Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) – Episode 062

[bug]

So at least one Arkentool existed in Stupidworld before the main story began and they're there right now. What does this mean I wonder? What is the link between our mundane world and the bizzaro turn based one?

This isn't necessarily true. In the movie Return to Oz, the ruby slippers fell off her feet and ended up in the possession of the gnome king. The shoes could be anywhere.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

Yeah, I'd say the "Charlie is from Earth" theory that's been floating around since book 1 has now reached "all but confirmed" status.

I'm not so sure. He's interacted with a person from Stupidworld and he has a magical satellite dish. He may know so much about Stupidworld because he's been watching Stupidworld TV since he met Judy.

As much as I want Olive to croak, she might still be alive in the main timeline.

That doesn't leave much room for Jillian to croak the ruler of Haffaton then.

Have we seen Jillian fear for her life in the comic timeline? Perhaps she is fated to survive until someone re-founds Haffaton.

It's my understanding that if a ruler dies without an heir, the entire side is automatically disbanded. That's what happened to Uniroyal - the queen emptied the treasury as much as possible before disbanding herself to leave Stanley as little as possible and no units for Wanda to uncroak.

Only units in the field are disbanded. Bea spent the treasury promoting all the garrison units to field units so that she could send them out of the city before she croaked herself.

[Manic Oppressive]

I would like to mention that there must be SOME other power the Arkenhammer has that hasn't been revealed yet. Shoes let you become essentially unkillable, able to nope out of any unfavorable engagement and generally being insanely powerful, pliers give you a steadily growing army of freakishly loyal soldiers. Hammer... tames dwagons.

[Frogpop]

..and flies and changamancy and lightning and rocks out. Yeah, Stanley got a raw deal. lol

[MonteCristo]

Speaking of poor Orwell, I wonder how he is going to croak? Faq had no early warning of Stanley's attack, so it is clear that he won't survive this. But croaking Olive would just leave him "neutral" since he's in a city, so something else is probably going to happen to him.

It's my understanding that if a ruler dies without an heir, the entire side is automatically disbanded. That's what happened to Uniroyal - the queen emptied the treasury as much as possible before disbanding herself to leave Stanley as little as possible and no units for Wanda to uncroak. If Orwell entered the magic kingdom beforehand then he might survive Haffaton's destruction, but he can't become a barbarian. But maybe I missed something and casters aren't bound by the same rules.

No, from what we know is that units in the field are disbanded when the side ends. Units within cities "freeze" becoming unable to move until the city is attacked. That's why Queen bea empitied her treasury to promote all of her garrison units to field units... had she left the garrison where they were, Wanda would have been able to croak them and decrypt them. If Olive croaks, most likely Orwell would become a barbarian, but he would be stuck in the city, thus free to be recaptured and turned back. Granted though, not sure how but i do expect Orwell to not make it out of this. Heck even if Olive found a way to make him ruler, all faq would have to do is wait for him to pass on the crown to someone else and croak them instead.

[the_tick_rules]

So she was from our world? How interesting.

[Beeskee]

I was reluctant to assume Charlie was the Wizard, since it seems like if a butterfly farts in an unmapped hex, we're all ready to assume it's somehow part of Charlie's grand schemes to control the wind or whatever. I can't say I'm surprised though.

I keep wondering if Jillian and Parson will ever have a chance to talk.


Edit: ...Unlimited move. I guess that would be one way for Parson to get out of the city, since he's effectively trapped there even if they do win. We haven't seen any mounts he can ride so far, and his move can't be that great. If the slippers are even in Erfworld still.

[Lamech]

Hammer... tames dwagons.

Clearly you aren't thinking with dwagons. If you have a archon, foolamancer, or someone who can otherwise pierce veils you can have them scout via relay a large number of hexes. (Well you would probably want normal scouts to do the scouting and the veil detector to check for veils.) As many hexes as there are mountains in your reach can be checked. Then you tame all found dwagons. You can harvest some of the dwagons to feed your dwagons. And you can do all this without ever being in danger.

The shoes are outright useless if you aren't willing to risk danger when it comes to offense. The pliers are only as useful as we have seen them if you go into combat. OTOH, if you don't go into combat you need to win the battle. If you don't your enemy can feed the corpses to their dwagons. The hammer allows for an exponentially growing army of super-units.

[warriortribble]

This isn't necessarily true. In the movie Return to Oz, the ruby slippers fell off her feet and ended up in the possession of the gnome king. The shoes could be anywhere.

