OOTS #844 - The Discussion Thread

[Illven]

Question. Wouldn't Girard's gate defenders know that Durkon is a cleric of Thor. Raise dead spells also communicate your patron deity, and thus they should know it's not the sapphire guard rezzing them.

[oppyu]

At this point, it seems safe to say that the Draketooth Clan were to Chaos what Miko was to Law. There may still be an argument for them being Chaotic Good though. According to the Deva, a key component of being Good is fighting the forces of evil without expecting anything in return, which could be true. As for the whole 'seduction, followed by kidnapping and robbery' thing, pragmatism in the face of (perceived) extreme danger? Could be possible. Morally questionable anti-heroes can still qualify as Good. Not pure Good, but somewhat.

[t209]

Question. Wouldn't Girard's gate defenders know that Durkon is a cleric of Thor. Raise dead spells also communicate your patron deity, and thus they should know it's not the sapphire guard rezzing them.

Maybe they worship Girard as god.
My Theory: Draketooths got their own cleric by worshipping Girard (or he became a deity like Dark One). They can't trust the gods, so they make themselves a god. I mean they might saw them with Refugees while scrying or something like that. I'm hoping Roy doing Shut Up Hannibal moment to revived Draketooth who ripped on the Sapphireguards and Azurites.

[Romanes eunt do]

Agree. Being resurrected by someone LG is hardly a bad thing, even if it's one of Soon's paladins.

When the founder of your little community is willing to blow up anyone who says "Gate, Girard, Sapphire Guard, Soon" on the assumption that you're Soon or his paladins, I'd say paranoid spite overrode reason in this case.

[Dr.Epic]

YAY! New comic! Awesome!

[Kokopelli Jones]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0677.html V bought Diamond Dust.

That's what I had missed. Thanks.

[Siosilvar]

If the shoe fits. Just because she's a villain though doesn't mean she must be evil.

Wrong jingle. You're looking for "If by the boot you've been kicked...."

[oppyu]

Wrong jingle. You're looking for "If by the boot you've been kicked...."

If you help with their verse, you only make things worse.

[Murray]

To me, it's going to be hard to sell a story that makes the Draketooth cult anything above Chaotic Neutral. Despite the maliciousness involved with marrying with intent to rob & kidnap, I suppose someone closer to Nale's side of the spectrum would have left Penelope dead just to tie up loose ends. Overall, I really don't see much good in the Draketooths, since we haven't seen anything that suggests they did more than maintain a status quo. I think CN fits the cult better than CG or CE.

For all we know, Girard had a personal interest in keeping the political climate in the western continent so viciously chaotic. In a way, it makes it easier for his family to defend the gate, and to fly under the radar.

[The MunchKING]

Question. Wouldn't Girard's gate defenders know that Durkon is a cleric of Thor. Raise dead spells also communicate your patron deity, and thus they should know it's not the sapphire guard rezzing them.

Well I think they didn't like Lawfuls in general...

[eilandesq]

To me, it's going to be hard to sell a story that makes the Draketooth cult anything above Chaotic Neutral. Despite the maliciousness involved with marrying with intent to rob & kidnap, I suppose someone closer to Nale's side of the spectrum would have left Penelope dead just to tie up loose ends. Overall, I really don't see much good in the Draketooths, since we haven't seen anything that suggests they did more than maintain a status quo. I think CN fits the cult better than CG or CE.

For all we know, Girard had a personal interest in keeping the political climate in the western continent so viciously chaotic. In a way, it makes it easier for his family to defend the gate, and to fly under the radar.

Possibly, but the net effect was having a lot of people under probably mostly LE tyrants for many, many years--with the continuing danger posed by negligent civil rights and active secret police. If Girard was knowingly facilitating that, it's a sign that his hatred of Soon and all lawful types had knocked more than a few screws loose. . .which sadly is not all that far-fetched. If he was responsible for setting up the kidnapping/embezzlement cult for his family, he'd drifted way into the evil range of the chaotic zone long before he died.

[Murray]

Possibly, but the net effect was having a lot of people under probably mostly LE tyrants for many, many years--with the continuing danger posed by negligent civil rights and active secret police. If Girard was knowingly facilitating that, it's a sign that his hatred of Soon and all lawful types had knocked more than a few screws loose. . .which sadly is not all that far-fetched. If he was responsible for setting up the kidnapping/embezzlement cult for his family, he'd drifted way into the evil range of the chaotic zone long before he died.

