Annotated LiaHT 3
Gravedust is often our most “destroy capitalism” character, but here he really is practically about to start passing out copies of The Communist Manifesto. I mean, it’d be one thing if his observations flowed from Syr’Nj’s in any sort of natural way, but she’s talking logistics and he’s talking sociology. He was clearly and, somewhat uncharacteristically, not listening to her too much and just waiting for his turn to speak.
On the other hand, his point is a lot more applicable to what our (ahem) heroes are currently doing. Granted, they’re not stealing anything that clearly belongs to someone else, and they’re not, as far as we know, murdering other sentient beings to get to it. But it’s still interesting that they’re on what seems to be a loot-driven quest, which is common for Dungeons and Dragons but a little odd for a group with government-paid wages. It fits our original working-class-hero concept better than where our story actually ended up.
But maybe Ardaic’s just trying to get them to scrounge up a little funding for armor and soldier’s meals before the war proper begins.
I always took Gravy’s as someone with a clear basis, Gastonians are always the perpetrators, which comes off as funny most of the time. Especially considering most D&D parties do tend to be murder hobo-ish and you need to make the enemies super evil to justify their actions.
Aye, you do need something to make sure the conglomerate of murder-hobos still end up benefiting the world in the long run even if the do some criminal or less “heroic” acts.
And yet there are those instances that of someone throwing a ring of teleport into the ocean. (casts epic spell to make sure cultists and BBEGs don’t get/use this idea)
Also, Syr’Nj and Gravedust have very good points that I think plenty of people (including myself) have probably never thought about before. I guess the family would/could have easily gotten rich from trying to sell all that loitering food (giant and beanstalk). And now that I thin k about it, there’s no way ether of them or their house wouldn’t have gotten seriously injured/damaged from the shockwave of the giant’s landing.
Might as well have been a “Lesser Meteor of Flesh” (for the more oddball mages? Will have to transcribe that later).
I also took this as early on in the story, when Gravedust was still overtly hostile to Gastonian society. He’s definitely viewing the fable through the lens of his perception gastonian values.