Erfworld Thread XI: Finally, it's HAMMER-TIME!

[-D-]

Kinda thought the narrative intent was Bunny being permanently lost to Caesar, as impetus for Caesar's suicide. And much more conjectural on my part...when "her string was destroyed; you can decrypt her body but Bunny is gone" went off the table with the Arkenpliers, having her body devoured by bats started looking like a "good" alternative.

Yeah, but before that she was presented as a rogue Thinkamancer, paralleling Maggie. She seemed a potential ally and a way to destroy Thinkamancers, except Charlie did that, because sure why not...

Also Thinkamancer destroying her thread doesn't mean Arkenpliers can't put her together. Nothing in the text suggest she is truly irrecoverable, up until the point she was destroyed by bats... Arkentools are capable of feats no regular Erfworlder can, it makes some sense, Thinkamancers thought she was irrecoverable, but she could in fact be recovered in some shape or form.

Lilith being the centerpiece of the best stretch of comics in the past two books is probably a factor.

Lilith being the center piece of best stretch of Book 3 and 4, is like being the best looking piece of garbage in a junkyard.

She also earmarks the start of WTFConga, that continues to this day...

[Aquillion]

Lilith being the center piece of best stretch of Book 3 and 4, is like being the best looking piece of garbage in a junkyard.

She also earmarks the start of WTFConga, that continues to this day...

I was rereading older strips, and my feeling is that things didn't start to truly fall apart until Ivan and Claud were decrypted.

Up until that point, while there was a lot of silly stuff going on, ultimately it was all reasonably well connected to a central thread of events.

But their decryption was a totally random coincidence that nobody planned for and which didn't really fit anywhere in any overarching plot; and after that everything just started to split wildly and we had a bunch of threads that were essentially disconnected. Their decryption also marked the start of a sudden massive influx of new mechanics and rules. In particular, their rescue of Wanda, their own rescue by Big Think, all the massive changes Big Think caused, and Wanda's eventual death were all basically completely disconnected from the Parson / TV plot thread (outside of a very broad "do something, you guys" order.) This led to the sense that events were random and pointless.

Like... if you stop just before Ivan and Poe are decrypted, I can summarize things pretty well:

Charlie captures a decrypted Archon and attempts to mine the secrets of decryption from her; on discovering this, Parson takes advantage of the situation to remotely release her, causing an intense conflict that eventually spills into the Magic Kingdom when Parson and co. go there to pick her up. During this conflict, Wanda is captured, while Parson, Maggie, and Jack, fleeing the Magic Kingdom, end up prisoners in Translyvito. After a series of deceptions on their part, the Don of Translyvito is killed, and the new overlord, Caesar, switches sides to Gobwin Knob.

...it's a bit chaotic, but it's a coherent story.

Also, an aside: I noticed some people above talking about "book 3 and 4" as though we just finished Book 4. That's not the case, at least based on the way the website is labeling and organizing stuff. We just started Book 4 two pages ago. Book 3 just ended. The epilogues are labeled as Book 4 because they're after the end of book 3, but everything from the end of book 2 to Wanda's death is labeled as Book 3 on the site.

[MReav]

To be fair on this point, Warlords tend to lead. Casters... there are definitely much fewer Caster Rulers (I forget if we've heard of any other than Charlie... Olive was... oh, I guess Ruler for a short time, and then Wanda was Barbarian "Ruler" by virtue of being the only Commander Left). So, it definitely doesn't surprise me that the immediate dynamic is "Warlord to heir, Caster to advise".

Empress Saltina was one of the Great Minds. But caster rulers are rare.

[deuterio12]

I was rereading older strips, and my feeling is that things didn't start to truly fall apart until Ivan and Claud were decrypted.

Up until that point, while there was a lot of silly stuff going on, ultimately it was all reasonably well connected to a central thread of events.

But their decryption was a totally random coincidence that nobody planned for and which didn't really fit anywhere in any overarching plot; and after that everything just started to split wildly and we had a bunch of threads that were essentially disconnected. Their decryption also marked the start of a sudden massive influx of new mechanics and rules. In particular, their rescue of Wanda, their own rescue by Big Think, all the massive changes Big Think caused, and Wanda's eventual death were all basically completely disconnected from the Parson / TV plot thread (outside of a very broad "do something, you guys" order.) This led to the sense that events were random and pointless.

