WMG / The Order of the Stick: The Order of the Stick

• Jossed Theories
• Confirmed Theories
• Theories on the Order
• Theories on Team Evil
• Theories on the Linear Guild
• Theories on Divine Beings

Vaarsuvius is a Eunuch

• Because I haven't seen many people bring this up, because it would justify the necessity for adopting children without making him gay, and because it would not necessarily not make him gay (very male-looking mate much?). It would also explain why Haley has no trouble rooming with V (as someone who was raised in the streets and mistrusts everyone and thinks the worst of people often) and why (while it's stated that V is not a virgin) V isn't particularly lusty, especially when compared to every other member of the order.
  • Elf. There's the horse to your zebra.

Belkar really IS a (sexy and shoeless) god of war

• Belkar could be a god who is forcibly bound as a mortal (a little tryst between a war god and a random halfling goddess of fertility and lead sheets, then a little messup involving a nasty bet which the other guy won), which explains why Belkar wanted Miko to kill him, thus freeing him to have fun eternally partying/excessively discovering ways to kill regenerating immortals. He would have been a good target to have him die at some point and have some terrible (or not) punishment in the Chaotic Evil afterlife (with multiple kilonazis of evil, why wouldn't he get the bad ending) after Roy's afterlife plotline. Belkar also has two devils, a slaad, and formerly an angel as his shoulder advisors, with the angel, after going insane, flutters off to heaven and is immediately put into Intensive Care, which other than the comedy value I don't see why it couldn't have just been "We're imaginary. He'll be fine." as with Haley's personality people. Those could have been created as a last-second manifestation of Belkar's deityhood which stuck around. He seems to be a little suicidal (Is charging into a huge army of hobgoblins good for your health? I thought not.) as he has a war-god passion for killing now that he can't party and drink tons of Immortal's Epic-Level Beer. He won't just stab himself with a knife and get it over with as he's having a LITTLE fun and it's likely just commiting suicide will reincarnate him at the next available opportunity. The Oracle's prediction is either going to be true (Belkar dies and gets time off before he is dragged back to the mortal plane from wherever he goes next via resurrection) or the Oracle just thinks birthday cakes are tasty and Belkar's IRA isn't going to end well (A little too much world-ending might drive an accountant insane deciding what is likely to not be collateral damage when one or an other party is epic-final-battling and Belkar's IRA is ruined after a government change with halflings) and he finds a reason not to breathe or breathes just before the year ends. Or he WILL die and be resurrected before an afterlife plotline can go into effect.

Both Durkon and Belkar will die soon

They will then both have an afterlife adventure together.

• Interestingly, Durkon has just died, so it looks like Belkar may end up this way as well.

Elan will deliberately destroy one of the gates.

Of the original five gates, three have been destroyed. Since the consequences of all five being lost are so dire, it's easy to predict a plot where a fourth gate is destroyed and the final showdown happens at the only gate standing between the world and primal chaos. Fine so far. Except that Elan is aware of all story tropes and is so devoted to them that he will, for example, stand in the path of an explosion so he can jump clear at the last moment. If the classic plot falters somehow, leaving two gates intact, Elan will force it back on track by blowing one up. Just as he's already blown one up, in a very suspicious accident.

• It seems in 895 that Roy is about to destroy the gate instead

Elves are hermaphrodites.

Vaarsuvius' gender is a big mystery, and in the incident with Girl-Roy s/he only noticed the fake wig, not the sex change. This'd make sense if elves don't have sexes, so they wouldn't really understand them in other races.

• We know that elves reproduce, and even half-elf half-humans like Pompey are possible. Therefore, to fit with this theory, elves must be hermaphrodites of ambiguous gender somehow interfertile with humans. Which would hardly be the oddest thing in this setting. This explains why Pompey is so aggressively lecherous — he knows about his elf father/mother and is overcompensating.
• Or V is the author's way of sneaking a gay/lesbian character into the series (that's what the "my mate" comments, and the adopted children, bring to mind.)
• Lirian and Veldrina are both elves with concrete gender identities as female.

Elan is a member of the Deegan family (from Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire).

He shares the flair for the dramatic and the love of bad puns common in the male line of that family. He is also the only member of the Order of the Stick (aside from Vaarsuvius) whose last name has not been revealed.

• Also, the patriarch of the Deegan family shown is a blonde-haired bard. And of course, both webcomics are based on D&D...
  • Guess Jacob must be his father
  • Dominic Deegan isn't D&D, but Donovan actually didn't have a last name before marrying Miranda Deegan because he was an orphan. Maybe Tarquin is his Evil Twin.

Roy will become a wizard.

Roy swore to destroy Xykon to prove to his bigoted wizard father that fighters could be more than just dumb meatshields. Therefore the last class you'd ever expect him to take is wizard, even if he has the intelligence for it. But Roy has grown to recognise that Xykon is a deadly threat to the world and his original reasons for the oath were petty and childish. Xykon needs to be killed to Save The World, not to score points off of his father. Therefore he'll take whatever classes fit with his abilities and give him the best chance of victory. And even low-level wizards are full of nasty surprises — especially if you're expecting a boring old pure fighter.

• Alternatively, Roy will become a Psion. Essentially the same thing, but he still gets to keep the moral high ground. A psion is also less easily detectable than a wizard. Psychic Warrior is also a possibility, albeit a less drastic one. And before you say it, there has been at least one psionic minor character in the comic, in Origin of the PCs.
  • Roy has made reference to taking a level of psion; though it seemed sarcastic then, it may bear fruit. And a Fighter 12/Wizard 1 really isn't the sharpest of builds...As a throwaway gag, Elan does tell Roy he's a future psychic, but it's the Giant we're talking about here, he's left crumbs of future plot before.
    • Also, consider Roy's favorite children's book.
  • More proof towards this theory is the fact that Roy has a more delicious mind than Vaarsuvius, and the fact that he chose to go to fighter school instead of wizard school, implying that his intelligence would be high enough for the latter.
    • One possible interpretation of Roy's more delicious mind is that he has both high intelligence and wisdom, and the sum of the two is greater for him than for V (who certainly behaves at times as if his wisdom is not that high). Roy's brain was pictured not just as more delicious, but as a fuller, more balanced meal.
  • Also, in his fantasy fight with Xykon, he manages to see the magic energy Dream!Xykon accumulates and strikes it just before he casts it. I don't think vanilla fighters get this ability; in other words, the only way Roy could defeat Xykon is if he takes another class that allows him to do just this. Xykon even lampshades this by asking how he's able to do that in the first place.
• Alternatively, Roy will become a warblade. The class was created as a much stronger replacement for the underpowered fighter class, and has many abilities which depend on the user's Intelligence to use effectively. It also has a system of manoeuvres similar in mechanics terms to a wizard's spells.
• Or a warmind, Roy should may meet the prerequisites (just knowledge) barring training and a feat (his next feat from his grandfather could be [fighter]), he has decent wisdom, AND it is a full BAB class that doesn't hurt his fightering.
• I figure that this is an opportunity to bring in some 4e stuff - specifically he'd multiclass (as in 3.5) to either warlord (uses Int as a secondary stat) or maybe a warden.
• Something's definitely going on with Roy in Strip 1010, when he's enveloped by green flame after being pissed with the Vampire inhabiting Durkon. It's not the fIrst time that the Starmetal sword glowed green; it did so when Roy battled Xykon. But not to the extent shown in 1010. It is possible that he's something else other than a pure fighter now, or the Starmetal has some power when high-level undead are involved which activates when the plot demands.
  • It's revealed that Roy's devotion to the weapon has made it into a Weapon of Legacy so Roy is now more or less a Magic Knight until he lost the sword in that airship fight.

The strip will end with the Order of the Stick disbanding to guard a new set of gates to replace the old ones.

Soon's original group consists mainly of composites of the members of the Order of the Stick. And the title of #276, "The Order of the Scribble", may be a subtle form of foreshadowing.

• We may conclude from this that someone is going to be Killed Off for Real, if he hasn't been already.
  • Recall that the dwarven member of the Order of the Scribble was killed in the final battle with the Snarl, and that Durkon has been informed he will be returned to his people "posthumously". Of course, the aforementioned prophecy implies that he does return to his people, and his dwarven predecessor appears to stay exactly where he died. And if he dies in dwarven lands, well then, he returned before he died so it's not "posthumously", is it? This may be a Prophecy Twist, because Death Is Cheap.
    • Durkon could remain guarding a Gate outside of dwarven lands until his death of old age, which is not resurrectable; thus, he could still be sent home posthumously.
  • Or it could be the other diminutive party member, who the Oracle said should "savor his next birthday cake".
  • It's probably not Elan or Haley, on the other hand; Elan had a prophesied "happy ending", and it's hard to imagine him being happy without Haley beside him.
    • Alternatively, Everybody Lives, and Elan and Haley guard a gate together.
    • That's not very happy, is it?
    • Having sex with a redheaded rogue with abnormally high dexterity on a regular basis? Or for the ladies, the same only with an easily malleable bard with maxed-out charisma? Truly a fate worse than death.
    • Both Elan and Haley need to be around a lot of people—him so he can entertain them, her so she can rob them blind. They probably wouldn't be very happy out in the middle of nowhere.
    • So give them the Azure City gate.

Haley has Celestial blood in her background.

When attempting to fix her speech by revealing to Elan her innermost secrets, one of the "Haley-grams" translates to "Elan, it turns out I may not be exactly what you would call—" (#309, My Dinner With Elan, penultimate panel). In addition, Sabine is clearly supposed to be Haley's equivalent in the Linear Guild. The Word of God is that Haley and Sabine are opposites in a way that has yet to be revealed in the strip, and who better to be the opposite of an evil outsider than someone who's partly good outsider?

• Half-celestials always have wings according to the standard template.
• Also, remember Haley's flashback, where she says "Mommy went to heaven last year", and her father Ian chews her out for divulging a piece of private information? We assumed that that was just Ian being paranoid, but what if Hailey was literal, her mother is a full-blown celestial, and she didn't die but just returned home?
• Alternatively, she has jokingly confessed to being "part dragon" — maybe she wasn't joking. And dragon ancestry would be a more plausible thing to be secretive about than celestial.
  • This is more plausible then half-fiend or half-celestial, but half-dragons have claws also. The strip doesn't really go into that much detail, but I assume claws are too noticeable to hide.
    • An armourer couldn't see she was wearing leather pants. Medium awareness has been a plot point before, I think.
    • It should be noted that you can have fiend, dragon, or celestial blood without being a full half-whatever. These are tieflings (fiend), some sorcerers (dragon), and assamir (celestial) and even those are known to skip generations. (This is all from 3.5 D&D books as opposed to being mentioned in the strip itself
    • Being an Aasimar isn't even as diluted as it can get. The 3.5 Planar Handbook has a feat called "Celestial Heritage", with Nonevil alignment being the only prerequisite. Something Haley could have easily picked up at any point in her adventuring career.
    • This strip could be a form of Sarcastic Confession.
    • More possible Dragon evidence: this strip. Classic Sarcastic Confession?
    • Speaking of half-dragons, she seems to get very interested in a half-dragon figurine...
• Yet another option is for Haley to have infernal ancestry, of the opposite side to Sabine (that is, demonic if Sabine's a devil, and vice versa). It's entirely possible for beings with such ancestry to be non-evil, after all.
  • Not according to the standard template. Half-fiends also have wings and claws, which we would have noticed by now. Being a tiefling, however, is much more plausible, because not only is a tiefling only usually evil, it's got a set of abilities perfect for a rouge. It would be kinda hard to hide some of the bonuses, though.
    • Have you ever seen Sabine's claws? It's a stick figure comic.
    • She could be an Aasimar.
    • Aasimar have bonuses that make them as good in a way that fits her play-style.
• And another is that Haley has Elemental blood, and will end up being related to Celia somehow.
  • Note that all of these options bring the possibility of Haley suddenly gaining sorcerous abilities, and becoming the arcane caster in the prophecy.
  • There is no half-elemental template in the Monster Manual, so that's a plus.
  • And she will take the elemental infiltrator prestige class.
• I always assumed that line was going to end with "...a virgin". Makes sense considering the other things she tells him.
  • Never mind, seems to be sorta-Jossed with comic 581.
    • There's a big difference between being pregnant and having had sex at some point... even if protection doesn't exist in that universe, there is still only a 30% chance of getting pregnant on the best of days (for normal humans; we'd have to get all F.A.T.A.L. to find a game with rules on that, and honestly, who in their right mind would want that?)
    • Yeah, she's only saying that that's not her problem, not that she's never had sex.
• I have just realized how bizarre this is considering Haley is one of two party members whose parents are confirmed to be human(oid). Granted, not as much as Roy's parents, but it's still implied from the three or so references we get to them.
• Going over all these guesses, I would guess she's not a Celestial or Elemental, because she's ashamed of whatever it is. Maybe she's part-devil, but I kind of doubt it. Oh, and if you want to pull Exact Words on it, the quote is "Elan, it turns out I may not be exactly what you would call-"
  • Maybe she's not ashamed of being Elemental or Celestial; maybe she's ashamed because she can't live up to it, because she's not "good enough" and that's why other good people have left her.
• She did have an aspect of her personally named "Haley's Latent Bisexuality". Maybe that sentence was going to send with "straight" ?
  • "Latent" means present or potential, but never realized. She's straight. Besides, why would Rich have an Ellipsis of Drama for something revealed so willy-nilly.
    • Latent means "present but not visible, apparent, or actualized; existing as potential" or "Psychology. existing in unconscious or dormant form but potentially able to achieve expression" So not necessarily. But I would think she wouldn't angst that much about telling Elan she's bisexual considering she already told him she'd kissed girls several times.
  • In that same scene, (two pages later) she discusses to herself how her mother left her - the first of the "pure and good" people whom she loved to leave. Could mean her mother straight out walked out on her (and presumably her father), or could mean death. Why? And if her father is the source of her divergent ancestry, what does it mean that he's imprisoned by an Evil Overlord? Food for thought!
    • Interestingly, in a recent strip we see a young Haley telling a stranger that her Mommy "went to Heaven." Could be her father's explanation of death to a child, but then why would Haley believe that her mother left her?
    • What about her actually GOING to heaven, which would reinforce the idea of her being a holy... being.
  • Well, considering Roy's talk with the Angel (particularly the comment about only celestials being entirely good), maybe this means her Mom's an Angel?
    • In a recent strip we see Haley's Mom's death, so Haley's mother didn't leave her. Although with Fridge Logic maybe she refused to be raised, and that's why Haley considers it 'left'?
• It occurred to me that even though all (most?) the half-templates for what's been discussed here have obvious attributes that seem to rule them out, that doesn't mean she couldn't be a quarter something.
  • If I recall correctly, the descendant of any half-something is also a half-something. The child of a human and a half-elf would be half-elven, though look more human, and the Rogue grandchild of a half-orc, a half-elf, a human, and possibly a half-fiend would be a half-elf half-orc half-fiend Rogue.
    • No, that only applies to the half-elves and orcs, if I remember correctly.
    • For half-elves at least, there's an official ruling in the PH: 100% elf = elf, 50-99% elf = half elf, 0-49% elf = human. This also applies to half-orcs, IIRC.
    • Templates work in a weird way though; 25% elf, 25% human, 50% dragon is a half-elf with the half-dragon template, for example, but unlike celestials and fiends there isn't a template for anything less than 50% in dragon, meaning that 1/4 dragon has the same stats as the base race but is eligible to become a sorcerer or a dragon disciple.
    • Eventually it's got to stop applying, otherwise 3.5 tieflings, aasimar, zenythri (Law) and chaonds (chaos) wouldn't exist; their entire backstory is that they're humans with the faintest touch of outsider blood.
    • One sourcebook (Unearthed Arcana, I believe) has rules for applying minor, medium and major non-humanoid bloodlines to the standard races. Presumably these are for characters who have non-human ancestry more diluted than that required for a half-whatever template or an alternate race like tiefling/aasimar.
• Wait just a second. Lords of Madness confirms that some aberrations (no idea which ones) can somehow interbreed with humans. And as long as the Deep One hybrid aberrant doesn't take the Aberration Blood feat and it goes back enough generations, nobody would really have to know. There's a whole category of feats that represent this kind of thing. There's even a prestige class for people descended from the victims of mind flayer experiments - the flayerspawn psychic. Just because there's something unpleasant hinted as part of Haley's family tree doesn't necessarily mean it comes from another plane.
• Considering the circumstances, the casually self-assured front Haley presents to everyone, and the fact it's the very last thing she could bring herself to admit to anyone else, I have long suspected that the missing word was "confident". Which is self-explanatory, as lack of confidence is why she couldn't bring herself to admit it.
  • Yeah, but "I'm not confident" isn't what you'd call a deep seeded secret, not one that she'd suspect is the reason for her inability to talk.
• I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and add the 'wild' back into WMG. What if Haley is Redcloak's niece? Think about it, Right-Eye smuggled his daughter out of Xykon's camp and left her to be raised by "humans or worse", so that probably means he just left her somewhere. Maybe he found a way to disguise her as a human; Haley's parents seem like the type of people who would adopt a homeless child. I know it's probably not true, but wouldn't that be a fun twist?

