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| 16 | [[WMG:[[center:[-[[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStick Main Character Index]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickTheOrderOfTheStick The Order of the Stick]] – [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickHumanPartyMembers Human Party Members]] – [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickNonHumanPartyMembers Non-Human Party Members]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickTeamEvil Team Evil]] | '''The Linear Guild''' | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickTheOrderOfTheScribble The Order of the Scribble]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickAzureCity Azure City]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickGreyskyCity Greysky City]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickTheEmpireOfBlood The Empire of Blood]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickNorthernLands Northern Lands]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickAnimalCompanions Animal Companions]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickDivineBeings Divine Beings]] | [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickOthers Others]]-]]]]] |
| 17 | ---- |
| 18 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linear_guild.png]] |
| 21 | [[caption-width-right:350:The original Guild (Left to right: [[LizardFolk Yikyik]], [[TheQuietOne Zz'dtri]], [[EvilTwin Nale]], [[SuccubiAndIncubi Sabine (Human form)]], [[DatingCatwoman Hilgya]], and [[DumbMuscle Thog]])]] |
| 22 | |
| 23 | !The Linear Guild |
| 24 | ->'''Lee:''' Destructive unnecessary conflict is pretty much all they do.\ |
| 25 | '''Qarr:''' ...They look like total morons.\ |
| 26 | '''Cedrik:''' They are! Isn't it just perfect? |
| 27 | |
| 28 | Led by Elan's EvilTwin Nale, the Linear Guild is an EvilCounterpart to the Order, whom Nale has a vendetta against. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | [[folder:In General]] |
| 31 | * AffablyEvil: The more personable characters of the group are this, such as Hilgya Firehelm. |
| 32 | * TheBrute: Thog and [[spoiler:Tarquin]] are powerful fighters who work for Nale. [[spoiler:Thog is genuinely stupid but Tarquin plays the role initially and claims that he will take Nale's orders when they both know better.]] |
| 33 | * CardCarryingVillain: They have literal business cards. |
| 34 | * CavalryRefusal: Nale, Thog and Sabine were on the receiving end of a villainous version of this. When captured in Azure City, Nale expected their allies to break them out. Instead, Leeky and Pompey ditched them. |
| 35 | * DeadEndJob: The team always includes a kobold, who invariably ends up killed in a horrific/amusing manner. [[spoiler:Averted with Kilkil, the latest to date, who does not fight Belkar.]] |
| 36 | * DisproportionateRetribution: "The Linear Guild is practically synonymous with taking disproportionate revenge over quasi-imagined slights!" |
| 37 | * DwindlingParty: During the ''Empire of Blood'' arc. Burlew wanted to showcase Nale at his most desperate as his teammates are all either killed or sent away leaving him closed off from allies and having to rely on his own (flawed) instincts. Even at the start of the arc, they're down one evil opposite (no Durkon counterpart this time around). Tarquin slowly usurping control from Nale by replacing half the Guild with his own people was to this end. [[spoiler:At the arc's conclusion, the Linear Guild is finished.]] |
| 38 | * EqualOpportunityEvil: Each lineup has shown significant diversity compared to every other adventuring party and evil organization in the comic. |
| 39 | * EvilCounterpart: Nale intentionally {{invoke|dTrope}}s this because he wants his minions to be "evil opposites" just like he is for Elan [[spoiler:but he later {{defie|dTrope}}s it]]. |
| 40 | * TheEvilGenius: Zz'dtri is the mage for the party in its first incarnation, Pompey in its second, and then Zz'dtri returns for round three. |
| 41 | * GoldfishPoopGang: Lampshaded when our heroes realize that they do not have a permanent solution for disposing of them. [[spoiler:However, as of comic #913, Nale and Zz'dtri are both dead, Leeky and Pompey both abandoned the Guild ages ago, Hilgya reappears one arc later but has other things on her plate, Sir Scraggly is MIA (but its master's dead and his body buried under rubble anyways), and Thog is either dead or still imprisoned back in the Empire of Blood. The only member still around and in the game is Sabine. The Linear Guild is, effectively, dead, a rare treatment for the GoldfishPoopGang. None of this precludes a new iteration of the Guild being formed -- perhaps with the goal of taking down Tarquin and his empire. It also doesn't rule out the possibility of Sabine or the IFCC resurrecting Zz'dtri.]] |
| 42 | * ThePsychoRangers: Invoked by Nale with his "evil opposite" theme. |
| 43 | * QuirkyMinibossSquad: Reoccurring second-tier antagonists. |
| 44 | * SimilarSquad: The Linear Guild seems initially to be one for the Order of the Stick, especially in their introductory shot where they mirror exactly each member of the Order. Turns out, they're ThePsychoRangers, deliberately assembled that way by their GenreSavvy leader. |
| 45 | * TerribleTrio: Once reduced to its core members, it is three: {{two guys and a girl}}. Nale and Sabine, obviously, but the third slot becomes vacant after Thog's [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse mysterious departure from canon]], and is filled by the returning Zz'dtri. |
| 46 | * UnwittingPawn: The group are woefully unaware of the IFCC's manipulations except for Sabine, as she's their woman on the inside. |
| 47 | * VillainousFriendship: Nale and Zz'dtri appear to have a legitimate friendship. [[spoiler:Nale is horrified when Vampire Durkon kills Zz'dtri.]] |
| 48 | [[/folder]] |
| 49 | |
| 50 | !!Core members |
| 51 | |
| 52 | [[folder:Nale]] |
| 53 | !!Nale |
| 54 | [[quoteright:109:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nale_8150.png]] |
| 55 | |
| 56 | ->''"Because no one denies me, Elan. Not father, not you, no one."'' |
| 57 | |
| 58 | ->'''Race:''' Human\ |
| 59 | '''Gender:''' Male\ |
| 60 | '''Class:''' Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer\ |
| 61 | '''Alignment:''' LawfulEvil (self-declared) |
| 62 | %%Word of the Giant puts Nale's alignment into question. |
| 63 | |
| 64 | Elan's twin brother, raised by their LawfulEvil[[note]]although Nale declares himself to be Lawful Evil as part of his "evil opposites" theme, Rich Burlew noted when asked about Nale's declared alignment compared to his actions that it's [[https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=15364378&postcount=36 "Interesting, that. Don't you think? ;)"]][[/note]] warlord father to be extremely ruthless. A multiclassed fighter/rogue/sorcerer, this ironically means he has about the exact same abilities as his bard brother. [[ComplexityAddiction Only more complicated]]. [[note]]The abilities aren't an exact match; sorcerors and bards have different spell lists (though Nale's multiclassing does restrict his spell progression to a similar rate to a bard), and rogues and bards have some separate abilities. Also, none of Nale's classes get MagicMusic.[[/note]] However, it does mesh with Nale's vaunted "evil opposites" theme; bards can't be lawful, so this multiclass combination enables Nale to have the same abilities as but the exact opposite alignment to his hated twin. |
| 65 | ---- |
| 66 | * AlasPoorVillain: One possible reaction to his death. [[spoiler:Elan certainly feels this way, since while Nale was evil, they were still family. He also wonders if [[UpbringingMakesTheHero Nale would have turned out better if he had a better, loving family]].]] |
| 67 | * AssholeVictim: The other possible reaction, and not necessarily mutually exclusive. [[spoiler:As explained by Haley, who gently but honestly tells Elan that Nale was a terrible human being. The circumstances of his death don't help with this, as Nale pretty much [[HoistByHisOwnPetard brought his death on himself]] by gloating about murdering Malack to Tarquin and Laurin and refusing Tarquin's offer to mend fences, both purely to stroke his own ego. Laurin also disintegrates his corpse so he can't be resurrected, which would be horrible if not for the fact she did it to avenge Malack.]] |
| 68 | * AmbiguouslyBi: Has apparently at one point used Sabine's shapechanging abilities to, well, "explore". |
| 69 | * BackStab: Part of his skill-set as a rogue. The first ([[ObviouslyEvil open]]) reveal of his evil was backstabbing Elan. |
| 70 | * BeardOfEvil: Which he started growing as a toddler. |
| 71 | * BeardedBaby: Flashbacks show that Nale had that goatee of his as a young boy. RuleOfFunny applies. |
| 72 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: [[spoiler:He asks Tarquin not to give him anything and to let him be an independent person. As a result his father revokes his protection... including from ''himself,'' and thus Tarquin proceeds to stab Nale for his traitorous actions, especially killing Malack.]] |
| 73 | * BigBadWannabe: He thinks he has what it takes to conquer the world. He's amusingly delusional that way. |
| 74 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: For all his card-carrying villainy, he was first introduced this way. Haley wasn't fooled. |
| 75 | * BondVillainStupidity: For instance, evil gloating. He ''loves'' gloating when he ''thinks'' he has won. He's aware of it, though, and [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0383.html tries to get it out of his system]] in advance. |
| 76 | * BoringInsult: Nale is so egotistical that calling him unoriginal will [[SpotTheImposter make him drop his disguise]]. |
| 77 | * BullyingADragon: |
| 78 | ** His first response to seeing Malack again is to ask how his family is [[spoiler:(three of his children had been killed by Nale)]], resulting in Malack [[CurbStompBattle casting Harm on him.]] Doubles as CasualDangerDialog -- Nale seems [[OhCrap pretty aware]] he is screwed. |
| 79 | ** Later, [[spoiler:he finally manages to kill Malack and proceeds to taunt his father about it, right in the middle of his father's army and in the presence of one of Tarquin's powerful companions. Tarquin tries to offer Nale the chance to reconcile, but Nale brags about how he managed to kill Malack without Tarquin's help, complains about how much he resents his father, and rejects his LastSecondChance. Tarquin finally proceeds to show Nale just how quickly he would have died without his protection]]. |
| 80 | * ButHeSoundsHandsome: |
| 81 | -->'''Nale-as-Elan:''' After almost being killed by my cunningly clever and devilishly handsome twin brother, Nale, I find that I am looking at everything in a different light. |
| 82 | * CallingTheOldManOut: He calls his father a manipulative loser that he wants nothing to do with, just before [[spoiler:being unceremoniously killed by said old man]]. |
| 83 | * CardCarryingVillain: Part of what separates him from Tarquin and Malack. Whereas they operate within the rules of (a massively corrupt) society and rationalize their actions through false civility, Nale knows ''exactly'' what kind of person he is and revels in it. |
| 84 | * CharmPerson: He favors enchantment magic. |
| 85 | * TheChessmaster: He tries, but events have repeatedly shown that while he's pretty good at putting plans together, they ultimately tend not to work out. His first scheme would have succeeded if not for Haley making an almost impossible shot with her bow. His second scheme, in which he impersonated Elan, would have also succeeded if Elan had remained as dumb and incompetent as ever, rather than suddenly [[TookALevelInBadass taking a level in badass]]. And, more generally, if Nale didn't constantly trip over his megalomania. |
| 86 | * CloudcuckoolandersMinder: To his chagrin, Nale is constantly forced into babysitting [[ManChild Thog]]. |
| 87 | * ComplexityAddiction: In this Nale takes after his mother, who as a barmaid created highly-convoluted serving plans for individual days of the week. A good example is that he took levels in Sorcerer, Rogue, and Fighter just to get almost exactly the same abilities as Elan got as a Bard. He ''may'' have gotten over this partway through the Girard's gate arc, declaring to Zz'dtri that he's ditched the evil opposites theme and is going to just wipe the Order out. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]] |
| 88 | -->'''Tarquin:''' Honestly, Nale, that "plan" of yours had way too many moving parts. |
| 89 | * ConsummateLiar: [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0393.html Nale's got quite a Bluff score.]] He's able to convincingly imitate Elan without anyone realising it's him until Belkar susses him out purely because he smells different. Really, if he wasn't so addicted to gloating and/or doing things the hard way, he'd run circles around the Order every time. |
| 90 | * ContractualGenreBlindness: He follows traditional villain tropes because it's how he thinks plans ''should'' go, up to and including his ComplexityAddiction. Tarquin calls him out on this, [[spoiler:then eventually kills him for his failures, among other reasons.]] |
| 91 | * CopKiller: Graduates to this by murdering the Cliffport chief of police. |
| 92 | * DeaderThanDead: After Tarquin [[spoiler:fatally stabs him, Laurin Shattersmith disintegrates his body, her reasoning being that if Malack can't be brought back, neither can his killer. Technically, he could be brought back by a True Resurrection or Wish spell, but it's unlikely that Sabine, his sole remaining ally, would be able to get access to one for the time being - especially since the only casters in the world who are implied to be powerful enough to cast these spells are Redcloak and Xykon, respectively - and those two don't care about Nale's fate at all.]] |
| 93 | * DeadpanSnarker: Frequently. |
| 94 | -->'''Nale:''' Truly, your [[LameComeback cunningly-crafted retort]] stings my pride. |
| 95 | * DiabolicalMastermind: He believes himself to be one of these, and definitely is one (if of a lesser caliber than he believes), but as with every other trope dealing with his intelligence, this is limited by his ability to put aside his own ego long enough to get anything done. He efficiently executed his plot to [[spoiler:kill Malack, but mostly because he was planning to kill him since he was nine years old, and used Malack's children as a "test run".]] |
