OOTS #1195 - The Discussion Thread

[danielxcutter]

In settings like the Forgotten Realms, yes. In this one the gods make the world, the world shapes them a little, then they unmake it (or it gets unmade for them) and they have to make a new one.

In FR if you kill Mystra, magic stops working right. In OotS, if you kill Odin, Odin stops contributing his ideas to future worlds.

To be fair, the FR pantheon in general is a load of minotaur (*cough*WallofFaithless*cough) so I guess it balances out?

[b_jonas]

Why would he do that? Xykon is usually very honest about who he is and what he does.

More importantly, the crown wasn't mentioned in #130, when the party divides the magic items that they got from Xykon. That indicates that the crown isn't magic, or at least wasn't magic then. It's still possible that Xykon turned it into the fireresistance magic item later, but not very likely.

[Necris Omega]

To be fair, the FR pantheon in general is a load of minotaur (*cough*WallofFaithless*cough) so I guess it balances out?

To think before that unspeakably wretched development Kelemvor was one of my more favorite D&D Gods...

[factotum]

Xykon isn't wearing the badass crown in #484. This is after the battle when he has had time to reequip it, and he was wearing it in #473. He took it off because it takes up the same slot as Dorukan's headband, and he needs the headband to cast the Cloister spell. He takes off the headband by his next appearance in #541.

Umm...isn't it entirely possible that's just because wearing two items of headgear at the same time is just silly? I mean, looking at it from a non-D&D point of view, you'd take the crown off because otherwise it won't fit on your head at the same time as the headband, regardless of how magical the two items are.

[Lvl45DM!]

Umm...isn't it entirely possible that's just because wearing two items of headgear at the same time is just silly? I mean, looking at it from a non-D&D point of view, you'd take the crown off because otherwise it won't fit on your head at the same time as the headband, regardless of how magical the two items are.

Is that not then, taking up a magic item slot? Think about it like this. If you're wielding your super awesome non-magic sword with all the spikes and syyyk red colour scheme you can't wield your +1 sword right?
If you can't wear magic headgear with the crown, then it has not taken up the magic headgear item slot?

[Worldsong]

Is that not then, taking up a magic item slot? Think about it like this. If you're wielding your super awesome non-magic sword with all the spikes and syyyk red colour scheme you can't wield your +1 sword right?
If you can't wear magic headgear with the crown, then it has not taken up the magic headgear item slot?

I believe they meant that in real life you also generally wouldn't wear two hats at the same time. Xykon might be taking off the crown purely because he thinks it looks silly to have both the crown and the headband on at the same time, even if he could wear both because one isn't a magic item.

[Schroeswald]

Because apparently you guys got really busy arguing while I was gone, I wake up and wade through a bunch of arguing about whether or not Rich hates gods? Which is dumb, he doesn't hate them and want to mock them, but thats not what I'm posting about. I'm posting because somewhere in their there was something about how what they are talking about won't matter because of Elan's Rule of Plannery, and I wanted to say something about how I think the ending is gonna go.

Ok, so during the fight we get a lot of twists and turns, but somehow they manage to get Redcloak on their side before defeating Xykon, and then they have to deal with the IFCC, Kermit and Scooter, the Snarl and all that, but eventually after a few real-time years they finally are done, with the rift locked up, and then they get out of like, a giant hole caused by this, beaten, bruised, low on spell slots, and possibly missing Belkar and maybe others, and some people might have almost forgotten about Xykon, until we see him looking down on them, pissed as all get out, not too wounded, and with plenty of spells, and then they have to fight him. They manage to win of course, but they definitely lose someone (and if Belkar was still alive, he sacrifices his life to kill Xykon).

[Worldsong]

Because apparently you guys got really busy arguing while I was gone, I wake up and wade through a bunch of arguing about whether or not Rich hates gods? Which is dumb, he doesn't hate them and want to mock them, but thats not what I'm posting about. I'm posting because somewhere in their there was something about how what they are talking about won't matter because of Elan's Rule of Plannery, and I wanted to say something about how I think the ending is gonna go.

