OOTS #1264 - The Discussion Thread

[sotanaht]

Thank you, Giant!

I, for one, definitely didn't expect this, and I can't wait to find out what the consequences will be.
Also, in a single comic we have white, pink, red, black and grey speech balloons. Just add an archon and a few gods and we'll be set.
Besides, unless Redcloak reached level 18 since this strip, he just cast both his 9th level spells. I wonder if this spell scroll (?) will play a role if he ends up in need of more spells.

Leveling up since then seems fairly likely, given that they've been clearing out dungeon after dungeon where even Xycon is getting experience points.

[arimareiji]

Not sure, is it just me who thinks "drains a little bit of my soul" is more of a subtle burn on EULAs ESLAs than it is a reference to XP cost?

[The MunchKING]

Now that I think about it, I suppose it couldn't, could it? Aren't liches immune to illusions?

Technically, Liches and other undead without brains are immune to mind-altering spells; which include most, but not all, Illusions. SOme Illusions are based on actually bending light around to make an objective image appear rather than just messing with everyone's head so they THINK they see something.

Wait, if the EULA (sorry, ESLA) is chanted in full, doesn't that mean the Order have weeks to plan before TE can do anything?

Nah, no way the Order’s getting THAT lucky. This should give them at least an hour or two though.

I was thinking it'd be longer than a human life time, at least.

But Redcloak said he never cast that spell before. Has the Giant made an error?

I think it's the difference between the "Costs XP" version that summons creatures, and the "Free" version that's just "Better Plane Shift".

[Pixel_Kitsune]

0Isn't demogorgon the most powerful demon lord? Plus what do you mean by on par? What planes do the other people you mentioned rule?

Always happy to lore dump.

Demogorgon is arguably one of the most powerful non deity demon princes. It's a balancing act with him, Graz'zt and Orcus usually. Though arguments can be made for Pale Night or some other things to be stronger.

As for where the others I mentioned ruled. Keep in mind I'm speaking 3.X. Many of these beings have not shown in 5e because new things have been added (Like the feywild and shadowfell).

Asmodeus is lord of Baator or The Nine Hells

Zaphkiel is the highest of the Celestial Hemodab which is the Archon rulers of Celestia

Talisid is the leader of the Companions. The Guardinal lords of Elysium. He's basically Aslan from Narnia.

Morwel is the Queen of Stars from when the Eladrin were Chaotic Good Exemplars (Think CG angels vs the ARchons being LG angels or the Devils and Demons being Lawful and Chaotic Evil).

To my knowledge none of these are officially in 5e. But OotS runs on 3.X so...

And when I say on Par I mean, it depends. Orcus managed to kill a Primus, but I'm pretty sure any god that tried to tangle with Asmodeus would die. And what Asmodeus is as LE, the Primus is as LN I'd say Primus are by default a LITTLE bit weaker because they're meant to die and be replaced. But how much a "Little bit" is is who knows when we're talking gods.

Suffice to say Thor or Zeus would be very polite to Primus on Mechanus, probably treat them as an Equal most anywhere else, and MAYBE be superior in their home domain. Back to the comic, the summoned creature is I believe 5 or 6 levels below Primus.

Would lords of the feywild, shadowfell, and elemental planes be that powerful(such as tasha, ogremech, or strahd.)

For me? Yes. For official games, I'm not sure since that stuff was added later. I don't see why they wouldn't be (The elemental lords) Strahd is absolutely weaker, not familiar with Ogremech. Tasha the mortal mage is weaker, Zybilna the Archfey? Not sure.

On a side note there, wouldn't that make mordenkainen as powerful as a god(on par with tasha, an archfey). And finally, are the other demon lords (for example, my favorite, fra'zz urbluu) as powerful as asmodeus? If you can't answer all of these that's fine, but if you can that would be awesome thank you. I can't find anything(no matter how hard I look) in the 5e main source books on the rulers of the other planes(does limbo even have one?) And yet I can't find anything about the astral, ethereal(though those probably don't count) feywild(besides archfey), shadowfell(aside from strahd, the raven queen(she's the shadowfell ruler now that I think about it) and the bone lords), plane of air(Ruler of aaracockra? Yan-C-Bin?), water(olhydra?), Fire(Immix is that elemental evil guy right?) or earth(ogremech?) besides maybe the respective genie kings; Celestia is the solars. Bytopia no Idea. Elysium no idea. Beastlands no idea. Ysgard no idea. Nine hells has asmodeus. Carceri has merlow(Just guessing from the names mood) The abyss is all of the demon lords??? Pandemonium and carceri I don't even know the fiend type that dwell there, Hades nothing outside of the obvious, and ghenna I don't know besides maybe that yugoloth guy from the monster manual. Now I haven't read every source book so I could be missing somthing. Sorry about all the questions.

