Let's talk about Serini Toormuck

[Pory]

I think that Serini is going to be an important character in the last part of the story, she is the last member of the Order of the Scribble who has any chance of being able to walk among the living on this plane of existence...weird choice of words, I know, but I wanted to be precise :smallbiggrin:

We know that she is a halfling rogue, the charismatic of the group, the one who came with the idea of parting ways to avoid more harm between her colleagues...and the one who wrote a diary which incidentally led the bad guys directly to the gates they were trying to protect :smallfrown:

In the main comic and Start of Darkness we have learned a little more of the other members of the order but we don't know much else about Serini...or Kraagor, I suppose, but let's focus on Serini for now. I've thought on some questions we can speculate on:


A) The big one. Is she still alive? If so, why is she hiding from or ignoring our heroes?
I think she is still alive and monitoring Kraagor's tomb but in a different location, probably where the real gate is, I think it's near but not in Kraagor's tomb. It's probably in a place where trees grow as seen in Crayons of time here (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html). There are trees near the gate but not in Kraagor's tomb.
Also, halflings live more than humans so I don't think she died of old age. The reason she's is ignoring all the sendings is probably because she doesn't trust the Order of the Stick, they have destroyed two gates after all.


B) In Crayons of Time, Shojo said "Serini wasn't really the type for retiring (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html)". Does this means that she built Kraagor's tomb, abandoned it and then went on more adventures?
I think so, she probably wanted to recruit more people (or beings that speaks with colored speech balloons) to protect the gate. She's like a mix of Haley and Elan, a charismatic rogue, so I don't think she had problems finding people to aid her with all the magic and divination that protects the tunnels.

So, what do you think? I'm sorry if someone has talked about this in other posts, I searched but I didn't found other recent threads talking about this.

[Fyraltari]

Why do you think Serini was/ is charismatic? That seems more like Girard's thing.

I also think she's alive and ignoring the Order, if just because we are going to need someone to clear up what happened with the Scribblers and the Snarl.

The notion that her Gate isn't at Kraagor's Tomb doesn't hold up to scrutiny. We know her diary's coordinates are precise enough for Xykon to teleport a stone's throw away from Girard's Pyramid and it would make no sense for her to lie about only one set of coordinates in the diary. The lack of tree os easily expalined by the massive landscaping that was necessary to build Monster Hollow. All that transplanar stone didn't get there by itself.

[KorvinStarmast]

There was a bit of a discussion about Serini here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?598389-Could-Belkar-be-descended-from-Serini&highlight=granny+toormuck), in re "is she related to Belkar" and the answer is "not sure, probably not."

More recently, I offered an opinion that's not got a great deal of support (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24903984&postcount=317):

Hobbits/Halflings live longer than humans, by a bit, and her adventuring group was active about 60 years ago in OoTS land years.

Granny Toormuck, is, in my head canon, sitting on a rocking chair somewhere enjoying her retirement, possibly under an alias (she is a rogue, after all). My only bit of puzzlement is why her diary was not in her possession when Xykon happened upon it. That's the sole bit of evidence that Serini passed away before the party got underway with their quest chain ... but there's no hobbitus corpus.

Granted, that's hardly strong evidence of "she must not be dead." (Absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence). Her living under an alias is one of the ways that she might be the same person as Aunt Judy, which is someone Belkar referred to during the 'captured by bandits and about to be hanged (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0165.html)' situation in the early part of No Cure For The Paladin Blues.

[hroþila]

There's reason to think the area around the rift was extensively transformed after the gate was created (hence the multidimensional stone). The lack of trees around the tomb is no indication that the gate is in a different location. However, from what we've seen of the surroundings of the bugbear village and given that this is the pole, it seems more likely that there were never any trees and that the Azurites were simply not particularly familiar with polar landscapes so they imagined the place inaccurately (it was crayons, after all, and no, I don't remember if the place is depicted elsewhere).

[facw]

The big problem with her being alive is that an epic ally would steal the thunder of the Order, which doesn't fit the narrative. If she is alive, she would need to be unable or unwilling to help (or immediately get slaughtered by Xykon). None of those options are impossible, especially if the Order's plans for the gate diverge from hers. I guess we'll see.

[Quartz]

I think that Serini is going to be an important character in the last part of the story,

I think we're about to meet her. She may, however, be undead. And as such, cannot go near Redcloak or Xykon.

[mjasghar]

With regards to the trees
The area seems to have changed climatically as it’s now a polar wasteland
So maybe this is another case of Scribbles not being literally true.

[hamishspence]

Or they just chopped down all the trees to make boards for those doors.

Only one tree was visible in the crayon shots, along with a lot of snow and rock:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html

[woweedd]

Why do you think Serini was/ is charismatic? That seems more like Girard's thing.

I also think she's alive and ignoring the Order, if just because we are going to need someone to clear up what happened with the Scribblers and the Snarl.

The notion that her Gate isn't at Kraagor's Tomb doesn't hold up to scrutiny. We know her diary's coordinates are precise enough for Xykon to teleport a stone's throw away from Girard's Pyramid and it would make no sense for her to lie about only one set of coordinates in the diary. The lack of tree os easily expalined by the massive landscaping that was necessary to build Monster Hollow. All that transplanar stone didn't get there by itself.

Girard was the Bluff master, but Serini seems to have higher Diplomacy, given that she convinced the group to go along with the whole Gate plan she made at all, despite them all hating each other at that point.

[Fyraltari]

Girard was the Bluff master, but Serini seems to have higher Diplomacy, given that she convinced the group to go along with the whole Gate plan she made at all, despite them all hating each other at that point.
I mean, how hard is it to convince people who hate each other to agree never to talk to one another again?

[hroþila]

I mean, how hard is it to convince people who hate each other to agree never to talk to one another again?
Depends. Are they on Twitter?

[TRH]

I mean, how hard is it to convince people who hate each other to agree never to talk to one another again?

Convincing family-obsessed paranoiac Girard to divulge the real location of his gate to a non-family member seems like the real achievement diplomatically.

[Fyraltari]

Convincing family-obsessed paranoiac Girard to divulge the real location of his gate to a non-family member seems like the real achievement diplomatically.

I think she just recorded the locations of the rifts as they found them not after the break-up. It's a diary after all.

[Vrock Bait]

I mean, how hard is it to convince people who hate each other to agree never to talk to one another again?

She apparently has high Charisma, since she said she had enough to be a good paladin.

[ByzantiumBhuka]

She apparently has high Charisma, since she said she had enough to be a good paladin.

Well, you don't necessarily need (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0545.html) amazing Charisma to be a paladin...but yeah, that's good evidence for it being 13 or more.

[Kelenius]

Well, you don't necessarily need (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0545.html) amazing Charisma to be a paladin...but yeah, that's good evidence for it being 13 or more.
She says she's "got the Charisma for it (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html)".

[Rad]

Convincing family-obsessed paranoiac Girard to divulge the real location of his gate to a non-family member seems like the real achievement diplomatically.

It wasn't Girard's gate at the time: just one of the five gates the team secured and built. It became "his gate" because of the deal: he gave up having a say about the other four gates in exchange for managing that one without interference.