Colonel Cool posted:

The answer to all "how does a half-that exist?" is always "polymorph". If it works for a dragon it'll work for a golem.

Rumda posted:

Prosthetics.

jng2058 posted:

DR 5 Silver seems a little weak compared to Haley's +5 arrows bouncing off. Should be something DR 10+ to get that effect. Crystal's probably something house-ruled.

jng2058 posted:

DR 5 Silver seems a little weak compared to Haley's +5 arrows bouncing off. Should be something DR 10+ to get that effect. Crystal's probably something house-ruled.

Cat Mattress posted:

Portfolio domains: War, Sex, Shoelessness

Ephemeron posted:

But I thought Banjo didn't want to join the pantheon?

MonsterEnvy posted:

Pretty much Golem limbs are made and infused with the golem magic that makes them Golems. Then the Golem limb is attached to the person that will become a half golem. Then they have to make a will save for each limb attached or go evil and crazy.

Colonel Cool posted:

"It took 16 days to make this"?

Cornwind Evil posted:

What precisely is the medical condition Rich has again?

Cliff Racer posted:

Man, the new art-style sure is loving ugly. Haven't warmed up to it at all.

Zore posted:

Unspecified though most people think its Crohn's from some of the comments he's made about it.

Rich Burlew posted:

There's a certain degree of 'what goes around, comes around' at play here, too. Azure City stood as a nation dedicated by all that was good and holy...but in many ways, failed to live up to its own ideals. Scratch the surface just a little, and you found a leader who ruled with lies, a paladin who believed herself infallible, and a ruling class willing to abandon the people when push came to shove. Most damning, though is the decades long history of paladins exterminating entire villages of goblins and other humanoids at the behest of their gods (a point that is seen directly in the pages of Start of Darkness). That the city's undoing should be orchestrated by Redcloak, a villain that they themselves accidentally created, is only fitting. The Twelve Gods may have sanctioned the paladin's massacres, but even the gods can't stop Karma from kicking them in their divine asses once in a while.

Rich Burlew posted:

Everything you see happened....However, everything that happened is not necessarily seen. Suffice to say that the Twelve Gods are not beholden to put on the same visual display they did for Miko for every paladin who transgresses, and that all transgressions are not created equal. It is possible that some of the paladins who participated in the attack crossed the line. It is also possible that most did not....Of course, while Redcloak is not narrating the scene, it is shown mostly from his perspective; we don't see how many Detect Evils were used before the attack started, and we don't see how many paladins afterwards try to heal their wounds and can't...Dramatically, showing no-name paladins Falling at that point in the story would confuse the narrative by making it unclear whether or not Redcloak had already earned a form of retribution against them. To be clear, he had not: Whether or not some of them lost a few class abilities does not change the fact that Redcloak suffered an injustice at their hands, one that shaped his entire adult life. That was the point of the scene. Showing them Fall or not simply was not important to Redcloak's story, so it was omitted.

Cornwind Evil posted:

So some paladins behaved so badly they may have indeed Fallen...except why where they even there? What made them act in such a way that they Fell? A paladin should know, above all else, what should make them Fall, yet every paladin there went off and killed Redcloak's village to a man in the manner shown in Start without any awareness at all that they could Fall. The Twelve Gods told them 'Yes, go wipe them out', and then afterwards told some 'Sorry, you wiped them out TOO HARD, you're fired.' They're contradicting themselves, refusing to admit it, and blaming the victim afterwards. Now, I don't know just how much wisdom and understanding one should apply to the gods, but it doesn't seem wholly unreasonable that if you're going to empower them and then go TELL them to kill certain creatures (and actually create WHOLE RACES TO EASILY KILL ON TOP OF THAT), you should either 1) Give them a little guidance and nudging, that if they ignore it's on them, and especially 2) Be well aware that the flaws of the human and sentient races is you don't have to try too hard to get people to want to wipe out what they consider 'the enemy' and 'the other' to a man, as human history shows all too well.

MikeJF posted:

Weren't their instructions "go and destroy the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle and his followers, they are a threat to the world"?

Some random Sapphire Guard Paladin posted:

"Wretched goblins of these forsaken lands, the Twelve Gods have judged your hearts and found them to be Evil. Further, one among you threatens the very foundations of creation itself."

