OOTS #1256 - The Discussion Thread

[tanonx]

You know, I can't picture Xykon bothering to actually rule the world. In Gobnotopia he pretty much left Redcloak run things.

For someone like Xykon, I think ruling is different from administration. Not in a trivial sense, either - when Xykon wanted his phylactery found, the whole city was put on it, immediately. If he wants to roll out and take your leadership with him, he will, and you better hope they have a plan for that, because he doesn't. He doesn't care about details, or prosperity, but he absolutely does care about being the area's ultimate power. You don't need to worry about him having armies from all his cities, sure. You just need to worry that there are no more armies against him.

Hell, even her concern that the Order might destroy the final Gate isn't that unreasonable when you remember that Roy once equated Xykon winning and the planet being literally destroyed (first page, bottom row).

Is he wrong, though? Like he says, Xykon won't literally destroy the planet, but he'll kill its soul. You can hope the world keeps churning out PCs until he dies, but there's not clear reason why it would, once you get down to it, except that it's a genre expectation. If a few generations of the best heroes an adventure-friendly, good-friendly world have on offer don't beat him, a conflict-scarce, evil-friendly world isn't likely to manage it any time soon, either. And after a few generations, "ruled by an evil lich" will be the default state of the world. You can lean on evil fighting evil as a way to bring Xykon down, but by then the damage to the world is done, and your new boss won't change much.

You'll see a lot more dwarven souls sent to Hel in that case. Not much honor in getting into feuds between the local evil warlords. Come to think of it, ending this world appears to be the option that liberates future dwarves to start with.

Someone better work on a really big planeshift, once all is said and done.