V will resurrect Durkon

Wish can stand in for Resurrection, after all.

Vaarsuvius is a victim of a rare Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity.

The Wikipedia article says, "Additionally, 10% of these items remove sex from the wearer." Maybe this is what happened to V, who is now literally genderless?

• Wait wait wait, Wikipedia has an article on the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity but couldn't decide if we existed?
  • The injustice!

Haley will get a happy ending.

Seeing though she's Elan's girlfriend and Elan is going to get a happy ending, it seems likely she will get one as well.

Belkar will kill Vaarsuvius.

In this strip, the Belkster is prophesied to cause the death of one of the following: Miko, Miko's horse, Roy, or Vaarsuvius. Miko is dead not by Belkar's hand, and we know she's not coming back, and as long as she's dead her celestial horse isn't coming back either. Roy died, again not by Belkar's hand, and while his resurrection is almost a given, it's reasonable to believe that Burlew wouldn't kill him off twice — that'd be overkill. (Heh.) That leaves only the elf. Since V may potentially turn to the dark side upon achieving ultimate power, that would give Belkar a damn good reason to do it, too. EDIT: As of 6/15/08, I may imminently be proved wrong. * sits and waits*

• Sorry for cutting to the top and everything, but remember the triple Soul Splice deal hinges on the fact that Vaarsuvius need to die to give up his soul to help the demon/devil/daemon alliance thing.
• Don't forget that Belkar also specified "or you (the oracle)." We may only get to see another kobold with a few dozen stab wounds. Not that it wouldn't be as satisfying.
• Alternately, Belkar already caused Roy's death, by giving him the ring of jumping.
  • Does that really count as "causing his death," though? It enabled Roy to get at Xykon, but you could just as easily say that the castle parapet he leaped from caused his death as the ring.
    • Look at it this way: You can claim that Roy died because of many things: He doesn't have wings, the ground wasn't made of marshmallows, Xykon's Meteor Swarm, and even the law of gravity. The fact is that Roy fell off of the dragon, and was only able to get on the dragon with Belkar's Ring of Jumping. And if that's not good enough for you, he killed the Oracle, but as said below, the "or" could be inclusive or exclusive.
• Jossed!
  • Do you mean that Belkar killing Vaarsuvius is Jossed? It's still possible. The "or" could be inclusive, rather than exclusive, and the yes means that he kills both the Oracle and Vaarsuvius. If he survives the Mark of Justice, of course...
  • Depending on how much you trust what the Oracle was saying beforehand, (s)he may have regarded it as a "yes" to any or a "yes" to as many as apply. And the Orcale was about to talk about V before Belkar interrupted.
    • Such an "or" statement answered with "yes" can be used as a "Answer Choice E for everything". I can already see a way to blame Belkar if V dies as a wild result of V's Faust deal. But it will be nigh impossible to tell before Burlew does or not since he clearly comes to this site and likes to subvert fan expectations.
• Belkar will kill V because V has sold his soul and someone needs to Shoot the Dog. Balkar's not the most noble person to do it, but he has more reason to do it than anyone else. He may die in the attempt, but he will get it done. If this is to become a happier ending, V's death voids the contract and somehow elevates V to having even greater strength, and enough time to redeem himself. In this case, V's words would be, "Belkar. Kill me now," or something to that effect. V would be saying the right words at the right time, but because he wants to be put out of his misery, they're for the wrong reasons.
  • "Out of his misery"? I think it's abundantly clear that V gets off on power. The only misery I could see happening would come if s/he were forced to see all that s/he had done, and became weighed down by guilt. And even if that happens (V seems to be an expert at rationalizing ways for hir to be in the right) hir work ethic, determination, pride and (ChaoticStupid sometimes skewed but still there) moral compass means s/he's probably the sort to go on some epic quest for redemption, rather than become suicidal.
• I think it'll be the reverse- Vaarsuvius will kill Belkar. Belkar is fated to die, and V is the only one in the party who would be willing to do it.
  • Furthermore, if someone kills V because s/he kills Belkar, that could possibly count.

Belkar will turn into a Lich.

"Belkar will draw his last breath -ever- before the end of the year," as the Oracle said, which seems perfect for a Prophecy Twist... Liches don't need to breathe, after all. Likewise, Start of Darkness made it clear that Liches have no sense of taste either, which explains the Oracle's prophecy about how Belkar should enjoy his next Birthday Cake.

• That said, the exact wording precludes a normal Rez. That's pretty much the only way he could stay "alive". That said, Liches are almost always powerful Arcane casters, which Belkar is not.
  • Or it could be time travel.
  • Rangers can become Liches, they just need a caster level of 11 (arcane or divine matters not.) HOWEVER as rangers have a caster level equal to half their character level Belkar would need to get to level 22 (and thus well into epic) before the end of the year, highly unlikely.
    • Don't tell him that, he'll take it as a challenge.
    • Or he could make a deal similar to Vaarsuvius and perform the ritual while under the influence of a soul splice.

Belkar will turn into a WOMAN.

Note the lines the Kobold uses to avoid stating that Belkar will die: That he should savor HIS next birthday cake. That HE's not long for this world. That Belkar will draw HIS last breath before the end of the year. Turning into a woman (a new Girdle, perhaps?) would not only be a useful workaround to him dying (which almost every other assumed workaround requires), but would likely also serve to make Belkar(ina?) ever more pissed off. This said, like he needs to be any scarier...

• If V turns out to be female and Belkar turns into a woman, the Order of the Stick will match the Order of the Scribble in both race(s) AND gender(s). Take from that what you will.
  • Um, no. The Order of the Scribble was composed of four males and two females.
  • So, if V is male and Belkar turns into a woman, the adventuring parties will match.

Belkar will turn into a God.

A Sexy shoeless one of war. We need a reason for Belkar not to want to be raised, and this is the best one going. We already have The Dark One showing that mortals can ascend, as well as strip 610 having Shojo asking what ARE you with this as Belkar's responseOr...

Belkar already IS a God.

With his wild and chaotic personality, his ability to best almost everyone in pitched combat, and the fact he responded "I am a sexy shoeless god of war!" when asked by hallucination-Shojo what he truly is, Belkar could be construed as the halfling reincarnation of Ares, the deceased Greek God of War. His new "fake character development" schtick may be his way of reconciling himself with this fact, and the kobold's prophecy might indicate his coming "rebirth" as Ares.

• Except anyone killed by the Snarl ceases to exist entirely, which probably means they can't be reincarnated.
  • There's a WMG here addressing that... somewhere...

The Order of the Stick will get a new roster.

With so many hints about main characters dying (Belkar, Vaarsuvius, Durkon... maybe even Roy, with all the time it's taking...) I think that by the end of the strip, the Order of the Stick will either have a brand new roster of fresh adventurer rookies, or just partly (Maybe Elan and Haley stay...)

• Maybe a resurrected Miko will join them to atone for her sins. Hey, if they let in Belkar...
  • Judging by Durkon's death, it may end up this way.
    • Hilgya could replace Durkon as a Distaff Counterpart cleric and/or Belkar as Token Evil Teammate.

V is hiding something.

Based entirely on the look on his/her/its face in this comic.

• S/he's hiding the fact that Belkar kissed him/her. Remember?
• This comic suggests that V "tampers with the fundamental natural order when bored".
  • Hir children are clones!!!
• Might have something to do with a drug-addled past of some sort...

Vaarsuuvius will become a Lich.

Given how V's been looking and acting lately, and V's obsession with increasing his magical power to locate Haley, and that the Oracle said that V would achieve complete and ultimate arcane power, it only seems logical that V would do that. Getting Lichified vastly increases the spellcaster's power and makes the Lich virtually unkillable. Of course, you have to be Evil, but V is only one step away from that anyway.

• Or alternately, (s)he may become a Baelnorn instead of a regular Lich
  • After 595, I kinda doubt it.

Vaarsuvius is Pompey's mother/father

They never actually meet. They look reasonably alike. And having an illegitimate bi-species child while you're married to someone else seems like a very good reason to make yourself scarce for a couple hundred years. Backed up by V stating that they're not a virgin in the recent strip.

• Not to mention the theme naming at work - they're both named after volcanoes.
  • I hate to be Killjoy McFactcorrecter, But Pompeii is the city destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius. I know. I watched half of a PBS special on it once.
    • Indeed. Pompey was a military general in Ancient Rome. (A PBS special? Please.)
    • ...Why do I suddenly have the voice of Comic Book Guy ringing in my head?
• This hardly seems like a marriage that weathered an affair.
  • Like s/he would know after V being gone for several decades.
  • Given the different age rates of elves and half-elves, it might be possible for Pompey to be younger than V's children still at home.
    • The Black Dragon identifies V's children as 26 years old. When Nale recruits Pompeii, Pompeii claims to be in his 40's.
    • Plus, V was only gone 6 years.
  • Alternately, they're half-siblings or cousins. It doesn't have to be a paternal connection for them to related.

V and his mate are the same (unidentifiable) sex.

That's why their kids are adopted and why they're drawn with the same body type. Of course, we the readers will never know the difference anyway.

Belkar will make a Heroic Sacrifice at some point, killing V in the process

Belkar and Vaarsarvius seem to be switching places of late; Belkar with his new 'Fake Character Development' making him, on the surface at least, a better person, whilst V is quickly galloping down the Slippery Slope towards evil. Also, according to the Oracle Belkar may not be long for the world, and is (in a hazy sort of fashion) seemingly destined to kill V as well. It seems possible that in some future confrontation after V has completed the Face–Heel Turn that appears to be rapidly approaching, Belkar takes the opportunity to take V out, losing his own life in the process. Belkar may not even be doing an actual Heel–Face Turn (or at least not consciously — others have noted that what Belkar claims is Fake Character Development actually, for him, constitutes Real Character Development in many ways), and may not intend to sacrifice himself; he's been itching to ice V for pretty much the strip's entire run, and may eagerly take the opportunity only to inadvertently lose his own life in the process. Only, having being so convincing in his pretence of becoming a better person, the others read his actions as a genuine Heroic Sacrifice.

• Or Death's Li'l Helper will succumb to V. casting a spell like acid blood or whatever it's called from Heroes of Horror with enough metamagic feats to turn Detect Chaos into a nuclear weapon, which will subdue the rest of the party (except Haley, who will be beaten down with Magic Missiles). Belkar will simply be the last one standing, and will be disarmed...before finding a vorpal sword dropped by Hinjo or someone, grabbing it in both hands, and cutting V's head off. The resultant geyser of acid straight in the face will send Belkar on his one-way ride to the Abyss.
• Or Vaarsuvius will be taken over by the IFCC to control a gate and Belkar will a) destroy the Gate and b) distract V long enough for them to both succumb to the collapsing gate.
• OR...Belkar actually does make an Heroic Sacrifice, and his sacrifice helps seal the last Gate (or whatever resolves the plot). He will be remembered the same way Kraagar was.

Haley knows V's gender

When Haley is talking to Elan, attempting to break through her cypher, there is one secret that "Not even V knows," indicating that they know all of each others' secrets. V refuses to share a room with people who aren't Haley. Haley also knew V was married.

• Haley was also the one who recommended V to Roy in the first place in On the Origin of PCs. The reason Roy (and the rest of the Order) doesn't know V's gender is because the corresponding field on his/her character sheet was obscured by an ink stain. Since Haley interviewed him/her beforehand, she quite possibly knows, but decides not to make a big deal out of it.

Belkar will become Chaotic Neutral.

Which would satisfy his Blood Knight tendencies and random murder, but enable him to want to genuinely help his friends and do good acts. Also, it'll make him immune to Detect Evil and his own amulet.

V and Haley really were physically involved.

Subver- Double sub- Somethinged Three Is Company. Vaarsuvius wasn't cheating on <Parent> because elven relationships don't work that way, and Haley wasn't really involved with Elan at that time. The only two times it was really Innocent Innuendo were the two times the audience saw what was really happening. This is also why V and Haley shared a room if V is male (if V is female, it just means Haley's latent bisexuality wasn't).

Elan is going to have to find a prestige class that lets him keep his bardic abilities no matter what his alignment.

Let's face it, our favourite Cloud Cuckoolander has been growing steadily more Lawful under Hinjo's influence; so much so he seems to be at least Neutral Good instead of his previous Chaotic Good. Remember how reluctant he was to accept Kubota's obliteration, despite this following the distinctly Chaotic tendency to just cut the crap and do what needs to be done? (Sure, V. didn't care, but still...) Elan is gradually losing his Chaoticness, and if he moves to Lawful Good he can't maintain his bardic powers. Either he's going to realise this and just do something batshit insane to keep his alignment from shifting too far (like running away from Hinjo, leaving a note, to try and find Haley), or he's going to have to roll with it, take a level in paladin, and grab whatever that prestige class in Complete Adventurer for bard/paladins was.

