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Demiplane

2019-07-10T11:10:24Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B:

{{dnd-stub}}

A '''demiplane''' is a term introduced in the [[Planescape]] setting for [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. In a nutshell, it refers to a "miniature" [[plane]], one featuring well-defined limitations as opposed to extending on to infinity in all directions, having variable gravity and time traits, etc. Demiplanes can be big - [[Sigil]] is technically a [[demiplane]] - but are usually associated with small sizes, from "big as a large room" to "the size of a mansion".

Creating demiplanes is a popular past-time for high level [[wizard]]s, as it essentially lets them create their own personalized pocket of reality. With enough time and investment, a demiplane can grow into a full-fledged world in its own right.

=List of Demiplanes=
==[[Sigil]]==
While Sigil is part of the [[Outlands]] and can be seen at the top of the spire in the center, it isn't actually possible to reach Sigil from the Outlands without using a portal and it is not considered to be a layer of the plane.

==[[Ravenloft]]==
The Ravenloft setting is sometimes called the Demiplane of Dread even though it is large enough to be a world itself. It might be more accurate to call it the Demiplane'''s''' of Dread because it consists of many Domains with their own traits that can be completely isolated from each other by the will of the Dark Powers or a domain's Dark Lord.

==[[World Serpent Inn]]==
An entire dimension that consists of nothing but a single huge inn.

==City of Union==
Union is less violent version of Sigil that attracts a lot of epic level characters. Union consists of a large number of islands connected by portals floating in a void, with the main islands of the city also held together by bridges. It was constructed by a race called the mercanes to use as trading hub.

==Neth, the plane that lives==
Neth is a living and extremely intelligent demiplane. It is a 500 mile wide plane of flesh crumbled into a ball. Its only exit and entrance is a single portal that connects it to the [[Astral Plane]]. Neth is extremely curious about the universe, and is surprised that anything other than itself exists, as it cannot directly see anything outside of itself. It learns by sending out [[Flesh Golem]] like minions, interrogating people who end up inside of it, or absorbing them into itself to take their memories. Most of all, Neth wants to know why it exists as it doesn't remember its origin.

==The Observatorium==
The Observatorium is a mysterious sphere that moves around the Astral Plane. It is difficult to reach because it moves unpredictably and most of the ways to exit it can't be used to get back. It is full of strange machinery that can be used to spy on and open one way gates to anywhere in the multiverse. However, you can't say for too long because it has an effect of causing temporary wisdom loss to visitors that makes your more and more likely to accidently stumble into one of the exits.

==Common Ground==
Common Ground is a small plane where gods hold meetings with each other. Gods cannot harm each other on this plane and it supposed to be impossible for mortals to enter.

=Edition History=
==1st Edition==
The concept of demiplanes has been around since the earliest days of the game, but it was mostly an example of DM fiat in creating pocket dimensions for all kinds of crazy adventures. Examples include the original Ravenloft module (I6), Dungeonland (EX1) and its sequel The Land Beyond The Magic Mirror (EX2). There's really nothing substantial about these places, just the vague notion that they are created by powerful (usually long-lost) magical techniques.

==2nd Edition==
In the early days of 2nd edition, demiplanes still remained a DM tool; adventures like Isle of the Ape (WG6) continued in the same vein as the prior edition.

All that changed with Planescape. In The Planewalker's Handbook, ''demiplane seed'' was available as an 8th-level spell to mages. That book, and A Guide To The Ethereal Plane established that these "minor" demiplanes had to be created on the Ethereal Plane (probably because it was considered something of a proto-reality plane). The process was pretty arduous, involving a pretty pricey gemstone and 100 days of spellcasting and other work, but otherwise, it did what it said on the box: you created your very own demiplane to fill with traps, treasure, whatever you felt you needed to keep up with.

There was also a 9th-level spell called ''demiplane decay'' that could destroy demiplanes under specific conditions, but it was pretty horrible overall; anyone who couldn't plane-hop out of the place was dissolved with the rest of the plane in the very end.

Special "major" demiplanes were beyond the scope of any mortal magic and were mainly the province of divine-level beings.

==3rd Edition==
Demiplanes made a definite comeback, but there was a lot of weird stuff throughout the edition. The first appearance was in the 3.0 Manual of the Planes: the Planeshifter prestige class gained access to the ability demiplane seed at 10th level.

The next mention of making demiplanes was in the Epic Level Handbook, under the ''genesis'' 9th-level spell, available only to wizards or clerics with the Creation domain (until the domain was reworked in 3.5). It was costly at 5,000 XP and a week's casting time (8 hours/day), but you didn't have to take some arbitrary class to get to it; it still had to be done on the Ethereal Plane as in 2nd edition.

In 3.5, ''genesis'' was also made a 9th-level psionic power, restricted to Shaper psions, who got it for a much less stringent 1,000 XP and could be created on the Astral Plane.

Oddly, there is one final source for creating a demiplane: the 9th-level general cleric spell ''Word of Genesis'', which had a truename component (basically, you had to buy ranks of a specific unique skill and pass a check at DC 50; yeah, it was about as [[Skub|well-written]] as the rest of the Truenamer section).

It should be noted that you don't really have to use such powerful magic to get yourself a little pocket dimension, at least temporarily. Rope trick has long been regarded as an infinitely useful "rest area" spell in dungeons, and ''Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion'' is even better, giving access to plenty of food and space for various tasks (along with a very long duration at the time you get access to it). In fact, there is a somewhat obscure reference in Complete Scoundrel to a permanent ''mansion'' effect (the headquarters of the Blind Tower criminal organization); given that the ''permanency'' spell even mentions that you can research certain spells to be made permanent, and that it costs a pretty pinch of XP to make any high-level spell permanent, it's not a far-fetched notion for a DM to approve such a thing. But there is a downside: the thing can be dispelled, causing all the contents - and guests - to spill out of it, so be advised.

==Pathfinder==
When [[Pathfinder]] was a 3.5 setting it added the Genesis spell, which was pretty much the psionic power of the same name as a spell, exclusive to Clerics of the Artifice domain. When Pathfinder became a setting, it ignored all off the previous methods, even though all three were OGL, and even created a new version of the artifice domain without Genesis in the core rulebook.

