OotS 568 is up

[Daelkyr]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0295.html

This is the panel that has the explanation of why our dear little halfling is going to regret following his more base impulses.

 

[Rechan]

Not only does this show why I love kobolds, but it makes me now want to run an Oracle kobold NPC.

I also was wondering when Belkar's mark was going to go off.

I loved that kobold from the moment I saw him. (Anyone else thought his voice over should be done by Mel Brooks?)

Either that, or Steve Buscemi.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Buscemi, definitely.

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

I am not sure how to put this in words...but I will anyway cause I'm just like that.

The kobold knew about his own death. So it is very possible that he wasn't making the stuff up about Roy, Miko, Miko's Horse and V. I wonder what he was going to say about V.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Probably that V is either dying, or isn't what they previously thought of as V.

 

[Rechan]

Prediction:

Hailey and Belkar had to stay behind to recover Roy's corpse. This is Belkar's fault, because he is responsible for Roy's death (due to the ring). Their splitting up caused the rest of the party the party to leave by boat. V has spent the entire trip trying to contact Hailey and Belkar. He will die of exhaustion.

So because Belkar got Roy killed, they split up, and V kills himself trying to get in touch with them.

 

[Fenes]

Prediction:

Hailey and Belkar had to stay behind to recover Roy's corpse. This is Belkar's fault, because he is responsible for Roy's death (due to the ring). Their splitting up caused the rest of the party the party to leave by boat. V has spent the entire trip trying to contact Hailey and Belkar. He will die of exhaustion.

So because Belkar got Roy killed, they split up, and V kills himself trying to get in touch with them.

Yes.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Damn! I should have asked the question I wanted to ask for the last panel:
"What's with Belkars Geas/Mark of Justice not to kill anyone?" Unfortunately, I remembered that it worked only in city limits...

Mr.Burlew, you're genius!

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Of course, now that the Mark of Justice has been triggered, Belkar no longer has to abide by its terms. I wonder what he's going to do now. Certainly he no longer has to care about Roy's corpse. The only thing that might keep him in line is the opportunity to find someone who can remove it (could Durkan do it?).

 

[Cryptos]

Individually, the strips are good and I'm very glad that Belkar finally got smacked down. More than anything, he just annoys me. I understand the type of character / player he represents, and why he's there in terms of the narrative, but, I'm glad this happened to him.

But am I the only one extremely frustrated by the overall direction of things since Azure City fell? It seems like every strip is a "gotcha" moment, or its about someone screwing up or suffering the consequences of a screw-up. A little balance would be nice.

The implications for Varsuuvius aren't that great, either. Given that there's a line of causation for the deaths of everyone Belkar mentioned, and now because of all the other incidents, V is working itself to death (or a costly exhaustion during an ambush) to reach Haley.

I almost feel like he should just cut to the chase and have one week where he manages a TPK just to get it over with, followed by a group rez. It's getting a bit frustrating.

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't know how long it takes for any one setback to be resolved, and the time required for resolutions seems to increase as the plot goes on.

(For that matter, Goblins hasn't been much better for a long time in terms of a nonstop string of bad luck for the "PCs".)

It seems like certain D&D-inspired webcomic creators got a hold of an earlier draft of the 4e DMG, where there was an article titled "Yes, but..." instead of "Yes, and..."