OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

[Luccan]

So that's why the goblins are all as tall as Roy.

[danielxcutter]

The Hobgoblin army did fine against the Azure city army, even if they did need a huge numerical advantage. I'm not sure they would have been able to kill all the paladins without Redcloak and X-Money though.

I wonder how many Goblinoids are in Azure city compared to the rest of the world. I doubt it's the entire population of Hobgoblins, but I bet it's a pretty high number.

I suspect not nearly as well, considering that Redcloak summoned the Titanium Elementals and made the Xykon decoys. Plus, if not for Xykon I doubt that the Guard would have been held up as much guarding the throne room.

Seriously, high-level casters are ridiculous in 3.5e. Xykon probably could have taken half the Azurites on his own.

[Ionathus]

Well, sure. People who read the comic and try to make a good faith effort to interpret the words as the author intended aren’t going to have much to argue about.

That’s why I never read the comic before I start to argue.

It looks like about half the people on here agree with my methods..

Dion, I'd like to take a minute to acknowledge the delightful chaotic energy you bring to this forum, and how much it brightens my day. Thanks for making me chuckle, frequently!

I have no idea why you imagine those reasons would matter to the child.

Thank you, this is the exact point of all these pages of discussion. It doesn't matter whose fault it is, nearly as much as it matters that it happened and it needs fixing. Bad things happen by accident or carelessness all the damned time, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't help fix them just because it wasn't our fault.

And I don't believe you, or anyone else, could live up to the standard you are demanding that the OOTS Gods should live up to.

Pretty nice of you to inadvertently imply that both Dion and arimareiji have the intelligence, perception, and capabilities of actual literal gods, but whatever they choose to do with their personal lives really has no bearing on their arguments.

[TARINunit9]

This revelation reminds me of when 40k started elaborating on the War In Heaven, and showed that the different races had biased (and in some cases, close-to-completely-wrong) accounts of how it went down. The Necrons (which is considered the closest to true) say it was a four-way war between Eldar+Old Ones, Krorks, C'Tan, and Necrons; the Eldar claim it was mostly a civil war between Eldar Gods with the C'Tan as bit players; and the Orks claim (when they care at all) it was some old war that resulted in the Old Ones being turned into Grots and Snotlings, who are now enslaved by their former slaves

[Squire Doodad]

I suspect not nearly as well, considering that Redcloak summoned the Titanium Elementals and made the Xykon decoys. Plus, if not for Xykon I doubt that the Guard would have been held up as much guarding the throne room.

Seriously, high-level casters are ridiculous in 3.5e. Xykon probably could have taken half the Azurites on his own.

Actually, given how much of an impact RC and Xykon had...
I'd argue if you remove Xykon wholesale and replace Redcloak with a "mysterious level 15 Goblin Cleric" figure, then the original assessment of the war would have been accurate - the goblins have far more troops but AC's defenses are very impressive; it's more or less a fair fight up until RC and Xkyon come in.
Of course, a fight not involving RC would probably mean the Sapphire Guard get involved, but a few dozen mid level Paladins probably won't turn the tide as much as the absence of an uberlich with an undead dragon and enough spells to blast the place to bits if he wanted.


...has there been anyone aside from Dorukan or Soon himself who was a fair match for Xykon (in ideal conditions for both sides)?

[CountDVB]

.has there been anyone aside from Dorukan or Soon himself who was a fair match for Xykon (in ideal conditions for both sides)?

I mean, Lirian was a powerful Druid. In ideal conditions (where she would’ve prepared spells against undead), she would definitely fare a lot better. Unless that isn’t what you meant...

[dancrilis]

...has there been anyone aside from Dorukan or Soon himself who was a fair match for Xykon (in ideal conditions for both sides)?

Spoiler: SOD

Show

Fryon - Had Xykon seemingly beaten until Xykon used an improvised weapon.
Lirian - Had Xykon beaten until Xykon came back as a Lich.

