February 4th, 2019 "AAAAAAHH"

[Furmanda]

Hello guys, I had to register in the end, cures on you.

One thing I wanted to point out: have you guys/ladies considered the possibility that the "friends will become enemies" sentence might be using Yoda word order, 'object - predicate - subject'?
"Friends will become goblins and bald dummy (...)". Obviously that has already happened and it would be a neat trick/red herring.

In theory the second part could be reversed like that maybe (hate that Minmax had for monsters/or perhaps for how Dellyn treated Kin became love with Kin eventually), although that seems more far-fetched than the first part.

[Krulle]

Well, good spot with Salt touching Forgath's shoulder (panel 3), haven't registered that being a problem.
BAD Salt!


Also, I don't think the wall or Young&Beautiful are bad in grammar to use such a sentence.
The wall actually is quite talkative, and grammatically correct.
Y&B also has no example of ditching grammer for effect.
And we don't know if prophecies are usually in the wrong grammatical order either.

[Morgaln]

I am quite confident that this is indeed THE prophecy. My assumption is that the prophecy is kind of obscure like they usually are in these kinds of things to give the air of mystery and is a whole of many things happening at the same time or in a short period of time but not to a single person. More like you take a quick glance at a whole picture but it being so wide and large you only notice parts here and there when you are explaining it to others. Here's my take on this:

"You will die in a great battle with another dwarf."
First and foremost the prophecy given by the goblin hag never specifies that Forgath is killed by a dwarf: It doesn't say in a battle *against* another dwarf. Idle is a dwarf. Forgath assumed this like most others and concluded that "The goblin hag said a dwarf would kill me." The great battle being against the corrupted klik, it was a great battle considering their level. And a battle is never done until the conclusion of a combat is done. Also why he is being infected by the corruption when the kliks just "added parts" on him. Well, it's a symbiosis. Host get's wounded the symbiotic, klik in this case, also suffers from the injuries of the host. And the other way around. The glove is indeed a real part of Forgath now because it has been symbiotically fused into him, like the beard and face. And the screaming, lots of screaming.

The flashback in the very page discussed by this thread confirms that Forgath will be killed by a dwarf. Note how Forgath said that "a dwarf would kill him" and how the talking wall of Brassmoon confirms that interpretation.

"When the serpent becomes his prey."
To me this spells Kore meeting Kin. At first Kin is a normal human but when Kore realizes she is actually a yuan-ti, a serpent, he takes Kin as a target for a hunt. Being a monster and all that.

Ever since Fumbles had his prophecygasm, it is confirmed that this part of the prophecy has to refer to Forgath. Both Young & Beautiful and the talking wall said "when the serpent becomes your prey." In Y&B's case, only Forgath was there but at that point, the prophecy might still have referred to the party as a whole. When the talking wall made the same prophecy, only Forgath and Minmax were there. Accordingly, the prophecy has to refer to one of these two, or both. Fumbles said "when the serpent becomes his prey." Minmax was there, Forgath wasn't. By conclusion, they only person this prophecy can refer to is Forgath.

"When friends become enemies."
I'm not entirely certain about this but I have couple of theories. One is that it could mean when Minmax and Forgath were friendly with the Goblin Slayer but became enemies because Minmax and Forgath are not evil. Second but quite far fetched is that when Team Kin decided to get rid of Minmax and Forgath, I doubt this because they left on good terms. Third is that Idle and Forgath were friends but when realizing they were both dwarves and on opposing clans, effectively at war(I suppose) the friends became enemies. This is what I'm going with.

This one is yet to happen. The way the prophecy is worded, this one is a direct result of the "serpent becomes his prey" part. Therefore, as long as that one hasn't happened yet, this part hasn't occurred either.

"And love will fuel hate."
This one is yet to happen. How I think this will play out is that Minmax will find Kin and they will either meet Kore then and there, or at a later moment in the dungeon(which is gonna happen at the same time Forgath is screaming) and realizing Kore is going to kill all of them Minmax will go for rage and roll initiative. My guess is Reckless Rage feat. It's only prerequisites are CON 13 and the ability to rage, though it is only available for dwarves, gnomes and goliaths according to dungeons and dragons Races of Stone book. But since it's Minmax we are talking about... I'm not surprised if he was able to exchange something through a loophole.

