Speculation :the conflict within the Order of the Scribble [contains SoD spoilers!]

[theangelJean]

Rereading Start of Darkness tonight, and noticed a key separation in the depiction of the Order of the Scribble in the crayon section of that book. Did a quick search but not sure if anyone's already pointed this out.

p43: After the Dark One discovered the Rift, the goblins' first attempt to seize it was thwarted by "a band of adventurers".
p44: panel 1: "years later" another attempt is thwarted by "an order of paladins native to Azure City". Panel 2: Lirian and Dorukan constructing Lirian's Gate around the rift.

The "band of adventurers" is pretty clearly the Order of the Scribble: Kraagor names himself, Girard is shown with his facial markings, Lirian and Dorukan are in the same outfits as later in the book and the halfling with curly hair is clearly Serini.

But Soon is not with them. The paladins are only mentioned on the next page.

Here's the speculation: What if the Order of the Scribble were originally a 5-person adventuring group working happily together without Soon? What if Girard's resentment was against Soon for coming in and assuming leadership of the party - maybe ignoring the fact that they were already on the same quest he was - which Girard saw as ruining the party? I know Rich has moved away from rules jokes and the idea of players at a table - but having a new member of a group come in and change the dynamic, or declare themselves in charge, is something gamers can relate to. Soon's personality as described by Girard, and the seriousness of his attitude due to his personal loss, would also have parallels with Miko's journey with the OoTS.

As for the reliability of the crayon drawings in SoD, that's up in the air as always, but it's notable that the Crimson Mantle is actually present in all three panels of p43 and in the first panel of p44, even if its bearer was slain in each of the last two of those. It's not shown in the panel with Lirian and Dorukan constructing the Gate.

[Lex]

If I remember correctly, we saw a page of Serini's diary with a picture of all the members of the party (with heart marks near to Girard, so we know who the halfling was crushing on) and Dorukan mentioned as the new guy, so the cronology wouldn't match.
There is still the possibility that Soon was bossy (or at least, that Girard viewed him as such) and that was one of the factors for their disbanding, among the others.

[denthor]

Soon may have been bossy.

Girard said specifically that he felt Soon would break his word and that he never believed in authority figures:

Kings
Party leaders.

He also was the only one with 2 ranks in map making or something did not want the job. So Girard made it up as he went along. This was another way of his protecting the location.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Here's the speculation: What if the Order of the Scribble were originally a 5-person adventuring group working happily together without Soon? What if Girard's resentment was against Soon for coming in and assuming leadership of the party - maybe ignoring the fact that they were already on the same quest he was - which Girard saw as ruining the party?

Here we see Soon meeting Lirian, who was investigating some missing bears, and the story goes on to say they traveled the world and were joined by four allies.

It is possible that the some of the remaining four were part of a party, but it is unlikley that Lirian was a member.

[Lord Raziere]

At this point, I'm not sure we'll ever get an exact answer for why the Order of the Scribble was so contentious with each other.

like clearly Kraagor's death was the trigger, but this kind of thing had to have been boiling under the surface for a while. clearly they all had their own philosophies they lived by that makes them different from ordinary adventurers in this world and didn't just adventure for money and exp.