Spoiler: W&XP

Show

The Silver Dragon - I don't think we saw enough to say for sure but might have had Xykon beaten until he got assistance from Shelby.

Whether any of those count as ideal conditions for both sides I don't know but I wouldn't count Dorukan or Soon as ideal conditions for both sides either (Soon I would say did have ideal conditions for Soon).

It doesn't matter whose fault it is, nearly as much as it matters that it happened and it needs fixing.

But what happened - the Goblins got bad land? Ok how could that have been solved and how could it be solved now?
Assume for a moment that the goblin population started as 1,000 and the Dwarf population started as a 1,000 and that they each got 1,000,000 units of X.
Assume that Dwarves double the population every 100 years and goblins do it every 10 years.
That means after 100 years the Dwarves have 2,000 people with an average 500 units of X, goblins have 1,024,000 with less then 1 unit of X each on average.

If Unit X is '1 pound of Iron' then dwarves end up heavily armoured and weaponed and goblins don't - and since goblins likely have to compete with each other for scarse resources they likely have a lot more infighting.

Now maybe the gods gave the Dwarves 1500 units of X and the Goblins 500 units of X to begin with but that doesn't really change anything after a bit of time passes, the goblins still have less then 1 Unit of X each.

Taking all the Dwarf X and redistributing it now will still have the same problem once a bit more time passes anyway - a potential solution might be goblin mass sterilisation/fertility suppression program but that is likely not the equality that Redcloak would accept.

[Yarrun]

They've been presented almost entirely as a group which listens only to force. It's regrettable, but that's basically how they've been shown to be.

One, we've mainly seen the military side of goblin culture by virtue of the narrative following human (and elven, dwarven, etc.) adventurers and soldiers who would only interact with goblin culture through combat and warfare. From the perspective of the average goblin in Redcloak's army, the average human also only listens to force.

Two, you're completely forgetting about the bugbears of the north, who are still goblinoids. Oona seems relatively chill, has been shown to be fond of philosophical arguments, and doesn't attack unknown Good-aligned humanoids without reason. Not unsurprising given that, while life in the Arctic isn't exactly a walk in the park, they don't seem to have any competition from any other sapient races. Likewise, the goblins in the Southern Mountains have had to coexist with the Azurites and any other cultures in the area. Of course they're going to have a largely martial culture under those circumstances.

[Fyraltari]

Yup this is about how I expected the thread to go. At least Dion is here to liven the mood somewhat.

[locksmith of lo]

It seems Durkon didn't have much thought to the implications of D&D afterlife being a glorified albeit complex digestive tract; at least until now.

and that is the most horrifying summation of OOTS theology that i have yet seen... thanks for the visual!

[Aristocles22]

One, we've mainly seen the military side of goblin culture by virtue of the narrative following human (and elven, dwarven, etc.) adventurers and soldiers who would only interact with goblin culture through combat and warfare. From the perspective of the average goblin in Redcloak's army, the average human also only listens to force.

Two, you're completely forgetting about the bugbears of the north, who are still goblinoids. Oona seems relatively chill, has been shown to be fond of philosophical arguments, and doesn't attack unknown Good-aligned humanoids without reason. Not unsurprising given that, while life in the Arctic isn't exactly a walk in the park, they don't seem to have any competition from any other sapient races. Likewise, the goblins in the Southern Mountains have had to coexist with the Azurites and any other cultures in the area. Of course they're going to have a largely martial culture under those circumstances.

We've only seen a military side of them (the hydra-burger goblin and a few joke characters notwithstanding) because that's practically all there is to show, especially for the hyper-militarized hobgoblins. Not that human societies can't be highly-militarized too, but I'll refrain from any examples. I'm sure you can think of a few from other sources off the top of your head. As for Oona, she's funny on the surface, but you need to remember that she's working with a lich and a goblin supremacist. There's not much good which can come from her with that in mind. Maybe she'll have a change of heart, but I highly doubt it. Most likely she'll be killed by the two she's working with when it's convenient for them to do so, or if they need an object of her size to be thrown at someone or something. And her not-so-little dog will die too. Working with Xykon and Redcloak has been shown to be very bad for one's health.

