The OotS Thread II

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Isolder74
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Isolder74 »

Mr Bean wrote:
Isolder74 wrote:Considering how long ago storywise that happened, I'm not so sure. You'd think they'd be more decayed by now.
Desert conditions? Hot dry area with no moisture means natural mummification.
Harder to justify with all of the bugs flying about.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Mr Bean »

Isolder74 wrote: Harder to justify with all of the bugs flying about.
You can find bugs in Death Vally, besides they are indoors in a pyramid meaning the bugs could live in the lower reaches and come up to feed.

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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Isolder74 »

Mr Bean wrote:
Isolder74 wrote: Harder to justify with all of the bugs flying about.
You can find bugs in Death Vally, besides they are indoors in a pyramid meaning the bugs could live in the lower reaches and come up to feed.

You don't seem to understand. That many bugs should have eaten most of them by now.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Mr Bean »

Isolder74 wrote:
You don't seem to understand. That many bugs should have eaten most of them by now.
Not all bugs consume flesh, or bones. If you notice the bugs are mostly on the abandon food.

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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Lonestar »

For all we know those were the only bugs that made their way through the illusion.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Ted C »

Panzersharkcat wrote:
Irbis wrote:So, new OotS. Bets on who caused all this?
A very convincing illusion?
Durkon's True Sight seems to still be active, so he wouldn't be fooled by an illusion.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Darmalus »

While I would love for it to be V's Familicide to be at work here, the fact that there are so many bugs around and yet the food is still there (after all this time) bothers me. I can buy them not being flesh eaters (leaving the corpses intact to mummify) but I doubt they would hang around unless there was something to eat. Maybe a recent poisoning?
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Crazedwraith »

How long has it been since Familicide anyway? It's been a lot in strips but that doesn't necessarily mean its been a lot in actually time. Most of the Tarquin arc is over a couple of days for example.

I guess the big time sink is the ship ride to the western continent,
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Sriad »

Crazedwraith wrote:How long has it been since Familicide anyway? It's been a lot in strips but that doesn't necessarily mean its been a lot in actually time. Most of the Tarquin arc is over a couple of days for example.

I guess the big time sink is the ship ride to the western continent,
I speed-browsed through adding time whenever I thought it was justified; by my high-end estimate we've spent about 28 days (a day between Familicide and the boat trip, 7 days for the trip, a couple shopping and desert journeying, the initial search for Girard judging by alternating light and dark panels and search montage accounts for over a week, about 5 days from Roy/Belkar's capture until gladiatorial combat including their 5 minutes in court, one or two more from the end of the games until current time, and a few more tossed in for good measure based on swapping story-lines) between then and now.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Solauren »

I say epic level illusion (which would defeat True Seeing, and could include lots of sensory additions), combined with some kind of spell that turned the family members into beetles.

Then they can observe whoever finds their remains, and judge them by how they react, and then get the drop on them if they are hostile.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Simon_Jester »

Ted C wrote:Durkon's True Sight seems to still be active, so he wouldn't be fooled by an illusion.
If you look at the comic, he's also not yet entered the room- Haley, Roy, and Elan can all see it, but Durkon isn't in the last panel.

Hmmm. True Seeing wouldn't help Durkon detect an illusionary smell, would it? Because he definitely smelled dead people.
AniThyng wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote: OK, it looks like they were poisoned, or at least that seems likely to me. It would explain why everyone dropped dead at mealtime. Maybe there was a traitor in the extended Draketooth clan?.
Some of them were still carrying trays or not eating, so at least I think that means it wasn't the food that was poisoned.

I'll go with the Spoiler
familicide
option.
They could have already eaten- second helpings.
Isolder74 wrote:Considering how long ago storywise that happened, I'm not so sure. You'd think they'd be more decayed by now.
It could have been someone else casting the spell- though that's unlikely, since the only arcane caster I know of in the setting who's likely to have that kind of power is Xykon, and if he knew that spell you just know he'd have used it for laughs by now.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by AniThyng »

I don't really buy the 2nd helping excuse, if it was poison I'd say it was something more like a cloud released in the lunchroom by a poisoner that knows everyone will be at the same place.

I like the idea someone posited in the forums that even if it wasn't familicide that did it, V will not be able to dismiss the possibility that it was his familicide from his mind and confess to it. Note that we do not see V in the final panel and so cannot yet discern his reaction to the scene.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Ahriman238 »

Ted C wrote:
Panzersharkcat wrote:
Irbis wrote:So, new OotS. Bets on who caused all this?
A very convincing illusion?
Durkon's True Sight seems to still be active, so he wouldn't be fooled by an illusion.
There are illusions and then there are illusions. True Sight shows you what's really there, but sometimes what's really there is a room full of corpses, dressed in certain livery to imply certain things, like they belonged to the city watch, or were affiliated with that annoying Lawful Evil villain you haven't been able to discredit so far.

What I'm trying to say here is that being an illusionist is as much a matter of attitude as it is being able to create magical illusions. Certainly, it wasn't a spell that told Soon Kim the wrong coordinates for the Gate, that was all Girard, acting as he saw fit and protecting his Gate through deception. Assume nothing where an Epic-level illusionist is concerned.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Simon_Jester »

Actually, I like the idea that this is just a really clever illusion.
AniThyng wrote:I don't really buy the 2nd helping excuse, if it was poison I'd say it was something more like a cloud released in the lunchroom by a poisoner that knows everyone will be at the same place.
Yeah, probably. It was just a thought- to put it another way, I think the fact that one or two people were carrying trays with food isn't evidence to totally dismiss the very obvious "the food was poisoned" explanation for what killed them all, seemingly simultaneously, at the same time and place.