Ok, so during the fight we get a lot of twists and turns, but somehow they manage to get Redcloak on their side before defeating Xykon, and then they have to deal with the IFCC, Kermit and Scooter, the Snarl and all that, but eventually after a few real-time years they finally are done, with the rift locked up, and then they get out of like, a giant hole caused by this, beaten, bruised, low on spell slots, and possibly missing Belkar and maybe others, and some people might have almost forgotten about Xykon, until we see him looking down on them, pissed as all get out, not too wounded, and with plenty of spells, and then they have to fight him. They manage to win of course, but they definitely lose someone (and if Belkar was still alive, he sacrifices his life to kill Xykon).

Hmmm, that's an interesting take on it. So you're saying that you first expect Redcloak to defect, then all the cosmic stuff to be resolved, and THEN Xykon still needs taking out.

Although it does sound a bit similar to the fight against Tarquin where, after the gate is intentionally blown up, they find themselves surrounded by a literal army.

[Quizatzhaderac]

I believe they meant that in real life you also generally wouldn't wear two hats at the same time. Xykon might be taking off the crown purely because he thinks it looks silly to have both the crown and the headband on at the same time, even if he could wear both because one isn't a magic item.

A full 30% of the time when the Snarl escapes it's because somebody wore two hats at the same time. They don't even need to be magical hats to doom the world. Another 65 percentage points are covered in the universe safety guide.

[TheNecrocomicon]

Ok, so during the fight we get a lot of twists and turns, but somehow they manage to get Redcloak on their side before defeating Xykon, and then they have to deal with the IFCC, Kermit and Scooter, the Snarl and all that, but eventually after a few real-time years they finally are done, with the rift locked up, and then they get out of like, a giant hole caused by this, beaten, bruised, low on spell slots, and possibly missing Belkar and maybe others, and some people might have almost forgotten about Xykon, until we see him looking down on them, pissed as all get out, not too wounded, and with plenty of spells, and then they have to fight him. They manage to win of course, but they definitely lose someone (and if Belkar was still alive, he sacrifices his life to kill Xykon).

Glad to get back to the actual point most of my original post was on, before a certain wolf latched onto the first paragraph like a pitbull and ignored the other three.

You're forgetting one thing: Xykon's phylactery needs to get dealt with. Sure, Redcloak has the real deal on his person (in a Bag of Holding if I recall), but Xykon thinks he has hidden it in his big ominous Astral Plane Death-Star-esque tomb-fortress as a fallback location. If things go really ill for him in the oncoming battle, especially if he realizes Redcloak and/or the Monster has/have turned on him, he may cut his losses and retreat there to regroup and plan revenge.

I get the sense that the "shift the plane" effect of Redcloak's rift ritual will get used somehow in spectacular fashion, and since he knows where Xykon's fortress is, it'd be a wonderful "wreck the place in one shot" method while leaving at least one Snarl rift away from the mortal world. If Xykon is there at the time, either it would destroy him physically and leave him helpless in his phylactery in Redcloak's possession, which can just get tossed in a volcano or the Snarl at leisure, or if the phylactery is already toast, it would unmake him utterly (a karmic death, really). And think of the parallels: Xykon destroyed in his own exploding fortress, just like the first book -- only this time for real.

Whenever Belkar dies -- assuming it's a "conventional" death at all and not simply a shift to some altered existence permitted by "take his last breath ever" -- it seems to me that it's probably going to be with some unexpected method and/or reason contrary to most if not all expectations.

[Cazero]

A full 30% of the time when the Snarl escapes it's because somebody wore two hats at the same time. They don't even need to be magical hats to doom the world. Another 65 percentage points are covered in the universe safety guide.

Accursed gnomes ! All these worlds destroyed, all these souls lost, all because of their reckless hat consumerism !

[bunsen_h]

It's a common misconception among wizards when thinking about the divine, they really can't comprehend the gods are NOT just "super duper powerful wizards" but are actually fundamental pillars of creation who deserve respect for THAT burden they bear.

That mindset might go towards explaining why wizards tend to be focused on gaining power, at the cost of anything / everything else in their lives. "When I grow up, I wanna be just like that!"

