Dungeon Run: Inevitable
Chapter: Comics, Season Five
Well, she tried.
I am still fighting ConCrud (worst I have ever had) and working on my full GenCon 2014 blog post but I want to share two of the BIG highlights to come out of the con:
1. I announced the launch of Exploding Rogue Studios with my buddy Tracy Barnett. This new studio is going to serve as a vehicle for a number of projects but for me it will be mainly be where I focus on game design projects. Tracy and I work well together and it’s going to be awesome.
2. The first project from Exploding Rogue Studios was announced… KARTHUN! That’s right, Karthun is happening.
More soon. Have a great weekend, guys. I’m going back to bed.
HOVER-TEXT: Well if you love him so much, Dove, why don’t you marry him! Get yourself a little house with a white picket fence for you and your pile of animated, necrotic, gold coins. YOUR MOTHER MUST BE SO PROUD
Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.
(2 internet points for those that get that reference)
God, I don’t know why that keeps happening!
Puja
2 internet points please.
That BASTARD!
Kill him Dallas.
Kill. Him.
And with that said, 3-words:
Favored.
Enemy.
Patriarchy.
Nice recall! Beer on me if you’re right! 😛
Random thoughts:
Still waiting for Dragon Wang! (Yes, I was at the Friday panel.)
The spittle in the last panel is a nice touch.
Even if it is a pyrrhic victory, Dallas needs to TAKE HIM DOWN!
Oh my God Dove, just go die in a goddam hole. Preferably with about 80 of Dallas’ arrows sticking out of your throat.
Philip is letting his master-class dickishness get in the way of his gaming sportsmanship? I’d probably be surprised he could stoop so low if I had no sense of pattern recognition and a tiny wheelchair where my brain should be. I will smile for a week straight when he finally gets his comeuppance.
I am hoping that he gets nommed myself.
Well, he’s a dick to the end but that doesn’t mean his move here isn’t somewhat genius. If you’re trying to win solo that is.
Caveat: I in no way like Dove
Asuming he has proper bargaining chips and skill, this is perhaps the wisest course of action.
Thier chance to do that using fire and ranged attacks might just be too low. Especially if there is some kind of data only mages can know (he is the last one).
He is a mage and mages in Kathrun are bound to some form over magical entity.
A undead dragon is as good (or better) then your average fire elemental.
Of course this being Dove he might just doublecross old Traxion the first chance he get’s. The only question is: Will this be before or after she dies?
Counter-point – Even if Dallas kicks the bucket, he still has to claim the heart. All he’s done here is bent over the prison exercise bench and bitten down on his wallet.
Serving lord Shiny-Pants does not constitute claiming the heart. It constitutes servitude and a need to betray his new master for victory, which we all known is not going to go well since it murdered three other dudes by coughing loudly.
Well I can’t say that I am surprised. This is dove after all.
But “The first project from Exploding Rogue Studios was announced… KARTHUN! That’s right, Karthun is happening.” is making my internal squeeing louder. Soon I will not be able to hold my enthusiasm in at work.
I did wonder what that noise was. Accursed telepathy.
I mean, Dove is unforgivably douchey, but if you divorce the player from the actions, this course of action actually seems pretty reasonable.
Dallas has been gunning for him and him specifically this whole tournament. Why would he be willing to turn around and work with her now? She’s clearly planning on backstabbing him, he’s just doing the same way but in a more transparent and upfront fashion.
That is a fair point. Still backing Dallas though, ( Never thought I’d hear myself say that as I’m a 49ers fan. Kudos to those who get that 😉 ), as she at least limits her prickishness to her characters while ol’ Phil “The Pidgeon” is simply a prick.
What’s this? A quintessential Nerd who likes football???
I thought I was alone in the world!
Sports statistics are a nerdy pass-time and sports fandom is a geekiness (albiet a passivive one) all it’s own. You aren’t alone, bud. 🙂
You can’t tell me fantasy football isn’t a touch geekier than anything most of us ever involve ourselves with.
Not at all…I’m trying to get caught up with the archives and watching the ALCS game 1 at the same time.
