Didn't Need An Army

[Aquillion]

In AD&D, spellcasters had very substantial limits on their power and could not assault large cities alone, and every major D&D setting except Eberron was designed primarily during the AD&D years.

Could you go into more detail? This doesn't match my experience.

AD&D spellcasters were weaker at lower levels (because the game provided less "baseline" competence; every edition since has steadily given more and more.)

But at higher levels they were, on the whole, much stronger, simply because AD&D had many much more powerful spells. Like, AD&D Insect Swarm dealt 1000 damage.

Chromatic Orb, while technically a low-level spell, was also completely absurd because of how brutally it scaled at higher levels. Like, if a ninth level caster hits you with it, it paralyzes you even if you save. And if you fail your save? Instant death. From a first level spell slot!

Damage spells in general were stronger in AD&D because hit point totals were smaller.

[awa]

a lot of caster defenses were less reliable, combined with bounded accuracy meant that large numbers of weak attackers could do more damage.

Second it is harder to get exactly the spell/items you want, so the fact that the ultimate spell might exists only matters if you have it.

Third their are a lot more mechanics that just say ignore all the normal rules do this instead, which makes the perfect white room planning less reliable.

fourth Recovering spells was far more time consuming meaning that going nova might leave you very vulnerable for an extended duration.

[Mechalich]

Could you go into more detail? This doesn't match my experience.

AD&D spellcasters were weaker at lower levels (because the game provided less "baseline" competence; every edition since has steadily given more and more.)

But at higher levels they were, on the whole, much stronger, simply because AD&D had many much more powerful spells. Like, AD&D Insect Swarm dealt 1000 damage.

Chromatic Orb, while technically a low-level spell, was also completely absurd because of how brutally it scaled at higher levels. Like, if a ninth level caster hits you with it, it paralyzes you even if you save. And if you fail your save? Instant death. From a first level spell slot!

Damage spells in general were stronger in AD&D because hit point totals were smaller.

There are many reasons. First, AD&D casters had fewer spells overall and a more truncated progression. There were no bonus spell slots for higher ability scores, and Cleric casting topped out at level 7. Second, in AD&D defenses against magic used flat values rather than scaling. Magic Resistance, most obviously, was simply a flat failure chance, allowing creatures with high magic resistance to just outright ignore most magical attacks (a skeleton warrior had a 90% magic resistance in 2e, making it the mage killer, something easily demonstrated in BGII). Likewise, saves were flat values. High-level individuals functionally never failed their saves. That Save or Die effect tied to chromatic orb? Functionally useless, since by the time it activated it had something like a 10% chance of working. In 3.X D&D saves and SR scale with level, meaning that a well-built caster can, and should, overcome them nearly all the time. Third, there was no metamagic, period. Fourth, magic items were less powerful and more bespoke, scaling ineffectively with character abilities, and there were limits on how much they (and the Wish spell) could be used to increase ability scores. A stupidly powerful AD&D caster might have a 20 in their primary stat, an equivalent character in 3.X might well have a 40. Fifth, in 2e, a caster can be disrupted by taking any damage during their attempt to cast the spell, which is a quite wide interval, a tactic that was basically removed from 3e entirely. And this is just a limited sample, I could on for pages.

Yes, direct damage spells were more powerful in 2e. But everything else spellcasters can do is much, much more powerful in 3.X. With regards to abilities that matter for attacking extremely large numbers of weaker enemies, it's differences like metamagic - which allows for persistent defenses vastly superior to anything in 2e - and the advanced capabilities of minionomancy - which are much better codified in 3e - that are what really matter.

[awa]

which are much better codified in 3e

I think this important second edition had a lot more uncertainty in what abilities actually did and a lot of the dm advice was about how to weaken parties to prevent them from getting to powerful.

I was recently coming one of my old second edition item compendiums for ideas and it was shocking how often they would have some fairly trivial bonus with significant down sides that they felt was so overpowering that they would warn the dm how this would destroy their entire campaign if the dm was not ready to take it away/ destroy it.

edit

Like, AD&D Insect Swarm dealt 1000 damage.
.

I cant find a spell called insect swarm
their is a spell called creeping doom that could theoretically deal 1000 dam but its far from likely

it creates d6+4 x100 insects each of which deal 1 dam (then dies) however it has a range of 0 and the swarm only moves 10ft per round and it specifically states "their are a number of ways to thwart or destroy the creatures forming the swarm. The solutions are left to the imagination of the players and dms"

as its casting time is 1 rnd that means it goes off at the end of the rnd so if our priest takes even a single dam during the entire turn he loses the spell entirely.

this is certainly a powerful spell but it has a lot of built in points of failure.

edit 2
I cant find chromatic orb in the spell compendium
I remember it from a computer game but have never seen it in a book

[Bacon Elemental]

I always thought it was less that Soon's Gate is neccessarily better protected in general (it is, after all, the MOST vulnerable to accidental destruction by a long way), but that its protected by an entirely different paradigm, eschewing the "level-inappropriate dungeon crawler for 4-6 evil players" designs of Dorukan, Girard, and Serini in favour of being nestled in plain sight in the throne room of a powerful regional capital, guarded by a secret order of paladins and one last deathless defense.

[Errorname]

I always thought it was less that Soon's Gate is neccessarily better protected in general (it is, after all, the MOST vulnerable to accidental destruction by a long way), but that its protected by an entirely different paradigm, eschewing the "level-inappropriate dungeon crawler for 4-6 evil players" designs of Dorukan, Girard, and Serini in favour of being nestled in plain sight in the throne room of a powerful regional capital, guarded by a secret order of paladins and one last deathless defense.

This was basically the starting point of the entire argument, that Soon's Gate shifts the genre from D&D dungeon crawl into large scale war and politics.

[gbaji]

This was basically the starting point of the entire argument, that Soon's Gate shifts the genre from D&D dungeon crawl into large scale war and politics.

Well. And also security through obscurity/misdirection. All of the other locations (except maybe Lirian's) were obviously "dungeons", that an attacking/adventuring group would likely wander through, fighting the defenders and looking for stuff (Durokon's was literally this). If someone was there in the first place, even if not specifically looking for the gate, they would eventually find it (assuming they weren't killed/driven off). The defenses themselves suggested something to defend, and that something was the gate.

Soon's gate is completely different. By buiding the tower and throne room around the gate, and placing the gate in a gem set in the throne, the defenses around it could reasonably be explained away as normal defences a throne room, in a tower, in a large city, would just have. Soon added in the extra layer of his paladins and the Saphire Guard to these other defenses (and the ghost martyrs as well, but few knew about that). So most people, even if they were physically in the throne room, would not look twice at the gem, nor think it was a gate holding back a rift in reality. The Order certainly didn't. They had to be told it was there. And they knew about the gates.

TE only knew the gate was there as a result of very fortuitously timed scrying. Anyone else would have no clue, and there would be nothing obvious to go looking for. The only locations in the city that are well defended are exactly the kinds of locations and things you would expect to be well defended in a city. So... Where do you begin?

[brian 333]

Well. And also security through obscurity/misdirection. All of the other locations (except maybe Lirian's) were obviously "dungeons", that an attacking/adventuring group would likely wander through, fighting the defenders and looking for stuff (Durokon's was literally this). If someone was there in the first place, even if not specifically looking for the gate, they would eventually find it (assuming they weren't killed/driven off). The defenses themselves suggested something to defend, and that something was the gate.

Soon's gate is completely different. By buiding the tower and throne room around the gate, and placing the gate in a gem set in the throne, the defenses around it could reasonably be explained away as normal defences a throne room, in a tower, in a large city, would just have. Soon added in the extra layer of his paladins and the Saphire Guard to these other defenses (and the ghost martyrs as well, but few knew about that). So most people, even if they were physically in the throne room, would not look twice at the gem, nor think it was a gate holding back a rift in reality. The Order certainly didn't. They had to be told it was there. And they knew about the gates.

TE only knew the gate was there as a result of very fortuitously timed scrying. Anyone else would have no clue, and there would be nothing obvious to go looking for. The only locations in the city that are well defended are exactly the kinds of locations and things you would expect to be well defended in a city. So... Where do you begin?

Apparently with a divinition spell. I hear those things work really well for defenders.

On another note: I apologize for the delay. I intend to get back to this thread soon, but an opportunity to work overtime has devoured my free time.

Should I just not bother doing any looking into the comics for this? Are we that far off the comic's reality, and so far into Brian's Warmachine time, that established order of event into which neither Team Evil nor their army had input don't matter?

Miko chased Belkar. THEN Shojo ordered her to stop. THEN gave her the mail job, sending her one way while the Order prepared to go another. The only thing that later brought them into the same room was the urgency of her knowledge of the army and meeting Team Evil themselves.

If you're going to propose alternate events, get better at working butterfly effects.

When the argument devolves into an 'insult the last poster' contest, I have won. The truth is, I misremembered something from a decade ago. However, having re-read the relevant portion of the comic, my point stands.

Miko is a horrible candidate for being the one to hunt down Xykon, because at every turn of her story she blames the OotS!

Assume that she returns from The North, just as in the comic, but in this scenario there is no army to discover. Instead, she returns to discover that assassinations have occurred in her absence. She then goes to the Throne Room to report on her mission and overhears Shojo and Roy.

Does she blame Xykon? A being she knows nothing about at this point? Some random, as yet unknown noble, perhaps? Or, does she blame The Order of the Stick, who is currently in league with the lord of the city, who just stated that he lied to his paladins to get Roy into the city so he could use him and his team for jobs his paladins won't do?

This scene plays out exactly as it did in comic, resulting in Miko's fall and imprisonment. Miko plays no part in hunting down Xylon, any more than she played in defending her city against him and his army in the comic. When she does get out of jail, she does not go looking for a mystery; she already knows who to blame. In her mind, it is all the fault of The Order of the Stick.

My argument is that Thor wasn't lying.

Gods needs a balance of inputs dedicated to them from mortals, two of which are Worship and Dedication. Dedication is a burst of energy released on death, worship is active praise. Both of those would skyrocket in the situation of the Azurites in the events of the comic: a huge amount of soldiers died and a lot more civilians are simultaneously thanking the gods for their lives and begging for blessings, so there's a lot of dedication and worship going around. Then, either the gate is destroyed and no longer represents a capture threat, or the gate is captured and the gods unmake the world in a few weeks, reaping the rest of the harvest.

Either way the Twelve gods benefit, getting the most they reasonably could from the situation. The only way to read it as a loss is to lose Azure City and then get the world patched up with TDO's help for long enough that the temporary gains are overwritten by long term losses.

But without an invading army, they gain neither the extra worship nor dedication, and thus have much more incentive to put a stop to it.

So, in direct defiance of the Prime Directive non-interference clause, the gods whose city is not in danger of destruction warn their priests of its imminent non-destruction so that they can not gain the devotion they would have gained had it actually been destroyed?

I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around this one.

In the current setup, the Good deities of the Southern pantheon hold control over the city. Rat might want a chance to improve his position, Monkey might be bored and looking for a change, Ox could not care less who runs the show so long as the farmers farm and the laborers labor. We are talking about a very tiny percentage of the city actually under threat: some few nobles. Dragon may not like it, but several other deities may see advantages in a Kubota Lordship.

Now, if your argument is that the Twelve know the world is about to end, and they would prefer a war so they can get all that sweet devotion that the slaughter and threat of slaughter of their chosen people would bring, well, that is another hypothetical that is beyond the scope of my scenario.

I see no evidence Sangwaan was given future sight, just the ability to read minds. please link me to where she told of the future.

For an actual future reader, every piece of advice the oracle(I wonder where this comes from?) has given has come true or still could, and when people bother to ask about actionable future intel they receive correct and actionable advice, even if said advice isn't immediately obvious. Haley's speech is the best example.

I wonder where The Oracle's abilities originate as well. The Oracle credits Tiamat, who is a Western deity. Since it is obvious that Tiamat does not predict the future nearly as well as The Oracle, I surmise that Tiamst granted a power she does not herself possess. The Cross Domain Agreement clearly spells out how this works.

(Yes, I know The Oracle has not taken any levels in the Cleric class. However, The Oracle clearly, by its own admission, receives its oracular abilities from a deity, so it channels divine power. Oracle may be a Cleric subclass in the OotS RPG. Or it may be something else. I don't know. What I do know is, if Tiamat could see the future, Familicide would not have happened.)

It's fascinating that you typed this all out yet refuse to see that you're still doing it. For six pages now you've not made a single change to your proposed plan no many how many holes and weaknesses are exposed, merely insisted that other people's objections can't hold a candle to the unstoppable force of Kubota's treachery. At best you turn into Bear Grylls and repeat his catchphrase when you can't explain how to overcome something.

So get specific.

Since I was responding to several posters who were posting much more quickly than I could reply, it is obvious that adapting the original plan each time a poster suggested a point of failure would result in twelve different plans getting jumbled to the point of confusion.