[RMS Oceanic]

Well crap, now I'm wondering if Redcloak's niece is the mysterious ally. I guess I'll have to go read the damn thread.

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Narratively that would make a lot of sense, but Rich's hint was the character appeared in exactly one page, and she was in three or four.

[Paleomancer]

What Roy and Julia's dad taught them is a load of minotaur.

It's a common misconception among wizards when thinking about the divine, they really can't comprehend the gods are NOT just "super duper powerful wizards" but are actually fundamental pillars of creation who deserve respect for THAT burden they bear. (Yes, even Hel and Loki.)

And Roy REALLY missed the point if he thinks it was "throw us under the bus" it was more like "GET THE KIDS OUT THE POOL BECAUSE THE SHARK BREAKS OUT OF ITS CAGE AGAIN!"

I know I'm going to be the minority here. But for this moment in time, I don't care.

I strenuously disagree. The deities could have done something different, naybe learned from their mistakes? Just a little? But in the usual fashion of idiot D&D deities, they do what seems best for them without considering the impact on their creation, and display a worse capacity for risk evaluation than eveb the most naive of mortals. Heck, if they had behaved with even a fraction of the maturity their mortal followers have to do just survive day to day... THERE WOULD BE NO SNARL! What the Gods intend in destroying the world is very much throw mortal life under the bus... They could open portals to their realms and bring worshippers alive. That would be a godly thing to do. Heck, they could do that now while still having Roy and Co. attend to Xykon, and they could order their overly devoted clerics to provide support as able. They could at least evaluate past worlds and determine what went wrong. Do you have to have an inhabited world around the prison? Or could you have that be a lifeless rock, in the void, surrounded by black holes? At the very least, you'd have time to evacuate people if it starts breaking through. After all, this is something that could destroy them all. They should be cooperating, provided they had sufficient brainpower-analogue to do so, which most of them clearly don't, given they have done the same idiot plan trillions of trillions of trillions of times and somehow expect that it'll be different this time, and now that it FINALLY might be different, you still have unbelievably stupid deities that either refuse to cooperate or worse, actively undermine it!

Nor do most of them show any real affection for their creation. Thor (and possibly Odin) is about the only one who acknowledges the concequences of their actions. Even the most seemingly reasonable of the evil deities, Loki, cares not one whit how many Dwarves suffered from his little "bet" and he'd have supported his daughter in her vile scheme were it not for the Dark One. Heck, he blames Thor for the fact that his and Hel's actions could lead to her fading if the world is destroyed. Thor might claim the deities care, but it's pretty clear he's a terrible judge of godly character - he seems to think the Dark One is willing to listen at all, when as far as that being is (incorrectly) concerned, he holds all the cards. Then you have Tyr who'd burn the world down and everyone in it rather than concede anything to the Dark One... he's not even technically "evil," but boy is he petty. Nergal (edit: not, as was corrected below, Marduk) gave cleric magic to a vampire who participated in brutal state sanctioned tyranny and intended to sacrifice thousands of mortals daily to him (and harvest their blood for his fellow vampires) with no indication that Marduk was bothered by the loss of such life. Tiamat, Rat, and possibly Loki (that's unclear) are so eager to destroy the good gods that they are working with the IFCC, who clearly intend to betray ALL the gods at the first opportune moment and are far better organized to do so. The hope of this world is, at least for the foreseeable narrative, the Dark One, who seems willing to get Goblinkind exterminated or worse in the vague (and as the Order now knows, impossible) ambition that a future crop of Goblins will dominate the world (to the point where Redcloak's racist use of hobgoblins as pointless cannon fodder apparently did not count as a violation of his oaths to protect goblinkind) and Dvalin nearly got his people consigned to death AND a fate worse than death over petty technicalities any RL human bureaucrat or diplomat would have laughed off and rejected with full support of law and order... Honestly, even Eustace Greenhilt could do better than this, and he's a selfish, arrogant twerp who probably shouldn't count as good. Or Varsuuvius, who hasn't massacred even a fraction of the beings the gods have and has enough decency to see themselves as an irredeemable war criminal for what they did to dragon and human alike - and they acknowledged that even their real duress was not enough to justify what they did.