• Remember that line about Elan being sad he won't be able to see Roy in the afterlife due to his alignment in "Oh Buddy Roy"? Yeah. Then again, I don't imagine Haley would be too pleased if she found out Elan's going Lawful.
  • "Oh Buddy Roy" came before Elan began spending his time baby-sitting a Paladin.
• He doesn't need one, being lawful just prevents Bards from gaining more levels in Bard (opposed to say, Barbarian, where they lose rage), and he has a prestige class he can advance anyways.
• Elan wasn't upset about killing Kubota because it was a chaotic act, he was upset because killing a helpless prisoner, when you don't even know why he's a prisoner, is an evil act.

One or more members of the Order of the Stick will be replaced

With Varsuvius' Face–Heel Turn seeming more and more imminent, Roy already dead, and Belkar's death being inevitable, the Order of the Stick may get a few new members. Possible candidates are:

• Celia- Though she may get some Character Development first in order to get a healthy dose of cynicism.
• Kazumi and/or Daigo
• Roy's younger brother (see a previous WMG)
• Redcloak (see a previous WMG)
• Hinjo
• The Cleric they want to raise Roy
• Aarindarius- Bit of a Contrived Coincidence, but I can easily see him/her joining up with the Order of The Stick to stop V if s/he should Face–Heel Turn. It'd also maintain the parallels to the Order of the Scribble's "Three humans, one elf, one dwarf, and one halfling" status quo.
• Roy's sister, Julia (She got too much screen time to be completely forgotten)
• Right Eye's Daughter. (see a previous WMG)
• Lien
• O-Chul
• V's mate. They have a pointed stick, dammit, and they're not afraid to use it!
• That Guy With a Halberd
• Serini Toormuck?
• Hilgya, acting as either a replacement Token Evil Teammate if/when Belkar dies, a replacement cleric if they can't save the original Durkon, or a second spellcaster (albeit of a different type) should V go darkside again.

V's gender will be anti-climactically revealed in either the penultimate or final strip

Knowing Richard Burlew, it'll either be mentioned in passing or someone will casually refer to V with a male or female pronoun. No one will make too much of a comment because there will be much more important things going on or they will have already known.

• One of the fiends has already referred to V as "he". These are ageless beings of immortal evil; they should know what gender an elf is. And because V. was racking up the Moments of Awesome, nobody friggin' noticed.
  • And one of the other fiends added, "She? It?" Even they're not sure. V's been referred to as both male and female within the strip by various characters, which just reflects what they think s/he is.
  • Actually one of the fiends referred to Vaarsuvius as a "she" first (other adding "He? It?"), then later another called V a "he". Personally I'm amazed how people keep saying "now we know V's gender!" every time somebody happens to slip a pronoun. The Giant has said that in his books, Rule of Funny > Plot Justification. Nobody knowing V's real gender is a Running Gag, so nobody will ever figure it out, no matter how mighty or powerful they are or how much unlimited knowledge they otherwise have...
• An alternate idea is that we will never learn of V's gender, it will just be teased at and used for Rule of Funny, without an actual reveal (Word of God be damned).

V will pay off Haley's debt...

...by shifting to the elemental plane of gold. The discovery of such a plane will eventually invalidate the gold standard, ruin the only excuse for monsters carrying human currency, and doom the adventuring career forever, thus leaving the world defenseless against a high-level fiend invasion. Exactly as planned.

• Alternatively, using something that already exists in D&D canon (if not, granted, this canon necessarily): the Elemental Plane of Mineral.

Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius are not both "married" and of the opposite sex.

It will turn out that they adopted the last surviving members of their family, and may be as much as fraternal twins. Twincest and/or Ho Yay may ensue, but it is more likely that they are Heterosexual Life-Partners or the one-sided version of Pseudo-Romantic Friendship (the second sentence assuming neither explicitly used the word "spouse" in common).

• Or they are married, but Elves in The Order of the Stick land just happen to practice gay marriage.
• Vaarsuvius revealed they had a spouse way back here. The dragon refers to Inkyrius as "your mate" on Inkyrus's first appearance. Inkyrius files for divorce here. At this point (in fact, at any point) there needs to be some pretty extraordinary reason to think they're not (or rather, weren't) married. As far as "opposite sex" goes, Word of God is that the whole point of their kids being adopted is to raise the possibility that they're not.

Belkar will not die.

Exactly what it says. The Oracle foretold Belkar's death and is wrong. His prophecies have been correct so far, but when Belkar's moment of truth comes, he lives, if for no other reason than to spite the Oracle. After all, it's been taken for granted that the Oracle is always right. It would be the perfect subversion for the Oracle's foreshadowing and predictions to be right until the very end. And really, what could be more inspiring than Belkar living past the end of the year and flipping the bird to fate, just in time for the final showdown?

• At least not until New Year's eve. Thirty years from now. The "not long for this world" stuff was off the record, and "Belkar will draw his last breath -ever- before the end of the year". Everything implying that he would die this year, including the in-comic time comment, was off the record. The Oracle may have been guessing that he would die from the curse mark, and the prophecy was as ambiguous to him as it was to Roy. (Alternately, it could even be a definition of the word "year", possibly a title for a living being, but I digress.)
• I wouldn't put it beyond Buckler to Mind Screw with us this way. But I really, REALLY would enjoy Order of the Stick more if Belkar bit it. The sooner, the better.
  • It's worth noting that Roy remembers the entire conversation (not just the prophecy) and that he didn't put that to any immediate use. Meaning some incidental comment the Oracle made (or some other detail of the scene) may come up as important later, when Belkar's prophesied number is up.
• Two words: ioun stone. Among the ridiculous amount of other things they can potentially do, there are a number of types (particularly the Sustenence stone) that eliminate the user's need for air. Belkar will simply come into one of these and, without the need to do so, never bother himself with breathing again.
• Or Belkar will die just as his newfound character development make him a likable character. His last words are a command for V to take care of Mr. Scruffy.

Elan has a Meaningful Name.

Psyonics almost definitely exist in the Order of the Stick world. Elan could have become a psionic elan as a child, or will eventually. The problem with the latter is that he'll not only lose his bardic powers, but also the Swashbuckler prestige class, or whatever it was called. So "created as a young child by his evil father, then had his powers suppressed" would work better so he could keep his secondary class powers. If he undergoes the ritual in the future, this allows him to have the prophesied happy ending while Order of the Stick (including Haley, and Roy) has a Downer Ending.

• The first can't work, Elan gives his skill points/level as an amount that would need the human bonus points to get.

• Isn't "Elan" meaningful enough already? Élan is a French-derived word meaning "enthusiastic vigor and liveliness; distinctive style or flair." Now whom does that remind one of?

Vaarsuvius is Thief's grandma/pa

Rather than the two of them being married, as guessed above, V is one of Thief's grandkids. Imagine: V's children grow up with deep set emotional scars because their caster Other Parent left them. They then pull a Greenhilt, and return to their grandparent's career: Being a Rogue. So Thief grows up hating casters, and takes up the family trade (or a variant thereof).

V is one of Thief's parents, along with Haley.

Elan's prophesied ending will be happy because he died saving Haley ("You're still alive... That, and even spending a single day with you... Has made me happy..."), V's spouse will have left with the kids, and V and Haley already have some sort of relationship (undefined though it is), so they may fall back on each other. V takes over Elfein, or Haley is heir to the country that captures then annexes Elfein, and Thief refuses to accept that he's anything less than a full-blooded elf.

• More plausible: V and Haley's child is The Generic Dual-Classed Half-Elven Ranger.
  • Don't forget to mention that his other class is also Ranger.

Elan is going to replace Roy as leader of the order

The death of Therkla seems to have affected him to the point where he's actually planning ahead and taking responsibility, as well as actually learning to use his Bard advantages. Even with all that, this is probably still the most insane theory on here. Which is why it's going to happen.

• To expand on this, he will be leader despite Roy coming back. Roy will hand over leadership to show how impressed with Elan he is, and symbolize how he doesn't think himself a worthy leader anymore after getting himself killed.
• Nale won't notice, he thinks Elan is already the leader.
  • Nale used to think he was, but it seems clear that he reevaluated that assessment after his first encounter with the Order.
    • Of course, he'll now come to the conclusion that he was fooled by Obfuscating Stupidity, and Elan's been playing him like a harp from the very beginning. Curses! How could he have so badly underestimated the cunning of his own twin brother?
    • Because he doesn't have much cunning himself.

Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius are both male.

I know that The Giant will probably never confirm/deny it, but dangit, -ius is a masculine ending.

• In some languages; maybe not in others (especially fictional ones). For example, in Spanish and Italian, "-o" is a masculine ending (as in the names Mario and Diego); however, some feminine Greek names end in "-o" (such as Hero or Calypso). My guess is that both V and Inkyrius are neither male nor female.
• And the surname in Japanese comes before the first name. Gentlemen - consider Miko Miyazaki. Basically, applying real-world linguistics to The Order of the Stick is begging for trouble.
  • And yet there are no other females with masculine-sounding names, or vice versa, regardless of race. I really think that if The Giant had intended on making V's gender ambiguous from the start, he would have given him a more androgynous name.
    • However, if memory serves The Giant didn't intend V's gender to be ambiguous from the start.

V and Belkar will hook up.

V is now evil, and has left their mate. The two remaining souls seem to like Belkar, and V seems to think that they have an influence on their actions. Plus, there was the "event" on New Year's, which indicates something between them. I also think in the latest strip (648) Belkar seems to be giving V a rather fond look. And I'm surely not the only one who would love to see this ship.

• I'd like to see this ship!
  • It's in the Fanfic Recs.
• And according to Don't Split the Party's cast page, Belkar is interested in V.
  • Well... DSTP's cast page says that Belkar wants to "shtup" V, which based on previous events doesn't mean anything when it comes to romantic inclination. On the other hand, there is a scene waaaayyy back at the end of War and XP's, when Haley & Belkar discover they've been left behind:
    Belkar: OK, elf, enough with the jokes. You got me, fair enough, now bring the ship back.
    Belkar: ...
    Belkar: No, seriously, wherever you're hiding: You really had me thinking for a minute there that we got left behind. Great illusion. Now, can we get out of this stupid city already?
    Belkar: ...
    Belkar: Vaarsuvius?
• Forget V/Redcloak! V/Belkar OTP!

Haley has become the comic relief

Haley's new hair cut makes her look like the part of her brain that's sick of this emo crap and wants to get back to comedy. I've no idea what this implies, or what effect it has on anyone, but hey.

• I'd say the opposite. Haley went from being a comic relief character to a serious and tactically minded leader, and then to a veritable well of drama.
• Well, Elan is less funny nowadays.

Vaarsuvius' preferred Shapeshift form implies...

• An Evil alignment (pink is chromatic)- could be based on the soul whose power V was using at the time.
• A Good alignment (since the pink dragon form is roughly the size of the adult black dragon, and elves have a much shorter lifespan than dragons, there's a chance it could be an immature copper dragon of the same age as V).
• Gender=Male (antlers. May not be determinative of gender with whatever race of dragon V turned into).
• Gender=Female (Pink. Though color is determined by race for dragons, pink isn't, as far as I know, a dragon color.)
  • However, in some editions there are rules for draconic crossbreeds, so it could be a red/white hybrid.
• Absolutely nothing (it's a Shapechange spell, not a species change. It could be based on one or more of the souls. The Order of the Stick follows the various narrative rules when they supercede the D&D rules. So on and so forth.)
  • The pink color of the dragon simply fits with V's magical aura. Every caster so far has displayed a color to their spells (except for Tsukiko, who being both a divine and arcane caster, has two colors depending on which type of spell she's casting), and V's color is pink. Whether that means anything, who knows, but Word of God says we'll never be dolt V's actual gender.

One or more members of the Order of the Stick are related to a member of the Order of the Scribble

...Um I don't really have much proof of this other than the groups both consisting of an elf, a dwarf, a halfling and 3 humans. Durkon and Kraagor both have the same hair (and beard) color and the two dwarfs also have simalir skintone.

• "Aunt Serini?"

"Mr." Scruffy isn't

.While the only "evidence" for this theory is the sound effect in the third to last panel of 535, what would be better than chauvinistic Belkar finding out the housecat he's insisted on turning into a Memetic Badass is actually female, and having his whole worldview turned upside down? Plus he'll get to complain about what a cliché it is.

• Then why would he have changed their plans from "find some bitches" to "work our way up to that"? One would think that he would choose a completely new plan of action instead of delaying it, or adjusting it to M_. Scruffy's gender and/or gender preference. Also, it could just be a licking sound.
  • Belkar hasn't figured it out yet, is what I'm saying.
• I doubt it. Belkar inherited Mr Scruffy from Lord Shojo, who might have been (acting) insane, but he had enough people tending the cat that we would have someone mention it (if behind Lord Shojo's back)
  Guard: "He does know the cat's a female, right?"
  O'Chul: "You must be new. We've stopped bothering to correct him."

Guessing at V's gender...

Okay, folks. Let's be polite and diplomatic. Remember that characters using pronouns is not a reliable way to assign V's gender, as it is based on perception rather than fact. Let's keep adding evidence as it occurs to us.

• Case for Female:
  • Haley's anecdote about the boots of speed (like, totally, powerful, but lime green.) is told only to women.
    • Not quite true. When she tells V, Belkar is also there.
  • V will only share a room with Haley.
• Case for Male:
  • V doesn't seem to recognize Haley's jokes at Roy's expense when he uses the belt of gender changing.
  • -Ius is a masculine ending.
  • V's eyes, especially early on, were drawn at about 2/3 height of the face, like other guys.
  • V just doesn't have drama or humor like most female characters do: he doesn't care about beauty rituals or his hair (even when alone with Haley, and Haley doesn't engage in them with him), and when severely injured/facing death, he doesn't focus on a love interest or other close relationship like Haley, Therkla, Miko, and Tsukiko.
• Case for Other:
  • V tells Sabine "(V) is not the most qualified to comment on gender traits."
    • Although V being unaware of Roy's gender bending under the girdle of femininity/masculinity can be used as a good case for V being male (or anything that's not female really), it also backs up V's statement about not being qualified to comment on gender traits.
  • Even ancient fiendish entities have no clue about V's gender.
  • V may have been intended as one or the other early on (being referred to as a man by Roy without ambiguity, discussion, or so much as a raised eyebrow as early as strip 9), but later been retconned into androgyny in response to inattentive fans who got confused. All gender references after that one became much more painstaking in their vagueness, which is a marked contrast with Roy's casual mention, and the FAQ item canonizing this ambiguity and negating Roy's comment came quite a while later.

Mr. Scruffy is Belkar's ranger animal companion

Sure, cats aren't on the list of normal druid (and therefore ranger) companions, but it would make a lot of sense. Mr. Scruffy has been shown to follow Belkar around, obey his commands, and has even been taught the Attack trick ("Mr. Scruffy, get the caster!").