To claim I am repeating a meaningless catchphrase is to ignore what I have actually done. I have said that when there is a point of failure, in game, I adapt the tactics to address that particular failure.

As an example, you claim that the gods will gift the Azurites with oracular powers that unravel my scheme. So I propose using a lead-lined safe room and a non detection spell. Will that work? I don't know. We need to play test it to see. That is not an empty catchphrase, it is a fact of gaming. You do not know how that one adaptation will affect the future course of the game, so building the many hypothetical possibilities and addressing each one to a degree that satisfies anyone would be an undertaking more complex than the writing of the comic itself.

I have on many occasions admitted that there are weak points in the plan. I have admitted that the plan I outlined may fail. I have never said anything like, "other people's objections can't hold a candle to the unstoppable force of Kubota's treachery. While I am a great fan of hyperbole, this again smacks of intentional dismissal via insult, which as I have already addressed.

The topic has turned to the possibility of the gods using subtle signs to point Miko, the best tracker and investigator of the Sapphire Guard, at Kubota's place. When she detects evil and finds signs of Xykon's radiant evil, and then tells the Sapphire Guard about it, it'll spring a greater investigation, and when the rest of the guard tries it, now we have a circus. What does Team Evil do?

Miko is not going to take any sign from anyone as indication of anything other than that The Order of the Stick is the problem. This is consistent from her very first interaction in the comic to her very last.

Please explain how the outlined plan results in such a huge change in her character.

As far as the Sapphire Guard goes, upon what grounds do they begin an investigation? There is no evidence that The Gate is in jeopardy, and they have no police powers to investigate civil crimes. By the time they become aware that they are the true targets, their newly appointed rightful liege has dismissed them and expelled them from the city. No one in the city, even Kubota, is aware that The Gate is in danger, and until some tortured low-level paladin confesses, even RC and Xykon don't know it is in the Throne Room.

Right, but the thing is we aren't playing normal chess here. This is like a self-imposed challenge match where one player isn't allowed to use most of their pieces.

And while that's absolutely something you could pull off, against an opponent of comparable skill it's a massive handicap that removes any margin of error and will probably cost you the game.



It's because the nature of the scenario means that if Kubota gets exposed, it fails the scenario. Team Evil might still win, but if they rally Kubota's household to seize the throne that's not exactly taking the Throne without an army. The requirements of the scenario are turning any plan into a clockwork plan, any failure of any piece is going to break the entire thing.

Which is kind of a point in favour of the "this gate needs an army to take it" argument.

It would be difficult, yes. But not impossible. Given an opportunity to improvise and adapt as problems arise, I am confident it can be done.

But, if you will allow a hypothetical:
Assume the comic had shown something like my proposals rather than an army. Would we be insisting TE failed because they didn't have an army? Or would we be blaming Miko?

That is correct. But it also presents problems for your "subterfuge using Kubuto" plan. If the SG are not a known group, then they make a poor patsy for the assassinations going on. if they are well known, then they don't make a good patsy for the assassinations going on (cause everyone knows they are paladins, lawful good, and would not do stuff like that).

You kinda can't have it both ways. And, no matter how you slice it, at some point there will be a falling out between Kubuto and TE, and at that point, the forces of the city will be ralied against TE.

I would much prefer to have it one way, but alternate posters have proposed each as possibilities to which I am required to respond.

But the goal is the same either way. I want to remove Shojo and install Kubota as Lord of the city. The Sapphire Guard, whether a secret paladin order, (which invalidates any claims based on the population knowing they are paladins,) or a public one, are acting as Shojo's private military. We know that some lords maintain such units which are (more or less) loyal to them. In removing Shojo, I also want to remove anyone who might be in a position to interfere with my plan. The Sapphire Guard, or Shojo's Guard, must be removed from power. It really does not matter how public their secret order is.

Bonus - if Miko kills Shojo, all doubts about my whisper campaign that he was a puppet of his own guard vanish.

Which leads us to "alternative ways of taking out the city's defenders that isn't an army". At the end of the day, you must do this to hold the throne room long enough to do the ritual. And so far, I've seen two approaches to this:

1. Some kind of spell casting hit and run on the city's defenders. Um... If this would actually work then why did they need an army in the first place? I mean, they could just go in there and blast the defenders, day after day, and apparently no one will ever think to do anything to stop this? They'll all just sit there and wait for their turn to die? They have clerics. They have seers. They have ninjas. They have an entire mix of classes and levels inside a very large city. Two spell casters, even high level spell casters, cannot do this. Only the most gimme DMs would allow a plan like this to succeed. Pretty quick, after maybe a few days of their hit and run tactics, the Azure City folks would get organized, bait a trap, and hit TE hard, expose them, and then open up on them. I mean, sure they might still continue to do attacks, but probably not really make a dent in the city's total defenders in any reasonable sort of time frame.

2. Somehow replicate Lirian's disease and use it themselves. Let's set aside that this is simply something they don't have the ability to do. It's also incredibly unlikely to be effective. First off, let's also not forget that the virus doesn't actually kill anyone. It just prevents them from casting spells. Um... So 99% of the population of the city is completely unaffected. All of those soldiers, who are just regular old fighters of X level? Totally just as capable of fighting as they were before. Secondly, since this somehow went unmentioned: all paladins 3rd level and above are immune to disease. It's called "divine health". So, basically, none of the fighting forces of Azure City are impacted one bit by this strategy. And, let's not forget, that no matter how powerful two spell casters are, they cannot stand up to 9,000 soldiers trying to kill them. Sheer numbers win in tihs calculation. Every. Single. Time.


Both plans seem to rely on Redcloak summoning a ton of monsters or creating a ton of undead. Again, spell casters simply don't have enough spell slots to do this effectively, not against an army of fighters and paladins, backed up by a boatload of clierics. It's a matter of scale, and whatever Redcloak summons simply doesn't do anything relative to the number of forces opposing them. And this reveals them immediately as a threat, so everyone is after them at that point. I think you are simply not thinking through the kind of resources an entire city will have here. Thousands of magic items of various types and power levels spread out among the population. Potions. Scrolls. Wands. Staves. Just boatloads of stuff (and just statistically, a fair number of powerful and rare items that have been squirreled away over time). These don't make much of a dent in a large scale army vs army battle, but in a "3 person group versus an entire city" comparison? TE gets ganked.


Again. It takes a DM who just falls over and doesn't bother to have one side show up and take the field (or just assumes the entire population is made up of unequipped level X wimps who were written yesterday and have no history) to make this work. If either of these plans could actually have worked, then TE would not have needed to bother with the army in the first place. They needed the army to actually overwhelm the defenders with sheer numbers, so that they could not gang up on TE. Take away the army, and the entire military and magical forces of Azure City will have one target: TE and whatever summoned things they can generate (which, you know, also cost spell slots). Even in a war of attrition the city wins over time.

I still just don't see any of these methods working. I mean, it's possible, but it would be extremely difficult and take a really really long time if they don't have an actual army to do this with. And there are a host of random factors we just don't know enough about to make an assessment like that.

Someone else proposed the hit and run. I was a player in a group which used that very strategy to take down a drow city once. It was messy, and came close to TPK a few times. (Rod of Resurrection FTW!)

In my political scenario I rely upon the transfer of power to a lord willing to grant me access to the gate. If that fails, my scenario fails. Falling back on "kill them all" is an admission of such.

In my disease scenario, I paired the spellcasting plague with an Int drain plague. I do not modify Lirian's disease at all except to make it a contagious variant if that is necessary. In this case, once the plague is in full swing and the population has an average Int of 1, the game becomes a dungeon crawl to find the gate. Let the paladins be the goblins for a while! Muah ahahaha!

I'm not sure where the 9000 soldiers are, but they will not be smart enough to coordinate an attack, or even to understand orders. Most likely they will be wandering aimlessly looking for food and spreading the disease just like the civilians.

Neither of my plans rely on summoned monsters. I'm not sure why you insist they do.

Your boatloads of clerics actually amounts to fewer than 70, and of those only a very few are above level 5. Ironically, Tsukiko is probably one of the more powerful divine casters in the city.

As for the many magic items: why were they not brought out to defend the city from the hobgoblin army? Healing items, undead attack and defense items, potions, scrolls, and assorted magical weapons and armors would have been handy, I would think. But they were not used then, so why would they suddenly become available for the scenarios I presented?

A correction: It wasn't a choice between using an army and any other potential plan. TE never considered any other option because they literally stumbled into a trained, equipped, and motivated army which they gained control of with a single spell. Once again, probability serviced drama, and this time it didn't cost two coppers.

I submit for your consideration the idea that you do not see how my plans might work because you are actively seeking ways to prove that they cannot. I submit that you might, in a few moments of thought, outline a plan that could work in which TE does not have access to an army.

It's not trivial if TE is trying to hold a fixed position though. That's the problem. They have to take and hold the throne room to do the ritual. If they don't first completely neutralize the Azure City defenders, they will be overwhelmed and (if lucky) driven off. Which means that they must destroy the city defenders first. Which, while possible to do without an army, is a heck of a lot more difficult to do without one.

Holding the Throne Room is only required if someone is trying to take it from me. In both of the scenarios I presented, nobody is trying to do that. In the first they have been expelled from the city or jailed for disobeying a lawful order from the Lord of the City. In the second they are all dead.

I really do think that too many people are too used to power levels based on "encounters designed for adventuring groups", and measure things based on that and the level of TE. Yeah. High level parties in D&D can do some amazing things. They can absolutely take on a few hundred mooks, assault a strong point, defeat the enemy wizard, whatever. But the scale just falls apart once we start talking about the military defending a city with a million people in it. Any D&D group, no matter how powerful, more or less peters out after the first 15 minutes or so of combat. That's plenty of time to mow through a number of encounters in a given day (hence the whole 15MWD concept). Then they need to rest and recover. But there is no rest and recovery. You've got another 8,000+ soldiers marching towards you.

Put aside that Xykon could probably defeat the entire city guard simply using DR and his claws, and never bother to cast a spell. Put aside that Redcloak can summon a devil or similar being, cast sanctuary, and repeat. We will ignore what MitD can do because he will be having a tea party.

In neither of my outlines do I ever engage the entire military of the city, or even a substantial block of it. The entire argument presented above is a French duck.

Let's not forget that Soon, despite being a paladin, managed to build in anti-scrying into the throne room that blocked Xykon. They have anti-magic cell blocks in their prison. There are resources in the city not measured just by counting up the levels of the soldiers in the army. They have folks who can build those things, then they have folks who can build other stuff that will completely block/trap/destroy TE. They aren't up against a spunky adventuring party here. They're up against the entire magical/industrial might of a large city. That's not something you just toss a few fireballs at and call it a day.

Which is exactly why in both of my plans I do not confront the entire city. That would be foolish, eat up lots of time, and in the end, would not accomplish my objective.

However, that is exactly what that hobgoblin army faced. It appears to me that all the army did was to eliminate the defenses my plans would have bypassed, leaving only the threats TE actually faced in comic for me to worry about.

[Larsaan]

Assume that she returns from The North, just as in the comic, but in this scenario there is no army to discover. Instead, she returns to discover that assassinations have occurred in her absence. She then goes to the Throne Room to report on her mission and overhears Shojo and Roy.

Does she blame Xykon? A being she knows nothing about at this point? Some random, as yet unknown noble, perhaps? Or, does she blame The Order of the Stick, who is currently in league with the lord of the city, who just stated that he lied to his paladins to get Roy into the city so he could use him and his team for jobs his paladins won't do?

Without Xykon intercepting her on her journey, Miko never overhears the conversation between Shojo and Roy. In fact, if she'd arrived on schedule then the Order would have already left for Girard's Gate, and she never even finds out about them working together - at least, not until the Order returns.

[Provengreil]

Miko is a horrible candidate for being the one to hunt down Xykon, because at every turn of her story she blames the OotS!

Assume that she returns from The North, just as in the comic, but in this scenario there is no army to discover. Instead, she returns to discover that assassinations have occurred in her absence. She then goes to the Throne Room to report on her mission and overhears Shojo and Roy.

Does she blame Xykon? A being she knows nothing about at this point? Some random, as yet unknown noble, perhaps? Or, does she blame The Order of the Stick, who is currently in league with the lord of the city, who just stated that he lied to his paladins to get Roy into the city so he could use him and his team for jobs his paladins won't do?

This scene plays out exactly as it did in comic, resulting in Miko's fall and imprisonment. Miko plays no part in hunting down Xylon, any more than she played in defending her city against him and his army in the comic. When she does get out of jail, she does not go looking for a mystery; she already knows who to blame. In her mind, it is all the fault of The Order of the Stick.

Miko is not going to take any sign from anyone as indication of anything other than that The Order of the Stick is the problem. This is consistent from her very first interaction in the comic to her very last.

Please explain how the outlined plan results in such a huge change in her character.

