Book 2 – Page 78

[0beron]

Well like I said, he wasn't their heavy hitter, he was a figurehead used for his bonus (not saying that was smart of them of course).
But yes you make very good points. Perhaps there is some benefit to the carpet we don't know. Or, dismounting ANY rider could be equally "easy", we've just only ever seen it done to people riding the carpet.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

Jillian was dismounted from a gwiffon.

(It's interesting that a dwagon could use sophisticated tactics like dismounting and capturing in the absence of a warlord.)

Edit: What the heck, I didn't write that last line about the gwiffon being killed out from under her! How did that get into my post?

[0beron]

Okay that actually kind of proves my point....that looked pretty darn easy, the Gwiffon wasn't doing anything to prevent it.

As for the sophistication, that may be due to the Eyemancer table, the dwagons were taking orders from Parson at that point I believe.

[HalfTangible]

Something interesting i just noticed: EVERYTHING Ossomer was wearing got dusted. Including the bracer that he wasn't originally decrypted with. (i assumed it came new from the Dollamancer, since it required a different command word than the one he had by the bridge)

@Carpet: one of the text updates last issue had Ossomer muse over the fact that the carpet was a magic item he didn't like for precisely this reason: it wouldn't catch it's rider if he/she fell. Ansom, on the other hand, believed it's range and maneuverability made up for it.

[Biostar]

Definitely didn't expect Ossomer to bite the the "dust" so quickly. If he's truly dead, just incase. Maybe a text update will expand on his last thoughts.

I wonder how this will affect Slately though. Losing, regaining, and losing again the same son in one day can't be easy to brush over. Might make him careless.

[arin]

I think people are overthinking the carpet thing. He wasn't on the carpet because of any strategy of Jetstone's, he was on the carpet because... that's what he was on when the tower fell. There was no time or opportunity to move him to any other mount.

And for that matter, the reason Wanda had him on the carpet is because she was leaving Ansom behind for the ground troops. True, she could have kicked a Hobgobwin off of it's dwagon for Ossomer, but why? They flew in expecting to parley Jillian away and raze the tower with little resistance, having no real reason to fear for Ossomer's safety. Plus we don't even know if non-warlord, non-caster units can USE magic items like a flying carpet. (Plus Ossomer was only turned for brief tactical intelligence in the first place, massive bonus or not he was mostly just useless/disposable in Wanda's eyes after that point.)

[Keighvin1]

Squall83, he didn't charge the archons, they charged him. Ossomer never left Slately's side.

[Swodaems]

Okay that actually kind of proves my point....that looked pretty darn easy, the Gwiffon wasn't doing anything to prevent it.

As for the sophistication, that may be due to the Eyemancer table, the dwagons were taking orders from Parson at that point I believe.

If it was an order, than it was probably Stanley's doing if not the eyemancer's. Parson wasn't even summoned by that point.

[SteveMB]

Okay that actually kind of proves my point....that looked pretty darn easy, the Gwiffon wasn't doing anything to prevent it.

As for the sophistication, that may be due to the Eyemancer table, the dwagons were taking orders from Parson at that point I believe.

If it was an order, than it was probably Stanley's doing if not the eyemancer's. Parson wasn't even summoned by that point.

It was Stanley's doing -- "She ended turn in the trees, and I pulled together a flight of nearby dwagons."

[Saladman]

Yeah, I stand corrected on the portal. Its probably still up, which makes things interesting.

The air battle may still be closer than it looks. We have an idea local combat happens in alternating rounds (from the Countess Artemis text update, not spelled out but looks strong). So we've just seen the archons go, and they made good use of it, but Jetstone's about to get their own hits in. We're just not seeing it on this page, but it may be next in the book. We haven't seen Ace's attack, and we still don't know exactly what the Dittomancer was doing. It sucks to lose Ossomer's bonus, but they thought they had a shot even before he turned, so really they're still ahead of ante. Their main weak point is still Slately, but as long as he's not croaked outright Pierce can Heal him.

On Slately, I expect he is going to win... and level. Princes are Warlords (usually if not always, but he's certainly not a caster), so even if he's rusty and pudgy and never leveled he should still be a level 1 Warlord. Its likely just not the kind of thing Erfworlders go around talking about since using your Ruler in combat is usually silly.

[the_tick_rules]

We dunno if Osssomer is croaked yet.

[MarbitChow]

We dunno if Osssomer is croaked yet.

Tremmenis receives a think-a-gram about Ossomer. "Ok, I see. Let me know if there's any change in his condition." Think-a-gram ends, and Tremennis turns to the units next to him. "He's dead."

(We know he's croaked. Then decrypted. Now dusted. It doesn't get any more final than that.)

[Lamech]

R.I.P. Ossomer
His only regret was that he had but two lives to give for his kingdom.

Hey, maybe he'll come back as a dust devil.

[TheTuna]

Didn't we see the portal close in the Magic Kingdom a few pages back? That would seem to indicate that it's no longer an option.