• Alternatively, Mr. Scruffy will become Belkar's animal companion in the text. The scene will become Belkar's first Heartwarming Moments.
• This theory gains a lot of support from the fact that Mr. Scruffy just disemboweled someone.
  • That a simple housecat can kill a lvl 1 commoner in a single strike is an old joke in the Dungeons & Dragons community and indicates nothing about Mr. Scruffy. But because of the other evidence towards it I also believe he is Belkar's companion.
    • Well, considering that this strip is titled "Companions" I think we might be a hair's bredth from calling this confirmed anyway.

Belkar will die performing a Heroic Sacrifice

Everyone expects him to turn on the Order when the chips are down. But he won't; he'll stick up for the good guys, and his death will buy them enough time to defeat Xykon and Redcloak. Even those who dislike Belkar will find themselves saying Alas, Poor Scrappy...

Elan didn't get a lollipop after the Test Of Heart.

It's a condom on a stick. The stick's probably just some sort of holder, or a pull-tab to open the packet. But the Oracle knew about Haley and Elan's future developments, and the "Cryptkeeper knock-off" determined that his heart is healthy enough to engage in "strenuous activity". That's why Haley's smiling about it.

When the oracle said that Belkar should savor his next birthday cake, shouldn't fund his IRA, and that he'll draw his last breath before the end of the year, he meant that Belkar will die.

Radical theory, I know, but bear with me. You see, birthday cakes are enjoyed through being consumed, which is an action that requires chemical activity in the brain (producing the delicious sensation) as well as motor activity of the muscles around the mouth and jaw. In other words, life.

Birthdays themselves are also celebrations of life. So therefore, if Belkar is told to savor his next birthday cake, that hints—rather subtly, to be sure—that he may not receive another one, which symbolizes death in this comic (as Roy failed to notice or celebrate his birthday when he was dead).

IRAs are retirement funds. Now, one thing we know about the oracle is that he goes on TV Tropes, and is in fact the Giant's way of acknowledging us; you can tell by the fact that he lords over other characters his knowledge of time, a crystal clear Shout-Out to the many "X is a time lord" theories. Therefore, he has a keen knowledge of the retirony trope, and hence, whenever he refers to retirement plans, he must in fact be thinking of death^note This is even better now that it's been thoroughly Jossed.

Now the breath clue is harder to decipher. Normally when we talk about drawing breath, of course, we're referring to the act of doodling a lung or winning a charity raffle on the elemental plane of Air. But my guess is that the oracle is using his powers of prophecy to look forward into the future to a point in time where it's common knowledge that breathing oxygenates the blood supply, therefore directly maintaining life, and hence "breath" is taken synecdochically for life. Therefore, the oracle is coining a unique and visceral evocation of death, a phrase that brings to mind the fact that Belkar's muscles and organs will cease to function, shut down, and eventually begin the process of necrosis, as the only blood that reaches them, is depleted of oxygen rather than enriched by it.

• No. Way.
• Eh, I don't buy it.

V is related to someone in the Elvish party.

It'd be interesting to see V interact with a relative other than Kyrie or the children. It'd also be interesting to see what elves call aunts and uncles (Eldest Sibling of Other Parent, or whatever, I'd imagine.)

Elan is a Troper.

By extension, so is Nale. Their actions make more sense now, don't they?

Belkar should avoid funding the Irish Republican Army.

It's the only answer.

Ian Starshine is not Haley's father.

Loki is. At least I think that's Loki. Also related to the "Haley is a Celestial, etc." guess above. If you change the eye color to something more human, and turn the Giant Holy Burning Aura of Ponytailness into normal human hair, they're pretty close. Assuming Rescue Mr. Starshine doesn't end up an Aborted Arc (with the recent revelations in the previous guess, it seems decreasingly likely that the strip will end before the more important secondary arcs are wrapped up), it seems that would be the perfect time for him (probably with his dying breath) to reveal that Hayley is a Doorstop Baby, or even that he and possibly his wife were tasked with/impregnated by the god himself. If Tyrinar turns out to be using Exact Words in his ransom note (as in my above "Rescuing Haley's Father" guess), and knows who her father is, expect things to get a bit more complicated. If Ian Starshine turns out to be an avatar or incarnation of the god that can't use his godly might whilst trapped in the mortal body, several possibilities open up (from him smashing Tyrinar and his throne room before ascending to him remaining on earth, but with a God Mode that casts from hit points). Refer also to her family name: Starshine does not seem like the typical human name in such a setting, though the Greenhilt clan isn't much to go on, and I highly doubt think she's a half-elf or (less doubt) direct male-line descendant of a halfling.

• If you think about it Haley has been extremely lucky. There's the million to one shot she made in the first Linear Guild arc. She was saved in the nick of time in the Second Linear Guild Arc. She lucked out that Belkar was too distracted to consider a Face–Heel Turn in the Escape Arc. Almost all the bad things in the series have happened when Haley wasn't around. Even the destruction of her money led to a boyfriend and valuable Character Development. Perhaps this suggests the gods favor her. It also fits that she would be ashamed if her father was Loki. He often gets painted as pure evil in Hijacked by Jesus settings.
  • I had a similar theory I wanted to post on the Gitp boards, so I would like to offer some additional arguments for this. Haley has a fear of Elan leaving her like all the good people she loved and did leave because she was not good enough. Being descended from Loki a evil god could be a good cause for this feelings. Two things I want to further clarify/suggest in my theory: Loki was on Haley's father's side of the family tree in my mind, possibly as close to her as being her grandfather. Why her father's? This can work with her father actually being Loki's avatar: he's left out of the good people who ran away (thus suggesting "evil"), plus he looks like Loki with another hairstyle. Why grandfather? It would make the right mix — 75% human 25% celestial/god — so she could be Aasimar, with a + 1 Level adjustment so the others wouldn't catch on to her different race, or maybe even no Level adjustment if the author houserules use the many official ways to avoid La. (Sorry for the wall of text!) In the end Loki is evil, hence her whole reason for hiding it. The Northern Gods come as a package, so many worship/stand Loki, but he could still be bad. The author portrays Loki as a reasonable guy, but his two clerics shown strongly suggest (plus the books, I think, spell it out) he's Chaotic Evil, so he gets the short end of the stick again.
  • Two periods, ten lines of text before a kindly editor cleaned it up. I already accounted for the possibility that Ian is an avatar, but the possibility of Loki being Haley's grandfather leaves him a demigod (unless he's her maternal grandfather, which is ignores several clues and is thus less likely). And for the record, in non-Hijacked by Jesus settings, I usually see Loki portrayed as Chaotic Jerkass (When he's not Sympathetic Villaining).
• This (recent strip, so mild spoilers) sounds like something Loki Lie-smith would teach his son, minus the "except family" (considering how often most of his family screwed him over, even when he deserved it, though it wouldn't be entirely out of character to say "trust no one but me"). The family history doesn't really say much yet, although framing each other for murder does run in the family, especially whenit comes to Loki's schemes...
• Haley also drank a potion increasing her bluff checks. While it adds +30 to bluff, maybe its a hint that she can has the Loki genes as well, seeing as her bluffs are really shot to game breaking levels.

Elan will die.

The Oracle said there will be a happy ending, "for [Elan] at least." Elan, I think, could die entirely happily, knowing that he had helped save his friends and/or the world—so his ending would be happy for him, at least, though it would make Haley, Roy, Durkon, probably Vaarsuvius, and me completely miserable.

Elan will die "happy".

At the hands of Xykon, who in his infinite warped humor will cast a spell that keeps Elan in an unnatural state of happiness and then slowly kill him. It's just the kind of thing Xykon would do.

• Kind of a Joker "died laughing" thing, then?
  • The oracle said he'd have a "happy ending," not that he'd die happy, or just think he died happy. Elan dying like that is anything but a happy ending.
  • "Happy ending"? Nah, probably not, the giant's kept the comic PG-13 so far.

• Dies happy because he gets to save Haley? Sorry, that's even less happy, isn't it?

Elan's prophecy already came true.

Elan asked whether or not "this story" will have a happy ending. Given the Oracle's tendency to equivocate and be generally vague, he might not have been referring to the "story" of the Order of the Stick when he gave his answer. He might have been referring to, say, the love story between himself and Haley, which had its happy ending either when they first got together, or when they found each other again after Azure City.

One of the Discworld books mentioned that a happy ending is really just a story that isn't finished. I could definitely see Burlew doing something like this as a subversion of...something.

• Except that...well...wouldn't that be awfully lame? I mean, even the Subversion page itself says that subversions aren't necessarily clever or interesting per se.
• It'd be less lame as a Double Subversion - the Oracle meant the end of the arc, and doesn't consider Elan's ultimate ending a happy one, but Elan does. Like if he died heroically while saving the world or something.
• "A whistle! I really DID get a happy ending!"

Belkar should avoid using Ira

It's the only answer.

V will make peace with his/her mate by giving him/her his/her spell book.

There's no way to convince him/her V sincerely wants to continue their relationship without giving up something he/she truly values. If this happened in the ending, happily ever after. If it happens midway through, V would be Achilles in His Tent and the mate could give V back the spell book as a sign of support.

Inkyrius is male.

Because I don't care what anybody says, that is a man chest, damnit. It doesn't necessarily confirm what Vaarsuvius is, but Kyrie's a dude.

• Also, he has square hips, which is a male trait, and eyes pretty high up on the face (another male trait).

Haley also has an Evil Twin

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0683.htmlLooks just like pre-Greysky-Arc Haley doesn't she. Or possibly she's Cousin Shiela.

• Seriously? That's a stretch even for WMG. "Looking vaguely similar"/"Evil Twin". Maybe if she was shown in any way doing something, you know, evil, rather than just running away from beetles. I mean come on.
  • Not to mention the Creator of the comic typed up a whole paragraph about this exact topic, which has since become the Moment of Awesome quote of the forum.
    • I'd like to see that quote.
    • "Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes, characters that have a similar hairstyle just have a similar hairstyle. How many hairstyles do you think there are that can be drawn in stick figure style, anyway?"

Belkar should avoid mentioning "anger" in the nominative singular in Latin.

It's the only answer.

Elan will get a catchphrase.

The way the Dashing Swordsman PRC works is by either using a pun or a catchphrase. Elan may realize that it may become easier to repeat the same thing over and over again than be clever.

Death's Lil' Helper will pull a Mel.

That is, be removed from this plane of existence in a manner sticking him somewhere much, much more Belkar-friendly than Pandemonium, Carceri, or the Abyss, or for that matter, any place he deserves to go. It'd have to be a hell of a trick, since even post-"fake character development" Belkar is pretty Evil, and regardless he's got an alignment surplus on the kilonazi scale. But he's on a quest to (kill people and take their stuff while) saving the world, he's willing to do quasi-good deeds in the interest of the greater him, and even a Right-Hand Cat he's actually willing to care about. Outside of being stuck by the Snarl, it's hard to think of anything else that would really keep him down — with even Nale being seriously believed to have access to the various forms of resurrection, it's hard to see Belkar staying permanently dead without some sort of special circumstance.

• Special circumstance other than his teammates not wanting him back? Or, you know, anyone else? You've got to remember, while a lot of the fans like Belkar, nobody else in the setting does, and the vast, vast majority of them will be just peachy with the idea of him being dead.

Roy retrained as/has been an ubercharger

that is very much a leap attack, and this shows Roy 1. being focused on charging 2. quite willing to use the same tactic over and over again. I'm fairly sure The Giant worked on the book where Dungeoncrasher is from (another option in charge builds) The possible feat he learned in the afterlife is either to get pounce, or the mage slayer feat (No defensive casting for magic users you threaten, nice if your foe is backed up against a wall and can't 5ft step out).

Belkar will have a surprise birthday party, and finally feel a hint of compassion at such an unexpected kindness.

And then he dies.

• Bonus prophecy-fulfilling points if he dies because of a lighthearted Explosive Runes gift from Vaarsuvius ("for old times' sake") that he critically fails his defense roll against (or that may have been sabotaged), and Vaarsuvius ends up dead (metaphorically?) from guilt or trying to fix things.
• Alternatively, Belkar dies of happiness.
• Option number three, Belkar has a surprise birthday party, and the resulting critical hit to the feels is what cements his alignment change. At that point, he's so different from the Belkar the party all knows and reluctantly tolerates that, in a sense, Belkar Bitterleaf ceased to exist, replaced by a much better halfling.
  • Optionally followed by the Oracle showing up and admitting he lied about Belkar's death just to screw with him.

Belkar survives to the end of the year, then dies on New Year's Day.

• Kissing V on his way out, right?

The spice that Belkar got from the spice merchant will be his death

It's an obvious Dune reference (c'mon, sandworms anyone?). While the spice called melange from Dune gives its user a longer lifespan it also has fatal withdrawal symptomps. So, after taking his first doze of the stuff Belkar will find himself oddly invigorated for a while, but after a while this newly gained life-force will fade away from him.

Belkar will get a necklace of adaption/Iridescent Spindle Ioun Stone, gets turned into a breathless non-mindless undead, ascend to proper godhood THEN get made Deader than Dead.

If and when Belkar dies and stays dead for longer than three strips, something will happen to make sure he'll never be revived

• The phrasing above is very specific, because I don't think Burlew wants to render him Deader than Dead just yet. Rather, his death will be faked for drama, and his fans will whine so hard that Burlew will get sick of making them happy and kill the character off permanently just to spite them (kind of like the "Now shut up" strip of 8-Bit Theater.)

Roy has the highest stats in the party.

About the only one he might be lacking in seems to be Dexterity; his Wisdom and Intelligence are high enough to be considered suitable for spellcasting, his Constitution seems pretty decent considering all the damage he's capable of soaking, his Charisma must be fair if he's been using one-liners to get ideas across to his father all his life, and obviously his Strength is good, or he wouldn't be able to make the kind of Jump checks he tends to.

• He's quite possibly Jack of All Stats statwise compared to the other members, then. (see Standardized Leader) The balance is what makes him the Only Sane Man.

Vaarsuvius's new ponytail is related to the situation with his/her family somehow.

I'm not sure what it could mean, but both Vaarsuvius's mate wore a ponytail. Now the character does as well. Could this be significant, or is it just a style change?

• Elan has mentioned that changes in appearance can be a sign of Character Development. Vaarsuvius changed hir hairstyle in the aftermath of the Break the Haughty arc. Probably not a coincidence.

Post-curse Belkar recieved enough XP to go up several levels

It wasn't only the effect of a He's Back! moment. Remember that time early on where he had to give a Freudian Excuse-filled soliloquy to earn a few XP that'd make him go up a level? Well, when he snapped out of the curse, it was basically the same thing up to eleven. He probably recieved so much XP that he jumped up several levels at once, which explains the sudden increase in his sheer badass.

