Summer Updates - 010

[balder]

New update, and a change of venue. This begins what will be the second of two epilogues in Book 1.

[Lunaya]

Yay! Back to Vinny and Jillian. I'm loving the illustration. Vinny and Caesar's expressions are priceless.

[BarGamer]

Perq is the British spelling for "perk."

Don King proposing an "Alliance" with Faq sounds like a solid move. Here's hoping Don King knows how to soothe Jillian's ruffled feathers, or the crazy lady just might tell him to shove it, and go on a one-woman suicide mission after Stanley.

[gameboy1234]

I get the feeling she's almost a captured royal, and may be forced to turn over her cites to Transilvito. They already said they wanted those cities, earlier in the strip. Maybe things are coming to a head now.

[Arkenputtyknife]

So that wig was a helmet? Yoy…

[cloudbreaker]

So if Transilvito captures Jillian (making her one of their units) would she still be able to reclaim Faq and become an overlord in the city?

Okay, so after I typed that, I realized it sounded pretty rediculous and I doubt the rules of the world would allow it, but ya never know...

Also, Vinny only has three bats left? Sad.

[shneekeythelost]

So, he made her an offer she couldn't refuse...

Interesting how all the sudden they're standing on Royal Protocol... Vinnie confirmed the normally Egalitarian setup that the Transylvito side has, much like the old-school Mafia (as long as you follow the Don, you can rise far based on merits). I smell a distinctly foul odor... the original Godfather wouldn't make an offer like this unless he thought there was a *LOT* to gain. More than just the FAQ cities. Heck, now that the Foolamancer isn't around, I'm surprised they hadn't found the cities anyways. That's easy, just spread out bats in surrounding hexes until you find 'em. So there's a LOT more to this than just a land-grab. Maybe they're wanting Jillian to become Queen of FAQ, as a new and allied (subjugated) side? With new and different types of units? (Gwyfons maybe?)

[xBekux]

Wow, first page! Ding! haha.

Anywho, this was a great way t show what was going on so far.

Also, cloudbreaker, she could never be coerced into becoming a unit under transylvito, at least from the rules we know. She's a barbarian, not a unit belonging to a side. All signs point to her being forced into the audience, and into some kind of agreement with Don. There's not a lot of evidence to it, but maybe the new side under jillian will benefit Don King some how. Plenty of possibilities though.

Edit: Ninja'd haha

[xBekux]

Oh, also I had an interesting thought on the casters of Faq. I'm not sure if they were trained or not, but they had some powerful casters popped there. Jack, Wanda, the predictamancers that were good enough to tell when they needed to hide what cities, whatever predictamancer gave Wanda her prediction, and of course, Jilian. Jillian was obviously levelled up, but she is an heir and seems unusually good in close combat. Maybe she can help the pop rate of master class casters?

[Fiendishrabbit]

Hmm. Vinny seems to be more and more of an exception among vampires.
The rest seem like major assholes with no class (come on, flashing steel in such a situation is thuggish to the extreme, and you'd expect better from the Transylvito top enforcer/warlord).

[Spot]

Hmm. Vinny seems to be more and more of an exception among vampires.
The rest seem like major assholes with no class (come on, flashing steel in such a situation is thuggish to the extreme, and you'd expect better from the Transylvito top enforcer/warlord).

True. They seem to be pointlessly rude and needlessly confrontational, like schoolyard bullies.

*shrug* Maybe that's how their King stays in power: by promoting the dumb-but-aggressive ones, so they spend all their time bickering amongst themselves, instead of conspiring against him.

[bossamancer]

...I would guess that; since a turn has expired since our last visit with Vinnie & Jillian, the Don King (via thinkamancy / collaboration with Charlie?) has gleaned information about the rebuilding of Gobwin Knob & the new mega-decrypt-army, thus is ordering everyone back to base to discuss this turn of events. This could preceed any want to capture new capital sites.

...though I'm not really 100% sure about turn order now. It would seem that this is happening chronolgically after the previous summer updates, however as transylvito's turn was before GK's and this is also described as 1 turn since BfGK, then it gets a little complicated to work out!

[jioan]

I wonder what Don King wants to say. I'm guessing is it's something about Faq we don't know or he wants to tell her about GK and everything that happened and then send her on a quest of some sort that she'll be on in Book 2.

[JenBurdoo]

I'm not sure "hair helmet" refers to the wig. For one thing, she's probably not planning to dance-fight. It could also refer to the Viking-style helmet (with blond pigtails) she wore towards the beginning of the series. We can't tell which one is meant until next week's illustration.

As for a mechanism, I don't know if it's been discussed before, but have we known that possessions like the Count's coffin could be miniaturized before? That and the fact that he carries his bats in his cloaks is a neat game-like mechanism of ignoring encumbrance (except, perhaps, for weight).

[Jay]

Sunrises are visible in high places first. The sunlight creeps downward, not upward.

[SkarmoryThePG]

We saw the Tool carry an EyeBook on his belt before, so I'd say yes, if not explicitly.

Sunrises are visible in high places first. The sunlight creeps downward, not upward.

They're in a valley. If there's a huge honkin' mountain between you and the sun, it's gonna creep.

[Pax]

Hmm. Vinny seems to be more and more of an exception among vampires.
The rest seem like major assholes with no class (come on, flashing steel in such a situation is thuggish to the extreme, and you'd expect better from the Transylvito top enforcer/warlord).

Transylvito seems to be a blend of Mafia ... and 50's greasers.

[SteveMB]

...I would guess that; since a turn has expired since our last visit with Vinnie & Jillian, the Don King (via thinkamancy / collaboration with Charlie?) has gleaned information about the rebuilding of Gobwin Knob & the new mega-decrypt-army, thus is ordering everyone back to base to discuss this turn of events. This could preceed any want to capture new capital sites.

Even if they don't have any new information, the already have enough (the existence of a Dirtamancy trap that works across multiple hexes and is powerful enough to wipe out a huge force) to send the various sides scrambling to figure out what happened and what future threats might be in store (and, quietly, how they can get something this powerful for themselves).

From what the Transylvito group knows about Faq (that it was a hitherto-unknown side that Stanley conquered), they may have inferred that this unprecedented mega-spell came from there. If so, Jillian is the go-to person for whatever information they can get.

[HandofShadows]

Jillian is doing a slow burn which in the long run is going to be a LOT more dangerouse for Ceaser and company. Instead of her normal hack and slash, she seems to be thinking and planning. Vinnie is still showing he is a decent guy, but he seems to be kept in the dark about what is going on and that is bad news for both Jillian and Vinnie. Ceaser really seems to be mocking Jillian (which shows how stupid he is) and there could be some very bloody payback at some future point of time.

[Glenn]

I suspect that the relevant question is, why has Jillian's Royal status suddenly become much more important to Don King than the acquisition of three new cities? Given the much greater threat now posed by Gobwin Knob, the Don may be much more interested in the creation of a defensive alliance against Stanley than he was before. If Transylvito is sufficiently disliked by the other potential members of this new alliance, then perhaps he thinks that "Queen Jillian" would be better able to organize a new alliance than he could, if he allowed her to become a Queen, by helping her retake her old cities in Faq.