This would be rectified in Ultimate Magic. Printed in that book was the spell Create Demiplane alongside its lesser and greater variants. Demiplanes now come online much earlier than they did before, requiring only 7th level spells and a cheap focus to create. On the downside, a demiplane now has a limited duration unless you cast permanency it, ensuring only Wizards and Clerics of an obscure subdomain get access to permanent ones. You are also limited to what traits you can select for your plane, so some of the cheese is off limits.

==5th Edition==
Yeah, they're still around, if bit neutered. You can still create a demiplane with the apparently named ''Demiplane'', an 8th Level Conjuration spell that opens a spooky door to your brand new demiplane!... An empty 30ft. x 30ft. x 30ft. room made of stone or wood. Yeah... But anything placed inside (including creatures) remain inside the room indefinitely, even when the spell ends and the door vanishes. So... not exactly [[Mordenkainen]]'s place, but it's serviceable if you need a decent-sized off-plane hidey-hole. Oh, AND if you know of another demiplane's existence and makeup, you can get into it by using ''Demiplane'' or ''Planes Shift'' and pull an 'All your... modest studio apartment... are belong to us!'

=Demiplanes For Fun And Profit=

Even as early as 2nd edition, one can use a demiplane for all kinds of fun stuff.

The most basic use is to make your own private homestead or farm: the bottom of the demiplane is the ground, the top is the "sky". Give it a nice, moderate temperature good for crops and livestock, normal day/night cycle, basically the most ordinary environment you can. You want access to spells like ''control weather'' and ''plant growth'' to kickstart your first few years of crops, but if you keep careful control of the demiplane's environment, you automatically bypass several problems farmers contend with: various diseases and blights, pests/vermin, poor weather, natural disasters, etc.

Another option is to run a big ol' business out of the place. This is a great option in big cities where real estate is at a premium. Buy a small, cheap property, and install portals going to the demiplane where you put in all your manufacturing or services for your business. Now, most folks know this option is how a lot of wizards run their wizard towers, where the outside is smaller than the inside, but don't let yourself be limited to that old cliche. Imagine a little shack that runs the city's biggest tavern, inn, brothel, and casino, a vast pleasure palace.

All of this is enhanced with additional magic to provide labor and resources. For example, if you can summon up a djinn, even for just a short time, you can create permanent plant-based materials; while this stuff could theoretically be dispelled (a nuance that comes up in 3rd edition), that still means you can conjure up firewood, which by itself is a big fucking deal. (Why? Because you don't have to chop down trees for it now. This curtails a lot of effort to acquire fuel, as well as making a LOT of side folks like druids, elves, and sylvan creatures happy that you aren't cutting down their forests.) You can use ''permanent image'' to create decorations; in 2nd edition, these are difficult to change, but in 3rd edition the caster can change them at will, allowing for redecorating for special occasions.

Throw in some choice magic items, constructs, and other permanent effects, and you have a real piece of work to call home. Best part is, this provides a luxurious place for your favorite NPCs to come hang their hat. Any cohorts, followers, and loyal hirelings can be given room and board, either for some work on your behalf, or possibly even just to spend the rest of their days enjoying life.

Now, before you get super excited to try any of this, note that all this falls on the DM to approve of, and some may not want to bother with the whole thing. Having said that, if you are a DM, then this is a pretty good way to motivate your players to go on adventures to acquire the treasure needed to pay for all this kind of stuff. Nothing like a spare dragon hoard to fund the ultimate retirement plan, after all.

The most attractive feature of the demiplane is the fact that it's damn hard to find out about. All but the most powerful divination effects can't cross planar borders. Only a few effects can take you there (unless there's a portal somewhere); you can theoretically wander the Ethereal or Astral Planes looking for curtains/pools that lead to the right demiplane, but even if you find one, the chances you found the correct path to the correct demiplane are worse than the chances of a "good" result of using a ''rod of wonder''. Security like that is at a premium at the higher levels, and can be stacked with other effects to make it even better.

[[Category: Planescape]]

Demiplane

2019-07-10T11:09:54Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B:

{{dnd-stub}}

A '''demiplane''' is a term introduced in the [[Planescape]] setting for [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. In a nutshell, it refers to a "miniature" [[plane]], one featuring well-defined limitations as opposed to extending on to infinity in all directions, having variable gravity and time traits, etc. Demiplanes can be big - [[Sigil]] is technically a [[demiplane]] - but are usually associated with small sizes, from "big as a large room" to "the size of a mansion".

Creating demiplanes is a popular past-time for high level [[wizard]]s, as it essentially lets them create their own personalized pocket of reality. With enough time and investment, a demiplane can grow into a full-fledged world in its own right.

=List of Demiplanes=
==[[Sigil]]==
While Sigil is part of the [[Outlands]] and can be seen at the top of the spire in the center, it isn't actually possible to reach Sigil from the Outlands without using a portal and it is not considered to be a layer of the plane.

==[[Ravenloft]]==
The Ravenloft setting is sometimes called the Demiplane of Dread even though it is large enough to be a world itself. It might be more accurate to call it the Demiplane'''s''' of Dread because it consists of many Domains with their own traits that can be completely isolated from each other by the will of the Dark Powers or a domain's Dark Lord.

==City of Union==
Union is less violent version of Sigil that attracts a lot of epic level characters. Union consists of a large number of islands connected by portals floating in a void, with the main islands of the city also held together by bridges. It was constructed by a race called the mercanes to use as trading hub.

==[[World Serpent Inn]]==
An entire dimension that consists of nothing but a single huge inn.

==Neth, the plane that lives==
Neth is a living and extremely intelligent demiplane. It is a 500 mile wide plane of flesh crumbled into a ball. Its only exit and entrance is a single portal that connects it to the [[Astral Plane]]. Neth is extremely curious about the universe, and is surprised that anything other than itself exists, as it cannot directly see anything outside of itself. It learns by sending out [[Flesh Golem]] like minions, interrogating people who end up inside of it, or absorbing them into itself to take their memories. Most of all, Neth wants to know why it exists as it doesn't remember its origin.

==The Observatorium==
The Observatorium is a mysterious sphere that moves around the Astral Plane. It is difficult to reach because it moves unpredictably and most of the ways to exit it can't be used to get back. It is full of strange machinery that can be used to spy on and open one way gates to anywhere in the multiverse. However, you can't say for too long because it has an effect of causing temporary wisdom loss to visitors that makes your more and more likely to accidently stumble into one of the exits.

==Common Ground==
Common Ground is a small plane where gods hold meetings with each other. Gods cannot harm each other on this plane and it supposed to be impossible for mortals to enter.

