Page315
New page! The Nemean has fallen! Is it all over? Did they win? Next page will be out on Wednesday 😀
Thanks a lot to my generous Patrons! You make this possible (or at the very least you let me spend more time working on this than I’d have otherwise 🙂 ). If you’d like to become a Patron and get lots of bonus content, then please follow the link below and sign up. Every dollar makes a big difference 😀
Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/ByTheBook
DA- https://www.deviantart.com/spacegoblin
FA- https://www.furaffinity.net/user/bythebook/
I’ve been streaming on Picarto. I should go to the doctors about that really. No! Shut it! Gotta stop with the dad jokes for long enough to tell you all that you can watch me draw on Picarto if you don’t have anything better to do 🙂 Check it out here- https://picarto.tv/SpaceGoblinProductions
A big ‘Thank you!’ to all my existing Patrons-you make this possible 🙂
1) You know what happens now when you neglect your defenders , bitch sniffer
2) Poor Nemean , that’s what you get to serve a bad leader X_X
3) Rath , there’s not a lot of lessons when you learn always for the same body part ^_^”
4) Kazu ; i offer that you shave his hairs and mustache , undress and tie his arms back with a panel “i’m a fat dumb sniffer” . Then you send him back to his boss XD
Next strip will be about Nemean waking up and realizing her defeat , or the fate of the two nuns …………
Well that was anticlimactic, however I suppose this fight has gone on for quite awhile now and is necessary to end it and a fight between Alice and the Nemean would have eaten up even more updates. However I believe that Alice has lost all right to complain about fair play in combat after hitting the Nemean unaware and from behind like that, not that I’ve seen her make complaints like that before. 🙂
The fight would have been over since a time if there was only the star void cult ………. It’s surprising that the bitch sniffer has thought to “hire” Nemean to help them ; i wasn’t imagining he should be so planning about it
You can’t end every fight with a super banishment spell or by teleporting a berserk giant wolf onto an airship. Sometimes it ends with a simple bash on the head from a light mace 😉 Alice is fine with being a bit sneaky. To her, protecting the innocent and her friends comes before worrying about abiding by ‘the rules of honorable battle’. She does have a code of course. She wouldn’t kill a helpless prisoner or anyhing like that, but striking from behind is fair game-particularly against a more powerful opponent. If they didn’t want to be ambushed or attacked by suprise they should have been more alert 😉 Paying attention’s just as important as being strong or wearing good armour.
If subterfuge is dishonorable then so is being stronger or better equiped than your opponent 😉 It’s interesting how people like knights (who are very well equipped and strong) are also very down on sneaky tactics. It’s almost as if the only way to fight honorably is on their terms, where their superiority in raw power will mean that they will definitely win. You see this a lot throughout history. The side that is the most powerful by a wide margin complains that the enemy is ‘fighting dirty’ or ‘has no honour’because it isn’t just presenting itself in the open for swift anihilation. If the stronger side wanted to fight honourably they’d throw away all that fancy gear and fight on an equal footing 😉 It’s dishonourable to hide and use ambush or hit and run tactics but it’s honourable to blow a bunch of guys armed with spears and primitive muskets away with modern artillery and machine guns, for example 😉 It’s generally only the side that is stronger that has the luxury of worrying about ‘fighting fair’ when there’s rarely anything fair about it.
The Witch Sniffer is just part of a larger organisation, Panther-As Vaznev may soon discover…
And I would be totally in agreement with you if the Nemean hadn’t been going easy on them for almost all of the fight intentionally going for non-lethal damage, until they proved an actual threat and even then it was already three on one. If I’m remembering correctly the Nemean didn’t even want that fight and had wanted to leave once they had got the information about the Stone, so I guess I just feel she at least deserved to know where the hit was coming from.
You can’t really compare real world stuff to fantasy world stuff either. Yeah knights normally have good armour and weapons but in a setting where they’ll also have to go against things like Trolls, Dragons, Giants, Vampires, etc. They’ll still usually retain their honorable combat beliefs as in not striking an unaware opponent or using poison or such.