| 96 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: Ironically for a guy with as big of a ComplexityAddiction as he is, he sometimes falls into this, most notably in the "Empire of Blood" arc. Tarquin correctly notes that he had no guarantee that he could get the method to control the Snarl from Xykon and Redcloak [[spoiler: (if it even existed in the first place), and he kills Malack, boasts about it, and demands an end to Tarquin's helping him without considering that his father would then treat him as an enemy.]] |
| 97 | * DisproportionateRetribution: Tries to kill his brother because he refused his offer to join him as he was still working for Roy. He's quite proud of being a petty, murderous bastard who kills/ruins people for petty slights. |
| 98 | * DumpStat: Wisdom. He's petty and egotistical which usually undermines his plans and said plans are all, "needlessly complicated." |
| 99 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Nale and Sabine really do care about one another. When Girard trapped him in a "perfect world" illusion, it involved him as a king with Sabine as his queen. [[spoiler:He was horrified when Durkon's ''holy word'' banished her to the Outer planes.]] |
| 100 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: Spoofed when he considers using a Music/CelineDion record as torture below him. |
| 101 | -->'''Nale:''' No no Thog. I'm still civilized. |
| 102 | * EvilCannotComprehendGood: He expects all siblings to [[CainAndAbel harbor the same obsessive homicidal grudge against each other that he feels for Elan]]. So when Elan decides to spare his life, he's shocked, and when Roy and Julia have a AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther moment right in front of him, he's confused, despite the fact his succubus girlfriend was able to understand it (and she had to gently tell him it's just that some families are different, implying she doesn't know how to tell him.) He's baffled when [[spoiler:Vampire Durkon chooses saving his friends over joining the Linear Guild after he regains his free will, though ironically, if he knew Durkon's [[TheMole true motivations]], he might understand.]] |
| 103 | * EvilCounterpart: Has an obsession with them, being himself Elan's EvilTwin and, presumably, inheriting some of his of father's love of using tropes. |
| 104 | * EvilGenius: Definitely one, but [[SmallNameBigEgo his idea of how far this extends]] and the reality is... somewhat skewed. All in all, if he weren't a raging narcissist and were able to put aside his obsession with Elan, he'd be ''much'' more effective. Considering LamarckWasRight for this universe, his father gives us an idea of how dangerous he could be. |
| 105 | * EvilGloating: Stock-in-trade for someone as full of himself as Nale. |
| 106 | ** It hilariously clashes with [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0337.html the 25-word limit on Sending spells]]. |
| 107 | ** #913 has a short but to-the-point one. |
| 108 | --->'''Nale:''' [[spoiler:His ashes smelled like burning leather]]. He '''suffered.''' |
| 109 | ** His father notes that it is a FatalFlaw, since his desire to show he's better than everyone else drives him to gloat even when the situation calls for a low profile. [[spoiler:In the strip where he dies, note that Nale is most of the way dead, has no allies to assist him, and surrounded by people who can easily kill him, plus their private army. And he ''still'' tries to gloat to them about murdering one of their friends and comrades.]] |
| 110 | * EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: His reaction to [[spoiler:Durkon being vampirized]]? First shock, then "That's hilarious!!" |
| 111 | * EvilIsPetty: It's not just about being evil with Nale. It's absolutely also about screwing with other people in the most low-down manner possible. Exhibit A is the FishOutOfTemporalWater joke he told Cecila. |
| 112 | * EvilPlan: Part of being an evil leader is having a plan to ''do'' evil. Though as noted elsewhere, they tend to fall apart. |
| 113 | * EvilSorcerer: Literally, in that it's his InUniverse character class and character alignment. |
| 114 | * EvilTwin: Complete with BeardOfEvil and SeparatedAtBirth. He's [[InvokedTrope put a lot of effort]] into keeping that image, including [[EvilCounterpart his choice of minions]]. |
| 115 | * FatalFlaw: |
| 116 | ** [[{{Pride}} His ego]]. Vaarsuvius thwarts a fake-out KillUsBoth by saying it is trite and cliché, like all of Nale's plans, which causes him to mouth off. His father Tarquin has little respect for him because of this, and claims that Nale's ego and ComplexityAddiction keep him from ever becoming a truly formidable villain. The biggest irony is that Nale ''is'' very intelligent, but his megalomania prevents him from doing anything effective with it. |
| 117 | ** [[spoiler:Literally becomes his fatal flaw]] in comic 913; Nale's pride means he wants to be a SelfMadeMan, and he rejects his father in pursuit of this. In doing so, he severs all familial ties with his father as well as ends any potential use his father could get out of him. Thus, [[spoiler:Tarquin kills Nale both because Nale has proven totally useless to him, if not an outright detriment, and to avenge the murder of Malack. Frankly, Nale got off easy, considering all the crap he's pulled toward Tarquin, who has horribly murdered people for far less.]] |
| 118 | * ForTheEvulz: He occasionally does evil things just to screw with people. Like telling a sylph she'd been petrified for 1,000 years just to see her panic at being alone. He then says it was WorthIt, even as she blasts him with lightning bolts. |
| 119 | * FreudianExcuse: He was reared by his evil father Tarquin, although it is suggested [[EnfantTerrible he was already evil as an infant]] before he was placed under his care, so it's unclear how much blame can really be laid at Tarquin's feet. |
| 120 | * GracefulLoser: Although he does hold grudges for a ''long'' time, when his plans are in the process of falling apart, he just accepts defeat and exits the stage. This contrasts very strongly with [[spoiler:his father, who can never ever let things go.]] |
| 121 | * HairAntennae: Like his brother and father, he has the single sticking up hair and the questionable and irrational decision-making. |
| 122 | * HatesTheirParent: Nale can't stand his father, who he considers overly controlling. He spends his whole life trying to get out from under his wing and establish himself as a villain in his own right, doing things his own way. |
| 123 | * HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: Has to fight the urge to do this when he takes the place of Elan, and Vaarsuvius nearly catches him smooching Sabine (who quickly turns into a male guard). Sabine then reveals that they ''have'' used her shapeshifting for "experimentation". |
| 124 | * IndyPloy: Due to ContractualGenreBlindness, he rarely employs these, preferring his doomed ComplexityAddiction-laden {{Evil Plan}}s. But, when forced to drop all that and improvise, Nale is quite formidable. |
| 125 | * {{Irony}}: While disguising himself as Elan, he concludes that Belkar would be the least likely to figure out his ruse. Belkar was the first one of the remaining members to recognize Nale thanks to his [[TheNoseKnows scent ability]]. |
| 126 | * {{Jerkass}}: Or more specifically... |
| 127 | -->'''Elan:''' [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0351.html ...you're a mean jerk. A jerky jerk. The jerkiest jerk of all.]] |
| 128 | * KarmicDeath: |
| 129 | ** [[spoiler:Arrogantly boasts about killing Malack to his father, Malack's best friend, and insists he wants nothing from his father, especially not pity or charity, while deriding his father as a weakling who is "past it" when it comes to being a villain. Tarquin unemotionally stabs him dead.]] |
| 130 | ** [[spoiler:In his first appearance, he tried to kill a family member, Elan, for rejecting his offer to join the Linear Guild. In his last appearance, he's killed by a family member, his father, for rejecting his offer to rule at his side, as well as a myriad of ''other'' reasons.]] |
| 131 | * KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler:His corpse is disintegrated by Laurin to prevent his resurrection, [[PayEvilUntoEvil as payment for him doing the same to Malack.]] The only thing that could bring him back now is a ''Wish'', ''Miracle'', ''True Resurrection'' (all of which are 9th level spells and as Haley pointed out there may not be anyone of high enough level to cast them in the world), or direct intervention from a deity. As these are story-breakers, they aren't likely to happen.]] |
| 132 | * KillItWithFire: Nale decides to kill [[spoiler:Malack by removing his ''Protection from Daylight'' spell]], causing him to burst into flames. |
| 133 | * LamarckWasRight: He takes his LawfulEvil[[invoked]] TakeOverTheWorld outlook from his father and his ComplexityAddiction from his mother, in reverse of how Elan is a ChaoticGood hero working ForHappiness (taking after his mother) with a love of tropes and stories (from his father). |
| 134 | * LamePunReaction: Elan's jokes eventually cause this. |
| 135 | -->'''Nale:''' Ugh, that was horrible! I swear, I'm going to kill you, then pay a cleric to raise you, and kill you again, just to make you pay for the puns! |
| 136 | * LaughablyEvil: Nale is a mass-murdering scumbag, but his snarky comments are pretty funny, as is [[SmallNameBigEgo his massively inflated opinion of himself]]. |
| 137 | * LikeFatherLikeSon: He takes a lot after Tarquin in his [[KickTheDog cruelty]], [[EvilIsPetty pettiness]], [[EvilGenius cunning]], [[ManipulativeBastard manipulation skills]] and [[FauxAffablyEvil false politeness]]. [[BerserkButton Don't tell him that, though.]] His ComplexityAddiction, on the other hand, he gets from his mother. |
| 138 | * LordBritishPostulate: According to the Giant, this is the thing that made Nale so obsessed with [[spoiler:killing Malack. He didn't hate Malack any more than any of his father's other friends, but Malack's status as a vampire cleric with multiple protective spells made him a harder nut to crack than any of them. Nale jumps at the chance to kill Malack because he might never get a chance like it again]]. |
| 139 | * MagicKnight: Thanks to his elaborate multiclassing, he's both a capable warrior and a pretty strong spellcaster. He definitely seems to lean on the "magic" side, though, given his preference for StatusEffects spells in serious confrontations, and the fact that Elan consistently outdoes him in swordplay even before [[TookALevelInBadass taking levels in Dashing Swordsman]]. |
| 140 | * MasterOfNone: As a multiclass fighter/rogue/sorceror, he has roughly the same set of abilities as his twin, but in an excessively complicated and, many would say, far less functionally useful way. One major advantage of a bard over Nale's needlessly complicated multiclassing is that despite being arcane casters, bards can cast healing spells (for the most part otherwise reserved for divine casters such as clerics). [[spoiler:It's quite possible that he and Zz'dtri would still be alive if Nale could've cast healing spells after Girard's pyramid exploded, like Elan did after the same explosion.]] |
| 141 | * MistakenForGay: Nale (disguised as his brother) making out with a shapeshifted Sabine gives V such an impression about Elan in [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0365.html "Caught in the Act"]]. |
| 142 | * MostDefinitelyNotAVillain: While disguised as Elan, to convince Elan's teammates, he does a terrible job pretending to be his twin. The most effective thing he did was shave his beard. |
| 143 | * MyBelovedSmother: Gender-inverted, with his dad, if his rant about Tarquin's obsessive controlling to be believed. |
| 144 | * {{Nepotism}}: He hates it. He doesn't want his father's help, and doesn't want it because it involves living in his shadow. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, when he emphatically declares that he doesn't want Tarquin's protection, Tarquin stabs him in the chest. Given the fact that Tarquin has murdered people for pinching his wife's butt, Nale got off easy considering the perpetual thorn in Tarquin's side he's been even before he killed Malack. In fact, Tarquin says Nale wouldn't have made it this far without his father's protection. According to the Author's notes in ''Blood Runs in the Family'', Tarquin stepped in many times without Nale's knowledge in his youth, which helps explain why Nale is so unaccustomed to failure and rejection.]] |
| 145 | * NiceJobFixingItVillain: Ironically, every one of Nale's appearances end up helping the Order in some way. |
| 146 | ** In the Dungeon of Dorukan, Nale's plot indirectly leads the Order of the Stick to meeting Celia, who shows them a shortcut to reach Xykon sooner, and who would help out in later arcs. |
| 147 | ** Sending the Order on a side-quest for Starmetal just to buy time to recruit replacements for his Guild resulted in Roy getting a much more powerful sword. Sabine lampshades this the moment he explains ThePlan, but he's too sure of the sensibility of it to reconsider. |
| 148 | ** As Vaarsuvius points out, his kidnapping Julia means the Order's still in Azure City just in time to help defend it against Xykon's Hobgoblin army. Were it not for that, they would have been in the Western Continent at that time. |
| 149 | ** When he attacks Elan at the Empire of Blood, his presence convinces Tarquin to reveal what he knows about the Draketooths earlier than planned. |
| 150 | ** His murder of [[spoiler:Malack]] causes [[spoiler:Vampire Durkon to regain his free will. "Durkon" immediately kills Zz'dtri and rejoins the Order.]] |
| 151 | * NotSoHarmlessVillain: Nale's a rather dangerous psychopath in his own right, but on the one occasion he abandoned his complexity addiction, [[spoiler:he killed a vampire cleric massively more powerful than himself with a disarm, a ''dispel magic'' from Zz'dtri, and a vampire's weakness to sunlight]] -- very Tarquin-ish. |
| 152 | * OverlordJr: He may have been this in his backstory, but by the present he's struck out on his own after a failed coup attempt -- and deeply resents any attempt to get him "up and running as part of the team" again. |
| 153 | * PayEvilUntoEvil: |
| 154 | ** [[spoiler:Malack]], who outright admits he will kill Nale once he is no longer useful to [[spoiler:Tarquin]], and that [[spoiler:Tarquin]] will let him do it. Nale pre-empts this and strikes first. |
| 155 | ** [[spoiler:It turns out Tarquin was hoping that Nale would avert this by impressing him at Girard's Gate. If Nale had succeeded, Tarquin would have attempted to convince Malack and the rest of the team that Nale was worth keeping around. When Nale kills Malack and rejects his father's offer, Tarquin writes him off and kills him. Laurin then disintegrates his corpse, making it impossible to resurrect him in payment for him doing the same to Malack.]] |