There were already some pretty big coincidences in book 1, like how Jillian the seemingly random barbarian has a long story with not one but two of GK's casters that she keeps running into the battlefield. Or that Bogroll was a twoll that looked just like Hamster to lure Ansom or that Wanda had an huge stash of scrolls that she never thought of using in battle before and weren't used since besides some healomancy scrolls in book 2. Why aren't other side's casters keeping scroll stashes too? Why didn't Hamster prioritize making sure GK had more nice scroll stash for their future battles?

Heck, the whole story literally starts with Marbits lucking out in finding a giant gem that allows them to hire extra troops just in time to ruin Stanley's army.

Also, an aside: I noticed some people above talking about "book 3 and 4" as though we just finished Book 4. That's not the case, at least based on the way the website is labeling and organizing stuff. We just started Book 4 two pages ago. Book 3 just ended. The epilogues are labeled as Book 4 because they're after the end of book 3, but everything from the end of book 2 to Wanda's death is labeled as Book 3 on the site.

Book 4 was retconned to have "started" quite a bit ago by Rob but updating the actual archive labeling still needs to be done, otherwise book 3 would end pretty huge compared to the others.

[Whispri]

One small positive note about the latest page: We should at least learn what the towers are capable of doing to an invading army. Worst case the dolls will be stomped flat in seconds, but that might be beyond them.

Yep. Vinnie is not in a location where he's a viable candidate. Besides which, Vinnie hasn't interacted much (if at all) with HueHue and relevant detail is what HueHue thinks Caesar thinks rather that what Caesar actually would have thought. Vinnie is just a name on the roster to the Tower while Skyy is on scene and stood up to make an excellent accounting of herself in the current crisis.

Wanda was made heir to Goodminton while she was in the field. As for relative status, Vinnie's the Chief Warlord and he conquered three cities this turn, the rando sub-mook the talking tower just made a ruler simply happened to be holding a gun when the trouble started, no talent, ability or basic competence on display there. Plus she lost all those gems.

Also, an aside: I noticed some people above talking about "book 3 and 4" as though we just finished Book 4. That's not the case, at least based on the way the website is labeling and organizing stuff. We just started Book 4 two pages ago. Book 3 just ended. The epilogues are labeled as Book 4 because they're after the end of book 3, but everything from the end of book 2 to Wanda's death is labeled as Book 3 on the site.

Are you suggesting that book four is starting with an epilogue? Here's word of author on the subject.

[DigoDragon]

There were already some pretty big coincidences in book 1, like how Jillian the seemingly random barbarian has a long story with not one but two of GK's casters that she keeps running into the battlefield.

Well, we do learn that coincidence has a pretty decent explanation later in book 1, so it gets a pass.

[Ornithologist]

Wanda was made heir to Goodminton while she was in the field. As for relative status, Vinnie's the Chief Warlord and he conquered three cities this turn, the rando sub-mook the talking tower just made a ruler simply happened to be holding a gun when the trouble started, no talent, ability or basic competence on display there. Plus she lost all those gems.

I'm actually okay with her being chosen over Vinny for the same reason Parson wanted someone on site at the battle in Book 2 to be Cheif Warlord. You need the bonus where the action is after all. Also, even in the best of interpetations on the time scale, The tower doesn't get a ton of time to choose. He might have interpeted the line of succession as a frontacracy, we may never know.

Not saying it was a smart choice, mind you. I'm reserving judgement on that until I can have my proper 20/20 Hindsight glasses +3 on.

[Aquillion]

There were already some pretty big coincidences in book 1, like how Jillian the seemingly random barbarian has a long story with not one but two of GK's casters that she keeps running into the battlefield. Or that Bogroll was a twoll that looked just like Hamster to lure Ansom or that Wanda had an huge stash of scrolls that she never thought of using in battle before and weren't used since besides some healomancy scrolls in book 2. Why aren't other side's casters keeping scroll stashes too? Why didn't Hamster prioritize making sure GK had more nice scroll stash for their future battles?

Well, it has been implied that Wanda is unusually good at casting outside her discipline. As for why they don't keep a bunch of scrolls for her - they might, but there aren't many situations where it would come up. The Arkenpliers are so powerful that scrolls are unlikely to make a big difference (outside of healamancy, which we know they stockpile.) Also, Parson isn't Chief Warlord at that point, so he can't force them to buy them just in case.