In some alternate reality, a Super Hero version of The Order Of The Stick exists

• What? It'd be cool. The teams membership includes
  • Roy Green, AKA Star-Fist. His father was Dr Star (aka Eugene Green) a Science Hero who defeated the Alien Demigod (think Thanos or Darksied) Xykon years ago, but didn't remove the threat long term, thus allowing Xykon to threaten earth once more. Roy thus formed the Stick Squad as a team dedicated to defending earth from Xykon. Roy's a Flying Brick due to accidental exposure to alien Starmetal while still in the womb- a sore point for his father, who wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a Badass Normal Science Hero.
  • David Durkon, AKA Hammer-Bolt. Stocky vietnam vet whose war experiences left him with a phobia of trees. Self-medicates his war trauma with a combination of neo-pagan Thor worship and sledgehammer assisted street-vigilanteism. Manifests various powers (summoning lightening, brief bursts of Super-Strength) that may be the product of Thor's influence, or simply previously unknown superpowers manifesting themselves.
  • Elan Edwards, AKA Charmer. Along with his estranged Evil Twin Nale, AKA Dominator, the product of a liason between two telepaths- one a hero, the other a villain. Possesses limited mindcontrol powers, which he has never really developed, until a familiar incident at the hands of Nale led to him doing time (well, 24 hours) in prison, forcing him to develop his powers further, and augment them with some new Badass Normal style skills (ie: he read one too many Batman comics, and thought it'd be fun to jump through Skylights dramatically).
  • Haley Hawkins, AKA Starshine. Former jewel thief turned Badass Normal superhero. Armed with Waif-Fu and a selection of trick throwing darts, of which her favourite is the fast freezing Nitro-Glycerin dart.
    • The press generally agrees that the lime-green Spandex was a poor choice.
  • Vaarsuvius, an elven sorceror from another dimension who has travelled to the Squad's home dimension in search of new magic, and whose gender ambiguity is a running joke amongst the media.
    • During an event that is never to be mentioned again, spent some time as a lizard-monster after being injected with a mysterious serum.
  • Ben Belkar, AKA War-God. Bestial Nineties Antihero, whom Star-Fist keeps on the team because it's better to have him pointed at the bad guys than at the civillian population. In addition to animalistic powers, such as Super-Strength and Super-Senses, is certifiable Knife Nut.
    • Everyone's basic characterisation and behaviour is the same, just slightly modified for the new, modern day setting. Similarly, the story progresses differently where appropriate, either due to the modern setting (for example, the Saphire Guard are a secret organisation a la SHIELD, rather than a group of paladins, with Miko as their top operative- she's just consumed with Patriotic Fervour rather than being Holier Than Thou) or changes in character (obviously, Roy can't die from falling now). The villains are also modified to be more approrpriate to a Super Hero setting (as mentioned, Xykon is now a Darksied look-alike, while Redcloak is now a superhuman supremacist a la Magneto).
  • Show of hands, who wants to help make this happen?
    • ... Dammit, fine. Yes. Although I'm not too sure about Charmer - It's to the point and matches Dominater, but seems a little plain for a supername. Also, rather than vaguely psychic mind-control, I think pheremone-type powers would work better. Like a non-Evil Purple Man. I kind of love the idea of Haley as a Distaff Counterpart Hawkeye-meets-Catwoman, though.
  • Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe that we have discovered the contents of the World Within The World.
• Stick Squad!Tarquin = Mafia don? Admit it, that would rule. And maybe Nale/Dominator wants to take over the Mafia, but Tarquin is scared that he'll mess it up? Sabine (or "Succubus") is probably from V's dimension, and Thog... well... Some sort of experiment with mutations, which produced a very strong and easily angered mutant who was really dumb? Aaaand kobolds could be some sort of lizard people living below the surface, hidden from human eyes.
• I can see Sabine as a Hooker with a Heart of Gold (or just a hooker) with connections in the crime world and some mysterious debts to pay. Thog would be a very effective bodyguard of Tarquin's, somewhere between a Bunny-Ears Lawyer and the Dumb Muscle, who for some reason sided with Nale after their falling out. Elan... I know he's already been covered, but I really, really want Elan Edwards to be a pop star. I mean, he's a bard, and he's certainly pretty and ditzy enough. He would be raised apart from Nale in a foster family, and they would become aware of each other's existence after Nale is mistaken for Elan during a robbery/murder/whatever.
  • How about Shojo as an Uatu- style exposition fountain and the Snarl as a Galactesque planet devourer?
• This could only work as a Tabletop RPG that pokes fun at various comic book tropes.
• Let's keep it going! Celia is a fourth-wall breaking blue amazon! After being sealed in an extra dimensional prison, Charmer gets instruction from Julian Scoundrel, Earth-2's Charmer! V forms a stable relationship that gets cut short when s/he makes a deal with the devil... okay, not that.

Shojo is attempting to change Belkar's fate.

According to Shojo, if Belkar keeps playing the sociopathic Jerkass, chances are someone, possibly an ally, would kill him. That's why Shojo came to Belkar in the dream: He knows Belkar is going to die, but needs him to live for some unspecified reason. Belkar's "fake" character development could end up with him making a choice he wouldn't before, something that will save his life.

Belkar will reveal himself to be Vaarsuvius' brother.

Just to screw with everyone after the above-mentioned fourth-wall leaning occurs. It will be revealed as a blatant lie between .8 and 1.2 panels later

Belkar will die after the plot is resolved.

Because it would be funnier that way.

Belkar will indirectly prevent V from obtaining immortality.

It will likely be the result of an Explosive Runes spell (possibly a bought spell that Belkar put on an ancient and undecrypted scroll that V was working on in hir spare time) or simply that, in an infinitely small fraction of the timelines without Belkar's interference, and of the other timelines where Belkar acts infinitessimally differently, V would have coincidentally stumbled across the secret to immortality. And thus, Belkar will cause V to die, eventually.

O'Chul will gut Belkar like a fish.

O'Chul said that he'd gut Belkar if he learned of B treating anyone else the way B treated him.

The Oracle misspoke. Belkar will be killed by Kira.

It's the only answer.

• How is that misspeaking? All we have is that Belkar will die in some unspecified manner that precludes him breathing (thereby preventing him from being brain dead and hooked up to some electronic breathing apparatus)

Belkar will gain a permanent wisdom boost, thereby making "Belkar" cease to exist

It's the only answer. More Star Wars quotes work.

Kyrie, Vaarsuvius, or both (?) are transgendered or otherwise gender queer/in-universe equivalent.

Just to add another layer to the gender uncertainty. If it's not universal for elves, that could explain why we have seen some with established gender identities, and in V's case it could also account for the general "don't ask me" sort of thing re: sex/gender.Or, y'know, I could be talking out of my hat...

The party members fit into the framework of Player Archetypes.

Well, sort of.

The Real Man: Roy and Haley would both fit.

The Loonie: Belkar, with his homicidal tendencies.

The Roleplayer: Both Durkon and Elan, Durkon as the Thespian and Elan as the Anti-Munchkin.

Munchkin: Vaarsuvius.

• Except that V chose a surprisingly unoptomized build. No munchkin wizard would bar themselves from Conjuraton. We know that (s)he had conjuration and necromancy as barred schools.
  • V choose his barred schools before teleport and a few other spells were moved into Conjuration and wasn't allowed to change his schools. But even before that he was always a blaster oriented wizard who attacked mostly with spells that reduzed hp, which can look good on paper for an inexperienced munchkin, because that build delivers high numbers of damage, but isn't as powerfull as a wizard who buffs his team and uses mostly save or die/save or suck spells. V seems to have realized this and now tries to help his team more.

Vaarsuvius's raven is an aspect of The Gates/Pure Order

The snarl could not see its prison while it was being built, so it is reasonable to assume that it works the other way around as well. Blackwing's vision is of the world the snarl devoured, but he cannot see the snarl itself. The world would be in relative chaos, but it is not a complete aspect of the snarl and his brain filters out the chaos. Hey, until you disprove it, I stand by my claim.

Roy's sword will have a play

It may emit energy harmful to undead - and he doesn't know how to counteract it. Hence, it will emit energy at worst possible moment (setting a trap? Cease fire negotiations?) or during a final battle that appeared to be lost just when Xykon is about to kill him?

• I interpreted that as being an enchantment, like undead-bane, that makes it more effective against The Undead.
  • It's the starmetal, no guessing needed.

Belkar really IS Chaotic Evil...

But he does have (some) actual loyalty/something vaugely simmilar to the Order. As Roy pointed out, he's had many oppurtunities to turn against the party but has never done so. The best example would be when he got his Mark of Justice removed but still saved Haley and Celia despite being able to go on a killing spree. He's still a horrible little bastard, however.

It turns out Haley may not be exactly what you would call...

• Human (see above, "Haley has Celestial blood in her background").
• A virgin (see above, same heading).
• Straight (see above, same heading).
• Good (see above, "Haley is, and always has been, Chaotic Neutral").
• Single, and at some point Elan will have to fight her husband.
• Sane.
• Living.
• Female.
  • Elan would have found out by now if she was transgendered.
    • Depends on how good magical transformations are, but since we've seen her as a female toddler in flashbacks, it's unlikely anyway.
• Real.
• A natural redhead.
  • "Hey, this hair is all-natural!" "Yeah, natural hair dye."

Belkar will survive past the end of the year, BUT...

...somehow he will be teleported back into the past and die during this year.

Belkar should avoid putting money into Interdimensional Rift Accounting

It's the only possible answer.

Belkar will die before the end of the year- exactly 1x10^-<Insert Ridiculously Large Number> seconds before the end of the year.

Come on, you know something like this is going to happen.

Belkar has a crush on Vaarsuvius, and this is the reason why he wants to know V's gender so badly.

He doesn't seem to be bisexual, so if V is male he will lose his interest in him, but if V is female he will make a move on her. When he kissed V, he couldn't control his feelings so well, as he was drunk.

• Possibly confirmed; the cast page of "Don't Split The Party" claims that Belkar wants to "shtup" V.

Vaarsuvius is female and that Ambiguous Gender thing is because of Belkar

Her attempts to make Belkar feel hate instead lust to her proof this, She could always tell him true if she was male.

• V presents a theory that Belkar can only feel hatred or lust for anyone. There's no third option of him simply losing interest because of finding out someone was male.
  • Belkar hate every male character, or V think that Belkar hates every male.
    • V only thinks that Belkar hates every male; it has been shown that he doesn't hate Lord Shojo or Mr. Scruffy, or himself.

Durkon's entry papers just expired. This will have some effect on the plot.

For reference, he got his entry papers in strip 732, and they were issued for 30 strips. This means they expired here. My guess? Elan realized this somehow, and this is why he ran off at the end of 763. His father is going to be remembered as an awesome villain, when as an Evil Dictator he deserves no such thing? Who cares about that, Durkon might get arrested, and if that happens, they're screwed!

Belkar suffers from ADHD, as well as psychopathy.

That would explain his impulsiveness, quick temper and unpredictability. He's boisterous and loud, and would rather live for the moment and do, rather than contemplate decisions. Belkar also isn't good with authority; people with ADHD often have run-ins with teachers and the police. And he has a low Wisdom score.

Belkar will be an undead and is not long for this world.

Belkar manages to somehow become an undead. But ends up getting thrown into the rift. And misses the other world. Making him stuck eternally in the void of space, without the means to deal himself damage. Definitely should savor his next birthday cake and shouldn't bother funding IRA.

• Hey, now that one party member is a vampire and Belkar's willing to pick a fight with him, this just became a whole lot more plausible.

Belkar WILL survive past the end of the year, BUT...

...since he's holding his breath or otherwise unable to breathe before the clock strikes midnight, he'll die shortly afterwards thus rendering the whole "surviving past the end of the year" thing kinda moot, but will fit his determinator side to his personality perfectly.

• The reason he's out of breath? Kissing V at the New Year's countdown. CPR, maybe?

Vaarsuvius and the rest of the elves are a genderless species.

Just look at it's partner and children, the latter were adopted but still, we don't know if they are males or females. Thus, we can assume that Elves in the Order of the Stick universe are a species of Ambiguous Gender like the Asari in Mass Effect. So, it's appropriate to refer V as an "It" instead of "Him" or "Her."

• What about Pompey?
  • He might have 'inherited' a gender from his human parent.

The reason why Vaarsuvius is referred to as V instead of an "it".

If the above theory is correct, and then it's because calling an elf an "It" is like calling a black guy an N-word in the Order of the Stick universe. Or at least because "It" Is Dehumanizing.

Ian's theory in strip 771 is correct

Elan is the greatest master of obfuscating stupidity of all time.

• There's nothing obfuscating about his stupidity.
• Given Elan's horrified reaction to realizing that his father is evil, with no audience except the readers, for this theory to work Elan would have to be a sleeper agent, unaware of the fact that he's been helping his father's evil plans all along.

Banjo will be Elan's Ace in the Hole

Early on, Banjo was revealed to have the power to use lightning but it was very weak because of lack of worshippers. Now, there are all these orcs who worship Banjo and most likely gave him a boost of power. For all we know, Elan had spread the word of Banjo during the months he had been separated from Haley.

• The only problem is that the orcs worship GIGGLES the clown, god of slapstick. Otherwise the theory is sound.
  • It might work to strengthen the pantheon itself, and thus indirectly strengthen Banjo.
  • Banjo is also The Rival/Arch-Enemy of Giggles, if that works on a godly level, that means Banjo and Giggles have to be roughly equal power-wise.
  • Considering the pantheon counsel going on right now (Specifically; Durkon as Hel's representative plot), it might be that Banjo returns either now or later, as a deity in his own right to give the party an in with immortal affairs and maybe even tip the balance of a deadlocked vote.

Belkar will die, and someone exactly like him will appear to fight alongside the party.

Think about it. All of the other D&D rules seem in effect. If Belkar does die, and then something prevents him from being raised (soul bind, for instance) what's to stop him from rerolling a new PC? As an added bonus, this allows Belkar to avenge his own death.

• And it's nothing new, since Celia served essentially the same role While Roy was missing.
• Unlikely due to this:
  Vision of Shojo: If you die, will another halfling ranger just happen to show up to take your place?
  Belkar: No! HELL no!

Belkar is coasting towards Chaotic Neutral

Again, self explanatory

The prophecy about Belkar means that the comic will end

Belkar (and the rest of the cast, but nobody asked the Oracle about them) will draw his last breath, never eat another birthday cake, etc., because the comic will reach a full and satisfactory ending before the end of the year, and there will be no more comics about them. (Bar perhaps further prequels.)

Varsuuvus is an innovator

"He" is an androgynous, purple-haired non-human.

Belkar will die exactly as he unwittingly predicted.

See the second panel of this strip. Not only will it be Harsher in Hindsight, he will die after a lot of character development to the point where only the readers and probably Mr. Scruffy will know that he had improved from being full-on Chaotic Evil to something more redeemable. Only time will tell if this becomes true.

Whatever V's gender, if ve has one, ve's gay.

Explains the adopted kids, and the background during the Darth V transformation was a very unsubtle pink triangle.