As far as the Sapphire Guard goes, upon what grounds do they begin an investigation? There is no evidence that The Gate is in jeopardy, and they have no police powers to investigate civil crimes. By the time they become aware that they are the true targets, their newly appointed rightful liege has dismissed them and expelled them from the city. No one in the city, even Kubota, is aware that The Gate is in danger, and until some tortured low-level paladin confesses, even RC and Xykon don't know it is in the Throne Room.

You're half right. Miko is, at best, an average person to see the task of hunting down Xykon et al. But there's no change of character ehre, she's the perfect person to get the ball rolling. Suspicious, capable of Detect Evil, willing to actually use the ability, tough enough to survive someone trying to take her out, and respected by the Guard. Sort of. Look, they know she's not going to intentionally lie and can detect evil, that's enough in this case.

Here's how I imagine this going:

She comes back with Durkon's letter, delivers it to Shojo, and gets new orders(from Shojo -or- the gods, I go into this more below). Those orders are that Kubota is acting even more suspicious than usual and maybe she should check it out. She does so, senses Xykon's overwhelming evil, but either disappears, triggering a much larger search, or returns with such news. This lights a massive fire under the SG's collective rump to move more confidently. And as well all know, "setting off their evil radar" is cause for the Guard to eradicate entire villages. They'll act.

That is where her involvement ends! Maybe she keeps to Shojo's plan, maybe she runs off to find the order, who cares? Team Evil has been exposed and the situation rapidly escalates from here. Scenario failed.

I wonder where The Oracle's abilities originate as well. The Oracle credits Tiamat, who is a Western deity. Since it is obvious that Tiamat does not predict the future nearly as well as The Oracle, I surmise that Tiamst granted a power she does not herself possess. The Cross Domain Agreement clearly spells out how this works.

(Yes, I know The Oracle has not taken any levels in the Cleric class. However, The Oracle clearly, by its own admission, receives its oracular abilities from a deity, so it channels divine power. Oracle may be a Cleric subclass in the OotS RPG. Or it may be something else. I don't know. What I do know is, if Tiamat could see the future, Familicide would not have happened.)

Everyone's future sight issues make perfect sense if we allow for a rather straightforward assumption: that the future can be seen, but must be searched. It's not a passive knowledge of all the future. You have to already know something about what you're looking for, and then intentionally look for it.

The oracle makes perfect sense under this assumption: he looks ahead for what people ask for, and tells them relevant information. Even his "ramblings" make sense under this theory, as all the ones we actually saw relate to Belkar's future: he looks for deaths in his own timeline, to tell those lizardfolk he'll need a rez. He finds Belkar's killing, sets things up as they went, and has a peek into Belkar's future to see if there's anything else to see.

Tiamat simply wasn't looking for anything like the Familicide event. Kubota's rivals all dying while he himself has suddenly started whining about safety...no one's gonna take a look into this? And frankly, it doesn't even require divine intervention, Shojo himself is definitely smart enough to put a few investigators on Kubota here.

As an example, you claim that the gods will gift the Azurites with oracular powers that unravel my scheme. So I propose using a lead-lined safe room and a non detection spell. Will that work? I don't know. We need to play test it to see. That is not an empty catchphrase, it is a fact of gaming. You do not know how that one adaptation will affect the future course of the game, so building the many hypothetical possibilities and addressing each one to a degree that satisfies anyone would be an undertaking more complex than the writing of the comic itself.

I have on many occasions admitted that there are weak points in the plan. I have admitted that the plan I outlined may fail. I have never said anything like, "other people's objections can't hold a candle to the unstoppable force of Kubota's treachery. While I am a great fan of hyperbole, this again smacks of intentional dismissal via insult, which as I have already addressed.

So you say but you've failed to do so at any point in this discussion. Even when you admit something is weak, you just argue that it works anyway. A lot of it...really doesn't, and the reason is less about the chess game and more about the personalities.

This lead lined safe room, do we just bury Xykon inside it at all times when he's not killing someone? And you, having read the comic, believe that he'd be OK with that? He'll break out at some point, murder a few people just for fun, and tell Redcloak to clean it up. But even if it isn't actually seen, it'll get noticed, investigated, and soon enough someone casts detect evil for whatever reason, and that's the ball game.

Then there's Kubota himself. Early in the thread I likened him in this case to Petyr Baelish, you even agreed, and your plan is....to have team evil trust him. And then when that inevitable fails, hold him over a barrel. He has every reason to sell them up the river and they don't have the resources to stop that from happening (Surviving or even winning the ensuing fight, sure, but they'll still get their cover blown).

So, in direct defiance of the Prime Directive non-interference clause, the gods whose city is not in danger of destruction warn their priests of its imminent non-destruction so that they can not gain the devotion they would have gained had it actually been destroyed?

I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around this one.

In the current setup, the Good deities of the Southern pantheon hold control over the city. Rat might want a chance to improve his position, Monkey might be bored and looking for a change, Ox could not care less who runs the show so long as the farmers farm and the laborers labor. We are talking about a very tiny percentage of the city actually under threat: some few nobles. Dragon may not like it, but several other deities may see advantages in a Kubota Lordship.

Now, if your argument is that the Twelve know the world is about to end, and they would prefer a war so they can get all that sweet devotion that the slaughter and threat of slaughter of their chosen people would bring, well, that is another hypothetical that is beyond the scope of my scenario.

You'd have an easier time with this if you stopped couching it in quad negatives. Just do what you're claiming you're doing and game it out:

The hobgoblin horde is coming. Either they win or lose, either the gate is destroyed or not, either the gate is captured or not, and either the gods unmake the world soon or not. Since some of these are exclusive (ie, can't capture the destroyed gate), this gives a finite set of scenarios.

The only scenario in which the 12 lose more than they gain is in the long term results of the hobgoblins winning but the gods don't unmake the world anytime soon. They gain the large burst from the battle and its aftermath but lose out on their people having the land, and all the prosperity that would have come with it. Every other scenario is either the Azurites keeping it all anyway, or one in which there's no long term at all so the short term gains are all that matters.

As such, yeah, I think the 12 would overall not warn anyone.

Now, here's where that ties to main thread. A political coup that at most gets people grumbing, outside of the nobility? No burst of prayer. I think we both agree on that. But it still brings the world closer to an end. The 12 gods would want to ratchet up the tension on thing to get that burst of prayer, because it's either that, or nothing. They have every reason to expose the plot and turn it into another conquest. Would they prefer to stop it completely? Maybe, but I don't expect so(And I doubt they'd be allowed to). Given that the rifts have appeared, they're likely thinking about the next world by now anyway, and haven't taken TDO's potential help into account. Thor's plan is clearly contentious among the pantheons.

[Errorname]

My stance on the plague scenario is unchanged: No. The Guardian Virus is Lirian's epic level druid trick and not easily replicable, if Redcloak could have repurposed it he would have, and it requires an insanely permissive DM. So no, not a viable scenario, not worth further discussion. The Kubota plot is a lot more fun to talk about, and it's not completely unviable, just an insane longshot. However, it's heavily limited by the constraint that you can't use an army. That means no military coup, no inciting peasant revolts, and no fallback for if you get exposed as an evil monster planning to take over the gates. This means that basically any failure costs you the game. So I want to run through a few of my issues here.

Kubota's crowning requires that nobody gets bad vibes from him, that everyone assents to his ascension to the throne, and any indication that he's involved in your murders could scuttle that, and any moves he makes are likely to indicate his guilt. It's actually kind of a lose/lose, if you move too fast you make it obvious that Kubota's behind it, but if you move too slowly your enemies will have time to piece together what's happening and fortify their position. Shojo is not simply some passive observer. You've mentioned relying on his feigned illness to tie his hands, but that's not really how it seemed to have worked? He was bound by the Guard's oath to not interfere with the other gates which meant his main agents wouldn't follow the orders he wanted them to, but there would be no such restrictions for defending Soon's Gate and the City, and while his feigned illness made him seem pliable it did not appear to severely limit his actual authority as Lord of the city.

You've correctly identified Miko as a weak link in the chain, but the specific events that lead to her breaking everything relied on Team Evil marching on the city with a massive army. Without that she doesn't and is not allowed to burst into the throne room while Shojo thinks he's in private and is confessing his greatest crimes. That's pretty specific timing that is easy to break and hard to replicate, especially since your conspirators do not have knowledge needed to recognize her as a potential wedge to shatter the guard. Without her faith broken, Miko is still a potential problem, but she's a wildcard who could hit either side equally hard depending on how things went. I bring up her skill as a tracker, give her an actual trail (such as say, Xykon's pure evil trace) and it's over.

Even without that, I have a hard time believing that Kubota and co. could spin a narrative so persuasive that it framed (insert fall guy here) so well it toppled the Shojo regime without any suspicion falling on himself. Kubota's obviously bad news and not widely liked or trusted, and he's not very good at this. He was barely holding up against Hinjo and Lien, and they're nowhere near as adept at politics and scheming as Shojo was. And your proposed catspaw is Xykon, who doesn't have a subtle bone in his body. He's a chronically impatient blunt instrument who hates overthinking things, Redcloak could barely keep his attention about basic army deployment, do you think he'd follow orders about assassinations? He'd be one errant hit to his ego away from storming the throne room immediately and getting ganked by a ghost Paladin the entire time, for a plan that's likely to take weeks. Admittedly this is a problem that could be fixed with different conspirators, Team Evil are very blunt and direct villains who don't bother with political scheming in the same way a group like the Vector Legion do.

Also, how do Kubota's existing retainers feel about this? Therkla and Qarr both ended up being disloyal in the actual story, and both have possible objections. Therkla has enough of a moral compass that she might try to undermine the plot, and Qarr works for people (indirectly, at this point) who do not want Xykon to win. While I think both leaks are solvable, it wouldn't take much for either to potentially ruin everything. Even Kubota has a lot of incentive to turn traitor.

I'd also like to know who specifically you're framing. You need to remove the entire Sapphire Guard, but convincing people that an entire legion of divine Paladins are secretly evil is a very tough sell. Even framing individuals would be hard, since the other Paladins would be able to recognize that they haven't fallen and aren't evil, so they'll close ranks and protect their own from false accusations. Hinjo seems the obvious candidate for a frame job, since he needs to be dealt with, he's the Heir to the Throne and the obvious candidate to replace Shojo if he is deemed unfit, but if you assassinate him it makes it hard to frame Shojo's allies or the Paladins for the crime. Do you really think you can sell that? Hinjo's pretty well known at court and your crimes are obviously out of character for him. The next best candidate is O-Chul, as a former criminal and lowborn he'd be an easy sell for the nobility and he's highly ranked within the order, but you have the same problem where anyone who knows him would know he obviously didn't do it and would close ranks to defend him. The easiest sell would be Miko, but she wouldn't take any accusations lightly, and choosing her in the first place requires knowledge none of the conspirators possess.

[brian 333]

Without Xykon intercepting her on her journey, Miko never overhears the conversation between Shojo and Roy. In fact, if she'd arrived on schedule then the Order would have already left for Girard's Gate, and she never even finds out about them working together - at least, not until the Order returns.

Miko's schedule was virtually unchanged by her encounter with Xykon.

You're half right. Miko is, at best, an average person to see the task of hunting down Xykon et al. But there's no change of character ehre, she's the perfect person to get the ball rolling. Suspicious, capable of Detect Evil, willing to actually use the ability, tough enough to survive someone trying to take her out, and respected by the Guard. Sort of. Look, they know she's not going to intentionally lie and can detect evil, that's enough in this case.

At every turn she ignores real danger to focus on The Order of the Stick. Read her prayer in the above mentioned tower scene. Read her comment as she breaks out of jail. Read he comment to Roy after Shojo stops her from killing Bellar. From her PoV, everything is the fault of The Order. Putting Miko in charge of the investigation assures that The Order is blamed for whatever is going on, even if she has to concoct elaborate fantasies to connect the dots.

Here's how I imagine this going:

She comes back with Durkon's letter, delivers it to Shojo, and gets new orders(from Shojo -or- the gods, I go into this more below). Those orders are that Kubota is acting even more suspicious than usual and maybe she should check it out. She does so, senses Xykon's overwhelming evil, but either disappears, triggering a much larger search, or returns with such news. This lights a massive fire under the SG's collective rump to move more confidently. And as well all know, "setting off their evil radar" is cause for the Guard to eradicate entire villages. They'll act.

That is where her involvement ends! Maybe she keeps to Shojo's plan, maybe she runs off to find the order, who cares? Team Evil has been exposed and the situation rapidly escalates from here. Scenario failed.

Let's begin with the orders:
Why Miko? O-Chul would be a much better choice. Miko is a known hothead who is so uptight none of the other paladins want to work with her. And it is still unexplained how she goes from being convincedthat Justice must be meeted out to The Order by her hand.