Cornwind Evil posted:

This is exactly what the Twelve Gods wanted. We've already seen multiple forces making plays for the gates. It is a popular concept that 'the ways of mortals and the ways of gods are not the same' and that gods, being gods, may have to play on levels and with stakes beyond mortal comprehension and ability to accept. It would not surprise me if the gods are not as ignorant as they seem, and that forces are playing gigantic chess games, moving and sacrificing pieces as they will, just like the three fiends empowered V and set off everything that occurred mainly to 'knock Xykon out of his comfort zone'. Which would make Miko another piece to set up, move around, play, and then discard when her part is done.

Cornwind Evil posted:

I know she's supposed to be a take on Lawful Stupid players, but there is a difference between a guy not understanding his class and a person who literally has a direct line to their gods who never say a thing until she falls off the cliff their presence put her on the path to. Miko failed as a paladin and a person, but the Twelve Gods ensured she would, just like any paladin who was left wondering why they had no powers after they brutally killed humanoids they had been told had no worth and that their gods wanted dead.

Cornwind Evil posted:

So yes, the Crimson Mantle wearer is mentioned...but the very first thing is 'You're all evil. Ergo you die to the last man, woman, and child.'

Regalingualius posted:

At a guess, I'd imagine said Falling had to do more with how much joy they took in slaughtering an entire village than anything else, even though they were given the task by their gods.

e X posted:

So genocide is a-ok, but don't you dare enjoy yourself doing it?

Taciturn Tactician posted:

Where is made clear that Miko has a direct line to the gods? Miko prays plenty and I don't recall any response, even at the end it was the spirit of Soon, not the gods, who spoke to her. Paladins don't come about from the gods descending from the heavens and giving the chosen one a sword, paladins choose to follow the gods and are given powers so long as they don't break the rules. It's not the gods' job to play psychiatrist to every paladin on the face of the planet and make sure none of them are thinking about doing something evil.

Kajeesus posted:

I never really understood why any paladins would have Fallen for slaughtering a goblin village anyway. Obviously slaughtering innocent sentient people is immoral from an outside point of view (let alone enjoying it), but this is a universe where morality is specifically derived from the gods (if not for everyone, then at least for their followers), and goblins were specifically created to be slaughtered by paladins and clerics.

Cornwind Evil posted:

I consider 'empowerment' to be 'a direct line to the gods', as without them, she would not have her paladin powers. And while I don't expect the gods to micromanage every person who serves them, when someone who is an exceptionally strong servant of theirs who believes she has a special destiny in their service starts going down the wrong road pursuing that supposed destiny, even outright talking about it in her prayers, it seems horrendously lacking in responsibility if they remain completely silent until she passes the point of no return, at which point they take away her powers. She was empowered and emboldened by their silence.

I think this is mainly sticking me like a thorn because I've recently been listening to podcasts that talk about history and a point that comes up is it's really not that hard to get people wanting and desiring to kill everyone in another group until there's none left; genocide is part of our cultural history. So when you have creatures who are literally created solely to be exterminated, that there is an actual personal quantifiable REWARD for killing, whose mass killings are requested and sanctioned by the gods themselves, the supposed gods of law and good, and they don't seem to understand just what their servants will do and how they will learn to react if they are given such a blank slate. then they are failing at being Lawful Good gods (and causing their paladins to fall afterwards in a shoddy 'you should know this' fashion when no, people will NOT know this by nature most of the time. You cannot say to people 'Oh, you GENOCIDED TOO HARD.'), and by extent, they also failed Miko, who destroyed herself and who knows how many other lives because she was absolutely certain she was chosen by her gods and was doing what they wanted.

Cornwind Evil posted:

I consider 'empowerment' to be 'a direct line to the gods', as without them, she would not have her paladin powers. And while I don't expect the gods to micromanage every person who serves them, when someone who is an exceptionally strong servant of theirs who believes she has a special destiny in their service starts going down the wrong road pursuing that supposed destiny, even outright talking about it in her prayers, it seems horrendously lacking in responsibility if they remain completely silent until she passes the point of no return, at which point they take away her powers. She was empowered and emboldened by their silence.