Belkar dies to be with Mr. Scruffy

Then learns as a Neutral Hungry cat, he is in a seperate afterlife from a Chaotic Evil Sexy Shoeless God of War.

Belkar has the gods on his side, therefore the year will not end until he finishes his task.

The gods are in control, so they just extend the "year" to until the final battle is over, as he is the second most likely person to destroy Xykon, or the year is the time period in which Xykon and his minions are still alive. Here's the reasons why he's the second most likely:

• V isn't stupid, she realizes how powerful Xykon is, and unless she uses those crazy powers she used to save her family , she does not stand a chance against Xykon. I'm not saying Belkar is more powerful than V, it's just that he's more likely to have a leeroy jenkins moment in which he manages to get lucky.
• Elan is just too hapless to be able to stand a chance.
• Haley will probably be too occupied with Elan's blunders to get a chance.
• If Durkon fought with Xykon, it would contradict the Oracle stating he'd go back to his homeland, because Xykon will probably have Redcloak revive him as a zombie

Oracle lied

Belkar won't die. Oracle just manipulates Roy to think othertwise for some reason.

Belkar will confess his feelings to Vaarsuvius just before he dies.

According to the relationship chart in Don't Split the Party (and occasional hints in the story), Belkar wants to sleep with Vaarsuvius, for one reason or another. The more he expands into "pretend" character development, the more support he's going to show V until one day he realizes that, even if it's not really anything like love (which he only really has for his cat), V is still somehow important to him. This will inspire him to pretend to make a heartfelt declaration of feeling in order to get V into his bed. It won't work, and then he'll die, leaving V to wonder.

Belkar die in a Heroic Sacrifice to save Mister Scruffy

It is already known that Belkar is going to die at some point, and unless he is simply killed in battle by a powerful monster or enemy, it's possible that he'll indeed experience true Character Development, and make a Heroic Sacrifice, but for the only being he truly seems to show affection for: Mister Scruffy, Shojo's cat.A possible foreshadowing is here http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0781.html.

• "You and me to the end, remember?"

As Shojo intended, Belkar is Becoming the Mask

As a textbook example, because of his fake character growth, Belkar feels able to act out of sympathy and kindness from time to time because he's "just keeping up the act" and over time, as seen in strip 807, he is getting to realise that Good Feels Good and he can assuage his anger by being gentle as easily as by ripping someone's head off etc. etc. It's only a matter of time before Belkar actually stops and makes informed decisions on whether responding to a situation with violence or kindness would feel better, at which point he shifts over to Neutral.

V will make a Heroic Sacrifice, in turn wiping out a good amount of Xykon's forces, with two simple words...

"Locate City."

Vaarsuvius is male

The Giant had a gender intended, but decided to go for the joke when no one could figure it out. Note Belkar's reaction in the 6th panel of this strip. He or Roy wouldn't respond that way if Vaarsuvius was female. It's possible both think Vaarsuvius is male without being sure, but this is an early strip, perhaps before the Giant decided to keep Vaarsuvius' gender a mystery.

• That doesn't prove a thing. Belkar's response more likely is "I always suspected V was a woman" since V's gender is still ambiguous.
• "V-Man is casting Identify."
• Even if Rich originally intended V to be male (which seems likely, otherwise he'd draw V with visible breasts like Haley), that original author intent is not relevant anymore in the light of the current author intent, as well as V being well and truly established as ambiguously gendered in-universe.

Belkar's death will be a Dying Moment of Awesome

Regardless of the situation, we know that this has to happen — after all, you either have the Sexy Shoeless God of War go out with a bang, or you don't kill him off at all.

Either Haley's Uncle Geoff or Aunt Ivy is related to Girard somehow.

Elan and Haley will have Babies Ever After by the end of the series.

We already know Elan gets a happy ending. That practically guarantees that Haley is there with him, as otherwise he wouldn't be fully happy, if happy at all. They are an official couple. So, by the end, Elan and Haley are together and living peacefully. Babies Ever After is not illogical as a conclusion.

At some point this year, Belkar will draw a picture..

...which will be titled 'His Last Breath.' The Oracle only heard that 'Belkar will draw "His Last Breath" this year', and assumed it meant Belkar would die.

• He has repeatedly stated that Belkar is not long for the world, that he shouldn't bother funding his IRA, savor his next birthday cake, will draw his last breath... and the fact is, the Oracle subverts the Prophecy Twist trope on pretty regular basis. He's going to die.
  • The other things he said were his attempts to drop hints at what he thought would happen, based on his misunderstanding of the information he actually received. He thinks Belkar will die, and so drops hints to that effect, but the prophecy was about something else (alternatively, the picture is very popular despite being awful, and he gets murdered by a bunch of jealous artists who can't get any recognition).

Belkar will not die because of his fake Character Development

The last time the oracle said anything about his fate, he'd only just activated the Mark of Justice, and had yet to start his development. Now that he has, the future events have changed, but the oracle hasn't shown up to say anything about it. Before, he would have reached a point where he was left for dead because he was seen as too evil to bother rescuing. Now, however, his development, fake or not, will convince someone he's at the very least redeemable, and so avert the prophecy. Note the passcode required to remove Belkar's Mark of Justice: "Evolve or Die", which in the context of the dream/hallucination/ghost Shojo's comments could easily mean 'Develop your character or get killed off.'

When Belkar dies, he'll still hang around the party as a ghost.

Mostly to make sure Mr. Scruffy's still doing OK, as I doubt the Order would just abandon the cat by the wayside. Heck, the Scruffinator could be to Belkar what Roy's sword was to Eugene. And naturally, the reason Belkar will even be able to do this is because his partly-fake-partly-real character development will be enough to make the underworld completely confused about where to send him, giving him the opportunity to pop back in to the mortal world as a ghost.

Haley is directly related to Girard... but was spared Familicide thanks to her father being in a powerful antimagic field at the time.

Yeah, I went there. The Familicide spell couldn't find Ian because he was protected by the antimagic field, and since it couldn't find Ian, it couldn't trace his own bloodline down to Haley. Aunt Ivy, as Ian's sister, would have also been struck down unless she had been sneaking Ian and Geoff food at that exact moment (which would make sense if she had, as it was lunchtime), but we currently do not actually know that Ivy is alive anyway.

• If this is true, Aunt Ivy would have had to be with him. She and Haley share blood, so if she was hit, so was Haley.
• While Ian was protected by the antimagic field in the prison, Haley might also have been shielded by the residual Cloister effect.

Vaarsuvius will go Dark Willow again without the help of the IFCC.

He'll be too ashamed to tell the Order what he's done, re: the Draketooth family, and maintaining the lie will antagonize him against the Order. Either that or he'll tell them and they will ostracize him. Like with Belkar, the Order is what keeps him from being a villain.

• V has told the Order (or Roy, at least) about Familicide, though, and while he wasn't happy about it, he didn't kick V from the party.

Vaarsuvius's Mea Maxima Culpa has jarred him out of Neutral into Good, and he'll atone enough for a surprise positive afterlife.

With Vaarsuvius this shaken by the enormity of his act, there's no way he'll allow himself to stray now - and he considers his own life forfeit as The Atoner. This'll be vital at some climactic point in the future. He'll go through life believing that he deserves every punishment, but recall how the celestial realm judged Roy: Trying to do good, even in the face of great mistakes, counts in their system of justice. Since Vaarsuvius has lost his self-centered nature, he'll be able to make sacrifices that, while certainly not erasing the original sin, at least give him comfort after death. Alt: After the story is finished, he wanders the world doing good for centuries, until finally he can rest.

By the end of the series, Elan and Haley will have broken up as a subversion of Happily Ever After and Babies Ever After.

Haley will eventually complete her emotional growth, learn to trust and open up as much as she chooses...and then start to question the validity of her feelings for him, because those trust issues are what made her find him attractive in the first place. Once she doesn't need him to make her a better person, she'll come to the conclusion that a non-adventuring relationship with Elan just wouldn't work, and break up with him amicably before it can go bad (though she'll always wonder how it might have gone). Elan will then complete his character growth when he has to deal with it, and find his happy ending some other way after the breakup: the Oracle said it ended well for Elan, after all.

Belkar will become trapped on the Astral Plane

The Astral Plane suspends the need to eat and breathe, he isn't on this world, and since he's going to not be able to do anything that can affect the world, he doesn't need to bother funding his IRA (and since he's trapped, he'll never eat again, making his next birthday cake his last). While he survives... He'll wish he didn't.

V will (somehow) become a succubus.

When the IFCC are almost done with the time V owes hir soul to them, they'll decide to turn hir into a succubus just for kicks and giggles. (C'mon, turning the ambiguously gendered elf into a personification of illicit sex would be freaking hilarious.) At the end of the year, Belkar will for some reason be low on hit points. (Perhaps he'll be sick? And he'll have irritated Durkon enough to not get healed?) When they count down to the new year, V will decide to give Belkar a kiss — which will drain the last of Belkar's energy. He'll die, and the Afterlife will be so great, he won't want to come back.(Yes, I know it's not so much a "Wild Mass Guess" as a "Totally Insane Mass Guess.")

Vaarsuvius will achieve complete and total ultimate arcane power from Banjo the Clown

The Oracle said "By saying the right four words, to the right being, at the right time, for all the wrong reasons." There were 3 demons, so they weren't the right "being" Furthermore "I- I must succeed" is a lame excuse for four words.

V showed interest in worshipping Banjo, but didn't because he didn't have espresso coffee. If Elan manages to get an espresso coffee maker, V might worship Banjo, who will use his magical puppet powers to give V arcane power. The four words being "I will worship Banjo" or something like that.

Vaarsuvius will admit to Tarquin that s/he is his wife's murderer

In Vaarsuvius' first true step for redemption he will admit that the spell that was designed to kill off the black dragon family ended up killing his wife as well. However, when Tarquin tries to enact justice, either Vaarsuvius will either stop him from enacting it out or the order of the stick will, because an unrepentant murderer can not bring justice to a repentant one. Afterwards V will stay with the party as a penance and only after the threat of the Snarl is over, will he give himself up to the authorities.

Belkar will be killed by Kilkil.

He's slated to die soon, and it would be wonderfully ironic to a.) be killed by the Linear Guild's kobold who b.) looks so obviously nonthreatening.

Instead of fighting his father, Elan will get V to kill him.

Because there is nothing worse he can do to General Tarquin than make sure the latter goes down in history as a random Evil Chancellor who gets disintegrated on the heroes' way to liberate the empire from the evil dragon ruling them.

Elan will use the spell Glibness.

The demonstration that Haley did early with the potion of Glibness was Foreshadowing for Elan learning the Glibness spell upon leveling up. He may or may not spend a few more skill points on his bluff until then.

Belkar will die protecting Vaarsuvius, and Vaarsuvius will take his spirit on as a Soul-Splice.

Belkar and V obviously care about each other in some capacity or another; when Belkar is killed trying to save/protect V, he'll end up in one of the lower planes in the service of the IFCC... and immediately request to be spliced back to V (because, being a Ranger, he really does have spell levels, it's just that his Wisdom score is in the crapper). The IFCC will do it because Belkar is as likely to drive V mad with murderous rage as anyone else, and the guilt of having Belkar around will make V more vulnerable in the future. But Belkar, whether because he actually has found himself some character development or other motive to do good in the world, just drops what he knows about the IFCC on Vaarsuvius and stays spliced to him to be able to help; although this won't save V's soul at all, at least when he finally passes on, he and Belkar won't be alone in serving the interests of evil.

• Alternatively, their willingness to stay spliced for the good of the world, and thus limiting themselves (Belkar being unable to fight physically, Vaarsuvius refraining from really bombastic magic and focusing to keep Belkar from cutting loose or being stolen back to the IFCC, knowing what it's costing his soul), they find redemption ala All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Vaarsuvius will end up with a long IOU list for hir soul.

• Seriously, V is either sextuple or nonatuple-times damned already from selling souls on a time basis and at least 3 major times damned from all the mass murder and stuff. Considering as Vaarsuvius is clearly not going to be redeeming through all that before the adventure ends, it's a good chance V is going to be damned so thouroughly that half the lower planes will be on a wait list for hir soul by the time xe finally dies should xe just give up and start spamsummoning demons all over the place in an attempt to kill Xykon should xe sell hir soul again. And this is without selling hir familiar's soul as well. Gah, gender-neutral pronouns generated via internet!

Vaarsuvius will be redeemed eventually.

• Soon tells Miko that redemption is a very special thing that requires more than just the fulfillment of duty, and not every person has what it takes. Vaarsuvius does. S/he's wallowing in guilt now, but that's part of what it takes to earn redemption, something that Miko (and Belkar, incidentally), could never do: understanding s/he was wrong. Remember that when Roy's soul was audited, the angel(?) told him that she would call him Neutral good and just be done with him, except that he keeps trying. V's already prepared to accept the consequences of hir actions (in particular, not contesting hir divorce), but if s/he can get away from hir guilt and get back on the adventure to save the world, s/he'll find redemption, one way or another.

Belkar is really good in bed

You know what they say with men big feet. Belkar has been able to successfully seduce several women of the course of the comic, even though he is the single most vile person on the planet, and must have a charisma score in the negatives. The only conclusion, he rolls nothing but 20s in bed.

V is The Nameless One

Having committed an act during his period as "Dark V" for which he believes there is no redemption for in one lifetime, V will seek immortality to use to redeem himself by doing a thousand lifetimes of good. But then he'll lose his memory. Repeatedly. And go insane.

Belkar will take one for the team...

..and get some Wisdom points, somehow. Just enough to cast a couple of healing spells via scrolls until they get Durkon back.

Belkar will get control of the Snarl

And he will kill it dead just to say he did. He will then be made a Halfling war-god, thereby fulfilling the prophecy as gods don't breathe.

• And Mr. Scruffy will ascend with him. They visit Lord Shojo on the weekends.

Vaarsuvius is going to help Durkon come to terms with being a vampire.

As thanks for the kindness and understanding he showed when V came back from that brush with Evil power, V's going to be Durkon's rock during the understandably difficult adaptation to "I'm now a bloodsucking undead monster." Bonus points if Durkon's the first one V is entirely honest with about the soul splice and the Familicide episode.

Durkon will cast Reincarnation or some other Raising the dead spell on himself.

Following a character arc about accepting others, as he's now in a evil person's shoes. He'll come out less lawful and more good.

Belkar's fake character growth will result in real, dramatic character growth... and that was Shojo's plan all along.

Obviously there's already hints of a change in his personality, especially in the last few comics. There's been other little things too, like aiding with Gannji and Enor's escape due to empathizing with him. Now, we all know Shojo was one of the greatest manipulators and chessmasters the OOTS world has ever seen, so who's to say this wasn't his plan all along? Hell, he may have even expected Belkar to break the Mark of Justice's terms sooner or later and that's why Belkar had a vision of him. It all works out: introduce the psychopath to a new methodology that sounds appealing and is more beneficial to him than what he's currently doing. As time goes on, he becomes that new person for real.

