August 9, 2016: The one we cursed

[Spootanany]

I think a lot of things are clicking into place with this update. As many have already stated it looks like Kore was most likely the surviving paladin after the imprisonment of the demon, and the axe is his. I also think that the curse they placed on him explains why he is able to do evil things and not lose his powers, but also the axe probably began to break as soon as it made contact with him. The demon parasite referring to the axe as the Second Prissan also makes me think that it's very likely Kore is in fact the first Prissan, which explains his IME. I'm thinking all of his victims are imprisoned within him, much like how Dies Horribly and Biscuit were imprisoned when their souls were taken by the demon guarding the Orb of Bloodlight. It might also explain how he's lived so long, possibly feeding on his victims souls. We also saw that after the demon with the orb was defeated, Dies and Biscuit were both alive and well, aside from their transparent body parts. I'm going to go as far as to say, and this might be wishful thinking, that we might even see chief come back eventually.

I really think this is the update where a lot of things start to click into place, but I might just be full of crap. I guess we'll see!

[sunphoenix]

OH SHIT! Its about to GET REAL! Kore Created the Axe of Prissian!?!? Can't say this enough~ WTF!!!

[RocketScientist]

We also saw that after the demon with the orb was defeated, Dies and Biscuit were both alive and well, aside from their transparent body parts. I'm going to go as far as to say, and this might be wishful thinking, that we might even see chief come back eventually.

Yeah, probably wishful thinking. But I'm up for wishing it anyway.

[Quidran]

He can smell what it is? Does that mean Names is a .... Demonhunter?

[Caltera]

I called it like one year ago when we where talking about kore curse. I called kore was cursed by the demon inside the axe to commit evil act without loosing his palladin status so he could one day use the axe and free him. At that time it was just an idea I got, never thought it'd come to be true. Juste in love with thunt story telling

[Wolfie]

This does explain why Kore is trying to eradicate even potential evil. No evil in the world means the Axe cannot break and the demon stays trapped.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as no evil. Good needs an opposite.

[spiderwrangler]

I had called the Demon being responsible for the curse, but now it looks like this parasite thing was responsible.

Not responsible alone, as it says "we", when referring to the curse, but uses "I" earlier.

[TheShear]

Holy Shit, I nearly spit out my Coffee.
That was one damn good Wham Line.

[Krulle]

Just as basis formeiscussions: the Axe of Prissan sheet: http://www.goblinscomic.com/08122007/

Otherwise: these lines did cost the artist that much time?

Just give my kids a black crayon and you're done in 10 minutes....

[ForgetsOldName]

Could someone clarify:

1. Paladins are not allowed to attack other paladins.

OR

2. Paladins are not allowed to attack other paladins for evil motives.

Sometimes attacking a good creature is a good act, and the good creature may even WANT you to do it. If this is set up a certain way, there may be times when a paladin must choose to fall, right?

[Morgaln]

Could someone clarify:

1. Paladins are not allowed to attack other paladins.

OR

2. Paladins are not allowed to attack other paladins for evil motives.

Sometimes attacking a good creature is a good act, and the good creature may even WANT you to do it. If this is set up a certain way, there may be times when a paladin must choose to fall, right?

Per D&D rules, a paladin may not willingly commit an evil act. If they do, they will lose all paladin abilities. If an act is good, no matter what that act is, they may perform it without penalty. However, per D&D rules, paladins also may not travel with evil characters, and as a cleric of Maglubiyet, Chief had to be evil. Since that rule is clearly not in effect, we can only assume that we have no clue which rules for paladins actually apply for Big Ears and which don't.

[Liesmith]

Well *this* is a whole pageful of Nope. Teeth form where the parasite walks.

TEETH.

NOPE.

______________________________
I wonder if the time-door created an alternate timeline, since no one ever said "MinmaxyouassfaceIhateyou!", even though Minmax has been "dropping" Oblivious many times. Maybe they can go through the door again, avoid breaching the Axe, and we'll get that original timeline back.

[ForgetsOldName]

I suspect this may have already been accidentally addressed by something Thunt said in the live stream, but did anyone else read the last panel as "Big Ears is holding the second Prissan?"

Why would a demon want to make another Prissan? Do we know what a Prissan is? I assumed it was one of the unnamed clerics from the history.

[YardMeat]

Could someone clarify:

1. Paladins are not allowed to attack other paladins.

OR

2. Paladins are not allowed to attack other paladins for evil motives.

Sometimes attacking a good creature is a good act, and the good creature may even WANT you to do it. If this is set up a certain way, there may be times when a paladin must choose to fall, right?

Per D&D rules, a paladin may not willingly commit an evil act. If they do, they will lose all paladin abilities. If an act is good, no matter what that act is, they may perform it without penalty. However, per D&D rules, paladins also may not travel with evil characters, and as a cleric of Maglubiyet, Chief had to be evil. Since that rule is clearly not in effect, we can only assume that we have no clue which rules for paladins actually apply for Big Ears and which don't.

Even in the core rules, clerics don't have to be the same alignment as their deity. They can be one step away. Chief could have been, and likely was, neutral.

[Krulle]

I wonder if the time-door created an alternate timeline, since no one ever said "MinmaxyouassfaceIhateyou!", even though Minmax has been "dropping" Oblivious many times. Maybe they can go through the door again, avoid breaching the Axe, and we'll get that original timeline back.

http://www.goblinscomic.com/01112014/
and
http://www.goblinscomic.org/03212016-2/

No alternative timeline here, sorry.

[locastan]

Otherwise: these lines did cost the artist that much time?