Then again, the OotS gods are soul-eating abominations who merely created mortals to sustain them - no eternal afterlife for their devoted followers. To say nothing of the role of XP fodder for which they created the monstrous races. As vile as the Dark One is, his grudge against the gods on that basis seems entirely valid. Mortals owe them nothing on that basis. Period. Nor is it as if D&D gods as a rule have ever been pillars of moral rectitude, regardless of alignment. Frankly, the pantheons of OotS are in very good company with every waste of space pantheon, especially Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance.

To be fair, the FR pantheon in general is a load of minotaur (*cough*WallofFaithless*cough) so I guess it balances out?

Edit: ninja'd.

[Schroeswald]

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Narratively that would make a lot of sense, but Rich's hint was the character appeared in exactly one page, and she was in three or four.

She still might show up though, just not the one being hinted at (I believe that by the way, I think she'll show up).

[hamishspence]

IMarduk gave cleric magic to a vampire who participated in brutal state sanctioned tyranny and intended to sacrifice thousands of mortals daily to him (and harvest their blood for his fellow vampires) with no indication that Marduk was bothered by the loss of such life.

Not Marduk, head of the Western pantheon - Nergal, death god of the Western pantheon.

[Paleomancer]

Not Marduk, head of the Western pantheon - Nergal, death god of the Western pantheon.

Corrected! Thanks for the catch.

[Peelee]

I can't find it, but the Giant at one point compared mortals to gods as bugs to mortals. Losing the world for the gods is like you losing an ant farm.

[Jasdoif]

I can't find it, but the Giant at one point compared mortals to gods as bugs to mortals. Losing the world for the gods is like you losing an ant farm.

Perhaps this?

Umm, why can the gods only hear each other? Is it arrogance or can they literally only hear people who are praying directly to them? If it's the latter, then why the hell was it set-up that way? Couldn't the priests just broadcast Roy's speech to their gods? They don't trust each other enough to meet in the same place, but they have their priests meet and don't let them have any say? Or do they have say, but the gods just can't hear them during the godsmoot which, again, why would it be set-up that way? This doesn't make that much sense. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt but this feels like a shoehorned plot point to be dramatic. It may have been planned well ahead of time and it could still be explained, but I don't really understand why it was laid out like this.

Because the gods do not want to hear from their priests right now. The purpose of this meeting is to listen to each other, not mortals. It's the Godsmoot, not the Priestsmoot. Do you ask the termites in your house whether or not you should fumigate? Do you hear proposals from the dust mites regarding what color you should paint the living room?

I don't know why everyone expects that the gods are some sort of universally benevolent and egalitarian group that treats mortals fairly and with respect at all times. Certainly not from anything I've ever written.

[Peelee]

Perhaps this?

Indeed. Mucho appreciado!

[Cazero]

Do you have to have an inhabited world around the prison? Or could you have that be a lifeless rock, in the void, surrounded by black holes?

Not that it cut much from your general point, but no, they can't do that. We're talking about planes of existence here. They're not connected in a standard 3D geometry fashion; no matter how many lifeless rocks your universe has, the holes in reality can also pop up on inhabited worlds.

[Snails]

This is a comedy about the lives of a particularly inauspicious gaggle of murder hobos, so it is not exactly surprising that every kind of authority figures get roasted, as such are the kind of people with whom you can have character conflict that it not easily solved by violence. If there is a conscious or unconscious bias in The Giant's work, that is where it lies. Father figures getting the stick is just a natural fallout from this bias, insofar as it is the first thing that popped into his head, having not bothered to get the creative juices rolling to consider the full array of choices. Gods, being the nominal ultimate moral authority, are not immune from the roasting.

In order to show actual respect for the divine in such a work, IMNSHO it is necessary for divine beings to be difficult to comprehend at first glance. And in a comedy throwaway moments that are confusing are fodder for cheap laughs.