Well, it’s taken me about 2 weeks, but I finally made some progress getting my favorites organized so I can get to yours faster since your not on Hiveworks anymore. On the general screen, I cut it from about 2000 individual folders and links to about 360, about 40 different folders I had for books I have looked into but never got around to are all in a single folder marked All Books, and totaling all the individual links in folders and individual links, I deleted about 2500 links, most of which I have no idea why I favorited them. Oh well. At least I get here faster!
Have you ever looked into the possibility of using an RSS feed?
I keep up with all of my comics using feedly.com and I never have to worry about losing track of bookmarks or missing updates.
That said.. Good on you for getting your favourites organized. I only have hundreds but I still haven’t managed to convince myself to buckle down and sort them out properly.
this is going to backfire SOOO hard
evil overlord rule 20: No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
Yeah. Sam is making a point to not play favorites here, but there is no way the dragon isn’t going to just eat Dove.
Grrr… Screw you Phil. Screw you.
I’ve had someone pull this s*** in a scifi one shot I was in, and it just made me stuff a grenade in their mouth.
*Scribbles a note*
Good move. We know he’s not going to share the win. It’s not in his character. He may how ever kill Dallas and try to bluff his way past a less than promising encounter.
I would think this is the point where the large demonic drake laughs ad notes that once he eviscerates the group ad absorbs their essence he would control them anyway so why would he want to keep someone alive around who might try to attack him/ his horde.
I’d love to see the Dragon just straight up flatten Dove with a resounding “nope.” but I’d love even more for Dallas to somehow beat down the two of them.
Hey question……don’t the mages in this world setting hafta pledge their lives to an element to gain their power? How would an all powerful ethereal element, like fire, feel about one of its ‘servants’ pledging its life to a lowly terrestrial, albeit powerful magic dragon made of gold? Not well, I’d imagine.
Or atleast if I was running this, that’s what I’d do. ‘Gods’ can be very jealous, petty, and wrathful.
“Mages are bound to elementals, spirits, or Djinn through ritual. The process is permanent and there is a bit of a taboo or misunderstanding with the entire lore, as you’ve seen already and perpetuated by mages like Qesh’Nax who are bound to evil beings. Both caster and being influence decisions and you may notice that some (like Kel) refer to themselves as “we†rather than “Iâ€.”
Yep, back from the Cinderhaunt arc……I think Dove isn’t playing the mage right and is going to pay for it.
Brian pointed that out back when Dove saved his skin at the cost of Grey and the others he’d looped into playing his bodyguards, that he was using the term ‘Enslaved’ and such, as opposed to bonded.
I don’t know if it’s a different line of magic, but it’s possible. I don’t really see anything in that being against pledging his loyalty to something that could quite possibly murder them, though.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but that would make me a liar.
I really hope his offering gets denied. And then he gets blasted right in the face.
Of course the dragon could be kawful good…
Er lawful
Actually the only outcome I’d see as a twist would be if Dove actually won this thing with that move. It is fairly tropey to have this maneuver fail. Still… sometimes tropes exist for a reason.
LOVE THIS ARC! sir your work is top notch and thanks for sharing it with us. can’t wait for the karthun materiel . that is something i want more of.
I am very excited about Karthun happening. Soon as I’m done paying off Destiny, I’ll throw some money at the Monkeynomicon.
Well… that brings being an asshat to a whole new level.
Is Mr. Dove playing Neutral Evil?
/poster ploy/
i’m just surprised he was able to finish that speech without eating an arrow or three. if dallas doesn’t kill him immediately, i wonder just what makes flying rat think tyraxion has any use for him? with his huge ego, i don’t see the jerk settling for a win by attrition. if tyraxion is dumb enough to accept that offer, he had better expect treachery.
The devil wyrm spends its time sleeping in its hoard, presumably fed on the souls of intrepid adventurers who stop in every so often. Why would it care for a servant?
If I were GMing, Tyraxion would eat Dove on its next action, not because his player’s a jerk, but because he’s standing still trying to talk to the dragon when he ought to be running around trying to kill it.
(This probably means Dallas wins on points by being the “closest player” to the end on account of being last player standing. But I guess we’ll see. My last winning player guess ended up wrong, after all.)
Guys, what if Dove is just making a diversion for Dallas? Playing to a dragon’s natural greed and narcissism may save him, and as Tyraxion goes for Dallas.