And after book 2, they've offended the Magic Kingdom, so buying scrolls is more difficult. And none of them would help much after Wanda gets captured.

(Also, in Book 1, it's heavily implied that Jillian was getting captured deliberately in order to meet Wanda.)

[deuterio12]

Well, it has been implied that Wanda is unusually good at casting outside her discipline. As for why they don't keep a bunch of scrolls for her - they might, but there aren't many situations where it would come up. The Arkenpliers are so powerful that scrolls are unlikely to make a big difference (outside of healamancy, which we know they stockpile.)

Wanda isn't GK's only spellcaster. It's actually a major plot point in book 2 that Jack is severly limited because he's running low on juice. The battle at Spacerock would've been a cakewalk if he had bunch of scrolls to pull his shenigans full force.

And now that I think about it back in book 1 it was also a key point that Maggie runs out of juice when Hamster's running psychological warfare, only for Sizemore later to go "Hey boss now that the walls are coming down it just turns out we have this sweet stash of scrolls ready to use, just to let you know.".

Also, Parson isn't Chief Warlord at that point, so he can't force them to buy them just in case.

They got that stash of scrolls long before Hamster came to Erfworld. Heck, Hamster only comes to Erfworld because Wanda persuades Stanley to burn half a million in some shiny new scroll all by herself.

And after book 2, they've offended the Magic Kingdom, so buying scrolls is more difficult.

But we know that the thinkmancers and hippiemancers and predictmancers are all backing up GK full force so no reason why they can't get some scrolls from them. Marie later on even gets a super area healomancy scroll to help them no problem.

Not to mention that side story that reveals there's plenty of starving hobbo mancers in the Mee Kay up for any job. How does a stash of rule-breaking carny scrolls sounds?

And none of them would help much after Wanda gets captured.

Maybe Wanda wouldn't have been captured in the first place if they had a bunch of scrolls to go wild in that battle.

(Also, in Book 1, it's heavily implied that Jillian was getting captured deliberately in order to meet Wanda.)

Heh, Jillian gets captured by basically everybody.

[HandofShadows]

GK was more or less cut off from the services of casters in the Magic Kingdom because of the stunt Parson did going into the MK. They REALLY didn't like he could go through to it. So no one would sell anything to GK. In Book 1 Wanda did have a bunch of scrolls, but it can be assumed most of them got used.

[Jasdoif]

Nothing in the text suggest she is truly irrecoverable, up until the point she was destroyed by bats...

The whole paragraph about Bunny dying "harder than Caesar knew a person could die" suggests otherwise...and that paragraph's inclusion is what makes me think the story actually trying it was the plan at some point, like it was salvaged from something Rob already wrote.

[-D-]

The whole paragraph about Bunny dying "harder than Caesar knew a person could die" suggests otherwise...and that paragraph's inclusion is what makes me think the story actually trying it was the plan at some point, like it was salvaged from something Rob already wrote.

That part also comes after she was eaten by bats, which destroys the body and prevents decryption.

[Jasdoif]

That part also comes after she was eaten by bats, which destroys the body and prevents decryption.

And the very next paragraph says her body being consumed ended that "false hope"...meaning the earlier paragraph didn't have her body being consumed as a factor.

[deuterio12]

GK was more or less cut off from the services of casters in the Magic Kingdom because of the stunt Parson did going into the MK.

Hamster's Mee Kay stunt is at the end of book 2, but scroll scarcity was somehow an issue at the start of book 2.

They REALLY didn't like he could go through to it. So no one would sell anything to GK. In Book 1 Wanda did have a bunch of scrolls, but it can be assumed most of them got used.

Nope, Hamster was actually spending most of his time in the Mee Kay hanging with the thinkmancers and hippiemancers, sleeping at their homes and even having parties with them and experimenting with tri-links (which could be safely dismissed thanks to Thinkmancer support) building stuff like scout golems and photography cameras.

Several casters didn't like him being there yes, but there were plenty of casters fully supporting him

[keybounce]

...
Like... if you stop just before Ivan and Poe are decrypted, I can summarize things pretty well:



...it's a bit chaotic, but it's a coherent story.

