OOTS #1228 - The Discussion Thread

[locksmith of lo]

oh, man! she really got him there!

[Psyren]

That was too good for a guess, Serini. Who is your daddy and what does he do How much do you know and how do you know it?

I did not know I wanted an art upgrade to the Azure City throne room fight until now.

Miko's fall would be a good scene for such a treatment.

+1000

[Nymrod]

The throne room is protected from scrying. Remember even Xykon couldn't see into the room.

There are ways within RAW to find what happened even without scrying. Most divinations that look into the past do not require a scrying censor after all. All Serini would really need is a scroll of Contact Other Plane, Legend Lore or Commune.

Heck she could even NOT know what happened but have any number of items that allow Detect Thoughts at will and thus have found out what happened from the paladins right in front of her.

[Skull the Troll]

Xykon's goals are basically use the Snarl as a doomsday weapon to conquer the world.

But that won't happen. Instead the Dark One will use the gate as Mutually Assured Destruction to get what he wants. And there's probably a risk that the Gods decide to destroy the world before he can do that.

How will the gods destroy the world? Only one minor deity hasn't made their decision yet and he's not going to until the leaders of the Dwarf clan can find a big enough tree to kill and make a table out of. To do anything else means breaking a compact that has lasted for apparently billions of years. The gods are split exactly evenly at this point and the whole point of this process is to prevent conflict amongst the gods, any conflict they have will cause the exact problem they need to prevent. Plus Thor and Odin at least at this point are beginning to understand that they DONT actually understand the nature of Snarl.

I figure the gate stays up until the story is over. From a bards perspective, the climax of this story is not going to end with a buff dwarf going going, "Nooope, too dangerous" and pulling the plug.

[Segev]

Thanks for the reminders of Xykon's plans, TDO/Redcloak's plans, et al.

How ironic that the gods at this point would offer TDO a deal comparable to the one he wants to hold them at pseudo-metaphorical gunpoint for, without him having to threaten anything more than has already occurred.

This actually means that, if Xykon and Redcloak perform the ritual, Thor might still be able to negotiate with TDO. Sure, TDO thinks that it's all 'cause he's got the power, but if Thor can convince him that he, at least, is on-side for working with TDO to re-seal the Snarl more securely, and is willing to give a real seat at the metaphorical divine table for it, even if TDO holds the gun he might be brought around. That's promising.

[Windscion]

How will the gods destroy the world? Only one minor deity hasn't made their decision yet and ....

Irrelevent, because the vote was to destroy the world "immediately." If the gate goes down, the moot becomes, well, moot. The gods will act to preserve the souls that they can as they have done millions of times before.

[Fyraltari]

Thanks for the reminders of Xykon's plans, TDO/Redcloak's plans, et al.

How ironic that the gods at this point would offer TDO a deal comparable to the one he wants to hold them at pseudo-metaphorical gunpoint for, without him having to threaten anything more than has already occurred.

Do they, though? (Panel 4).

Not to mention, you assume that the Dark One still only wants equality for the goblins at this point.

[Reboot]

Of course, the paladins don't know about the Godsmoot stuff any more than Sereni, remember

[Deuce]

Just a thought, while it may not make narrative sense at this point, wouldn't she know how the Gates were made (and could be remade)?

[Fyraltari]

Just a thought, while it may not make narrative sense at this point, wouldn't she know how the Gates were made (and could be remade)?

They were made by the cooperation of an Epic Wizard and an Epic Druid both of whom are dead. Don't think they can be remade in the near future.

[snowblizz]

Just a thought, while it may not make narrative sense at this point, wouldn't she know how the Gates were made (and could be remade)?

Likely yes. Unless somehow it requires certain skills only available to divine and or arcane spellcasters.

[Lord Torath]

Of course, the paladins don't know about the Godsmoot stuff any more than Sereni, remember

Durkon/Vaarsuvius Sent to them just yesterday. They should know almost everything the Order knows.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Why does Serini need magic to find out anything about O-chul? Good old fashion spies seem like more of a rogue thing to do.

[Werbaer]

The throne room is protected from scrying. Remember even Xykon couldn't see into the room.

"Even Xykon"? Xykon is epic level, but he has to buy a magic item to scry.

[Robots]

Updaaaaate!

So glad. I don't really have anything of note to say, I'm just pretty happy that the comic updated.

[Windscion]

They were made by the cooperation of an Epic Wizard and an Epic Druid both of whom are dead. Don't think they can be remade in the near future.

Both of whom are in a soulgem owned by Xykon. If Xykon goes down, releasing the lovers is a relatively simple matter. Just don't know if the level penalty would prevent them from duplicating their earlier work.

[The MunchKING]

OK, she's been scrying him, despite the fact that that was supposed to be impossible for the throne room. That's WAY too specific and covering the exact loophole that happened to be something she just made up on the spur of the moment.

[Ghosty]

Durkon/Vaarsuvius Sent to them just yesterday. They should know almost everything the Order knows.

At 25 words at a time though. Lots of room for confusion there.

If Serini's really as on top of this as she seems to be with her knowing about O-Chul's katana, doesn't she know that Xykon et al, aren't a threat right now, or for the next month or so? I mean, Team Evil can conceivably be doing this endless dungeon crawl for a really long time. Neither RC nor X seemingly have any clue that there's a shell game going on. They might, once they clean out that dungeon and find neither Dwarven cleric, but up to that point, they've been completely in the dark.

Which leads to the question of, if she didn't want the Paladins interfering, because they couldn't possibly stop Xykon, but could conceivably destroy the Gate, why mess with them at all? All they were doing was sitting on the ledge, undiscovered, and would be until the Order showed up.

