Webcomic / Will Save World For Gold

Will Save World For Gold is a Web Comic which takes place in a RPG Mechanics 'Verse based on the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

It centers around a dysfunctional adventuring party consisting of the psychopathic eladrin warlord Ardon, who is joined by Odivallus, a down on his luck human sorcerer, Ell, a kind-hearted human paladin, Peanut, a brain-damaged kobold with a knack for disarming traps, and 7F-45, a snarky warforged who joins the party out of a desire to witness Ardon's messy death firsthand. The comic follows a distinct storyline while at the same time mocking various roleplaying game tropes.

The comic concluded in October of 2021.

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Tropes found in this webcomic:

• Anaphora: Used by Captain Yusan to show how much he cares about his ship:
  Captain Yusan: NOTHING is as valuable as my ship. My ship is my lady. My ship is my home. My ship... is freedom.
• And the Adventure Continues: The conclusion of the comic involves several short epilogues, including scenes of the still-living antagonists plotting revenge on at least one of the main cast members, with the final scene showing the reunited party including those who had previously died riding out to answer a new threat.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The warning right above each strip on the webpage reads "WARNING: The following comic contains violence, foul language, nudity, and 4th edition D&D jokes. Some readers may find it offensive."
• Bribe Backfire: Cannot Bribe the one legged badass.
  Captain Yusan: NOTHING is as valuable as my ship. My ship is my lady. My ship is my home. My ship... is freedom.
• Berserk Button: Never prove Fortyfive wrong. The results are not pretty.
  • Odivallus can get pretty jealous where Ell is concerned. Especially after finding Ardon in her room.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Eldarin culture is extremely sociopathic due to their advanced technology and enforcement of Medieval Stasis on the rest of reality, with a legal system intentionally built to favor the rich and powerful. Of course, most of this comes from Ardon's twisted viewpoint. Though when Eladrin culture is shown at work to the reader, it turns out Ardon was entirely correct.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Ardon found a strange brew in a cauldron, which he thinks might be poison, alive, or both. It turns out to be where all of the intelligence sapped by the magical stupidity curse being spread around ends up in.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Ardon tends to do this quite a bit. He's also apparently watched cartoons before.
  • Subverted by the fact that D&D mechanics are actually the physics of the world, so a lot of things that seem like breaking the fourth wall is actually normal for the inhabitants.
• Crapsaccharine World: Pretty much the entire series. What seems like an Adventure-Friendly World is artificially in constant danger and bloodshed because the technologically-advanced Eldarin keep it that way so they can stay on top of all the other races and harvest them for slaves and resources.
• Creator Cameo: An extra resembling the author can occasionally be seen in the background, looking out of everything from inn windows to locked tool sheds.
• Deadpan Snarker: Fortyfive, mainly directed towards Ardon.
• Death Trap: Either Dungeon, but especially the Goblin Dungeon.
  • All the dungeons that party goes through actually, even the basement of an old man.
• Determinator: Ardon's one redeeming trait; he always has a plan to keep fighting, even if he has to make one up on the spot.
• Deus ex Machina: Peanut's coincidental capture and movement to the same building as Ardon is captive in, and then moved to the same room, and left with a dagger, and able to function efficiently based on verbal commands and so on...
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: Referenced during the 2012 Christmas Special
• Doomed Hometown: Odivallus's Village
• Double Vision: Wise Woman's Apprentice in Odivallus's Dream, Conspicuously similar looking to a party member...
• Duct Tape for Everything: Ardon uses Universal Solvent for everything non-combat related. He'd be a spokesperson for it if he didn't have a monopoly on the stuff.
• Dungeon Punk: An RPG Mechanics 'Verse where The Eldarin have reached the Digital Age and do everything in their power to exploit and suppress the rest of the world, with an election process that worships the Seasons and lets any married Lord get away with literally any crime. They even created Hell by nuking the Elemental Chaos For Science!
• Dysfunction Junction: Ardon's relationships with... the entire party. Mostly centered around his attempts to command them.
  Ardon Fine, I don't need your cooperation. I can MAKE you attack. Commander's Strike!
  Fortyfive Commander's Strike is not a compulsion. I am free to choose not to attack.
  Ardon I was hoping you didn't know that.
  Ell We are the WORST party!
• Eaten Alive: Gilam after a Heroic Sacrifice, the creature devouring him voices regret due to his taste, a twist on Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": No one knows Peanut's real name, but they just call him Peanut because the bar patrons named him that.
• Flashback Nightmare: Invoked by Mora, who invades Ell's dreams and turns them from nonsense into memories of Ell's time at the orphanage.
  Mora: Any old murderer could make your life flash before your eyes. But I'm the only one that will sit and watch it with you.
