Chapter 8 – Page 25
Guilded Age is not over, folks. In many ways, it has only just begun. Chapter 9 begins on Monday, and we hope you’ll be here for it. Thanks for reading so far, and stick with us. Things are about to get exciting.
Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip
Let this be a lesson to all adventuring parties. Have your berserker spayed or neutered.
Syr’nj has put her goggles on.
I expect science. BADASS ROYAL WOOD ELF SCIENCE.
Also, Byron has a prophecy to fulfill, so I suspect he’ll recover, at least.
Yeah, the prophecy was *kill* so I’d say he’s pretty much fulfilled it.
Based on her stance, I think this is it. She’s not preparing to fight/act. The goggles are more like ensuring your uniform/armor is all in place and spiffy before the end.
Yeah, Syr’s taking it like a true soldier.
Things are ABOUT TO get exciting?
Not sure if I can handle that.
Can’t wait.
They’re all gonna die! Great ending to the series, guys. Answers a lot of questions…
meh there adventurers, a quick adventure to hell or a dozen raise deads and there back in the killing bissnes.
Precisely. Now we get to learn how close to D&D the Guilded Age world is.
If this was D&D, Byron is at least Epic Level…. Two Weapon Fighting, Frenzied Beserker, Whirlwind attack…. the prereqs alone take 9 or 10 levels… more if you’re not a fighter. >.<
The sad thing is that Monday (and maybe the next update) will most likely be one of the following:
1. Cover art.
2. Wholly unrelated to the current situation.
Sorry to be pessimistic. Covert art days make me go “OOOOOOOOHHHH” like Yosemite Sam. :(
Well, you’re half right.
This one will make him go “D’oh” like Homer?
It’ll be the Gastonian leadership reacting to something relevant to the general plot but having nothing to do with the party’s fate(s). More content than a cover, but still likely to provoke shouts of rage.
Must. Not. Murder. One. Of the. Two. Writers. Of. Favorite. Webcomic…. Must. Wait. For. Updates.
*Collapses to the ground, foaming wildly at the mouth.*
Seriously, Phil. You and Mr. Campbell are to be congratulated. I have NEVER gotten this worked up over a webcomic before. And I just KNOW you’re going to twist the knife in further. This is an abusive relationship, and I’m the enabler…. Dang it, why am I so addicted to good fantasy plots?
Trust me, you guys don’t get anywhere close to as worked up over these scripts as T and I do.
I am not joking when I say we will have hour-long arguments about single lines of dialogue.
Could you provide us with a transcript or video of one such argument. The longer and bloodier the better.
If you pull a Twin Peaks here, I’m going to berserk.
for real!
We’ll all go all foamy at the mouth like Byron.
sad/funny part about all of this… their ‘god king’ whatever he calls himself, only managed to hurt one of them on his own, the rest were taken down by the zerker rage.
can’t wait for the continuation.. or the cover art related to the situation.
And that day Leonidas proved that even a god king can bleed.
On a totally fannish note, I just want to say Syr’nj rocks, the more the story goes on the more I enjoy seeing her, Phil and T have written her well, and I like the way John has been drawing her. She really seems to own this desperate mess even though she’s losing, maybe even dying.
You could almost say she has… royal composure.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m really hoping there’s no use of an Instant Plot Device (just add water!).
On the other hand, I don’t see any way out of this for any of the cast besides an Instant Plot Device (just add water!). Everyone except Syr’Nj is dead or dying and from the looks of that last panel she’s had it too.
Holy. DAMN. Can’t wait to see how this plays out. So glad to finally see a webcomic that stays the same (epic, funny, well-drawn) after an artist change.
NOW, THE CONCLUSION. >:3
Did anybody else find it a bit odd that the HEALER is the last one standing?
It’s usually the other way around…:P
Depends on how a team works together. I’m a healer in a campaign I’m in and I’m usually last man standing.
So here’s my guess and feel free to poke holes in it. Right about now there are enough arrows there to block out the sun. Thus right as they’re about to strike Leonidas and the three hundred spartans are going to rush in shields up and block Syr’Nj along with all the downed parties members and everyone will have a good laugh about fighting in the shade.
Alright everybody, time to roll up new characters.
Had a GM do this to us once, set a greater mummy(in 3rd terms, CR in the 20’s and can’t be actually killed without divine intervention) on us(poor little level 8’s) because he was having a bad day. Needless to say, everybody died a horrible death.
Alternatively, none of them were there in the flesh. These were all simulacrums remotely controlled to see how they were received by the army.
That sounds like an awful GM.
Shoot, Is this setting up for something where we can vote on who lives and who dies and how or why or something?
If so, I’d like to vote for Jason Todd to get–oops, never mind. 1988 called, it wants me back.
Truely any epic series!!! Can’t wait for Monday XD
Syr will get out of this… this much I’m pretty sure. I don’t think the writers would drop something like her being ROYAL just to kill her off without going any further, so I’m expecting (or at least hopingwishingpraying) she has something science-y up her sleeve.