Also, an aside: I noticed some people above talking about "book 3 and 4" as though we just finished Book 4. That's not the case, at least based on the way the website is labeling and organizing stuff. We just started Book 4 two pages ago. Book 3 just ended. The epilogues are labeled as Book 4 because they're after the end of book 3, but everything from the end of book 2 to Wanda's death is labeled as Book 3 on the site.

Book 3 ended way, way back. This was announced way, way back.

As he just said,

Book 3 was called "Hamsterdance vs. the Charlie Foxtrot." As I wrote in some news post a long time ago, that one ended on page 141. (EDIT: Or maybe page 146, as Charles suggested in comments.) It will have no epilogues, but the printed versions will have some bonus content.

The break between book 3 and 4 was announced a long time ago. Book 3 was going to end with the "We surrender" page landing in TV, but as pointed out by another reader, going about 5 updates farther got you to the end of Charlie's turn and a better stopping point -- you got the after action reports from everyone before ending the book.

And yes, the story is coherent through book 3. The thinkamancers made themselves into an unexpected 3rd side, and both Parson/GK and Charlie/CC got hurt. That makes a good twist on the otherwise "We're two strategy guys, one with the rule-based way to break the rules, and one with the mind that finds loopholes to break the rules, and we're escalating" story. Suddenly neither side was able to escalate, and things are turned hard for both of them.

But ... book 4 goes crazy.

No, he is not starting book 4 with 2 epilogues. That would be worse than starting with a flashback when you could just have a 4-part prologue.

[Aquillion]

Wanda isn't GK's only spellcaster. It's actually a major plot point in book 2 that Jack is severly limited because he's running low on juice. The battle at Spacerock would've been a cakewalk if he had bunch of scrolls to pull his shenigans full force.

Eh. There wasn't supposed to be a serious ground battle, since the idea was to crush them with overwhelming air power. Jack was there to veil the troops so Jetstone wouldn't realize this.

Also there's no reason to think Jack is talented at casting outside his discipline, I think?

And now that I think about it back in book 1 it was also a key point that Maggie runs out of juice when Hamster's running psychological warfare, only for Sizemore later to go "Hey boss now that the walls are coming down it just turns out we have this sweet stash of scrolls ready to use, just to let you know.".

Have we seen any Thinkamancy scrolls? I would assume that the Great Minds don't generally like producing them, outside of very special cases, since it would risk exposing some of their precious secrets. Besides, Thinkamancy is one of the more profitable disciplines in the MK already due to the ease of using it to send messages and the fact that it's needed for any sort of link, so they have no incentive to make scrolls.

They got that stash of scrolls long before Hamster came to Erfworld. Heck, Hamster only comes to Erfworld because Wanda persuades Stanley to burn half a million in some shiny new scroll all by herself.

Yes, but those were considered Wanda's private stash, not a massive strategic reserve - presumably something she collected over an extended period of time with her personal funds. They definitely couldn't have gotten more after the end of Book 2. And between those points, Parson wasn't CWL, so he wasn't in a position to force a massive scroll purchase even if the idea occurred to him.

(Even if he did, he'd have to weigh the strategic benefits of spending money on scrolls vs. spending it on something that can be used more than once. Wanda's strategic cache of scrolls looked game-breakingly useful because we got to see the benefits of blowing it all at once without the costs she paid to build it up.)

But we know that the thinkmancers and hippiemancers and predictmancers are all backing up GK full force so no reason why they can't get some scrolls from them. Marie later on even gets a super area healomancy scroll to help them no problem.

They absolutely are not backing GK full force. In fact, at least two of those factions were willing to let Wanda die. They're using GK in specific ways towards specific goals, but like I said above, it's very likely that the Great Minds are reluctant to produce Thinkamancy scrolls at all due to the risk of secrets getting out if people start experimenting with them.

Maybe Wanda wouldn't have been captured in the first place if they had a bunch of scrolls to go wild in that battle.

Who would have cast them? Wanda was busy using the Arkenpliers and protecting herself, and was incapacitated right at the start of the battle against the MK casters. We have no reason to think Jack has any talent at anything but Foolamancy. And they weren't expecting an enormous battle, so they wouldn't have brought a huge supply of scrolls anyway.

[-D-]

And the very next paragraph says her body being consumed ended that "false hope"...meaning the earlier paragraph didn't have her body being consumed as a factor.