Running down the list, Mordenkainen is weaker in 3.x, not sure in 5e. None of the Demon Princes would stand up well to Asmodeus, but that's a matter of nature. Some of them might have more raw power, but Asmodeus has the experience, cunning, intelligence and, quite frankly, Batman esq nature that puts him ahead of other evil things. As for the Feywild and Shadowfel and such. The Darklords of Ravenloft are not on par with gods, they're just essentially unkillable. Suffice to say in canon whatever it is that rules Ravenloft was able to capture and hold Vecna up until the point Vecna was a Greater God.

For the domains of the Outer Planes. Celestia is the Archons, Solars are angels made to serve gods specifically in 3.X lore. Bytopia has none, Elysium is Talisid and the Guardinals, Beastlands has none, Aborea is where the Eladrin are, Ysgard has none. Limbo has Slaad. etc, etc.

[BriarHobbit]

Wow. Team Evil just got a major boost. With the combination of Detect Evil, Xykon's trail of evil and the Gate Spell, I expect that Team Evil is going to make some serious progress.

[Edric O]

MINIONS!

I... I mean... MODRONS!

[Ashe]

Implying I should care about the contents of a EULA.

[gatemansgc]

That's exactly what I mean. The Mind Flayer was there for three strips for a gag of the comic being taken down for copyright infringement, while Sunny is a major character who is intended to play a major part in the final book. That's why I believe the Giant was given an agreement by WotC to add a beholder as a major character, with maybe some restrictions to avoid making it seem like beholders are free use (not directly stating Sunny is one, the number of eyes difference, stuff like that).

only the giant himself can answer this!

[Frostwander]

There goes one of Redcloak's 9th-level spells. Not sure how many a day he has, but that could make it harder for Durkon's plan, too.

[danielxcutter]

I definitely am not deeply familiar with D&D mechanics at all-- the large majority of what I've learned is through the course of trying to better understand this comic-- but with what everyone's said about Legend Lore and similar powers, that makes total sense to me as why Redcloak would specifically be summoning Lawful creatures.

Specifically these Lawful creatures; Inevitables are mostly just for smashing things. And they kinda suck at it, actually.

There goes one of Redcloak's 9th-level spells. Not sure how many a day he has, but that could make it harder for Durkon's plan, too.

It’s not like Redcloak couldn’t just pray for more spells the next day or something.

[mjasghar]

I suppose that makes sense, even if it's not as interesting.



We're not allowed to discuss religion here, but from my (admittedly limited) understanding of Mechanus, that names fits about as well as a round peg in a square hole.

Mods please don’t punish me for this 😉
D&d did a supplement with real world regions mostly ones that aren’t widely practised anymore (Norse, Greek etc) and I just edited this in case - let’s leave it there

[Souhiro]

Notably, Redcloak picking Lawful creatures to summon instead of Fiendish ones means that if things go south, his Gated allies are more likely to aid him than Xykon.

I think he picked Lawful creatures, hoping that Durkon took some anti-chaos spells. He knows the good dwarf now, after all.

About being RedC. being chaotic, I think that nothing sounds more chaotic to me that bargaining the complete annihilation of the world in order to get profit.

[Edward15]

Wow. Team Evil just got a major boost. With the combination of Detect Evil, Xykon's trail of evil and the Gate Spell, I expect that Team Evil is going to make some serious progress.

There goes the Order's advantage! By the time they're done strategizing, Team Evil may be in front of the Gate!

[KorvinStarmast]

There goes the Order's advantage! By the time they're done strategizing, Team Evil may be in front of the Gate!

Elan is Chaotic; I suspect he'll have a part to play in neutralizing the lawful, summoned allies of Team Evil.

[137beth]

Not even Redcloak reads the ToS agreement!

[JoeNapalm]

EULA Modron is best Modron.

Thanks, Rich! I needed that.


-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[alceryes]

I definitely think there's going to be some delicious friction between these lawful modrons and the chaotic Xykon.
Cain't wait!

[Crusher]

I read the strip again and realized that when reading the EULA-chant, I hear it to the tune of O Fortuna.

I'm listening to it now, specifically the version from the movie Exalibur and the video has clips of the movie. Amusingly, the video opens with a "Spoilers" warning. I mean, it came out in 1981. Surely at some point this stops being an issue.

[CountDVB]

There goes one of Redcloak's 9th-level spells. Not sure how many a day he has, but that could make it harder for Durkon's plan, too.