Evil Radar is awesome. It doesn't track teleportation. It doesn't identify who is leaving the aura. It doesn"t in any way accomplish the ends you have attributed to it. It does not 'expose Xykon.' All it does is let them know a powerfull evil being is on the scene. If Miko is on the scene, who does she blame? (Remember, she is convinced that The Order can hide its Evil aura from her.)

If the Sapphire Guard acts under Miko's orders, they move against The Order, not TE.

(I still maintain that Miko's fate should not change. She kills Shojo and is jailed, just as in the comic.)

Everyone's future sight issues make perfect sense if we allow for a rather straightforward assumption: that the future can be seen, but must be searched. It's not a passive knowledge of all the future. You have to already know something about what you're looking for, and then intentionally look for it.

The oracle makes perfect sense under this assumption: he looks ahead for what people ask for, and tells them relevant information. Even his "ramblings" make sense under this theory, as all the ones we actually saw relate to Belkar's future: he looks for deaths in his own timeline, to tell those lizardfolk he'll need a rez. He finds Belkar's killing, sets things up as they went, and has a peek into Belkar's future to see if there's anything else to see.

Tiamat simply wasn't looking for anything like the Familicide event. Kubota's rivals all dying while he himself has suddenly started whining about safety...no one's gonna take a look into this? And frankly, it doesn't even require divine intervention, Shojo himself is definitely smart enough to put a few investigators on Kubota here.

Thank you for taking my side regarding this issue. Prophecy or seeing the future is problematic at best, and likely to cause the very issue one strives to avoid.

But you see only one side of divination, and are assured that your side gets perfect Intel while the other side does nothing. Kubota is a paranoid. He is virtually certain to have exactly the same degree of defenses against scrying as his enemies have in scrying ability. Any Intel gained via magic will be contradictory and vague.

As you have pointed out, one only finds what one goes looking for. Why should anyone be looking at Kubota? Until the nobles convene to vote Kubota into power, he gives all appearances of being a coward who wants to avoid being assassinated. He is a known petty schemer who is disliked by many nobles. Kubota is not exactly a high priority target.

So you say but you've failed to do so at any point in this discussion. Even when you admit something is weak, you just argue that it works anyway. A lot of it...really doesn't, and the reason is less about the chess game and more about the personalities.

All you have done is assert it does not work. What I have done is say that I am comfortable taking my chances in a game. I make no claims that my plan is infallible. I recognize many points of potential failure. I also see the possibility of success.

This is a far cry from 'just arguing it works anyway.'

This lead lined safe room, do we just bury Xykon inside it at all times when he's not killing someone? And you, having read the comic, believe that he'd be OK with that? He'll break out at some point, murder a few people just for fun, and tell Redcloak to clean it up. But even if it isn't actually seen, it'll get noticed, investigated, and soon enough someone casts detect evil for whatever reason, and that's the ball game.

Xykon will be active and engaged the whole time. Far from 'buried in a safe room,' he will be murdering and torturing on a daily basis. And he has Cloister, so if the scrying gets too tough, he can shut it down.

Then there's Kubota himself. Early in the thread I likened him in this case to Petyr Baelish, you even agreed, and your plan is....to have team evil trust him. And then when that inevitable fails, hold him over a barrel. He has every reason to sell them up the river and they don't have the resources to stop that from happening (Surviving or even winning the ensuing fight, sure, but they'll still get their cover blown).

Xykon can cast Geas and command Kubota not to betray him and to kill anyone who tries to betray him.

But why should Kubota betray TE before he gets what he wants? Because he is loyal to Azure City? Kubota is loyal to himself. By the time he gets what he wants, or fails, he surely realizes that TE is far more dangerous to him than all of Azure City.

Kubota does not betray TE because by the time he realizes he should, he realizes that nothing in Azure City can stop TE from getting revenge on him in a manner that makes public execution seem like a sweet deal.

You'd have an easier time with this if you stopped couching it in quad negatives. Just do what you're claiming you're doing and game it out:

The hobgoblin horde is coming. Either they win or lose, either the gate is destroyed or not, either the gate is captured or not, and either the gods unmake the world soon or not. Since some of these are exclusive (ie, can't capture the destroyed gate), this gives a finite set of scenarios.

The only scenario in which the 12 lose more than they gain is in the long term results of the hobgoblins winning but the gods don't unmake the world anytime soon. They gain the large burst from the battle and its aftermath but lose out on their people having the land, and all the prosperity that would have come with it. Every other scenario is either the Azurites keeping it all anyway, or one in which there's no long term at all so the short term gains are all that matters.

As such, yeah, I think the 12 would overall not warn anyone.

Now, here's where that ties to main thread. A political coup that at most gets people grumbing, outside of the nobility? No burst of prayer. I think we both agree on that. But it still brings the world closer to an end. The 12 gods would want to ratchet up the tension on thing to get that burst of prayer, because it's either that, or nothing. They have every reason to expose the plot and turn it into another conquest. Would they prefer to stop it completely? Maybe, but I don't expect so(And I doubt they'd be allowed to). Given that the rifts have appeared, they're likely thinking about the next world by now anyway, and haven't taken TDO's potential help into account. Thor's plan is clearly contentious among the pantheons.

The 12 do exactly what they did in the comic: leave it to the mortals to figure it out. This entire line of reasoning is based on a very tenuous string of speculations that are not supported by anything in the comic. Invoking deus ex machina to invalidate any part of the scenario is, at best, a cheesy move.

My stance on the plague scenario is unchanged: No. The Guardian Virus is Lirian's epic level druid trick and not easily replicable, if Redcloak could have repurposed it he would have, and it requires an insanely permissive DM. So no, not a viable scenario, not worth further discussion. The Kubota plot is a lot more fun to talk about, and it's not completely unviable, just an insane longshot. However, it's heavily limited by the constraint that you can't use an army. That means no military coup, no inciting peasant revolts, and no fallback for if you get exposed as an evil monster planning to take over the gates. This means that basically any failure costs you the game. So I want to run through a few of my issues here.

Kubota's crowning requires that nobody gets bad vibes from him, that everyone assents to his ascension to the throne, and any indication that he's involved in your murders could scuttle that, and any moves he makes are likely to indicate his guilt. It's actually kind of a lose/lose, if you move too fast you make it obvious that Kubota's behind it, but if you move too slowly your enemies will have time to piece together what's happening and fortify their position. Shojo is not simply some passive observer. You've mentioned relying on his feigned illness to tie his hands, but that's not really how it seemed to have worked? He was bound by the Guard's oath to not interfere with the other gates which meant his main agents wouldn't follow the orders he wanted them to, but there would be no such restrictions for defending Soon's Gate and the City, and while his feigned illness made him seem pliable it did not appear to severely limit his actual authority as Lord of the city.

You've correctly identified Miko as a weak link in the chain, but the specific events that lead to her breaking everything relied on Team Evil marching on the city with a massive army. Without that she doesn't and is not allowed to burst into the throne room while Shojo thinks he's in private and is confessing his greatest crimes. That's pretty specific timing that is easy to break and hard to replicate, especially since your conspirators do not have knowledge needed to recognize her as a potential wedge to shatter the guard. Without her faith broken, Miko is still a potential problem, but she's a wildcard who could hit either side equally hard depending on how things went. I bring up her skill as a tracker, give her an actual trail (such as say, Xykon's pure evil trace) and it's over.

Even without that, I have a hard time believing that Kubota and co. could spin a narrative so persuasive that it framed (insert fall guy here) so well it toppled the Shojo regime without any suspicion falling on himself. Kubota's obviously bad news and not widely liked or trusted, and he's not very good at this. He was barely holding up against Hinjo and Lien, and they're nowhere near as adept at politics and scheming as Shojo was. And your proposed catspaw is Xykon, who doesn't have a subtle bone in his body. He's a chronically impatient blunt instrument who hates overthinking things, Redcloak could barely keep his attention about basic army deployment, do you think he'd follow orders about assassinations? He'd be one errant hit to his ego away from storming the throne room immediately and getting ganked by a ghost Paladin the entire time, for a plan that's likely to take weeks. Admittedly this is a problem that could be fixed with different conspirators, Team Evil are very blunt and direct villains who don't bother with political scheming in the same way a group like the Vector Legion do.

Also, how do Kubota's existing retainers feel about this? Therkla and Qarr both ended up being disloyal in the actual story, and both have possible objections. Therkla has enough of a moral compass that she might try to undermine the plot, and Qarr works for people (indirectly, at this point) who do not want Xykon to win. While I think both leaks are solvable, it wouldn't take much for either to potentially ruin everything. Even Kubota has a lot of incentive to turn traitor.

I'd also like to know who specifically you're framing. You need to remove the entire Sapphire Guard, but convincing people that an entire legion of divine Paladins are secretly evil is a very tough sell. Even framing individuals would be hard, since the other Paladins would be able to recognize that they haven't fallen and aren't evil, so they'll close ranks and protect their own from false accusations. Hinjo seems the obvious candidate for a frame job, since he needs to be dealt with, he's the Heir to the Throne and the obvious candidate to replace Shojo if he is deemed unfit, but if you assassinate him it makes it hard to frame Shojo's allies or the Paladins for the crime. Do you really think you can sell that? Hinjo's pretty well known at court and your crimes are obviously out of character for him. The next best candidate is O-Chul, as a former criminal and lowborn he'd be an easy sell for the nobility and he's highly ranked within the order, but you have the same problem where anyone who knows him would know he obviously didn't do it and would close ranks to defend him. The easiest sell would be Miko, but she wouldn't take any accusations lightly, and choosing her in the first place requires knowledge none of the conspirators possess.

I have admitted that the disease may be beyond Redcloak's ability to control. If so, we fall back and punt. But if it works? How can you know without trying? Redcloak is not inventing the wheel, he is greasing the axel.

The same applies to the political plot I have outlined. Worst case, fall back and try something else.

Kubota's ascension requires only that everyone believes Shojo's replacement will be assassinated. 'Let's make Kubota take one for the team.' Catchy campaign slogan, don't you think?

Kubota's entire public persona is fear of the unknown assassin's. Every move he is seen to make in public is to protect himself from exposure. His political machinations happen through proxies who are not known to be subservient to him. Yes, its a dicy game. It may fail. Kubota has the advantage of plausible deniability.

The lords of the city tolerated Shojo because he was weak, which strengthened their positions, and because they thought they could get what they wanted from him. The very last thing they want is a strong leader on the throne. A usurper who controls the throne through Shojo is dangerous to them. What do you think the nobles will believe if after years of incompetence, Shojo begins to show strong and decisive leadership?

Yes, timing is an issue. Faster is better, but a certain amount of time is needed to get the approved narrative. However, Team Evil does not care, at the point of failure, about Kubota's fate. Kubota might, but turning on Team Evil is unlikely to endear him to the Azure City defenders, and very likely to get him turned into some exotic kind of undead by Team Evil. The only route for Kubota is victory.

Miko is only ever a threat to The Order. I see no reason why she does not do exactly as she did in comic because neither her nor Roy's timing was altered by the hobgoblin army. But, assuming it is, so what? Miko is just another member of the Sapphire Guard. Undoubtedly she is one of the better fighters, but she is not a leader. Her obsession with The Order nullifies any investigative abilities she may have, and her steadfast belief in her own interpretation of events and their causes means she will not allow new facts to change her mind.

I am not proposing Kubota as the fan favorite for lifetime ruler. I am proposing him as the fan favorite target for assassination. That's how his pawns will frame sponsoring him to assume the lordship.

Hinjo would be an obvious early target for assassination. The hidden usurper wants him out of the way.As for who believes what, there is something about lies that most people do not understand.

How many people send money to Nigerian Princes seeking to unlock their family fortune? How many donate to charities without checking to see how much actually goes to the needy? How many accept propaganda at face value when a cursory study of the issue will expose it for what it is? People believe what they think benefits them. People believe other people are as honest as they believe themselves to be. People believe what they want to believe because it confirms their existing beliefs.

In the long run lies are generally exposed. But in the short term?
Kubota is weak and can be controlled or deposed. (Self-benefit.)
Kubota does not want the throne because he does not want to be assassinated. (That's what I would do.)
Kubota is a coward seeking personal safety at the expense of others.(I always thought so.)

Lies are easy to spread. Gossip is the only natural force that is faster than light. Lies designed for a specific audience are seldom disbelieved in time for it to matter.

Again, Xykon's impatience is overstated. This is the guy who literally spent month after month doing nothing in Dorukon's Dungeon. This is the guy who literally spent week after week doing nothing in Azure City without even the hope of gaining control of its gate? He can't spend 8 weeks on a torture and murder spree while Redcloak does the boring stuff?

Therkla was loyal until she met Elan. Then she still tried to be loyal to Kubota. Kubota betrayed her, not the other way around. As for Quarr, his loyalty was always to his devil superior. Kubota was an assignment. He discovered something more important than Kubota and was reassigned. Loyalty had nothing to do with it.