=Edition History=
==1st Edition==
The concept of demiplanes has been around since the earliest days of the game, but it was mostly an example of DM fiat in creating pocket dimensions for all kinds of crazy adventures. Examples include the original Ravenloft module (I6), Dungeonland (EX1) and its sequel The Land Beyond The Magic Mirror (EX2). There's really nothing substantial about these places, just the vague notion that they are created by powerful (usually long-lost) magical techniques.

==2nd Edition==
In the early days of 2nd edition, demiplanes still remained a DM tool; adventures like Isle of the Ape (WG6) continued in the same vein as the prior edition.

All that changed with Planescape. In The Planewalker's Handbook, ''demiplane seed'' was available as an 8th-level spell to mages. That book, and A Guide To The Ethereal Plane established that these "minor" demiplanes had to be created on the Ethereal Plane (probably because it was considered something of a proto-reality plane). The process was pretty arduous, involving a pretty pricey gemstone and 100 days of spellcasting and other work, but otherwise, it did what it said on the box: you created your very own demiplane to fill with traps, treasure, whatever you felt you needed to keep up with.

There was also a 9th-level spell called ''demiplane decay'' that could destroy demiplanes under specific conditions, but it was pretty horrible overall; anyone who couldn't plane-hop out of the place was dissolved with the rest of the plane in the very end.

Special "major" demiplanes were beyond the scope of any mortal magic and were mainly the province of divine-level beings.

==3rd Edition==
Demiplanes made a definite comeback, but there was a lot of weird stuff throughout the edition. The first appearance was in the 3.0 Manual of the Planes: the Planeshifter prestige class gained access to the ability demiplane seed at 10th level.

The next mention of making demiplanes was in the Epic Level Handbook, under the ''genesis'' 9th-level spell, available only to wizards or clerics with the Creation domain (until the domain was reworked in 3.5). It was costly at 5,000 XP and a week's casting time (8 hours/day), but you didn't have to take some arbitrary class to get to it; it still had to be done on the Ethereal Plane as in 2nd edition.

In 3.5, ''genesis'' was also made a 9th-level psionic power, restricted to Shaper psions, who got it for a much less stringent 1,000 XP and could be created on the Astral Plane.

Oddly, there is one final source for creating a demiplane: the 9th-level general cleric spell ''Word of Genesis'', which had a truename component (basically, you had to buy ranks of a specific unique skill and pass a check at DC 50; yeah, it was about as [[Skub|well-written]] as the rest of the Truenamer section).

It should be noted that you don't really have to use such powerful magic to get yourself a little pocket dimension, at least temporarily. Rope trick has long been regarded as an infinitely useful "rest area" spell in dungeons, and ''Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion'' is even better, giving access to plenty of food and space for various tasks (along with a very long duration at the time you get access to it). In fact, there is a somewhat obscure reference in Complete Scoundrel to a permanent ''mansion'' effect (the headquarters of the Blind Tower criminal organization); given that the ''permanency'' spell even mentions that you can research certain spells to be made permanent, and that it costs a pretty pinch of XP to make any high-level spell permanent, it's not a far-fetched notion for a DM to approve such a thing. But there is a downside: the thing can be dispelled, causing all the contents - and guests - to spill out of it, so be advised.

==Pathfinder==
When [[Pathfinder]] was a 3.5 setting it added the Genesis spell, which was pretty much the psionic power of the same name as a spell, exclusive to Clerics of the Artifice domain. When Pathfinder became a setting, it ignored all off the previous methods, even though all three were OGL, and even created a new version of the artifice domain without Genesis in the core rulebook.

This would be rectified in Ultimate Magic. Printed in that book was the spell Create Demiplane alongside its lesser and greater variants. Demiplanes now come online much earlier than they did before, requiring only 7th level spells and a cheap focus to create. On the downside, a demiplane now has a limited duration unless you cast permanency it, ensuring only Wizards and Clerics of an obscure subdomain get access to permanent ones. You are also limited to what traits you can select for your plane, so some of the cheese is off limits.

==5th Edition==
Yeah, they're still around, if bit neutered. You can still create a demiplane with the apparently named ''Demiplane'', an 8th Level Conjuration spell that opens a spooky door to your brand new demiplane!... An empty 30ft. x 30ft. x 30ft. room made of stone or wood. Yeah... But anything placed inside (including creatures) remain inside the room indefinitely, even when the spell ends and the door vanishes. So... not exactly [[Mordenkainen]]'s place, but it's serviceable if you need a decent-sized off-plane hidey-hole. Oh, AND if you know of another demiplane's existence and makeup, you can get into it by using ''Demiplane'' or ''Planes Shift'' and pull an 'All your... modest studio apartment... are belong to us!'

=Demiplanes For Fun And Profit=

Even as early as 2nd edition, one can use a demiplane for all kinds of fun stuff.

The most basic use is to make your own private homestead or farm: the bottom of the demiplane is the ground, the top is the "sky". Give it a nice, moderate temperature good for crops and livestock, normal day/night cycle, basically the most ordinary environment you can. You want access to spells like ''control weather'' and ''plant growth'' to kickstart your first few years of crops, but if you keep careful control of the demiplane's environment, you automatically bypass several problems farmers contend with: various diseases and blights, pests/vermin, poor weather, natural disasters, etc.

Another option is to run a big ol' business out of the place. This is a great option in big cities where real estate is at a premium. Buy a small, cheap property, and install portals going to the demiplane where you put in all your manufacturing or services for your business. Now, most folks know this option is how a lot of wizards run their wizard towers, where the outside is smaller than the inside, but don't let yourself be limited to that old cliche. Imagine a little shack that runs the city's biggest tavern, inn, brothel, and casino, a vast pleasure palace.

All of this is enhanced with additional magic to provide labor and resources. For example, if you can summon up a djinn, even for just a short time, you can create permanent plant-based materials; while this stuff could theoretically be dispelled (a nuance that comes up in 3rd edition), that still means you can conjure up firewood, which by itself is a big fucking deal. (Why? Because you don't have to chop down trees for it now. This curtails a lot of effort to acquire fuel, as well as making a LOT of side folks like druids, elves, and sylvan creatures happy that you aren't cutting down their forests.) You can use ''permanent image'' to create decorations; in 2nd edition, these are difficult to change, but in 3rd edition the caster can change them at will, allowing for redecorating for special occasions.