And that doesn't really do anything to disprove my point, which was that all we've seen of the goblins are violent, terrible people, invading armies, evil mages, and the occasional joke character. We may be told about others and maybe there was a mother hobgoblin in a cutaway joke once, but I'm just reporting on what we've been shown for 1232 pages over the course of many, many years. Maybe I missed something in the prequel books and other material, but there has been very little depiction of the goblinoids as anything but violent medium-size savages. And Colonel Sanders. Like it or not, it's hard to swallow the idea of them being anything but that when that's all we see of them, and they exist in a fantasy world where the same applicability of generalizations (or lack thereof) doesn't count as it does in reality. If we had seen a substantial amount of them doing anything but killing, torturing, invading, or attacking other people, it would be easier to accept that idea than otherwise. Right now, any non-violent tendencies among them is really an informed attribute, spoken about (and rarely so) but (almost) never shown.

Frankly, until they are brought to a point where they aren't a threat, they have to be opposed, no matter what happened to them in the past. Past injustices, if any, can only be addressed after the violence has stopped. You don't excuse present bad behavior by bringing up ancient wrongs. If they are willing to put down their weapons and negotiate, then no one should harm them, but until then, force has to be used. It's just the way it is. We saw what happened when negotiations were attempted just now. It got ugly.

[Ruck]

You should definitely read Start of Darkness.

[dancrilis]

You should definitely read Start of Darkness.

And once that is finished 'How the Paladin Got His Scar' might be worth a look also.

[Aristocles22]

You should definitely read Start of Darkness.

Perhaps. Even so, from what I understand, it's got a fairly standard supervillian origin story for Redcloak. And the lich creation process.

Even if his village was wiped out, that doesn't even begin to excuse anything he did, and I don't think it was intended to excuse anything. I'm also fairly certain that the humans have their own side of the story. Lawful good characters don't just commit massacres. They can't do that and remain good. Lawful maybe, but not good.

[danielxcutter]

{Scrubbed}

[Aristocles22]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

If a paladin seemingly committed a massacre of innocents (an evil act) and kept any abilities which required them to remain good, then the people they killed must have been valid targets for some reason. As in, the act itself wasn't evil, so they must have been soldiers or other active combatants. It's kind of a litmus test. You can't bisect any octogenarians who didn't pose a threat and remain a good paladin either.

[dancrilis]

If a paladin seemingly committed a massacre of innocents (an evil act) and kept any abilities which required them to remain good, then the people they killed must have been valid targets for some reason. As in, the act itself wasn't evil, so they must have been soldiers or other active combatants. It's kind of a litmus test. You can't bisect any octogenarians who didn't pose a threat and remain a good paladin either.

You are half looking at this backwards - the Paladins are not the core of the story so what they do or don't do and what happens to them is only relevant as it impacts the central characters of the story.

As such if they fell or didn't fall and if they were justified or not does not have a lot of baring on anything.

You can form justifications for the paladins actions in general (protecting the world) - but some specific paladins certainly commited acts that are worthy of falling, whether they did or not or whether then needed atonement or not is not relevant for the story being told.

[Nymrod]

Ultimately the thing that makes Redcloak Evil with a capital "E" is not what he does but WHY he does it. It seems fairly clear that for a long time now, his commitment to the Plan is not about goblins, it's about him not having to face the consequences of his actions against the people he is supposed to care for. What we mainly see out of Redcloak is rationalizing all the goblins he has sacrificed for the plan. Which is largely why he blows up on Durkon; not because he doesn't see merit in what Durkon is suggesting but because if at any point he steps back all the sacrifices become meaningless and he is a monster (and Durkon is very much aware of that).