the non-scribble clues we have are that:
-Serini was the cheerful one and had a crush on Girard, but recognized that what was needed to be done when the time came and split them up to protect the gates so that at least something was done to protect them, which probably means she got over the crush at some point as there is
-Lirian and Dorukan were in love with each other enough to break the agreement, which suggests that the conflict mostly came from Soon and Girard and Dorukan might've only been arguing with them based on the 3.5 DnD mindset of "wizards solve everything, god wizard or go home".
-Girard was paranoid, cynical and basically embodied the worst of Chaotic philosophies though its unclear how much of it was born from his anger at Soon and how much of it was stuff he already believed. the fact that his message put there dates this rant as very recently after the agreement was made and that he probably lived the entire rest of his life knowing that Soon didn't actually break his oath, one must wonder what was going through his mind when those twelve weeks passed without the notification from his spell then whatever alternate bets also didn't come true. did he live his entire life in paranoia wondering when Soon would finally come or did he realize that he had been a fool after a while and just kept up the defenses because he needed to and this was all he knew how to do?
-Soon's weird. we only see him for a couple comics at the end of War and XPs. His dialogue suggests he is actually a reasonable guy and didn't really approve of Miko's actions. Though how his Sapphire Guard went about protecting the gates led to creating its own villain though.
-Kraagor was apparently "mean! grr!" when Serini met him. which suggests he was angry and not that friendly, yet everyone apparently felt strongly enough about his death that they erected a statue to his sacrifice and almost came to blows over it so it suggests that he wasn't the nicest guy on the outside but was actually a good person or at least a good friend on some level, but he apparently killed thousands of goblins while he was alive so he contributed along with Soon to make their own villain trying to get the Gates.
-Dorukan seemed like a pretty good guy in Start of Darkness from what little we see of him- he gates in angels so...he was pretty firmly on the side of good, if that counts for anything.

Side note on Girard Drakeooth:
the thing is, Girard had this weird assumption that Soon would break his oath and go looking for the gates, which suggests he didn't know paladins very well if he was counting on one to break a rule. but lets look at who Girard is: he grew up on the Western continent. y'know the place with the big desert full of constant conflict and tyrants killing each other so much that the maps have to be constantly updated. yeah, the gates are supposed to be places closest to the persons homeland, so it basically says that Girard was born on this continent, which skews his perspective of rulers towards being negative: its hard to have faith in rule of law when grow up in a place where its constantly being shattered and remade again under consistently unfair tyrants and warlords. Girard's paranoid mindset could come from living in a desert not knowing which if any person can be trusted, especially as not only the big rulers are unsafe, so are the common people who in a fantasy world will probably steal things from you to survive either as a pickpocket or as a bandit. so he'd have to constantly lie about who he is and what he is doing to everyone around him to keep himself safe.

And to be fair to Girard? his methods work for the continent and environment he is in. I doubt Girard's gate would be all that safe guarded by any number of constantly changing warlords. the whole continent would be fighting over it in a bloodbath and leave it wide open, Xykon and Redcloak would be able to exploit one side against another to seize the gate for themselves, his only real mistake was giving the real coordinates to Serini for no reason. If your not going to trust people and be paranoid, he arguably didn't go far enough. If he gave the fake coordinates to Serini as well, then Team Evil would've teleported to a random point in the desert without even a message to let them know of it. They'd be left scratching their heads over it for who knows how long? perhaps they'd teleport to Kraagor's gate anyways if they didn't find it and Girard's Gate would still be destroyed by Roy as the events surrounding that Gate practically have nothing to do with Team Evil, but it would still technically be a win for Girard if he actually stuck to distrusting people for one person more.

in fact its arguably Serini's fault for writing down these locations at all! if its supposed to be secret why put in some book that could be used to know the secret?

really the entire order of the Scribble is pretty much collectively responsible for how this all turned out, but its not really clear what their deal with each other was before Kraagor's death, aside from being incredibly specialized in certain philosophies and classes.

[Bilbo Baggins]

At this point, I'm not sure we'll ever get an exact answer for why the Order of the Scribble was so contentious with each other.

I think it's almost a given that we'll get more details about the Scribble's falling-out in this book:
- We know it was triggered by Kraagor's death
- As far as we know Kraagor was either killed directly by the Snarl or else pulled through the rift by the Snarl during the rift-sealing ritual
- So, the exact nature of Kraagor's fate is somehow linked to the nature of the Snarl and/or the world-within-the-rift, which is one of the central mysteries still remaining in the comic.

Not to mention the conspicuous dearth of information on Serini's fate, and I believe there might even be a Rich quote somewhere about Scribble lore yet to come in the comic.