Throw in some choice magic items, constructs, and other permanent effects, and you have a real piece of work to call home. Best part is, this provides a luxurious place for your favorite NPCs to come hang their hat. Any cohorts, followers, and loyal hirelings can be given room and board, either for some work on your behalf, or possibly even just to spend the rest of their days enjoying life.

Now, before you get super excited to try any of this, note that all this falls on the DM to approve of, and some may not want to bother with the whole thing. Having said that, if you are a DM, then this is a pretty good way to motivate your players to go on adventures to acquire the treasure needed to pay for all this kind of stuff. Nothing like a spare dragon hoard to fund the ultimate retirement plan, after all.

The most attractive feature of the demiplane is the fact that it's damn hard to find out about. All but the most powerful divination effects can't cross planar borders. Only a few effects can take you there (unless there's a portal somewhere); you can theoretically wander the Ethereal or Astral Planes looking for curtains/pools that lead to the right demiplane, but even if you find one, the chances you found the correct path to the correct demiplane are worse than the chances of a "good" result of using a ''rod of wonder''. Security like that is at a premium at the higher levels, and can be stacked with other effects to make it even better.

[[Category: Planescape]]

Template:Planescape-Cosmology

2019-07-10T10:17:45Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B:

<center>
{|border=0 cellspacing=1 cellpadding=2 style="margin: 1em; border: 3px solid #7B3F00;"
|-
!align=center colspan=6 | The Cosmology of [[Planescape]]
|-
![[Inner Planes]] || [[Ethereal Plane]] || [[Prime Material]] || [[Astral Plane]] || [[Outer Planes]]
|-
![[Elemental Planes]] || [[Energy Planes]] || [[Demiplane of Dread]] || [[Plane of Shadow]] || [[Plane of Mirrors]]
|-
![[World Serpent Inn]] || [[Tu'narath]] || [[Sigil]] || [[Demiplane]]s || [[Ordial Plane]]?
|-
!colspan=6 | '''[[Far Realm]]'''
|}
</center>
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Planescape]][[Category:Planes]]

Dice

2019-07-10T06:36:57Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* Types of Dice */

{{Cleanup}}
[[Image:dice.jpg|right|thumb|I COULD JUST DIVE INTO THEM!]]
[[Image:Uglydie.jpg|thumb|left|SO FUCKING UGLY. But he has a fetching hat.]]
[[Dice]] (singular: '''die''') are high-impact polyhedra. In [[role-playing games]] and tabletop war games, they are used as randomizers to inject an element of chance into the game. Non-gamers often only know about the six-sided die (hereafter referred to as the d6) thanks to the ubiquity of games like [[Monopoly]] and [[Yahtzee]]. Which dice are used tends to vary by system. [[Dungeons and Dragons]], for instance, makes use of all types. On the other hand, [[White Wolf]] games and Classic Traveller use only ten- and six-sided dice, respectively. [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/O/on-the-gripping-hand.html On the gripping hand], some games don't use dice at all! These tend to be relatively new games like [[Nobilis]] or [[Amber]].

Bear in mind, if you're not familiar with how statistics work, one d12 does not have the same probability distribution as two d6s (same goes for any combination of die). A single die will have the same percentage chance for any side to roll, whereas using multiple die will result in a probability distribution resembling a bell curve (in the two d6's case, seven will be the most common roll, followed by sixs and eights, then fives and nines, and so on). Keep this in mind when you're doing homebrew rules.

If you do not have dice for whatever reason, consider <strike>[[chits]]</strike> getting some fucking dice.

Dice are considered by most people to be impartial arbiters of [[statistics|random chance]]. [[Fa/tg/uy]]s (and craps players) know better. Dice are controlled or at least influenced by the unseen force of Dice Mojo. It is believed that Dice Mojo can be influenced by players through manifold rituals, including:

*Placing a die with the desired number upward, that it 'gets used to' that position and tends to return to it.
*Placing a die with the desired number downward, that the die is tricked into thinking it has already made a bad roll and will produce a good outcome on the subsequent roll.
*Rolling a die until a string of good rolls are achieved, tapping into a streak of 'good mojo' or 'rolling out' bad outcomes.
*Various chants, prayers, threats, and curses made toward the die in order to entice or coerce it into [[Natural 20|producing favorable rolls.]]
*Being careful not to drop dice or just roll them to pass the time till next turn, as when rolling a twenty, the critical ratio may be "used up" for the day.
*Building dice towers as tribute to Dice Gods that they may bless one's dice with good Mojo.

The one true method (at least for those without specialized tools) for finding if a die is cursed or lucky dice however is putting it in a cup of very salty water and seeing which side floats to the bottom.

==[[/tg/ Dice| Dice on /tg/]]==
[[/tg/]] The dice are magical beings, and should be treated as such. Anger the dice, and your life shall cease. Please the dice, and it shall reward your courageous behavior. Worship the Dice. Dice is love, dice is life.

[[Image:Mobius dice.jpg|thumb|right]]

==Types of Dice==
===d0===
Nobody knows what a 0-sided dice looks like, and they are useless anyway because they always roll 42.

===d1===
Rolling this visually elusive die involves armed, digited humanoids gesturing with one arm while extending only a single centralmost digit of its hand and informing the party what's gonna happen. The few one sided dice that exist are either just a ball with the number 1 written on them, or a mobius ring.

===d2===
[[Image:D2.gif|thumb|right|A D2. Careful not to spend it all in one place.]]

A d2 isn't a die - it's a coin.

You flip the fucking thing. Heads count as 1, Tails count as 2.

You can, alternately, roll any other [[dice|die]] - counting odds as 1 and evens as 2.

[[Image:Actual d2.jpg|thumb|right|A more literal version that definitevely costs more than the penny you could be using instead, it can double as a less hazardous d4 however]]

====In Various Works====
d2s are used with disturbing frequency in both CCGs and RPGs. They are used in [[Magic: The Gathering]], and even [[Dungeons and Dragons]] because some stupid fucking developer thinks it's fucking funny to have certain items and weapons do damage using d2s even to this fucking day.

The RPG ''Bean!'' is a d2-based game, and it's actually pretty good.

====Also Currency====
The d2 are the only dice you can put in a vending machine and spend for candy. With string and a sufficient dexterity score, you don't even have to "spend" the d2 at all (This only works on 50 year old or so vending machines).