Plus, the Mark's passphrase was "Evolve or Die." Though even Shojo couldn't have expected the possibility of both happening.

Blackwing isn't a raven

And no, I'm not saying he's a crow. He has yellow legs and bill: he's a damn blackbird.

He even implies it himself: who ever heard of four and twenty ravens baked in a pie?

Elan has to step up his game and/or Roy will have to Multiclass into a Cleric

With the corruption of Durkon the Order is severely crippled and will need a healer fast. Well with the LG and Big bad breathing down their collective necks the order will not have time to find a devoted healer with Durkon's skill level. That would mean someone within the gang may have to step up to the plate. First is Elan who has all ready devoted his time to learning better healing spells and can cast mass heal light wounds among other things, so he may do in a pinch. Second is the less obvious Roy. There has been no indication that Roy want's to be anything other than a fighter but an angel once asked him why he wasn't a cleric with his decent wisdom and charisma scores. Now with what happened Roy will be forced to multi-class.

• Another bit of foreshadowing is Roy's snark in the fourth panel.

Belkar will resurrect Durkon

As a Ranger, Belkar's technically a divine caster, although lacking the Wisdom stat to even use his spells. The group will acquire a scroll with the Resurrection spell, allowing a Wisdom-buffed-to-the-extreme Belkar to bring Durkon back after staking him. The buffing will result either from a combination of paid-for Wish spells and Owl's Wisdom, or other spells that Vaarsuvius could cast or purchase the use of.

• Except Resurrection is not a Ranger Spell, and thus Belkar does not even have a chance of using a Resurrection spell. Haley has a better chance since Use Magic Device is a Rogue skill.

Vaarsuvius' gender will be revealed...

...via a Groin Attack.

• Ehh, being kicked in the groin hurts for males and females, enough to leave some ambiguity at least.

V's Prophecy is only half done

As in to say, that while she had fulfilled the 'right four words to the right people at the right time for all the wrong reasons', she has not gained 'Ultimate Arcane Power' yet. This is because those words didn't EARN her it yet but instead set her on the path to it, which, given how the Oracle works, probably fits the prophecy.

Belkar has become a Death Seeker.

Based on what we see in the Lotus-Eater Machine.

• Not exactly jossed, but his death in the fantasy has a different explanation.

Belkar's going to be pissed at the Order when he realizes in the Lotus-Eater Machine illusion, his so-called allies resurrected neither him nor Mr. Scruffy.

He won't betray them now, because his leverage at the moment is minimal, but the moment they're back at civilization, he's ditching them.

• He doesn't know they died, thanks to Roy finagling his way out of a straight answer.

Hel wants Durkula to control the Snarl

It needs a Divine Caster, so maybe she'll want Durkon to take Redcloak's place.

Team Evil will capture a gate, but not know where to go from there.

The overarching plan sounds simple: obtain a gate, be able to control it, and use it to threaten the gods. However, it's a hassle to get the gods to grant healing spells, let alone giving them demands. Considering the lack of ties to the human gods on the Team, it'll take a while for them to overcome that roadblock.

Roy will use it when V vanishes next

When the IFF next drags V out of body, Roy will deduce that whatever V was doing or arguing for is the right thing, as the fiends want to stop it.

• Or, alternatively, they'll expect this (since Blackwing's already done the "You clearly don't want me to do it" gag, to the IF Fs' less intelligent minion no less) and yank V away to influence Roy into a foolish course of action (or maybe Roy'll realise this and be back at square one guesswise).

The four words from V's prophecy

Pass me that doily

One or more members of the Order of the Stick are related to a member of the Order of the Scribble

...Um I don't really have much proof of this other than the groups both consisting of an elf, a dwarf, a halfling and 3 humans. Durkon and Kraagor both have the same hair (and beard) color and the two dwarfs also have simalir skintone.

Belkar will be killed and undeadified by Xykon.

It's simple, really. Xykon is most likely the only thing powerful enough to put an end to Death's Li'l Helper, and it would explain why the rest of the Order doesn't just run out and raise him.

• Or he'll fall into (?) a rift, and be unmade.
  • Or he'll fall into a rift and spend the rest of his life on the planet within the rift, which is revealed to be the Oracle's blind spot.

V's necromancer soul will end up with Tsukiko before the underworld entities can track her down.

Possibly giving her spells or information on V and the group, and possibly (if the splice requires only for a soul to be set up for splicing rather than the splice to be prepared and the souls just added to the spell) but less likely, splicing herself with Tsukiko. (And we don't know that she's not one of those biophiliacs that creep Xykon out so much.)

The strip after Belkar dies...

Someone who is upset at Belkar's death, probably Elan, will list off most of the non-death ideas suggested on the forums and this page, just to mock how wild and crazy the fans are, before getting shot down as one last "He's DEAD, dammit!". Because Rich has done it before.

Mr. Scruffy is the Big Good.

When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

Belkar's Mama Bitterleaf sent to the old folks home will turn out to be Sarini, and the sixth gate is in possession of the halflings, found before joining the Order of the Scribble.

Exposure to the Snarl made all of halfling kind sociopathic, and Sarini was shipped there due to being too kind for her own good, plus turning an entire race insane. Alternatively, she pretended to be the heart of the team and obfusicated stupidity to learn the other locations of the Snarl Rifts so halfling kind could secretly take control of the world using a variant of Redcloak's ritual. Heck, I'll even throw out there she's the final boss of the comic, because NO ONE would see that coming.

Roy will figure out someone else is controlling Durkon because...

... "Durkon" will mention that the Oracle is a kobold, something only Roy would know in the party.

Belkar will find out before Roy, forcing the High Priest of Hel to vampirize Belkar to be his thrall.

Which will satisfy the Oracle's prophecy, and he and Belkar will terrorize the Dwarven homelands (Belkar being more than thrilled, of course.)

The players of the characters are the characters from Sluggy Freelance

Or wice-versa. The mapping is too exact to be not true.

The High Priest of Hel's hunger for anything that will help him imitate Durkon will lead to him being discovered

To acquire the knowledge he needs faster, he'll start listening to the Order talking about the group's common adventures. He may end up with flase/Metaphorically True information (that he doesn't cross-check), something that Durkon didn't know of before the conversation (and lack the appropriate reaction) or missing a small but important detail about a certain subject (that Durkon could conceal from him while showing him absolutely everything else and giving the illusion of cooperating).

[[WMG: The Order of the Stick will fight the Light WarriorsThe Light warriors will be presented as Shadow Archetypes for the Order.Black Mage represents V's power gone horribly wrong and Belkar turning even worse.Red Mage represents Genre Savvieness being mixed with a complete lack of concern for heroism, much like Elan's father, and being wrong.Thief represents Haley's greed becoming even worse and with no justification and using a contract to manipulate his teammates, something Roy had to grow out of.Fighter represents the image of idiotic fighters that Roy despises.Durkon doesn't get an archetype, because the Light Warriors are what the Order would turn into if Durkon wasn't there to help them.

Elan's last name is important to the plot and the finale

All the heroes have had their last names revealed. The plot said earlier that names are important and it's even saved the life of Daigo that one time and they're saving his last name for an important occasion. Maybe we'll find out in the final chapter?

---

Vaarsuvius will join with Redcloak in a Face–Heel Turn after Xykon is defeated.

Redcloak's plan to use the Snarl to blackmail the Gods into remaking the world requires a powerful divine spellcaster (who can be Redcloak himself) and a powerful Arcane Caster. Currently, the role of Arcane Caster is allocated to Xykon, whose defeat the heroes are concentrating on. Once he's out of the way, Vaarsuvius (a powerful arcane caster who has been prophesized to gain complete and total ultimate power by "saying the right four words to the right being at the right time for all the wrong reasons") may join with Redcloak to remake the world in a way that benefits elves. He's been shown to be amoral, though not as obviously so as Belkar, and so this makes for a good Ass Pull.

• Since bards are also Arcane Casters, it's possible that Elan could do this - though the "powerful" part might be a sticking point.
  • Elan's Evil Twin brother Nale is also in the running, though with his unfavourable multiclassing, he is probably no better at arcane magic than Elan (and significantly worse than any of the dedicated wizards).
  • In fact, let's go ahead and say that Elan will play a role in unleashing the Snarl, which leads to visions of Vaarsuivius appearing to everyone and performing some symbolic action just before they dissolve into the "fabric of reality", which is some weird goo, as everything makes even less sense than before and weird religious symbolism appears everywhere, ultimately ending up with Elan and Haley as the last two people on Earth. On the bright side, the giant naked figure of Vaarsuivius stretching out of the stratosphere will finally prove hir gender once and for all. ..unless V is facing the other way, giving everyone a generous view of his/her butt. (The presence or absence of dangly parts could still be a giveaway.)
• V's four words: "I will join you."
  • It appears to have been "I... I must succeed". Though granted, that's really less four words and more three words, with a stammer.
    • What if those aren't the four words mentioned in the prophecy, and the prophecy actually hasn't been fulfilled yet, with the arc with the IFC a red herring in that regard? After all, by one interpretation of the events, V didn't obtain ultimate arcane power, since, as we know, he was beaten by Xykon in their magic duel.
    • Xykon explained it in his power equals power speech: because V didn't work for his power, he was unable to properly wield it and was defeated.
• Alternately, V will join with Redcloak, who does a Heel–Face Turn after Xykon betrays his lackey to probable death. It does seem like the kind of thing Xykon would pull.
  • What if Redcloak does the Heel–Face Turn to betray Xykon before Xykon betrays him. Redcloak hates Xykon and the only reason he didn't smash his phylactery is because he can't admit he teamed up with him for nothing. He does however now have a whole city that is policalty stable for goblins to call their own. It is the equal footing his kind need so he might be able to forget The Plan and say Xykon outlived his purpose after the siege and just needed the right opportunity to kill him. Well what better opportunity when the Order attacks him. Then he has the reason and means to cut his losses, kill Xykon and go back to building an actual future for the gobliniods with Azure city. The think that the Order would agree to it because Roy's father's blood oath is on Xykon and only Xykon.
• Another take on this: V does not pull a Face Heel Turn but is present at the final showdown at the foot of the last Gate. Utterly by chance, he recites the mantra which unlocks it and somehow gains all of Snarl's power for himself. May or may not lend itself to an NGE ending — though if it did, stratospheric V's goody bits would be covered by a Mysterious Impenetrable Shroud of Power, or clouds.
• Tsukiko is a huge monkey wrench to any theory on this subject. She's a Mystic Theurge aligned with the bad guys. That makes her a divine caster and an arcane caster. This could mean she could fill in on either side of the above equation, or perhaps on both.
  • She's being groomed as a replacement for Redcloak, and is totally ignorant of Xykon's scheme. That's the two-part ritual that the MitD solved. Xykon knows that Redcloak is hiding something, and Tsukiko is Xykon's ticket out of their deal. Well...was...
• This makes sense. Both the Elves and the Goblins had to raise their own gods. Perhaps Vaarsuvius will either become or already is the elf god and Vaarsuvius's plan is the same as the Dark One's. The two team up for massive damage.
  • ...on the other hand, it would certainly explain why V says, in Origin of PCs, that he breaks more natural laws before breakfast then Roy will in a lifetime, because what Wizard would waste that many of his precious spells per day on something that early?
    • Breaking more natural laws than a pure core fighter isn't hard.
    • Prestidigitation is a cantrip, and it wash your equipment, hair and nails (are teeth living? If not it can also clean them), all things you would want to do before breakfast. I think that breaks more laws than Roy has ever done under his own power.
    • Well, OtOoPCs actually says that V breaks more natural laws than Roy is even aware of. I guess it still qualifies.
• ...And then they get married!! Squee!!!
  • That... actually might be remotely plausible. (considering V is female... then again, Redcloak hasn't confirmed his preferences) Both have something in common; they started with noble goals, but went too far, sacrificed what was important to them, and realised it too late, but plodded on with their course because they've sacrified too much to let it fail. At the very least, they've got something to talk about.
    • You DO know there's a pretty long Fan Fic on that topic? You can read it in the official Forum's "Crack Pairings" Thread-Compilation.
    • And it has a TVTropes page. Redcloak/Vaarsuvius OTP.

The whole party is controlled by giant space cats, and Xykon is from modern Earth.

Word of God says so...◊

Vaarsuvius will join the Linear Guild.

Nale was talking about how they need a new spellcaster. Sabine works for overfiend guys, who think Nale has lots of evil potential. V and the Linear Guild have no particular animosity towards each other (V probably hates Elan more by this point) and V also seems to want to find Durkon and Elan for some rather unpleasant reasons. More little stuff like that. Perhaps the four words for the wrong reasons are a second deal granting actual dominion over V's soul in exchange for power like he had before Haerta left permanently.

• The reason V seemed to be looking for Elan and Durkon seems to be that s/he wanted to show off when she found Haley.
  • So V wants to say 'Ha ha you suck losers I hate you look how much more awesome I am than you. Watch as I solve the problem you've made no progress on in six+ months!' Look how pissed V gets when the possibly about-to-die to make V seem worse Daigo and Kazumi point out Elan and Durken already know where Haley is. He/she was not going to be friendly, and already had sort of stopped caring about Xykon. Now he/she will be even angrier at them.

The Order will die in the final battle against Xykon and be resurrected

Elan's "happy ending" doesn't refer to the end of the comic.

Rather, it refers to the "end" of the current father-son conflict. I don't think I can put it any better than Tarquin:

• "The end of what, son? The story? There is no end, there's just a point at which the storytellers stop talking."
• "If I win, I get to be a king. If I lose, I get to be a legend. I'll inspire a thousand more leaders to follow in my footsteps. And it'll all be thanks to you, my boy."
  • He's Genre Savvy enough to know that only his heroic son can defeat him; he should also be savvy enough to know that he won't be able to kill him. He'll probably have to fake his death in a No One Could Survive That! scene, which again may be part of his gambit.
    • Yeah, or he is Wrong Genre Savvy and he ends killed by Nale, so he doesn't get to be niether a king nor a legend, as he wasn't killed by a hero.
• Considering Elan's love for the dramatic I always thought his happy ending would be death by Heroic Sacrifice. Because, really, what would Elan want more than to die epically in some amazing sacrifice.
  • That's not a happy ending. A happy ending, for an idealist like Elan, would be living happily ever after.

Vaarsuvius is another AU version of Tedd from El Goonish Shive

It makes so much sense!

• If that were the case, wouldn't he/she have specialized in Transmutation?

Belkar is going to turn into an Eldritch Abomination

Or something else that doesn't need to breathe to survive.

Belkar has longer to live than Roy thinks

Yes, he'll die before the end of the year-but which year? We've already seen at least two calenders with different new years (northern and southern), who's to say the oracle wasn't using a kobald calender? I think Roy will do some things that he wouldn't do if he didn't know belkar was going to die very soon, and it will bite him in the ass when belkar doesn't die as soon as he thought.

