The Order of the Stick: Battle for the Gate

[filbypott.insanejournal.com]

The Order of the Stick is my favorite webcomic. It's based on Dungeons & Dragons, though you don't have to know anything about D&D to enjoy the comic.

To show you how awesome OotS is, I thought I'd share this extended sequence.

Okay, so, Xykon is an evil undead sorcerer who's trying to locate and control several magical gates scattered throughout the world. Doing so will give him control over an ancient evil, sealed away by the gods, that will give him the power to conquer the entire world. Our heroes managed to destroy one of these gates, so Xykon and his army have moved on to the next one - Soon's Gate in Azure City, which is sealed closed by the magical sapphire in the throne of Lord Shojo, the city's ruler.

Shortly before this, a rogue paladin who turned zealot thought Lord Shojo was working with Xykon, so she assassinated him. For this evil act, the gods stripped her of her powers and the Sapphire Guard imprisoned her, but the death of Shojo left an opening for Xykon to enter the throne room to personally claim the gate.





Xykon, it should be noted, is an unholy badass.

Hinjo, the late Lord Shojo's nephew and captain of the Sapphire Guard, is outside fighting off Xykon's troops.



The Sapphire Guard, it should be noted, are righteous badasses themselves.

Incidentally, the guy with the mustache is Soon Kim, the Guard's founder.

So Xykon's second-in-command, Redcloak, arrives. Redcloak is the prophet of the goblin god. He has a personal grudge against the Sapphire Guard for slaughtering his people.



We cut to Miko Miyazaki, the aforementioned ex-paladin who murdered Lord Shojo.



I'll just let the rest of the strips speak for themselves.









;_;

Y'all really should check out The Order of the Stick if you haven't already.

Comments

[crinosg.insanejournal.com]

Xykon is awesome, the above is probably the most awesome scene of unrestrained villainy from any villain ever.

Also, reading Xykon becomes 50 percent better if you imagine Fred Willard reading his lines.

Couple of nitpicks

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

1) Shojo wasn't the king of Azure City; he was the head of the Sapphire Guard and head of the city's ruling council. But technically, not the king.

2) Hinjo is Shojo's nephew, not son.

Other than that, excellent post.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Soon Kim is the founder of the Sapphire Guard. While it's possible that he is also the founder of Azure City, it's never stated anywhere.

Also, I really want to post Miko's story, but I really really don't want to break my copy of No Cure For The Paladin Blues to get the 2 or 3 bonus strips that show how human and inhuman Miko is.

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; Miko is my second favorite minor character in the strip. My favorite is the scarf-wearing Shadow Dancer. (Fruit Pie the Sorcerer is my third favorite).

[nagaoka.insanejournal.com]

As much as I love order of the stick, I have nothing but the utmost contempt for the "bouncing symbol of insanity" strip. Seriously, the lengths you have to go to make that single strip believable, even considering it's Order of the Stick, just kill it for me. Thankfully it quickly gets back to being epic right after that.

[yotsuba123.insanejournal.com]

I loved Lord Soon. And Miko's death was poignant - as much as I was going "YES! YOU MORON!" when she died, it was so very sad that she didn't get it. Soon's '...no.' was heartbreaking, even if I didn't like Miko at all.

At least she still gets to see her horsey. :(