought Crystal (with a backstory), Durkula (with a backstory), giants (with a backstory), and.. the poor wyrm (who admittedly didn’t have much of a backstory, but still managed to have a tragic character arc.)

The only character who showed up without any reason or explanation was Not Thad, who is not a monster.

I’d say Not Thad disproves your hypothesis that people have backstories, but monsters don’t :-)

[Petrocorus]

As a birder, seeing a raven described as "very small" is funny to me.

What's his air speed?
Blackwing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/raven.htm)'s size is Tiny and its fly speed is 40 ft per round.


This is simply not (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0628.html) true in OOTS (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html).
As Vaarsuvius put it himself (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0640.html), they all are monsters, as they all (but humans) have an entry in the Monster Manual.


Seconded. Wholeheartedly. As I keep saying, they are most likely both dragons or half-dragons. It would explain the speech bubbles, the flight, the magic, the size of the creature carrying the paladins and (here's a new one I've just noticed) the wind. On panels no. 2, 3, 4 and 6 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1189.html) there's a wind moving Lien's cloak. It could be caused by wings (cf. the battle of Azure City), and (based on what we saw there) possibly two sets of them, since the wind keeps changing its direction (left-to-right on no. 2 and 4, right-to left on no. 3 and 6; incidentally, since Serini definitely does not have wings, let alone wings large enough to do that this might give further weight to the idea that Green is not her).

Nice catch about the cloak.
I support this as i've been saying the speech balloons match these of draconic creatures and only draconic creatures since the week this strip came out.
Now, "draconic creature" can mean a lot of things in any D&D world.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Unless Dorukan was into the bones-and-fanged-skulls theme for some reason, I'll have to agree.

Or unless Xykon just added the ones motif to an existing throne (or replaced one for this one), just as he probably added the snake motif to the room. But even if it used to be, I don't know, Dorukan's bedroom, my point about the room stands, I feel.

GW

[WanderingMist]

I wouldn't say the gates were some sort of test. But I could see this idea work in the premise of "This is what they believed would form the strongest defense". Dorukan believed in magic, Lirian believed in nature, Soon believed in honor, Girard believed in deception - and they built their defenses based on what they believed. Not because they were testing anyone, but simply because they believed this was what made the most sense.

So I could see the argument that Serini believed teamwork and diversity of approaches was the strongest of all, and constructed a dungeon defended upon that basis.

And one by one, they've fallen to irony:
Lirian's fell to the nature it was protected by.

Dorukan's fell to good-hearted people being manipulated by an evil team.

Soon's fell to a fallen paladin trying to regain paladinhood by following in the most honorable paladin's footsteps.

Girard's fell to someone outside his enclave seeing right through his deception after they were slaughtered by someone that had no idea they existed.

So, the question is, how will/would Serini's Gate fall?

[Schroeswald]

And one by one, they've fallen to irony:
Lirian's fell to the nature it was protected by.

Dorukan's fell to good-hearted people being manipulated by an evil team.

Soon's fell to a fallen paladin trying to regain paladinhood by following in the most honorable paladin's footsteps.

Girard's fell to someone outside his enclave seeing right through his deception after they were slaughtered by someone that had no idea they existed.

So, the question is, how will/would Serini's Gate fall?

Made a whole mini essay where I discussed this and related stuff (here if you’re interested (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24810936&postcount=240)) but there’s not a good quotable bit to just show off so I’ll explain my thoughts. Kraagor’s Tomb is a testament to physical strength, made by the person who decided the Order of the Scribble could now only survive by splitting up. Team Evil will take it by combining different types of strength (brute force magic, intelligent planning and being just a really strong monster) in something roughly analogous to a team. And the Order of the Stick will save it by being the team that the Scribblers couldn’t be and sticking together (pun intended).

[KorvinStarmast]

Made a whole mini essay
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
The OoTS in a nutshell, now that they are finally working as a team.

Small Group dynamics typically go through ... Forming, Storming, Norming, and at last Performing.

OoTS is finally at that last part.

[BarakDeathBlade]

One of them being Serini's half-dragon child could work though, maybe? I mean, she did used to have the hots for Girard...

If so, than that half-dragon child would have died from Familicide, which also would have taken out Serini.

[bunsen_h]

The way they are depicted in fiction (Tolkien mostly, but going back to Beowulf) is that dragons seem to be perfectly happy to lie around on their hoard in an out-of-the-way spot for centuries until someone shows up to bother them, whereupon they make a ruckus. Even the highly intelligent ones mostly seem to want
a) treasure
b) to be left alone
c) vengeance on anyone who fails b
This describes two of the three dragons we've seen in OotS so far (the one at the top of the Draketooth family tree, admittedly, seems to have had...other motivations).

