Inspiration for the Sapphire Guard?

[Tulisin]

Unlike the rows of soldiers on the wall, the Sapphire Guard in the throne room seems to have a fairly diverse and unique cast of characters.

Do you think Rich just came up with a bunch of ideas for unique-looking characters (ones that probably won't have much of a role in the comic)?

I think he must've drawn inspiration from somewhere, perhaps these are his or his friend's previous characters in roleplaying campaigns he's played, or something similar. He seems to have gone out of his way to make them look like anything but an ambiguous group of similar paladins (except the uniform).

[Silverlocke980]

I'm taking Paragraph B.

I think he merely intended to show that these were "above-average", more than rank and file soldiers without any power or personality. Xykon's still gonna blow right through them, but they'll give him a much harder fight than he probably anticipated getting to the gate.

[DarkEternal]

Well, they do seem pretty high level. Hell, even if they are more then five levels lower then Xykon such a number of Holy (wo)men should be more then able to slaughter Xykon. Naturally, that will not happen, but following any sort of logic/rules it should.

[Ultimatum479]

Especially since he's used spells already today.

[Tomitsu]

The diversity of the Sapphire Guard is probably the reason the comic's late. Every time Rich made up a new kind of paladin, he also had to think about their role in the upcoming fight, almost like working on two comics at once.

The big battle will be much more interesting now that there are all different kinds of unique opponents for Xykon to pulverize.

[Dausuul]

Well, they do seem pretty high level. Hell, even if they are more then five levels lower then Xykon such a number of Holy (wo)men should be more then able to slaughter Xykon. Naturally, that will not happen, but following any sort of logic/rules it should.

Not really.

First, they're a lot more than five levels below him. Recall that Hinjo is more powerful than any of them (being the second most powerful in the Guard, first now that Miko is gone), and Hinjo is clearly less effective in combat than Roy by quite a large margin. If we accept Xykon's claim to be at least seven levels higher than Roy, which I find fairly credible, then Xykon has a minimum of 8 levels on even the highest-level members of the Sapphire Guard. By the numbers, a 20th-level character should be an even match for sixteen 12th-level characters, and I doubt many of the Guard are that high. The average is more likely around 6th or so. In D&D, a 20th-level character can slaughter a hundred 6th-level characters without trouble.

Second, the paladins are, well, paladins. Xykon is a full caster--a sorceror, admittedly, and an un-optimized one at that, but a full caster nonetheless. And his specialty seems to be blasting magic. Ordinarily, blasting is a poor choice for a caster to specialize in, but it's just the thing for wiping out whole rooms full of low-level foes. The way they're clumped up, one horrid wilting would take out half of them right there.

Third, Xykon is a lich. That means he has (as we saw earlier) DR from hell, d12 Hit Dice, and all kinds of immunities. Plus he can fly, so the paladins can't use lay on hands or their fancy swords and must rely on bows. Most of them will have a tough time so much as scratching him. And since Tsukiko was nice enough to heal all the damage he took from Roy, it would take them ages to wear him down... ages he's not going to give them.

Finally, since Xykon is a lich, he's immune to a lot of his own magic. If he does start having trouble with paladins swarming him, he can just toss a horrid wilting or a cloudkill right at his own feet.

[DarkEternal]

Pretty good points, but there are things to take into view that some of those are not paladins(the ones in robes are probably clerics, no?) and given that they are paladins/clerics of the "good" sort I would wager they were built especially to battle the undead. That, and as the previous poster said, the kickarse lich already went through quite a repertoire of his spells. Don't know how many more he has on his disposal.