[Marsala]

I think it's almost a given that we'll get more details about the Scribble's falling-out in this book:
- We know it was triggered by Kraagor's death
- As far as we know Kraagor was either killed directly by the Snarl or else pulled through the rift by the Snarl during the rift-sealing ritual
- So, the exact nature of Kraagor's fate is somehow linked to the nature of the Snarl and/or the world-within-the-rift, which is one of the central mysteries still remaining in the comic.

Not to mention the conspicuous dearth of information on Serini's fate, and I believe there might even be a Rich quote somewhere about Scribble lore yet to come in the comic.

I think this is key. The Snarl previously would reach out and devour beings close to the rifts, but it has been passive unless directly disturbed in the present, and I think that Rich commented that this change in behavior is deliberate and reflects something that has changed since the Gates were formed. Since Kraagor may have been sealed up with the Snarl, I speculate that Kraagor may have somehow partially pacified the Snarl.

[NerdyKris]

I think it's almost a given that we'll get more details about the Scribble's falling-out in this book:
- We know it was triggered by Kraagor's death
- As far as we know Kraagor was either killed directly by the Snarl or else pulled through the rift by the Snarl during the rift-sealing ritual
- So, the exact nature of Kraagor's fate is somehow linked to the nature of the Snarl and/or the world-within-the-rift, which is one of the central mysteries still remaining in the comic.

Not to mention the conspicuous dearth of information on Serini's fate, and I believe there might even be a Rich quote somewhere about Scribble lore yet to come in the comic.

Also Rich explicitly said that the story of the Scribble's falling out is integral to the story he's telling and would be in the main comic.

Jesse: Do you think you may do a prequel book about the Order of the Scribble someday, or is that not something you're sure about?

Rich: I wouldn't rule it out, but I don't currently have any plans to and I wouldn't know what I would do with it. I think the main thrust of their story needs to be included in the online strip. You need to know exactly what happened all that time ago that made them so angry at each other in order to understand the main story. So therefore I wouldn't want to shunt it to a side book. When it needs to be told, it needs to be front and center, and then once it's been told, it'll influence what people think about the characters after that.

[Bilbo Baggins]

Ah yup, that's the Rich quote I was thinking of! Thanks :)

[Lord Raziere]

I think it's almost a given that we'll get more details about the Scribble's falling-out in this book:
- We know it was triggered by Kraagor's death
- As far as we know Kraagor was either killed directly by the Snarl or else pulled through the rift by the Snarl during the rift-sealing ritual
- So, the exact nature of Kraagor's fate is somehow linked to the nature of the Snarl and/or the world-within-the-rift, which is one of the central mysteries still remaining in the comic.

Not to mention the conspicuous dearth of information on Serini's fate, and I believe there might even be a Rich quote somewhere about Scribble lore yet to come in the comic.

Hm.

Are we entirely sure that the Snarl unmakes its victims?

What if thats just a lie made up by Soon to cover up what really happens to them? the only instances of the Snarl killing someone was in a scribble flashback. What if its more like they were.....absorbed?

[Gurgeh]

I've always thought it fairly obvious that Kraagor was killed by the gate-sealing spell cast by Lirian and Dorukan. #276 makes it pretty clear that there are risks associated with it; Lirian objects to Soon's command because Soon and Kraagor are both inside the spell's area of effect and, presumably, risk being hurt or killed as a result.

Obviously, Kraagor died and Soon did not; what's not clear is why. It's possible that Soon was slightly further back from the rift itself and was outside the effect of the spell; alternatively, his superior saves (due to being a Paladin) might have allowed him to mitigate or ignore the effect, while Kraagor was not; it's even possible that the two were both equally vulnerable, but Soon got lucky while Kraagor did not.