I suppose there is a more recent literary tradition of dragons banding together, making alliances, playing politics, and that sort of thing, but it's hardly true in "all of fiction."

That's not really true even of Tolkien. Smaug had spent a few years on his hoard, but before that, had caused terrible destruction. The White Council decided to nudge Thorin towards bothering Smaug in the hope that by stirring up that conflict, the Dwarves and Lake-men together would take Smaug down. This was a strategic play, because they anticipated that otherwise, Smaug would be a valuable force under the control of Sauron and/or the Witch-King of Angmar AKA the leader of the Nazgûl, in the war that they foresaw. Imagine how the War of the Ring would have gone if Sauron had had Smaug to use! EDIT: -- If, in D&D terms, Brand hadn't made that shot with his Arrow of Slaying (dragon).

And Smaug was far less of a destructive force than some of the other dragons in the earlier ages of that world had been.

[Metastachydium]

Nice catch about the cloak.
I support this as i've been saying the speech balloons match these of draconic creatures and only draconic creatures since the week this strip came out.

Technically the speech bubbles could also tell us the Voices are giants (cf. the speech bubbles of frost giants and death giants). The good thing about the erratic wind is that if it is, in fact, caused by wings, we can safely exclude the possibility that the Voices are levitating storm giants one of whom is a sorcerer who knows Invisibility.


Now, "draconic creature" can mean a lot of things in any D&D world.

How many big, intelligent, winged dragon-type creatures are there other than half-dragons and true dragons?


Or unless Xykon just added the ones motif to an existing throne (or replaced one for this one), just as he probably added the snake motif to the room. But even if it used to be, I don't know, Dorukan's bedroom, my point about the room stands, I feel.


But why would Dorukan even need a throne room? Otherwise sure it does. However, if Xykon reshaped the room to look more like him, we can't know for certain that it was not sealed previously. Also, it would make sense for Dorukan and Lirian, the only people who could, in fact, do maintenance work on their Gates to leave them accessible, while Soon believed that only the honour of a paladin is unbreakable, so the Guard is a better defence than a wall or a hidden room/cavity. That would only leave us with Girard, whose Gate was not, in fact, accessible, since it was encased in lead and stone.

[KorvinStarmast]

[COLOR="#808080"]But why would Dorukan even need a throne room? Even a wizard needs to drop a deuce now and again, right?

Oh, wait, which meaning of the term throne are we using here? :smallconfused:
(Not even sure if that old slang term 'on the throne' = 'on the toilet' is in use)

[Grey_Wolf_c]

But why would Dorukan even need a throne room?
It's fairly typical of wizards to have one, especially when they have a bunch of minions to order about like Dorukan did. But if you don't think he was the type, I offered alternatives. Here is another: it was his lab.


if Xykon reshaped the room to look more like him, we can't know for certain that it was not sealed previously.
The self-dstruct run was next to the door. Xykon didn't install it.


Also, it would make sense for Dorukan and Lirian, the only people who could, in fact, do maintenance work on their Gates to leave them accessible,
If the gates need maintenance, they all need maintenace, and thus they all need to be accessible.

Grey Wolf

[Petrocorus]

Technically the speech bubbles could also tell us the Voices are giants (cf. the speech bubbles of frost giants and death giants). The good thing about the erratic wind is that if it is, in fact, caused by wings, we can safely exclude the possibility that the Voices are levitating storm giants one of whom is a sorcerer who knows Invisibility.

Oh my...
I never noticed the giants had the same colour-on-lighter-shade-of-same-colour speech bubble than draconic creatures.
I stand corrected.



How many big, intelligent, winged dragon-type creatures are there other than half-dragons and true dragons?
Technically, there're the Draconic and Dragonborn templates, but they don't change the creature type, so they shouldn't give draconic speech bubbles. And they are not SRD.
There are other draconic creatures in the other monster manuals, but not SRD.
In the SRD, the only draconic creatures are true dragons, dragon-turtle, dragonne and half-dragon.
Dragons-Turtles can't fly, and dragonnes are not very intelligent, and i don't think they have prehensile hands.
The half-dragon templates, though, can be applied to basically anything, so that leave a lot of possibilities.

[Hopeless]

As unlikely as it may be what if Belkar is related to Serini?

The climatic fight forces the Order to begin the same ritual to seal the gates and its Belkar who sacrifices himself to save creation?

It could be the only way to defeat whatever safeguards Serini has requires one of the adventurer's to sacrifice themselves to gain access.