As to who is the specific target: it works better as a mysterious secret presence. By blaming no one, everyone is guilty. This works even better if Miko kills Shojo. It would be proof that Shojo's guards, or at least some key personnel, are usurping Shojo's authority.

And now we are back to the secret paladin order that everyone knows are paladins. If everyone knows they are paladins, then they also know paladins can fall, or at least be holier-than-thou my-way-is-the-only-way bullies who have sticks strategically implanted when they take their vows. If they do not know they are paladins, then power-hungry subordinates take advantage of their superiors' weaknesses all the time. Since the nobles are already playing on Shojo's mental decline, it is no stretch to think Shojo's subordinates are either taking control for his own good or taking control to supplant him. Either way it works.

[Errorname]

I have admitted that the disease may be beyond Redcloak's ability to control. If so, we fall back and punt. But if it works? How can you know without trying? Redcloak is not inventing the wheel, he is greasing the axel.

I've already laid out my arguments for why I think it wouldn't work, and since we can't try it I'm comfortable writing it off. It's also just not interesting to discuss.

Miko's schedule was virtually unchanged by her encounter with Xykon.

She almost certainly made quicker time once it became apparent that she was racing against an army. Even with the same schedule, without her dire news that Shojo needed to hear immediately, she doesn't immediately have Hinjo take her to the throne room to report to Shojo.

Miko is only ever a threat to The Order. I see no reason why she does not do exactly as she did in comic because neither her nor Roy's timing was altered by the hobgoblin army. But, assuming it is, so what? Miko is just another member of the Sapphire Guard. Undoubtedly she is one of the better fighters, but she is not a leader. Her obsession with The Order nullifies any investigative abilities she may have, and her steadfast belief in her own interpretation of events and their causes means she will not allow new facts to change her mind.

Shojo could keep her in line. If he couldn't, she'd have been arrested at the end of the trial scene.

Also talking about her investigative skills is a clever trick, because yeah her deductive reasoning is completely worthless, but she's a skilled tracker who has all the tools to follow the trails that Xykon will leave, teleporting around in a hostile paladin controlled city is too risky. She doesn't need to know the full picture to follow a trail.

Kubota's entire public persona is fear of the unknown assassin's. Every move he is seen to make in public is to protect himself from exposure. His political machinations happen through proxies who are not known to be subservient to him. Yes, its a dicy game. It may fail. Kubota has the advantage of plausible deniability.

Kubota is already known to be ambitious and untrustworthy, so I think you might have a harder time selling him as not involved than you think. Also, 'work through proxies' is not exactly an easy feat. Team Evil aren't the Vector Legion, they don't have the numbers to actively infiltrate multiple factions and seamlessly co-ordinate them, so it would be very hard to do this without it being possible to trace this narrative back to Kubota. Especially since, again, Kubota isn't that good at this, I don't think he could sell this

The lords of the city tolerated Shojo because he was weak, which strengthened their positions, and because they thought they could get what they wanted from him. The very last thing they want is a strong leader on the throne. A usurper who controls the throne through Shojo is dangerous to them. What do you think the nobles will believe if after years of incompetence, Shojo begins to show strong and decisive leadership?

No indication that Shojo has been incompetent, merely pliable. Even if he drops the act and claims a miraculous recovery as a gift from the gods to carry the city through the crisis, the worst I'd expect is that they'll move to censure once everything calms down. I would not rely on the whims of the nobles to restrain Shojo enough to save your conspiracy. If the Nobles are so afraid they'd trust Kubota with lordship, they'd probably be in favour of their current better liked lord exercising his power to protect them from the assassins.

Yes, timing is an issue. Faster is better, but a certain amount of time is needed to get the approved narrative. However, Team Evil does not care, at the point of failure, about Kubota's fate. Kubota might, but turning on Team Evil is unlikely to endear him to the Azure City defenders, and very likely to get him turned into some exotic kind of undead by Team Evil. The only route for Kubota is victory.

Team Evil needs Kubota to be in charge and vested with enough power to give them undisturbed access to the Throne Room for weeks, otherwise the plan fails. So yeah, if he gets caught it's over, and if you mess the timing up you will get caught.

Hinjo would be an obvious early target for assassination. The hidden usurper wants him out of the way.As for who believes what, there is something about lies that most people do not understand.

Oh, I thought you weren't targeting members of the Sapphire Guard, since you were trying to frame them for the murders so that you could turn the nobility against the Guard. Because killing a high ranking member who would benefit from this plot is the exact opposite of framing the guard.

Again, Xykon's impatience is overstated. This is the guy who literally spent month after month doing nothing in Dorukon's Dungeon. This is the guy who literally spent week after week doing nothing in Azure City without even the hope of gaining control of its gate? He can't spend 8 weeks on a torture and murder spree while Redcloak does the boring stuff?

Maybe, but you're rolling the dice every single day with him. In the canon assault he decides to break from the plan to storm the throne room and very nearly gets killed by Soon, so I don't think it's unlikely that he'd make the same call.

Therkla was loyal until she met Elan. Then she still tried to be loyal to Kubota. Kubota betrayed her, not the other way around. As for Quarr, his loyalty was always to his devil superior. Kubota was an assignment. He discovered something more important than Kubota and was reassigned. Loyalty had nothing to do with it.

Therkla tried to stop the plan because she thought it was a mistake, and I suspect she would have much stronger misgivings about this plan. Qarr is in fact disloyal, glad we agree, and his superiors do not want Team Evil to win. They want conflict, and Team Evil spending months securing a single gate isn't in their interest. Both potential failure points.

As to who is the specific target: it works better as a mysterious secret presence. By blaming no one, everyone is guilty. This works even better if Miko kills Shojo. It would be proof that Shojo's guards, or at least some key personnel, are usurping Shojo's authority.

That's a big "if". Miko killing Shojo is a big unexpected twist that's super dramatic and takes both characters flaws to their most extreme possible outcome, but that also requires a specific set of events and would be hard to replicate without metagame knowledge.

[Larsaan]

Miko's schedule was virtually unchanged by her encounter with Xykon.

What? She was intending to spend the night at the watchtower before Xykon came knocking. Instead, she rode back to the city at max speed while taking as few breaks as humanly possible. Of course her schedule was affected.

Additionally, the Order was just about to depart for Girard's Gate when they had that fateful conversation with Shojo (they were only waiting for a cleric to resurrect their teleportation wizard). Even if Miko's journey was only shortened by a few hours, that would have been enough for the Order to be out of Azure City, leaving her loyalty to Shojo intact.

[Provengreil]

Miko's schedule was virtually unchanged by her encounter with Xykon.

Where "virtually unchanged" means "at least a day earlier and just in time to catch some very poor phrasing on Shojo's account." There's a reason I was linking these comics, the timelines, and the events that drove them, are crucial to her state of mind. Maybe you should read them again before making arguments on the matter.

At every turn she ignores real danger to focus on The Order of the Stick. Read her prayer in the above mentioned tower scene. Read her comment as she breaks out of jail. Read he comment to Roy after Shojo stops her from killing Bellar. From her PoV, everything is the fault of The Order. Putting Miko in charge of the investigation assures that The Order is blamed for whatever is going on, even if she has to concoct elaborate fantasies to connect the dots.

I can lead you to water, it's up to you to drink it.

Without the army, TE doesn't take down the guard tower. Miko doesn't meet Xykon while he does so. She does not come to the conclusion that Roy lied, nor realize that RC is involved. She doesn't rush off to the throne room, doesn't hear Shojo admit he subverted the guard and ask Belkar for approval, etc.

I won't dispute that she hates the Order and is deeply suspicious of them, but to her knowledge in the no-army timeline, they're just gone. The current events are new occurrences.

Let's begin with the orders:
Why Miko? O-Chul would be a much better choice. Miko is a known hothead who is so uptight none of the other paladins want to work with her. And it is still unexplained how she goes from being convincedthat Justice must be meeted out to The Order by her hand.

I picked Miko as my go-to investigator specifically because she's so tightly wound. She's easy to lead in a direction that you'd want her to go. If Shojo told them both, independently, to investigate a noble, Miko would do it ready to purge evil while O'chul would ask for warrants and follow other processes that Kubota could subvert much more easily.

Evil Radar is awesome. It doesn't track teleportation. It doesn't identify who is leaving the aura. It doesn"t in any way accomplish the ends you have attributed to it. It does not 'expose Xykon.' All it does is let them know a powerfull evil being is on the scene. If Miko is on the scene, who does she blame? (Remember, she is convinced that The Order can hide its Evil aura from her.)

....YES! That's all she needs to do, is to bring back news that Kubota's place is basically an evil demiplane! That's all the justification the Sapphire Guard need to make some fairly drastic action, especially with Shojo pushing them along. Once Miko does this, she can blame Roy or Xykon or Kubota or Moon Goblins, the cover is blown.

If the Sapphire Guard acts under Miko's orders, they move against The Order, not TE.

No, they re-investigate the rather outrageous claims (again, Shojo will push this). Upon finding that Kubota's place really is steeped in evil, they investigate that particular evil since they still don't believe the Order is involved. Or maybe they do both, there's enough of them to spare people for another fetch task.

Thank you for taking my side regarding this issue. Prophecy or seeing the future is problematic at best, and likely to cause the very issue one strives to avoid.

But you see only one side of divination, and are assured that your side gets perfect Intel while the other side does nothing. Kubota is a paranoid. He is virtually certain to have exactly the same degree of defenses against scrying as his enemies have in scrying ability. Any Intel gained via magic will be contradictory and vague.

I'm not suggesting that Shojo et al are scrying him, I was suggesting divine guidance on the matter. And I'm pretty sure Kubota does not, in fact, have Epic Inside. Once the Sapphire Guard and allies are pointed at Kubota and therefore Team Evil, there's nothing more the gods do in this case. But "pointing them at Kubota" doesn't mean "write a serialized 14 page document complete with imagery", it just means start the investigation. That's another reason I picked Miko, she's easy to lead into something like this.

As you have pointed out, one only finds what one goes looking for. Why should anyone be looking at Kubota? Until the nobles convene to vote Kubota into power, he gives all appearances of being a coward who wants to avoid being assassinated. He is a known petty schemer who is disliked by many nobles. Kubota is not exactly a high priority target.

Changing variables. Kubota starts whining about oh noes the assassins are coming, then people start dying, people are going to pick up fast that he knows something. Actually shrewd people are going to run the enemies/allies calculation and realize he's worth looking into.

Xykon will be active and engaged the whole time. Far from 'buried in a safe room,' he will be murdering and torturing on a daily basis. And he has Cloister, so if the scrying gets too tough, he can shut it down.

And yet he'll also be invisible and undetectable at all times? And not wander off like a child in a department store? And not accidentally leave anyone alive or leave zombies walking around?

Are we reading about the same character?

Xykon can cast Geas and command Kubota not to betray him and to kill anyone who tries to betray him.

Spoiler: Xykon's known spell list

Show

Animate Dead, Animate Dead Animal, Cloister, Cloudkill, Contingency, Energy Drain, Epic Mage Armor, Finger of Death, Fireball, Ghostform, Greater Invisibility, Greater Teleport, Invisibility, Lightning Bolt, Magic Missile, Mass Hold Person, Meteor Swarm, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Overland Flight, Ray of Frost, Shatter, Soul Bind, Stoneskin, Superb Dispelling, Symbol of Insanity, Symbol of Pain, Telekinesis, Teleport, Xykon's Moderately Escapable Forcecage, unspecified fire spell, unspecified planar travel spell, summoning spell, architecture spell, and wall-breaking spell

Also, Kubota has full time mega protection from all types and levels of scrying but nothing against actual compulsion?

But why should Kubota betray TE before he gets what he wants? Because he is loyal to Azure City? Kubota is loyal to himself. By the time he gets what he wants, or fails, he surely realizes that TE is far more dangerous to him than all of Azure City.

Kubota does not betray TE because by the time he realizes he should, he realizes that nothing in Azure City can stop TE from getting revenge on him in a manner that makes public execution seem like a sweet deal.

He betrays them because that what he does. It's who he is. People like him only look at others as tools to be used, and kept or discarded at will. Xykon is very obviously not someone you just discard. Frankly, I actually think the chances that he'd agree to work with the lich are pretty low. He wants to work with devils* but that's because devils work with contracts: he thinks, rightly or wrongly, that he can manipulate the outcome. Xykon is the kind who'll declare a contract to be just paper.

*Speaking of which, if all Kubota needed was some extra firepower to completely take over Azure City, I'd think one or more devils would have been willing to actually take him up on the soul-selling thing. Kinda puts a cramp in the argument that he could pull this off.

The 12 do exactly what they did in the comic: leave it to the mortals to figure it out. This entire line of reasoning is based on a very tenuous string of speculations that are not supported by anything in the comic. Invoking deus ex machina to invalidate any part of the scenario is, at best, a cheesy move.

