I expect the comic to end with the entire planet dead and some line like, "And there was finally peace in Erfworld..."

Stanley had to cut a deal with the gobwins to murder his King, whom he served under as a sort of kick ass strike force. It's entirely possible Wanda will continue under Chuckles.

New comic

Looks like Elan really grew up. And they're really raggin on Durkon being the same...

Everyone gets the point. Our favorite dwarf is gettin an upgrade soon.

This is that thing I was talking about where Durkon doesn't seem to notice that V is evil incarnate.

Maybe he just always thought V was evil to begin with and has already learned to live with it?

Initially I thought he was making a thinly veiled comment on how the currently present Vaarsuvius isn't the same person that left the group earlier.

... I really like this episode. Nothing major is happening but there are lots of little things. Not the least of which is Elan being all bard-y.

overall I liked it, but I am now hoping Durkon doesn't get updated, because they forshadowed it horribly. They didn't hint at future cause, they hinted at future effects. Not why he would change/develope but that he would change.

http://pics.livejournal.com/miraigen/pic/000fkghh

I think they were poking fun at it. Part of the thing of foreshadowing is that you mostly don't expect it, or at least not to the degree where you know the writer says 'hey I'm totally planning something, FYI.'

I gotta wonder how Haley's going to take Therkla's story.

I also like how the spirits approve of Belkar's insults.

if he is foreshadowing, thats exactly what he is doing

I think it might just be Burlew poking fun at it, using Belkar as the mouthpiece since he really is the perfect tool for a "take that".

When you break the fourth wall on a regular basis the line gets a little blurred more every day.

do you really want the initial set up for his developement to be "Hey Durkon everyone else has changed but you, whats with that?"

Of course if he goes with my "he is different from other dwarves as the others aren't steriotypical" it could work as he could remain the classic dwarf while still adding depth to why he is the classic dwarf

Poor Ansom.

I wonder if units in Erfworld croak after a period of time? Or if they're effectively immortal until croaked in battle.

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/t...XEIRQn5wMI.jpg

Boop just got real.

There was a period where I was kinda bored with Erfworld and it was kinda dragging and now I really am enjoying it again!

I'm looking forward to seeing what the Arkenpliers do. My guess (based on obvious stuff) is that they allow for some kind of super-croakamancy, or maybe other control over undead stuff. They've been shown to be effective against uncroaked units before but in the hands of a caster they could probably do other stuff.

Should be neat. I wish it updated more often.

That would be comparatively subtle. OotS hangs lampshades on things so much it might as well be an interior decorator. Specializing in lamps.

Not that this wouldn't make for an interesting spin on the idea of fantasy dwarves, but I think his talk with Hilgya has established dwarven society's traditions enough that this isn't really feasible anymore.

Well, if nothing else, Wanda did get an exceptionally sexy makeover, but I am going along with the "epic level croakamancy" idea for now.

Also, she laughs now.

This is pretty creepy, yeah.

And if I had to suspect ANYTHING, I'd say it nullifies the effort that supposedly hampers croak- fuck it, necromancy. She said previously either she can spend a lot of time animating to get full strength/long lasting zombies, or raise lots of wussy zombies. I think this makes all zombies super zombies. And now we have a high level undead warlord (whose bonus was pretty awesome if I recall) and another artifact+resources.

Well I might be missremembering, and I dont feel like searching hundreds of comics to check, but it was never specified which was more common. Durkon showed what a traditional dwarf believes, but Hilgya might be whats more common in a modern dwarf. Think about our own society where sex before marriage is traditionally thought of as wrong, and often taught as such, doesn't mean its a tradition anyone follows

Dwarf traditions include beer, adherence to Thor, respect for patronage, beer, honor for parents, and Great beer.

Hilgya was forced to marry (even though the man was a good one by Dwarf standards, Hilgya didn't like being told what was good for her, thereby resenting him). I doubt that dwarves, being of isolated societies (and without much interaction with humans) changes much to really make Hilgya anything but an exception to the Dwarven rule.

So, we need Hilga to come back somehow, since she was the only way we got to see Durkon's character. Either her, another dwarf, or some sort of quest that takes the Order near dwarven lands. We need someone for Durkon to bounce off of other than Belkar, since that interaction is just a watered down version of V and Belkar's interaction.

Durkon wont return home alive, remember the oracle, he will get there post-humorously

He's gonna get there by laughing to death?

yes, laughter to the point of asphixiation opens up a pandimensional vortex that will transport you to the dwarven mountains, depositing your corpse inside

I thought everyone knew that. Geez, Jagos; try and keep up.

Yeah, I mean look how close he came to it on just hearing how he'd end up.

I just noticed the Arkenpliers are a bit blurry and, uh, photography. Nice way of showing how they're superdimensional and stuff. Was it like that before?

Yeah, I thought it was pretty rad, too.

Well someone tore up my memo people...

I need to file that TPS report with the Celestials.

