THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

[Terralthra]

He was explicitly not paying attention to V, because when the angel tried to warn him about V as he was being resurrected, he brushed the angel off because he was so sure the subject of the angel's warning was Belkar.

[Lord of the Abyss]

And Roy's memory of much of what happened in the afterlife is vague or nonexistent, anyway.

[Ahriman238]

I am content with seeing Roy's reaction, rather than recapping the whole string of events. And if Roy's reaction is that he doesn't really know how to react, well, I imagine I would feel the same if a close friend confessed they were a mass-murderer but most of their victims were terrible people.

Oh, I think it's BS that Roy isn't equipped to deal with this from a philosophical/moral perspective. I think he was seizing on one aspect of the situation he could wrap his mind around, plan for and possibly DO something about. And in fairness, V's absence has already cost the Order dearly once. Poor Roy, two of his big gun casters and best friends have suddenly become major liabilities, Belkar's "reformation" only goes so far and he doesn't dare trust it, at least I think Elan is no longer an active hindrance to the party. Still, Roy's got a ton to deal with, and the Familicide thing is huge in both scope and implication.

[Simon_Jester]

I think Roy's gotten hyperfocused on the whole "save the world" goal, too, to the point where he isn't really taking time out for much else. He doesn't want any more sidequests, there is now ONE remaining gate in the world and the final confrontation with Xykon can't be that far in the future.

If V's spellcasting is unimpaired, they can deal with everything else after saving the world.

[Raesene]

#945 up!
Spoiler

It's still in there...

[Lord of the Abyss]

Spoiler

SNARRRRLL!!

So much for the fan-theory that the Snarl never existed.

I wonder if Laurin's eyes turning Snarl colored was just for dramatic purposes, or...something else.

[Crazedwraith]

My my. They are in trouble aren't they?
Spoiler

Well considering we've told that losing gates, weakens reality, this was pretty much inevitable. Otherwise it would seem like only one gate was ever necessary.

One assumes the snarl can't destroy the entire world from there though. Else it would make for a very bad end of the story.

[Ahriman238]

I disagree
Spoiler

At least to the extent of the Gates and their purpose. The Order of the Scribble designed the Gates to prevent what happened in their day, the rifts expanding and the Snarl reaching out to devour/destroy everything in reach. It's not like once the last gate is destroyed, game over. Instead the rifts will expand possibly at a rate comparable to the one in Azure city, until someone figures out how to reconstruct the gates around them.

[Irbis]

So, Tarquin's back in the plot?
Spoiler

Though, I must say I like how the 'favour' played out, it looks like it won't be the cosy job Laurin imagined, though.

[Gaidin]

Spoiler

Though, I must say I like how the 'favour' played out, it looks like it won't be the cosy job Laurin imagined, though.

Question of the day: Spoiler

Does Laurin even exist as a person anymore?

[Simon_Jester]

Spoiler

She may have been forcibly converted to the Holey Brotherhood...

[Napoleon the Clown]

Well that put a snarl in her plans.

[Rogue 9]

946 up. Spoiler

I knew he couldn't be trusted. I didn't quite see this coming, but you can never trust a vampire.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Aaand we're on break until the end of next month. Quite the cliff hanger.

[Ralin]

So...Buffyverse vampire rules, more or less?

[Irbis]

I seriously which Burlew would hurry up and confirm that Durkula IS Durkon and not some sort of doppelganger to silence the ridiculous amount of "omg that is not durkon" threads.

So now we apply the A->B->C example and the argument of the Ship of Theseus to Malack: after two hundred years of committing destruction in the name of Nergal, and of being a vampire, Malack remembers the taste of his brothers' blood more than he remembers even having brothers. Is Malack in any way recognizable as the person he used to be? It doesn't matter if he was that person 200 years ago, the question is whether there's any real continuity of values, attitudes, or even memory now, in the present day.

Malack himself may believe the answer is "no" and consider resurrection to be a complicated form of killing vampire-Malack, just to replace him with this ancient living-Malack who is only vaguely related to the person he once was. He would rather be totally destroyed (hello, cleric of destruction who takes his job seriously) than recreated in the mind and form of a being that ceased to exist 200 years ago, and has very little in common with him today.*

So, you were saying?

Ditto for earlier discussion where some people went 'playing optimized spellcaster is WRONG WAY TO DO IT EVER and it would never happen in OotS', then Miron and Laurin turned out to be pretty well tweaked, with contingencies, boosters, novas, proper use of tactical teleports and blocking, losing only to V's plot armor.