Invoking deus ex machina is easier when there are actual gods in play. But I never claimed the Gods would stop Xykon outright, which would be a deus ex machina. Just prod the defenders into discovering the plot.

[brian 333]

I've already laid out my arguments for why I think it wouldn't work, and since we can't try it I'm comfortable writing it off. It's also just not interesting to discuss.



She almost certainly made quicker time once it became apparent that she was racing against an army. Even with the same schedule, without her dire news that Shojo needed to hear immediately, she doesn't immediately have Hinjo take her to the throne room to report to Shojo.



Shojo could keep her in line. If he couldn't, she'd have been arrested at the end of the trial scene.

Also talking about her investigative skills is a clever trick, because yeah her deductive reasoning is completely worthless, but she's a skilled tracker who has all the tools to follow the trails that Xykon will leave, teleporting around in a hostile paladin controlled city is too risky. She doesn't need to know the full picture to follow a trail.



Kubota is already known to be ambitious and untrustworthy, so I think you might have a harder time selling him as not involved than you think. Also, 'work through proxies' is not exactly an easy feat. Team Evil aren't the Vector Legion, they don't have the numbers to actively infiltrate multiple factions and seamlessly co-ordinate them, so it would be very hard to do this without it being possible to trace this narrative back to Kubota. Especially since, again, Kubota isn't that good at this, I don't think he could sell this



No indication that Shojo has been incompetent, merely pliable. Even if he drops the act and claims a miraculous recovery as a gift from the gods to carry the city through the crisis, the worst I'd expect is that they'll move to censure once everything calms down. I would not rely on the whims of the nobles to restrain Shojo enough to save your conspiracy. If the Nobles are so afraid they'd trust Kubota with lordship, they'd probably be in favour of their current better liked lord exercising his power to protect them from the assassins.



Team Evil needs Kubota to be in charge and vested with enough power to give them undisturbed access to the Throne Room for weeks, otherwise the plan fails. So yeah, if he gets caught it's over, and if you mess the timing up you will get caught.



Oh, I thought you weren't targeting members of the Sapphire Guard, since you were trying to frame them for the murders so that you could turn the nobility against the Guard. Because killing a high ranking member who would benefit from this plot is the exact opposite of framing the guard.



Maybe, but you're rolling the dice every single day with him. In the canon assault he decides to break from the plan to storm the throne room and very nearly gets killed by Soon, so I don't think it's unlikely that he'd make the same call.



Therkla tried to stop the plan because she thought it was a mistake, and I suspect she would have much stronger misgivings about this plan. Qarr is in fact disloyal, glad we agree, and his superiors do not want Team Evil to win. They want conflict, and Team Evil spending months securing a single gate isn't in their interest. Both potential failure points.



That's a big "if". Miko killing Shojo is a big unexpected twist that's super dramatic and takes both characters flaws to their most extreme possible outcome, but that also requires a specific set of events and would be hard to replicate without metagame knowledge.

So, you are convinced the disease plan is not worth a try. Therefore it automatically fails. Because failure is certain, the plan is not worth trying.

Remember that in the scenario I propose, the choice is not between using a hobgoblin army and something else. The scenario does not allow the army as an option, so something else is the only option.

Your something else scenario is for TE to ignore Azure City and go straight to Girard's Pyramid. They likely avoid the shenanigans that delayed The Order and arrive at a remote location in the desert guarded by many sorcerers, some quite high level, in a trapped and fortified position. That looks like an auto fail scenario to me, not even considering that even if they survive, just as they are worn down by the defenses, The Order arrives. Double fail.

Also, this is outside the scope of the scenario, which is to devise a way for TE to achieve its objective, (six weeks in proximity to the Azure City Gate,) without using the DM gifted Hobgoblin Army. Not trying is not a win in the scenario.

Miko existed in the story to oppose The Order. Her entire motivation is to blame The Order. Any evidence of Evil in the city she will interpret as proof that The Order is to blame, (just as she did when she actually met TE in the watchtower.) Miko's tracking skills will be used only to track down The Order and bring them to justice by her own hand. She will not change from her established character just because there is no invading army.

Kubota is a weak link, yes. But he is not the guy everyone will point to when nobles start dying because his is known to be incompetent in his scheming.

Who needs to work through proxies? A few carefully worded Geas spells and TE gains complete control of some noble houses. As far as any investigations go, any successful sleuth will come to them when tracing the whisper campaign back to its origin. And by the time that happens, TE is already moving on to the next phase of the plan.

I'm not targeting 'members of the Sapphire guard.' Hinjo is a noble, and if he cannot be implicated in the assassinations, he is an obstacle. TE knows what to do with obstacles. Leaving his corpse lay around is risky, but at this point in the story, MitD is still hungry. Hinjo's 'desertion' will only contribute to the rumor mill, especially if Xykon uses Alter Self to take on Hinjo's size and build for his next few assassinations, wearing Hinjo's clothes/armor.

Rolling the dice is the point of the game. If you only undertake missions that cannot fail, where's the fun in that? I have a very thick folder full of characters who permanently died. But they all died trying. Any scenario should have a potential for the players to fail. When that happens, you fall back, regroup, and try again.

The IFCC is not involved in the story at this point, so their goals are not relevant. Therkla has not met Elan at this point, so her loyalty to Kubota is not in doubt.

Miko's role in the story was to do what she did. But, assuming the objections as presented do result in her not murdering her liege, what happens? She told us already, in comic, before there was any hint of an army bearing down on Azure City. Her goal is to be the one who kills The Order of the Stick.

What? She was intending to spend the night at the watchtower before Xykon came knocking. Instead, she rode back to the city at max speed while taking as few breaks as humanly possible. Of course her schedule was affected.

Additionally, the Order was just about to depart for Girard's Gate when they had that fateful conversation with Shojo (they were only waiting for a cleric to resurrect their teleportation wizard). Even if Miko's journey was only shortened by a few hours, that would have been enough for the Order to be out of Azure City, leaving her loyalty to Shojo intact.

Assume your timing is correct and Miko does not kill Shojo. What else changes?

I submit that Lord Shojo does not order her to investigate the murders. Lord Shojo was himself the subject of assassination attempts, and the combined skill levels of the Sapphire Guard failed to root out the schemers, resulting in his adopting his 'Crazy Shojo' routine.

If Miko is ordered to investigate, or takes it upon herself to do so, I submit that she will hunt down the worst and most dangerous criminals in the land: The Order of the Stick.

Where "virtually unchanged" means "at least a day earlier and just in time to catch some very poor phrasing on Shojo's account." There's a reason I was linking these comics, the timelines, and the events that drove them, are crucial to her state of mind. Maybe you should read them again before making arguments on the matter.

I can lead you to water, it's up to you to drink it.

Let's have a sip of that water.

The timing shifts by a day for Miko, but everything else remains exactly the same. The Order of the Stick are waiting for their ride wizard to be raised. He then has to rest and recuperate, so he won't be ready to cast his spell until tomorrow. The day that Miko arrives she learns from Hinjo that there have been missing city guards and unsolved assassinations.

Yes, TE has already arrived, possibly more than a week before this, because they didn't have to mobilize their troops or march. The plan is in progress.

So, Miko runs to Lord Shojo, I suppose, to ask how she can help? Let's assume, (this is expressed as the likely choice but, as you will see, I do not think it is likely at all,) that he orders her to investigate the murders.

Everything that is in Miko will have her screaming for the blood of the Order because:
1: Nobody was being murdered before The Order got there.
2: Belkar is a known unrepentant murderer.
3: The Order shelters an unrepentant murderer, so they are all guilty of accessory to murder.
4: They refuse to cooperate with (her) lawful authority.
5: They are able to confuse her ability to Detect Evil, as demonstrated by the crown-trick and by Belkar's repeated use of a lead sheet. Good folk would have no need to conceal their alignments, which proves that they are Evil.
6: Miko is right because if she were not the 12 Gods would tell her. Because she has not received a notification, it is proof that her attitudes and beliefs are correct.
7: She has known all along that the Order would have to be put down by her, and the longer she procrastinates in her duty, the more Innocents will die.

I believe Shojo already knows this, but assuming he gives the order anyway, the only likely action on her part is to kill or capture The Order and expect a parade in her honor for thwarting the greatest Evil her city has ever known.

Without the army, TE doesn't take down the guard tower. Miko doesn't meet Xykon while he does so. She does not come to the conclusion that Roy lied, nor realize that RC is involved. She doesn't rush off to the throne room, doesn't hear Shojo admit he subverted the guard and ask Belkar for approval, etc.

I won't dispute that she hates the Order and is deeply suspicious of them, but to her knowledge in the no-army timeline, they're just gone. The current events are new occurrences.

I picked Miko as my go-to investigator specifically because she's so tightly wound. She's easy to lead in a direction that you'd want her to go. If Shojo told them both, independently, to investigate a noble, Miko would do it ready to purge evil while O'chul would ask for warrants and follow other processes that Kubota could subvert much more easily.

....YES! That's all she needs to do, is to bring back news that Kubota's place is basically an evil demiplane! That's all the justification the Sapphire Guard need to make some fairly drastic action, especially with Shojo pushing them along. Once Miko does this, she can blame Roy or Xykon or Kubota or Moon Goblins, the cover is blown.

The Sapphire Guard is not a police force, and as Kubota said, magical detections cannot be used as evidence in court. And if Shojo's private guard unit openly goes after a noble, all he has to do is ask, "Who's next?"

This line of action actually helps me achieve my goal. It discredits Shojo and the Sapphire Guard, and proves that not only is Kubota a victim, the whisper campaign was right: they do want to eliminate the nobles and assume power.

No, they re-investigate the rather outrageous claims (again, Shojo will push this). Upon finding that Kubota's place really is steeped in evil, they investigate that particular evil since they still don't believe the Order is involved. Or maybe they do both, there's enough of them to spare people for another fetch task.

The Sapphire Guard cannot investigate Kubota any more than Kubota can send his troops to conduct an investigation inside Shojo's home. There is no scenario where this will occur because the paladins, (cough,) obey the LAW.

Shojo might send the city guard to make such an investigation, but they have no Evil Radar, and they are not immune to large bribes.

I'm not suggesting that Shojo et al are scrying him, I was suggesting divine guidance on the matter. And I'm pretty sure Kubota does not, in fact, have Epic Inside. Once the Sapphire Guard and allies are pointed at Kubota and therefore Team Evil, there's nothing more the gods do in this case. But "pointing them at Kubota" doesn't mean "write a serialized 14 page document complete with imagery", it just means start the investigation. That's another reason I picked Miko, she's easy to lead into something like this.

The doings of the gods are not known, but why do you assume that the same gods who did nothing while their city was captured, their civilian population was killed, enslaved, or driven away, their army was decimated, would take action on their own when literally none of those things are remotely likely? Would it not have been a simple thing for one of the 12 to speak to Eugene and 'accidentally' mention the army? But nobody did.

'The end of the world' was exactly as possible, (perhaps even more so if your interpretation of events is superior to mine,) yet the gods remained passive observers until Miko killed Shojo. After that they went back to being passive observers.

This does not even consider that at least some of the gods might actually benefit from a Kubota regime. If the 'Good' members of the 12 act, even subtly, that would open the door to the 'Evil' ones doing the same, (plus cheating because they are Evil.)

While I enjoy the idea of some of the gods actively aiding Kubota, (Monkey might, just for kicks, Rat might, for power, Rooster might, for status,) I think that scenario is exactly as realistic as the other. In other words, none of them do anything. They leave it to the mortals to figure it out just like they did with the invasion scenario.

Changing variables. Kubota starts whining about oh noes the assassins are coming, then people start dying, people are going to pick up fast that he knows something. Actually shrewd people are going to run the enemies/allies calculation and realize he's worth looking into.

And yet he'll also be invisible and undetectable at all times? And not wander off like a child in a department store? And not accidentally leave anyone alive or leave zombies walking around?

Are we reading about the same character?

Kubota does not talk about anything before it happens. That's exactly as stupid as you made it sound!

Let's begin with an explanation of the whisper campaign. First, the nobles themselves say nothing in public. What happens is they have private conversations behind closed doors with other nobles and their servants spread the word to servants of other lords, who then ask their liege if there is any truth to the rumors, which promp those nobles to go to others, who may or may not have heard the same rumor.

Any bards in the employ of the subverted nobles would help strategically place such rumors for rapid dissemination, so that any time someone tries to track a specific rumor to its source it appears to be common knowledge among the nobility and their senior servants.

Spoiler: Xykon's known spell list

Show

Animate Dead, Animate Dead Animal, Cloister, Cloudkill, Contingency, Energy Drain, Epic Mage Armor, Finger of Death, Fireball, Ghostform, Greater Invisibility, Greater Teleport, Invisibility, Lightning Bolt, Magic Missile, Mass Hold Person, Meteor Swarm, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Overland Flight, Ray of Frost, Shatter, Soul Bind, Stoneskin, Superb Dispelling, Symbol of Insanity, Symbol of Pain, Telekinesis, Teleport, Xykon's Moderately Escapable Forcecage, unspecified fire spell, unspecified planar travel spell, summoning spell, architecture spell, and wall-breaking spell

Geas is not on the list? I am under the impression he used that on MitD.