| 156 | * PetTheDog: His genuine love for Sabine... however, we then find out it's maintained at least partially by {{human sacrifice}}s, making it [[SubvertedTrope just another way in which he's evil]]. It's more like Pet the Demonic Wolfhound. |
| 157 | * PowerfulPeopleAreSubs: A bonus strip in ''No Cure for the Paladin Blues'' reveals that him and Sabine have a KinkyRolePlaying scenario named "Evil Conqueror and the Innocent Virgin"... and that usually, in said scenario, Sabine is the former. |
| 158 | * {{Pride}}: His own father looks down on Nale because he's so proud it tends to make him do stupid things. Case in point: he had a perfectly good plan to track down Girard's Gate and gain control of it, it was going well, and then he learned that the Order of the Stick was in town. Nale assumed they were there because they were after him, when in reality they didn't even know he was still alive, let alone in the same city as them. Between that and his desire to kill Elan, he couldn't resist striking at them immediately. As opposed to, say, waiting until they'd left the city to attack them so that nobody would interfere in the battle, or not even bothering to fight them at all and just trying to get to the gate ASAP. [[spoiler:It doesn't turn out very well.]] |
| 159 | * PsychopathicManchild: Overall, Nale is a spoiled brat who can't stand not getting what he wants... [[LikeFatherLikeSon much like his father]]. |
| 160 | * TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Gives a brief one to his father, [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0913.html in strip #913]]. |
| 161 | -->'''Nale:''' You don't even have the balls to go big anymore. You're just a scared old man, protecting his rut. |
| 162 | * RelativeButton: He employs this trope twice; first by asking Malack about his dead children, (whom Nale killed) and then by taunting Tarquin, Laurin, and company about [[spoiler:killing Malack]]. Neither time did much good for him, and the latter time [[spoiler:it was part of what got him killed]]. |
| 163 | * ReminiscingAboutYourVictims: [[spoiler:Even though Malack's death was mere moments before, Nale clearly takes pleasure in the memory when he gloats about Malack dying in horrific pain.]] |
| 164 | -->'''Nale:''' [[spoiler:I killed Malack. I made him scream for his god in the desert sun. His ashes smelled like burning leather. He '''suffered'''.]] |
| 165 | * TheResenter: His main motive is to be his own person instead of a cog in his father's schemes, ever stuck in Tarquin's shadow. He particularly resents his father, because for all his resources, Tarquin only follows slow, pragmatic schemes and never tries to risk overreaching his grasp. |
| 166 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Tries this [[spoiler:and fails after getting ambushed by Belkar. Luckily for him, his father picks up the slack.]] |
| 167 | * SdrawkcabName: "Elan" backwards. |
| 168 | * SelfMadeMan: For all his many, many faults, Nale wants to achieve his goals by his own merits, without depending on any {{nepotism}}. It's one of the foundation roots for his pride. |
| 169 | * SkewedPriorities: Accused of this by Tarquin. Specifically, Nale's {{Pride}} means that he sees making sure that everyone knows when he is victorious as being more important than securing the victory itself, and he will happily jeopardize a plan that hinges on him maintaining a low profile in order to do so. |
| 170 | * SmugSnake: Nale is full of himself, and nowhere near as good as he thinks himself to be. |
| 171 | * SoLongSuckers: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0067.html "+12 to Jump checks, sucker!"]] |
| 172 | * SpannerInTheWorks: His appearance at Cliffport ensures that the Order is present at Azure City when Xykon attacks (indirectly leading to [[spoiler: Miko killing Shojo and then her shattering the Gate]]) and thus the ''Don't Split the Party'' arc is his fault. It also allows him to learn about the Gates which causes him to go to the Empire of Blood [[spoiler: leading to the destruction of Girard's Gate, Durkon becoming a vampire, and the deaths of Malack, Zz'drti, and Nale himself.]] |
| 173 | * SticksToTheBack: His longsword in the third arc has no means of connecting to his back; it just fits there. |
| 174 | * ThrowTheDogABone: Nale eventually accomplished one of his long-term goals: [[spoiler:destroying Malack.]] |
| 175 | * TooCleverByHalf: Though he can make airtight plans ahead of time, his ego and ComplexityAddiction drive him to add more extravagant and complicating flourishes during execution. When he does have a sweeping success, his need to have [[EvilGloating his brilliance validated for it]] tends to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. |
| 176 | * TooDumbToLive: |
| 177 | ** Nale is much more concerned with everyone knowing that he is the winner than winning, and tends to make terrible, dangerous, and over-complicated plans as a result. [[spoiler:Eventually, he is foolish enough to gloat about murdering Malack in front of Malack's friends, both of whom are far stronger than he is. His father, one of the friends, drags him aside and offers him one last chance at reconciliation, telling him that he lied when giving Malack permission to kill Nale. So Nale snaps, screaming out a lifetime of frustration at his father's lies, abuse, and manipulations, demands to be left alone and be allowed to be his own person. So Tarquin, in a scene mirroring Nale and Elan's first confrontation, kills him.]] |
| 178 | --->'''Tarquin:''' What did you think the price for [[spoiler:killing my best friend]] would be? Really, Nale, you would have been dead years ago if it weren't for my protection. |
| 179 | ** In the commentary for ''Blood Runs in the Family'' Rich says that Malack believes that Nale would be a fool to move against him, but unfortunately for Malack, Nale happens to be that sort of fool. |
| 180 | * UnholyMatrimony: Although he explicitly helps maintain it with regular human sacrifices, Nale does genuinely love Sabine, and it's his most redeeming feature. He's noticeably distraught when Durkon's ''holy word'' banishes her back to the Lower Planes. |
| 181 | -->'''Nale:''' The make-up killing is the best part of any fight. |
| 182 | * VillainousUnderdog: He's a MasterOfNone in terms of his overall abilities, being not particularly skilled in any of his classes and lacking the odd synergies that allows Elan to be effective in the same roles (notably, Elan was at least his equal even ''before'' becoming a Dashing Swordsman). He has only a small handful of loyal allies, with his second Linear Guild lineup in particular having disintegrated the moment he wasn't around. He's not even especially great as a planner, for all his egotism. In most of his appearances, Nale is really only a threat because of surprise, his ability to set the terms of engagement for his opponents, lots of preparation, and sheer luck. |
| 183 | * WantedPoster: Gannji shows through this that Nale is wanted on the Western continent for betraying the Empire of Blood. |
| 184 | * WeCanRuleTogether: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0054.html To Elan]] because they're brothers and he wants to corrupt the good twin. |
| 185 | * WellDoneSonGuy: Averted. Despite being the evil {{Unfavorite}} of his evil father, Nale only wants for Tarquin to get out of his life and treat him like an adult rather than a plot device. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, it ironically turns out that part of being treated like an adult is being exposed to the consequences of your choices and actions, and Tarquin's love for Nale -- or at least what little passes for it -- is actually the only thing keeping him alive...]] |
| 186 | [[/folder]] |
| 187 | |
| 188 | [[folder:Sabine]] |
| 189 | !!Sabine |
| 190 | [[quoteright:138:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/27lpmi1.png]] |
| 191 | |
| 192 | ->''"...Oh, sorry, I kind of got distracted after you said the word 'three-way'."'' |
| 193 | |
| 194 | ->'''Race:''' Succubus\ |
| 195 | '''Gender:''' Female\ |
| 196 | '''Class:''' Rogue\ |
| 197 | '''Alignment:''' ChaoticEvil |
| 198 | |
| 199 | Nale's evil Outsider (''D&D'' speak for "native to one of the Outer Planes") girlfriend, eventually confirmed to be a [[SuccubiAndIncubi succubus]]. Can shapeshift into any humanoid form. She's also the IFCC's direct agent in the Linear Guild. |
| 200 | ---- |
| 201 | * TheAgeless: As a succubus, she doesn't age. |
| 202 | * AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Sabine inverts this, and SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan, in one fell swoop. |
| 203 | -->'''Sabine:''' Sure, women like me swoon for a hero, but that's only because deep down, [[ICanChangeMyBeloved we think we can change them]]. But me, I'm done with that now. I want a nice, safe, reliable mass-murderer that I can depend on. |
| 204 | %% |
| 205 | %%%% How does it "Defines her relationship with Nale"? |
| 206 | %%%* ArsonMurderAndAdmiration: |
| 207 | %% |
| 208 | * BareMidriffsAreFeminine: She tends to dress in revealing clothes that show off her feminine figure; two of these, her schoolgirl disguise, as well as her red bikini in the third arc, show off her midriff. She's a succubus after all; sex appeal is her thing, and it's not like she needs the armor. |
| 209 | * BloodKnight: Despite being a type of demon that tends towards subterfuge, Sabine enjoys a good scrap. Commentary suggests that this is because her damage reduction gives her a pretty significant buffer in surviving combat, as whenever she's fighting someone who ''can'' hurt her, she becomes far less confident. |
| 210 | * BlueAndOrangeMorality: Being a Succubus, she would have been perfectly okay with Nale having sex with Haley, but was angry over him killing her alone. |
| 211 | * ClingyJealousGirl: Parodied when she jealously accuses Nale of going behind her back with Haley --- to kill her without him. She doesn't care in the slightest if he had sex with her -- she's a succubus, she mentions she had sex four times in the past three hours, and that was slow for her -- but killing Haley without her? ''Never.'' (Nales does explain he planned to sacrifice Haley alongside Sabine with a virgin dagger, while enjoying a fine wine.) |
| 212 | * ColdIron: Being a demon, she's pretty much invulnerable to all but cold iron weapons. |
| 213 | * ComicallyMissingThePoint: When Nale gets upset that she had sex four times in three hours without him, she comments about how she had other errands to run (Sabine doesn't begrudge Nale doing the same thing). |
| 214 | * TheCorrupter: She attempts to seduce/corrupt Miko Miyazaki into becoming a [[BlackKnight blackguard]], but Miko has none of it. |
| 215 | * DarkActionGirl: She has a great deal of personal power and her energy drain ability makes fights with her even more brutal. |
| 216 | * DepravedBisexual: As is to be expected of a Succubus. Apart from making out on separate occasions with both of Tarquin's sons, she also finds Miko Miyazaki attractive and relishes the idea of corrupting her into a Blackguard. (That, and she gets bonus pay for every paladin she convinces to become one.) Needless to say, [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0419.html Miko is not amused]] by her come-hither. |
| 217 | * TheDragon: The consistent number two in the Linear Guild. She's also considerably more powerful in a straight-up fight than Nale. |
| 218 | * DragonWithAnAgenda: She's covertly working for the IFCC as a mole inside the Linear Guild. It's strongly implied that she actually favors her relationship with Nale over her job, though, and eventually confirmed when [[spoiler: Nale is killed and she openly aids the Order by feeding Varsuuvius information on how to fight the Vector Legion]]. |
| 219 | * EnemyMine: [[spoiler:She provides inside information on the abilities of Tarquin's party to Vaarsuvius in the hopes that the elf will contribute to Tarquin's death. This is for revenge over Tarquin killing Nale. It's safe to say that she will side with The Order of the Stick if the latter ever returns to the Empire of Blood.]] |
| 220 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: She truly loves Nale and confesses as much to him before Durkon's ''holy word'' banishes her to the Lower Planes. [[spoiler:She is willing to help the good guys (or, more specifically, one good guy) beat the Empire of Blood because they killed off her sweetheart, and not because doing so will wreak more havoc in the long run (which should be her chief motivation as a ChaoticEvil outsider).]][[invoked]] |
| 221 | * EvilCounterpart: |
| 222 | ** To Haley as the sneaky one and party NumberTwo. Additionally, both are involved in a bigger organization, with Haley's Thieves Guild and Sabine's IFCC, but while Haley quit the Guild and pretends to still be in it, Sabine is loyal to the IFCC but keeps her true allegiance and goals secret. |
| 223 | ** Given that she's also an (evil) outsider in a relationship with the leader of the party, she could be one for Celia. |
| 224 | * EvilTastesGood: She gets a real kick out of draining levels and life energy, claiming to taste it. |
| 225 | * ExtremeOmnisexual: As a succubus, Sabine will have sex with anything, by nature. |
| 226 | * {{Flight}}: Via her wings. |
| 227 | * FlyingBrick: She's strong enough to carry around grown men her size without visible effort, and has DamageReduction and the ability to fly thanks to being a succubus. |
| 228 | * GameFace: Once she betrays the Order, horns sprout out of her head as well as wings out of her back. Her eyes also turn red. |
| 229 | * {{Geisha}}: She takes the appearance of one while undercover in Azure City in order to blend with the local culture. |
| 230 | * GoodWingsEvilWings: The evil bat-wings kind, naturally, because she's a succubus. |
| 231 | * HeadTurnedBackwards: For a short time, after a NeckSnap from Miko. She finds it annoying. |
| 232 | * HellBentForLeather: |
| 233 | -->'''Haley:''' She's wearing red leather. I mean, red leather?? Of '''course''' she's evil! |
| 234 | * HornedHumanoid: When in her true form she has horns because she's a demonic creature. |
| 235 | * {{Humanshifting}}: She can do "human", "dwarf", and also turn male. (By ''D&D'' rules, she can change into any Medium or Small humanoid form.) |