He should still be 17th Level, so I think he has 1 + 1 9th level spell slots. With him casting implosion already and now gate, he's tapped out there.

[Riftwolf]

My first thought was "Well, I guess this was *puts on glasses* Inevitable..."
But any high ranking Inevitable is unlikely to sign up with Xykon on the team.

[arimareiji]

I read the strip again and realized that when reading the EULA-chant, I hear it to the tune of O Fortuna.

I'm listening to it now, specifically the version from the movie Exalibur and the video has clips of the movie. Amusingly, the video opens with a "Spoilers" warning. I mean, it came out in 1981. Surely at some point this stops being an issue.

You never know. I wasn't there, but heard about this legendary exchange from those who went to see the movie Titanic back when it came out: The Captain Obvious in our group of friends snarked "We all know how it ends - the boat sinks." Our beloved-but-sometimes-a-bit-dotty friend responded in apparently-feigned anger: "[Captain]! Why'd you have to give away the ending?"

Everyone laughed at the joke... until they realized it wasn't a joke, whereupon they laughed harder. (^_^)°

[Niveus Candidus]

Oh, Modrons are fun. Could they represent one of the remaining factions that had yet to be revealed?

[Peelee]

You never know. I wasn't there, but heard about this legendary exchange from those who went to see the movie Titanic back when it came out: The Captain Obvious in our group of friends snarked "We all know how it ends - the boat sinks." Our beloved-but-sometimes-a-bit-dotty friend responded in apparently-feigned anger: "[Captain]! Why'd you have to give away the ending?"

Everyone laughed at the joke... until they realized it wasn't a joke, whereupon they laughed harder. (^_^)°

Some things are more about the journey than the destination. Especially Titanic, since it never reached its destination.

[arimareiji]

Some things are more about the journey than the destination. Especially Titanic, since it never reached its destination.

Technically, I guess you could say it reached its destination... just not the one that was originally intended.

But indeed, that was the point our also-beloved Captain Obvious was missing. And yet for some reason, he was still going - so maybe he didn't miss it after all. (^_~)

[Peelee]

Technically, I guess you could say it reached its destination... just not the one that was originally intended.

But indeed, that was the point our also-beloved Captain Obvious was missing. And yet for some reason, he was still going - so maybe he didn't miss it after all. (^_~)

It wasn't pure sarcasm but an actual complaint? Impressive!

Also, that story reminds me of high school. Freshman year, there was this girl, Crystal. Born on Halloween. The teacher was ragging on her about it a little (super small class sizes, teachers and students had a lot closer relationship than big schools). Talk later shifted to other notable "monster" days, and Crystal exclaims "I hope my birthday never falls on Friday the 13th!"

She was unaware why everyone laughed.

[danielxcutter]

I vaguely remember a Twitter post about someone's friend not knowing that Undertale had a Genocide route for like four years or something.

[Fyraltari]

Oh, Modrons are fun. Could they represent one of the remaining factions that had yet to be revealed?

Since there are more than one and they (presumbaly) don't share the goals of anyone else, I suppose you could call them a faction. Since we had no idea they would come into play, I suppose you could consider them as being revealed here.

I doubt that they'll do anymore than serve as henchpeople for Redcloak, though.

[Crusher]

I doubt that they'll do anymore than serve as henchpeople for Redcloak, though.

Yeah, I think they'll be a tool to for RC to bust open Serini's defenses and have some interesting/illuminating interactions with Team Evil (maybe accidentally making RC rethink his stance on Durkon's offer and a punchy interaction with MitD), but no more.

[arimareiji]

It wasn't pure sarcasm but an actual complaint? Impressive!

Also, that story reminds me of high school. Freshman year, there was this girl, Crystal. Born on Halloween. The teacher was ragging on her about it a little (super small class sizes, teachers and students had a lot closer relationship than big schools). Talk later shifted to other notable "monster" days, and Crystal exclaims "I hope my birthday never falls on Friday the 13th!"

She was unaware why everyone laughed.

I can only make wild guesses about anyone's mental state, but in this case I'd venture it was 10d4% complaint/derogatory wrt "Why is everyone making such a big deal about this movie" (with the rest being for humorous effect). And as noted he was going (which was more than I did), he just wanted to state his objection on principle. Because, you know, Captain Obvious. (^_~)

Maybe it's just something about girls named Crystal?

[mjasghar]

Since there are more than one and they (presumbaly) don't share the goals of anyone else, I suppose you could call them a faction. Since we had no idea they would come into play, I suppose you could consider them as being revealed here.

I doubt that they'll do anymore than serve as henchpeople for Redcloak, though.

Not really a faction then - that implies an agenda wrt the main plot or to members of the party or to the antagonists.