Well Belkar is fated to die, what if his sacrifice causes Serini to reveal herself after witnessing the same tragedy that cost Kraagor his life?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Colored speech balloons also mean extraplanar (cf Qarr and the IFCC directors). And many outsiders can fly. Plus, we need something to tie back to Roy's Archon and its secret task.

[Riftwolf]

Could Serini have left an outsider janitorial staff to run the Dungeon? Like, whatever the True Neutral outsiders are in 3.5?
And if so, can we speculate on their binding oaths?

We will uphold the Defence of the Gate if we want to but its OK because most of the time we will.
Do no Harm. Do no Heal either. Really we'd max at Cure/Inflict Moderate Wounds.
Protect the world from evil and chaos, but only if you were going to do that anyway, if not, it's no bother.
Lofty Ideals and Devious Schemes will be powerless against our Shrugs.
Above all, remember our guiding Creed, 'eh, whatever'

[NihhusHuotAliro]

Being grabbed by one's head unexpectedly like Belkar was in the last panel has got to be painful, or at least very uncomfortable.

At least, I hope that's why Belkar has Schulz-patented eye-parentheses.

[KorvinStarmast]

The climatic fight forces the Order to begin the same ritual to seal the gates and its Belkar who sacrifices himself to save creation?

It could be the only way to defeat whatever safeguards Serini has requires one of the adventurer's to sacrifice themselves to gain access.

Well Belkar is fated to die, what if his sacrifice causes Serini to reveal herself after witnessing the same tragedy that cost Kraagor his life?
What are the words on Kraagor's Statue? Sacrifice Forgotten (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1039.html)

Even though Lirian had professed the sentiment that ... "your brave sacrifice will not be forgotten (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html)"

[BruceGee]

As I keep saying, they are most likely both dragons or half-dragons. It would explain the speech bubbles, the flight, the magic, the size of the creature carrying the paladins and (here's a new one I've just noticed) the wind.

The main problem I have with both voices being dragons is that I have a hard time figuring how a dragon could manage to use a blowgun (which is what I assume those darts came from). That implies a creature with mammalian lips.

Good catch about the wind, though.

[bunsen_h]

Being grabbed by one's head unexpectedly like Belkar was in the last panel has got to be painful, or at least very uncomfortable.

At least, I hope that's why Belkar has Schulz-patented eye-parentheses.

Uncomfortable, probably. Remember that he wasn't particularly harmed by being hanged (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0165.html). Those marks can indicate surprised dismay. Another concern of his is probably that he hasn't finished the job of covering their trail.

[Peelee]

Uncomfortable, probably. Remember that he wasn't particularly harmed by being hanged (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0165.html). Those marks can indicate surprised dismay. Another concern of his is probably that he hasn't finished the job of covering their trail.

Bytheway, put me down as him laying down strong spices or peppers or something. For some reason I think he'll bring his chef specialization into it, incapacitate the warg's nose with the power of overwhelming flavor or something.

I like longshots.

[Riftwolf]

Bytheway, put me down as him laying down strong spices or peppers or something. For some reason I think he'll bring his chef specialization into it, incapacitate the warg's nose with the power of overwhelming flavor or something.

I like longshots.

I'd say that's the most likely scenario. I'm guessing chilli powder would be enough to mess up a wargs scent ability. It might be the backstory behind Belkar taking Profession (Gourmet Chef); he wanted to know where to access the strongest of dog incapacitants.

[danielxcutter]

Bytheway, put me down as him laying down strong spices or peppers or something. For some reason I think he'll bring his chef specialization into it, incapacitate the warg's nose with the power of overwhelming flavor or something.

I like longshots.


I'd say that's the most likely scenario. I'm guessing chilli powder would be enough to mess up a wargs scent ability. It might be the backstory behind Belkar taking Profession (Gourmet Chef); he wanted to know where to access the strongest of dog incapacitants.

Yes. This. Totally this.

[Ghosty]

Could Serini have left an outsider janitorial staff to run the Dungeon? Like, whatever the True Neutral outsiders are in 3.5?
And if so, can we speculate on their binding oaths?

We will uphold the Defence of the Gate if we want to but its OK because most of the time we will.
Do no Harm. Do no Heal either. Really we'd max at Cure/Inflict Moderate Wounds.
Protect the world from evil and chaos, but only if you were going to do that anyway, if not, it's no bother.
Lofty Ideals and Devious Schemes will be powerless against our Shrugs.
Above all, remember our guiding Creed, 'eh, whatever'

I like this quite a lot. Posts like these keep me coming back to these threads, FWIW.

Lemme guess: the Janitors are between 40 and 55 years old? Meh, too much effort to do the math...