Yes, I suppose-Yet she was fighting them (and winning). If you’re being strangled by somebody, it’s not much of a consolation if they’re looking sad and saying
that their heart’s not really in it while they’re doing it 😉
The Nemean is honorable and is not evil, but she still had to be defeated one way or the other since she was also following the orders of the Witch Sniffer
who was planning to burn the village and enslave the characters 🙂
I’d say the line between being clever and being underhanded is a very fuzzy one. The point I was trying to make is that the side that benefits from duking it out
with no subtlety or tactics tends to be the side that is physically the most powerful and therefore wants to fight on those terms anyway vs a weaker adversary that
has no chance of victory other than unconventional warfare. Using stealth and ambush is not dishonorable. Fighting a more powerful enemy on their terms is however-
very stupid 😉
If a knight really wanted to fight a dragon honorably he should do it naked and unarmed-Since dragons (usually) have no armour or weapons 😉 Or he could use the tools
avaliable to him (in this case superior weapons and armour) to give himself his best chance at success. I could never see why poison or stealth is worse than just being bigger
and stronger and hacking somebody down.
The giant muscular barbarian slaughtering a bunch of weedy goblins is honourable (even though the goblins really stood no chance) but the rogue sneaking into an enemy camp
and putting poison in the goblet of an enemy warlord is evil or underhanded? Often ‘good honest combat of the field of honour’ is little more than butchery. ‘Fight like a man’ is something that big strong people say to make sure the battle is conducted in such a way that they have an advantage 😉
The only reason trickery and poison is worse than just being big and strong and killing the weak is because the big strong powerful people say so. I wonder why they’d think that?
Hmm….. 😉
Okay you took what I said to quite an extreme there. Honorable combat is about being on as equal footing as you can be. Expecting a knight to not use armour or shield or sword against a dragon would be fair combat… IF the dragon took off all it’s scales, claws, teeth, shrank down to medium size, forwent it’s magic and it’s breath weapon, and its ability to fly, then it’s fair if the knight didn’t get his equipment, but the equipment just barely puts the knight on equal footing with the dragon. The dragon kills the knight just as often as the knight kills the dragon.
In the example of the Barbarian the goblins are aware of the threat and yes they may tip their arrows in poison and i’d claim no foul on doing so, especially seeing as Barbarian codes of honourable combat are usually leagues away from that of Knights as the Barbarian was basically based on the Viking Berserkers. In the case of poisoning the warlord, the warlord has no idea there’s a threat and no chance to react to it until it’s essentially far too late.
As for the reason of poison and trickery being worse is it usually is in the scenario I laid out. No knowledge of a threat until it’s far too late. It’s the equivalent of spinning around suddenly and running someone through then saying En Garde giving them no forewarning they’re about to be in a life or death situation.
Fair enough 🙂 Interesting to talk about. You make some good points 🙂
Oooooh, that last sentence was nice foreshadowing! ^^
I quote : “””the Nemean hadn’t been going easy on them for almost all of the fight intentionally going for non-lethal damage, until they proved an actual threat and even then it was already three on one. If I’m remembering correctly the Nemean didn’t even want that fight and had wanted to leave once they had got the information about the Stone””” and i agree : Nemean has been the one loyal in fight of the opponents . I hope the team and villagers will “reward” her by letting leave quietly ……….
By the way , Rath can use his “sexy beam” spell to heal Kazu’s clothes as he’s already done it : https://btbcomic.com/comic/page171/
You’re the best at continuity, Panther-I should make you the official keeper of records and lore for BTB 🙂
Thanks , i try my best to help other readers or peoples searching for informations ^_^
On the topic of fair combat. Fairness in combat must be in sports and sports only. In actual combat, where your opponent is supposedly a threat to innocents, fair combat must be avoided at all costs. If you’re giving a villain fair chance to win, you willingly endanger his victims by increasing the chances he will remain able to harass them. This is a BAD THING. If you care about actually helping victims and not petty showmanship of fighting ability, use every unfair advantage in order to render the villain incapable of continuing villainy. Even if it means sneaking into warlord’s camp at night and slitting his throat while he sleeps. The only exception to that rule is that one should prefer employing merciful means, if increase in difficulty is not too significant, but even then one should “cheat” as much as possible. So, bashing Nemean from behind was a most proper and ethical action, as the collateral damage was minimized, AND Nemean was just knocked out.
