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.