• Flipping the Bird: Ardon expresses his displeasure with Fortyfive's latest bit of spiteful noncooperation on 12/11/2012.
• Flat "What": Torrin reacts this way when Ardon gets over his fear of spiders.
• Foe Romance Subtext: "You are my hunter's Quarry" scene in Comic 504
• From Bad to Worse: Gold Elite Ooze creatures to... A Dragon, also the Big Bad
• Funny Background Event: Frequently. Notably Ardon and Fortyfive trying to pick out a weapon for Peanut.
  Ardon: What do you think? Dagger?
  Fortyfive: I believe there is a good chance he is proficient. However, I also suspect giving him a sharp metal object will have negative repercussions.
  Ardon: Pfft, what's the worst that could happen? Here, try this one, Kobold... HE STABBED HIMSELF IN THE EYE!
  Fortyfive: You should learn to listen to me.
• Genre Savvy: Used a lot and, at several points, subverted.
• Handicapped Badass: Captain Yusan.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Ardon, who basically wants fame and fortune without being too picky about how he gets it.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Glend pulls the first one in the Dire's castle. Much more surprisingly, Ardon as well in an effort to save Odivallus.
• Hybrid Monster: Owlbear, Ardon's Guardian Animal spirit. This is due to his mother being the Lady of the Owls, and his father being the Lord of the Bears.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: NOBODY talks like that to a member of Ardon's party except HIM!
• I Call It "Vera": Ardon's Various Loot, Named based on use.
  Ardon Lord Chopington... Sir Stabsworth... Deflecto... Ooh, somebody's wallet. I'm gonna name YOU Identity Thefticus.
• If My Calculations Are Correct: Fortyfive believes that he has logically predicted the exact time (in D&D combat rounds, no less) when Ardon will die. Naturally, he's wrong.
• Improbable Weapon User: Though Applied to Magic. Behold the power of FUNK!
• Infodump: Subverted with "One Hour Later" Time Skip
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: Odivallus is interrupted constantly when he seems to be trying to make such declarations for much of the first few episodes.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Professional Ship Sinker
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: The Dragonborn will hold the rope for everyone, and then jump down after... Logical plan Ardon.
• Land of Faerie: See trope page for more details on the Feywild, the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition plane that Ardon and a number of other characters come from.
  • This comic does deviate from how the Feywild is typically described in the way that Ardon always makes off-hand comments about modern technology that they have in the Feywild, such as toasters. It's later revealed that the traditional D&D Feywild that the people in the Material Plane know about is actually a facade for the most part, with the actual Feywild being a much more technologically advanced culture led by the Eladrin.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Invoked by Breynia
  Breynia: That's just a stupid fish pun and not a real thing, right?
• Lethal Joke Character: Peanut. Despite formerly living in a catatonic state, he is capable of miraculous feats when thrown into the fray. Does not qualify as Weak, but Skilled, since Peanut rarely acts of his own accord before he got better.
• Loophole Abuse: Ardon is exceptionally fond of this. Highlights include making a musical instrument worth 5 GP (by putting 5 GP into a bucket and shaking it around), turning his belt into a magic item (which just happen to be a magic khopesh), and possibly even selling his soul for power ( specifically, selling it to himself.)
• Minion with an F in Evil: Breynia's Minions
• Munchkin: A pivotal part of Ardon's personality.
• The Lost Lenore: Revealed during Odivallus's flashback backstory.
• Mysterious Past: Ardon's refusual to go into real detail about his past.
  Ell First you just made excuses no to tell us anything, then you started feeding us outrageous lies.
  Odivallus THEN you just started telling us to go fuck ourselves whenever we brought it up.
• Nominal Importance: Invoked by Ardon.
  Odivallus: Almost half of our party members don't even have names.
  Ardon: We shall refer to them as the expendable half.
• Not Rare Over There: During a quest midway into the comic, the party takes an orc chieftain to meet a disgraced actress. He gives her a fur he's wearing, considering it a trivial gift because everyone in his tribe has them. The actress points out that said fur is a luxury item in the city, and she's thus very grateful for the gift.
• Only Sane Man: Initially shared by Odivallus and Ell, but starts getting passed between the other party members in later arcs.
• Opposites Attract: Platonic example. An orc chieftain and a disgraced actress couldn't have more different backgrounds, but they hit it off anyway. It doesn't go anywhere, because the orc isn't up for Interspecies Romance and the actress is a lesbian.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: The "Mysterious" character that saves Ardon. Ultimately subverted and parodied, when it turns out it's someone completely different who happens to have the same class, level, equipment and general appearance as Chandea.
• Poke in the Third Eye: Mora attempts to kill both Ell and Odivallus by hijacking their dreams. It doesn't go well. The Prime Avenger hijacks Ell's dream right back, while Odivallus had just spent several weeks learning how to fight battles in the subconscious.