• It could also be 'one year from this point' meaning that Belkar will die within a year since the Oracle made that prophecy.

Durkon will return home alive

He asked how he would "finally" be returning home. As in, the final time. So it seems likely that he will return home at least once before he dies, bringing death and destruction with him (this jives more with Law of Conservation of Detail), leave, then return again when he dies to be buried in what remains of his caves.

• Thank you. I knew I couldn't be the only person who noticed that. Only two things were revealed by Durkon's fortune: 1) He will die outside the dwarven lands, because he could not otherwise return posthumously at all. 2) He will be returned to his homelands following that death. He can return as many times as he wants until that last fateful exit and gruesome return.
• Probably Jossed, with his becoming a vampire making it possible to fulfill both prophecies.

Elan's plan is for Durkon to cast Detect Good on Tarquin.

Elan comes up with his plan after Roy says the phrase "But I think in your case, it's better to find that sense of family among people that are good than it is to find a sense of good inside your family". Elan, being Elan, ignores the actual sentiment of Roy's statement and latches on to the words "sense" and "good". His plan is to prove that his father has good in him by having Durkon use magic to show everyone his alignment. What else would he need Durkon for? Of course, this will backfire spectacularly when Durkon casts his spell and proves that Tarquin is evil through and through, causing Elan to suffer a Heroic BSoD and then finally get the resolve to defeat his father.

• Unlikely, given that Elan has now accepted his father isn't going to change easily (if at all).

Elan's Plan is to call his mother in

Roy's statement about finding family in people who are good instead of good in family reminded Elan about his Chaotic Good mother, that unnamed barmaid. Elan had Durkon cast a sending telling her about Tarquin's evil. When Elan's mom arrives, there'll be some touching reunions... then she'll sue Tarquin for unpaid alimony. The utter absurdity of it all (Plus the amount being charged) will not only bankrupt the Empire of Blood, but also torpedo Tarquin's plan of having a totally badass finish.

• It's one of the perfect ways for his "go out in an epic fashion" plan to fail! Seconded!

Roy's plan of destroying Girard's Gate will NOT end well.

I've noticed that the destruction of the gates tend to have some pretty odd effects on the areas around them. Azure city currently has purple skies,and a big gaping hole in the sky. It's also highly possible that destroying further gates increases the effect they have on their areas around them. Destroying Girard's Gate could lead to bigger immediate problems.

The Order will forgive V for the Familicide incident once s/he explains what happened.

Mostly because of awesome You Are Better Than You Think You Are lines from Elan. Example:

• "Look. What you did... was wrong. Completely wrong. If we were in a certain horror setting, Act of Ultimate Darkness, permanent monstrous traits may-become-evil-overlord-of-own-prison wrong. You're going to spend the rest of your life trying to clean the blood off your hands for the harm you callously inflicted out of spite. But the thing is... you're bothering to clean them. That says a lot about you, and none of it is bad."
• YES.

Elan will make Tarquin look like a hero.

Elan and the Order of the Stick will launch an attack on the Empire of Blood and kill Tarquin. Elan will then disguise himself as his father (using illusions or his armor) and slay the Empress of Blood and "die" in the process. They will also take down all of Tarquin's remaining teammates either before or after (or simultaneous attacks).

Now, no matter what anybody says, Tarquin will be hailed as a deep-cover hero who died valiantly to free the Western Continent from the reins of villainy. His villainy will be forgotten and the entire thing will be pinned on the Empress of Blood, so nobody will ever be inspired to become a similar villain (because you can't decide to become a dragon).

Durkon will vamp Belkar.

There's a massive army bearing down on the Order, the most powerful member of the team is still AWOL, and Durkon already drained most of Belkar's blood as Malack's thrall. Vamping him will give the Order the strength boost it needs to win, and will fulfill the Oracle's prophecy.

• While its jossed as to the army of Tarquin, Belkar being vamped by Durkon can still happen, given that there's still time before the in-campaign year ends.

Elan will suddenly become smart one day.

First, its just too funny to have Elan freaking everybody out with his newly acquired brains. As a kid, he was hit on the head a bunch by Nale. This results in Intelligence damage. One or the restoration spells should be able to heal that damage. Note that he's never had that spell cast on him. So someday he will suffer some ability score drain, get greater restoration cast on him and find that he gets back those lost intelligence points. Alternately, at some point he will end up with a headband of intelligence meant for Varsuuvius for a little while for a more temporary gag.

Belkar is getting set up for a Redemption Equals Death that will be an In-Universe Alas, Poor Scrappy.

Belkar will commit an unexpectedly noble self-sacrifice that will save the day, or assist pivotally in saving the day. Everyone who dislikes or even hates him will mourn him and remember him fondly...even if they can't remember any specific thing he's ever done that they were fond of.

Belkar has multiple personality disorder.

This troper has no evidence to back it up, but it would be interesting.It may poke a loophole in the Oracle's prophecy, in that Belkar, the dominant personality, will die, but the other personality/s are still alive. Bonus points if there are two of them that are both as evil and sociopathic as we've seen so far, but one goes by a different name and survives.It also may explain his character development (if it's real, that is). Another one of his personalities is trying to influence the dominant one.

• This may also explain the lead sheet he carries around to prevent people from using Detect Evil on him. If Belkar does have multiple personalities, it's possible that not all of them would be evil, and then perhaps the spell would even out as neutral?

Elan will have a Rage Against the Heavens/Rage Against the Author moment, combined with a 10-Minute Retirement.

All his friends keep getting killed, possessed, or otherwise put through the wringer throughout his adventures. And he's seen what happens when his obsession with tropes and stories gets out of hand: his father, Tarquin. Not to mention all the innocent bystanders who suffer because they get caught up in the adventures of the Order of the Stick (like the Azurites). If this keeps up, he might just lose his faith in the Theory of Narrative Causality and renounce his bardic ways: "If everyone else has to suffer so I get a happy ending, then that's no happy ending at all!"

Belkar knows about Durkon's possession.

His insistence (and spot-on accurancy) that Durkon is not actually Durkon is noteworthy, even considering he still has a grudge for getting bitten. He just cannot reveal how he actually knows for some reason, and so he is forced to find other contrived reasons.

• It's probably more a gut feeling more than anything combined with personal experience of being evil, and lacking wisdom and charisma, can't articulate it.

Roy will kill Belkar in order to protect Durkon.

Possibly in the next strip or two. Belkar will make the point that the thunderstorm wouldn't be happening if it weren't for Durkon being vampirized in order to justify staking him while he's preoccupied with the Control Weather spell. Roy will misinterpret this, thinking that Belkar really is trying to sink them, and knock him off the Mechane to keep him from attacking Durkon. The rest of the party (except possibly Elan) won't care, since Belkar was an evil jerk who deserved it long ago, but it will set up a conflict for Roy once it's clear that Belkar was acting in the party's best interests after all, possibly leading to a My God, What Have I Done? moment.

• Didn't happen the way it was originally outlined, but it might come up again. Having Belkar die from team-killing would also explain why the Order won't just rezz him: it's not that he can't be revived, but he won't want to be.

Roy and/or Hayley know that Durkon isn't himself.

They're probably only Obfuscating Stupidity to lull him into a false sense of security and make sure that he sticks around. Like with Belkar, its better to have him around and under control than to let him run around doing god knows what.

Durkla will be killed... by a tree!

It would make a great bit of irony, Durkon, who hates trees, has his soul rescued by a tree.

• Come to think of it, wooden stakes *are* a big part of the vampire mythos...

Belkar will be disgusted by his afterlife.

At whatever stage it happens, by the time his soul leaves his body it won't be Chaotic Evil, but he (and we) won't realise it until he sees his afterlife.

Elves have three genders.

There are clearly male and female elves around. And there is a third, sterile hermaphroditic minority to which V (and Inky) belong.

Durkula's weakness is being Wrong Genre Savvy

He actually spelled it out in #1000: "Assuming is like breathing. You only really notice you've been doing it when you stop". He can get what he wants from Durkon, but only if he thinks of requesting it and he may have made some assumptions to save time:

• Wrong assumption number one: Durkon and Belkar having a shared secret due to being part of the same team.
• Wrong assumption number two: Domination working on Roy, something the real Durkon would have never attempted in the first place because he knows Roy is strong-willed.

Veldrina and Wrecan will replace Durkon and Belkar

Roy doesn't seem to realize that Durkon is being controlled by a spirit of Hel and will probably suggest not resurrecting him once he's destroyed. While it's unlikely that Belkar survived that fall and that there will be much to recover from that height. So they need a new primary healer and secondary melee combatant.

Belkar will become a vampire.

We all know about the prophecy that said Belkar won't live past the end of the year, and after being thrown off the mountain he's climbing into a temple full of vampires. He also has a notoriously difficult time fighting vampires. One of the undead clerics will turn him and make him a vampire as well... but he will regain his free will very quickly and use the newfound stat bonuses to tear a path through the place and (re-)kill Durkula. Not only will the higher stats boost his fighting ability but it also gives him immunity to the mind-control Durkula has been using to restrain him. Additionally, he has no reason to turn on the team even if an evil spirit takes up residence in his head like with Durkon because he's already evil. This would let Veldrina resurrect Durkon as himself, with the benefit of knowing Protection from Daylight to cast on vampire Belkar.

• The Oracle only stated that Belkar would "draw his last breath" before the end of the year. As vampirified-Durkon (Lurkon?) demonstrated while he and Roy scoured the gnomes' town for a Resurrection-capable cleric, vampires (and presumably other undead) do not normally breathe. It seems a fairly similar setup to how Durkon was foretold to return home "posthumously", yet has now done so after dying and becoming a vampire. With the Order going after Lurkon and his associated spawn, it's a distinct possibility that Belkar may yet get turned later in the storyline (possibly for no reason beyond gaining an advantage in battle).

Membership of the Order will (at least temporarily) include Hilgya as a replacement Durkon.

They're in need of a new cleric, and they're heading into dwarven lands. If she can convince them that she was never allied with their enemies then she'll become a member, either to help save the world (because Loki doesn't want it destroyed), to help save Durkon (because she still has feelings for him) or to get the chance to attack Durkon (because hell hath no fury).

After the gates are re-secured, the Order will fix Kraagor's statue.

And they'll change the epithet to "No Sacrifice is Forgotten".

Elan is reborn from the Wheel of Time universe.

• His old name is Elan Morin Tedronai, also known as Ishmael.

The gods of Elan and the orcs will at least tie the god vote

The current arc involves (spoiler alert)the vote of the gods on whether to destroy the world or not.Thanks to Elan, he is the equivalent of the high priest of Banjo, and the orcs may well have an actual high-level cleric for Giggles.Whether they tie the vote, or make the overall vote "No", depends on whether they get to vote in some other pantheon, or only their own.

Belkar while get a wisdom upgrade during level up, changing who he is forever

Picture the scene, most of the order (or possibly just his cat) are badly injured and Belkar is the only one who can heal them, so he sacrifices who he was to save another. The wisdom upgrade won't be enough to turn him into who he was under the owls wisdom spell, but enough to allow spell casting.

Roy's sword contains a fragment of the power of the Eastern gods

Strip 1141 reveals many things of the nature of the universe, the gods, and the Snarl. In particular it reveals that in order to combat the Snarl at least four colors must be needed, something that hasn't been true since the Eastern gods faded from existence... but Roy's sword glows green, the same color as their "quiddity". This can't be coincidental.

Haley is already pregnant

No real reason except Haley and Elan have been sleeping with each other for a while now. And Elan, while he is an arcane caster, does not seem to be the type of man who'd remember to use a Protection spell each time.

Minrah is in love with Durkon

Remember when Thor told her that he wouldn't spoil her secret? That secret is she's in love with Durkon. It even explains why she's so interested in joining the Order, and it isn't just because she wants to help with the Snarl. (She could help in many other, far more effective ways such as organizing dwarf clerics to study it, for example.) It's Foreshadowed by her talking about shipping her cousin because life's too short to not pursue romance.

Alternatively, Minrah is in love with Belkar.

All the stuff about Minrah being interested in joining the order and life being short not to pursue romance applies as in the above WMG, but A. Minrah didn't get much of a chance to interact with Durkon prior to both entering the afterlife, B. She gives Belkar an epic You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech that puts Roy's to shame, and C. That was only the second heart-to-heart they had, the first being when Belkar unloaded his conflicting feelings about Durkon here. For bonus points, Belkar might actually reciprocate these feelings given that he sat in on Elan explaining the plot to Minrah and decided to talk to her on what spells she could cast on his own, without prompting from anyone.

• That more hints that Belkar is attracted to Minrah, which would make one helluva Love Dodecahedron, since Durkon still cares for Hilgya.

Roy's sword doesn't normally bypass Sabine's damage reduction

We've seen how negatively Sabine reacts when a material that can bypass her DR does. Compare this to how she reacts when Roy is hitting her with his sword, where she's holding a casual conversation with him. What is likely happening is that Roy's +5 sword is able to reliably inflict so much damage that her 10/DR Cold Iron or Good doesn't do much. Without the starmetal, ignoring BAB, Roy gets a +6 to hit (+1 weapon focus, +1 masterwork sword, +4 strength) and deals about 2d6+8 (greatsword damage +2 specialization +1.5 his strength modifier). Pretty good, but because of Damage Reduction he's still only averaging ~5 damage a hit plus whatever he puts into Power Attack (but that could lower his DPR as Power Attack reduces the chance to hit). However, with his +5 sword, he's got +10 to hit (+1 weapon focus, +5 magic sword, +4 strength), and deals deals about 2d6+13 (greatsword damage +2 specialization +1.5 his strength modifier +5 magic sword) for an average of 20 damage, and he can take a -4 penalty to Power Attack and still hit as reliably as he did without a magic sword, bringing the average up to 28. Even with a -10 damage, that's an average of about 10-18 damage a hit, which is no small chunk of change for a succubus. And when he gets the magic green glow, it's probably getting an extra 2d6 on top of that that is not subject to DR.

Haley doesn't wear underwear

From other girls like Samantha, Tsukiko, and Therkla we know modern looking female underwear exist. And despite seeing Haley nearly naked or even half naked, we never seen her in underwear. Her wardrobe malfunction was off-screen, the black outfit Nale gave her didn't had a place for a bra, and when they were on the worm, there and Elan lifted her shirt, there were no bra clasp was visible. Her not wearing panties have less evidence, but the one we have is pretty conclusive. During Blood in the Family, when she did the Godiva hair bit, she kept her pants on.And while we could do a being naked, means invisible thing as a reason (And Elan probably would have said something about her being invisible), It's strange that she was not topless in panties instead of being topless with regular pants. The only conclusion we can draw from this, is that she didn't wanted to wait naked, but because she didn't had panties, she had to keep her pants on. (This is a joke wmg obviously)

Belkar was in Fight Club

In strip #1268, he mentions he knows how to make soap. He learned in Fight Club. He tells people not to ask him why he knows how to do that sice, as we all know, the first rule of fight club is, you don't talk about fight club.