| 236 | * ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0849.html "Suspicious Agreement"]][[note]]In traditional ''D&D'', Devils are[[invoked]] LawfulEvil, Demons (like Sabine) are ChaoticEvil, and they generally ''hate'' each other. It still applies to Sabine, even though both her boyfriend Nale and her employer [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickDivineBeings Director Lee]] are LawfulEvil, the latter even being an (arch)devil.[[/note]]: |
| 237 | -->'''Malack:''' Is your vapid devil-whore still keeping you aloft?\ |
| 238 | '''Sabine:''' HEY! Who are you calling a devil? |
| 239 | * KissOfDeath: Her energy-draining kiss. Nale buys potions that provide immunity to this (in bulk) for their make-out sessions. |
| 240 | * KryptoniteFactor: |
| 241 | ** Haley initially isn't sure if Sabine's a demon, and thus vulnerable to cold iron, or a devil, and thus vulnerable to silver, so she decides to use both. Sabine eventually turns out to be a demon. |
| 242 | ** Being hit by [[spoiler:Durkon's ''holy word'' banishes her for twenty-four hours.]] |
| 243 | * LevelDrain: Through her KissOfDeath she steals vital energy. |
| 244 | * MorphicResonance: So far, her alternate forms have kept the same skin tone, and most often the same hair color (with a few exceptions). |
| 245 | * NoNavelNovelBirth: While having one when shapeshifted as a human, she lacks a bellybutton in her true form ([[FridgeBrilliance since succubi are demons and thus not born like mammals with an umbilical cord]]).[[invoked]][[note]]Admittedly, ''D&D'' tends to flip-flop on this, with both accounts of succubi being born as a result of sex and with succubi mainly producing half-demons (alu-fiend daughters and cambion sons) as a result of sex.[[/note]] |
| 246 | * NotSoHarmlessVillain: For most of the comic, even when she was a deadly threat, her goofy one-track mind and seemingly low intelligence were usually played for comedy. [[spoiler:Once her lover dies, and dies for keeps due to Disintegration, she demonstrates exactly how intelligent she is by feeding Vaarsuvius huge piles of deadly accurate and useful information about Tarquin and his allies. This leads to V's victory over Laurin.]] She is also parts of the Commission that plan on overthrowing Heaven and is the one that informed them of the Gates. |
| 247 | * OddFriendship: Ever since Vaarsuvius unwittingly gave her some relationship advice, Sabine seems pretty fond of the elf. She even gives V some words of support when [[spoiler:Vaarsuvius' soul is dragged down to hell]]. V's thoughts on the situation aren't entirely clear. |
| 248 | * TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: She ''really'' wants to be the one to kill Haley, and at one point gets pissed off at Nale for trying to do the deed himself. |
| 249 | * PowerPerversionPotential: She can use shapeshifting for "experimentation". |
| 250 | * ReallyGetsAround: She mentions sleeping with four different people while Nale was plotting to kill Haley. This was in a three-hour period and she was in a hurry. In a bonus strip, they run into a fiend who was one of her ex-boyfriends, and Nale gets really jealous as this is a really common occurence. |
| 251 | * RedemptionDemotion: Played with, but mostly inverted. [[spoiler: Nale's death]] turns her from a flighty villain who generally needs someone else to do the thinking for her to present a true threat to a deadly focused person who is able to motivate herself to recall vast quantities of specific intelligence about [[spoiler: his killers]] that she otherwise might not have bothered to remember, and becoming much more effective and deadly as a result. Played with in that she isn't truly "redeemed" in any sense of the word, but [[spoiler:her love for Nale]] still sees her siding with the heroes against a group of villains. |
| 252 | * RedEyesTakeWarning: Her eyes glowing red is their normal status in her real form. They may also seep through while she's in human form, like the first time we see them, thus giving a hint about her true nature. |
| 253 | * SexyBacklessOutfit: Justified, as she needs to be able to unfurl her wings. |
| 254 | * ShapeshiftersDoItForAChange: It's stated that she and Nale have had sex with her in male form at least once. |
| 255 | * SoleSurvivor: As of the Empire of Blood Arc, the only active member of the guild left in play. Even if Thog isn't dead, he's still probably imprisoned back in the Empire of Blood. |
| 256 | * {{Stripperific}}: She never was overdressed, but her ''Blood Runs in the Family'' outfit is basically a red bikini with boots. |
| 257 | * SuccubiAndIncubi: There was debate for a ''long'' time on whether she is a succubus (demon seductress) or an erinyes (devil dominatrix). She is eventually confirmed to be a succubus. |
| 258 | * SuccubusInLove: With Nale. She'll still sleep with other beings when he's not around, but she tells him she loves him and, for a succubus, she's quite loyal to him. [[spoiler:She certainly takes his death very... personally.]] |
| 259 | * SuperStrength: She can easily lift Nale and carry him into the sky. |
| 260 | * SuperToughness: Thanks to her demonic DamageReduction, attacks not made with specially-made weapons (like Haley's [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0062.html cold-iron arrows]] or Roy's [[{{Unobtanium}} starmetal]] [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0349.html blade]]) barely phase her. Durkon whaling on Sabine with his warhammer barely registers as a hard tap, and Elan can't even break her skin with his rapier. |
| 261 | * TantrumThrowing: After witnessing [[spoiler:Nale's death on the IFCC's blood plasma TV, [[ShootTheTelevision she throws the whole couch she and V were sitting on at the screen]]. The fiends tell her it's coming out of her holiday bonus.]] |
| 262 | * UndyingLoyalty: [[spoiler:To Nale, even despite Qarr's warnings. It's clear to see that she would stay with Nale even if her superiors didn't say so.]] |
| 263 | * UnholyMatrimony: She and Nale are really in love with one another, and have a very fulfilling relationship. Her last words before being banished to the Lower Planes are to tell Nale that she loves him. [[spoiler:Those were ''her last words'' to him and he couldn't hear them.]] |
| 264 | * TheVamp: Often pulls the "mysterious seductive" woman card to achieve goals. It's part of the succubus package. |
| 265 | * VampiricDraining: Sabine can drain her enemies's life essence with a kiss as well as her claws. The former is standard for a Succubus, the latter isn't (though it is consistent with the Soul Eater PrestigeClass). |
| 266 | * VoluntaryShapeshifting: She can assume the form of any humanoid, regardless of gender or age, though all of her disguises [[MorphicResonance have physical commonalities]] in dark skin, black hair, and (when she gets serious) [[RedEyesTakeWarning glowing red eyes]]. |
| 267 | * WingedHumanoid: She has leathery bat-like wings in her true form. |
| 268 | [[/folder]] |
| 269 | |
| 270 | [[folder:Thog]] |
| 271 | !!Thog |
| 272 | [[quoteright:259:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thog_1584.jpg]] |
| 273 | |
| 274 | ->'''''"thog like breaking stuff."''''' |
| 275 | |
| 276 | ->'''Race:''' Half-orc\ |
| 277 | '''Gender:''' Male\ |
| 278 | '''Class:''' Barbarian/Fighter\ |
| 279 | '''Alignment:''' ChaoticEvil |
| 280 | |
| 281 | Half-orc barbarian (with a few levels of fighter) who loves puppies and ice cream, as well as hurting people. His slow-wittedness tends to endear him to the readership. |
| 282 | ---- |
| 283 | * AffablyEvil: In contrast to [[FauxAffablyEvil Nale and Sabine]], he's genuinely polite, pleasant, fun to be around and friendly even to his enemies. It's enough that even people in-universe sometimes forget that he's ''also'' an unrepentent mass murderer. |
| 284 | * AllLowercaseLetters: Lowercase and bold is his normal speech pattern. Although he switches to '''ALL UPPERCASE BOLD LETTERS''' while raging. |
| 285 | * ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: After mass murder and treason, he ended up [[spoiler:in a gladiatorial arena]] for ''public urination''. |
| 286 | * BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Sort of. Thog likes Nale so much partly because he enables and facilitates the half-orc's hobby of killing people and wrecking the place up. And he lets him stay up late an extra hour on weekends. |
| 287 | * BerserkButton: It's about the only thing he and Roy remotely have in common. To compare: |
| 288 | ** In [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0114.html strip #114]]: |
| 289 | --->'''Roy:''' You broke my sword. YOU BROKE MY SWORD! |
| 290 | ** In [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0795.html strip #795]]: |
| 291 | --->'''Thog: talky-man broke thog's tusk. TALKY-MAN BROKE THOG'S TUSK!''' |
| 292 | * BewareTheSillyOnes: He may act like a cheerful kid but he is clearly evil and will beat the hell out of anyone he does not consider his friend. |
| 293 | * BloodKnight: He likes to kill people; it's how he cures his boredom when there is no sweets or puppies around. |
| 294 | * BoringButPractical: Everything about his mechanical build and tactics is about optimizing a strategy of "hit things until they die". As he himself notes, just being able to always directly use his best ability in combat gives him an advantage. |
| 295 | * TheBrute: He's a dimwitted strongman for Nale's guild. |
| 296 | * BrutishCharacterBrutishWeapon: He's a raging, murderous barbarian who wields a greataxe. |
| 297 | * BullfightBoss: The gladiator fight reveals that Thog's two levels in Fighter included picking up the Dungeon Crasher alternate class feature (perhaps not coincidentally, from a book that Burlew cowrote), which trades one of his feats for being able to make a ramming charge that slams the opponent into a nearby surface for heavy damage (along with some boosts against traps and while breaking objects). He starts using it against Roy when Roy breaks his axe, and largely dominates the following fight with it, though in classic bullfight fashion, Roy manages to lure him into knocking out the supports of a building. |
| 298 | * BumblingSidekick: He does a lot bumbling while helping Nale. |
| 299 | * ButForMeItWasTuesday: He doesn't seem to remember some of the murders he committed off-panel. It's not clear whether he's only doing it to taunt Roy, or if he really doesn't remember. Given that Thog is dumber than a bag of hammers and seems to have surprisingly little actual malice in his soul for a chaotic evil mass-murderer, it's more likely the latter. |
| 300 | * ChekhovsSkill: Thog has levels in the Dungeoncrasher Fighter variant class (per[[invoked]] WordOfGod), which he uses in [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0796.html "Smash"]]. Among other things, it allows him to deal extra damage to an enemy by bullrushing him into a wall, also damaging the wall. Roy puts it to good use [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0808.html later in the fight]]. |
| 301 | * {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Lots of odd ideas. For example he once put on a leprechaun costume to "get in touch with his inner greenness". Julio and Elan don't get it either. |
| 302 | * ComicallyMissingThePoint: Thog's main brand of humor is how much he doesn't understand what the more intelligent people around him are saying. |
| 303 | * CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Underneath all that stupid, Thog is ''very'' dangerous when he starts swinging his weapon. |
| 304 | * DavidVersusGoliath: Villainous example -- Thog solo-killed a stone giant in the Arena of Blood. A stone giant with class levels! |
| 305 | * DissonantSerenity: Thog does all his bad deeds with an expression of cheerful, childish glee (note the picture). |
| 306 | * TheDitz: Intelligence was his dump stat, and it shows. |
| 307 | * DumbassHasAPoint: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0791.html Thog's a lot more optimized than Roy.]] In an earlier strip, he also mentions that he only grabbed two levels of fighter for the feats and leveled the rest of the way as a barbarian. Under 3.5 ''D&D'' rules, as a half-orc his favored class is barbarian, so no multiclassing penalties would result. The first two levels of fighter really are the only ones worth grabbing. Thog gets a bunch of class proficiencies, a feat and the Dungeoncrasher fighter variant bonus feature (as opposed to two feats normally), at the cost of an average of two hit points. He makes smarter character build decisions than anyone else in either the Linear Guild or the Order of the Stick. |
| 308 | * DumbMuscle: As a fighter stereotype played straight, he's the complete opposite of Roy. |
| 309 | * DumpStat: Intelligence. Really, none of his mental stats are looking good, but Intelligence is easily the standout one. Though he has a racial penalty to it, the other half-orcs in the comic are still a lot smarter than he is. |
| 310 | * EvilCounterpart: |
| 311 | ** To Roy, because he's a dumb fighter sidekick instead of a intelligent fighter leader. Thog also has no respect for the fighter classline, being mostly a barbarian who considers any more than two levels to be a waste of time, while Roy takes active pride in it. Defied by Roy, doubling as a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: |
| 312 | --->'''Roy:''' I am so sick of hearing about "evil opposites" from you people! You're not my opposite, Thog! You're just different from me. Two things need to be almost the same except for one or two factors to be opposites.\ |
| 313 | '''Thog: uh...thog was talking about greatsword vs. greataxe.'''\ |
| 314 | '''Roy:''' They're not opposites either!! You might as well say that Nale and I are opposites: Good leader, bad leader!\ |
| 315 | '''Thog: [[ComicallyMissingThePoint nale is good leader, right?]]'''\ |
| 316 | '''Roy:''' Or Sabine! She's an evil female, I'm a good male. Opposites!\ |
| 317 | '''Thog: good point, thog never thought of that.'''\ |
| 318 | '''Roy:''' NO! It's '''not''' a good point! You're nothing special, Thog! You're '''not''' my equal and opposite. I've beaten plenty of cruel and stupid goons in my time, and I'll beat down many more when I'm done with you. We have nothing in common! NOTHING! |
| 319 | ** Both are deadlier when angered, both prefer the simple approach (although Thog does it more by instinct, Roy does it because it's more practical) in combat and both use the environment to their advantage in a fight (Thog's dungeoncrasher class and Improvised weapon against Roy's knowledge of terrain and CombatPragmatism.) |
| 320 | ** Thog is closer to Elan, both being the [[TheDitz silly one]] of their respective parties who have to be [[CloudcuckoolandersMinder baby-sat]] by their smarter and more sensible comrades and serve as {{bumbling sidekick}}s to their leaders, and have class builds that make the most out of their primary stat. While Elan is the most unambiguously heroic member of the Order, Thog is the least villain-y about his villainy in the core Linear Guild (though he's still a mass-murderer who delights in the suffering of others). |