I think this is mainly sticking me like a thorn because I've recently been listening to podcasts that talk about history and a point that comes up is it's really not that hard to get people wanting and desiring to kill everyone in another group until there's none left; genocide is part of our cultural history. So when you have creatures who are literally created solely to be exterminated, that there is an actual personal quantifiable REWARD for killing, whose mass killings are requested and sanctioned by the gods themselves, the supposed gods of law and good, and they don't seem to understand just what their servants will do and how they will learn to react if they are given such a blank slate. then they are failing at being Lawful Good gods (and causing their paladins to fall afterwards in a shoddy 'you should know this' fashion when no, people will NOT know this by nature most of the time. You cannot say to people 'Oh, you GENOCIDED TOO HARD.'), and by extent, they also failed Miko, who destroyed herself and who knows how many other lives because she was absolutely certain she was chosen by her gods and was doing what they wanted.

Cornwind Evil posted:

the Lawful Good gods The Twelve

quote:

Its body is composed of [...] crystal.

Kajeesus posted:

After a bit of research, I surmise that Haley's fighting a Psion-Killer, which incidentally is also good at killing rogues. They're not supposed to be intelligent, but everything else fits. The Empire of Sweat was run by a psion and a rogue; maybe Bozzok had some grand designs about expansion?

Cornwind Evil posted:

Something else I've discovered that's interesting, in a 'You are probably reading way too deeply into this but no one else is talking about anything so I might as well' sense.

The end of the paper books have a little panel at the end with one of the characters commenting about something that's usually breaking the fourth wall (Belkar talking about the next book being churned out soon, Roy not looking forward to Book 3, the MITD commenting that the scene on the front of Start of Darkness didn't actually happen), but the one at the end of Book 3 is kind of interesting in my whole 'The 12 Gods either suck at their jobs or are playing a game with reality with Miko as their pawn' theories. The picture at the end of Book 3 is Miko bowing in silence, once again dressed in paladin blue.

Just a random picture? Maybe. It could also represent Miko's self-image, that of a loyal servant of the gods who never did anything wrong and is saluting what her actions in Book 3 brought about. But as I said, if we're going to play the 'The gods play on levels no mortal can grasp' card (and while OOTS is primarily a comedy strip I think it has enough reality to make this feasible), then we're also going to have to play on a level that human morality cannot understand. My dad has a saying that while people have morals, merging them together into the abstract thing a country is means a country itself cannot have morals, it can only have 'interests'. The whole field of realpolitik is basically based around the concept of 'gently caress everyone save us, because that's everyone else's viewpoint', something that's morally horrifying. Now, I mix this with a point a friend of mine once made about the concept of God; even if said God really is all-knowing and all-loving, can we really wrap our heads around what the viewpoint of an omnipotent, omniscient being who exists outside the conventional bounds of reality as we know them is like? Is our view of love the same as such a being? Or is their viewpoint, even if we could begin to understand it, something so terrifying alien, even if it follows the same concept, that no living human mind can figure it out?

So, my issue was that the Lawful Good gods The Twelve are not good at making their viewpoints clear and that this played a role in Miko's downfall as much as, if not moreso, than her personality defects. But if they're playing a cosmic chess game to...what? Set up the Snarl in a more secure prison so creatures like the Fiends can't get at it? Destroy it for good? Save the world inside it? Who knows, it might just be to maintain the status quo. In that case Miko did everything at their nudging. SHE never fell, she never destroyed the Gate, it was all on them, carefully moving her around as they saw fit. Had things gone differently (for example, had Roy not been so vicious in his denouncement of her), they probably would have nudged her a different way. And what does she get for all this? Well, does a pawn need redemption? Maybe she really was the Gods' most loyal servant after all, and was rewarded for it in the afterlife.

A lot from one lone picture, but hey, comic books love to slip those little details with double meanings in.

fool_of_sound posted:

'Also called a Crystal Golem' haha.

Zoe posted:

I hate to be that guy complaining about web comics, but I can't help it, this glacial update pace is excruciating. I know it won't matter once it's a book, but in the meantime I wish there was a magic pill or something that would just make me forget all about OotS for an entire year, then there would be a backlog of...I dunno 15, maybe even 20 updates to read and that would be nice.

Glory of Arioch posted:

New one is up.

ikanreed posted:

You're in a lawless city, and you take proactive measures against a known threat. It's cold, it's calculating, it's definitely not good, but it's justified.

fool_of_sound posted:

Pope Guilty posted:

It's a trick, the orc baby was Corellon Larethian and now you're going to elf hell.

fool_of_sound posted:

'Also called a Crystal Golem' haha.