>Withdrawn That parting shot stings, Durkula. ;_;

On the bright side though, Durkon's prophecy from the Oracle is fulfilled!

Oh, now you throw it.

>>44856343
For 2d6 + bunch of damage. His one shot wouldn't have killed him, but he was hoping it might prevent his teleporting out of there.

>>44856297
The update schedule has gotten so bad I'm going to drop this for like, half a year then marathon it.

>people still read this garbage

>>44856353
I thought it had roughly stabilized to once a week, give or take.

Still, reading scenes whole rather than analysing every parry and thrust might be a better experience

So is it time to use that really high INT and go kill the High Priestess of Hel who is standing right fucking there?

Roy can likely kill the current high priest (mace one) with relative ease though.

>>44856378
Every High Priest is sacrosanct at this meeting. Anybody strikes her and they in turn are struck down. And Roy probably doesn't count as her bodyguard, so that loophole is gone.

So, where did Durkula go exactly?

>>44856397
To the Dwarven Lands. The Dwarven Demigod holds the deciding vote, and he will defer to what the living Dwarven Lords decide, so Durkula's gonna dominate them to vote yes.

>>44856389
It's not like Hell is the only one voting for the world destruction. Other bodyguards can try to kill their own priests too.

>>44856407
Ah right, sorry I'm still sleepy.
So the oracle was right after all

>>44856409
True, but I think the bodyguards who are regular bodyguards and not adhoc like Roy was are generally more likely to defer to their deity's decision.

>>44856421
>the oracle

Don't remind me of that now, Belkar supposed to die at some point and the resolution weights on his shoulders now.

>>44856389
Destruction of the world > Roy's singular life

>>44856497
He'd have to kill her in one blow.

Poor Durkon. Buying into Durkula's assertion that all this is his fault because he got mad one time.

Rich you're a god damn hack

>>44856328
uh? what was that about?

>>44856525
>D: How will I return home?
>O: Posthumously

>>44856535
In Origin of PCs, Durkon was ejected from his home because of a prophecy that the next time he entered the Dwarven Lands, he would bring their destruction.

So, yeah, both prophecies are looking fulfilled.
Poor Belkar.

>>44856507
>Come on 20...

>>44856602
I believe the specific wording was that he'd "bring death and destruction," which I'm pretty sure are Hel's domains.

Is the subplot finally over?

>>44856679
Subplots are never over

>>44856490

I'm wondering if he's gonna go vampire, actually.

>>44856710
>Sexy Shoeless God of Undeath

Yes.

The Oracle did mention his death in terms of breath drawing, not walking about.

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I still have money riding on Mr. Scruffy somehow playing into Belkar's future demise. Lost member of the Chinese Zodiac/12 Gods is just too good a possibility to completely ignore. Maybe the cat is how he keeps his free will, either by being the god of death the spirit reports to or by banishing said spirit?

>>44856679
Pretty sure dealing with Durkula is the plot, at least for now.

The same way the overall plot of Harry Potter is defeating Voldemort but the plot of a specific book is solving a mystery at school.

Can't Roy still kill the qt 3.14 vampire priestess of Hel, or convince her to leave? She should be weaker than Dorkula at least.
>>44856389
>And Roy probably doesn't count as her bodyguard
Why? The reason why they could kill the vampires was because they weren't bodyguards, Roy status wasn't transferred to them. I think.
>>44856441
Or they are longtime friends of their respective priests, hard to turn on a friend and all that.

>>44858195
Roy isn't her body guard./

So Belkar never got to do anything in this part. What a shame.

>>44858957
There's that vamped goliath outside. And the "I told you so" party he'll probably have.

I understand the author says this is a plot-plot, not a subplot, but I just can't seem to get into it.