Reckless Rage
( Races of Stone, p. 143)

[General]

You are considered extreme even among other barbaric warriors, and you enter a deeper state of rage than others. Goliath barbarians favor this feat.
Prerequisite

CON 13, rage ability,
Benefit

Whenever you activate your rage ability, you take an additional -2 penalty to your Armor Class, but you gain an additional +2 bonus to Strength and Constitution. These bonuses and penalties stack with the effects of rage, greater rage, and mighty rage.

Now with all this I'm quite certain Forgath will indeed die but as stated before, dying doesn't mean staying dead. After all the whole plan is to kill Forgath before the corruption takes hold and turns him into a monstrosity and then revive him with the powers of klik because he's been fused with them. The biggest hazard here is that there is a high chance of failure because he is not a full klik just partially. And while I'm at it I'd dare say that the only thing missing from the "seven-month announcement" is the green Hello, father speech bubble. I'm guessing were are gonna see that soon. Or we might jump to Dies Adventuring Party for we haven't seen them in a long time.

The "love will fuel hate" part is also a direct result of the "serpent becomes his prey" part and will have to be related somehow.

The following is my theory on how the prophecy is going to play out:
The whole "killed by a dwarf" thing is happening now, in an extremely contrived way that interprets it as "killed by a dwarf" because Idle fed Forgath the poison instead of him taking the plant in his own hand.

Forgath dies here, but his klik parts don't and he turns into a warped monstrous thing still similar to his dwavish shape.
The positive of that Klik monster will be curses.
The thing kills Idle and Bowst and turns much more powerful due to the curses they are suffering from. (that's the shocking conclusion of the story arc)
It then walks off and will eventually come across Minmax and Kin.
Since Kin's leash is cursed, the Klik monster will attack her to get more of its positive. (Serpent becomes his prey)
Minmax will attack, in rage because his love is in danger (friends become enemies, love will fuel hate)
If what is currently happening does not count as the "killed by a dwarf" part after all, Kore will show up and it will turn into a three-way battle.

[Bapuvitttssf]

• And why are boils appearing on the Mace? It isn't a Klik.

  The same stuff appears in the middle of his forehead too, as well as in between the purple Klik-stripe and his hair on the right of his head (both can be seen in panel 11, last one from 3rd row). And there are also quite a lot of it on his right upper arm (panel 9-10) and his chest (panel 15).
  As quoted here, there is this possibility:

  Also why he is being infected by the corruption when the kliks just "added parts" on him. Well, it's a symbiosis. Host get's wounded the symbiotic, klik in this case, also suffers from the injuries of the host.

• Besides, it's a D&D based universe, so isn't possible that even Chief could have been (or potentially still be) resurrected, if the prerequisites for the spell were met and his soul wanted to return to the mortal realm?

  We have yet to see anyone being resurrected, apart from Kliks it does not seem to be a common possibility in this world.
  Also, there would probably be the problem of Chief's soul being chained to Kore IME.

[Injuryman]

The best part of this page is scrolling down past the AHHHHH AHHHHH to see the "This is what ASMR actually is" title of Thunt's last post.

[Master TMO]

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but the 'Bowstrings are unreliable' part of Fumbles' prophecygasm has been pointed out that it could also mean "Bowst rings are unreliable". And that we still haven't seen under his boxing gloves - he could be wearing a bunch of rings under there. That's the only reason I can think of to name a character Bowst, but the grammar of the sentence doesn't quite read right, as it should be "Bowst's rings are unreliable". Unless somehow we get rings made of Bowst...

[SeeAMoose]

• And why are boils appearing on the Mace? It isn't a Klik.

  The same stuff appears in the middle of his forehead too, as well as in between the purple Klik-stripe and his hair on the right of his head (both can be seen in panel 11, last one from 3rd row). And there are also quite a lot of it on his right upper arm (panel 9-10) and his chest (panel 15).
  As quoted here, there is this possibility:

  Also why he is being infected by the corruption when the kliks just "added parts" on him. Well, it's a symbiosis. Host get's wounded the symbiotic, klik in this case, also suffers from the injuries of the host.

• Besides, it's a D&D based universe, so isn't possible that even Chief could have been (or potentially still be) resurrected, if the prerequisites for the spell were met and his soul wanted to return to the mortal realm?