===d3===
Not much to say about it.
[[Image:D3.jpg|thumb|right|The D3...]]
[[Warhammer 40k]] uses D3's <s>every once in awhile</s> [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics(8E)| all the time]] - Rending, [[Manticore Rocket Launcher|Manticores]], & other cases such as +D3 attacks, 2 + D3 objectives, etc. Most of the time, they don't actually use a D3 - they just roll a [[d6]], at which points three schools of thought engage in a holy war:
* Some subtract 3 from any result that's 4 or higher. So, for example, a 5 becomes a 2.
* Others divide the result by two, rounding up. So, for example, a 5 becomes a 3.
* Lazy people just assign the value of 1 to the first 2 numbers, and so on. For example, a 4 would be a 2.
The 40k rulebook explicitly proselytizes the second option, which means the former and latter are [[heresy]]. Other games don't really care as much.

Actual d3s come in two major flavours: The weird triangular nublette things seen to the right, which are largely used by people who think having weird dice makes you interesting, and d6es which had 1, 2 and 3 written on them twice, used by people who like to build things out of dice.

Since you can readily simulate a d3 result easily enough without obtaining extra dice why in the hell would you bother?

===d4===
[[image:D4.jpg|thumb|right|This fucker will hurt more than any lego.]]
A pyramidal [[dice|die]] that has the second-sharpest points of any die (only the [[d8]] is sharper), and, appropriately enough, has four sides. Used by Wizards, small weapons, and low-caliber firearms in d20 modern. At least it gets more love than the [[d12]], which probably falls asleep every night in a pool of tears and melted butter.

There are two ways to print the numbers on a D4. On one, the numbers are arranged on the corners of each face, and so the number at the top (it will always be three of the same number) is what you actually rolled. On the other kind, the numbers are arranged in the middle of each side of the face, and so the number on the bottom (again, it will always be three of the same number) tells you what you rolled. Oldfags will insist the "numbers on the bottom" d4 is the one true way, despite the fact that they need the full power of their coke-bottle glasses to see the numbers. [[Skub|Don't argue]] with 'em, just keep using the d4s that you and everyone at the table can read.

====Fucking Caltrops====
Whilst the d4 isn't as sharp as a d8, it has one major bit of natural defense - no matter what way it lands, it will have a point face-up. Because it's the smallest die, care needs to be used - if one escapes its dice-box and into the wild, it will wait, with its [[Bear Lore|natural weapon]] ready, for the exact moment someone walks into its vicinity barefoot to strike, whereupon it will inflict some surprisingly-vicious puncture wounds.

Somewhat related, in D&D Caltrops inflict 1d4 damage. [[Just as planned|Coincidence]]?

===d6===
''Not the same thing as the [[D6 System]] by [[West End Games]].''

[[Image:Cube_template.gif|thumb|do-it-yourself kit]]
If you don't know what a d6 is, holy shit are you in the wrong place.
Go back to playing [[Monopoly]] in your blissful ignorance that it uses two of them.

A d6 with indented pips and rounded corners has a significantly higher chance of rolling a one than anything else. Do not trust them.

Fun Fact: Do you own a regular #2 pencil? If so, congratulations, [[Barrel dice|you have a d6]].

====Delta-6====
A die-rolling method for numbers from 0-5 with a particular curve.

Roll two d6, and subtract the smaller from the larger.

The curve looks like this:
{|style="border:1px solid black;" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=3
! roll !! odds % !!  
|-
| 0 || 1/6 16.7% || <tt>######</tt>
|-
| 1 || 5/18 27.8% || <tt>##########</tt>
|-
| 2 || 2/9 22.2% || <tt>########</tt>
|-
| 3 || 1/6 16.7% || <tt>######</tt>
|-
| 4 || 1/9 11.1% || <tt>####</tt>
|-
| 5 || 1/18 5.5% || <tt>##</tt>
|}

===d8===
The eight-sided die is an octohedron: one of the symmetrical polyhedral known as the "Platonic solids."
[[Image:Buncha_d8s.jpg|thumb|right|A wild herd of d8s]]

Despite being a "Platonic" solid, it looks like two pyramids caught in the beautiful act of reproduction. Long live the dice race.

A d8 was always used for hit points for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] monsters, and in Advanced D&D it was used for those classes that have more hit points but weren't supposed to be as butch as Fighters or Paladins.

Eight-sided dice also have the most variations with weird not-numbers stuff on them, like compass directions, random weather, letters. They're also used as below-bargain-basement minifigs because one point is always off the table, like a big nose, or turret.

When you played Dragon Dice, the d8s were the terrain, which could change under your feet without moving your army, somehow.

James Ernest came up with a game "Dogfight" that uses d8s for their numbers, for being pointy and for turning in circles when you try to roll them like wheels... then he remembered that people put weird shit on d8s and he came up with a new game called "DiceLand," which is a beautiful game.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] fucking *loves* themselves some d8s. Their games make you wonder if all their parents were killed in a horrible cube-shaped accident.

===d10===
[[Image:Ten-sided die.png|frame|center]]

It's a [[die]]. With ten sides. Pretty simple concept.

It's in the shape of a pentagonal trapezohedron. You can stand it on its point and spin it like a top. You should not do this, however, as it is the universal sign of boredom and is considered faux pas in most gaming circles.

The tenth side usually bears only a zero, but you should still read it as "ten" because you want your result to be 1-10, not 0-9.

[[Image:D10_bronze_thorns.jpg|frame|center|Your d10 dice are not this good-looking.]]

====Rolling d100 Using Two d10s====

[[Dark Heresy|Some Systems]] require you to roll d100s frequently. There's a better way of doing it than rolling a [[#d100|golf ball with 100 sides]].

Get out two d10s. Use one die to denote the singles digit and another die to denote the tens digit. Some d10s have two digits per side (see above) to make differentiating your digits easier, but you can roll d100 with any two d10, provided you specify beforehand which die is the tens and which the ones.

Reading it off is simple. Did you roll a '''20''' and a '''4'''? That's a '''24'''. A '''90''' and a '''1'''? '''91'''. A '''00''' and a '''5'''? Just a '''5'''.

The only possibly ambiguous result is two zeroes: a '''00''' and a '''0'''. Obviously you rolled a '''100'''. Why? Because the alternative is a '''0''' which you can never roll with any other die. That, and the system assumes a roll from '''1''' to '''100''', not '''0''' to '''99'''.

