October 11, 2015: Your Mom

[RocketScientist]

Weird. I wonder if there are portraits on any of the other pillars.

http://www.goblinscomic.org/10112015-2/

[spiderwrangler]

I really hope that Minmax continues to call him Taco, and that isn't just a typo.

[Zathyr]

I just love Fumbles' method of empirical testing, and Big Ears' reaction to it.

[Kamos]

That actually seems to have shaken Thaco a bit.

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

I just love Fumbles' method of empirical testing, and Big Ears' reaction to it.

Agreed. Although he may just be cutting to the chase. You know that sooner or later he would touch the tip anyway.

[Argh Blargle]

Taco ? Or Typo ?

[Guus]

It's a small miracle that MinMax is able to speak in text balloons anyways, if he could he would've traded it for a +1 to hit. Cannot blame him for miswriting a name in his own balloon

[thesilence]

We find ourselves suspecting that the pillars are some sort of soul-absorption device, which traps the recently dead and gradually reduces them to a single body part (either random or based on their personality). And the concept is both intriguing and deeply unsettling to us.

If this idea does not turn out to be what is happening in the comic, then we intend to make use of it in our own formal publications, in the event that they ever actually occur. In that event, we grant others the right to use the idea in informal contexts, but reserve right of first for-profit publication to ourselves.

[Sessine]

Complains' mom is not recently dead. She died when Complains was born. That was however-many years ago as Complains is old -- and in the goblins' village, not in this dungeon. So, on the grounds of both timing and location, I don't think that can be her soul.

It may, however, be picking up Thaco's memories of her.

[HerdsCats]

I find it interesting that she is depicted with books. It's possible that she was a spell-caster, and if that's the case, perhaps she was down in this dungeon crawl herself?

After all, women are allowed in the war camps if they are casters. It's plausible that after an attack on the camp that sent everybody heading back to the village, that she tried to take a shortcut through the crawl.

[elkhantar]

I don't think she died giving birth in the middle of a dungeion crawl

and for thesilence, a few years surely is a small amount of time

[HerdsCats]

I didn't say she died in the crawl. Just that maybe she went through it. In hindsight, perhaps the addition of the word "tried" was unnecessary. I was very tired when I wrote that.

[sunphoenix]

Has anyone noticed the odd colorations on the page? It looks like some of the fore and background objects are whited out, like the cell might be incompletely colored? Is that an oversight or the way Thunt meant for it to appear?

EDIT:
Oh crap.. something IS going on...!

http://www.goblinscomic.org/09062015-2/

The 'staff' is colored int he above page.. but after is destroys the ropes.. things are slowly loosing color from the scenes! THAT'S not a coincidence... Complain's sword is colored and now in the current page it is not!

[Krulle]

The page is unfinished, but Thunt did not want to keep us waiting. He's to VCON now.

@Thunt_Goblins will you have enough time to boop a new page before leaving?

The page won't be completely finished, but yes.

Unfinished #Goblins boop, because I'm rushing out the door to get to VCON! http://www.goblinscomic.org/

So assume missing colours are the "unfinished" elements of this page.

Permalink: http://www.goblinscomic.org/10012015-2/

[WearsHats]

Yeah, he was pretty sick last week. He finished inking Wednesday night, but Danielle had her hands full getting ready for VCON (she's the convention chair) so she couldn't do the flat coloring as usual. Thunt did a hasty job yesterday morning right up until we were due to leave, but I'd expect the colors to look a lot different next week. (He won't be working on it this weekend, but will get to it when they get home.)

As for Taco... Given his "Big... Uh... Yellow" a few pages back, I'd guess it's not a typo.

[RocketScientist]

Agreed. I didn't take it as a typo. I just thought he was calling him Taco. Which, I hope he was, because that's funny. It's especially funny, because I've seen people do it here in the forum, too. Probably a typo in our case(s).

Hope Thunt feels better now.

[Guus]

I do wonder what it sounds like, because in my mind I kind of pronounced his name like "Taco" anyways, but apparently there's a difference?

[RocketScientist]

It's Th-ack-oh, with the Th sounding like the th in third or teeth. At least, that's how you said "THAC0" in old school AD&D.

[hypothetical]

In a comic that has lasted years, and has had some funny as hell lines, "What are you doing over there?"...."Your Mom."...may be the funniest line yet.

[Talos]

If I had to guess, she was a mage who was in the same warcamp as Thaco, they fell in love, and she became pregnant with Complains while still in the camp, after which she died giving birth to him. Just a guess.

Now, whether or not she and Thaco were married or whether or not this is something goblins do is unknown and likely not relevant, but it looks like they loved each other. Or at least Thaco seems to have loved her.

[nightarix]

theory that popped into my head when i read todays comic, maybe each pillar is their IME and will show memories related to them, loved ones lost, hated enemies, deepest fears. generated by the room they were in initially?(the speaker highlighting room)

edit: looking a the full room page again, IME doesn't explain the additional colors, senses maybe? the pillar they are looking at seems to be "sight", doesn't explain the foot pillar in the background though...

