Rich did very good job with Durkon. Up to this point I couldn't realy understand why would he had to start being evil out of the sudden. The last strip however puts it up splenditly. The same could be applied to Hexxat.
@typo_tilly Well you must admit that it's completely illogical for a honest law respecting dwarf with high sense for moral and loyalty to suddenly turn into murdering machine.
It ain't that much offtopic. We are discussing the vampire evilness here.
I simply refuse to accept the fact, that person with free will and all his memores suddenly completely flips his personality. Any solution that explains it is warmly welcomed.
Well, in 3ed, a Pure Class Mage can learn to use a bow - costs a feat though. As for wearing more than a dress - well, they can wear armor as well (costs a feat), but then there is spellfailure...
And for the record, I am also wondering why Hel is interested in seeing Thor fall. Perhaps she has been influenced by Loki?
I still do not see how a dwarf cleric worshipping Thor (of all things!) who was made Undead by a cleric of Nergal would somehow fall under the jurisdiction of Hel??!!
First, we must assume that Durkon, because he worships Thor, when he dies he should normally go to Valhalla (though I thought that dwarves fall under the dwarven pantheon). So because he was "killed" and made Undead, somehow he is not worthy and instead goes to hell and belongs to Hel? So she puts him back in the body, and sends an undead soul to inhabit his body along with his own soul?
Having troubles getting mah brain around this one!
I'd be like...*pulls the DM aside*
"Look, I know you are trying to make this fun...but this is really stretching things, don't you think?"
I'm more irritated about Hel as a Christian Satan or Disney Hades. X(
Bleh. I'm continously irritated by blasted foreigners translating names because they can't be bothered to try pronouncing them right and doing weird nonsense like putting horns on helmets. Seriously, there's never been uncovered a single horned viking helmet >.<
This sort of thing happens all the time in D&D campaigns when it comes to player characters. Usually it's because the player decides they want to take their character in a different direction but don't know how to justify the gradual shift, so they work out a house rule with the DM. In this case, the house rule actually expands the world a little more, which is only ever a good thing for the setting and the story.
The player could have very easily decided that their vampire Durkon was going to stay good--or maybe the player for Durkon stopped playing altogether and the DM took control, turning him into an antagonist.
And for the record, I am also wondering why Hel is interested in seeing Thor fall. Perhaps she has been influenced by Loki?
I still do not see how a dwarf cleric worshipping Thor (of all things!) who was made Undead by a cleric of Nergal would somehow fall under the jurisdiction of Hel??!!
First, we must assume that Durkon, because he worships Thor, when he dies he should normally go to Valhalla (though I thought that dwarves fall under the dwarven pantheon). So because he was "killed" and made Undead, somehow he is not worthy and instead goes to hell and belongs to Hel? So she puts him back in the body, and sends an undead soul to inhabit his body along with his own soul?
Having troubles getting mah brain around this one!"
Thor and Hel has an established rivalry.
There is no Dwarven pantheon in the OotS setting.
Being undead, there doesn't necessarily have to be another soul sent back. It's a soulless being. Durkon does not get to go to Valhalla because his soul is still stuck in the body, repressed by the Negative Energy entity.
I think @Scriver has the right of it. OOTS has shown it's pantheons in a comic or two in relation to history and the Snarl. They're not directly from D&D but more a sort of house-ruled ancient-real-world-polytheism set.
And as for a Dwarf worshipping Thor, why not? Dwarves are often depicted as using runes, wearing Viking-type helmets and talking with Scottish accents (a lot of Scottish islands were conquered by Danish or Norse settlers). Our main concepts of Dwarves as subterranean smiths come from Scandinavian sagas.
There is no reason to assume the Northern Gods have jurisdiction over all Dwarves, rather than just Dwarves who believe in the Northern Gods. We just haven't seen much about Dwarves to tell. Hence we've seen Thor and Hel argue about followers of the Northern Pantheon, nothing more. It may very well be that Dwarves only have civilizations/settlements in the North and thus all believe in the Northern Gods, though.
And I doubt Hel is "claiming" Durkon solely because he's a vampire. Rather because he's a vampiric Cleric. It could just as likely be Durcula and her meeting eachother halfway. Come-Evil Durcula needs a new deity because Thor does not accept Evil worshippers, and Hel happens to be the Evil deity he's the most familiar with.
As I said, we haven't been told much about the dwarves, and the North Continent may very well be the only place they live. I guess since we haven't been told much if the Northern Continent either it's possible the dwarves are the only race from there, and thus the only ones who worship the Northern Gods. In either case, that could be the reason they have domain over Dwarves.
Actually, it was something of a Christian belief at one point that Ghosts were not the souls of the dead, but devils/evil spirits pretending to be such.
Somehow I have my doubts that the person writing that brilliant comic cares about how the Norse gods were historically worshiped or how ghosts are interpreted. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that he just does stuff for the lulz, even if it is ridiculous. We are over-thinking this way too much!
I feel like this thread is taking the fun out of OOTS
Order of the Stick is bloody funny. It's also a very interesting homebrew world, and it's obvious a huge amount of planning has gone into the world itself and the story arc.
Think about any DM you know. If they've come up with a weird new scenario involving Norse gods then they've probably done their research. They won't expect you to know the specifics, but they'll use little throwaway details for extra flavour and clutter. OOTS is similar in that lots of lore stuff gets used for little throwaway comments and gags.