Mathematically, each digit is determined in an independent manner. There are exactly 10*10=100 two-digit combinations, all equally likely. You now have a uniform distribution of 100 different results, as desired.

===d12===
[[Image:D12_Cries.jpg|thumb|right]]
The [[d12]] is the loneliest die. It is used for barbarian hit dice and greataxe damage in [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. The fact that [[Orcs]] (and [[Half-Orcs]]) are both the most common barbarians and the most common wielders of greataxes, it is suspected that Gruumsh is the head of a conspiracy aiming to eliminate the [[d10]] in favor of the [[d12]], in order to "purify" dice sets so that they consist only of true platonic solids.

Observant smar/tg/uys will notice that d12 are the hitdice used for undead and dragons instead of the usual [[d8]]s.

[[d12]] is the highest stats can ordinarily go in [[Savage Worlds]] or [[Ironclaw]]. [[BBEG]]s and [[DMPC]] [[Mary Sues]] can have [[d20]], but it's hella rare.

[[d12]] shows up in [[Cthulhu]]-themed games, like Pokethulhu or [[Cthulhu Dice]], probably because [[d12]] is just as beautiful and graceful as the mighty Cthulhu.

One of the few places where the [[d12]] is not lonely, and is in fact used a great deal, is the [[DragonMech]] campaign setting. Its chief use there is for damage rolls with mech weaponry.

If you’re on a budget, the [[d12]] is your best friend, capable of functioning as a [[d3]], [[d4]], [[d6]], and even a [[d10]] or [[d8]] in a pinch. Not that useful, but it can still come in handy.

===d16===
Used basically just in [[Blood Bowl]] to randomly select a player on a team (which has a max of 16 players). Originally introduced by the [http://www.thenaf.net/the-naf/history/ NAF] in 2013 (when G-Dubs refused to license their block dice anymore), [[GW]] wised up in their 2016 edition of the game and added it to their product line, replacing the old method of drawing a [[chits|chit]] from a cup.

===d20===
Before [[TSR]]/[[Wizards of the Coast]] tried to trademark "d20", every gamer knew what the fuck an icosahedron is, and why "natural 20" is a gift from God.
{|border=0
|-
|[[Image:Green_d20.jpg|center|frame|'''BOW DOWN BEFORE YOUR GOD''']]
|[[Image:PennyArcade_papvp2_8.jpg|300px|We're Number One]]
|}

{|
|-
|valign=center| The '''[[d20 System]]''' for role playing came later.<br/>
Like eighteen centuries later.<br/>
Don't believe me? Check this out:
|[[Image:2nd_century_Roman_d20.jpg|center|thumb|200px|2nd century Rome, bitches]]
|}

===d30===
[[Image:D30_olympic.jpg|thumb|right]]

Only ever used for those critical-hit tables when you rolled a natural [[D20|20]].
Or if your DM was rolling damage and felt like being a dick.

But man, would it leave a bruise when your little sister threw it at your head.

===d50===
<center>
[[Rage|Fifty goddamn sides!!!!]]

For when you want to do 2-100 points of damage with a vaguely normal distribution.

... yeah, I don't know either
</center>

It also doubles as a golf ball.

[[Image:D50_Alan_Davies.jpg|center|320px]]

===d100===
[[File:Zocchihedron2.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Golfball.jpg]]
Take that, d50's!

They're useful when you really want to take 5 minutes to find out if you hit something in [[Dark Heresy]]. In other words, better just use a pair of [[D10]]'s like a normal human being.

Apparently it took about 6 years to make this die. I guess this means that it takes 6 years to put the numbers 1-100 on a fucking golf ball.

====Usage====
It may seem awesome when you see it, but as soon as you get one (and whoever's selling it to you is also aware of how unspeakably lame it is, and will probably even tell you) you will find that it has two major flaws: it takes about a minute to stop fucking rolling around and if you aren't blessed with a perfectly level playing surface you will never find out exactly what you've rolled (and when there are six other numbers right next to the 100 and 1, that's a pretty big problem). Oh, and to top it off, it isn't even very balanced, so it's effectively a loaded die.

On the other hand, if you hate your friends, show up to your next meeting and sweep all the d10s off the table, then drop your d100 right in the middle with a theatrical gesture and watch as everyone is mesmerized by its incessant rolling (see: takes about a minute to stop fucking rolling around). Take this opportunity to pocket the d10s, run away and never come back.

[[FATAL]] seemed to expect you to use this (but then again FATAL expects you to play FATAL so you can't expect much).

===d120===
This is the most number of sides that a die can have while being 'mathematically fair die' (that doesn't have the dual problems of rolling forever and being prohibitively hard to read). The d120 stops rolling after a reasonable time (with the condition that this only applies if you don't roll with 'too much force'). It is also a bit tricky to read (but still perfectly possible). The company that sells the die points out that it can act as any of the standard 7 dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d10 of 10s, d12, and d20). And thanks to the chart they released for free, you don't even have to do the math yourself [http://thedicelab.com/d120tables.html]. Of course for the d100 roll you'll have to roll the d120 twice, roll 2 d120, or use a die other than the d120 (although you could still use the d120, e.g. a d10 and a d120). [http://nerdist.com/this-d120-is-the-largest-mathematically-fair-die-possible/]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:premiumdice.jpg|Premium Dice!
Image:premiumdice2.png|Premium Dice cont.
Image:Big_Gay_Purple_d4.png‎|A d4 in the wild, natural weapon readied. As you can see by the notch on the left edge, this one has already claimed a victim.
Image:Caltrop.jpg|Now that's just sick and wrong.
File:I hope you step on a d4.png
Image:Go_outside_die.jpg|Try and MAKE me go outside. Fuck off, d12.
Image:anna_louge_dice.jpg|Even camwhores know that the d20 is sexy, and each face has an exactly 5% chance of appearing.
File:DToM.jpg
</gallery>

==See Also==
*[[Barrel dice]]
*[[Chits]] - The nega-dice of yesteryear.
*[[Crayola Dice]]
*[[Dice pool]]
*[[Exploding die]]
*[[Fudge dice]]
*[[D6 System]]
*[[D20 system]]

(External Links)
[http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20040517a Dungeons & Dragons Dice Roller]
[http://www.dicecollector.com/JM/ Dice Collector gallery of all the dice; all of them]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR2fxoNHIuU Lou Zocchi explains Dice.]

