The Order of the Stick

This also requires that no one who saw the previous new Quiddity goes "Aha! I told you it was real when X was Orange/Green/Cyan/whatever a few thousand worlds back! You guys didn't believe me!" It is shown very clearly that Quiddities other than the four original ones were completely unheard of by any deity. If they weren't then surely it would be commented on and Thor would be less ecstatic about the Dark One's existence.

Because they genuinely don't think new quiddities are even possible with the rules they've been working with all this time. It's a mistake. Or a mix of existing properties. Or something minor. Resets fix bugs like this.

That's only the Western Gods, as Tiamat is the only one who has seen him in person, and they all think she's lying. The Northern and Southern Gods don't disbelieve the Dark One is a new quiddity; they just don't want to work with him, specifically. In Thor's explanation of the circumstances, one of the other gods explicitly said now that they know new quiddities are possible, they should wait for a more agreeable god to arise with one.

Edited by Wryte on Sep 23rd 2019 at 11:39:44 AM

Yeah this entire theory seems to be based on a misunderstanding of how the gods are reacting, by and large they accept that the Dark One exists and is Purple, they just are divided on if he should be worked with.

Also we’ve been given no indication at all that a god can ascend on the down low, it was a big event when the Dark One became a god and multiple other gods noticed, so the idea that another god could have secretly ascended and then died out is absurd.

I get wanting to add complications to the story, but this has gone strait into fan-fix territory.

The elven gods are known to have ascended rather than been there from day one.

But, they had help... So, although new gods; no new quiddity. Gods seem to come and go quite a bit with some newbies always cropping up. That is... if a world goes on for long enough.

The fresh batches just don't tend to last. Or, until the Dark One, weren't seen as all that significant.

After all, new quiddity or not, most gods still seem to be of the opinion that this guy is just another passing fad, ultimately meaning nothing and going nowhere.

Which, if they don't even try to capitalise on the opportunity... he will be.

Other opportunities may have gone begging before.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Sep 23rd 2019 at 12:16:51 PM

After all, new quiddity or not, most gods still seem to be of the opinion that this guy is just another passing fad, ultimately meaning nothing and going nowhere.

Nnnnnnoooooo? The god whose opinions Thor shows us recognize that a new quiddity is a big deal, they just don't want to work with the Dark One specifically.

Freya doesn't want to work with him because he's unreasonable. Tyr doesn't want to work with him because he's a goblin. Rat and others among the Southern Gods don't want to work with him because his followers conquered their followers.

They all understand it's a big deal. They just don't like the Dark One specifically.

But that's the thing. This attitude of "wait until the next bus because I don't like the wheels on this one" is only good... if you get another bus.

But, if you don't like the headlights on that one... Or, the route could be closer for this one. Have you seen these seats?! Eww!

They seem to be suspiciously good at just hitting the off switch and trying for "best" next time. <_<

Now that they know it is possible they have no real pressing reason to think it can't happen again. But the Dark One is the first example of it being possible.

Look, I can get the apprehension of when stories go "this is the first time in {X number} of years this incredible thing has ever happened" and wanting to maybe go "statistically it should have happened before", but this is a story and it not happening before makes it more interesting. And going "actually, there were other examples, but all of the gods missed it" doesn't actually add anything to this story.

There's no real pressing need to work with this specific god. The gods are immortal. They can make another billion worlds while they wait for a friendlier deity with a new Quiddity to pop up. Thor explicitly states this. He's just so sick of making new worlds that he thinks it's worth it to pair up with the Dark One.

There's also no guarantee that they'll get another chance, or that if another one comes along it won't be in the form of a new god even more hostile than the Dark One.

Given infinite time, if something is possible, then it is guaranteed to happen. Eventually.

You're just not understanding the patience of an immortal, divine being.

Edited by Clarste on Sep 23rd 2019 at 10:15:27 AM

So whats the guarantee that another new quiddity will arise before they screw up and another pantheon falls to the Snarl then? Because that's also a possibility.

Well, ultimately it's a gamble, of course, but it seems like a pretty safe one since no pantheon has been lost since the beginning when they were caught off guard, and the pantheons know how to replenish themselves by sponsoring new gods that inherit their own quiddity.

It's not totally absurd to dislike the idea of spending the rest of eternity with a guy you hate, after all.

New comic.

D'aaw.

Well, at least their being rational about it.

This is surprising. I thought Hilgya had already bugged out. But this is much better.

Huh. As I recently commented in the thread for Grrl Power, it feels strange when people are rational about relationships in modern media. It's nice, though.

It's still left up i the air as to whether Hilgya met the vampire. She hasn't said anything, but then again, it might not be to her benefit to say so, especially if she let it by.

My guess is that Hilgya assumes there's going to be a sign the world is going to be destroyed and there will be enough rounds to cast Plane Shift before the gods destroy it, and she didn't see a sign, so she didn't Plane Shift.

Hilgya brings up a good point in this comic. For a portion of the population, this is a pretty survivable apocalypse. You'd expect survivors (or descendants thereof) from the previous world to play at least a minor role in the story. I wonder if that's what the MitD is?

Monster in the Darkness was confirmed to be an actual DnD creature by Word of God and can still recall his youth, one that doesn't appear to involve the world being destroyed. I suppose it's possible that his people were the inhabitants of the previous world or something, but it wouldn't add anything to the story and thus is unlikely to be the case.

In any case, only a select handful of people would be able to survive the Snarlpocalypse. In order to hide in another plane like Hilgya intends to you have to be a powerful magic-user, which is already rare enough in the OotS setting, and to know exactly what to do at the exact moment the apocalypse arrives. And that's the current world. For all we know, the previous world could have been utterly devoid of such spells or magic-users strong enough to cast them.

I feel like whatever the MitD turns out to be is going to be a profound anticlimax at this point.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 24th 2019 at 9:54:32 AM

IIRC, Thor said it takes a super-long time before a new world can be created. And this one's been around for like 1,000+ years on top of that.

I doubt there's anybody still alive who remembers the previous world, even in the outer planes.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 24th 2019 at 8:04:55 AM

The guesses of Mit D's identity have been anything from a young Tarrasque to a Slaad.

Well the Order of the Scribble had to have learned about the previous world and the Snarl from somewhere, and it doesn’t seem like the gods would just spill the beans.

And it seems like the cosmology of the OotSverse still requires the rules of the world to at least be D&D-adjacent (Loki and Hel, in the deal flashback, talk about clerics like they’re a regular thing, not something just for the new world), so if the MitD is descended from previous-world inhabitants it could still be a D&D creature.

(Not that I’m saying the MitD is how the Scribblers learned about the previous world.)

Edited by shigmiya64 on Sep 24th 2019 at 10:37:24 AM

The Order of the Scribble didn't know about the previous world. They only knew about the first world.

As unlikely as it is for previous-world refugees to be around, there is certainly nobody alive who remembers the Eastern Pantheon. And who also somehow missed all the worlds in the interim.

"Given just enough information to understand what they're dealing with by the gods" is pretty much the only explanation for the Scribble's knowledge.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 24th 2019 at 8:33:53 AM

Actually, a god spilling the beans to the Order of the Scribble seems more likely than them learning about the Snarl from some Sole Survivor from a previous world. If the version they knew was the same Shojo told to the Sticks, that means that they were aware of the Eastern Gods who existed billions of years ago but not of any of the worlds that existed mere millenia prior to their world. I can see one of the gods telling Soon the basis of what Snarl is, but omitting the part about a bilion failed realities in order to keep the guy from falling into despair.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Sep 24th 2019 at 4:35:21 PM