Part of the problem is that we don't know the history. Which came first, Girard's tenure as gate guardian, or seasonal violent regime change across the western continent? You could argue that by destabilizing the regimes, the Draketooths are doing 'good.' But if that's the case, then without trying to build something 'good' to take over and make life better for the average person, they'd be guilty of certain degree of negligence. Seems very neutral to me, maybe even Free Spirited.

And for all his lost marbles, it may not be Girard, but his progeny who are to blame for less than stellar choices made. They could have been fundamentalists who took their all-father a little too literally when he said "Keep it in the family."

[Conuly]

What did Elan "get" in the last panel? I'm not seeing what he suddenly understood.

The monitoring system-plot clock is really ominous... I bet 10 gp that it is going to be shown again in the future with at least one more blackened-out sphere

Yeah, but not until after Girard's gate goes down. The Oracle already told us that Xykon is going to be there BEFORE he gets to Kraagor's, and we know they're headed in this direction RIGHT NOW.

Well I think they didn't like Lawfuls in general...

Besides, it'd be easy for the Sapphire Guard to convince another LG person to trust them and NOT trust the chaotic, cultish Draketooths.

[Smolder]

What did Elan "get" in the last panel? I'm not seeing what he suddenly understood.

He's getting the inside joke about the crazy alignment talk on the forums, as well as the joke that Durkon and Roy have both just proven Haley correct.

[silvadel]

Raise Dead probably won't work on someone killed by Familicide. Raise Dead can't be used to raise someone killed by a Death Effect, which Familicide probably is. Resurrection doesn't have that limit, so Familicide would probably have to completely destroy the body, or somehow trap or destroy the soul, to prevent resurrection.

It could always oppose any ressurrection attempt. So you would have to beat the DC of the spell (something I doubt Durkon could do).

[willpell]

I'd love to hear a similarly adroit presentation of the lawful point of view that doesn't come off as some sort of stuffy diatribe that causes all of the chaotic sorts to snicker about behind the lawfuls' backs later.

Ultimately the limitation of the Chaotic viewpoint is that it acknowledges no primacy beyond that of the individual, and in the natural cycle of life, all individuals eventually succumb to the ravages of time and the cruel whims of Fate - put more simply, they die (often after aging away into feeble or senile shadows of their former selves). This can be averted through methods such as necromancy or transformation into an aberration, but it is difficult to emerge from such methods with one's personality undamaged. In the vast majority of cases, a Chaotic person doesn't try to plan for what will happen after he's done living, and that quite simply means that they often leave a mess behind when they die, which others are stuck cleaning up. And they may well have been born into such a mess in the first place, and not care about spiting the next generation exactly the way they were spited.

Lawful alignment may belittle the individual, but that's because the individual IS little in the grand scheme of things. A Lawful person works to create something larger than himself, something which can be counted on to endure into subsequent generations, constantly growing and building into something grander and more potent. Central to Law is a belief that things tend to remain as they are unless changed (whereas Chaos is the opposite belief, that things tend to change unless forcibly kept stable), and so the paladin who works to build an empire assumes that the empire is capable of enduring for thousands of years, so long as its principles remain intact and its people keep the faith. Those who fear the prospect of being left alone, too weak to protect themselves, like the thought of being able to rely upon a system that will protect them, so long as they retain their fealty to it. Through this dedication, they can be assured that their efforts, however small, will have lasting repercussions long after they are gone, and thus their lives will not have been in vain.

(There are a lot of assumptions on either side of the aisle, and any alignment becomes Alignment Stupid if you rely too heavily on a small number of such assumptions, instead of using actual logic to puzzle out the complexities of real life. So if you just care about signing up with any strong empire and don't have any checks and balances built into a system, or if you have too many such checks and balances thus that nobody but a professional bureaucrat can understand how the laws actually work, then you end up with conformity mills that crush the individual spirit and provoke twitchy rebellious backlash - Stupid Lawful breeds Stupid Chaotic. With diligence and inspiration, both sides can do better.)

[LuisDantas]

More hints that Girard may be less than helpful even if he turns out to be alive. This is going to be interesting.