That lines up with my attitude. As long as your way of fighting a villain isn’t so extreme that it makes you a villain (like attacking innocent family members of the villain for instance) then you should use whatever means in your power to defeat them quickly (and if possible-without bloodshed). Sometimes that will mean ‘fighting dirty’, but as you say-Real combat and a sporting event are not the same thing 😉
Under what what just said why would targeting their family members make you a villain? If you poison some warlord it only stands to reason his family members may try to seek revenge. Better to simply kill them while they’re weak and before they can threaten the innocent in your kingdom/country/town etc.
I suppose who the villain is really depends on perspective a lot of the time. A lot of villains think what they are doing is right 🙂
Hmm not quite the point I meant to make. What I meant was if you boil it down to whatever it takes to win the fight then there’s no such thing as heroes or villains. Only the victors and the dead. If that’s the case in this setting then yes honourable combat is a stupid idea, however so are ideals like mercy. Why give your enemy/opponent a chance to come back later and get another shot at you. In that type of situation the smartest thing Rath and Co could do would be to kill both the witch sniffer and the Nemean before she regains consciousness to delay any identification of them to the Nemean and Witch sniffers superiors.
Recurring villains mean recurring chances for loot and Exp 😉 Why does Batman use stealth, cunning and fear (and superior equipment) to defeat his foes and yet does not kill them? Killing The Joker would save a lot of lives. Batman does not fight in a traditionally honourable way, but he still has morals. Being prepared to use sneaky tactics in battle does not mean you are prepared to do literally anything.
What is fighting fair and what is not fighting fair depends on who you ask. Few people would agree that killing helpless prisoners is right, even if it might seem sensible in a purely utilitarian capacity.
New post cause it won’t let me reply.:)
And Gotham is so much better for Batman’s moral stance on not killing the Joker. I’m sure that’s of great comfort to the families of Jokers victims that at least Batman still has his morals.:) Sorry but that’s the one reference that’s always bugged me. How many people does Joker have to kill before the justice system just puts him down. Keeping him alive at this point is not being moral it’s just being pigheaded. Especially seeing as how apparently no one can keep that guy locked up. Don’t want to kill him? Fine then, lobotomize him. He can’t kill anyone if he can’t even tie his own shoes.
As for few people would agree killing helpless prisoners is right? This scenario is exactly why the Coup de Grace action exists in d&d and pathfinder. Also how can one claim that finishing a fallen opponent is wrong but poisoning a warlord or slitting their throat in their sleep is somehow moral?
I actually agree with that one. Joker is a total asshole-Just kill the bugger! I’m against the death sentence in most cases, but in his case-A crazy git that escapes every other week and kills a load of people… Gotta make the judgement on a case by case basis I think 🙂
Yes-That’s true. I would see killing somebody in their sleep as evil. I would not do it myself and I wouldn’t do it in a game if I was running a good character. I might capture them while they were in that state though 😉
The difference between killing a prisoner or poisoning enemy leader is whether or not they are a threat. A warlord leading a host to assault your home is a threat, a surrendered soldier is not.
However, I am of the opinion that killing other person is only acceptable when defending someone you personally hold dear: close relatives, friends, lovers and, to a degree, oneself. No abstract innocents or whole populations of towns or countries, or it becomes way too easy to rationalize murders. If you want to help that stranger, sure, go ahead, but for the love of good, do your absolute best to avoid killing. I would’ve shot the Joker on the spot if I was Batman, tho. Asshole is CLEARLY capable, willing and intending to hurt some of my personal attachments.
Depends on what you consider a threat. If the Nemean gets back up and leaves she’ll remember this and judging by her personality she won’t let it go she’ll probably be more like “HOW DARE THEY!” and become a persistent problem, also she wasn’t a surrendered soldier, at no point did she surrender. Surrender requires throwing down your weapons and accepting capture.
Ah well, even if we don’t all agree on this, we at least agree completely on one thing… The Joker is a dick and screw him! And really isn’t that what’s truly important when all is said and done? XD
You made some very good points with your argument 🙂 Also-The Joker is indeed, A dick. Batman needs to get his shit together! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxGohFWbZdc 2:52
I quote : “””The Witch Sniffer is just part of a larger organisation, Panther-As Vaznev may soon discover…”””
I have a theory about the void star cult being linked to Blanche , but ignoring it . That’s why they were afraid to deal with Vaznev …….. ??