  We have yet to see anyone being resurrected, apart from Kliks it does not seem to be a common possibility in this world.
  Also, there would probably be the problem of Chief's soul being chained to Kore IME.

This goes back years to when I was very active in the chat on Thing's UStream channel (2009-2011ish around the time of the earliest main character deaths in the comic) and I can't find anything to back up this assertion, but on the stream Thunt was very clear on multiple occassions that resurrection spells are exceptionally rare in his D&D universe.

[Krulle]

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but the 'Bowstrings are unreliable' part of Fumbles' prophecygasm has been pointed out that it could also mean "Bowst rings are unreliable". And that we still haven't seen under his boxing gloves - he could be wearing a bunch of rings under there. That's the only reason I can think of to name a character Bowst, but the grammar of the sentence doesn't quite read right, as it should be "Bowst's rings are unreliable". Unless somehow we get rings made of Bowst...

Bowst full name is Bowstring, and just abbreviated as Bowst.
Iirc, Thunt confirmed this is a chat...

[Byarmf]

Why was feeding him a horribly painful poison the best solution? Why not have the trained fighter standing three feet away stab him through the heart, or lop off his head like he did with Idle?

[Gift Fastidious]

It might not have been the best course of action, but it was still the one they took.

[BuildsLegos]

Why was feeding him a horribly painful poison the best solution? Why not have the trained fighter standing three feet away stab him through the heart, or lop off his head like he did with Idle?

Leaving a (relatively) pretty corpse might be helpful in the revival process.

[Xavier78]

He will still come back corrupted, somehow find and attack Kin. Minmax will attack him. Rabbit thing will kill him.

[Krulle]

Why was feeding him a horribly painful poison the best solution? Why not have the trained fighter standing three feet away stab him through the heart, or lop off his head like he did with Idle?

Because of "a lot of screaming".
Note, the wall also says "Not a good death either".
We just had an exposition about good and bad deaths by Idle....

Another point pro "this is the prophecy". (I still believe this is not what the prophecy hinted at.)


[Edit]
In this page, Forgath talks about how Dwarves can "feel" stone. Idle should know all about that as a Dwarf herself. And she should not find it "boring".

[Glemp]

Why was feeding him a horribly painful poison the best solution? Why not have the trained fighter standing three feet away stab him through the heart, or lop off his head like he did with Idle?

Because of "a lot of screaming".
Note, the wall also says "Not a good death either".
We just had an exposition about good and bad deaths by Idle....

Another point pro "this is the prophecy". (I still believe this is not what the prophecy hinted at.)


[Edit]
In this page, Forgath talks about how Dwarves can "feel" stone. Idle should know all about that as a Dwarf herself. And she should not find it "boring".

With respect Krulle, that isn't an answer. You can't say Idle used an incredibly painful poison because of a prophecy that she knew nothing of.

Also, if she's pretending to be an elf then she's even more likely to call Dwarf stuff boring, to maintain her cover.

[Krulle]

At that time she had not started the lie of being an Elf... yet.

And the reason is nonsense, I know, but for storytelling...
To lure readers into thinking "this is the moment", and also for Forgath to catch on that Chinroot won't work on Elves, so her cover gets blown, and she finally gets exposed for being a Dwarf.

It's all a little contrived, but hey, it's a story.
All of it is contrived.

(And seeing how many "klik" elements Forgath contains, it's questionable whether Bowst could kill Forgath in a quick and painles manner at all.)

[BuildsLegos]

Do you actually think she thought up the lie on a whim? She was already planning on claiming to be an elf as soon as she saw Forgath. Why are you trying to make a plot-hole out of foreshadowing?

[Krulle]

She has not started telling the lie.
That is the content of what I wrote.

What she planned is something else.

Also, just because she's a Dwarf does not mean she shares the interest in racial abilities.
I am male, yet I am rather disinterested in car racing, or owning a high-powered car....
That is the reason why she said "boooring", not because she "planned to deceive"...

[rwstyles]

They don't seem to really understand the fact that prophecies seem to be meant to be useless. Kind of like requesting a wish from a genie. They always interpret your wish in the worst possible way.
The prophecy might come true, but you won't understand it until afterwards.