New comic, and damn Haley just lost a fair bit of the moral highground if she ever wants to lecture V, I mean not all of it obviously, killing a a completely defenceless enemy when she thinks you're on her side, still isn't at the level of near genocide but still.

http://i42.tinypic.com/2qsnscm.gif

The "Take your time" "Meter's running" is the first time I've ever heard the spirits say something other than what V is thinking. Makes sense, though.

I knew there was something I'd been waiting for.

BOOSH

Haley: Stone Cold Killa F'Real

The Arkentools have always been 3d-renderized, and yeah, it's a pretty rad way of showing how they're Not Of This World.

It's always the little details in this comic that make it for me. For instance, the knowing smile on Belkar's face in the last panel.

Um.

Go Haley!

No serious that was awesome.

Haley was never really the most morally straight person anyways

Thought just occurred.

What exactly does Haley plan to do about Roy now that she basically just terminated their deal with Bozzok?

take him and leave before they realize what happened. Seems pretty standard thief proceedure

V seems like he's about to teleport them all away, I don't think he knows Roy's body is in the thief house. That will make things very complicated - again - when the soul splice ends.

I thought they already had Roy's body secured?

Plus, now that they have Durkon again... well.

Nope, he knows; Haley was filling V in before Durk and Elan put a damper on V's display of arcane prowess.

I'm not entirely sure if I understood that deal correctly. My take is that the guild agreed to call off all actions against Haley and let her resurrect Roy at the local church in exchange for the material costs for the resurrections of Roy and the dead Thieves and a hefty sum of money. Now she gets to keep her money, they only have to pay Roy's resurrection and the guild has been a) sent a clear warning and b) set way back either personally (dead members) or financially (raising dead members). In exchange she accepts that the guild will continue the vendetta against her - and she was perfectly able to cope with that before, plus she's about to teleport Gods know where. That's what I get out of it, anyway.

That truce plan wasn't all that hot in retrospect. But as something to temporarily accept to get out of a difficult fight and get a place to stay as well as major help getting a buddy's corpse back...

Can't whatsisname, Dwarf McBeardsy there do it now?

I dunno, it might honestly be in Bozzok's best interests to pretend the deal is still in effect and just say he killed Bad Haircut for I dunno, he caught her stealing from the Guild or somesuch. Letting the rogue you just spent how many Guild lives catching backstab you and disappear out from under your nose? 'S the kind of thing that could really weaken a guild leader's grip on power, if word got out about it.

He knows raise dead, not resurrection. Which is like, a 7th or 8th level spell?

Either that or they still need to buy the diamonds for it.

Yeah, the components is what I meant. Although I thought Durkon could cast resurrection - in this case they need to find a cleric, too. Roy's definitely over the one-day-dead-per-level limit of Raise Dead.

Am I confusing resurrection with true resurrection? I think I am.

True Resurrection is a 9th level Cleric spell which has a much more expensive material component (25,000 gp I believe instead of 5,000 gp compared to Resurrection) but the main thing is True Resurrection brings you back without level loss and you don't even need to have a hair or fingernail of the person you're trying to bring back.

Naw, Resurrection is 7th level, I just looked it up. True Resurrection is probably 9th. So if Durkon is at least level 13 they're good to go, but I can't remember whether that has been established.

EDIT: Resurrection: 10,000 GP! =D But I do remember that it's questionable whether a cleric that can cast true resurrection even exists in the OotS world.

seems reasonable. He did let her go last time and as long as she was out of his hair. Though he might rethink that policy, I mean look at what happened last time he let her go.

I think its been established that the OOTS are fairly high level (Haley did, after all, make four sneak attacks on Crystal) so I think this is within the realm of possibility.

Though it will be funny when Durkon turns into a True Ressurection cleric and they're like "Huh, I guess they do exist in this world now!"

they already established they exist, they spoke of finding one when they lost Roy's body

...Haley said she wasn't sure if they even existed in this campaign setting. Which means not only do they not know of one but if they did they'd have to go all over the world to find one. On top of that someone that powerful as a cleric would have to be, like, legendary.

I can't check because the site is ass but I'm pretty sure that means "false until proven true."

Hey just because he won't admit that he totally got punked doesn't mean he can't hold a monster grudge and secretly do everything in his power to track down and destroy her.

*ahem*

HELL YEAH HALEY

Alright, that's outta the way...

From how Belkar put it when Celia first joined and they went adventuring, it does seem that a true resurrection priest exists and perhaps Durkon could do it.

-Edit- She finally got a close ranged weapon. That solves that problem. Especially after Miko owned her after sundering her bow. Damn horse.

...Heh.

The last few strips of OOTS really haven't been up to par, in my opinion, and this one was the worst yet of the bunch.
There's kind of a massive difference between "character development" in a dark direction, done sensibly and written in gradual increments (I'm looking at you, V) and then there's "holy crap the heroine just killed her rival while she was defenseless and subsequently lied about it."