Just give my kids a black crayon and you're done in 10 minutes....

That is a bit salty, the first panel alone holds much detail in the background and surrounding stuff.

On the lines: Have you tried drawing perfectly paralell lines without a ruler, that also have to look a bit squiggly organic at the edges with an end drop each? It might take more time than 10 minutes dude...

[Krulle]

Yes, I agree, but if the effort spent you do not see much in these scaled-down webcomic resolution.

On the HD version you might be able to see the effort spent, but not on this resolution.

And the black lines... the effect my kids would gibe would look different, but the effect of this realm blacking out to become hell wold be visible as well. Just less orderly....


I agree, that my comment was un-called for, and a total exageration of the skills of my children. But I am proud of them.

[Morgaln]

Could someone clarify:

1. Paladins are not allowed to attack other paladins.

OR

2. Paladins are not allowed to attack other paladins for evil motives.

Sometimes attacking a good creature is a good act, and the good creature may even WANT you to do it. If this is set up a certain way, there may be times when a paladin must choose to fall, right?

Per D&D rules, a paladin may not willingly commit an evil act. If they do, they will lose all paladin abilities. If an act is good, no matter what that act is, they may perform it without penalty. However, per D&D rules, paladins also may not travel with evil characters, and as a cleric of Maglubiyet, Chief had to be evil. Since that rule is clearly not in effect, we can only assume that we have no clue which rules for paladins actually apply for Big Ears and which don't.

Even in the core rules, clerics don't have to be the same alignment as their deity. They can be one step away. Chief could have been, and likely was, neutral.

Actually no. According to the rules, A cleric may only be (True) Neutral if their deity is (True) Neutral. Therefore, the only possible alignments for a cleric of a Neutral Evil god are Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil.

[AceJayce]

Wait wait, what, WHOA!!!!!
Ultra super plot twist!!
Great, Thunt, totally unpredictable

[SoulReaver]

Even in the core rules, clerics don't have to be the same alignment as their deity. They can be one step away. Chief could have been, and likely was, neutral.

Actually no. According to the rules, A cleric may only be (True) Neutral if their deity is (True) Neutral. Therefore, the only possible alignments for a cleric of a Neutral Evil god are Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil.

This wiki page suggests that Maglubiyet's worshippers may in fact be TN. And in any case, Thunt did say, IIRC, that this is not pure 3.5, but a mix with 4e and some other systems.

[Morgaln]

Even in the core rules, clerics don't have to be the same alignment as their deity. They can be one step away. Chief could have been, and likely was, neutral.

Actually no. According to the rules, A cleric may only be (True) Neutral if their deity is (True) Neutral. Therefore, the only possible alignments for a cleric of a Neutral Evil god are Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil.

This wiki page suggests that Maglubiyet's worshippers may in fact be TN. And in any case, Thunt did say, IIRC, that this is not pure 3.5, but a mix with 4e and some other systems.

This article by the co-designer of D&D suggests that the wiki page is wrong. But my original point was that we cannot use D&D rules to judge anything that happens in the comic, because clearly some rules are not in effect. That suggests that we cannot assume any rule to be in effect unless we specifically get told it is.

[YardMeat]

This wiki page suggests that Maglubiyet's worshippers may in fact be TN.

Actually, Morgaln is right. I had to double-check the PHB. I was right about the "one step away" part, but it turns out that True Neutral is an exception. I hadn't read that before. But those rules apply to clerics, like Chief. Your wiki may still be right when it comes to worshipers in general.

[ForgetsOldName]

Thunt's clearly bending the rules. The GAP and the Cryptic Fall Clan are obviously not mostly neutral evil and Big Ears has been stated to be good. Forgath realized that it would violate his beliefs to kill them as they were not evil (although I'm not sure exactly what Forgath's game master deity requires of him). Fumbles would seem to have multiple contradictory restrictions on his alignment.

The real point is that twisting alignment is a major theme of the comic. A meta-theme is player alignment vs. character alignment, mostly noticeably when Minmax attacked a "good" character for hurting an "evil" character. Minmax states explicitly that "good" players are obliged to kill "evil" monsters but may not torture them, as that is "evil." This is despite the fact that most people would rather be tortured than hacked to death. This is the sort of thing philosophers debate and most definitely not the sort of thing Gary Gygax debated much. As I recall Gygax did write some articles in which he explained that evil characters occasionally do good thing, but he seemed not to understand that history's most notorious villains all insisted they were out to make the world a better place and would have described themselves as "good" alignment. I am not sure why Big Ears insists that attacking Kore was evil and that he knew attacking Kore was evil. He seems to be saying that his whole clan is in fact evil and he should be, if not actively attacking them, not helping them.

[Guus]

The only reason for me to hold up the alignment system up to a certain extent is because of two reasons.
1: Kore, and specifically because THunt once stated that Kore is still a Paladin according to the rules, even though he shouldn't be based on his actions.
2: The characters in the comic itself (specifically BE) use a spell that is supposedly objective in alignment, namely "Detect Evil". If that spell in this universe is actually subjective (evil in the eyes of BE), the spell loses its use in the game. It's a magical declaration of an individual's belief, and therefore is meaningless to determine the actual moral boundaries. It's simply a thing that doesn't work well in a world where good and evil is subjective.

I'd also like to mention that BE is having a crisis of faith with his whole "I did bad things" dilemma, which means that he is also pretty close to losing paladinhood due to loss of conviction.

[Aegis J Hyena]

I thought one lost paladinhood due to doing true evil acts. Surprising Kore from behind like that wasn't evil or even his idea (Thaco told him to). Loss of conviction is a new one on me.