As for the gods themselves, if you watch the longer scenes with Thor, Odin, Loki it is obvious there are very serious ongoing undercurrents. That it even true about Hel, to a degree, and how Redcloak views The Dark One. At this point, we have a very incomplete understanding of every gods' view of the situation, except perhaps Thor's.

[Kantaki]

Not that it cut much from your general point, but no, they can't do that. We're talking about planes of existence here. They're not connected in a standard 3D geometry fashion; no matter how many lifeless rocks your universe has, the holes in reality can also pop up on inhabited worlds.

Having just one world (or rather only inhabitated worlds) in your World might also be safer regarding the Rifts- when they pop up, as is inevitable, they appear where your attention is anyway, allowing a faster response.

Imagine a Rift opening on... let's say Pluto. No one ever checks there. I mean, it's not even a real planet. Your first warning that you have to pull the plug would be the Snarl nomming Jupiter..

[KorvinStarmast]

My personal interpretation was more along the lines of 'the gods are not infallible and have their own problems.' So as someone else has already said, it's more anti-authoritarian than anti-theistic.

Which, from a literary basis that a lot of us were exposed to in High School, fits nicely into the model as written in the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer (the infamously blind Greek poet) ... and / or ... the portrayal in the recent Marvel Universe movies and that media's version of Loki, Thor, Heimdal, Odin and so on. (Which are different from OoTS Odin, Loki, Thor, etc)

To be fair, the FR pantheon in general is a load of

Yeah. I can't use it in my games since it forces me to continually rely on the gag reflex. I have gone to "forces and philosophies" as a default, and then as the players try and figure out a deity or a name, we usually find one from some pantheon somewhere. My brother made up his own deities for his game world - the FR gods had him rolling his eyes. But he kept Lolth, who I think was originally a Greyhawk fictional deity/demon queen (I need to check my 1e sources on that again ...)

That mindset might go towards explaining why wizards tend to be focused on gaining power, at the cost of anything / everything else in their lives. "When I grow up, I wanna be just like that!"

Wizards like ... uh ... a certain elf called V?

This is a comedy about the lives of a particularly inauspicious gaggle of murder hobos, so it is not exactly surprising that every kind of authority figures get roasted,

*Golf Clap*

Imagine a Rift opening on... let's say Pluto. No one ever checks there. I mean, it's not even a real planet. Your first warning that you have to pull the plug would be the Snarl nomming Jupiter..

Is the Big Red Spot on Jupiter, in this case, like that squishy / bursty center in a hard candy, or is it more like the red dot on a small block of dishwasher soap? (Finish is the brand I have in mind for that visual, and its the one Mrs S and I prefer)

[factotum]

I can't find it, but the Giant at one point compared mortals to gods as bugs to mortals. Losing the world for the gods is like you losing an ant farm.

I think strip #1140 kind of contradicts that, though, where Thor says "I can count them. I remember everyone who's ever worshipped me." I don't think even the most avid ant farmer would know all their individual ants personally and be able to remember them all.

[masamune1]

I think strip #1140 kind of contradicts that, though, where Thor says "I can count them. I remember everyone who's ever worshipped me." I don't think even the most avid ant farmer would know all their individual ants personally and be able to remember them all.

In fairness, Thor attributes that to his godly powers, having an infallible memory and excellent counting skills, rather than caring. I do think Thor genuinely cares, but that wasn't what he meant in that instance.

[Fyraltari]

Is the Big Red Spot on Jupiter, in this case, like that squishy / bursty center in a hard candy, or is it more like the red dot on a small block of dishwasher soap?

It’s obviously a Rift through which the Snarl is reaching.

[Kantaki]

It’s obviously a Rift through which the Snarl is reaching.

Thank you very much for that nightmare
Really shouldn't check the forum before entering sleep mode...

[dakameleon]

Rich - this was a beautifully, profoundly well-put critique of religion, but in a gentle way that makes you laugh at the end.

It's comics like these that reaffirm from time to time why I've been reading this website for more than a decade. Thank you.

[Fyraltari]

Thank you very much for that nightmare
Really shouldn't check the forum before entering sleep mode...

Standard reminder to check under your bed for boogeymen.