• Pooled Funds: Subverted when Ardon tries to swim in treasure.
• Precision F-Strike: Ardon's reaction to the group going out to watch a play.
  Ardon: What the FUCK are we watching?
• Prefer Jail to the Protagonist: Part of why Mitchell decides to go to jail even when Ell offers to let him go is to avoid ending up on the wrong side of Ardon's "no-villain-survives" policy. Ardon breaks into the jail and kills him anyway.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Breynia. Also the mermaid. Also a few of the bounty hunters. Ardon has a lot of these.
  • Subverted with Teleese. She has every reason to be mad at him, and still comes off as a little unstable, but she spends all her appearances with Ardon actively helping him.
• Rat Stomp: Subverted by having an easy looking level one quest cause some trouble for our early heroes in their quest for the old man Quest Giver's life savings.
• Real Dreams are Weirder: Ell's dream about Lord Skullocaust looking for "birds" which are clearly imps, while Odivallus is back to his old appearance and acting completely out of character. Mora thinks it's nonsensical even by dream standards.
• Revenge Before Reason: Ardon
  Fortyfive: We could have retrieved the Crown of Ackuul Rah. It's power is legendary and its monetary value immense.
  Ardon: Yes, but this quest involves killing something that I have a personal grudge against.
  Fortyfive: Ah, I see. So the suitability of a given task is determined solely by your own erratic pettiness.
  • Torrin is so thoroughly obsessed with murdering his brother that he will willingly allow a soul eater to devour him and everyone he loves if it means Ardon dies. Also, he murdered ten thousand people as a practice run.
• Screw Destiny: Ardon is actually a level 15 NPC. He sold his soul to himself to become a level 1 PC who could surpass his predestined level limit, which also broke the world itself.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Eldarin commit slavery on every other race. They're so technologically advanced that they don't need slaves at all, they're just obsessed with having someone to push around.
• Strong Enemies, Low Rewards: Referenced. A pair of nearly-identical rangers come close to fighting, but call it off due to some persuasive arguments from their friend nearby. One of them notes that they have identical gear and thus wouldn't get much loot if they did end up killing each other.
• Subverted Trope: As mentioned before, the comic likes to pull a fast one on you with a Genre Savvy setup.
• Summoning Ritual: Invoked by Breynia, Marine Diplomacy Classes come in handy.
• Talking Is a Free Action: During combat, characters are tied to a very strict D&D ruleset of turns and cannot so much as move without it being their turn. Talking and strategizing is always available though.
• Tempting Fate: Invoked by Chandea in the Pyramid Dungeon, and Ardon throughout the entire story.
  Ardon: Ahh. The warm, fuzzy feeling of being completely safe.
• Title Drop: Odivallus's sign in the first comic.
• The Exile: Odivallus
  Hunter: IF YOU SET FOOT IN THIS VILLAGE AGAIN, I'LL KILL YOU!
• The Glomp: Preformed by the Wise Woman's Apprentice on Flashback Odivallus
• The Lost Lenore: Odivallus's Backstory via Flashbacks
• The Rival: Ardon vs. Chandea
• The Unintelligible: Peanut
• The Wonka: Ardon, the leader who runs the show with his unconventional and dangerous plans to further his goals. Examples of this can be seen in the numerous ways he leads his half of the party during the Pyramid dungeon. Ardon is often the foil in this capacity to Only Sane Man Odivallus
• Treasure Room: Both Dungeons have one
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: Odivallus's dream flashbacks.
• Trouble from the Past: Breynia and her employers for Ardon
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Go get 'em Odivallus! (His main attack is like a magic version mostly this, though when combined with sea sickness...)
• Unreliable Narrator: Ardon's retelling of the party leadership swap competition. In general, the party often assumes him to be this, as well.
  Fortyfive I call bullshit on everything you've ever said or done.
• Walking Disaster Area: None of the Ship Captains want to transport adventurers for this reason.
  Harbor Bartender Nope. Every ship in recorded history that's ever sailed from here with adventurers on board has come back missing men, if it came back at all.
• Wham Episode: You'd think there would be wards against epic-level overlords teleporting into towns and zapping random civilians. Nope.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: The message of the play the group ends up watching.
• What Measure Is A Non-Eladrin: This is generally how Ardon feels about anyone else "under his command" (or anyone really), particularly Fortyfive (a Warforged) and Peanut (a kobold).
• Weak, but Skilled: Ardon, often admitting it as an excuse to not jump directly into the fray.
  Odivallus: And what will YOU do?
  Ardon:: I'm pretty much a walking bag of bonuses for the rest of the party. I help us win just by being around.
  Odivallus: That sounds an awful lot like doing nothing.
  Ardon: It'll probably LOOK like doing nothing, too, but now you know better, don't you?
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Ardon is this 90% of the time. The remaining 10% is him being a Genius Ditz.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Invoked by Chandea:
  Ardon:Huh. You roll a lot of crits when you're angry.

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