Not looking at it from the perspective of "how will this fit into a real-life book that picks up from the last collection" it's extremely off-putting that Roy had his huge dramatic duel with the arc villain FIRST in a way that seriously did not look like it was going to go "Villain pussies out and legs it, setting up events for the order to go after" until that happened. This looked for a WHILE like it was an all or nothing battle for Durkula that he was going to lose because he was so overconfident he tried to fight Roy instead of just waiting him out, but now...

Look, it's pretty obvious this plot is going to fail, because there's no goddamn point to the story if the world is destroyed before the final confrontation with Xykon and the Oracle's predictions, which are 100% accurate, say Elan gets a happy ending, which I'd say precludes being on the world when it's unmade and knowing untold millions suffer forever because Durkula tricked them.

So it's a foregone conclusion Durkula can't even partially succeed in his goals, whereas with Tarquin and Xykon and Nale there has always at least been the possibility the Order doesn't stop them from getting what they want.

This just feels like it's wasting time while Xykon veeeeeeeeeery slowly enacts hi plan in the distance, like the GM realized the party is still underleveled to take on the BBEG and pulled an unskippable sidequest out of his ass to force them to power-level a bit before they get their cleric back and go save the world.

Could you even Thog that? The last few strips have been poorly Thogged.

Also wouldn't thowing the sword deal 1D4 damage + modifiers?

>>44859259
Thing is, the book-plot is also a character piece, i.e. Durkon. If Roy staked Durkula here and rescued Durkon, Durkon doesn't get the chance for character growth. In that fight was the seed of how Durkon needs to change: He's never grappled with his dark side before, and now it's literally being used against him.

And it's not like this is the only time the Gates!Plot was suspended for character work. That's the whole point of book four. Vaarsuvius and Belkar would not be where they are now if they found a quick and easy way to regroup and get back on track.

And in lots of stories it's obvious the bag guy's plan will fail, it's a question of how it fails that remains to be seen.

Welp. I hope there's a cleric there with the travel domain, if the party wants to do anything about this. I could also see Roy leaving that to fate, going to the last dungeon, and the whole Snarl business overriding anything the gods were about to do anyway.

Roy might be able to attack the new head cleric, but he might not. It's also possible that Durkon could have simply 'fired' Roy at any point but opted not to in order to have a shot at killing him.

I actually don't want to see Durkon come back after all this. Having him just pop back into action after a couple dues ex plot twists seems.. cheap, at this point. Maybe have him refuse the resurrection once he realizes that his people are safe and he died a warrior's death to finally be with Thor. Use the favored soul character as the new cleric.

>>44859589
I see Durkon as accepting the resurrection because effectively retiring when the world, including his friends, is still in jeopardy from Xykon wouldn't sit well with him.

>>44859587
But V's and Belkar's respective growth arcs were updated more frequently, and were actually interesting to read. I couldn't give less of a shit about what happens to Durkon now, in part because I forget about it between the updates.

Does anyone else suspect that Rich does stupid shit, then reads about his mistakes on 4chan, and then corrects them in the first panel of the next strip?

>>44859658

Yeah, I know. It would be out of character for him. I just want to see the 'character growth arc' format get busted up a little, and no asspulls to magically resolve things like the end of Elan's arc.

>>44859734

You mean him calling out to the clerics that Durkula is vulnerable? Roy already hinted at that in the prior strip when he was surprised that the clerics went after the spawn.

>>44859783

Well, he did also very clearly respond to the people on the forums pointing out Durkula could very easily just turn to mist and wait Roy out without any danger when he had Durkula give that clunky little rant that he knows he could just evade Roy forever but he really just wants to kill him, even if that puts him and his plan in danger.

>>44859734
Book four could be just as agonising to read "live" as you find the current pace, especially before we reached the actual climax of the book. And nowadays those parts work fine in book form.

It's an inherent limitation of the medium, especially when there is no set schedule for redress, but I'm confident this will all look better in an archive binge.

>>44859807

I think that was more to explain to the reader than a justification. Rich doesn't always play straight with the rules, but vampires were always using their forms liberally, and Roy's never had a ranged weapon. The only thing that wasn't clear was if Durkon was fighting stupid on purpose or not.