Also, Kubota has full time mega protection from all types and levels of scrying but nothing against actual compulsion?

Protection from scrying or many other diviations is simple: cheap lead foil glued to the walls, floor, and ceiling. Ask Belkar. It would be foolish of Kubota to not have safe rooms strategically located around the city with this simple, cheap, but effective protection built in.

Protection from compulsion is much harder. These spells require line of sight to cast, and most characters, even most male halflings, don't carry a lead sheet around. This does not mean that Kubota does not have magical protection items. It would be foolish for Kubota to have less than the best protection items he can afford, but I would not know what those would be.

He betrays them because that what he does. It's who he is. People like him only look at others as tools to be used, and kept or discarded at will. Xykon is very obviously not someone you just discard. Frankly, I actually think the chances that he'd agree to work with the lich are pretty low. He wants to work with devils* but that's because devils work with contracts: he thinks, rightly or wrongly, that he can manipulate the outcome. Xykon is the kind who'll declare a contract to be just paper.

*Speaking of which, if all Kubota needed was some extra firepower to completely take over Azure City, I'd think one or more devils would have been willing to actually take him up on the soul-selling thing. Kinda puts a cramp in the argument that he could pull this off.

At first Kubota would think he could discard Xykon when he has served Kubota's purpose, but when a few of his favorite enemies are eviscerated, exanguinated, and defenestrated with ease while in the center of their safe zones, Kubota's sense of self-preservation will kick in. He will realize that betraying Xykon would result in his own death. He would realize that Team Evil could quickly replace him with another noble, and if he runs to Shojo or any other nobles who might be powerful enough to protect him, they will execute him.

By the time he realizes that he got in over his head, he will know without a doubt that his only chance to stay alive is to give Xykon what he wants and hope he goes away when he has it. And if Xykon stays? Well, surely the great wizard needs another yes-man.

Invoking deus ex machina is easier when there are actual gods in play. But I never claimed the Gods would stop Xykon outright, which would be a deus ex machina. Just prod the defenders into discovering the plot.

Again, why would they do this? They did nothing like this when an army was bearing down on the city. An army that killed, enslaved, and displaced many thousands of faithful worshippers.

The claim that they did not warn Azure City because they wanted the prayers and devotion is hard for me to understand. If they are that callous, cold, and calculating, they might just warn the population in order to provoke Xykon into killing thousands. That should get the prayers going.

[Unoriginal]

Girard's Gate absolutely isn't an auto-fail.

It'll be a tough dungeon, certainly, but it's unlikely both Redcloack and Xykon dies at the same time, and that's the only fail state for Team Evil.

And the Order *wouldn't* appear just as TE dealt with the Draketooth defenses, they have days to comb the place Girard's fake info lead them to, and then would need to deal with Elan's family to find the real Gate. Considering that Tarquin's wife is alive and being used by the Linear Guild to seek the Gate at this point.

[brian 333]

Girard's Gate absolutely isn't an auto-fail.

It'll be a tough dungeon, certainly, but it's unlikely both Redcloack and Xykon dies at the same time, and that's the only fail state for Team Evil.

And the Order *wouldn't* appear just as TE dealt with the Draketooth defenses, they have days to comb the place Girard's fake info lead them to, and then would need to deal with Elan's family to find the real Gate. Considering that Tarquin's wife is alive and being used by the Linear Guild to seek the Gate at this point.

Wait.
Really?

You are suggesting that The Order, The Legion, and The Guild make a combined assault on Girard's Pyramid while TE is performing The Ritual???

That's so much better than what I had in mind!

[Larsaan]

Miko existed in the story to oppose The Order. Her entire motivation is to blame The Order. Any evidence of Evil in the city she will interpret as proof that The Order is to blame, (just as she did when she actually met TE in the watchtower.) Miko's tracking skills will be used only to track down The Order and bring them to justice by her own hand. She will not change from her established character just because there is no invading army.

...

Assume your timing is correct and Miko does not kill Shojo. What else changes?

I submit that Lord Shojo does not order her to investigate the murders. Lord Shojo was himself the subject of assassination attempts, and the combined skill levels of the Sapphire Guard failed to root out the schemers, resulting in his adopting his 'Crazy Shojo' routine.

If Miko is ordered to investigate, or takes it upon herself to do so, I submit that she will hunt down the worst and most dangerous criminals in the land: The Order of the Stick.

Well no, you're taking Miko's characterization at the end of her lengthy mental breakdown and applying it to a much earlier point in the timeline.

Miko was hostile towards the Order after their trial, certainly, but she was not obsessed with them. THAT only happened after she discovered Xykon was still at large (seemingly contradicting their claim that they destroyed him, since she didn't know about the phylactery), followed by scapegoating them for her trauma after she killed her parental figure and fell from paladinhood (which only happened because she accidentally overheard that one conversation).

Without Xykon's intercept at the watchtower, Miko's grudge against the Order boils down to them stopping her from executing Belkar, and maybe a bruised ego from Roy rejecting her. It's both a lot less personal and a lot less urgent. There's still a small chance that she blames them anyway, but it's not nearly as much of a sure thing in this timeline - especially since the Order aren't even on the same continent anymore.

[Precure]

Agreed. Miko's fall based on very unlikely set of events.

[Errorname]

So, you are convinced the disease plan is not worth a try. Therefore it automatically fails. Because failure is certain, the plan is not worth trying.

I think the plan is fundamentally unworkable and 'we can't try it so we can't say it would fail' is not a convincing argument for why it isn't. I also think regardless of success or failure it's not interesting to discuss, so I have no interest in litigating it further.

Your something else scenario is for TE to ignore Azure City and go straight to Girard's Pyramid. They likely avoid the shenanigans that delayed The Order and arrive at a remote location in the desert guarded by many sorcerers, some quite high level, in a trapped and fortified position. That looks like an auto fail scenario to me, not even considering that even if they survive, just as they are worn down by the defenses, The Order arrives. Double fail.

Also, this is outside the scope of the scenario, which is to devise a way for TE to achieve its objective, (six weeks in proximity to the Azure City Gate,) without using the DM gifted Hobgoblin Army. Not trying is not a win in the scenario.

It doesn't answer the question, but in terms of the actual character motivations it is what would happen. Xykon and Redcloak aren't the Vector Legion, subterfuge isn't their style, and they know where the other two gates are. If they don't have sufficient force to conquer Azure City outright, they'd hit another target.

And Girard's Pyramid is a doable dungeon, especially since both Xykon and Redcloak would likely be resistant to the phantasms and illusions. Not easy, but doable, they took both Lirian and Dorukan's gates and those dungeon still had epic level guardians.

Miko existed in the story to oppose The Order. Her entire motivation is to blame The Order. Any evidence of Evil in the city she will interpret as proof that The Order is to blame, (just as she did when she actually met TE in the watchtower.) Miko's tracking skills will be used only to track down The Order and bring them to justice by her own hand. She will not change from her established character just because there is no invading army.

We aren't talking about narrative logic or how things played out in the actual story. If we were, the fact that Azure City's defenses are built facilitating the large scale clash of armies seen in War and XP's would be curtains for the argument that you didn't need an army. We're arguing about alternative scenarios, and in that scenario I think it's important to emphasize that many things that happen in stories are extreme longshots that require a lot of contriving to happen in order to create the most compelling and dramatic sequence of events.

Miko's story is built around ensuring that she falls in the most dramatic possible way, and if we start changing things she doesn't. Miko thinks herself honourable, and she thinks herself a loyal servant. If Shojo gives her an order, she will follow.

Who needs to work through proxies? A few carefully worded Geas spells and TE gains complete control of some noble houses. As far as any investigations go, any successful sleuth will come to them when tracing the whisper campaign back to its origin. And by the time that happens, TE is already moving on to the next phase of the plan.

If you only have two agents, a series of murders while also covertly cursing a bunch of prominent nobles is not exactly an easy task, lot of things that could go wrong. That's assuming you can actually cast geas, which given that neither Xykon or Redcloak seem able to cast Geas, despite both absolutely having chances to benefit from it, I would say it's probably not in their toolkit.

I'm not targeting 'members of the Sapphire guard.' Hinjo is a noble, and if he cannot be implicated in the assassinations, he is an obstacle. TE knows what to do with obstacles. Leaving his corpse lay around is risky, but at this point in the story, MitD is still hungry. Hinjo's 'desertion' will only contribute to the rumor mill, especially if Xykon uses Alter Self to take on Hinjo's size and build for his next few assassinations, wearing Hinjo's clothes/armor.

Hinjo is a member of the Sapphire Guard, a very high ranking one at that. Most of the Guard are nobles, incidentally, which is why I have a harder time believing that you could scapegoat the entire order badly enough to gain support for dismantling them.

Rolling the dice is the point of the game. If you only undertake missions that cannot fail, where's the fun in that? I have a very thick folder full of characters who permanently died. But they all died trying. Any scenario should have a potential for the players to fail. When that happens, you fall back, regroup, and try again.

I was not talking about literal dice, but in this analogy it is rolling a d6 every day at least and if you get a 1 you instantly fail, for a plan that will take weeks. The odds are not good.

The IFCC is not involved in the story at this point, so their goals are not relevant. Therkla has not met Elan at this point, so her loyalty to Kubota is not in doubt.

That assumes Sabine was the first indication the IFCC got about the gates, and I suspect that she wasn't.

Miko's role in the story was to do what she did. But, assuming the objections as presented do result in her not murdering her liege, what happens? She told us already, in comic, before there was any hint of an army bearing down on Azure City. Her goal is to be the one who kills The Order of the Stick.

That very same comic has her bring up her vow of service to Lord Shojo. She hates the Order, and that's a weak point. I make no illusion that Miko could absolutely ruin things for everyone, that's what happened in the actual story, but I do not think it is the only outcome. Despite her grudge, she does not attack the Order until the incident with Shojo and does not object to being sent far north to dwarven lands.

Assume your timing is correct and Miko does not kill Shojo. What else changes?

I submit that Lord Shojo does not order her to investigate the murders. Lord Shojo was himself the subject of assassination attempts, and the combined skill levels of the Sapphire Guard failed to root out the schemers, resulting in his adopting his 'Crazy Shojo' routine.

If Miko is ordered to investigate, or takes it upon herself to do so, I submit that
she will hunt down the worst and most dangerous criminals in the land: The Order of the Stick.

There is no indication that Shojo is unaware of who tried to have him killed, more likely he was unable to prove it or feared similar attacks from different people in the future, and even if he was, Paladins will likely find hunting an evil undead more to their skillset than ninjas.

[Provengreil]

The IFCC is not involved in the story at this point, so their goals are not relevant. Therkla has not met Elan at this point, so her loyalty to Kubota is not in doubt.

So this one isn't part of my reply chain, but I want to highlight that this is a critical failure in a lot of your thinking here. Just because the story hasn't brought something to our attention at this chronological point in its narrative does not mean the players themselves aren't active. The IFCC would absolutely have a vested interest in the future of Soon's gate. How they might choose to act on that interest is far too murky to speculate with and thus I've not involved them in this context, though.

Below quotation slightly pruned for brevity, but their content unchanged

Assume your timing is correct and Miko does not kill Shojo. What else changes?

I submit that Lord Shojo does not order her to investigate the murders. Lord Shojo was himself the subject of assassination attempts, and the combined skill levels of the Sapphire Guard failed to root out the schemers, resulting in his adopting his 'Crazy Shojo' routine.

If Miko is ordered to investigate, or takes it upon herself to do so, I submit that she will hunt down the worst and most dangerous criminals in the land: The Order of the Stick.

The timing shifts by a day for Miko, but everything else remains exactly the same. The Order of the Stick are waiting for their ride wizard to be raised. He then has to rest and recuperate, so he won't be ready to cast his spell until tomorrow. The day that Miko arrives she learns from Hinjo that there have been missing city guards and unsolved assassinations.

Everything does NOT remain the same. Miko's mental breakdown was well underway as a result of her poor conclusions regarding Xykon still being alive and the Order working with him, and then she overheard Shojo tell the order he was sane and subverting the SG. Neither of these events can occur in the new timeline. She remains arrogant, tightly wound, deeply suspicious of the OOTS, but also loyal to Shojo and prioritizes his orders, trusting the gods to mete out justice to OOTS and praying that they use her to do it.

Yes, TE has already arrived, possibly more than a week before this, because they didn't have to mobilize their troops or march. The plan is in progress.

So, Miko runs to Lord Shojo I suppose, to ask how she can help? Let's assume, (this is expressed as the likely choice but, as you will see, I do not think it is likely at all,) that He orders her to investigate the murders.