I assume the hope was false, because the body is not decryptable anymore, rather than some Thinkamancy shtick, making Decrypting impossible.

It's not clear from text, but I always assume the simplest explanation.

[deuterio12]

Eh. There wasn't supposed to be a serious ground battle, since the idea was to crush them with overwhelming air power. Jack was there to veil the troops so Jetstone wouldn't realize this.

Also there's no reason to think Jack is talented at casting outside his discipline, I think?

Who needs other disciplines when you're a foolmancer? Plus what's better than a flying force? A stealthy flying force. Even beef brain Ossomer goes "hey, we should veil our dwagons to skip Jillian's air force so we can just burn the tower and ends this".

Plus as several characters point out, never hurts to have contigency plans. And then contigencies for your contigencies, then contigencies for those too.

Have we seen any Thinkamancy scrolls? I would assume that the Great Minds don't generally like producing them, outside of very special cases, since it would risk exposing some of their precious secrets. Besides, Thinkamancy is one of the more profitable disciplines in the MK already due to the ease of using it to send messages and the fact that it's needed for any sort of link, so they have no incentive to make scrolls.

Thinkmancy scrolls were a key part of Hamster's first final stand.

Yes, but those were considered Wanda's private stash, not a massive strategic reserve - presumably something she collected over an extended period of time with her personal funds. They definitely couldn't have gotten more after the end of Book 2. And between those points, Parson wasn't CWL, so he wasn't in a position to force a massive scroll purchase even if the idea occurred to him.

(Even if he did, he'd have to weigh the strategic benefits of spending money on scrolls vs. spending it on something that can be used more than once. Wanda's strategic cache of scrolls looked game-breakingly useful because we got to see the benefits of blowing it all at once without the costs she paid to build it up.)

What private funds? Units get paid a salary now? Do they get vacation and holyday bonus?

After book 1 GK is rolling in money and Wanda saw firsthand how valuable having a stash of scrolls is. She got those scrolls somehow, it makes no sense that she can only scrounge up a few healomancy scrolls later on.

They absolutely are not backing GK full force. In fact, at least two of those factions were willing to let Wanda die. They're using GK in specific ways towards specific goals, but like I said above, it's very likely that the Great Minds are reluctant to produce Thinkamancy scrolls at all due to the risk of secrets getting out if people start experimenting with them.

Again, Wanda got her hands in multiple of those no problem before. And Maggie is part of the Great Minds herself.

And again we have plenty of mancers literally starving to death every turn in the Mee Kay so those would surely pump out some scrolls for some turns worth of upkeep.

Who would have cast them? Wanda was busy using the Arkenpliers and protecting herself, and was incapacitated right at the start of the battle against the MK casters. We have no reason to think Jack has any talent at anything but Foolamancy.

He can use Healomancy scrolls just fine and even talentless Sizemore can use shockmancy scrolls. And again, just foolmancy scrolls would be a great help for when he runs out of juice.

And they weren't expecting an enormous battle, so they wouldn't have brought a huge supply of scrolls anyway.

They deployed two mancers (where most attacking armies don't bother with even one), one arkentool, dozens of GK's dwagons and archons, thousands of infantry, assaulting one of the main enemy capitals, how exactly doesn't that count as expecting a big battle?

[Morgaln]

Eh. There wasn't supposed to be a serious ground battle, since the idea was to crush them with overwhelming air power. Jack was there to veil the troops so Jetstone wouldn't realize this.

Also there's no reason to think Jack is talented at casting outside his discipline, I think?

Have we seen any Thinkamancy scrolls? I would assume that the Great Minds don't generally like producing them, outside of very special cases, since it would risk exposing some of their precious secrets. Besides, Thinkamancy is one of the more profitable disciplines in the MK already due to the ease of using it to send messages and the fact that it's needed for any sort of link, so they have no incentive to make scrolls.

Yes, but those were considered Wanda's private stash, not a massive strategic reserve - presumably something she collected over an extended period of time with her personal funds. They definitely couldn't have gotten more after the end of Book 2. And between those points, Parson wasn't CWL, so he wasn't in a position to force a massive scroll purchase even if the idea occurred to him.

(Even if he did, he'd have to weigh the strategic benefits of spending money on scrolls vs. spending it on something that can be used more than once. Wanda's strategic cache of scrolls looked game-breakingly useful because we got to see the benefits of blowing it all at once without the costs she paid to build it up.)