But it could easily be a lot of other things that would probably fit the facts better- the only reason I'm not entirely sure it's something else is that poisoning the food would be very simple.
I like the idea someone posited in the forums that even if it wasn't familicide that did it, V will not be able to dismiss the possibility that it was his familicide from his mind and confess to it. Note that we do not see V in the final panel and so cannot yet discern his reaction to the scene.
Good point.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Ahriman238 »

simon wrote:Actually, I like the idea that this is just a really clever illusion.
We'll see, I'm not getting personally attached to any particular theory because, y'know, they're in the stronghold of a paranoid Epic-level illusionist.

I wouldn't have called V as True Neutral, aren't they usually running around trying to serve some abstract concept of "balance?"
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Rogue 9 »

Ahriman238 wrote:I wouldn't have called V as True Neutral, aren't they usually running around trying to serve some abstract concept of "balance?"
That's Druidic Neutral. :P
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Solauren »

Ahriman238 wrote: We'll see, I'm not getting personally attached to any particular theory because, y'know, they're in the stronghold of a paranoid Epic-level illusionist.
Worse yet, a moderately sized group of JUSTIFIBLY Paranoid Spellcasters lead by a Epic level Illusionist, worried that a group of high level Paladins and Clerics might show up to take control of their gate.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Lord of the Abyss »

Mr Bean wrote:
Isolder74 wrote:Considering how long ago storywise that happened, I'm not so sure. You'd think they'd be more decayed by now.
Desert conditions? Hot dry area with no moisture means natural mummification.
Or possibly also a side effect of getting killed by an epic level necromantic spell. Science is silent on the subject of how that affects decay bacteria. :)
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Rogue 9 »

The decay bacteria would be unaffected unless they were also dragon-blooded. :)
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Simon_Jester »

Ahriman238 wrote:
Ted C wrote:
Panzersharkcat wrote:A very convincing illusion?
Durkon's True Sight seems to still be active, so he wouldn't be fooled by an illusion.
There are illusions and then there are illusions. True Sight shows you what's really there, but sometimes what's really there is a room full of corpses, dressed in certain livery to imply certain things, like they belonged to the city watch, or were affiliated with that annoying Lawful Evil villain you haven't been able to discredit so far.

What I'm trying to say here is that being an illusionist is as much a matter of attitude as it is being able to create magical illusions. Certainly, it wasn't a spell that told Soon Kim the wrong coordinates for the Gate, that was all Girard, acting as he saw fit and protecting his Gate through deception. Assume nothing where an Epic-level illusionist is concerned.
Good point. On the other hand, things like the True Sight would place restrictions on the kind of deceptions that are being used. Knowing what Girard does with a deception like that, and how easy it is to see through, tells us something about his strategies; conversely, if we can figure out things about his strategies, it tells us what things are and aren't possible.

If this is simply an illusion intended to draw people into a reaction, it might not be one of Girard's best- because one thing he's going to try to gauge with the illusion is how good they are at seeing through illusions. Girard would have to deal very differently with a high-level caster that has super-duper True Sight than he would with a band of warriors that don't. Using illusions of graded strength would give him a sense for what he can and cannot do to fool an opponent- or a friend.

It could be that this is not an illusion in the magic sense, just a deception: Girard uses a big pile of corpses with Gentle Repose spells on them to fool people into thinking his clan is recently dead, instead of casting illusory corpses in an empty room. Although that seems a little macabre for the guy to do.

Then again, it could be that they really are all dead.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Raxmei »

Creating inert clone bodies of your friends is well within the means of a high level wizard if one really wants to do it. Not saying that's what was done, but it could be done with little effort.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by LadyTevar »

Or, it could be whomever killed Tarq's wife. Since no one knows who did it.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Ellindsey »

Crazedwraith wrote:How long has it been since Familicide anyway? It's been a lot in strips but that doesn't necessarily mean its been a lot in actually time. Most of the Tarquin arc is over a couple of days for example.

I guess the big time sink is the ship ride to the western continent,
12-14 days, by my math.

The ship ride to the western continent only took a day. We know this because when in Sandsedge, in strip 678, Blackwing commented that it had only been 2 days since V had been in the elven lands.

It takes them 2-3 days to get to the false gate location, and they may have spent up to a day there searching. From there it is then 4 days to the Empire of Blood.

They spend 2 days in the Empire of Blood, then get on the flying carpet to head for Windy Canyon. The trip to Windy Canyon takes 2 more days.

Total is 12-14 days. The unknowns are the actual travel times from Sandsedge to the false gate location, and the amount of time spent searching the false gate location.

IMHO, the timing works out feasibly for the Familicide to be responsible for the deaths of Girard's clan, as well as the unexpected death of Penelope.
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by The Yosemite Bear »

if that's true than the death of Elan's stepmother is V's fault?
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Re: The OotS Thread II

Post by Simon_Jester »

It's plausible that Girard's clan might have been targeted by Familicide,* but there's not that much evidence. We didn't see any non-dragons being killed in the multi-panel Familicide strip, either.

And we have no reason to assume that Penelope is related to a black dragon. I don't think that the Familicide spell would target her, since she's not even slightly of the same bloodline as any possible dragon-descended members of Girard's clan.

Also, if Girard's still around, I'd wonder if there's a chance he actually made his save. He's an epic-level caster, presumably with massively redundant wards and magical defenses. In which case they are in so much deep shit if it really was the Familicide spell.

*(Girard may have been a sorceror, he certainly seemed to have a charismatic effect on the Order of the Scribble's halfling, whose name I forget, so he may have been recently descended from a half-dragon or something)
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