[thesilence]

Complains' mom is not recently dead. She died when Complains was born. That was however-many years ago as Complains is old -- and in the goblins' village, not in this dungeon. So, on the grounds of both timing and location, I don't think that can be her soul.
It may, however, be picking up Thaco's memories of her.

I find it interesting that she is depicted with books. It's possible that she was a spell-caster, and if that's the case, perhaps she was down in this dungeon crawl herself?

After all, women are allowed in the war camps if they are casters. It's plausible that after an attack on the camp that sent everybody heading back to the village, that she tried to take a shortcut through the crawl.

I don't think she died giving birth in the middle of a dungeion crawl

and for thesilence, a few years surely is a small amount of time

Time-length is relative. When we said "recently", our point was that those who have not been reduced to their significant body part are probably new by comparison to those who have. It could be hundreds of years since the last soul was added to a pillar, so long as no others have been added since (assuming each pillar can only "render down" one soul at a time, which obviously may not be so, just as our entire theory may not be so; we are simply speculating).

Agreed. I didn't take it as a typo. I just thought he was calling him Taco. Which, I hope he was, because that's funny. It's especially funny, because I've seen people do it here in the forum, too. Probably a typo in our case(s).

Given the pronunciation difference - essentially no-one says "thah-coe" or "tack-oh", save perhaps in some dialect we are unfamiliar with - we are going to assume it was a typo rather than a joke. Especially since it seems that Minmax was attempting to be serious and respectful for a change.

theory that popped into my head when i read todays comic, maybe each pillar is their IME and will show memories related to them, loved ones lost, hated enemies, deepest fears. generated by the room they were in initially?(the speaker highlighting room)

A connection certainly could be possible. Most of Thunt's dungeons so far have seemed to be grab-bags of random cool stuff that doesn't really interrelate; it would be nice to have one where there is a unifying theme that expresses itself throughout.

edit: looking a the full room page again, IME doesn't explain the additional colors, senses maybe? the pillar they are looking at seems to be "sight", doesn't explain the foot pillar in the background though...

If our theory is correct, that every pillar corresponds to a person's most dominant body part, then the foot pillar would correspond to those whose life was most defined by their travels and wanderlust, those who walked constantly and never stood still (at least that seems the most obvious interpretation). Likewise, the mouth pillar is for people who could never shut up and/or who ate gluttonously, the face pillar for those who were extremely charismatic or who constantly worried about other peoples' perception of them, the eye pillar for vigilant or inquisitive observers, the thumb-pillar for those who were very grabby and acquisitive (or else very invested in tool-use - that would better fit why it's a thumb specifically, and not the whole hand). The only other pillars that we can make out at all are the yellow-white one on the far left, which someone speculated was tails (no idea what that could represent, though it suggests the dungeon's designers might be nonhumans, who would take possession of a tail for granted and have symbology related to it, which we cannot easily theorize about), and the light-blue one way in the back, which has some sort of small round lumps. (Breasts? Would correlate with nourishment and compassion, even figuratively, but obviously unlikely to be shown in close-up...not that Thunt is ever going to get a PG-13 rating on a comic with so much gore, but he still might balk at outright pornography, however incidental.)

[nikohl]

Agreed. I didn't take it as a typo. I just thought he was calling him Taco. Which, I hope he was, because that's funny. It's especially funny, because I've seen people do it here in the forum, too. Probably a typo in our case(s).

Given the pronunciation difference - essentially no-one says "thah-coe" or "tack-oh", save perhaps in some dialect we are unfamiliar with - we are going to assume it was a typo rather than a joke. Especially since it seems that Minmax was attempting to be serious and respectful for a change.

I doubt it was an intentional -joke- from Minmax, but I also doubt it was a typo. I imagine he thinks Thaco's name is Taco. Not a difficult mistake to make when you've only heard some guy's name a couple of times in your life and you're demonstrably low-int.

[JustRight]

For some reason, I feel compelled to state the obvious. When dungeon crawlers come across something beyond their experience and difficult to explain on first impression, it can't be left unsolved for long. The situation begs for an additional entity or source of information to appear and assist with an explanation or a solution. The level of observer frustration rests with how long it takes for the reveal. THunt has been skilled at not taking too long to provide the reveals, but this one is becoming tantalizing.

Hates to leave elephants in rooms.

[WearsHats]

My understanding of the war camp is that the warriors set it up well away from where the clan lives, but then they come back. Not sure when or how often, but they do go back from time to time. Maybe Thaco served his first tour of duty, came back, fathered Complains, helped raise him, then went back to the warcamp with the veterans. You leave the women and children behind in the main village and send the warriors off to war camp as an adventurer decoy. But if the clan is to survive, you'll need your warriors to father more warriors. They have to come home. Maybe not all at once, maybe not every year, but it doesn't work otherwise.