[Master TMO]

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but the 'Bowstrings are unreliable' part of Fumbles' prophecygasm has been pointed out that it could also mean "Bowst rings are unreliable". And that we still haven't seen under his boxing gloves - he could be wearing a bunch of rings under there. That's the only reason I can think of to name a character Bowst, but the grammar of the sentence doesn't quite read right, as it should be "Bowst's rings are unreliable". Unless somehow we get rings made of Bowst...

Bowst full name is Bowstring, and just abbreviated as Bowst.
Iirc, Thunt confirmed this is a chat...

The prophecy still has it in the plural though, "Bowstrings are unreliable". Are there more than one of him? Otherwise it would be "Bowstring(s) is unreliable."

I know, i know, I'm putting too much emphasis on minor things...

[Gift Fastidious]

I guess he could have been using a nickname based on his surname the whole time, so their would be a family of Bowstrings? Or there's a Bowstring senior and/or junior?

[Glemp]

That could easily be a metaphor that Fumbles didn't understand properly. From how he explained it, prophecies are like the Sun. You can't look directly at them to see what happens, but you can look at things around them (the people and items involved) and you can protect yourself with a layer of metaphorical meaning. Your view is distorted by them, but it lets you see more.

[redfeather]

Forgath talks about how Dwarves can "feel" stone. Idle should know all about that as a Dwarf herself. And she should not find it "boring".

Why shouldn't she? All humans have the "power" to slowly, methodically count how many grains of rice are scattered on a ground; many of them find this uninteresting. Idle is probably tuned out from her stone-sense and stopped paying attention years ago, because her fellow Cloudhammer dwarves kept telling her to pay attention to stone, and she felt as though this source of sensory input was about as interesting as tinnitus.

The prophecy still has it in the plural though, "Bowstrings are unreliable". Are there more than one of him? Otherwise it would be "Bowstring(s) is unreliable."

Maze of Many trip?

[BuildsLegos]

She has not started telling the lie. That is the content of what I wrote. What she planned is something else.

Also, just because she's a Dwarf does not mean she shares the interest in racial abilities. I am male, yet I am rather disinterested in car racing, or owning a high-powered car.... That is the reason why she said "boooring", not because she "planned to deceive"...

Going by what she said about rival clans, how is it in the least bit practical to interpret any differently than what I said? She over-estimated the reach of her home's political squabbles and thought this lie would smooth over early interactions. What makes you think she "planned something else" and why aren't you saying what that is?

And while not impossible that she could be honest about her own stone-sense, Forgath's wording suggests it's common (near-universal, even) for dwarves, which would make Idle disabled. And even if she is, disabled people normally don't need the concept of senses they don't have explained to them; which means that acting like Forgath's description of stone-sense is new to her must be a part of the lie.

[0z79]

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but the 'Bowstrings are unreliable' part of Fumbles' prophecygasm has been pointed out that it could also mean "Bowst rings are unreliable". And that we still haven't seen under his boxing gloves - he could be wearing a bunch of rings under there. That's the only reason I can think of to name a character Bowst, but the grammar of the sentence doesn't quite read right, as it should be "Bowst's rings are unreliable". Unless somehow we get rings made of Bowst...

Her name is Idle. His name is Bowst, or Boast.

Together, they are "Idle Boast (Bowst)"

[Generic]

She has not started telling the lie. That is the content of what I wrote. What she planned is something else.

Also, just because she's a Dwarf does not mean she shares the interest in racial abilities. I am male, yet I am rather disinterested in car racing, or owning a high-powered car.... That is the reason why she said "boooring", not because she "planned to deceive"...

Going by what she said about rival clans, how is it in the least bit practical to interpret any differently than what I said? She over-estimated the reach of her home's political squabbles and thought this lie would smooth over early interactions. What makes you think she "planned something else" and why aren't you saying what that is?

And while not impossible that she could be honest about her own stone-sense, Forgath's wording suggests it's common (near-universal, even) for dwarves, which would make Idle disabled. And even if she is, disabled people normally don't need the concept of senses they don't have explained to them; which means that acting like Forgath's description of stone-sense is new to her must be a part of the lie.

Sure. The lie-arc that is brought up and resolved in one single page is plotted out and solid. Years of planning and storytelling led up to that. Or rather, Thunt did not care to much about what Idle as a dwarf should know, and just needed something to happen on the page other than Forgath musing about how fecked up the world is and then proceeding to do nothing about it