| 321 | * EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: His appreciation for the joke "What is black and white and red all over?" "A zebrafolk that talks back." |
| 322 | * FauxHorrific: His idea of terrifying torture is [[TakeThat forcing someone to listen to]] Music/CelineDion. |
| 323 | * FearlessFool: In Tarquin's flashback to his and Nale's "disagreement", the Empress of Blood has Thog in her mouth, but he's grinning like a kid on a Ferris Wheel. |
| 324 | * FourthWallObserver: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0256.html He liked the Gender Belt subplot]] despite not being there, [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0788.html is aware of comic layouts]], and unaware of murders he committed off-panel. |
| 325 | -->'''"thog will always treasure thog's adventure with talky-man. it featured non-traditional panel layout."'''\ |
| 326 | '''"thog hazy on that. did thog kill them off-panel?"''' |
| 327 | * GirlsHaveCooties: Thog is afraid of girls, which is another thing that makes him Roy's polar opposite; Roy is very much attracted to ladies and presently in a semi-steady relationship with Celia. |
| 328 | * HairTriggerTemper: Despite his happy-go-lucky attitude, he has a very bad temper. Even Nale and Sabine are wary of this and try to keep him [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0252.html happy.]] |
| 329 | * HalfHumanHybrid: Half-orc, though he evidently takes more from the orcish side of his heritage. He sympathizes with Pompey, a fellow half-human, for getting shafted when it comes to racial abilities. |
| 330 | * HardHead: A head blow with a greatsword will make a loud "CLONK!", but barely faze Thog. |
| 331 | * HulkingOut: As a barbarian, he can go into a berserker rage, which makes him much stronger and faster (and greener). |
| 332 | * HulkSpeak: "THOG SMASH!" |
| 333 | * IllNeverTellYouWhatImTellingYou: He gloats along with Nale about how the heroes will ''never'' be able to turn a petrified Celia back to normal... so long as they don't have the scroll Nale is carrying. |
| 334 | * ImprovisedWeapon: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0396.html "thog improvise!"]] With a door. Safe is to say, one shouldn't ever consider Thog harmless just because he's unarmed. |
| 335 | * JabbaTableManners: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0252.html With ice cream,]] which is not only all over the table and himself, but also the floor, wall and windows behind him somehow. |
| 336 | * KnowWhenToFoldEm: When Haley points an arrow directly at his face, he calmly says, "'''thog chooses to go quietly now.'''" |
| 337 | * MentalHandicapMoralDeficiency: Thog seems to go beyond merely [[DumbMuscle low Int score]] into "actually unable to understand anything beyond the grasp of a child". However, for all that, he's still a sadistic mass murderer. |
| 338 | * MoralMyopia: He's perfectly willing to beat the crap out of people or kill them, unless they're his friends. As demonstrated in [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0396.html "The Door Knocks on YOU"]]. |
| 339 | * NeverFoundTheBody: Since his alleged death was offscreen, he may still be alive, especially considering his {{Determinator}} aspects. |
| 340 | * TheNicknamer: Thog does this mostly because he's too stupid to remember names. He calls Elan "'''not-nale'''" and Roy "'''talky man'''", for example. |
| 341 | * NightmareFuelStationAttendant: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0142.html "Misdirection and Subterfuge"]], for a start. |
| 342 | * NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: To Roy in [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0796.html "Smash"]]. |
| 343 | -->'''Thog: [[ShutUpKirk STOP TALKING]]''' |
| 344 | * NonMaliciousMonster: Unlike most members of the Linear Guild, Thog is genuinely polite and friendly and doesn't thrive on being a [[EvilIsPetty jackass]], even when killing people. In fact, he has basically no stereotypical bad guy traits apart from the LackOfEmpathy that all villains in the comic have to some degree. |
| 345 | * NoodleIncident: Thog once ''flooded the Empire of Blood's palace with lemon pudding''. Tarquin still doesn't understand how he managed to do that. |
| 346 | * ObliviouslyEvil: Thog combines both the "stupid" and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} categories of this trope -- though it's also unclear just how aware he is of his own villainy and ''why'' what he does is wrong. |
| 347 | * OddFriendship: Thog gets on well with Elan even though they're at opposite ends of the good vs evil chart. This is at least partly because they're very similar personality-wise. |
| 348 | * OffScreenMomentOfAwesome: Thog had a perfect streak in the arena until Roy showed up, having killed 37 gladiators in a row, ''including a stone giant with PC class levels''! |
| 349 | * PetTheDog: His love of puppies, as mentioned above, and refusing to harm "not-nale". |
| 350 | * PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: Thog doesn't get the extended ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' reference he and Elan take part in while attempting to get to Azure City. |
| 351 | * PreciousPuppies: Thog likes puppies. Seeing them getting hurt has been known to trigger his BerserkButton. Even if the puppy is actually a CanisMajor. |
| 352 | * PsychopathicManchild: On one hand, Thog's bodycount of innocent civilians and police surpasses that of most airplane crashes. On the other hand, he's a big kid mentally and enjoys or loves very childish things. His childish interests include chocolate, ice cream, board games and puppies; his childish traits include his enthusiasm for hugs, a [[GirlsHaveCooties fear of cooties]], his short attention span and his simple manner of speaking. Deprive him of his interest and he will go on a rampage. |
| 353 | * RealMenWearPink: He loves puppies and ice cream, and is a fan of musical theater and leprechaun costumes. According to a bonus strip from ''War and [=XPs=]'', he also likes figure skating as well. |
| 354 | * RedemptionRejection: Elan at one point offers him a chance at redemption after he befriends him when he assists him in escaping from prison. He instead chooses to use a door to crush Haley, though not before admitting he'd much rather be having ice cream with his friends (including Elan). |
| 355 | * ShippedInShackles: The Empire of Blood transports its arena champion [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0786.html in this manner.]] |
| 356 | * ShooOutTheClowns: Nale removes him from play for his second fight with Elan, and Thog is noticeably absent around the time the Guild starts looking like a real threat. |
| 357 | * ShoutOut: |
| 358 | ** His rage makes him greener and destroys his clothing, in a ShoutOut to Marvel superhero the [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk Hulk]]. It also turns his pants purple (if they aren't already). |
| 359 | --->[+'''[[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0387.html "thog smash puny prison!!"]]'''+]\ |
| 360 | '''"how thog's pants turned purple?"''' |
| 361 | ** He also dresses in a moogle mascot costume to get aboard the ''FFVI'' airship. |
| 362 | * SimpletonVoice: Discussed. Roy implies while fighting [[spoiler:Tarquin]] that Thog sounds like a complete moron, and his speech manner does nothing to suggest otherwise. |
| 363 | * SinisterSweetTooth: Only a mountain of chocolate sundaes can delay his boredom-induced rampages. |
| 364 | * SticksToTheBack: His greataxe. |
| 365 | * StopBeingStereotypical: |
| 366 | ** It's implied part of the reason [[GeniusBruiser Roy]] hates him so much is that Thog perpetrates the very [[DumbMuscle stereotype]] Roy has worked so hard to avert. |
| 367 | ** One of the calendars has Therkla and Bozzok, fellow half-orcs, grumble about Thog "setting us all back three editions." |
| 368 | * SuperStrength: His strength score is his best, and it shows. He once [[OffWithHisHead ripped off a man's head]] with ''his bare hands''! And it gets even greater while he's raging, easily crashing through walls and throwing large chunk of stone. |
| 369 | * ThirdPersonPerson: Thog know no other way to speak. |
| 370 | * TokenMinority: Thog is the first half-orc to appear, and for several strips he was the only one. The second half-orc to appear is the nameless stablehand from [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0173.html "It Is Always Exactly Where They Intend It to Be"]]; the second half-orc with a name and role in the narrative is [[{{Ninja}} Therkla]]. |
| 371 | * TurnsRed: Or rather, Turns Deeper Green. Apparently it turns [[ShoutOut his pants]] [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk purple too]]. |
| 372 | * UncertainDoom: As of comic [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0808.html #808]], we know that Thog was buried when Roy tricked him into collapsing the stadium on top of himself, but we don't know if he was merely knocked out and has been re-imprisoned or if he died. Outright lampshaded in the introduction to ''Good Deeds Gone Unpunished'', where Thog delivers the intro and makes it clear that even ''he's'' not sure if he's dead or not, calling himself "'''schrödinger’s antagonist.'''" |
| 373 | * UnderestimatingBadassery: Roy thinks Thog is just another big dumb mook not unlike the RedShirtArmy under the command of Xykon. Right after he makes this accusation, Thog's BerserkButton is pushed and he flies into a barbarian [[UnstoppableRage rage]], smashing him into the sides of the wall and smashing him in the face with chunks of the wall. You really shouldn't have broken his tusk, Roy. |
| 374 | * UnstoppableRage: Like all barbarians, he has the Rage ability (probably Greater Rage if he's around Roy's level) and is able to break open a jail cell and toss Roy around like a rag-doll while under its influence. Also, his post-Rage fatigue manifests itself as confusion and short-term memory loss. |
| 375 | * WouldHurtAChild: Calmly took an axe to [[Franchise/HarryPotter Larry Gardener]]'s head when Nale told him to. On the other hand, this was PlayedForLaughs and no-one seems too upset about it. |
| 376 | -->'''Nale:''' Sorry about the mess.\ |
| 377 | '''Warthog:''' Don't be, I've wanted to do that for six books. Years, I mean six years. |
| 378 | [[/folder]] |
| 379 | |
| 380 | !!Introduced in the Dungeon of Dorukan |
| 381 | |
| 382 | [[folder:Zz'dtri]] |
| 383 | !!Zz'dtri |
| 384 | [[quoteright:150:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_03_09_at_44855_pm.png]] |
| 385 | |
| 386 | ->''"..."'' |
| 387 | |
| 388 | ->'''Race:''' Drow elf\ |
| 389 | '''Gender:''' Male\ |
| 390 | '''Class:''' Wizard (transmuter)\ |
| 391 | '''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil |
| 392 | %% Alignment confirmed by Word of the Giant. |
| 393 | |
| 394 | A dark elf wizard and V's opposite number; unlike the [[AmbiguousGender ambiguously gendered]] V, he is defined as a male. |
| 395 | ---- |
| 396 | * AlwaysChaoticEvil: {{Double subver|sion}}ted. Nale claims that he wants to cast off the foul reputation of his evil brethen. Except he's one of those evil brethen. |
| 397 | * AntagonistAbilities: Unlike Vaarsuvius, he is capable of teleporting and transforming his enemies into stone, and is able to resist magic. |
| 398 | * AntiMagic: As a drow, he has Spell Resistance. He reinforced this with feats and "stuff". |
| 399 | * AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Eventually Vampire Durkon kills him with a NeckSnap, and it's not like he didn't deserve it.]] |
| 400 | * AwesomenessByAnalysis: [[spoiler:He's built himself up in the third arc specifically to defeat Vaarsuvius. Right up to boosting his own spell resistance to counter the vast majority of Vaarsuvius' spells.]] |
| 401 | * CripplingOverspecialization: [[spoiler:By adapting his entire build to defeat Vaarsuvius, a fellow wizard, he has left himself vulnerable to archers, which wouldn't have otherwise been a major concern. Later, despite being a transmuter theoretically capable of self-enhancement, he is ultimately effortlessly killed by a few whacks of a staff and a NeckSnap.]] |
| 402 | * DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:His neck is rather unceremoniously snapped by the High Priest of Hel after the latter regains his free will.]] |
| 403 | * DualWielding: Twin scimitars. |
| 404 | -->'''Zz'dtri:''' They're standard issue. |
| 405 | * {{Elfeminate}}: Before he cut his hair, giving him a more obviously boyish appearance. |
| 406 | * EvilCounterpart: To Vaarsuvius. He is a taciturn, unambiguously male dark elf while V is an androgynous high elf who never stops talking. |
| 407 | * {{Familiar}}: [[spoiler:Qarr following his reappearance, although Qarr doesn't fit with the ''D&D'' definition of a Familiar (a normal animal that due to its relationship with its owner, both receives special abilities and grants them to the owner. The Feat Improved Familiar does allow Imps to serve as familiars, though).]] |
| 408 | * FleshToStone: Likes casting this spell when he has the element of surprise. |
| 409 | * {{Flight}}: With a house-ruled E 3.0 Fly spell. |
| 410 | * InformedAttribute: He's often referred to as a [[Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt Drizzt]] clone, but he's not really one. He's evil rather than good, he's not a ranger as far as we can tell, he has [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch no issues with his kin]], and he doesn't have any of Drizzt's character traits or skills, being taciturn and emotionless rather than a {{Angst}}y WarriorPoet. Aside from his name, his race, and a pair of swords that he used all of once in combat (and not at all [[TheBusCameBack after coming back]]), he's got basically nothing in common with the dark elf. |
| 411 | * MageKiller: Highly resistant to spells, casts multiple wards, possesses racial immunity, feats and stuffs to trounce V quite effortlessly. [[spoiler:Against a Dominated archer, on the other hand...]] |
| 412 | * NeckSnap: [[spoiler:Vampire Durkon kills him off via this method.]] |
| 413 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: Helping Nale [[spoiler:kill Malack freed Durkon from Malack's control, who promptly killed Z.]] |
| 414 | * InSeriesNickname: [[OneLetterName Z]], a counterpart to V (Vaarsuvius). |
| 415 | * OverusedCopycatCharacter: He starts out as yet another blatant Drizzt ripoff. V ''defeats him by pointing this out'', prompting the two lawyers to drag him off. |