While there is a certain sense in Haley's hypothesis about why the Draketooths aren't coming back to life, it relies in very arguable premises. A simpler, more likely explanation would be that Familicide is too epic to be effectively countered by a regular necromancy spell. I'm not sure the rules support such an interpretation, however.

Also, I'm a bit disappointed by Haley's standing prejudice against law. I'm not even sure the closing gag worked, to be honest. Between Haley' speeches and Miko supposedly being Lawful and/or Good, I'm afraid I'm not too keen on the Giant's apparent interpretation of the alignments.

[Smolder]

All ongoing effects ended when the soulsplice was severed. So the bodies should no longer be under death effects. They stay dead, as explicitly stated by the IFCC, but the death effect is like an enchantment that expires with the soulsplice.

[Mantine]

Yeah, they explicitly stated that any post-splice effect would disappear. Summonings, evocations, curses, anything. Only natural death would remain.

[Doug Lampert]

To me, it's going to be hard to sell a story that makes the Draketooth cult anything above Chaotic Neutral. Despite the maliciousness involved with marrying with intent to rob & kidnap, I suppose someone closer to Nale's side of the spectrum would have left Penelope dead just to tie up loose ends. Overall, I really don't see much good in the Draketooths, since we haven't seen anything that suggests they did more than maintain a status quo. I think CN fits the cult better than CG or CE.

Humans show no tendancy toward any alignment, not even neutral.

Hence it follows that roughly 1/3rd of all humans fit the D&D bin labeled Evil.

You seriously think not murdering your own wife indicates non-evil? Even evil characters can have friends and loved ones. But the Draketooths hurt even their own family!

You need not be a psycho mass murderer to be Evil, you just need to be the type of person who doesn't CARE if accomplishing your goals involves hurting innocent bystanders. The Draketooth scheme fits that to a T. It's all about what they're doing and what they do to others doesn't matter. That's CLASSIC EVIL, that's WORSE than most murderers in our world.

That they didn't actually kill Penelopy simply means they lie to themselves about what they are. Redcloak doesn't kill random goblins, that doesn't make him non-evil. Nor does not murdering your own wife make you non-evil. That the behavior pattern would be CONSISTENT with murdering your spouse makes it blatantly evil. How many ruined lives did the Draketooths leave behind? How many DIED as a direct consequence even prior to familicide? Bankrupcy and depression can both kill.

The Draketooths didn't care about that. Not caring about that is blatant evil.

Maybe the giant will declare them CN, but to me thinking they are CG is bizzare and CN is unlikely, some variety of evil is the only thing that fits.

[B. Dandelion]

Also, I'm a bit disappointed by Haley's standing prejudice against law. I'm not even sure the closing gag worked, to be honest. Between Haley' speeches and Miko supposedly being Lawful and/or Good, I'm afraid I'm not too keen on the Giant's apparent interpretation of the alignments.

Do you mean just in general, or do you think Law is getting the short end of the stick in particular? (No pun intended.) I rather liked Celia's take on Lawfulness, back when she was defending the Order at trial (whatever one may think of Celia in subsequent strips, I think her argument holds merit). Roy's deva was also quite reasonable. It also seems like, if Law isn't held up as universally benign, Chaos is no bastion of inherent righteousness either -- the knee-jerk paranoia of Ian and Girard certainly doesn't seem to be doing their cause any favors.

[Arancaytar]

They died so quickly, they probably don't know they're all dead.

Doesn't that contradict what we saw when Roy died? If dozens of Draketooths - all CG-aligned - died in an instant, shouldn't they all meet up in a rather large group in Arborea, just like the Azurites were queueing up in front of the celestial gates after the battle?

For that matter, what did happen in the various outer planes when V's Familicide hit? If it killed as many people as V feared, then there would have to be hundreds of simultaneous deaths for multiple alignments (CE and CG for the black dragons and Draketooths respectively, possibly others for drive-by targets). Is it at all possible they compared notes and scried a little bit? Because if so I think V has by now been voted Least Popular Elf in at least 2-3 outer planes.

... and as for the party he travels with, this probably doesn't do them any favors while trying to get Draketooths to trust them. Fridge Brilliance.

[skaddix]

Doesn't that contradict what we saw when Roy died? If dozens of Draketooths - all CG-aligned - died in an instant, shouldn't they all meet up in a rather large group in Arborea, just like the Azurites were queueing up in front of the celestial gates after the battle?