Not impossible, but I'm putting my money on Judy having the shoes. Unlike in the book where Dorothy flew back to Kansas, it sounds like Judy was directly teleported back to where she wanted to go ("as if the air where Judy was standing had slammed together and made her implode").

[Azukar]

Hammer... tames dwagons.

This might not be such a terrible power... We don't know for sure how hard it is to tame a Dwagon normally - Jillian might have just got lucky with Crapsack. Under normal circumstances it might be a thousand to one odds against taming a Dwagon, whereas the Arkenhammer does it instantly.

Plus don't forget the "van de Graff" attack which sent Caesar flying and croaked all the nearby bats. And the flying power, etc. Stanley might not have figured out all its powers, but it is still pretty cool.


In other news, this could potentially mean that all the Arkentools are accounted for. Three we know of, plus the 'Shoes which are now out of the picture.
And I definitely buy into the hypothesis that Charlie is a Stupidworlder (though I had for a while now).

[Whispri]

There's nothing to stop Olive from using the same sort of Flower Power on Gillian that Janis used on Jeftichew ... but I'd say destroying the Chilaxe should count as killing her, if it leaves her vulnerable to, for example, Wanda.

This is VERY true, and there's probably plenty of other things that she can do as well. Aside from her affinity for plant type units, Janis's Flower Power, and the poisoning of Tommy, do we really know exactly what a Hippiemancer can do? There must be more, or else they would be virtually useless units in Erf, even as powerful as the non-engagement spell potentially is, it was presented in a manor which implied the mancer needs to be in the feild for that one. Since the general rule of tactics is that Mancers do not belong in the field, I would say they must have some other tactical potential. And the fact that Olive is lvl 12 is not to be taken lightly, either. Wanda, circa TBFGK, is kick ass-bad ass, and not lvl 12. For all we know, Olive could fart them to death if she can think of the right application of her skills on the fly.

*edited for gross grammar abuse

As far as Wanda's Level is concerned, all we have to go on is the bonus she gives to Decrypted... but they aren't Uncroaked and the Artifact Bonus Charlie can grant his Archons was described as being just as strong as Wanda's, so really, she could be any Level.

A few things from update 49:

Jillian held her sword at the ready, but somehow did not brandish it for combat. The woman smiled and sang, stepping lightly through the snow. A Haffaton caster, some business-oriented part of Jillian’s brain noted. Level 12, which was astonishingly rare. Jillian had only ever seen one other. How could she be that high?

She wasn’t ready to attack, though, and wasn’t sure what the air might gain her. Something was holding her back. Jillian, a Chief Warlord, knew she ought to be able to take out an unled, unarmed caster, even a level 12. But this caster looked as unconcerned as she was unprepared. That in itself was worth some concern.

With her body-spring coiled, her mind grabbed at whatever it could get, looking for some angle to play.

“You’re ‘Dame Branch?’ One of your warlords mentioned you. But he didn’t say what you were. So, um...then Haffaton’s Chief Caster is a Hippiemancer?” she said, a little skeptically. It seemed really weird—stupid, if they had Lady Firebaugh on their side—but details of what she knew about the side kept coming back. The garden...oh, and the poison apples, Titans...

As you can see, Gillian doesn't believe that Olive being Level 12 is sufficient excuse to keep Wanda out of the Chief Caster spot. That suggests Wanda is very powerful indeed. And Haffaton defended both the Cities she sacked with plant based Units, so the Leadership argument can go both ways. Could Wanda be the other Level 12 Gill has met? The girl is a World famous conquerer at this point after all.

Do we have the actual wording of the Prediction that Jillian will croak the ruler of Haffaton, or was that an implication that was reworded by a character?

Not only do we not have the wording, what little we do know came from Wanda, who also claimed to have killed her own brother. If she was talking about poor Tommy (and unless Haffaton had one of her family members in captivity and forced her to croak him, she must have been), her interpretation of 'x croaked y' is broad enough to include 'x failed to save y' or similar.

Speaking of poor Orwell, I wonder how he is going to croak? Faq had no early warning of Stanley's attack, so it is clear that he won't survive this. But croaking Olive would just leave him "neutral" since he's in a city, so something else is probably going to happen to him.

It's my understanding that if a ruler dies without an heir, the entire side is automatically disbanded. That's what happened to Uniroyal - the queen emptied the treasury as much as possible before disbanding herself to leave Stanley as little as possible and no units for Wanda to uncroak. If Orwell entered the magic kingdom beforehand then he might survive Haffaton's destruction, but he can't become a barbarian. But maybe I missed something and casters aren't bound by the same rules.