| 416 | * ParodyRetcon: [[spoiler:A bizarre example in that he declared himself, in-universe, to be a parody of Drizzt rather than a copy. [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0789.html This allowed him to get off scot-free.]]]] |
| 417 | * PaletteSwap: Looks like V, but with a different color scheme. This is averted later after V's ImportantHaircut [[spoiler:and Z's return, where he gets a new haircut as well.]] |
| 418 | * PointyEars: Drow share this trait with other elves. |
| 419 | * ProphetEyes: |
| 420 | -->'''Blackwing:''' I'm gonna fly up there and pecks your ComicStrip/LittleOrphanAnnie eyes out! |
| 421 | * PutOnABus: Dragged off by the lawyers for copyright infringement and seemingly written out of the comic. [[spoiler:"Seemingly" being the operative word. TheBusCameBack, though it took more than ''700 strips''.]] |
| 422 | * TheQuietOne: Part of what makes him the talkative V's opposite. This turns out to be a big problem in his rematch with V since he not only knows the spells but also all the psychological issues of the elf in order to break them with TrashTalk, but as Qarr points out he is too taciturn to use it properly. |
| 423 | * ShockAndAwe: Favors lightning spells. |
| 424 | * SignificantAnagram: His name, again, is an anagram of "Drizzt". |
| 425 | * SinisterScimitar: Of course. However, unlike in the [[AvertedTrope Drizzt case]], this is played straight. As a wizard specializing in transmutation, he is capable of self-enhancement to fight beyond the [[SquishyWizard limitations of his class]]. |
| 426 | * SquishyWizard: Very weak to outright physical assault if he hasn't had time to buff. [[spoiler:Demonstrated first when V defeats him with a Dominated archer, then again when a newly-free-willed Vampire Durkon beats him half to death with a staff before effortlessly breaking his neck.]] |
| 427 | * SoreLoser: During both of his battles with Vaarsuvius, he almost won while they fought using conventional methods. However, Vaarsuvius ultimately prevails in both battles by thinking outside the box. The first time is enough to goad him into gearing his entire build towards defeating Vaarsuvius. The second time he accuses Vaarsuvius of cheating. |
| 428 | * TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:Before being dealt the finishing blow in the fourth arc, he uses ''plane shift'' to send Vaarsuvius to... the Semi-Elemental Plane of "Ranch Dressing". Zz'dtri intended to send them to the Demiplane of Extremely Painful Torture, but the humiliation is still there. (It's worth noting that, as Conjuration is a barred school, V could not get back to the Material Plane on their own.) Qarr explains that he lied to Zz'dtri about the plane the spell would send V to, likely because the IFCC still had plans for them.]] |
| 429 | * TeethFlying: [[spoiler:When Durkon is released from vampire thralldom and offered a position on the Linear Guild in honor of Durkon's FaceMonsterTurn, Durkon smacks Zz'dtri with Malack's staff in the face hard enough to knock out several teeth.]] |
| 430 | * TerseTalker: To contrast with [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness Vaarsuvius]]. |
| 431 | -->'''Vaarsuvius:''' BURN, you insufferably terse dullard! |
| 432 | * TokenHeroicOrc: Parodied in his introduction, where Nale claims Z is one of many [[invoked]] ChaoticGood drows trying to fight off their AlwaysChaoticEvil reputation. Obviously, Zz'dtri is not a straight example of these. |
| 433 | * TokenMinority: The only named drow to appear. The only other drow to appear were background characters in single-panel gags, or a female drow among the "evil adventuring party" raiding the Heavens during Roy's afterlife time. |
| 434 | * TwoAliasesOneCharacter: [[spoiler:For a time, was in disguise in the Empire of Blood, masquerading as the Elven ambassador Polozius.]] |
| 435 | * UniquenessDecay: Nale claims that Zz'dtri, like the rest of his entire race, is a [[invoked]] ChaoticGood rebel yearning to throw off the reputation of his evil kin (even though if the entire race was good aligned, they wouldn't have any evil kin to rebel against). |
| 436 | * VillainousFriendship: Nale and Zz'dtri appear to have a legitimate friendship. [[spoiler:Nale is horrified when Vampire Durkon kills Zz'dtri.]] |
| 437 | * VillainTeleportation: Unlike Vaarsuvius, he is capable of casting ''teleport'' or ''dimension door''. |
| 438 | * VisibleSilence: One contrast with Vaarsuvius who is a fan of WallOfText is his big glob of silence. |
| 439 | * WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler:Because he unexpectedly reappeared as the Linear Guild's arcane caster after over 700 strips.]] |
| 440 | * YellowLightningBlueLightning: Averted; his lightning bolts have an unusual ''green'' color. |
| 441 | [[/folder]] |
| 442 | |
| 443 | [[folder:Hilgya Firehelm]] |
| 444 | !!Hilgya Firehelm |
| 445 | [[quoteright:100:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_03_09_at_45002_pm.png]] |
| 446 | |
| 447 | ->''"Oh, golly, I'm soooo sorry I can't get worked up by what a bunch of dead dwarves think about my personal life. MY personal life, as in MY business."'' |
| 448 | |
| 449 | ->'''Race:''' Dwarf\ |
| 450 | '''Gender:''' Female\ |
| 451 | '''Class:''' Cleric\ |
| 452 | '''Alignment:''' ChaoticEvil |
| 453 | |
| 454 | A female dwarf cleric of Loki, who is briefly Durkon's love interest, until he learns that she is married. |
| 455 | ---- |
| 456 | * ActionMom: Comes to save the Order of the Stick [[spoiler:from the vampires surrounding them while carrying her and Durkon's baby with her.]] |
| 457 | * AffablyEvil: For a[[invoked]] ChaoticEvil priestess of Loki, she's quite the pleasant sort. |
| 458 | -->'''Hilgya:''' Say hello to the nice adventurers. |
| 459 | * AntiVillain: She is [[AffablyEvil more pleasant]] than the rest of Linear Guild and only works with them because [[MyMasterRightOrWrong her god told her to]]. [[spoiler:Hilgya's second appearance has her team up with The Order and gives her an explanation for serving Loki, which in hindsight makes her even more sympathetic, while also showcasing why [[DisproportionateRetribution she was a perfect fit for the Linear Guild]].]] |
| 460 | * ApologeticAttacker: Or rather, she apologizes to Durkon before ''Sabine'' attacks him. |
| 461 | * ArrangedMarriage: In her backstory, she was assigned a husband, as is typical among dwarves. Less typically, it was at crossbow-point. She couldn't stand it so she tried to poison him. |
| 462 | * BadassAndBaby: [[spoiler:Effortlessly forces four vampires to flee while carrying her baby in a papoose.]] As she explains, being carried by a high-level cleric who can field powerful defensive magic is a pretty safe place for a child. |
| 463 | * BestServedCold: After making her bones as an adventurer, she returns to dwarven lands to [[spoiler:bankrupt her entire clan in vengeance for her forced marriage, divorce her husband, and settle in as a powerful Cleric of Loki]]. |
| 464 | * BurnTheUndead: Fittingly for her patron deity (Loki, the God of Flames and Chaos), during a fight with vampires Hilgya conjures a searing column of fire to take them down. The spell lacing flames with holy energy, the magic protecting the undead from fire is much less efficient.[[note]]Per the 3.5 rules, half the damage from ''flame strike'' is Radiant, rather than Fire, and the spell explicitly notes that half of the damage is not affected by fire resistance.[[/note]] |
| 465 | -->'''Blackwing:''' Watch out, Hilgya -- they're protected against fire stuff!\ |
| 466 | '''Hilgya:''' Not a problem -- Loki's fire burns hotter. ''Empowered flame strike''. |
| 467 | * TheBusCameBack: Over 1000 strips after her initial appearance and [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0084.html departure]] (and over 10 years in RealLife), [[spoiler:she [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1105.html returns]] to help the Order hunt down Durkon -- and carrying their child in a papoose.]] |
| 468 | * CarryABigStick: [[spoiler:Wields a morningstar when she comes to rescue the Order from the vampires.]] |
| 469 | * DatingCatwoman: She falls for and pursues Durkon Thundershield, a[[invoked]] LawfulGood priest of Thor. This kind of occurrence is rare enough that, when they start having sex, ''both Loki and Thor'' are quite disturbed by this. [[spoiler:After her eventual reappearance, her relationship with him is much more... complicated.]] |
| 470 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: She attempted to kill her unwanted husband with ''poison'', a substance against which dwarves like him- and herself have an inborn resistance. |
| 471 | * DisproportionateRetribution: |
| 472 | ** [[spoiler:Durkon]] might have deserved a smack, but what Hilgya delivered was a OneHitKill. She justifies it by saying resurrecting him only costs 10,000 gp but the emotional wounds he inflicted on her can't be healed. Durkon's mother even points our her knocking out a suitor's tooth was permanent -- though she also obliquely warns Hilgya that another such attack on Durkon will result in her returning the favor in kind (and neither she nor Durkon could afford the rez even if they were inclined to). |
| 473 | ** She comes to admit that attempting to murder her husband to get out of the relationship was unjust, as he'd been "forced" by honor (and possibly some form of brain damage) into the marriage as well. |
| 474 | * EnragedByIdiocy: Implied given her hatred of her husband Ivan, whose only real fault was how ''incredibly'' dense he could be. He never caught on that A) Hilgya didn't want to be married to him and had issues about the whole thing, and B) that she was trying to kill him. He also bought her rather obvious lie about going to the bathroom for several months. Outright confirmed when she kills Durkon after just reviving him because she thought his proposal sounded thoughtless. |
| 475 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Despite her many negative qualities and her selfishness, Hilgya has so far been nothing but a devoted and caring [[spoiler:mother to her son.]] |
| 476 | * EvilCounterpart: To Durkon; like him she is a dwarf cleric but she worships the[[invoked]] ChaoticEvil Loki instead of Thor, and while Durkon is defined by being selfless and helping others, she is very self-serving and selfish. |
| 477 | * EvilIsPetty: Not only does she want to kill Durkon for a situation she got herself into, she also tends to snap and belittle people who have been perfectly friendly to her. |
| 478 | * GuestStarPartyMember: She works with the Order briefly to stop a vampire plotline because of her personal investment in the outcome. Afterward, she leaves the group because she's satisfied and can escape with her son on her own, meaning she has no investment in the overall outcome. |
| 479 | * HitThemInThePocketbook: She got {{Revenge}} on her family for forcing her into marriage by [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1114.html manipulating]] her [[TheGamblingAddict gambling addict]] brother into betting the family fortune on a rigged race. They were left destitute while she got rich -- a fitting victory for a worshiper of a TricksterGod. |
| 480 | * HornyVikings: Her helmet has two horns on it, possibly a MythologyGag on how dwarves end up wearing these a lot. |
| 481 | * {{Irony}}: She protests against the system of honor that her people are trapped in and advocates the worship of Loki as a means of circumventing it. Loki's proposal of a bet between Hel and Thor is the reason that honor system exists in the first place. |
| 482 | * {{Jerkass}}: She can be friendly, but she's also easily set off when she believes she's being challenged on something. She'll react with hostility and insults at best and attempted murder at worst. |
| 483 | * JerkassHasAPoint: |
| 484 | ** Despite her being very self-serving and selfish about it, she does have a fair point on dwarves being more or less forced into a culture as a result of a divine bet. |
| 485 | ** While Durkon is usually morally in the right, he himself realizes he did a pretty shitty thing to her by trying to force his ideas of honorable behavior on her and then just abandon her. |
| 486 | * ALighterShadeOfBlack: She's part of an evil group, but mostly comes across as [[ItsAllAboutMe utterly selfish]] and [[LackOfEmpathy un-empathetic]] rather than malevolent or sadistic, and like Thog she is genuinely AffablyEvil. This puts her a few steps ahead of the more villainous and ambitious members of the guild. |
| 487 | * LoopholeAbuse: She hates dwarven culture for being too restrictive and focused on honorable behavior, so she chooses to worship Loki. Loki is a god of thieves, tricksters, liars and selfish bastards, so Hilgya being one herself means she is ''honorably'' following her god's teachings. Whether this loophole is actually valid or not is questionable, however, and it wouldn't be out of character to bet heavily on an outcome without checking to see if it was a good idea or not. |
| 488 | * LukeNounverber: "Fire Helm". |
| 489 | * MisplacedRetribution: She repeatedly tried to kill the husband she didn't want to marry, even though the arranged marriage wasn't his idea and he only ever tried to make her happy (not to mention being too stupid to understand her issues). She later admits that he was never the real problem. |
| 490 | * MissionFromGod: |
| 491 | ** Loki sent her to join Nale's gang in order to acquire the monster-controlling amulet sealed within Dorukan's tower. |
| 492 | ** [[spoiler:Later, when Vampire Durkon is working with Hel to sway the Godsmoot vote, Loki answers Hilgya's prayer for Durkon's location.]] |
| 493 | * MurderIsTheBestSolution: Seems to overall view this as a means of resolving her issues with others. She tries to poison Ivan to escape the marriage she was forced into. [[spoiler:Her first thought to get revenge on her clan was to burn down their home with them all inside of it, only stopping due to [[PragmaticVillainy Kudzu potentially being harmed]]. Her response to Durkon rejecting her, and then being unsettled by his marriage proposal was to kill him with a ''flame strike''. She raised him afterwards but those spells cost thousands of GP in diamonds right before an important battle.]] |
| 494 | * MyMasterRightOrWrong: She doesn't like Nale, much less being part of his group, but Loki told her to join him so she did. |
| 495 | * NeverMyFault: In her first appearance, blames her husband for her dissatisfaction with their marriage, then later claims that Durkon used her unscrupulously. |