>>44859734
i liked richie better when he didn't read and reply to his moronic forum users. And he updated consistently, also a plus.

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>>44859558
I added a hat, so it's not quite classic Thog.

>>44860019
The addition of the hat sticks out like a sore thumb. The 3D vs 2D clash, the color composition in contrast to the general color scheme of the whole comic, the close up 4th wall breaking vs the action scenes surrounding it, even the panel layout works in it's favor. It's like the Sistine chapel giving you the middle finger with a thousand yard stare. It's confusing, mesmerizing even. I love it.

>>44859734
So is this the last character arc in OOTS, or will Roy get a actual arc?

>>44860202
The whole main plot is Roy's arc
Also he got one in afterlife

>>44860202
Roy's arc was the earliest: The Forest Quest and Miko helping him put other people's needs above his, like when he tore up the contracts rather than legally strongarm his team into continuing the Xykon quest.

>>44856642
>I believe the specific wording was that he'd "bring death and destruction," which I'm pretty sure are Hel's domains.
Yeah, but he's also bringing copious amounts of general straightforward death and destruction, in addition to meta of the domains.

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>>44856710
>>44856723
>he retains his original personality as a vampire because he was already Evil to begin with

>>44859807
That's because Rich is actually writing characters instead of piles of stats who only act in the most efficient of manners.

Sometimes people do things that aren't the better choice because they have emotional investments in the other action.

>>44856353
>half a year then marathon it.
>Marathoning 5 strips

>>44859856
One can only hope so, because I lost interest in this arc around when Roy decided to play baseball with Durkula instead of skewering him to the ground and turning him into diced vamp.

>>44860019
This is much funnier than it should be.

>>44861886

I was going to use the timestamps of the strips to call you stupid and show how we'd probably 7, or maybe 8!!! in that timeframe

but it turns out there are no precise timestamps, only a copyright year

972 is when it changed from 2014 to 2015, so 6 months at last year's pace is roughly 24 updates. That's on par for 1/week updates, but given how things are going, that's probably how long it'll take for this particular bit of plot to resolve. It still feels slow as hell.

>>44860019
kek, good job anon

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B-be gentle, /tg/... it's my first time

>>44862429
I think you got the right idea.
The 3 first panels actually flow well now, and are entertaining to read.

>>44856297

...Wait, now that I think about it, wouldn't Durkon not be subject to Hel's dominion if Durkula succeeded?

Dwarves that die in battle go to Thor. This is the agreement Hel's trying to abuse to grab power.

Durkon died in battle. The only reason his soul didn't go to the good afterlife already is that it's stuck in his body with Durkula's spirit. When that body is destroyed, Durkon is released into THOR'S dominion, not Hel's.

>>44856378
There was at least one god who wanted to change his mind after Hel's plan was revealed. Why doesn't he have his priest kill himself?

>>44863077
I've been wondering that for a month.

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>>44856297
>>44860019
>>44862429
Here's a serious one.

>>44859558
>Magic +5 anti-undead flaming greatsword thrown by a 16+ strength fighter
>LOL only 1d4 damage because rules.

>>44863740
D&D is retarded, what else is new

>>44863579
I don't think you know how to Thog.

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>>44861354
>spirit gets assigned to control him
>it's Lord Shojo

>>44863579
> only cutting like 3 words
> serious

Anon, I

>>44862429
>>44863579
What was the orb she broke?

>>44856755
"How will I return to my homeland"
"Posthumously"

>>44856352
Well, it might have

>>44856755
"Will draw his last breath" was Belkar.

>>44868123
teleport orb

>>44868147
It's a teleport orb that they bought in the gnomish town.

>>44868236
Thanks.

>>44860019

>Later

underrated kek

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>>44861886

>>44856297
Well they're screwed.

>>44868249
Isn't that what they were going to use to teleport to the dwarves though?