[Simon_Jester]

On the vampire subject: well, the author appears to disagree with me. I would argue that we had no consistent supporting evidence for this before hand. Vampire-Malack certainly spoke as if he was a single entity who had continuity of existence with the living-Malack, and gave no indication of actually being an evil spirit created by Tiamat who had subjugated the consciousness of living-Malack inside itself.

On the caster subject: I never denied that an optimized caster would be a very powerful force in OotS or any other world running on D&D rules. My point is simply that fighting power doesn't automatically equate to a good story, and that bouncing up and down shouting at the characters in OotS for having suboptimal builds is pointless and stupid.

[Irbis]

On the vampire subject: well, the author appears to disagree with me. I would argue that we had no consistent supporting evidence for this before hand. Vampire-Malack certainly spoke as if he was a single entity who had continuity of existence with the living-Malack, and gave no indication of actually being an evil spirit created by Tiamat who had subjugated the consciousness of living-Malack inside itself.

Did he? Wasn't the whole point of 'you won't resurrect me' stating otherwise? And anyway, he would have sort of point - Malack was a vampire 95% of his 'life', by that point Malack the lizard was pretty much a meaningless, unimportant footnote.

Though, I must say this revelation makes far more sense than dubious plot 'twists' we had before - if Malack was just evil soul doing bidding of god of death, then his 'let's make death camps on the whole continent' plan makes a certain amount of twisted sense, much more than a cleric just deciding to do so out of his free will.

On the caster subject: I never denied that an optimized caster would be a very powerful force in OotS or any other world running on D&D rules. My point is simply that fighting power doesn't automatically equate to a good story, and that bouncing up and down shouting at the characters in OotS for having suboptimal builds is pointless and stupid.

Eh, I am not saying optimized caster makes good character, or is even fun to play in many circumstances, but a few comments by several people pouring disdain on everyone who dares to write one, much less play it even if it is right for the campaign rubbed me wrong way.

[AniThyng]

Fine, you win

Any reservations I have are mitigated by the sheer awesomeness of Hel's appearance.

[RecklessPrudence]

Hey, umm... that first "evil opposite" of Durkon, the female dwarven cleric, who did she worship again? They had that big talk while Darkvisioning around... is it possible that the interactions Durkon had with an evil dwarven clerics could come back to bite Hel on the arse? She still seemed to have feelings for Durkon, even as she ran away crying...

[Kuja]

She was a cleric of Loki.

[AniThyng]

She was a cleric of Loki.

One indeed wonders how Loki feels about Hel scheming to bring that buffoon Thor to his knees

Especially since Hel may or may not be his daughter...

On the topic of Malack - there is no particular reason that we can't compromise - if the living-Malack was an evil shaman, he might actually have agreed with the evil spirit to meld or subsume himself to hit such that both he and the vampire are inseparable.

[Simon_Jester]

The point I was originally making is that vampire-Malack spoke as if he had continuity of mind with the living Malack. Either vampire-Malack was being deliberately misleading, or he genuinely thought of himself as 'the real Malack,' in my opinion. He may have thought of himself as an evolved Malack, one which had changed and was no longer the same kind of being as before. But he didn't show any sign of being someone else, except in the same sense that you are not the person you were at two years old.

[Ralin]

The point I was originally making is that vampire-Malack spoke as if he had continuity of mind with the living Malack. Either vampire-Malack was being deliberately misleading, or he genuinely thought of himself as 'the real Malack,' in my opinion. He may have thought of himself as an evolved Malack, one which had changed and was no longer the same kind of being as before. But he didn't show any sign of being someone else, except in the same sense that you are not the person you were at two years old.

We get it man. It was a reasonable assumption and I 'm pretty sure even Irbis is just ribbing you at this point. You don't have to keep explaining.

[Crazedwraith]

All other issues aside. I've got to say I'm really impressed with the art in that final Durkula scene. I can't quite my place my finger on why, the shading perhaps? But it seems a cut above the norm for Oots.

So to wade into the big issue after all, I think it's an interesting development and it was cool how Durkula initially played into people's expectations about him still being lawful and therefore honouring durkon's agreements from his life and then it turns out to be a Big trick. Still the totally different entity in control now is a bit of a disappointment. There was some mileage to be had in Durkula being genuinely on their side but changed by now having no moral code. There would even still be an interesting plotline in him having Durkon's lawful personality but still choosing to betray them because say Durkon's loyalty to his god(dess) is greater than his to his order. (like when he refused to fight Miko)

But obviously that's not what we got. As far as this goes, I guess its a sucker bet to predict that Durkon's soul will eventually start to influence Durkula in the end?