It’s probably also because Vaznev has a reputation for being one of the toughest bounty hunters around. If she’d still been at the village this fight would have been over a lot more quickly 😉
Hmm perhaps not. If Vaznev was there the Nemean and Vitae and Mortem would probably have focused on her as they’d recognize she’d have been a true threat. 🙂
That’s true too 🙂 Vaznev might have had the raw power to take Vitae and Mortem down quickly though. If you can weather Mortem’s negative energy projection (which is really designed for dealing with large groups of low level opponents rather than one very powerful individual as it does a moderate amount of damage in a 30ft radius) and focus down Vitae quickly then the fight won’t drag on for so long. Mortem can heal but she’s not as good at it.
I’d guess Vaznev would go in fast and try to deal with Vitae, then Mortem. Once those two are out of the way then the village defence force and the lower level characters can engage without having to worry about the negative energy aura of Mortem. While the Nemean is very powerful I’d say Vaznev could defeat her.
It might go the other way though-You make an excellent point. I suppose it really depends on how cocky the Voidstar people are and also how brave they are (Vitae and Mortem also might be less keen to engage with Vaznev than they were to fight a bunch of villagers and low level advanturers). There’s also the fact that the Witch Sniffer’s in charge. If the Nemean was running the show and Mortem and Vitae were reliable it’d be tight. As things stand I think Vaznev would push things in the favour of our heroes-Though it’s by no means certain 🙂
Well ! All we know already how the cult members and Nemean feels to have to deal with Vaznev XD
https://btbcomic.com/comic/page210/
Out of curiosity what CR is the Nemean anyhow? We know Vitae and Mortem are 8, Alice is 7, Rath, Zeen, and Kazu are 3, and the character sheet post vermin queen tower you posted somewhere in the archive puts Vaznev at 12, 8 of duskblade and 4 of monk I believe. It just strikes me as a little odd that everyone is afraid of this level 12. I mean I realize that on a scale of 1-20 a 12 is pretty high, it doesn’t seem like much when you have people like Venom and Tiger roaming around whose CR’s are supposed to be above 30.
12 may actually be a bit low-Though 12 is still nothing to sneeze at. CR is not always directly linked to levels. Vaznev’s actual base ‘Power Level’ as indicated by the Mountain Gnoll scouter might be closer to 15. Still not as powerful as those two, but pretty scary. There are other aspects to Vaznev’s power. She has ways of tapping into greater strength but she avoids doing it when she can. This will be explored more when we get back to her 🙂 She’s certainly not the most powerful warrior out there though. Venom’s more like a force of nature than a regular hero XD Then there’s the grand master of the steam knights and Varnack the Betrayer and Lord Darksoul. And the King of Hell. There have been some very powerful beings in the comic (though they haven’t really done much yet).
I’d put the Nemean at about CR10. She’s very powerful by the standards of this theatre of opperations but she would have been pretty weak at the battle of Cliff’s Edge. She’s a highborn Nemean so she’s more powerful than a regular Nemean legionary (CR5 for a trained legionary with some battle experience), but she’s still pretty green. The Nemean inquisitor in the dungeon with Goret and Kislata is actually more powerful (even though she’s not a highborn she’s higher level-CR16 maybe?). Each point of CR makes quite a big difference, so a CR10 creature is quite a bit stronger than a CR 7 one for example. In their powered up forms Rath, Zeen and Kazu were probably about-Rath-CR7, Kazu CR8, Zeen CR6 🙂 They will all be about CR4 in their base forms after this battle. Well, CR5 maybe as Kazu gets a good boost from her armour, Rath has his sexy beam cannon and Zeen has a bunch or scrolls that are too powerful due to sloppy writing on the part of the people that made the scrolls 🙂 Zeen has also had a stat boost recently (+4 Str and Cha) but that hasn’t come up in the comic yet 🙂
Nice explanations ; but i’m thinking Rath is more powerful in his demonic form and able to give a beat to Venom ……….. ^_^”
Do you mean Galanesh? Rath was in his full devil form then (rather than devil bunny, which is fast but not very powerful). Despair form Rath would be CR20 maybe? That form of Galanesh was about CR18 I suppose. He’s currently CR3 Thanks to most of his power being banished away by Alice 🙂