OotS: Start of Darkness

While reading I was initially irritated that is seemed to be following the more recent "Xykon is an idiot" characterization that has appeared over the last year in the comic as opposed to the "Xykon is a fiendish mastermind" characterization from the earlier comics. Redcloak seemed to actually be the mastermind despite how subsurvient his always is.

And then Xykon's "establishing dominance" speach the last 3 pages not only completely reassured me that Xykon was the evil $%()@#! I remember him being, it actually reconciled both versions.

Got it this afternoon, read it through (comics are too short!)

Some sadness it definitely causes - but just because, how does Rich put it so "eloquently":
"In this story, bad things happen to good people. A lot. Also, good things happen to bad people, and bad things are done to bad people by good people acting bad." And I might add: "bad things also happen to likeable bad people".

Despite that, it was fun, and had some really funny lines and scenes.

I just picked up On the Origin of PCs & The Start of Darkness on D&D game day... On the Origin of PCs was pretty good, but Start of Darkness was absolutely phenomenal!

There were just some freaking amazing bits in the book... It had its funny moments, but overall it wasn't as funny as the comic usually is... But what it lacked in humor it made up for in story and character development in spades!

[sblock]
By far, the best part was the ending of the book... Everything from the point where Right-Eye declares his intentions to Redcloak was simply phenomenal.

The whole thing with Xykon pointing out that a sneak attack could have changed the course of the fight... And then revealing that he knew about Right-Eye's intended treachery and what had happened all along. And all the stuff about Redcloak sticking with Xykon because of all the blood on his hands being a waste otherwise...

But the coolest part was Xykon just freaking smashing Durokan with energy drains. Reminded me a bit of his classic monologue about the three things Roy forgot...

I just had a thought, though. Right-eye's daughter escaped to be raised by humans... Mayhaps we'll see her some time in the future?
[/sblock]

Asmor said:

[sblock]I just had a thought, though. Right-eye's daughter escaped to be raised by humans... Mayhaps we'll see her some time in the future?
[/sblock]

Click to expand...

Hmmm...

[sblock]Maybe we already have. There's currently a debate over the identity of the mysterious female goblin ninja...[/sblock]

Mouseferatu said:

Hmmm...

[sblock]Maybe we already have. There's currently a debate over the identity of the mysterious female goblin ninja...[/sblock]

Click to expand...

[sblock]
You know, as I typed that, I started thinking the same thing, but then I snubbed that idea because she was green and for some reason I was thinking that the goblins were orange (when that's hobgoblins). I blame the fact that I haven't seen Redcloak in months except in black and white.

How old was she? The oldest kid was something like 14-15 if memory serves (too lazy to get book) when we met him, and that was supposedly 3 years before the start of the series... I'll guess the girl was somewhere in the 6-10 range (probably closer to the younger side of that spectrum)... So add three years to that, and let's say 2 years for the storyline since comic 1? I don't remember much downtime in the run of the comic, except of course for this dealie with Roy being caught in the upper planes for a few months. So that puts the little girl at somewhere between 11-15 years of age. Personally, I'd guess she's 11-13 right now...

Of course, she's also a goblin, which has a shorter life and matures faster...

So it could be her after all.[/sblock]