There's also the strong implication in 276 that Girard was already poorly-disposed toward Soon before the final rift; as such, it's not easy to tell how pivotal this moment was to their relationship. On one hand, Girard may well have already hated Soon's guts: Kraagor's death could easily have left him with survivor's guilt, and he then chose to focus on somebody he already disliked as a convenient nexus of blame. It's also possible that things had been healthier, and that there was a degree of mutual respect (despite opposed philosophies and personal friction) that ended up being eroded by the events surrounding Kraagor's death; Dorukan's words during the argument make it clear that he feels Soon made a conscious decision to sacrifice Kraagor in order to defeat the Snarl (what's not addressed is whether Soon himself was similarly at risk).

[Theshipening]

the only instances of the Snarl killing someone was in a scribble flashback.

The soldier 945 on the bottom begs to differ. (Though I guess you could argue that we don’t see his eyes so maybe the tendril of god-killing abomination through his chest didn’t kill him.)

[Lord Raziere]

The soldier 945 on the bottom begs to differ. (Though I guess you could argue that we don’t see his eyes so maybe the tendril of god-killing abomination through his chest didn’t kill him.)

I mean we cut away before we see the full results, so its clear that Rich is intentionally writing it so that we don't see what actually happens to people who get stabbed by the Snarl? when normally he is not shy about showing horrific results of certain spells or other deaths, like implosion, disintegrate, things like that? he has had prime opportunities to SHOW the Snarl unmaking people rather than TELL us that is what it does, and he hasn't done that. and showing is always better than telling, because telling could be wrong. so its like, maybe, but its not 100% clear.

[Metastachydium]

I mean we cut away before we see the full results, so its clear that Rich is intentionally writing it so that we don't see what actually happens to people who get stabbed by the Snarl? when normally he is not shy about showing horrific results of certain spells or other deaths, like implosion, disintegrate, things like that? he has had prime opportunities to SHOW the Snarl unmaking people rather than TELL us that is what it does, and he hasn't done that. and showing is always better than telling, because telling could be wrong. so its like, maybe, but its not 100% clear.

The Snarl is capable of unmaking souls, not bodies.

[Aetius]

in fact its arguably Serini's fault for writing down these locations at all! if its supposed to be secret why put in some book that could be used to know the secret?

Because it was supposed to be a secret the Order of the scribble retained access to. So you'd want to preserve that knowledge in a more reliable way than memory alone.
But to be fair: the locations weren't just scribbled to these books but encrypted (IIRC). We don't know how they were deciphered but we knew it was done by a rather ressourceful epic lich.

Are we entirely sure that the Snarl unmakes its victims?

Are we entirely sure about anything?
After all - even the gods themselves don't appear to know everything regarding the Snarl.
So take everything from the crayon sections of the books with a grain of salt.

What if thats just a lie made up by Soon to cover up what really happens to them? the only instances of the Snarl killing someone was in a scribble flashback. What if its more like they were.....absorbed?

I wouldn't put any money on the epic paladin coming up with a lie to keep the truth from his fellow paladins.

[Lord Raziere]

I wouldn't put any money on the epic paladin coming up with a lie to keep the truth from his fellow paladins.

Normally yes.

But what about when his wife suffers a fate worse than death? and he himself, doesn't want to acknowledge the truth? A paladin is perfectly capable of deceiving themselves as both Miko and Gin-jun show, of holding to a belief despite all evidence to the contrary. So if Soon in the wake of such a tragedy deceived himself, lived in denial about his wife's fate to cope unable to acknowledge that she is apart of the Snarl now, and instead believes she is simply unmade, so when he tells them he doesn't believe he is lying? Its not a lie if you believe it, and paladins are all about believing things so hard that they try to make something true no matter how much the world disagrees, for good or for ill.

[KorvinStarmast]

If he gave the fake coordinates to Serini as well

All of the Order of the Scribble knew where all of the gates are.
They discovered five rifts scattered across the world. Strip 276, panel 3

What they did separately was arrive at the optimal hiding and defensive/protective methods. (Which of course have been shown to have a few flaws here and there).