They absolutely are not backing GK full force. In fact, at least two of those factions were willing to let Wanda die. They're using GK in specific ways towards specific goals, but like I said above, it's very likely that the Great Minds are reluctant to produce Thinkamancy scrolls at all due to the risk of secrets getting out if people start experimenting with them.

Who would have cast them? Wanda was busy using the Arkenpliers and protecting herself, and was incapacitated right at the start of the battle against the MK casters. We have no reason to think Jack has any talent at anything but Foolamancy. And they weren't expecting an enormous battle, so they wouldn't have brought a huge supply of scrolls anyway.

We do know that Jack can use scrolls from other disciplines, as we have sen him use a Healomancy scroll here: https://archives.erfworld.com/Book%202/118

I don't disagree with your other points, though.

[slayerx]

We do know that Jack can use scrolls from other disciplines, as we have sen him use a Healomancy scroll here: https://archives.erfworld.com/Book%202/118

I don't disagree with your other points, though.

I think one of the advantage of scrolls is that ANY caster can use them regardless of discipline or talent. Sizemore has no talent outside his discipline, but he used both a healomancy scroll and a Shockamancy scroll during the battle for gobwinknob

[Welf]

If been on vacation a bit. So the epilogue already resolved the most dramatic outcomes of the end of book 4? Wow.

Do you really need to know what Rando McSpearThrower did? No? Then you cut that part of story out. Kill it

And that's what this whole part of TV Saga was. A++ Time waster. In fact, they should have renamed the side from TV(TransylVitto) to WS (Wheel-Spinning). It's good that we managed to know all these characters up close, so they can be killed off in most unspectacular ways...


Look, I'll be the first to admit. I kinda liked the idea of Bunny and Ceasar VS The Thinkamancers VS Charlie. It is a promising story. I mean, an alliance of Bad Thinkamancers and Transylvitto seems like natural fit. It had promise. Hell, a Decrypted Bunny still keeping her love intact through Decryption, would be amazing.

What we got instead - Oh Bunny dies and is foraged for food by bats... Caesar commits sepuku (via portal). I want to make a Last Jedi joke and say it subverted my expectations, but by that time, both Thinkamancers were gone as a threat and Charlie was rendered a non threat. So it, just confirmed my fears - that Book 1 was a fluke.

I liked the story of Wrigley the Spearman. A nice change to the point of view of a simple infantryman and how he sees the world. And it was an update to fill our waiting time. But I guess the first time you smoke some crack its cool too. And then you get addicted to the stuff and everything goes down the drain. And Rob definitely got addicted to text updates and jumping points of view.
I have similar thoughts on the TV story. It sounded so promising. I really liked Bunn y and Ceasar and was looing forward to them playing a role. It looked like Bunny would be an important player in an likely conflict with the Great Minds. And Ceasar was an interesting contrast to Stanley. What would they look like on the same table? How would they talk? Alas, all for nothing.

EDIT: To illustrate, I'm going to summarize the first two books, then this one.

Nice sum ups. Yeah, Book 3/4 is a directionless mess.

It's like if you're playing Civ and your side started using cheat codes without your input.

Or whatever the equivalent is if the "source" that the towers are drawing from is finite. Might be worse than an ecological disaster.

Aye, well said, and your summaries are a good illustration of why book three fails to maintain readership like the previous books.

At this point, do we even need rulers to do anything? CAN rulers do anything? I think their agency is reduced down to simply existing so that their side continues to get turns.

I wonder if this intentional. If this was Civ I'd uninstall/reinstall the game and verify my data, and ask for help on a forum. A big theme was to "break the world", and right now it is really broken from a gaming perspective. The tower cheats make war unreliable, rules can change at any point. As you said, the AI s using cheat codes. And the overlords, the "players" of the game just lost their position. It turned out Duty to them isn't absolute and they can be killed by their underlings (see Bunny and Don), and even without consequence since the Towers just can upgrade another unit to overlord on their own.
I see a certain theme there. Book 1 introduced caster links as powerful mechanic. Book 2/3 expanded and had the OP Arkentools battle it out between them, side-lining traditional strong sides like the members of the RCC. Book 3 gave us the Towers with the second-to-last caster link and the most broken game element so far. If this was a game, the developers would have to stop playing with the nerf guns and do a major release to fix all the bugs and rebalance. In the story this should mean divine intervention.
So I believe there is an interesting long term arch at play. But how it's told sucks.