Messing with the Order, OTOH, is something else entirely. That group actually would try to find Xykon and/or the Gate, and push the issue. And if the Order has been Sending at her this whole time, doesn't Serini know they're coming?

[Ghosty]

Both of whom are in a soulgem owned by Xykon. If Xykon goes down, releasing the lovers is a relatively simple matter. Just don't know if the level penalty would prevent them from duplicating their earlier work.

Does Serini know that? I mean, she knows everything else, but do we know she knows what happened to L&D?

[Thales]

I feel like O-Chul is selling himself short here. He has most of Xykon's build figured out thanks to personal experience probably unmatched among any of the lich's enemies. Moreover, he's one of the people who Xykon (and probably Redcloak too) would drop everything to go after. Coupled with his durability, he's the ultimate decoy — that's the sort of thing that very likely could improve whatever plan Serini has cooked up to use against Xykon.

[Peelee]

Both of whom are in a soulgem owned by Xykon. If Xykon goes down, releasing the lovers is a relatively simple matter. Just don't know if the level penalty would prevent them from duplicating their earlier work.

Let's say they get freed.

Still dead.

[Blue Dragon]

The throne room is protected from scrying. Remember even Xykon couldn't see into the room.

And Mr. Stiffly was under the Cloister effect, then. But she could be scrying, say, Hinjo.

[DaOldeWolf]

Well, it seems like we have found some leeway. They just need to teer this in the right direction.

[Resileaf]

An argument O-Chul could make is that destroying Soon's gate made sense at the time because he knew there were two other gates still standing, and so destroying that gate in particular was a delaying tactic that would prevent Xykon from winning right there and then. This is no longer the case with this last gate, it's the only one left and pulling all the stops to defeat Xykon is the only possible thing left to do.

[Ionathus]

Interesting that Serini's justification for not cooperating isn't actually the "you doofuses are too incompetent to succeed" route that I'd been expecting: it's more of a "paladins are too willing to take the nuclear option" argument.

Maybe it's like how parents say "don't touch the baby bird or the mother will abandon it" which isn't true...but telling the child something like "you won't be careful enough and might hurt it" is too nuanced and easier for the child to object to ("nuh-uh, I'll be really careful!!"). The difference between a philosophical hardline and a debatable point of physical skill.

Also nice to see that Serini doesn't share Girard's paladin-hate...but I still don't blame her for being wary of their help.

[Fyraltari]

Both of whom are in a soulgem owned by Xykon. If Xykon goes down, releasing the lovers is a relatively simple matter. Just don't know if the level penalty would prevent them from duplicating their earlier work.

Assuming the gem wasn't destroyed with Xykon's former body. Isn't there a time limit on resurrection? And doesn't it require a body part?

[Anitar]

Although the art upgrade does retroactively make Mr. Stiffly's role 'eating' the fat-free scone rather less plausible.

Check 1228 a bit closer. The flashback panel wasn't the moment that Xykon paralyzed O-Chul. Presumably that happened a few moments later, when he was mid-slash.

[brionl]

That throne room was protected from scrying by a spell powerful enough to keep Xykon from looking inside, yet Serini seems to know what happened there.I wonder how she got that information.

They all had to work together to seal the gates in the first place. Being the rogue she is, I wouldn't consider it out of character for her to slip in some sort of magical bug on the sapphire to allow her to snoop, and presumably on all the other gates too. Beyond just the good/bad monitor that the others had.

[The MunchKING]

Looking at it logically, the only people who could have witnessed it were; the Paladins, of which only O-chul survived, the Ghost Paladins + Soon (so she would need someway to contact souls on another plane), Xykon & Redcloak (Again immune to being scried on and unlikely to discuss it with her), and Miko (who also died). So fleshy-spy is out (Because big explosion), scrying is out, The Gods have all info on the Snarl and the Gate on lock-down so they won't tell her with Divine magic, the only logical explanation seems to be that she had someway to contact Soon's ghost.

EDIT: Or read O-chul's mind. Have to break his WILL save, but I saw someone posit that would work.

Also while the Order may have been filling her in on the tactical info, 25 words per casting is not much to be getting around to the local Paladins gossip. Also O-chul specifically didn't tell them about it because he thought it wasn't really relevant and would only serve to degrade Miko's good (such as it was) name.

Since the throne room itself was warded, maybe Serini actually scryed on O-Chul saying "It was my blade that did the deed." and spotted the technicality.

I think he was still CLoistered at that point. Tsukiko seems to think so too.

'you can't sneak attack a liche since it's undead ' ... which is one of D&D 3.5e's stupider rules ... )

Well I mean the idea of being unable to do precision damage that involves stabbing him in all the bleedy-bits should be self evident when you consider he's just a skeleton.

[TuringTest]

It's reading more like a logical inference, I think, with a bit of Soon's character to inform her. Xykon wouldn't have destroyed the gate, so someone must have.

Yes, that was my take too

That was insanely specific. Did Dorukan or Girard have some sort of super-scry set up? Or is it just a coincidence that Miko used his sword?

I'd say, none of them. Serini didn't scry on that scene, nor her phrasing is merely a coincidence. O-Chul wants to rephrase the oath into something in the future; and her guessing his motives in the most sarcastic way is likely to bring some reasons similar to why O-Chul would do that.


This strip brings the question of exactly how much Serini, who claims to know 'all about Xykon', is aware of the plan to use the Gate to blackmail the gods. (It's likely that she knows about RedCloaks spell by spying on Team Evil, but we are not sure).