Boom.
Fireball to the side.
Heck, we know that Dove loves his sneak attacks, so to me, this all makes logical sense. And, it’s a great way to turn Dove a shade of “Good.”
I don’t know if it’s a shade of good, but I can see it being an attempt at a distraction. Everyone dislikes Dove just enough (In and Out of comic) to being focused on the rage, and not really on the fact that planning seems to be his thing. I can kind of see the Sherlock Holmes ‘plotting the fight in slow motion’ thing going on in his head.
wow, and just like that the biggest douchetard at the gaming table throws away the time of every player there. last and only time I saw something like this was at a game shop in Colorado, GM split the prize between the other two players still alive and banned him from the shop.
I’m hoping that the dragon accepts, cores out Dove’s character’s soul then inhabits him. Then Dallas fills him full of arrows for the win.
As soon as Karthun is released i thoroughly plan on picking up the source books and finding people to campaign with. Can’t wait!
I… Kinda approve Dove. Way to roleplay. He enters a dungeon and goes for an interesting option that doesn’t cover “I just killinate the thing in the face”. Remember, if he winds up servant to the Dragon then he loses too. Sure, it’s derailing things to fuel a personal grudge, but it makes for great drama. I mean, he’s probably going to die horribly, but as a GM, I’d let him *try* to make a deal. See if he remembered to not dump Char too hard for the murderous dungeon crawl adventure (Dove seems like a total minmaxer, he totally doesn’t have the skills to be all “Plz don’t eat me?”)
Given that mages have to deal with elementals for a lot of their power, I could see the need for a high charisma score to go a long with a high intelligence. His dump stats were more likely strength and wisdom.
Well it can go either way. He’s either decided to work with her, unlikely as he may have taken offense at that “It’s what I’d do in this situation.” remark, or he feels this is the way to victory.
I just want the fucker to die and go away and never come back. There are characters you love, characters you hate, characters you love to hate, and Dove.
Two words of advise for Dallas: BACK STAB!
woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh
that is all.
this about the karthun project by the way, as for the comic curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal
Hrm. How would I respond as DM…
“The coin-dragon avatar accepts.”
/YOINKS character sheet
/feeds it into paper shredder while player watches
“Thanks for playing. You’re now an NPC. Congrats.”
Comic comment: Die. In a fire. Dove.
Note comment: *shoves cash against monitor* KARTHUN! WANT!
While Dove is a douche, and still one of the worst people ever, I won’t fault him for the concept of trying to reason with Tyraxion.
I’ve played in a game where I’ve effectively parlayed with a dragon, though it did cost me a couple of huge diamonds & it wasn’t in a “raid the hoard” type scenario. It had taken my companions for future dinner purposes while I was finding said diamonds/poking things with my staff, and as I was the Mage without the fighters (captives) I played it as best I thought a low level Mage could against a large blue dragon upon a hill. Fortunately, it did end up only costing me 2 of the 3 huge diamonds I found, and I neglected to mention the largest one, so profit (pretty sure the GM just liked the pure balls of trying to haggle with a dragon over the other PCs lives, and still holding out as much as I was)
But, yeah, if the creature can communicate, it can potentially be reasoned with, and sometimes that’s the best course of action. I don’t think now is that time, given he’s one of the two remaining invaders to Tyrax’s hoard, and Tyrax doesn’t seem all that interested in talking, but who knows, dragons and their like can be weird.
I love the comments on your comic nearly as much as I love your comic. Without em, I’d not know that mages in this world are bound to a higher spirit of some sort, and how badly Phillip just screwed himself. This is a dick move anyway, classic Dr. Zachary Smith level behavior. I’m hoping his patron shows up, jacks his power for being a turncoat, then the dragon eats him. Bonus points if Dallas shoots the heart of the dragon while it’s distracted, because I like karma and that’d be a fitting way for this to end.
This might be one of the best webcomic arcs I’ve ever seen. Keep up the great work. 😀
Hmmm . . . he just offered a soul in tribute. Except he doesn’t have a _claim_ on Dallas’s character’s soul. So I’d give him a steep penalty on the saving throw to prevent his soul from being immediately sucked out by Tyraxion.
Wow just wow… Dallas show them what you can do.