Is the average goblin evil in such an extent though? Most of the Western Mountain goblins are nothing less than survivors of a genocide. They will do what they have to survive and they bear a very justified grudge towards the Azurites but that at worst makes them neutral, not evil. Nothing they do in Azure City is really disproportionate; heck the goblins didn't really make much of an effort to stop the Azurites from evacuating and they prefer keeping slaves instead of just killing everyone.

As for the Dark One, he is evil. Heck even if he was not evil when he ascended, by virtue of his divine nature, his alignment would become far more defining of him than it ever can be for a mortal.

[Ruck]

Perhaps. Even so, from what I understand, it's got a fairly standard supervillian origin story for Redcloak. And the lich creation process.

Even if his village was wiped out, that doesn't even begin to excuse anything he did, and I don't think it was intended to excuse anything. I'm also fairly certain that the humans have their own side of the story. Lawful good characters don't just commit massacres. They can't do that and remain good. Lawful maybe, but not good.

Yeah, this is why you need to read it, rather than make the assumptions about it that confirm what you already believe.

[Aristocles22]

Ultimately the thing that makes Redcloak Evil with a capital "E" is not what he does but WHY he does it. It seems fairly clear that for a long time now, his commitment to the Plan is not about goblins, it's about him not having to face the consequences of his actions against the people he is supposed to care for. What we mainly see out of Redcloak is rationalizing all the goblins he has sacrificed for the plan. Which is largely why he blows up on Durkon; not because he doesn't see merit in what Durkon is suggesting but because if at any point he steps back all the sacrifices become meaningless and he is a monster (and Durkon is very much aware of that).

Is the average goblin evil in such an extent though? Most of the Western Mountain goblins are nothing less than survivors of a genocide. They will do what they have to survive and they bear a very justified grudge towards the Azurites but that at worst makes them neutral, not evil. Nothing they do in Azure City is really disproportionate; heck the goblins didn't really make much of an effort to stop the Azurites from evacuating and they prefer keeping slaves instead of just killing everyone.

As for the Dark One, he is evil. Heck even if he was not evil when he ascended, by virtue of his divine nature, his alignment would become far more defining of him than it ever can be for a mortal.

I'm quite certain that enslaving the city, practicing widespread torture, throwing (or at least being prepared to throw) people into a rift with a Lovecratian nightmare on the other side, and consorting with a lich are all quite terrible. No past crimes one has suffered justify any of that behavior. Moreover, most (almost all?) of the forces who took Azure City were Hobgoblins, not Redcloak's species. If species is the right word here. They're both medium-sized so there's less of a distinction besides skin color here. And frankly, "only" keeping slaves is terrible. They actually DID try to stop some ships from leaving, even summoning a kraken in one case. Do keep in mind that taking the city and rift were the goals, not stopping all escapees.

There's no point in trying to justify their behaviors. Yes, Redcloak is a tragic villain, but I don't think any part of the story excuses him or anyone on his side. Now, what Azure City did was bad, but you don't return evil for evil, and kill/enslave a much larger number of humans in return for some villages which were wiped out to reduce any possible threats to a rift which could end all existence if opened. Not that that justifies the Azurites either, but I wasn't trying to justify them. Their leadership ought to have been held accountable for any killings, along with the specific soldiers who did or ordered the deed. You don't just kill, enslave, and conquer an entire metropolis of a city over that.

[Aristocles22]

Yeah, this is why you need to read it, rather than make the assumptions about it that confirm what you already believe.

I'll read it or a summary. I have other things to spend my money on, and I know this is a paid story, so I might not bother. It's just a silly little comic.

[tanonev]

If a paladin seemingly committed a massacre of innocents (an evil act) and kept any abilities which required them to remain good, then the people they killed must have been valid targets for some reason. As in, the act itself wasn't evil, so they must have been soldiers or other active combatants. It's kind of a litmus test. You can't bisect any octogenarians who didn't pose a threat and remain a good paladin either.

Relevant word of Giant

[Ruck]

I'll read it or a summary. I have other things to spend my money on, and I know this is a paid story, so I might not bother. It's just a silly little comic.