[tomaO2]

What we got instead - Oh Bunny dies and is foraged for food by bats... Caesar commits sepuku (via portal). I want to make a Last Jedi joke and say it subverted my expectations, but by that time, both Thinkamancers were gone as a threat and Charlie was rendered a non threat. So it, just confirmed my fears - that Book 1 was a fluke.

Given how much arguing there is over whether or not this fits the technical definition of deus ex machina, I actually think it's a good idea to change the terminology and say it's a really badly done subversion. There is a ton more mentions of sides ending up leaderless. Cities are said to "freeze", what does that mean? This is the second time we've seen a ruler commit suicide, but this time the armies are still in the city. Plus, there was that image of all the bats suddenly gone from TV airspace, which implied that the side had fallen. Caesar is dead now, so we'll finally find out... aaaaand subversion!

A subversion works when you have an equally interesting result take place instead of what you thought was going to happen, and I'm not too interested in this. I wanted to see what it's like for a side to fall.

[DigoDragon]

So I believe there is an interesting long term arch at play. But how it's told sucks.

Hmm, you do make a good point. Parson did, somewhat directly, break the world by making Jed and starting the towering spiral to what we have now.

...I'm curious to see what Tremennis' tower is like.

[keybounce]

...I'm curious to see what Tremennis' tower is like.

But ... now that's yet another point of view (Yapov.)

[JavaScribe]

New comic.

[Lizard Lord]

It really is starting to seem like all the actual story is happening in the epilogue. Seriously if this an epilogue than what is the difference between an epilogue and just the end of the story? I thought epilogues were suppose to happen after the story.

[hajo]

what is the difference between an epilogue and just the end of the story?

Last views on loose ends, with no more cliffhangers coming (in this book) ?

[deuterio12]

New comic.

From their comments section:

Parson and CO:
Jed the Head: "Ruler, you can go there to find some natural allies that fit you perfectly. Oh, our chief Warlord is being banished, I'm just gonna go cheat to save him."
Huehue: "Ruler, I just stepped in to try and stop the traitor dollamancer, and then closed my ears when your counsellors talked about cheating. Oh, you died? I'll just cheat to make someone else heir."

Antagonists:
Shirley Temple: "Ruler, we have an unparalleled information network, and shockmancy items which boost your powers incredibly? Yeah, I'll just go turn those off for a while. Oh wait, that enemy side? Don't destroy them, it's vitally important to me that they pop an heir."
Templeton: "Ruler, your actions are at odds with that caster who just croaked our entire garrison...I'm gonna side with her."

Team GK really seems to be lucking out in their tower personalities.

[HandofShadows]

I think the Towers may be more loyal to their sides than to the rulers. And if the ruler is messing up they can take action to protect the side or what they perceive to be the best interests of the side. Templeton is bit of an odd case though. It seems to be based in part on the late great Mary Feldman. And Mr. Feldman was a very smart and talented man and I think the tower is playing a long game. I also wonder if it doesn't have some loyalty to GK or to something else considering the way it's acting.

[NEO|Phyte]

A thought I had on rereading from whatever page got linked to a page or so back, I feel like the Temples may turn out to be a manifestation of the side itself as a tangible entity. Based on what we've seen since the great templing, the portal column serves as a metaphysical tether point for all units on a side, through which upkeep is handled. The connections to the portal column is what allows for Ruler Sense. As we saw in Book 0, Wanda briefly had ruler senses after being promoted to Overlady, which switched off when her capital fell and she went barbarian.

Shirley's overbearingness aside, they quite clearly work to preserve the side, even against their ruler's wishes. Jed is nudging Stanley in good directions, Huehue should be obvious, and assuming Marie isn't going 5d chess on us, she seems to legitimately want to aid Faq, hence Templeton's jailbreak. Shirley's the odd duck out here, if I had to guess, what's going on there is that the titans 'coded' Erfworld to run in a certain way, and Shirley is taking actions that make sense in that context, which also completely hoses how Charlie runs his side.

There's a few gaps, such as how precisely barbarians manage upkeep without a connection to the Source, but this feels pretty sound, as far as making things up go.