Elf Only Inn is a webcomic by Josh Sortelli, available here.The comic follows the events in a roleplaying chatroom, which often deviate from the intended roleplaying, and parodies some personality types one's likely to find online, from the uptight moderator to the annoying and oblivious newbie. Later on, the characters move to a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, which slightly changes the previous character dynamics - for example, some actions can no longer simply be ignored as they were in the text-based chatroom.The comic seems to have been set into an infinite hiatus on Monday, May 5, 2008 and has been discontinued since.Character Sheet
Overall tropes:
Aborted Arc: The comic was about to start a D&D game, went on hiatus for over two years, and the setting suddenly shifted from a chat room to an MMORPG.
Cross Player: King Herman. First revealed in said crossover, interestingly enough, though little attention was drawn to it.
Creator Breakdown: One of the last things mentioned by the author was that he had a huge fight with his wife when he said he was going to do the comic again. After the comic stopped again and he dropped out of touch, whenever he does show up fans avoid bringing it or the comic up.
Cut Short: It seemed to have ended a few times, one of the latest times to remake itself to change the setting. It has now not since been updated since 2008, in the midst of a storyline dealing with multiple character interactions, including Duke and his father.
Hah! The mods? The mods have abandoned us! Where were the mods when the demon burned down the forest? Where were the mods when the Dorum brothers sacked their own city? The mods don't care. Do the mods ever even answer when you call them?
Megan can come across as a Straw Liberal at times. Her friend King Herman is also liberal, but more down-to-earth.
Woot uses one to confuse people by claiming he's the victim of Republican propaganda.
The Roleplayer: Lord Elf in a nutshell. He routinely criticizes the others for not being elves or properly roleplaying their characters, tries to enforce roleplaying (with threats of banning) and routinely sets up odd scenarios, usually for the purpose of cybering with M'Lady. After the genre change, he ignores most of the game in favor of roleplaying as an innkeeper, and, when killed, refuses to talk to people until properly rezzed. He also calls Lilith out (and congratulates her) on the same thing after she deliberately switches to a badly battered avatar after taking a beating (since hitpoint damage by default doesn't affect your appearance).
Throw the Dog a Bone: Twice. slave (lack of capitalization intentional), one of the annoying vampire fanboys, gets to think he beat Lord of Dorkness by dressing up like Tuxedo Mask and throwing a rose at him. Later, Lord Elf actually ends up marginally useful during the "Necromrun.icon" arc.
Unresolved Sexual Tension: Throughout the entire series it is made very clear that Duke and Megan have a thing for each other, though nothing ever comes of it.
Fan: Before the rude and the ungrateful chime in, may I simply pass on the desires of a longtime fan? An ending. Just let us know where they went from there. NONE of the characters were happy, and most of them deserved to be. Yeah.. they aren't real people, but they made me, and many others, happy for a while. Could you do your fans a favor and lay them to ease, if not rest?
Sortelli: Well... April and Percey never get together. Duke and Megan do, but only after a lot of nonsense and Gothgrrl getting in the middle. Duke and his dad come to an understanding. Woot and Barbi have nasty sex. That's about as far as things got in my head.
Animesque: When the chatroom gets the sponsoring of foreign company, the avatars all change to this style, with the exception of Goku666 and Hambonetaru-Chan (who already fit).
Fantastic Racism: Although the titular inn is meant to be only for elves, this is the most often broken rule - human characters often drop by, although the Vulcan Nimoy goes around unidentified for quite some time.
Hell, of all the characters in the entire comic, there are only three-and-a-half elves, one of them being an elf (half).
Fur and Loathing: Megan attacks Herman for this when he dresses up as Santa.
God Modders: Goku666 somewhat, but especially Lord of Dorkness.
Naughty Tentacles: Lord Woot is a fan of this, plus his avatar has tentacles.
Official Couple: The closest thing to a official couple the comic ever had was Megan and Woot. Though once he visited her offline and saw she wasn't exactly a nubile elven damsel, they broke up.
Note that Woot says this in response to Megan being the first to shout "He is nothing like his character!" They do continue to meet offline several times after that, it's implied their personalities meant they made decent friends but clashed when trying to be romantic.
Only Six Faces: Parodied early on (in a way) with Goku666, who only has one face.
Otaku: Lord Wootsayediditagyn goes beyond fanboy to this with his creepy obsession with Britney Spears.
Our Elves Are Better: Aside from Lord Elf and Megan Ayrwyn, Lady is a star elf (half). Then there's Geoph, who's a dark elf (though everyone treats him like he's Black).
Straw Hypocrite: Lord Elf's stint as Reverend Strawman who eventually tries to ban God — actually the SysOp — from the chat. Megan sometimes come off as this, as well.
One could argue that the primary Take That jab is the existence of the webcomic itself (pre-genre shift, at least), mocking roleplaying chatrooms at large. In particular, the comic takes a shot at Illusionary Minds Chat, a chat site dedicated to roleplaying. Sortelli used to host a room on this site and various issues with the site's management led him to create a website called "We hate IMC," (now defunct and 404) summing up his issues with the site's administrators. Many of the early gags used in Elf Only Inn first made their appearance on this website.
The above-mentioned Reverend Strawman was a pretty blatant Take That at Preacher, being a holy man who claims to be in search of God to "grab him by the balls" and demand to know why he hasn't fixed the world and made everything perfect. God shows up and points out that fixing mortal problems is supposed to be the Reverend's job.
The Faceless: Sys Op and users with no clearly defined avatar appear as blocky, featureless dummies. The various NPCs Lord of Dorkness victimize does as well, although they only exist in his imagination since everyone real ignores him.
You Are a Credit to Your Race: Nimoy tells Geoff he's very well spoken for a dark elf. Geoff does not approve, less for the insult and more for getting fed up with the whole race issue.
The Load: Lord Elf is about as useless as ever—even more so now that he has no mod powers. He's only level 2, because he never does anything beyond sitting around in his inn, roleplaying being an innkeeper.
.The comic follows the events in a roleplaying chatroom, which often deviate from the intended roleplaying, and parodies some personality types one's likely to find online, from the uptight moderator to the annoying and oblivious newbie. Later on, the characters move to a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, which slightly changes the previous character dynamics - for example, some actions can no longer simply be ignored as they were in the text-based chatroom.The comic seems to have been set into an infinite hiatus on Monday, May 5, 2008 and has been discontinued since.Character Sheet
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