[[Category:Game Mechanics]][[Category:Dice]]

Dice

2019-07-10T06:34:59Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* d1 */

{{Cleanup}}
[[Image:dice.jpg|right|thumb|I COULD JUST DIVE INTO THEM!]]
[[Image:Uglydie.jpg|thumb|left|SO FUCKING UGLY. But he has a fetching hat.]]
[[Dice]] (singular: '''die''') are high-impact polyhedra. In [[role-playing games]] and tabletop war games, they are used as randomizers to inject an element of chance into the game. Non-gamers often only know about the six-sided die (hereafter referred to as the d6) thanks to the ubiquity of games like [[Monopoly]] and [[Yahtzee]]. Which dice are used tends to vary by system. [[Dungeons and Dragons]], for instance, makes use of all types. On the other hand, [[White Wolf]] games and Classic Traveller use only ten- and six-sided dice, respectively. [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/O/on-the-gripping-hand.html On the gripping hand], some games don't use dice at all! These tend to be relatively new games like [[Nobilis]] or [[Amber]].

Bear in mind, if you're not familiar with how statistics work, one d12 does not have the same probability distribution as two d6s (same goes for any combination of die). A single die will have the same percentage chance for any side to roll, whereas using multiple die will result in a probability distribution resembling a bell curve (in the two d6's case, seven will be the most common roll, followed by sixs and eights, then fives and nines, and so on). Keep this in mind when you're doing homebrew rules.

If you do not have dice for whatever reason, consider <strike>[[chits]]</strike> getting some fucking dice.

Dice are considered by most people to be impartial arbiters of [[statistics|random chance]]. [[Fa/tg/uy]]s (and craps players) know better. Dice are controlled or at least influenced by the unseen force of Dice Mojo. It is believed that Dice Mojo can be influenced by players through manifold rituals, including:

*Placing a die with the desired number upward, that it 'gets used to' that position and tends to return to it.
*Placing a die with the desired number downward, that the die is tricked into thinking it has already made a bad roll and will produce a good outcome on the subsequent roll.
*Rolling a die until a string of good rolls are achieved, tapping into a streak of 'good mojo' or 'rolling out' bad outcomes.
*Various chants, prayers, threats, and curses made toward the die in order to entice or coerce it into [[Natural 20|producing favorable rolls.]]
*Being careful not to drop dice or just roll them to pass the time till next turn, as when rolling a twenty, the critical ratio may be "used up" for the day.
*Building dice towers as tribute to Dice Gods that they may bless one's dice with good Mojo.

The one true method (at least for those without specialized tools) for finding if a die is cursed or lucky dice however is putting it in a cup of very salty water and seeing which side floats to the bottom.

==[[/tg/ Dice| Dice on /tg/]]==
[[/tg/]] The dice are magical beings, and should be treated as such. Anger the dice, and your life shall cease. Please the dice, and it shall reward your courageous behavior. Worship the Dice. Dice is love, dice is life.

[[Image:Mobius dice.jpg|thumb|right]]

==Types of Dice==
===d1===
Rolling this visually elusive die involves armed, digited humanoids gesturing with one arm while extending only a single centralmost digit of its hand and informing the party what's gonna happen. The few one sided dice that exist are either just a ball with the number 1 written on them, or a mobius ring.

===d2===
[[Image:D2.gif|thumb|right|A D2. Careful not to spend it all in one place.]]

A d2 isn't a die - it's a coin.

You flip the fucking thing. Heads count as 1, Tails count as 2.

You can, alternately, roll any other [[dice|die]] - counting odds as 1 and evens as 2.

[[Image:Actual d2.jpg|thumb|right|A more literal version that definitevely costs more than the penny you could be using instead, it can double as a less hazardous d4 however]]

====In Various Works====
d2s are used with disturbing frequency in both CCGs and RPGs. They are used in [[Magic: The Gathering]], and even [[Dungeons and Dragons]] because some stupid fucking developer thinks it's fucking funny to have certain items and weapons do damage using d2s even to this fucking day.

The RPG ''Bean!'' is a d2-based game, and it's actually pretty good.

====Also Currency====
The d2 are the only dice you can put in a vending machine and spend for candy. With string and a sufficient dexterity score, you don't even have to "spend" the d2 at all (This only works on 50 year old or so vending machines).

===d3===
Not much to say about it.
[[Image:D3.jpg|thumb|right|The D3...]]
[[Warhammer 40k]] uses D3's <s>every once in awhile</s> [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics(8E)| all the time]] - Rending, [[Manticore Rocket Launcher|Manticores]], & other cases such as +D3 attacks, 2 + D3 objectives, etc. Most of the time, they don't actually use a D3 - they just roll a [[d6]], at which points three schools of thought engage in a holy war:
* Some subtract 3 from any result that's 4 or higher. So, for example, a 5 becomes a 2.
* Others divide the result by two, rounding up. So, for example, a 5 becomes a 3.
* Lazy people just assign the value of 1 to the first 2 numbers, and so on. For example, a 4 would be a 2.
The 40k rulebook explicitly proselytizes the second option, which means the former and latter are [[heresy]]. Other games don't really care as much.

Actual d3s come in two major flavours: The weird triangular nublette things seen to the right, which are largely used by people who think having weird dice makes you interesting, and d6es which had 1, 2 and 3 written on them twice, used by people who like to build things out of dice.

Since you can readily simulate a d3 result easily enough without obtaining extra dice why in the hell would you bother?

===d4===
[[image:D4.jpg|thumb|right|This fucker will hurt more than any lego.]]
A pyramidal [[dice|die]] that has the second-sharpest points of any die (only the [[d8]] is sharper), and, appropriately enough, has four sides. Used by Wizards, small weapons, and low-caliber firearms in d20 modern. At least it gets more love than the [[d12]], which probably falls asleep every night in a pool of tears and melted butter.

There are two ways to print the numbers on a D4. On one, the numbers are arranged on the corners of each face, and so the number at the top (it will always be three of the same number) is what you actually rolled. On the other kind, the numbers are arranged in the middle of each side of the face, and so the number on the bottom (again, it will always be three of the same number) tells you what you rolled. Oldfags will insist the "numbers on the bottom" d4 is the one true way, despite the fact that they need the full power of their coke-bottle glasses to see the numbers. [[Skub|Don't argue]] with 'em, just keep using the d4s that you and everyone at the table can read.

