Question, with plentiful SoD spoilers

[Mauve Shirt]

This has probably been asked.
The crimson mantle and The Plan have been around, and it's had many bearers. So why have none of them tried to carry out The Plan until Redcloak?

I guess his village being slaughtered had a lot to do with it.

[Wyvern_55]

Most likely other bearers of the crimson mantle HAVE tried to over the years, but The Order of the Scribble and the Sapphire Guard have been thwarting them over the years.

you can see previous crimson mantle bearers in Start of Darkness battling with the Order and the Guard in the crayon portion of the book.

[Chronos]

May I introduce you again to the most powerful goblin wizard we've managed to find in all our long searching?

[Skyserpent]

May I introduce you again to the most powerful goblin wizard we've managed to find in all our long searching?

PORK!

still, Redcloak did have a few ideas that could work, like a sorceror or something non-human, that I'm shocked weren't viable candidates in the past.

[Tempest Fennac]

They may have attempted to get non-humas to help them (they could have either failed to find anyone, or they may have been killed by the Order of the Scribble). Ironically, excluding a lack of lbararies and magical colleges, I don't see why normal Goblins should have problems with becoming Wizads.

(OT, but welcome back to the forums, Mauve Shirt).

[Nerdanel]

Then there's the factor that before Redcloak no bearer of the Crimson Mantle may not have survived long enough or faced enough danger in their lifetimes to reach even a moderately high level. After all Redcloak's aged mentor casts what seems to be Burning Hands (a first level spell) against the paladins and succumbs quickly.

And Redcloak got the Mantle at what appears to be the same day he had graduated into a level 1 cleric...

[Tempest Fennac]

I don't think his level was that low: He also casts what appears to be Slay Living on 1 Paladin, and that fire spell could have been Flame Strike (it doesn't look like it hit more then 1 Paladin, so I don't think it could have been Burning Hands). On the other hand, FS always strikes targets from the sky when it's used elsewhere in the comic or SoD so it could be a different spell.

[Nerdanel]

As I wrote in the another thread I just started, I think the Slay Living might have been a 1/day power of the Crimson Mantle. I used to think it was somewhat possible that what looked like Burning Hands was actually Flame Strike, but I don't think that anymore now that we have seen Tsukiko cast Flame Strike.

[Tempest Fennac]

If it was Burning Hands, do you think it was a 1/day CM power, or evidence that the Dark One has the Fire Domain? Also, while the Paladins weren't Smiting, I tend to take the fact that the previous RC could take so much damage beforedying as evidence that he was quite a high level.

[SPoD]

The crimson mantle and The Plan have been around, and it's had many bearers. So why have none of them tried to carry out The Plan until Redcloak?

Presumably, they HAVE tried to carry it out, they just got killed before they got very far. It seems like every few years, the Sapphire Guard would go out, find the bearer, and kill him. The main advantage that Redcloak has over previous Crimson Mantle bearers is that very early on, he teamed up with someone capable of protecting him from the Sapphire Guard.

Also, it's probable that Redcloak is more intelligent than most goblin clerics, and thus has been able to get further along enacting the Plan.

[FujinAkari]

We can infer from the SoD that they -have- tried to carry out the plan in the past. If no one had ever tried until Redcloak, then the Sapphire Guard would not be actively hunting and destroying the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle. Obviously, an attempt was previously made which allowed the Sapphire Guard to learn of this artifact.

Additionally, the fact that the Sapphire Guard have apparently attacked numerous times might explain their massacre of the goblin village. While it is merely speculation, it might easily be that non-goblins cannot touch the Crimson Mantle itself, which is why the Goblins keep getting it back despite, presumably, being stopped numerous times.

If this assumption is true, then the Paladin's shockingly unpaladinistic behavior becomes more understandable... if they can't move the Crimson Mantle, then the massacre of every Goblin in the vicinity almost starts to make sense, to prevent them from putting it on.

[Tempest Fennac]

That is a good point. Could they try to destroy the CM from a distane? (ie: by throwing a match at it). Sadly, there isn't really any way to tell (it would probably be hard to destroy anyway).

[hamishspence]

its an artifact, posibly a major artifact. Major artifacts generaly need to be destroyed in some special way. But its clear they can at least se it. Maybe they should have taken it back with them and put it in deepest vault they could find.

But, if it destroys any non-goblin who handles it, that would be a problem. However, alll we know is they kiled the wearer, then left the cloak, not much info on why they did not pick cloak up.

[Tempest Fennac]

They may have tried destroying it in the past with the results being unfortunate for them. That would explain why they showed not interest in the cloak once the wearer was dead.

[FujinAkari]

My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the CM can be destroyed, but it takes a lengthy amount of time, and the humans cannot move it. Once destroyed, the Dark One will eventually reform it, but not for some length of time (yeah, I just made that up, but it seems pretty iconic in D&D games... you cannot defeat the evil, merely banish it for X years)

Thus, the Sapphire Guard sought to secure the area and eradicate all witnesses to prevent additional goblin tribes from being alerted about the attack. Once the Goblins were dead, they would begin the ceremony to unmake the Mantle.

