This story follows the adventures of Explorington III, a valiant @ in the ASCII dungeons of
Angband. Bitter, cynical and just plain weird. And that's just the hero. A liking for, and knowledge of, the
Roguelike genre of games comes in handy when reading this three-day-a-week strip. You can read it
here
. (However, some browsers seem to have difficulty maintaining the page, as the page often shifts to a completely different website, and so this comic may no longer be available.)
Has nothing to do with
Tales from the Pit, a separate and totally unrelated webcomic.
Tropes featured include:
- After the End: This strip is a subversion.
- All Trolls Are Different: So you need this guide to tell them apart.
- Anticlimax: By your powers combined...
- Art Shift: Here.
- Auction: Auctioning off the One Ring may be harmful to your health.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: That is not the right way to use a Staff of Power! (You're supposed to lube it up first!)
- Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...: Here.
- Bond One-Liner: This strip does it with copious lampshading.
- Boss Battle: Lampshaded here.
- Brain Bleach: There are several examples.
- Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys: Here.
- Clip Show: Lampshaded here.
- Comeback Tomorrow: Only 33 minutes and 2 seconds late...
- Confessional: Angband players have a lot to confess.
- Consummate Liar: The kobold.
- Crack Pairing: Explorington ships Legolas/Balrog. (And is apparently a fan of The Very Secret Diaries.) invoked
- Cutting the Knot: Explorington solves riddles this way. And wins rock-paper-scissors games.
- Duck Season, Rabbit Season: Explorington can't get Sauron to fall for it.
- Explosive Breeder: Angband has them, so they have to show up eventually.
- Expospeak Gag: The troll.
- Fallen Angel: Morgoth takes "fallen" literally.
- Flat Earth Atheist: The whole point of this strip.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven / Fire and Brimstone Hell: Here.
- Fluffy Tamer: Explorington tries to play Tarrasque tamer in this strip. It doesn't go well.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Narsil, the indestructible blade that was broken.
- Gender Bender: Via reincarnation.
- Genius Bruiser: Trolls are often treated this way.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Subverted here when they turn out to agree with each other.
- A Good Name for a Rock Band: In the rant.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Angels aren't allowed to swear.
- Hollywood Jehovah's Witness: Or, well, Priests of Eru. Same thing.
- Homage: This guest strip is an homage to The Angband Comic, an earlier webcomic with a very similar premise. As is this later main-sequence strip.
- Hydra Problem: Don't attack death molds with a scythe of slicing.
- Ice Cream Koan: "Deep and serious" should not be confused with "meaningful and relevant".
- I Have This Friend: And he has trouble with premature ejaculation.
- I Know You Know I Know: Taken to absurdity here.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Or should that be a kobolditarian?
- Inflationary Dialogue: Inverted here.
- Intercontinuity Crossover:
- Jerkass: Explorington. Here's an example of why.
- Just Between You and Me: Morgoth claims that the Evil Villain Bible requires him to explain his big plans in exquisite detail. This also ends up doubling as Cool and Unusual Punishment.
- Lame Pun Reaction: The troll is not a fan of Explorington's puns.
- Let's Split Up, Gang: Invoked here.
- LOLCats: This strip.
- Look Behind You: The "Look! An obvious distraction!" Running Gag, which shows up here, here, and here.
- Lower Deck Episode: Several absurd examples, from the perspectives of a floor tile, a gold piece, a wall, a piece of paper, a trap, and a door.
- Mundane Utility: Sauron apparently uses the One Ring in the kitchen. What he uses it for is unclear.
- Mushroom Samba: A few examples. Then again, Angband itself has Mushrooms of Hallucination, so it was probably inevitable.
- My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels: Offscreen before this comic.
- Noodle Implements: "And don't forget to bring the whipped cream and a potato."
- Noodle Incident: Watermelons were involved.
- Oscar Bait: Parodied here.
- Overly-Long Name: A lampshaded example here.
- Parlor Game: Hide and seek.
- Parody Sue: This strip.
- Pig Latin: Kobolds are mean.
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: "Frasmillion".
- Preemptive Declaration: Mind the FTOW.
- Random Number God: Referred to by name, and acts usually in response to Tempting Fate.
- Recursive Acronym: The Recursive TRTC Creature.
- Recursive Reality: Explorington's Angband character is doing rather well.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: The only thing Explorington uses his time machine for... is to travel back in time and give the plans for it to himself.
- Rick Roll: Khamul trains the Vibration Hounds to Rick Roll Explorington.
- Right Behind Me: Poor orc.
- Rock-Paper-Scissors: Morgoth and Sauron prefer Hound, Vortex, Elemental.
- Save Scumming: Called out by name in this strip.
- Schedule Slip: Inverted. The plan was to run three strips a week, but the author ran five a week for about a year because his buffer was getting too big.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness / Talking Is a Free Action: Lampshaded here. The title of the strip is even "Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness".
- Shout Out:
- Spammer: here.
- Stable Time Loop: these two strips.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: "You'll never pin anything on me, you evil bastards!"
- Symbol Swearing: Actually, the kobold just likes punctuation.
- Tempting Fate:
- They Called Me Mad!: Explorington claims he was laughed at for stocking up on Potions of Weakness. And for creating... whatever this is.
- Three Wishes: Used here, not very productively.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Invoked by Explorington here.
- [Trope Name]: This strip.
- Very Special Episode: This strip parodies anti-drug PSAs. It would work better as an actual anti-drug PSA if Explorington didn't find one of the stoned people hilarious...
- Villain Episode: There are a number of strips focusing on Morgoth; notably this guest sequence.
- Villains Out Shopping: Again, this is frequent. Here's one example.
- We Were Rehearsing A Play: Morgoth and Sauron.
- Your Mom: This strip consists solely of Your Mom jokes.
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