| 496 | -->'''Belkar:''' Are we 100% sure "Durkon Thundershield" isn't just, like, a super common name? |
| 497 | * OddFriendship: With Elan, who is able to see things from her point of view, because 1) he's chaotic, and 2) he's a bard. |
| 498 | * OnceDoneNeverForgotten: Blows a Will save against a vampire's domination effect, while potentially having a circumstance bonus due to how it ''put her son in mortal danger'', despite being in a class that not only offers excellent Will progression but has Wisdom, the ability score that boosts Will saves, as a core casting stat. She's getting grief for that within pages of the battle. |
| 499 | -->'''Hilgya:''' Uh, excuse me? Who died and made you boss?\ |
| 500 | [[spoiler:'''Minrah:''']] Me! On both counts, Miss Cleric-Who-Can't-Resist-Domination-Magic! |
| 501 | * PetTheDog: She apologizes to Elan for getting him stabbed by Nale back in the first arc, though he [[EasilyForgiven forgives her]]. |
| 502 | * PlayingWithFire: Hinted in her first appearance, since Loki is the god of Fire; at the very least, she can order fire elementals to obey her. Later, she's shown to be a big fan of the ''flame strike'' spell, especially since it's a Holy flame strike and damages creatures not normally hurt by fire. |
| 503 | * PragmaticVillainy: [[spoiler:Considered burning down her clan's home with them inside for revenge, but decided to bankrupt them by exploiting her eldest brother's gambling addiction and rigging a gelatinous cube race in her favor so she could support herself financially and because the smoke would have hurt her then unborn son.]] |
| 504 | * PreemptiveApology: She makes one to Durkon just before the first Linear Guild battle. |
| 505 | * PutOnABus: Leaves the series after her hook-up with Durkon... [[spoiler:until TheBusCameBack, after the longest bus ride in the comic's history.]] |
| 506 | * ReligionOfEvil: Priestess of Loki, whose official alignment in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' is[[invoked]] ChaoticEvil. |
| 507 | * ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Her wealth allowed her to dump her husband, and kill Durkon on a whim since she has plenty of 10,000 gp diamonds to resurrect him with. |
| 508 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: |
| 509 | ** In strip #1171, she randomly decides that she's done her share of work [[spoiler:supporting the Order of the Stick and Clan Thundershield,]] so she just stops partaking in the fight and wanders back [[spoiler:to the Temple of Thor where she stashed Kudzu, planning on prepping a ''plane shift'' spell on the logic that if the Order loses, she can ditch and run to the Outer Planes and avoid the gods deleting the planet. Despite it undermining his efforts by denying him an agent in the battle,]] Loki approves of it on the basis that it's pure adherence to his teachings. |
| 510 | ** Hilgya bluntly states that she is ''not'' accompanying the Order of the Stick [[spoiler:on their mission to beat Xykon]], planning to skip out to another plane if things start shaking. Durkon approves, since he wants [[spoiler:his son to be safe, and knows Hilgya will do anything to protect the boy.]] Sigdi also agrees that Hilgya should stay back, and invites Hilgya to stay with her; [[spoiler:she's sticking to Hilgya to protect her grandson from the Snarl ''and'' Hilgya.]] |
| 511 | * SelfServingMemory: |
| 512 | ** The way she describes her forced-at-crossbow-point marriage, her husband was a spirit-breaking jerk when he actually was a dimwitted NiceGuy who tried to be a loving husband. |
| 513 | ** Many, many strips later, her description of [[spoiler:Durkon and their relationship]] shows that her mind and memory exist solely to paint her and her actions in the best light possible while doing the opposite for anyone she doesn't care for. The only exception is apologizing to Elan for getting him stabbed by Nale. Notably, she describes [[spoiler:Durkon]] as unscrupulous and depraved, then in the very next strip she ''also'' mocks him for his slavish devotion to rules and honor. |
| 514 | * TheSocialDarwinist: Proclaims that "Everything is a competition, and the only people who think otherwise are losers who lose." [[spoiler:This is after she had just killed a newly resurrected Durkon for trying to apologize and repent for the Dungeon of Dorukan.]] |
| 515 | * SomeoneToRememberHimBy: [[spoiler:Her night with Durkon results in her carrying his child just before she is PutOnABus. This isn't revealed until after Durkon is turned into a vampire.]] |
| 516 | * SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler:Her presence is one of the few things the HPOH's plan failed to account for, but once the HPOH realizes his plan to defeat the Order has completely failed, he aborts it and begins fighting them as he would any standard high-level party. His vampiric domination grabs control of Hilgya, turning her against the Order, both as an active combatant, and by making her hand over her son to the HPOH for use as a human (or dwarven) shield, so Roy can't throw his sword through the ''anti-life shell'' protecting him. She then lays the final blow on Roy, meaning that the HPOH and his minions defeat the Order completely. For a few strips, at least.]] |
| 517 | * TokenReligiousTeammate: The Linear Guild, the PsychoRangers contrast to the Order of the Stick, mirrors Durkon's presence with Hilgya, dwarven cleric of Loki. She did not discuss much about religion while part of the team, aside from using her divinely granted abilities to control evil salamanders into obeying her. |
| 518 | * TurnUndead: She has the power to repel the undead, despite her god being evil (per ''D&D'' rules, only good or neutral gods can confer this power to their clerics), because Loki is strongly opposed to undead in general (finding them "icky"), thus granting a divine exception. She's notably seen using it [[spoiler:against the vampire spawns created by the priests of Hel]]. |
| 519 | * TheUnfettered: She does not care about what her ancestors think and simply does whatever she likes, a stark contrast to the rule-abiding Durkon. |
| 520 | * UnreliableExpositor: Her descriptions of her relationships are very inaccurate, and always paint the man in a negative light at odds with their actual personalities. For instance, her description of Durkon as "unscrupulous" and as a man who would "embrace... a descent into unnatural depravity" is so absurdly wrong that even Belkar wonders aloud if she's not describing someone else with the same name. Remember: ''she'' seduced ''him'', and he only rejected her upon learning information about her he did not previously know. |
| 521 | * UnreliableVoiceover: The narration of her story about the marriage is poignantly contrasted with scenes of her husband's earnest attempts to make her happy, as well as her repeated attempts ''to kill him'' so as to escape the forced marriage. |
| 522 | * VillainessesWantHeroes: She romantically pursues Durkon even though they are complete opposites alignment-wise. |
| 523 | * WhoNamesTheirKidDude: She names her child "Kudzu", presumably after the much-maligned vine -- [[KudzuPlot or possibly the plot]]. Durkon expresses shock, directly invoking the trope, but Sigdi states it's a MeaningfulName, because kudzu is a survivor. |
| 524 | -->'''Belkar:''' So we're just going to glide right past the fact that she named her kid, "Kudzu"? We are? OK. |
| 525 | * WomanScorned: [[spoiler:Wants to kill Durkon for driving her away and has spent all this time praying to Loki for his location. When the vampire created from Durkon commits SuicideByCop, she resurrects Durkon just so that she can have the satisfaction of killing him herself... and possibly due to being upset by his marriage proposal. It's vague. She immediately claims "You can't fix rejection with a ten-minute cleric spell", implying she sees the ''flame strike'' as going easy on him. Considering she financially ''wrecked'' her clan for life, she's not wrong.]] |
| 526 | * YourTraditionIsNotMine: Her justification for worshiping Loki is that the rules for the dwarven afterlife are centered entirely around whether one has lived "honorably" or not, and the dwarven system of honor is [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame rather narrowly defined]]. However, as [[TheTrickster being dishonorable]] is part of [[OddJobGods Loki's domain]], and there is nothing more honorable for a dwarf cleric than living by the precepts of their god, then Loki worship is effectively [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1113.html a loophole she can exploit to avoid being condemned to Hel for bucking tradition.]] |
| 527 | [[/folder]] |
| 528 | |
| 529 | [[folder:Yikyik]] |
| 530 | !!Yikyik |
| 531 | [[quoteright:100:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_03_09_at_44850_pm.png]] |
| 532 | |
| 533 | ->''"He totally provoked me! He left my threatened area!"'' |
| 534 | |
| 535 | ->'''Race:''' Kobold\ |
| 536 | '''Gender:''' Male\ |
| 537 | '''Class:''' Ranger\ |
| 538 | '''Alignment:''' ChaoticEvil |
| 539 | |
| 540 | A kobold ranger; effectively an orange Belkar-esque lizard. |
| 541 | ---- |
| 542 | * CruelAndUnusualDeath: Belkar turned his corpse into a hat. |
| 543 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: His son loves him dearly, and describes him as a good father. |
| 544 | * EvilCounterpart: Played with. He's a counterpart to Belkar, but Belkar is evil as well; in this regard, Yikyik's evilness which trumps Belkar's is that he works for the bad guys, whereas Belkar is simply the TokenEvilTeammate of an otherwise Good adventuring band. |
| 545 | * {{Jerkass}}: Because he's like Belkar, he's a meanie. |
| 546 | * LizardFolk: He is a kobold. |
| 547 | * TooMuchAlike: Unlike the other members of the Linear Guild, he isn't really an "opposite" to Belkar in any significant way, being functionally Belkar as a kobold. Burlew claims that this was the easiest way to create someone Belkar would truly despise: someone who's exactly as much of a jerk as he is and does all the same things he does, but he has to deal with it instead of everyone else. |
| 548 | * WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou: He considers someone "leaving his threatened area" (and thus being open for an attack of opportunity) as reason enough to strike; twice in a row (thanks to the feat Combat Reflexes). Also a MythologyGag -- this is the exact language the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' PHB uses. "Moving out of a threatened square usually '''''provokes''''' an attack of opportunity from the threatening opponent." |
| 549 | [[/folder]] |
| 550 | |
| 551 | !!Introduced in Cliffport |
| 552 | |
| 553 | For Leeky's familiar Kitty, see [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickAnimalCompanions Animal Companions]]. |
| 554 | |
| 555 | [[folder:Pompey]] |
| 556 | !!Pompey |
| 557 | [[quoteright:100:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_03_09_at_45511_pm.png]] |
| 558 | |
| 559 | ->''"I hate elves! Stupid oppressive kinsmen, they should all die painfully!"'' |
| 560 | |
| 561 | ->'''Race:''' Half-elf\ |
| 562 | '''Gender:''' Male\ |
| 563 | '''Class:''' Wizard (conjurer)\ |
| 564 | '''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil |
| 565 | %% Alignment confirmed by Word of the Giant. |
| 566 | |
| 567 | A half-elf conjurer from the Warthog's School of Wizardry and Sorcery, and Zz'dtri's replacement as Vaarsuvius's evil opposite. |
| 568 | ---- |
| 569 | * AmbiguousGender: Averted; unlike V and most other elf characters, Pompey is clearly established as being male, which secures his position as V's opposite. |
| 570 | * AxCrazy: "Painful killing" is one of his top three favorite methods of killing. |
| 571 | * BlessedWithSuck: He explains to the rest of the Guild how half-elves get terrible racial abilities that are simply {{nerf}}ed versions of those given to elves, and don't even get the benefits of their Human half. Thog sympathizes, as half-orcs are similarly shafted. |
| 572 | * CasanovaWannabe: No luck with the ladies, despite many attempts. |
| 573 | * CavalryRefusal: Villainous equivalent. He breaks Leeky out of jail, and when Leeky offers the chance to join him, he considers not warning Nale about his brother's escape his resignation letter. |
| 574 | * DisproportionateRetribution: Helps orchestrate the plan to kidnap Julia because she refused his advances and doesn't even know who he is. He's even congratulated by Nale for his motivation, because a large part of the Linear Guilds plans are wildly disproportionate responses to quasi-imagined slights. |
| 575 | * EvilCounterpart: Vaarsuvius is a highly skilled wizard who's well over a century old and repeatedly suggested or shown to be the overall strongest member of the Order. Pompey is a trainee wizard who comes off as an immature teenager despite technically being in his forties, and by far the weakest member of the Linear Guild (with only ''maybe'' Kilkil contesting that label), spending most of the battle on support duty. Nale actually griped about this, describing it as "skillfully combating their prowess with our ineptitude", only going along with it due to a combination of his commitment to the Evil Opposites theme and his need to get the show on the road lest Thog go on a boredom-induced rampage. The two also have inverted school focuses: V is an Evoker with a fondness for Enchantment spells, while Pompey has both those schools barred in favor of focusing on V's most notable barred school, Conjuration. Additionally, while Vaarsuvius has an AmbiguousGender and tends to stay out of romance due to being married for most of the comic's run, Pompey is established from his first appearance as not just male, but an almost obnoxiously heterosexual CasanovaWannabe. |
| 576 | * FantasticRacism: Hates purebreed elves and consider them to be stuck up jerks. |
| 577 | * FashionableAsymmetry: A {{pointy ear|s}} on only one side. |
| 578 | * HalfHumanHybrid: Half-elf. |
| 579 | * TheIntern: This is his job title in the Linear Guild. In his opinion, kidnapping and identity fraud are much more fun than fetching coffee. |
| 580 | * TheLoad: He is a low-level wizard still in school, so he doesn't contribute much to the fight beyond a few {{Status Buff}}s. However, Nale was in a hurry to find an EvilCounterpart for Vaarsuvius before Thog got bored and went on a rampage. |
| 581 | * MeaningfulName: The pun below is probably an accurate reflection of [[CurbStompBattle their respective power levels,]] as he contributes little to the fight except buffing Sabine and even Nale admits [[TheLoad he isn't up to scratch]]. [[HistoricalInJoke Considering what the Vesuvius did to Pompeii, it makes sense]]. The only thing that prevents this from being a full-on HistoricalInJoke is that Pompey and Vaarsuvius never fight, Pompey instead being captured by Roy and freed by Sabine while V was unconscious, and then he abandons the Linear Guild to work for Leeky. |