Nordic gods, and many other gods of old polytheistic religions are actually quite interesting to use in storytelling because they are so complex. You have Thor, Odin and many others as the "good" gods who fight against jotuns, which are "evil", but the stories are more ambigous. Sometimes Thor goes to parties with Jotuns and have drinking contests with them, sometimes Odin acts like a total asshole - in other words they are very complex characters and they often have a different relationship to each other depending on the story being told. So in one story Hel and Thor could be enemies, and in another they can be allies.
Nordic gods, and many other gods of old polytheistic religions are actually quite interesting to use in storytelling because they are so complex. You have Thor, Odin and many others as the "good" gods who fight against jotuns, which are "evil", but the stories are more ambigous. Sometimes Thor goes to parties with Jotuns and have drinking contests with them, sometimes Odin acts like a total asshole - in other words they are very complex characters and they often have a different relationship to each other depending on the story being told. So in one story Hel and Thor could be enemies, and in another they can be allies.
In the myths I read as a kid, Thor was a big jerk who basically bullied all the giants for no reason! I had a book of illustrated myths that I read every summer when visiting my grandfather's village. The poor jotun built a giant man out of clay and gave him feelings, then Thor destroyed him for the lulz
It's interesting thought, isn't it? What if the gods were basically just scaled up, powerful humans who do stuff because they feel like it? It's not really something that exists in modern belief systems. No god nowadays is going to deliberately going to mess your life up for giggles or to teach you a lesson.
Why do the gods allow evil in the world? Because they're not totally good themselves, and sometimes it's funny.
Benevolent, autocratic gods make religion a lot less fun. RIP picaresque polytheistic religions.
@Corvino - the Bible is full of stories just like that, and there's also Hinduism, and all the hybrid Buddhisms. Oh, and consider all the Christian Saint stories - like 98% percent of them is the saint being an asshole to people to teach them a lesson. Or well, I guess that was more a medieval thing. I don't really have any idea of how saints are worshipped/treated in the parts of the world than still acknowledge them today.
@corvino May I remind you of the story of Job, whose life God messes with to win a bet with Satan? To the point of killing off his wife and children, and at the end, giving him another wife and children, as if that should make it all better now? How about Jesus, who, in one version of the tale, curses a fig for not bearing fruit out of season? How about the Canaanite woman who has to shame Jesus into helping her? And he likens her to a Dog on top of it!
I thought I'd stop this thread going even further off-topic and sent a PM to @scriver a little earlier, @LadyRhian. Old Testament God is a bit different to most New Testament interpretations though.
Comments
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0946.html
Also, Dun Dun DUN!
Well you must admit that it's completely illogical for a honest law respecting dwarf with high sense for moral and loyalty to suddenly turn into murdering machine.
I simply refuse to accept the fact, that person with free will and all his memores suddenly completely flips his personality. Any solution that explains it is warmly welcomed.
And for the record, I am also wondering why Hel is interested in seeing Thor fall. Perhaps she has been influenced by Loki?
I still do not see how a dwarf cleric worshipping Thor (of all things!) who was made Undead by a cleric of Nergal would somehow fall under the jurisdiction of Hel??!!
First, we must assume that Durkon, because he worships Thor, when he dies he should normally go to Valhalla (though I thought that dwarves fall under the dwarven pantheon). So because he was "killed" and made Undead, somehow he is not worthy and instead goes to hell and belongs to Hel? So she puts him back in the body, and sends an undead soul to inhabit his body along with his own soul?
Having troubles getting mah brain around this one!
I'd be like...*pulls the DM aside*
"Look, I know you are trying to make this fun...but this is really stretching things, don't you think?"
The player could have very easily decided that their vampire Durkon was going to stay good--or maybe the player for Durkon stopped playing altogether and the DM took control, turning him into an antagonist.
As long as it gives us a fun ride and some interesting twists, that's a lot more important than being 100% consistent with sourcebooks.
There is no Dwarven pantheon in the OotS setting.
Being undead, there doesn't necessarily have to be another soul sent back. It's a soulless being. Durkon does not get to go to Valhalla because his soul is still stuck in the body, repressed by the Negative Energy entity. They're not, they're specific to the Northern Continent, where Durkon is from.
And as for a Dwarf worshipping Thor, why not? Dwarves are often depicted as using runes, wearing Viking-type helmets and talking with Scottish accents (a lot of Scottish islands were conquered by Danish or Norse settlers). Our main concepts of Dwarves as subterranean smiths come from Scandinavian sagas.
And I doubt Hel is "claiming" Durkon solely because he's a vampire. Rather because he's a vampiric Cleric. It could just as likely be Durcula and her meeting eachother halfway. Come-Evil Durcula needs a new deity because Thor does not accept Evil worshippers, and Hel happens to be the Evil deity he's the most familiar with.
I feel like this thread is taking the fun out of OOTS
Think about any DM you know. If they've come up with a weird new scenario involving Norse gods then they've probably done their research. They won't expect you to know the specifics, but they'll use little throwaway details for extra flavour and clutter. OOTS is similar in that lots of lore stuff gets used for little throwaway comments and gags.
Sometimes Thor goes to parties with Jotuns and have drinking contests with them, sometimes Odin acts like a total asshole - in other words they are very complex characters and they often have a different relationship to each other depending on the story being told. So in one story Hel and Thor could be enemies, and in another they can be allies.
What a jerk!
and don't even get me started about Achilles...
Why do the gods allow evil in the world? Because they're not totally good themselves, and sometimes it's funny.
Benevolent, autocratic gods make religion a lot less fun. RIP picaresque polytheistic religions.
Accept I'm a Gnome, he's a dwarf. I'm a Mummie and Hes a vampire, and I like being told what to do...
Takes all the stress and responsibilities of being undead...