Now I understand Haley isn't exactly a goody-two-shoes princess or anything, but this is the kind of behavior I'd honestly expect from Belkar. And it's not even the fact that Haley kills her that bothers me, it's the expression on her face as she does it. Most humane, civilized people do not take particular joy in murdering others, even if they hate their opponent and even when they rationalize that their opponent's death is a necessity. This wasn't even in self-defense, and by Haley's own admission, given how easily Crystal can be revived, there weren't really any rational benefits from partaking in the action. Why not just sneak in, steal all of Crystal's stuff as she's showering, and teleport away? Or even verbally threaten or injure Crystal to prove a point before the teleportation.

Let's look at the reasons she killed Crystal:

Treasure was threatened.
Crystal was her first mortal enemy.
Crystal had something that she'd need eventually (a close range weapon)
Hatred that's been boiling over for years culminating in The Haircut.
Crystal is an idiot. Full blown, threw-a-pickle-at-Haley idiot.

I have to believe that we had to establish just how important the treasure IS to Haley. That's why it's the number one on priorities on my list. Crystal being the way she is, with Belkar mentioning that Haley had an even better archrival in Sabine, she was bound to go anyway. She really doesn't hold a candle to Sabine.

And just judging at what Crystal did for them (assassin who looted victims) she's not really an asset to the guild as compared to Pete (just a doublecrosser) vs Bozzok (keeps the guild stable by his reign) themselves. So I don't think she'll really be revived. The "IF" was the key.

We established how important the treasure was to Haley here.

I sort of have to side with Snake here, as long as no one infers that I'm terribly invested in character development. It did come out of left field, Haley killing what's-her-face Crystal. Just stealing her crap would have worked just as well, subtracting a couple experience points, plus it would have been more Thief-y. Killing her, well, it does change my impression of Haley, that's for sure.

And here

How so?

I thought she was a bit more collected when treasure wasn't directly involved. "Directly involved" as in gleaming in piles before her or burning up in a fire. This strip showed her capacity for violence to be a bit larger than "kill monsters and take their stuff" and closer to "kill people and take their stuff." She's still better than Belkar, but, pardon the strength of my following words, it showed a bit of a sadistic streak in Haley. It changes how I think of her, though I sorta understand why she did it, even if that reason is "Crystal's a bitch who'll come after me later" and "I'm a PC, and thus an übermensch"

I think it was more than just taking her stuff. Crystal was, for all intents and purposes, Haley's death shadow. She leveled up every time Haley did without having to work at it, she had better equipment, and so long as she was alive they would be fighting to the death. Honestly, no one said a single thing about it when CRYSTAL was looking so happy to try and kill Haley. It's the point of the rivals of that severity. Each is going to try and kill the other, and since Haley knew there was a good chance the guild leader was going to revive her anyway, it was mostly making sure they couldn't send her after the group.

Love Belkar's smile in the last panel.

Well, shit. Poor jetstone. And ansom. Again. Also? That smile on wanda's face is very, very creepy.

I see that Ansom's radishes have been replaced with little skull decals instead of Parson's hamsters.

Nothing I didn't expect from last comic. Honestly kind of anti-climactic. The panels with Stanley were kind of just unnecessary; it would have been nice if they'd used that space making the resurrection a bit more impressive. Parson smirking like that seems mildly foreshadowy, like maybe he's not quite as heartbroken about being a horrifying, sociopathic monster as he had previously indicated.

To be fair, Ansom is a massive racist asshole and it's going to be very satisfying for Parson in the next few comics.

I am also interested in how Stanley is going to take the Arkenpliers attuning to Wanda, and not him.

$10 says he goes ballistic, since he doesn't seem that stable to me. Also, maybe Bogroll can be revived!

Entirely possible, since corpses disappear at the next turn of whomever's turn it was when they were croaked. So since he died on Ansom's turn, he still has til next turn for Ansom's side or the turn after for Gobwin Knob (or perhaps even indefinitely til there's another side.)

New OOTS. Breaking the fourth wall harder than it's ever been broke before.

What 4th wall? They took that down a LOOOONG time ago.

OOTS is like an office cubicle.

It may be that I just spent two hours watching what amounts to a spectator sport of a warcraft 3 custom map, but this comic just made be burst into a fit of giggles the whole way through.

A fit I say.

Here's the comic, before the inevitable rush clogs the server down to hell.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...7ZxuydOQ2z.gif

That was hysterical, and twenty times more once I looked at the cast page.

I had a hunch, and I was right.

Small details!

You woulda noticed that if you had looked at both links in my post ;)

I love Haley. I love rogues.

...Heh.

I do appreciate the plot advancing at such a rapid pace for a change, I suppose, but it seems so...anticlimactic. And the fourth wall maiming is starting to actually get a bit too much for me, coincidentally. I felt like it was just a charming sidenote before, you'd see a bit of fourth-wall scraping every handful of strips or so, but now the fourth wall is utterly shattered every strip.

Maybe I'm becoming too cynical? Or maybe OOTS really is finally losing its grip on me.

That's entirely the joke. Instead of another Oh God Lengthy Sidequest, it's resolved in the most absurd and fourth-wall breaking way, because dear god not that again. In fact, it does that twice.

See, my problem is, I don't know if Rich is being lazy or if that's just genius to solve a problem this way...