For that matter, what did happen in the various outer planes when V's Familicide hit? If it killed as many people as V feared, then there would have to be hundreds of simultaneous deaths for multiple alignments (CE and CG for the black dragons and Draketooths respectively, possibly others for drive-by targets). Is it at all possible they compared notes and scried a little bit? Because if so I think V has by now been voted Least Popular Elf in at least 2-3 outer planes.

... and as for the party he travels with, this probably doesn't do them any favors while trying to get Draketooths to trust them. Fridge Brilliance.

Interesting Idea.

Although Roy and Durkon don't do much forcing.

[jafar]

Ironic joke at the end was great.

Sadly, disappointingly, I did not.

What did Elan "get" exactly? Obviously, Durkon and Roy were confirming Haley's opinion nicely. But what exactly was Elan replying too? I want to laugh, really!

[The MunchKING]

Sadly, disappointingly, I did not.

What did Elan "get" exactly? Obviously, Durkon and Roy were confirming Haley's opinion nicely. But what exactly was Elan replying too? I want to laugh, really!

That was it. He got that Haley was right, and the two Lawful guys were trying to force her to think thier way. Him being the other Chaotic in that 4-pack, he could see it for what Haley says it is...

[Particle_Man]

My way of playing a lawful character would be, "I wouldn't do that for X, Y, and Z reasons. But since it doesn't affect me or hurt anyone, then what do I care? I have no right to interfere, so have fun with that."

Interesting. That is how I would play a Neutral character.

[Murray]

You seriously think not murdering your own wife indicates non-evil? Even evil characters can have friends and loved ones.

My views were made in accordance with the limitations of the alignment pie chart, one that tends to allow PCs to commit genocide and murder simply because of an arbitrary statistic in a monster manual, and not in a real-world view of ethics. The Draketooths are in all likelihood, a family of criminals. But on the pie chart (which is a part of game mechanics and not a believable pyschological template in any form), I see their actions falling into the category of selfish than good or evil. I'm also giving them the benefit of the doubt, that their negligence, self-importance and cruelty to anyone outside the cult is one of ignorance with perpetuated xenophobia and bigotry hasn't led to mass killings, and that there are people more spiteful than the freaky creepy cult family. (But the OotS could still stumble into a torture chamber or two, we'll have to wait and see.)

Doesn't that contradict what we saw when Roy died? If dozens of Draketooths - all CG-aligned - died in an instant, shouldn't they all meet up in a rather large group in Arborea, just like the Azurites were queueing up in front of the celestial gates after the battle?

Roy went to a lawful afterlife, where people waited in queues. I don't know if the admission process on the chaotic side of things would be the quite the same experience.

[rbetieh]

He's getting the inside joke about the crazy alignment talk on the forums, as well as the joke that Durkon and Roy have both just proven Haley correct.

He might also be getting why he can't figure out his dad....

[ti'esar]

My views were made in accordance with the limitations of the alignment pie chart, one that tends to allow PCs to commit genocide and murder simply because of an arbitrary statistic in a monster manual, and not in a real-world view of ethics. The Draketooths are in all likelihood, a family of criminals. But on the pie chart (which is a part of game mechanics and not a believable pyschological template in any form), I see their actions falling into the category of selfish than good or evil. I'm also giving them the benefit of the doubt, that their negligence, self-importance and cruelty to anyone outside the cult is one of ignorance with perpetuated xenophobia and bigotry hasn't led to mass killings, and that there are people more spiteful than the freaky creepy cult family. (But the OotS could still stumble into a torture chamber or two, we'll have to wait and see.)



Roy went to a lawful afterlife, where people waited in queues. I don't know if the admission process on the chaotic side of things would be the quite the same experience.

I don't want to reopen the "crazy alignment talk" (and for the record, I at least picked up on that immediately), but I do have to say that your post, particularly the part I bolded, suggests a misunderstanding of how the Giant, at least, approaches the alignment system.

[Roland Itiative]

I wonder what role the Gate tracking device will play out in the story. For one, it should have alerted the Draketooth clan of three Gates being destroyed in a short amount of time, and inferring their own Gate would be endangered... Maybe that'll spawn some surprise protection measure?~

Also, loved the beat panel with V