Everything that is in Miko will have her screaming for the blood of the Order because:
1: Nobody was being murdered before The Order got there.
2: Belkar is a known unrepentant murderer.
3: The Order shelters an unrepentant murderer, so they are all guilty of accessory to murder.
4: They refuse to cooperate with (her) lawful authority.
5: They are able to confuse her ability to Detect Evil, as demonstrated by the crown-trick and by Belkar's repeated use of a lead sheet. Good folk would have no need to conceal their alignments, which proves that they are Evil.
6: Miko is right because if she were not the 12 Gods would tell her. Because she has not received a notification, it is proof that her attitudes and beliefs are correct.
7: She has known all along that the Order would have to be put down by her, and the longer she procrastinates in her duty, the more Innocents will die.

I believe Shojo already knows this, but assuming he gives the order anyway, the only likely action on her part is to kill or capture The Order and expect a parade in her honor for thwarting the greatest Evil her city has ever known.

The Sapphire Guard is not a police force, and as Kubota said, magical detections cannot be used as evidence in court. And I'd Shojo's private guard unit openly goes after a noble, all he has to do is ask, "Who's next?"

This is the most solid argument you've presented in the entire thread.

The only thing you've failed to account for is still based on timing. Without meeting Miko, Xykon's play of sending her home and then scrying on her doesn't happen. This greatly extends the scouting phase of their plan, as they don't know they need to take the throne room itself yet and have to maximize secrecy now more than at any other phase of the operation. They don't know where the gate is or even who to interrogate about it, and you can only go so high on the chain with missing persons without raising some sort of search. Then they need to plan out the concept of a coup, figure out who to safely contact and how, get vetted by him, and finally hammer out the plan before moving on any of it. that will take time, and by then the Order has come and gone again. No murders, at least none that are unusual, until well after the OOTS leaves for the desert.

This line of action actually helps me achieve my goal. It discredits Shojo and the Sapphire Guard, and proves that not only is Kubota a victim, the whisper campaign was right: they do want to eliminate the nobles and assume power.

I think you're getting a little personally invested here: it helps Kubota achieve HIS goal, and I still maintain that turning on Team Evil and framing them as the Sapphire Guard's accomplices is his most likely course in all of this, with him betting on the idea that TE can't outfight everyone at once when he outs them.

[Errorname]

I think you're getting a little personally invested here: it helps Kubota achieve HIS goal

Eh, he's framing this as though we're playing the characters in a wargame scenario, which we basically are, albeit a highly informal one. It's not how I'd phrase it but it's not objectionable.

This is the most solid argument you've presented in the entire thread.

Another problem is that the plan is to shock and terrorize the nobility into a state of fear such that they're willing to place Kubota on the throne, but at the same time Shojo showing strong initiative and taking action to try and catch the killer would be unpopular and weaken him. If there's any scenario where Shojo can take drastic measures with the full backing of the nobility, it's when he's trying to protect them from a mysterious serial killer.

Admittedly I don't think "send Miko to do it" is the play in terms of "positive outcome for Azure City", the resulting explosion just probably scuttles the scenario for Team Evil. I'll maintain that placing an arrest warrant on Kubota and trying to bait Xykon into a direct assault on the gate on your terms is the best play, get him in the room with the epic level paladin ghost and then lock the doors.

[woweedd]

OK, wait, what's being debated here? If it's just that it's theoretically possible for someone to conquer Azure City without an army...I mean, yeah, duh. A sufficiently high level character could do basically anything. Is the question it Xykon and Redcloak specifically could do it? Because, like...Probably, but A. I think the proposed plan makes a number of assumptions as to their skill sets that are uncalled for and B. Why would they? The whole reason they went for Azure City is BECAUSE they had an army. If they didn't have an army, they'd just teleport straight to Girard's Gate. The trouble of transporting the Hobgoblins across a continent is part of what motivated them to go for Azure City.

[Provengreil]

Eh, he's framing this as though we're playing the characters in a wargame scenario, which we basically are, albeit a highly informal one. It's not how I'd phrase it but it's not objectionable.

I don't accept that framing. Predicting the actions of characters under different circumstances requires taking into account their personalities, goals, resources, and information. In a wargame scenario, players have matching information and the pieces have no personality: we can see this every time he dispenses with Xykon's known impatience to seize any ground towards an objective that he can with minimal delay. Hiding in a safe room, only teleporting directly to a kill and back? Not Xykon's style and there's been no admission of that. He paints Kubota as someone who presents simultaneously as leader and coward and I don't accept that. He structures plans such that people avoid good ideas or goals based on reaching conclusions that we as an audience have, rather than the characters as they are.

Wargaming it is a terrible way to analyze something like this.

Another problem is that the plan is to shock and terrorize the nobility into a state of fear such that they're willing to place Kubota on the throne, but at the same time Shojo showing strong initiative and taking action to try and catch the killer would be unpopular and weaken him. If there's any scenario where Shojo can take drastic measures with the full backing of the nobility, it's when he's trying to protect them from a mysterious serial killer.

Admittedly I don't think "send Miko to do it" is the play in terms of "positive outcome for Azure City", the resulting explosion just probably scuttles the scenario for Team Evil. I'll maintain that placing an arrest warrant on Kubota and trying to bait Xykon into a direct assault on the gate on your terms is the best play, get him in the room with the epic level paladin ghost and then lock the doors.

I'm accepting Brian's assumption that, at least until some level of investigation is conducted, Xykon and Redcloak are not known quantities to Shojo and so his response of sending the highest level adventurer type under his command is a reasonable level of response to a few assassinations and a deeply suspect noble. As I've laid out above, Miko is easy to lead if she already trusts you. As for better outcomes for Azure City as a whole...I don't think there are any. Absent successfully luring both Xykon and Redcloak into a fight with Soon, and Soon winning, the best Azure City can possibly do is drive out Team Evil to go take another gate.

Even the Soon plan relies on some audience knowledge too, mostly about Xykon's Phylactery, otherwise the smart play would be to trap only one of them in the throne room(probably Xykon) to maximize Soon's chances. As such, I've stayed away from any such suggestions.

[ecarden]

OK, wait, what's being debated here? If it's just that it's theoretically possible for someone to conquer Azure City without an army...I mean, yeah, duh. A sufficiently high level character could do basically anything. Is the question it Xykon and Redcloak specifically could do it? Because, like...Probably, but A. I think the proposed plan makes a number of assumptions as to their skill sets that are uncalled for and B. Why would they? The whole reason they went for Azure City is BECAUSE they had an army. If they didn't have an army, they'd just teleport straight to Girard's Gate. The trouble of transporting the Hobgoblins across a continent is part of what motivated them to go for Azure City.

So, the issue arose because some folks said that Soon's gate was the best defended because it required an army rather than merely a dungeon crawl (personally, I'm somewhat unconvinced by that as in D&D settings armies are often easier to find than high level adventuring parties--of course all this ignores Soon et. al, which mean you need both an army and a powerful group of adventurers). So there's been a lot of focus on trying to theorycraft a scenario where Xykon and Redcloak can take Soon's gate without the army (IE the same way they took the other gates, though they did have a lot of minions even then).

I don't find that massively relevant, as the goal of the defenses wasn't to defend against Xykon, but to defend against everyone.

I think the key point I'd boil it down to is that all the other gates require:

1) Locating the gate.
2) Defeating the guards.

Soon's gate requires both of those and:

3) Take over a city in some fashion.

By virtue of the extra step, yes his gate is the best defended, in my view (though obviously you can insert additional steps into (2) arguing that the dungeons are far more elaborate/likely to succeed generally than an army of Ghost Paladins, but we see what happens with the gate defenses versus Xykon et. al., Lirian and Soon's gate defenses do defeat him (at least temporarily), while none of the others come close. Though Girard's gate falls before he arrives, so we don't know how that would have worked out).

[brian 333]

A whole lot happened while I was working on the last post. But a few points:
1: this is a theoretical exercise, but when the OotSRPG setting comes out, I'll play the scenario and let you know how it turns out.
2: I am defending the plan I outlined, not because it is the best one, but because it was the first one. If this was a tabletop game session, we'd be working together to enact the best plan and working out solutions for the potential fail points. This might result in my helping to refine someone else's better plan.
3: If I appear harsh, dismissive, or rude, I apologize. It is not my intent, but when trying to make a point it is difficult to write in a manner that cannot be interpreted as hostile. I am having fun, and it is my hope that you are as well.
4: My feelings have not been hurt, so don't be afraid to defend your position.

Now I have four hours before I have to go to work, so I will return to this when I can. In the meantime, think up a better plan than the ones I have presented!

[woweedd]

A whole lot happened while I was working on the last post. But a few points:
1: this is a theoretical exercise, but when the OotSRPG setting comes out, I'll play the scenario and let you know how it turns out.
2: I am defending the plan I outlined, not because it is the best one, but because it was the first one. If this was a tabletop game session, we'd be working together to enact the best plan and working out solutions for the potential fail points. This might result in my helping to refine someone else's better plan.
3: If I appear harsh, dismissive, or rude, I apologize. It is not my intent, but when trying to make a point it is difficult to write in a manner that cannot be interpreted as hostile. I am having fun, and it is my hope that you are as well.
4: My feelings have not been hurt, so don't be afraid to defend your position.

Now I have four hours before I have to go to work, so I will return to this when I can. In the meantime, think up a better plan than the ones I have presented!

Uh...What do you mean "when"? The system is just "D&D 3.5 where not noted otherwise" and the setting is, by design, largely generic.

[Unoriginal]

You are suggesting that The Order, The Legion, and The Guild make a combined assault on Girard's Pyramid while TE is performing The Ritual??

That is certainly not what I am suggesting at all, as such a situation is *quite* unlikely to happen given the various actors involved.

It Team Evil takes the Pyramid, they are going to apply Cloister to it, meaning that no one except them and Serini knows where it actually is AND attempts to find it via divination are now met with failure unless Epic magic is applied. Not to mention it will still takes weeks for all of the Draketooth anti-divination spells to run out.


Also, I was wrong: the Linear Guild would be in Azure City's antimagic prison, so Nale wouldn't even have begun the whole "use stepmother to track Sorcerer clan" plan, at this point. Meaning they couldn't start this plan before the Order shows up at the fake Gate location, if the Linear Guild can even escape on time to try that plan without an army attack giving them the opportunity.

So Team Evil just wins.

[gbaji]

I think the key point I'd boil it down to is that all the other gates require:

1) Locating the gate.
2) Defeating the guards.

Soon's gate requires both of those and:

3) Take over a city in some fashion.

By virtue of the extra step, yes his gate is the best defended, in my view (though obviously you can insert additional steps into (2) arguing that the dungeons are far more elaborate/likely to succeed generally than an army of Ghost Paladins, but we see what happens with the gate defenses versus Xykon et. al., Lirian and Soon's gate defenses do defeat him (at least temporarily), while none of the others come close. Though Girard's gate falls before he arrives, so we don't know how that would have worked out).

I think this is the whole thing, in a nutshell. We can get caught up quibbling over what "with an army" means literally, but for the broader concept it's not really relevant here. At some point, you have to effectively conquer an entire large city just to have access to the gate long enough to do the ritual. And yes, that is in addition to figuring out where the gate is (which IMO, is *also* harder for the Azure City gate than most) *and* defeating the guardians (ghost martyrs at a minimum).


I also still have extreme reservations about any sort of sublte takeover plans. Sure, TE and Kubuto (or any other ambitious noble), could certainly succeed in taking control of the city politically. And that would give them access to the throne room. It's just the next step: "Said noble hands over the throne room for TE to spend weeks performing the ritual", where things break down. I just don't see any way that any legitimate noble with any legitimate claim to hold control of the throne room would willingly give that over to TE (regardless of how much help they were), and even if somehow pressured or forced to do so, I can't see anyone else allowing it either. It's a public space. The center of power. The other nobles expect to meet with the current lord in that room. The royal guards expect to be stationed there. Ambassadors will meet with the ruler there. Petitions will be made there. This is where all "official business" will be conducted by the leaders of the city.

It's not just some personal quarters of the current lord, and can be sealed off for weeks, while TE does the ritual. Even if every other step in the plan succeeded, it will all fall apart at that point. There's just no way to pull this off in secret, without everyone else figuring out that "something strange is going on in the throne room". At which point, no amount of secrecy and political manipulation will prevent literally every other faction of nobles investigating and figuring out what's going on. They have freaking ninjas in their employ. TE is not exactly a subtle operation. I'm pretty sure folks will notice when their throne room is suddenly off limits, and being guarded by hordes of undead and summoned creatures.

At which point, even if the forces the nobles (and the SG depending on what their current configuration is) can bring to bear isn't capable of actually defeating TE directly, they can certainly prevent the ritual from being completed. This isn't some out of the way dungeon, where once you defeat the folks guarding it, you can sit there for however long you want to do the ritual. It's the throne room of a major city.