[Tempest Fennac]

That idea makes sense (I wouldn't worry about that theory being based on a cliche: the comic is based on D&D, so there will be a lot of traditional tropes in the comic).

[Nerdanel]

Re: Fire domain,

I think we can say Fire is one of the Dark One's domains if we agree that the spell was indeed Burning Hands (like I think).

Redcloak's mentor (a cleric of the Dark One) had two possible ways of casting Burning Hands:

a) He had the Fire domain, which means that the Dark One must have that domain too.

b) He cast Burning Hands from the Crimson Mantle which was made by the Dark One. Presumably, the Dark One can't create an artifact that contains a spell that he himself can't cast. Since the Dark One had psionic talents (he was a Blue, as shown in the color pages) and it's unlikely he multiclassed to a different type of caster (since that would have been stupid) the only way he could cast Burning Hands would be due to his divine powers, and that only works if Burning Hands is a domain power for him.


A deity can use any domain spell it can grant as a spell-like ability at will. The deity’s effective caster level for such abilities is 10 + the deity’s divine rank. The saving throw DC for such abilities is 10 + the spell level + the deity’s Charisma bonus (if any) + the deity’s divine rank.

(I think the Crimson Mantle contains no psionic spells since otherwise Redcloak wouldn't have had to research if they used psionics in that world.)

Conclusion: it's extremely likely that the Dark One has the Fire domain.

[Tempest Fennac]

I don't think the DO is Psionic: he appears to be some sort of warrior in SoD, and RC took a while to realise he could use Psionics to read O'Chul's mind, which suggests the DO wasn't Psionic unless RC didn't know much about his own diety.

[Nerdanel]

I think he DOESN'T know too much about his own deity, probably because the Dark One (what's his real name anyway?) is being secretive about his origins. The fact remains: the Dark One looks remarkably similar to the psionic Blue Redcloak procured. Their clothes are different, but clothes can be changed easily. Also, the Dark One might be a psychic warrior instead of a psion, a fighter/psion multiclass, etc. Or perhaps he dressed as a fighter to mislead his enemies about where his true strength lay.

Note also that the story of how the Dark One was born different corresponds to how Blues are goblins that are born different.

A radical theory: Perhaps the Dark One used his psionic powers to make the humans assassinate him, thus initiating the chain of events that led to his own godhood. If nobody knew he used psionics, he could come into a parlay outwardly weaponless and then use stealth psionics (by making a concentration check to suppress any displays) against his opponents. It could have worked well when uniting the goblins and hobgoblins too...

[Tempest Fennac]

Those are excellent points which hadn't considered. I'd say Psychic Warrior would make the most sense. What do you think his stats are, though? We know he has the elite array, but we don't have a clue about his PrC. (I don't think he would have known about what would happen if he died, though: that was probably a shock to him when he did come back as a diety).

[Kish]

I don't think the Dark One looks much like the blue goblin. (For starters, he's purple, not blue.)

[Nerdanel]

There's a lot we can't know about the Dark One. However, if we think the Dark One used his psionic powers forge alliances, that means he must have levels in psion (telepath).

Perhaps the meeting with the humans went like this:

Round 1: The Dark One manifests Schism and suppresses the display, effectively dividing his mind into two pieces that can act independently.

Rounds 2: The Dark One A starts making a speech about friendship between species.
The Dark One B manifests psionic charm on the first human ruler and suppresses the display.

But soon an uncharmed assassin bursts in an delivers a huge sneak attack on the Dark One...

On the other hand, if you think the Dark One orchestrated the whole thing, he would have instead manifested psionic dominate.

[mikeejimbo]

Do the humans know that the Crimson Mantle itself is an artifact? I thought that they just killed the bearer because they knew it was symbolic of the highest priest in the goblin religion, who had this plan about the gates.

[whitelaughter]

Obviously, an attempt was previously made which allowed the Sapphire Guard to learn of this artifact.

Err...no. The Sapphire Guard knew that the chief goblin cleric wears a red cloak. Given that 'Redcloak' starts his career in a white cloak to indicate that he is a novice, and we have blue cloaked clerics at the siege, there is probably a colour for each grade of goblin cleric; the Sapphire Guard could know the ranks corresponding to each colour without suspecting that the red cloak is in any way magical.

The goblin cleric coloured ranks may have been originally designed for the express purpose of hiding the existence of the cloak.

[Wyvern_55]

By the looks of the timestamps, this appears to be a topic created last April, Thread necromancy tends to be frowned upon here, just a heads up.

[David Argall]

As noted, the easiest way to explain why the paladins left the cloak was that they assumed it was just a cloak, the symbol of the top stud, not a source of his power.

[FujinAkari]

As noted, the easiest way to explain why the paladins left the cloak was that they assumed it was just a cloak, the symbol of the top stud, not a source of his power.

This seems unlikely (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0369.html). Miko doesn't cry out "The head goblin!" or "The chief cleric!," she correctly identifies the artifact by name, and in such a way as to make Redcloak merely 'the bearer' of said artifact.

Even more telling, she says "If the Crimson Mantle is this close to Azure City..." which makes it pretty clear she is concerned about the artifact, NOT the guy wearing it.