The Order of the Stick

But then Hel doesn't get their souls.

It's always about the phrasing. Possible world-ending votes:

• We vote that our gods should be protected.
• We vote in favour of Rapture.
• We vote to save the universe.
• We vote for Heimdall, and against Loki.

Or Durkula could dominate them into voting "yes" without actually knowing what they're voting on.

I think that would just postpone the new saving throw until they convened and found out what the vote was on. Then anyone disinclined to vote yes would make their throw.

The careful phrasing option seems the safer bet.

Well, I'm not clear on how the voting process actually works, but I was imagining that somehow they'd get all the way to actually casting the vote and never know what they were voting on.

This is kind of implausible under ordinary circumstances, but with domination involved... I wouldn't say that "accidentally forget to check what the vote is on" is particularly likely to be "against one's nature". I'm sure some equivalent-level real-world politician has cast a vote on something without really knowing — it doesn't ruin democracy because it's never the whole group at once.

But this whole idea kind of hinges on how the process is set up. It might not be possible.

Dvalin says that he swore an oath to obey the will of the council. I find it pretty unlikely he wouldn't inform them what it is they're voting on. At the very least there has to be some kind of connection between the Godsmoot location and the Council chamber.

In which the NPCs aren't total pushovers

They're going to use Roy as a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero now, aren't they? With attack once Roy's group opens the door or sneak in past them once it's opened...

Here's hoping that the door's seal is airtight.

EDIT: Never mind, it is. Don't know how I missed it.

edited 24th Jul '17 8:59:48 AM by TheHeroHartmut

Ohhhhh. Color me wrong; I thought they'd already penetrated the temple. Good on you, Rich.

It's funny, I recently re-read the godsmoot arc and that's the only reason I remember that Roy has one of those things.

Same here, actually.

I'm still kind of confused how the vampire spirit/Greg/Durkula/whatever can be Durkon on his worst day but not have (all of) Durkon's memories.

He's a spirit composed of dark energy who entered Durkon's body, and then began to gradually 'download' Durkon's memories, starting with the worst day of Durkon's life- and having that as his first memories largely defined his identity and motivations.

In this way, he both is and isn't part of Durkon- technically he's an independent existence, but without Durkon's memories he'd be effectively mindless.

Just flipped back to read the strip where independent Durkula is first introduced, and I'd completely forgotten that Zz'dtri is dead.

Do we know/can we make an informed guess whether "Greg" was in Durkon's head immediately after he was vamped, giving him some time to learn his personality while he was unable to break Malack's control — or did he appear when Malack was killed, and learn enough to imitate Durkon in the space of that single-strip BSOD?

It's similar to vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The body is dead, the soul is gone (or restrained in this case) and a monster has taken up residence with access to its hosts memories from the worst on up.

That would appear to be the case- after Malack died, he downloaded Durkon's worst memories, and then enough to give context to what was going on, including knowledge of how Durkon should react to Nale and Zz'dtri.

Interesting, so it looks like "Taken by force" applies even if the stone never changes hands. It seems like it's tied to the spirit of the individual and not the physical body.

That wasn't Durkon's stone, actually. Greg took it from the priest that they had just killed.

Oh. Crap, I wonder if Durkula is going to try his own stone next.

Depends on whether Durkon still has it or not, I guess. It may have been taken from him when he was exiled - it would only make sense to do so.

I'm curious that Durkula seems to have traded in Durkon's plate armor for clerical robes. If there's an advantage to that, I'm not sure what it is.

Maybe he's wearing the robes over the plate mail.

Maybe he was trying to be sneaky? Plate armor clanks a lot.

But the other clerics are still wearing their armor, and the robes wouldn't hide his shoulder armor.