Yeah, I don't even know what to say here anymore. Given the effort you've put into reflexively defending mass slaughter of goblins and assuming it must have been justified-- despite what the author has said about the themes of the story and the reasons he writes it, or what other people have tried to tell you actually happens in said story-- calling it "a silly little comic" not only demeans the story but also raises the question of why you have put so much time into defending the black-and-white race-based morality of the paladins who massacred the goblins. That's a lot of posting today for a silly little comic, after all.

[Aristocles22]

Relevant word of Giant

He's being very vague on purpose. "Some may have crossed the line and some may not have." That doesn't really paint a clear moral picture either way, but it does lower it from being a clear atrocity if some "may have crossed the line." If he came out straight and said "they're all fallen and it was an act of indisputable evil and a stain on all of their reputations in the eyes of heaven", that would be another. It does seem like some of them fell and others did not, meaning that some targets were valid and others weren't, meaning it wasn't purely a massacre, or it would be much clearer.

I'm not defending a massacre, but the event was clearly a much more gray-area situation, which is why not all paladins there fell. I don't take it as a black-and-white situation.

[Aristocles22]

Yeah, I don't even know what to say here anymore. Given the effort you've put into reflexively defending mass slaughter of goblins and assuming it must have been justified-- despite what the author has said about the themes of the story and the reasons he writes it, or what other people have tried to tell you actually happens in said story-- calling it "a silly little comic" not only demeans the story but also raises the question of why you have put so much time into defending the black-and-white race-based morality of the paladins who massacred the goblins. That's a lot of posting today for a silly little comic, after all.

{Scrubbed}

[Rrmcklin]

I have to ask, is there no rule about double-posting? Because Aristocles22 is doing it continuously and they're the only person I've ever seen doing it on this site (so frequently, anyway).

[dancrilis]

I have to ask, is there no rule about double-posting? Because Aristocles22 is doing it continuously and they're the only person I've ever seen doing it on this site (so frequently, anyway).

It happens occassionally - you can flag it to the mods if you feel it is a problem, personally I generally leave them alone unless I think something is likely a wider issue then merely annoying me.

[Ruck]

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Well, now that you've gone from insulting the work to insulting me personally, I think you've only confirmed my analysis that you have no interest in actually reading anything in or about the comic that would change your already-made-up mind, and that I have no reason to further engage someone who falls back on "this story is stupid because I say it is" when their assumptions are challenged.

I have to ask, is there no rule about double-posting? Because Aristocles22 is doing it continuously and they're the only person I've ever seen doing it on this site (so frequently, anyway).

There certainly is such a rule.

[Sapphire Guard]

Honestly I think the hobgoblins chances are improved in Azure city without Xykon and Redcloak, as they don't use strategies like 'wait for enough of our soldiers to be killed to make a ramp.'

Xykon didn't take a hand at all until the throne room, they don't need him.

[dancrilis]

Honestly I think the hobgoblins chances are improved in Azure city without Xykon and Redcloak, as they don't use strategies like 'wait for enough of our soldiers to be killed to make a ramp.'

Xykon didn't take a hand at all until the throne room, they don't need him.

You mean in relation to the battle itself (and the aftermath) - I disagree.

Xykon took out a fairly reliable seer early on in the battle and removed Roy from the fight, he also recruited Tuskiko who began to open up a force behind the main force and then took out a significant number of mid-level paladins.
In the aftermath it was then his reputation that prevented other nations joining the Azurites to reclaim their home and his magic that prevented scrying on or communication with the city.

Redcloak I think is less important but even then his tactics split the party and effectively nullified a mid level wizard and opened up entry to for the hobgoblin forces - while his Heucuva occupied the leader of the azurite forces and a mid-level cleric - and in the aftermath moved to establish trade relations which of nothing else would likely act as protection from invasion by neighbouring forces.

I think that Gobbotopia might be better now that both are gone (and it has a few things established) - but I don't think the hobgoblins would have won had they sat on their hands and let the hobgoblins run the invasion as they sat back to watched the show.