[Balerion]

Do we call the tile he empathized with falling to its doom foreshadowing for his fate or not?

[kagato23]

Didn't we see the portal close in the Magic Kingdom a few pages back? That would seem to indicate that it's no longer an option.

No. No we didn't.

[Oberon]

I cannot for the life of me understand why the hate/dislike for Ossomer is so prevalent! Because he's a particular archetype of character people don't like? The big strong guy who may or may not be as intelligent as many around him?

I agree. He was never a favorite character of mine, but he has had both a lot of "screen time", and a lot of character growth.

I'm not disappointed that he died (a story where no main character can die isn't really interesting to me), but I'm not cheering in the stands either.

[snippage] If [Slately] weren't in danger of losing his whole side to 'Tool wielders, I don't think he'd be changing at all.

Agreed.

Plus...not to stereotype or anything, but consider for a moment who the bulk of Erfworld's readers likely are (especially forum posters). Then consider that a bunch of pretty, busty girls in airline uniforms and poodleskirts clearly hate Ossomer....what do you expect the fans will do? :p

Meh, give the forumites a bit more credit than that. After all, it wasn't so long ago that those same bunch of pretty, busty girls in airline uniforms and poodleskirts were floating outside the GK tower with a net, looking to capture our favorite Stupidworld native. The archons are a flying bunch of Stepford wives, with magic blasts and (historically) whatever ability they needed at the time (note that they've never used this "swarm and dismount" maneuver before, just one more weapon in their nigh infinite arsenal). I dislike them immensely, both as a unit and as a plot device.

There's all kind of cool flying mounts around, why does the chief warlord flies around in a simple, unstable rug? We don't see people geting knocked out of dwagons/unipegataurs/gwiffons all the time.

We know that Ansom got everything he wanted for the first RCC attack on GK, except casters. And Ansom rode the carpet. If it was junk I don't think Ansom would have been limited to the carpet instead of a better mount.

Didn't we see the portal close in the Magic Kingdom a few pages back? That would seem to indicate that it's no longer an option.

We did, but if you read the rest of that strip it's quite clear that that was foolamancy cast by Jack to allow him to move past the GMTTA and join the GK units. Or do you think that Jack regrew from a severed head somehow?

[vintermann]

I think it has to do with the demonizing of Jetstone. Jetstone in particular, though Royals in general, have obviously been painted as bad, misguided, and stuck-up. They really are the direct Erfworld equivalent of the "Divine Mandate" era of European monarchs. So anyone who is on their side also gets demonized.

But remember what Stanley said in book 1 (paraphrased from memory): "There's no such thing as good or evil, but I'll tell you what there is: holy and unholy". Jetstone may be pudgy European divine mandate king (European divine mandate was a lot less extreme than other divine mandate-thinking, btw, due to the leader-as-servant and political influence from the catholic church) - but then GK is howling religious fanatic in holy war mode. And in a fairly nihilistic religion at that - only thing that matters is that tool wielders should have power, not what they're supposed to do with it.

Wanda is fascinating in a gothic horror personal trainwreck sort of way, but I certainly don't root for her. The tools urgently need a setback now, for the story's sake. The obvious solution (and the one I hope for) is that Parson ends up on some other side, perhaps Jetstone. Having to fight them back from the brink of disaster that he brought on them himself - or at the very least fight against his summoner and former overlord.

[oslecamo2_temp]

There's all kind of cool flying mounts around, why does the chief warlord flies around in a simple, unstable rug? We don't see people geting knocked out of dwagons/unipegataurs/gwiffons all the time.

We know that Ansom got everything he wanted for the first RCC attack on GK, except casters. And Ansom rode the carpet. If it was junk I don't think Ansom would have been limited to the carpet instead of a better mount.

First, I don't recall anywhere saying Ansom got everything he wanted. Jillian even complains their intelligence gathering sucks and they're just a big, slow pile of heavy infantry, heavies and siege that could (and was) outmaneuvered by faster stuff.

Second, I'm not saying it's complete junk. When you need to quickly move trough various hexes to oversee troops it does come in handy with its superior speed and maneuverability mentioned before.

Third, Ansom did have some unipegataurs at start, but then he sent them with Jillian and then they got mostly blasted and uncroaked by Wanda. Ansom squandered his limited air force until he was reduced to just the carpet. If he had saved some unpegataurs for himself and some top warlords, things would've gone quite diferently.

Didn't we see the portal close in the Magic Kingdom a few pages back? That would seem to indicate that it's no longer an option.

We did, but if you read the rest of that strip it's quite clear that that was foolamancy cast by Jack to allow him to move past the GMTTA and join the GK units. Or do you think that Jack regrew from a severed head somehow?

The severed head was an illusion. The portal closing wasn't.

[Infidel]

Bloody finally.

Stupid traitor!

You can't betray someone that coerces you into service beyond death.

That never stopped anyone. People would be drafted the old fashioned way into armies, and they would still be treated as a traitor and a coward if they tried to escape. It is only recently that shanghaiing became illegal. 1920s I think. So very recent.