[Aetius]

What if thats just a lie made up by Soon to cover up what really happens to them?

Its not a lie if you believe it

So it's not just a lie made up by Soon

All of the Order of the Scribble knew where all of the gates are.
They discovered five rifts scattered across the world. Strip 276, panel 3

What they did separately was arrive at the optimal hiding and defensive/protective methods. (Which of course have been shown to have a few flaws here and there).

That's what the scribbles tell us, which represents knowledge passed on for quite some time and therefor not entirely reliable.

Strip 694 on the other hand quite clearly shows that Girrard was condifent Soon wouldn't know where the gate was located.

[Hopeless]

I'm wondering if Soon had a death wish and Kraagor actually died saving Soon's life shaming him into reconsidering his beliefs becoming the ruler the OOTS met in Azure City?

Maybe Girard had good reason to hate Soon especially if he thought had Soon not been such an idiot Kraagor wouldn't have died saving Soon from the Snarl?

Since the Snarl killed Soon's wife it wouldn't be much of a stretch that he wanted to rejoin her as they were about to seal the last Gate wouldn't it?

[Aetius]

Since the Snarl killed Soon's wife it wouldn't be much of a stretch that he wanted to rejoin her as they were about to seal the last Gate wouldn't it?

According to legends - most likely known to or even started by Soon and his party - the Snarl doesn't simply kill his victims but unmakes their souls. So rejoining them should not be possible.

[Wildstag]

Dorukan's words during the argument make it clear that he feels Soon made a conscious decision to sacrifice Kraagor in order to defeat the Snarl (what's not addressed is whether Soon himself was similarly at risk).

That part always annoyed me somewhat, since he almost certainly was already romantically involved with Lirian at the time. Makes me wonder if he ever regretted that statement later in life, since he clearly was willing to risk the Gate to save his love.

[KorvinStarmast]

That's what the scribbles tell us, which represents knowledge passed on for quite some time and therefor not entirely reliable.

What, and adventure party doesn't travel together? Not buying what you are selling.
On the other hand, given that it was at the time out in the middle of a desert, Soon's memory of any terrain features would be sketchy to nil, so remembering 'where' in the desert the rift was would likely not be locked in Soon's memory unless he has many points in the land navigation skill, or its analogue in D&D 3.x. Girard's efforts to disguise not just the gate, but the very family lodge/pyramid that he'd built to defend it would put a nice bow on that package.

Strip 694 on the other hand quite clearly shows that Girrard was condifent Soon wouldn't know where the gate was located.

See above vis a vis land navigation in a desert.

[Riftwolf]

in fact its arguably Serini's fault for writing down these locations at all! if its supposed to be secret why put in some book that could be used to know the secret?

My own interpretation of Serini's diary isn't 'they contain the location of the gates written in code', but that its a diary of the Scribbles journey, and if you map out that journey you can find the locations of the gates. The desert location would've been more accurate than others because you have to be accurate when traversing a desert by foot; Girard might have asked her to keep navigational notes so he could spot any previous mistakes.

[Aetius]

What, and adventure party doesn't travel together? Not buying what you are selling.

Yeah, because no one ever split a party. Just doesn't happen
But I never said they did. You claimed the members of the order of the scribble knew the locations of the gate. I don't think you can base that assumption on that quote from the crayon segment. That's all.

On the other hand, given that it was at the time out in the middle of a desert, Soon's memory of any terrain features would be sketchy to nil, so remembering 'where' in the desert the rift was would likely not be locked in Soon's memory unless he has many points in the land navigation skill, or its analogue in D&D 3.x.

That seems to be the most likely explanation why Girrard expected Soon not to know the location, yes. He even mentioned beeing in charge of the maps.
A little weird given the actual gate wasn't in the middle of the featureless desert but at a landmark with a rather distinctive name. So even if Soon didn't remember the coordinates or the route they originally took, he could still the place. But whatever - we're getting off topic.