Incidentally I don't know if this was mentioned before, but there's another clue that Charlie is from Stupidworld: at the end of Page 89 where Charlie says "We kill the fat man." No one from Erfworld is known to have used the word "kill."

Parson was expecting to survive as a time frozen Barbarian if Stanley croaked in the field during TBfGK as I recall and the Coalition Warlords were expecting the same thing. Of course, he was making a stand at his Side's Capital. If Efbaum is Haffaton's Capital, Gillian's made no comment on it. So then, at a subordinate City, with the Ruler dead? He might well just disband. I'm more than half expecting him to jump in front of a spell for Olive though.

[name lips]

God I'm slow. I just now realized Effbaum stands for Frank Baum.

Anyway... I don't like the "Olive turns into Janis" theory, but it does have things going for it. Olive knows about Stupidworld and wants to conquer the world with peace. Janis helped summon Parson from Stupidworld so that he could "break" Erfworld and bring about eternal peace. The "perfect warlord" spell was also intended to bring about the end of Charlie, whom Olive seems to have a history with.

As I said, though, I don't like it. There's room in the plot of Erfworld for more than one powerful Hippymancer. There's no reason we should have to jump from "see powerful hippymancer, then see another one in a flashback, ZOMG they must be the same." They have different names and different appearances, PLUS Jillian is fated to kill Olive. I know, with signamancy and delayed prophecies there are ways around these objections, but it would still seem forced to me.

[ManaCaster]

King Banhammer is acting unforgivably naive. I can understand the appeal of Faq joining Haffaton. If Olive weren't an insane, backstabbing sociopath, it would make perfect sense. Faq is a small side with a large number of casters, Haffaton is a huge side with only a couple of casters, and they share similar goals. All they would have to do is figure out how to come up with the upkeep, which is a pretty managable task with some creativity.

But by now it should be pretty clear that something is seriously wrong with the Haffaton side and King Banhammer is still having trouble puzzling it out.

[fruityjanitor]

Yeah, I'd say the "Charlie is from Earth" theory that's been floating around since book 1 has now reached "all but confirmed" status.

I agree.

Especially when combined with the below observation (which I didn't notice until it was pointed out in this thread)

Incidentally I don't know if this was mentioned before, but there's another clue that Charlie is from Stupidworld: at the end of Page 89 where Charlie says "We kill the fat man." No one from Erfworld is known to have used the word "kill."

This is an especially convincing piece of evidence when you consider how Jillian reacted when she heard Judy say the word "kill". I would go look up the update where it happens but it is getting late over here.

Wonder how many more text updates we'll get before this story gets wrapped up. I think it could be as few as two (in first one, Jill kills Olive and second one is a denouement where Wanda settles in to life in FAQ) but it could be several more. Olive is pretty talented at stall tactics and using dirty tricks to defend herself.

Has Rob hinted at what the next series of text updates will focus on?

[C9H20]

Does anyone get why the Tin Man is behaving like a teapot? (Steam from his head, whistling...)

He does that in the movie (and possibly the book, too). He blows a whistle out of his head at the end of his dance interlude in "If I Only Had a Heart."

Disappointed to learn that Banhammer is, in fact, fairly stupid. I assume next update Wanda (now that she is loyal to Faq) will explain to the idiot that the peace Olive offers it the peace of the grave, that she can only maintain a side as massive as hers by mass-disbanding and leaving whole cities perpetually empty.

I'm rather disappointed as well that Banhammer is so stupid. I kept holding out for some deception and a moment of immense guile but... nothing.

Frankly now all I can think of is that he is he dumbest person which ever lived, to have existed for so many turns, practiced philosophy for much of it and still be so utterly devoid of wisdom is almost incomprehensible to me.

EDIT: Also what is up with the updates? They are both slow and erratic, it has grown beyond annoying lately.

[Direcoyote]

Something tells me that Olive's head isn't going to be doing much talking next update.....unless Wanda chooses to uncroak it. Timing wise, I *Think* we're going to shift to Gobwin's Knob and answer a few questions on how Stanley wound up as Overlord there.

[mortissimus]

In other news, this could potentially mean that all the Arkentools are accounted for. Three we know of, plus the 'Shoes which are now out of the picture.

All the known ones, yes. "Four known Arkentools" was mentioned in TBfGK. So there can be more.

