Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RedWarrior0]

Ah, I suppose. Though from the first page, it seems everything got adjusted to work in 3.5.

[Sensei]

They started on a previous edition so many skills allocation may be different from vanilla. First very comic was about this.

Yep, 3.5, which they're talking about. As a crotchety old man, I consider it the last edition of D&D to be made.

Wouldn't that be pathfinder?

And yeah the first comic is jokes about the changes from 3 to 3.5.

[i2amroy]

New one is up.

[Orange Wizard]

Ah, I suppose. Though from the first page, it seems everything got adjusted to work in 3.5.

It's vaguely explained that the world gets updated with each new D&D version, so the "campaign" potentially started way back with the very first edition ever and has gradually been dragged into the future.

New one is up.

Roy is a really talky guy, huh.

[Akura]

Huh, that calls into question as to why Durkulon killed all the Creed of Stone priests, if they're needed to usher the demigod priests to the chamber. Somehow, even if he killed the demigod priests, I would doubt he'd have enough charges left in Malack's staff to insta-vamp them all. Or even the majority.

[Culise]

Huh, that calls into question as to why Durkulon killed all the Creed of Stone priests, if they're needed to usher the demigod priests to the chamber. Somehow, even if he killed the demigod priests, I would doubt he'd have enough charges left in Malack's staff to insta-vamp them all. Or even the majority.

All he needed to do was vamp one and kill the rest.  Vampirizing more would give him a safety factor in case he missed a few.  I wonder if that's not what's happening right now, actually.  The first few that Durkula did personally could have been given the order to kill the others, then come to the chambers of their own accord once they'd finished their sweep.  The alternative is that he planned on one of the high priests leaving the room to go fetch the demigods, but whoever that would invalidate their vote and break the tie in favor of the opposite side, so there's no possibility of that happening; they'd send a bodyguard as a messenger first. 

Though, the catch with that theory is that we only saw him attacking Creed of Stone priests.  Due to being powered by belief and the discussion one of them had with Durkula pre-vampirization, I'm fairly sure their creed doesn't qualify for tiebreaking status.  The only other thing I can think of is instructing them to only collect the demigod priests that Durkula and Hel are certain will vote in their favour and claiming those are the only ones who showed up, especially since said priests' attendance records are apparently more than a little erratic under ordinary circumstances. 

[ChairmanPoo]

I think the joke is that he killed them thinking they were irrelevant but now it turned out that it hurt his efforts

[Sergius]

One thing I don't quite understand is the whole Durkula fiasco. Is this supposed to be what always happens when someone gets vamped? Or is this a special case where Durkon's undead body was hijacked? And how come he's worshipping Hel out of the blue, like, did he become a vampire, and his evil "guest" thought it over and started reading up on Hel, or is he being possessed by a previously owned  Hel-worshipping spirit? Or are all Vampire parasitey thingies Hel followers by default? And even if they ARE, don't priests require some sort of initiation rite or something, that the vampire would have to follow to change religions? It's not like every person vampyred will become a priest or have priestly knowledge (if the host wasn't a priest to begin with) and it's not like any old cleric of Thor having received specific Thor-ritual/prayer training can just write over the name on their t-shirt and swap gods and everything else remains unchanged, I think?

May sound silly but it's a bit annoying of a plot hole to me.

[andrea]

From what I could gather from the story and comments: When a persn gets turned into a vampire, a negative energy spirit from the relevant deity is sent to inhabit and control the reanimated corpse. At least, that is what happens for northern pantheon vampires.

As for how this applies: Durkon was a follower of northern gods, so when he got vamped, the relevant deity, which is Hel, sent a spirit to control durkon's body. The vampire, however, still has all the abilities of the old durkon, as per D&D rules. But since the spirit controlling it was created by Hel for a specific purpose, he worships her. I am not aware of any particular rites needed to change religion.

[Rolan7]

It's been extensively discussed on the giantitp forums, Burlew provided some clarification there.  From memory:

As the Northern god of death, Hel has the power to provide the evil spirit for new Northern vampires.  She chose a loyal negative energy spirit who, of course, worshipped her.  Old-Malack was similarly hijacked by a dark spirit provided by Nurgle.  It seems that, after absorbing the shaman's memories hundreds of years ago, the negative energy spirit considered itself the "real" Malack.  Or was just half-lying.  But Malack was definitely hijacked, Burlew confirmed that.

Technically these spirits are free-willed, and could decide to worship someone else.  I think Burlew even said that a vampire cleric like Durkon could theoretically try to worship Thor.  It's just that Thor probably wouldn't trust the vampire enough to provide divine powers.  A rebellious vampire would not only be unlikely (due to being a negative energy spirit hand-picked by the appropriate death god) they would have a lot of trouble finding a non-evil patron.

Changing gods might usually require some ritual, but that's not what's happening here.  The parasite is a new person, a death-god worshiper, who can use the host's class levels and memories.  As for adapting rituals for a different god, there's not really anything in the SRD to support that.  In the comic it's not addressed very seriously, but Durkon did order spells from the divine phone system a couple times.  Preparing spells is seemingly just something clerics can do.  Classes and their odd powers are just accepted in this world.

[i2amroy]

Here's what I want to know; why hasn't Roy's sword done the glowing green +damage thing in the fight yet? It's supposed to trigger against undead in general, not just liches.

[Blade Master Model 42]

Here's what I want to know; why hasn't Roy's sword done the glowing green +damage thing in the fight yet? It's supposed to trigger against undead in general, not just liches.

It happens randomly I thought.

[Rolan7]

People were suggesting that it's tied to him getting particularly angry or losing control.  He's still trying to talk Durkula out of this...  Probably getting close, though.

[hops]

Not to mention that Roy doesn't know the best option would be to kill Durkon and resurrect him, annihilating the negative energy spirit.

[Orange Wizard]

It happens randomly I thought.

It happens when he grits his teeth.