And, it was sadder than I was expecting it to be to finally see Bandit’s bloodied body after all the speculation in the comments. We can still speculate about Frigg and Gravedust and maybe even Byron, but I have the sinking feeling Bandit’s fate is sealed.
Well, considering how much the political landscape has been influencing the story so far, it is totally plausible that she could be killed off after dropping something like her being ROYAL.
Either she’s going to pull out some secret wood elf/royal trick to escape or she’s going to die.
That’s true… and I’m sure the death of an elven royal would set off a whole new plot. But I like Syr so I’m being hopeful. And maybe I’m just supposing she didn’t put her goggles on just to stand there and die. :)
On a perhaps unrelated note.
I wanna do voting for this comic of awesome.
It’s not on Top Web Comics, at least I’m not finding it with a site search.
So…how does that work? Do you guys set that up, or can a fan do it? Or do you hate comic votes and I’m-a get banned now? ./cower
I think top web comics allows you to submit other people’s comics, (having submitted my own to it a while ago, I read their terms) – but I think it’s the choice of the creators whether or not to do so.
Guys, you’re selling products and stuff, so you could register with these sites (which is pretty easy) and increase your visitorcount a little with it. – although word of mouth is very good when you’re this good.
Pssht, please. We don’t ban people unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Toplists are nice and all, but not necessarily the way we want to go about things right now. Ahdok has it spot-on with word-of-mouth.
Basically, if everyone who’s reading GA right now got just one more friend to be a regular reader, we’d be in serious business (as it were).
Fair enough :D Thank you
Speaking of business, will you be releasing an Act I book in the future?
Sorta! We’re still debating on how many chapters we want in the first volume. It’d be neat to have all eight, but that’d drive costs way up so it’s a small dilemma we’re still mulling on.
Perhaps chapters 1-5 in the first book, 6-10 in book 2, etc.?
Not a bad option there, but we’re reluctant to separate chapters 5 & 6 since they are a two-parter of sorts.
Ask the Gastonians to finance it. Bitches so rich they c’n fund whatever they want, ayo!
Lol, I’ve done that five times over. AHM PULLIN MAH WEIGHT.
Hey, stupid question here (I don’t play MMORPGs: all my gaming is tabletop): what happens when your character dies in WoW or suchlike games? You don’t make a new PC, right?
In WoW no. You just die and have the choice to revive for a penalty at a “spirit healer” or go walk back to your corpse and just have your gear take durability damage.
In WoW you become a ghost and your gear loses 10% durability. The only loss in dying is a bit of gold and the ghost run back to your corpse.
Really depends on the MMO.
Generally you ‘respawn’ somewhere. Whether that actually has an in-game explanation varies. In WoW there’s pretty much no explanation, you just keep coming back from the dead even if you’re not Forsaken. In City of Heroes/Villains, it’s explained as an emergency teleport system that’ll zap you straight to a futuristic hospital the moment your lifesigns drop below a certain level. In EVE Online, your body (and ship) do get permanently killed, but your mind is transferred to a fresh clone body. And in the upcoming game Rift: Planes of Telara, players are ‘ascended’, which is basically the souls of dead heroes pulled from the afterlife either by divine intervention (‘order’ faction) or through technomagic science (‘chaos’ faction), so the fact that you can treat death as a temporary setback makes a kind of sense.
The actual consequences of death vary too. Generally, the more recent a MMO is, the lower the penalty for dying. In old Ultima Online, you were fairly fucked, probably losing all your possessions. In Everquest, you lost a significant chunk of experience (to the point of throwing you back to a lower level, even) and had to make a run to your corpse before it despawned…naked, and with your body probably still surrounded by whatever killed you. In WoW, you lose some item durability, which means it’s basically a gold cost. And so on.
Everquest hasn’t changed much. Still lose a good chunk of experience, but you respawn at your “bind location” with all your gear, no longer “naked.” From there, you can be resurrected where you died, or you can spend platinum to buy an item that will summon your corpse to the guild lobby and get a resurrection there. All said and done, you either lose 4% of your exp (the best rez spell out there is 96%, but there is an aa that can be used once per day for a 100% rez…) or you lose 4% exp and a buncha plat. EQ2 isn’t nearly as brutal with death.
Nope, different games have different methods. In WoW you become a ghost and have to hike back to your corpse to resurrect, or have someone else resurrect you. The other method normally used is that you respawn at a specific location elsewhere.
I made it through all the comments late Friday, but there are more than 100 new ones since then and I don’t know if anyone has thought about this, but I don’t think the archers are aiming at Syr’nj. The Warlord specifically told the archers to fire at the demon until there was nothing left of him.
Also, the art seems to have the arrows more on a trajectory towards Byron’s body than Syr’nj. Just my two cents.
My prediction is thus: The arrows, since they are obviously aimed at Byron as per the archers’ orders, will not hit Syr’Nj. She will be the only one to escape alive. She may or may not have an epic solo adventure to retrieve some sort of artifact with which to resurrect the party. Gravedust will learn much in his time amongst the dead.