On the question of unbalanced Arkentools, they are all incredible useful for the right person in the right situation and next to useless to the wrong person in the wrong situation. If Sylvia had attuned to the pliers when she holds them as the Vulcano erupts, she would still have been toast. Arkenshoes on the other hand would have been usefull. But then again the Arkentools choose who to attune to (as at least the hammer has poor taste in friends) and probably attunes to someone who can use their powers.

And I definitely buy into the hypothesis that Charlie is a Stupidworlder (though I had for a while now).

Yeah, me too. Kill, leetspeak, the Wizard of Efbaum, strange mind to Erfworlders. It all stacks up, even though it can of course be explained differently. But as this update shows when stuff is clearly foreshadowed they do happen.

[Jabberwocky]

..and flies and changamancy and lightning and rocks out. Yeah, Stanley got a raw deal.

Obviously, the Hammer lets its user turn into a super Dwagon. Changemancy for the shapeshifting, flight, lightning breath and the rocking out is for the transformation sequence.

Hopefully, Stanley's transformation sequence is one of the 'fully clothed' ones.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

I would like to mention that there must be SOME other power the Arkenhammer has that hasn't been revealed yet. Shoes let you become essentially unkillable, able to nope out of any unfavorable engagement and generally being insanely powerful, pliers give you a steadily growing army of freakishly loyal soldiers. Hammer... tames dwagons.

I don't know - if the unlimited move also works off turn it is a bit more like that, but even then - they don't give super speed or invulnerability. I imagine there are a lot of things that could catch Judy speed wise (not counting ranged) in a hex, or over multiple hexes if it was their turn (flyers for example), it is only in endurance terms they might win. Teleportation back to home base is useful, but it isn't instant either.

It is possible that Stanley hasn't found the hammers true calling yet, but everything seems to act differently. From memory the pliers have shown one power in the hands of their attuned - decrypting (and giving a bonus to the decrypted). And they don't do that unless you can secure yourself raw supplies (Wanda was lucky she had an entire army to decrypt right off the bat, if she didn't it would have been a lot harder). The shoes have at least two powers - unlimited move and returning the wearer to where they truly consider they belong. Charlie's dish has a lot of theorized powers from few actually proven on page - they range from the ulitarian to the potentially very powerful (long range caster link ups).

The hammer has shown bunch of useful moderate powers - flight, a powerful shockmancy attack, Stanley can rock out with it, taming dwagons, turning walnuts into pigeons and Orlys into walnuts...

Disappointed to learn that Banhammer is, in fact, fairly stupid. I assume next update Wanda (now that she is loyal to Faq) will explain to the idiot that the peace Olive offers it the peace of the grave, that she can only maintain a side as massive as hers by mass-disbanding and leaving whole cities perpetually empty.

I'm rather disappointed as well that Banhammer is so stupid. I kept holding out for some deception and a moment of immense guile but... nothing.[/quote]

I'm half expecting when Olive is no longer a threat he'll show he's been taking a leaf from Jack's book the whole time. "Oh don't give me that look Jillian, I'm sure you'll agree I did an excellent job of lulling her into a false sense of security - playing the fool unable to see the truth because my idealism blinds me to reality. Sorry I didn't tell you, but lets face it - you'd never have been able to pull off the act. But I will compliment you this time - I didn't know what would happen once we were there, but you took control quickly and saved us"

Speaking of poor Orwell, I wonder how he is going to croak? Faq had no early warning of Stanley's attack, so it is clear that he won't survive this. But croaking Olive would just leave him "neutral" since he's in a city, so something else is probably going to happen to him.

Maybe he could turn back before Olive dies. Or be "captured".

Faq has a couple of other casters unaccounted for at the moment as well, it seems possible they all make it back to Faq and aren't captured by Stanley like Jack is. We know Marie somehow ends up in the MK instead of being captured/killed in the attack, no real reason the other casters couldn't have been cut loose as well - if Banhammer knew Faq was to be properly destroyed next time, as opposed to just going into exile he could have sent his casters to the MK - he's shown he cares about preserving the wisdom of his court.

[Ytaker]

So at least one Arkentool existed in Stupidworld before the main story began and they're there right now. What does this mean I wonder? What is the link between our mundane world and the bizzaro turn based one?

This isn't necessarily true. In the movie Return to Oz, the ruby slippers fell off her feet and ended up in the possession of the gnome king. The shoes could be anywhere.

The only creatures that I can think of close to gnomes are the gobwins and hobgobwins. They obviously have lots of deceptions and lies. Perhaps when Parson decides to complete that quest line he'll find the shoes.