| 582 | * OlderThanTheyLook: As a half-elf, he shares the longevity of his elf parent, and as such, even though he's the elf equivalent of a teenager and looks like it, he's actually 43 years old. |
| 583 | * PunnyName: |
| 584 | ** Vaarsuvius' name sounds an awful lot similar to Vesuvius, a historically famous volcano located in Campania, Italy. With that in mind, it's fitting for V's EvilCounterpart to be named after Pompeii, as Mount Vesuvius went down in history for erupting and destroying the town. |
| 585 | ** Pompey the Great, meanwhile, was a Roman general and politician who ''did'' manage to have a relationship with a woman named Julia; specifically Julius Caesar's daughter. |
| 586 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Ditches the Linear Guild with Leeky in order to strike it off on their own. |
| 587 | * StalkerWithACrush: He asked Julia out once... per week... for three semesters. When she asks who he is and he tells her this, [[ButForMeItWasTuesday she needs him to narrow it down a bit more.]] |
| 588 | * SummonMagic: Specializes in conjuration, which is one of V's banned schools. |
| 589 | * SupportPartyMember: He never fights anybody and the only things he does do are cast buffs on Sabine and summon some monsters. |
| 590 | * UnknownRival: Despite being V's EvilCounterpart, they never meet. |
| 591 | [[/folder]] |
| 592 | |
| 593 | [[folder:Leeky Windstaff]] |
| 594 | !!Leeky Windstaff |
| 595 | [[quoteright:150:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_03_09_at_45421_pm.png]] |
| 596 | |
| 597 | ->''"Druids always pick the hard way; it encourages natural selection."'' |
| 598 | |
| 599 | ->'''Race:''' Gnome\ |
| 600 | '''Gender:''' Male\ |
| 601 | '''Class:''' Druid\ |
| 602 | '''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil |
| 603 | %% Alignment confirmed by Word of the Giant, though class restrictions and his behavior made it such that there wasn't any other alignment he could be. |
| 604 | |
| 605 | An evil gnome druid who replaces Hilgya as Durkon's opposite, a role in which he fits very well with his habit of animating trees to send them rampaging. |
| 606 | ---- |
| 607 | * AnimalWrongsGroup: But with plants. He wants to overturn Cliffport for their sake. |
| 608 | * BearsAreBadNews: He can transform into a gigantic bear through Wild Shape. |
| 609 | * TheBeastmaster: Summons birds ''and'' plants. |
| 610 | * BetterWithNonHumanCompany: As part of his preference for the company of plants, he doesn't like humanoids at all. |
| 611 | * TheCameo: Shows up in [[spoiler:an illusory fantasy of Elan's as a guest at Tarquin's wedding.]] |
| 612 | * ChekhovsGun: Bewails his lack of preparedness against sonic attacks when Vaarsuvius attempts a BrandishmentBluff, which pays off when Durkon destroys all his trees with a deafeningly loud thunderclap via the Weather Control spell. |
| 613 | * ContinuityNod: One of the proposed nicknames for [[spoiler:vampire Durkon is [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1030.html Leechy Veinquaff]]]]. |
| 614 | * EvilCounterpart: To Durkon, as a divine caster. As for being an opposite, he's primarily a spellcaster who relies on his minions and shapeshifting for raw combat prowess, whereas Durkon is more a fighter with some spells (primarily healing). Additionally, while Durkon has a fear of trees, Leeky outright reveres them. |
| 615 | * EvilGloating: To V when he realizes the elf doesn't have anything that can hurt his tree allies. |
| 616 | * EvilIsHammy: His introduction is a loud and bombastic declaration of his EvilPlan. |
| 617 | * FlunkyBoss: Fights the Order with a mob of [[WhenTreesAttack walking trees]] and his hawk companion, Kitty. Haley lures away the bird, and Durkon manages to level the playing field by destroying the trees with a ''control weather''-powered sonic boom. |
| 618 | * GreenThumb: As a druid, he can animate and communicate with plants. |
| 619 | * IncomingHam: "ATTENTION, MEWLING CITY DWELLERS!" |
| 620 | * KillItWithFire: "FIRE STORM!!" |
| 621 | -->'''ComicBook/{{Firestorm|DCComics}}:''' There it is again!\ |
| 622 | '''Franchise/GreenLantern:''' You're just being paranoid. No one is talking about you.\ |
| 623 | '''Franchise/{{Batman}}:''' Relax, old chum. |
| 624 | * LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: Geometric Priests. |
| 625 | -->'''Leeky:''' Foolish girl! I am a druid, I have special abilities that are more powerful than your entire class! |
| 626 | * LukeNounverber: Windstaff. |
| 627 | * MagicStaff: His weapon, and a sign that, unlike Durkon, he favours spellcasting in combat. |
| 628 | * ManlyFacialHair: Sports a greyish goatee, and he's powerful enough to [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomp]] V in a surprise attack, take on Durkon on even footing, and even fight the entire Order simultaneously for a brief time. Doubles as a BeardOfEvil. |
| 629 | * MinorInjuryOverreaction: [[ExaggeratedTrope Taken past its logical extreme]] when Vaarsuvius fruitlessly attempts to destroy his animated trees with fire and lightning attacks, then seemingly casts a powerful sonic spell--Leeky outright ''panics'' because he didn't prepare any protection from sonic attacks and nearly goes into a VillainousBreakdown until he realises that V didn't actually cast a sonic spell, [[BrandishmentBluff the elf just yelled "SONIC!" really loudly]]. |
| 630 | * MorphicResonance: When he turns into a bear, he keeps the same grey, tan and brown color scheme. Even the green of his holy symbol is seen in the bear's eyes. |
| 631 | * MythologyGag: The [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards power of Clerics and Druids]] has earned them the[[invoked]] FanNickname {{CoDZilla}}. So Rich Burlew has a giant cleric and druid fight in the middle of a city. |
| 632 | * NoTrueScotsman: He was thrown out from his druid circle, presumably because of his extremism. |
| 633 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Ditches the Guild with Pompey to strike off on their own. |
| 634 | * TheSocialDarwinist: As shown by his quote, he encourages natural selection by doing things the hard way. |
| 635 | * TheyCalledMeMad: |
| 636 | -->'''Leeky:''' The other druids may have kicked me out of their circle... called me mad. MAD!\ |
| 637 | But NOW who is advancing the cause of environmental preservation? Bwa hahahaha! |
| 638 | * VoluntaryShapeshifting: He wild-shapes into a giant bear monster to fight Durkon. |
| 639 | * WeaksauceWeakness: He prepared his attack-trees for all kinds of magic damage, including [[PlayingWithFire fire]] and [[ShockAndAwe lightning]], except for [[MakeMeWannaShout sonic energy]], which turns out to be the only spell-type V didn't prepare for. |
| 640 | * WhenTreesAttack: Parodied, yet still dangerous. He's a druid after all and he has spells for this. |
| 641 | * WhoWritesThisCrap: He takes a moment to gripe about the setting's VancianMagic when it turns out V has been rendered unable to fight him just by not preparing the right spells. |
| 642 | [[/folder]] |
| 643 | |
| 644 | [[folder:Yokyok]] |
| 645 | !!Yokyok |
| 646 | [[quoteright:150:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_03_09_at_45617_pm.png]] |
| 647 | |
| 648 | ->''"Hello. My name is Yokyok. You killed my father. Prepare to die."'' |
| 649 | |
| 650 | ->'''Race:''' Kobold\ |
| 651 | '''Gender:''' Male\ |
| 652 | '''Class:''' Unknown (probably Duelist)\ |
| 653 | '''Alignment:''' LawfulGood [-(possibly LawfulNeutral due to his willingness to let Nale and company rampage uncontested for the sake of his vengeance)-] |
| 654 | |
| 655 | A LawfulGood kobold; son of Yikyik and intent to avenge his death at Belkar's hands. |
| 656 | ---- |
| 657 | * AffectionateParody: [[Film/ThePrincessBride Inigo Montoya]] as a kobold. |
| 658 | * AntiVillain: The only reason he's part of the Linear Guild is so he can kill Belkar and avenge his father. |
| 659 | * AvengingTheVillain: He wants to kill Belkar to avenge his villainous father and predecessor. |
| 660 | * CaptainErsatz: [[Film/ThePrincessBride Inigo Montoya]] as a kobold. |
| 661 | * CurbStompBattle: Like his father, he is quickly killed by Belkar's actions. |
| 662 | * CurseCutShort: "Oh shi--" |
| 663 | * EnemyMine: In his own words: |
| 664 | -->'''Yokyok:''' They are not my "team", murderer, merely a means to an end -- [[DeadlyEuphemism your end]], to be specific. I would normally never stoop to travel with such scoundrels as the Linear Guild. However, Nale promised to deliver you to my waiting blade without requiring anything of me but my oath to destroy you. |
| 665 | * EvilCounterpart: Inverted; he's the evil Belkar's ''good'' counterpart. |
| 666 | * EvilParentsWantGoodKids: There's no other explanation for how the[[invoked]] ChaoticEvil Yikyik has a Good-aligned son. |
| 667 | * HeroAntagonist: He's a[[invoked]] LawfulGood character avenging his father by killing the ChaoticEvil Belkar -- in other words, the Hero Antagonist to Belkar's VillainProtagonist. |
| 668 | * IllKillYou: To Belkar for revenge. |
| 669 | * LizardFolk: Kobold. |
| 670 | * RevengeBeforeReason: For someone who's supposedly[[invoked]] LawfulGood, he's awfully willing to let Nale go on a rampage around Cliffport just to lure Belkar into a fight. |
| 671 | * ShoutOut: |
| 672 | ** JustForFun/{{Hello}}, [[MyNameIsInigoMontoya My Name is Yokyok]], YouKilledMyFather, PrepareToDie. |
| 673 | --->'''Belkar:''' STOP SAYING THAT! |
| 674 | ** He also holds his sabre with his left hand. |
| 675 | * TokenGoodTeammate: As the EvilCounterpart to the Order's TokenEvilTeammate, this is to be expected. |
| 676 | * TokenHeroicOrc: The only good-aligned kobold to appear in the comic and the only one to join the Linear Guild too. |
| 677 | %%* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Belkar invokes the trope to defeat him. |
| 678 | * ZergRush: Belkar turned a mob of adventurers against him to work past the Mark of Justice that prevented him from fighting back. |
| 679 | [[/folder]] |
| 680 | |
| 681 | !!Introduced in the Empire of Blood |
| 682 | |
| 683 | For Tarquin, Malack, and Kilkil, see [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickTheEmpireOfBlood The Empire of Blood]]. |
| 684 | |
| 685 | For Qarr, see [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickDivineBeings Divine Beings – Infernal Forces]]. |
| 686 | |
| 687 | For Yukyuk's mount Sir Scraggly, see [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStickAnimalCompanions Animal Companions]]. |
| 688 | |
| 689 | [[folder:Yukyuk]] |
| 690 | !!Yukyuk |
| 691 | [[quoteright:100:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_03_09_at_50010_pm.png]] |
| 692 | |
| 693 | ->''"Yeeeeehah! Sneak attack!"'' |
| 694 | |
| 695 | ->'''Race:''' Kobold\ |
| 696 | '''Gender:''' Male\ |
| 697 | '''Class:''' Ranger/Rogue\ |
| 698 | '''Alignment:''' Unknown (probably Evil) |
| 699 | |
| 700 | A new kobold member of the group, naturally another Belkar equivalent. |
| 701 | ---- |
| 702 | * AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:Belkar and Vaarsuvius force him to become Mr. Scruffy's litter box while he's under V's control]]. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by V, who can hear his screams. |
| 703 | -->'''Vaarsuvius:''' [[LovesTheSoundOfScreaming His silent screams are a symphony I cannot share]]. |
| 704 | * BackStab: He introduces himself by sneak-attacking V with his crossbows. |
| 705 | * BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: He shoots [[TeamPet Mr. Scruffy]] with a crossbow, and then sics [[RightHandAttackDog Sir Scraggly]] on him, for no reason whatsoever. [[spoiler:His eventual fate is well-deserved]]. |
| 706 | * ButtMonkey: Some pretty unpleasant things happen to him [[spoiler:after Vaarsuvius dominates him, including nearly being killed when forced to duel one of his former teammates, being used as a litter tray by Belkar's cat, and being used as a trap springer.]] |
| 707 | * CallingYourAttacks: "Sneak attack!" |
| 708 | * CruelMercy: Belkar didn't kill him because there was a crueler alternative. He eventually gets his. |
| 709 | * EquippableAlly: V turns him into an improvised one thanks to some quick thinking and a ''dominate'' spell. |
| 710 | * EvilCounterpart: To Belkar, who as a result of his CharacterDevelopment is still evil but becoming less so. Yukyuk is no different from the original Linear Guild kobold in terms of personality--which is to say, a lot like early Belkar, even down to having the same taste in mounts. |
| 711 | * GunsAkimbo: Given the setting, he uses two hand crossbows. |
| 712 | * KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:He's accidentally killed by a Linear Guild attack on the Order, while being used as a shield by Mr. Scruffy. [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0848.html It gets lampshaded]].]] |
| 713 | * KickTheDog: He shows his villain cred by [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0792.html crossbowing the Cat.]] |
| 714 | * LizardFolk: Kobold. |
| 715 | * MeaningfulName: As of [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0835.html "A Dish Best Served Warm, After All"]], a name sounding like "Yuck! Yuck!" makes a lot more sense. |
| 716 | * MindControlEyes: [[spoiler:Appears after Vaarsuvius enslaves him with a ''dominate'' spell]]. |
| 717 | * MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: While his initial betrayal was forced upon him via domination magic, when [[spoiler:Zz'dtri tries to use ''phantasmal killer'' to eliminate him during the fight with V, Yukyuk stops resisting V's orders to shoot Zz'dtri.]] |
| 718 | * SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Other than the weapon, there's little difference between him and the original. |
| 719 | * TemptingFate: [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0799.html "I guess it's just my lucky day."]] |
| 720 | * ThemeNaming: Third "Y*ky*k" kobold in a row, with LampshadeHanging: |
| 721 | -->'''Yukyuk:''' [[WhoNamesTheirKidDude What kind of stupid name would "Yakyak" be, anyway?]] |
| 722 | * TrustMeImAnX: "You don't need to be scared, I'm a ranger. I love animals." |
| 723 | * TurnCoat: [[spoiler:When Zz'dtri tries to kill him using ''phantasmal killer'' after V mind-controls him.]] As the wizard observes, [[spoiler:he immediately ceases all attempts to resist V's mind controlling orders to shoot Zz'dtri afterwards.]] |
| 724 | [[/folder]] |
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