I struggle to believe none of them will hit Syr’Nj, but I agree with you about the trajectory of the arrows. Who knows? Roll on Monday!
I have a feeling that it’s going to be a dream.
Hm . .she is a royal wood elf, they take from nature what the deem neccesary.
She has just stated that “you all have a choice”. Considering there are powerful mages that can create bigass hailstorms to wipe a decent amount of kobolts, and that she has roots-like-toes.
I blieve she might be able to comman nature to shield her alies from the arrows and use the natures power from earth to heal/partialy ressurect her allies at the cost of neerly or entirely killing herself from exhaustion.
Point being, she wanted to be known as a regular wood elf with medical knowledge.
I’m not sure what powers wood elves posses, but a royal wood elf gotta be pretty impressive.
Anyway, last too panels are far too epic for me to acknowledge a normal dead.
I think we’re going to see a new party, tbh. They got so tired of how everyone was complaining about how the new artist wasn’t getting the current crop exactly like the old artist, and they figured “Arrows fall, everyone dies”.
Given the level of relation to much, MUCH earlier images, I really doubt that this plotline has such meager planning.
That may be a (bad) DM behavior, but these guys haven’t shown much sign of angry reactionary storytelling.
actually, it’s a plausible idea. new artist, new story arc, after finishing the old one off.
Rather, I think that this whole party was considered sacrificial lambs from the get-go. It’s all to set up some larger plotline, and that all of the “reveals” (the berserking, the dwarven mystics, the royal parentage, etc etc) were what will set things in motion elsewhere.
At this point, I’m going to pessimistically say that the best we can hope for is that our heroes will be avenged by a NEW (and totally badass) set of heroes.
Just my 0.02$
Cheers,
Cote
Monday will be Syr’nj finishing off the tail end of an implausible explanation to Lord Pornstache of how they escaped that no one but her remembers, since she made it up to hide the fact she nuked the arena with Wood Elf Royal Magic and Science!’d the party back to consciousness.
Anti-climatic ending: trolls have really bad aim, every single arrow misses. They fire again, same result. Wash, rinse, and repeat until the troll archers are out of arrows. They let Syr and her dead/half-dead allies go as long as they promise to never talk of their epic fail again.
Ah, the stormtrooper effect
Isn’t the next chapter focusing on the solo adventures of Payest Best?
x_X I really hope it’s not focused on Best, I’d be pulling my hair out wondering what was the eventual fate of the party. (Cause Gods have a love/hate relationship with PCs.. XD)
their fate is kind of obvious, unless you’re reading the braille edition.
I feel like this is a reference to something…
Aaaannndd here’s where we find out syr’nj multiclassed to monk many levels ago and will catch all the arrows and throw them back through each of the trolls’ eyes :P
wewt for natural 20 :P
Hmm, after the addition of the pings and trackbacks, i find that i cannot get to the older comments anymore.
Me neither. :(
Next chapter: “Five for Fighting, take 2”.
So far I’m really enjoying both the art and the characters of this webcomic. Really looking forward to more.
I am slightly surprised no one has mentioned the possibility of Syr’Nj doing her Science!/Communion with nature to save the party, and her healing to make them not deadified. Then, with all the party either exhausted or part-dead, them being taken prisoner to be either held for ransom or for the “insurgent races” to brag about the death of and hope to brain-wash.
There’s something wrong (for the bad guys) about using the archers. See page 22, the minion REALLY doesn’t want to pass along the order. So it won’t be a total surprise when something weird happens.
I like this comic a lot, but I kinda think it’s been too over the top the last few pages, . I know it’s necessary to see Byron go berserk, since we’ve heard about it a few times. Like using the gun in the third act that was on the mantlepiece in the first act. (BTW, as I recall, the movie “The Usual Suspects” was very good in this department and I recommend it.) The violence may be overdone, but I kind of like the character of the king and the way he is handled. Also seems to me that the way some of the characters are handled has improved lately. Byron in particular, as I recall, though now that has all happened it’s sort of hard to remember the same way.
(BTW, forgive me if I get the names or titles wrong, my memory has a big hole in it where most names should go)
The constant comments about D&D miss the point, IMHO. I guess it’s inescapable that some of this comic comes from that world, but it ought to stand on its own.
I’d be happier if there was less contemporary slang in here, though I’ll admit it sounds pretty good when it’s coming from Frigg. These people are obviously someplace very different, and to my ear the slang emphasizes that it’s only a comic. This may be just because I’m a semi geezer and so many of the words originated when I was an adult, so I notice them. Perhaps to a twentysomething that’s all transparent. So maybe I have to get used to it, sort of like the reverse of what one has to do when first reading (or watching) Shakespeare. I’ve noticed this in some other fantasy comics too.
This comic makes it harder to kick my internet habit.
I’m sincerely disappointed in them as an adventuring group. not only did they take absolutely no potions with them, they had no resurrection ritual, or even healz. tsk, tsk.
DREAM SEQUENCE.
id draw, for one final, pointless, glorious charge….
assuming byron hadn’t ended me…