====Fucking Caltrops====
Whilst the d4 isn't as sharp as a d8, it has one major bit of natural defense - no matter what way it lands, it will have a point face-up. Because it's the smallest die, care needs to be used - if one escapes its dice-box and into the wild, it will wait, with its [[Bear Lore|natural weapon]] ready, for the exact moment someone walks into its vicinity barefoot to strike, whereupon it will inflict some surprisingly-vicious puncture wounds.

Somewhat related, in D&D Caltrops inflict 1d4 damage. [[Just as planned|Coincidence]]?

===d6===
''Not the same thing as the [[D6 System]] by [[West End Games]].''

[[Image:Cube_template.gif|thumb|do-it-yourself kit]]
If you don't know what a d6 is, holy shit are you in the wrong place.
Go back to playing [[Monopoly]] in your blissful ignorance that it uses two of them.

A d6 with indented pips and rounded corners has a significantly higher chance of rolling a one than anything else. Do not trust them.

Fun Fact: Do you own a regular #2 pencil? If so, congratulations, [[Barrel dice|you have a d6]].

====Delta-6====
A die-rolling method for numbers from 0-5 with a particular curve.

Roll two d6, and subtract the smaller from the larger.

The curve looks like this:
{|style="border:1px solid black;" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=3
! roll !! odds % !!  
|-
| 0 || 1/6 16.7% || <tt>######</tt>
|-
| 1 || 5/18 27.8% || <tt>##########</tt>
|-
| 2 || 2/9 22.2% || <tt>########</tt>
|-
| 3 || 1/6 16.7% || <tt>######</tt>
|-
| 4 || 1/9 11.1% || <tt>####</tt>
|-
| 5 || 1/18 5.5% || <tt>##</tt>
|}

===d8===
The eight-sided die is an octohedron: one of the symmetrical polyhedral known as the "Platonic solids."
[[Image:Buncha_d8s.jpg|thumb|right|A wild herd of d8s]]

Despite being a "Platonic" solid, it looks like two pyramids caught in the beautiful act of reproduction. Long live the dice race.

A d8 was always used for hit points for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] monsters, and in Advanced D&D it was used for those classes that have more hit points but weren't supposed to be as butch as Fighters or Paladins.

Eight-sided dice also have the most variations with weird not-numbers stuff on them, like compass directions, random weather, letters. They're also used as below-bargain-basement minifigs because one point is always off the table, like a big nose, or turret.

When you played Dragon Dice, the d8s were the terrain, which could change under your feet without moving your army, somehow.

James Ernest came up with a game "Dogfight" that uses d8s for their numbers, for being pointy and for turning in circles when you try to roll them like wheels... then he remembered that people put weird shit on d8s and he came up with a new game called "DiceLand," which is a beautiful game.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] fucking *loves* themselves some d8s. Their games make you wonder if all their parents were killed in a horrible cube-shaped accident.

===d10===
[[Image:Ten-sided die.png|frame|center]]

It's a [[die]]. With ten sides. Pretty simple concept.

It's in the shape of a pentagonal trapezohedron. You can stand it on its point and spin it like a top. You should not do this, however, as it is the universal sign of boredom and is considered faux pas in most gaming circles.

The tenth side usually bears only a zero, but you should still read it as "ten" because you want your result to be 1-10, not 0-9.

[[Image:D10_bronze_thorns.jpg|frame|center|Your d10 dice are not this good-looking.]]

====Rolling d100 Using Two d10s====

[[Dark Heresy|Some Systems]] require you to roll d100s frequently. There's a better way of doing it than rolling a [[#d100|golf ball with 100 sides]].

Get out two d10s. Use one die to denote the singles digit and another die to denote the tens digit. Some d10s have two digits per side (see above) to make differentiating your digits easier, but you can roll d100 with any two d10, provided you specify beforehand which die is the tens and which the ones.

Reading it off is simple. Did you roll a '''20''' and a '''4'''? That's a '''24'''. A '''90''' and a '''1'''? '''91'''. A '''00''' and a '''5'''? Just a '''5'''.

The only possibly ambiguous result is two zeroes: a '''00''' and a '''0'''. Obviously you rolled a '''100'''. Why? Because the alternative is a '''0''' which you can never roll with any other die. That, and the system assumes a roll from '''1''' to '''100''', not '''0''' to '''99'''.

Mathematically, each digit is determined in an independent manner. There are exactly 10*10=100 two-digit combinations, all equally likely. You now have a uniform distribution of 100 different results, as desired.

===d12===
[[Image:D12_Cries.jpg|thumb|right]]
The [[d12]] is the loneliest die. It is used for barbarian hit dice and greataxe damage in [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. The fact that [[Orcs]] (and [[Half-Orcs]]) are both the most common barbarians and the most common wielders of greataxes, it is suspected that Gruumsh is the head of a conspiracy aiming to eliminate the [[d10]] in favor of the [[d12]], in order to "purify" dice sets so that they consist only of true platonic solids.

Observant smar/tg/uys will notice that d12 are the hitdice used for undead and dragons instead of the usual [[d8]]s.

[[d12]] is the highest stats can ordinarily go in [[Savage Worlds]] or [[Ironclaw]]. [[BBEG]]s and [[DMPC]] [[Mary Sues]] can have [[d20]], but it's hella rare.

[[d12]] shows up in [[Cthulhu]]-themed games, like Pokethulhu or [[Cthulhu Dice]], probably because [[d12]] is just as beautiful and graceful as the mighty Cthulhu.

One of the few places where the [[d12]] is not lonely, and is in fact used a great deal, is the [[DragonMech]] campaign setting. Its chief use there is for damage rolls with mech weaponry.

If you’re on a budget, the [[d12]] is your best friend, capable of functioning as a [[d3]], [[d4]], [[d6]], and even a [[d10]] or [[d8]] in a pinch. Not that useful, but it can still come in handy.

===d16===
Used basically just in [[Blood Bowl]] to randomly select a player on a team (which has a max of 16 players). Originally introduced by the [http://www.thenaf.net/the-naf/history/ NAF] in 2013 (when G-Dubs refused to license their block dice anymore), [[GW]] wised up in their 2016 edition of the game and added it to their product line, replacing the old method of drawing a [[chits|chit]] from a cup.

===d20===
Before [[TSR]]/[[Wizards of the Coast]] tried to trademark "d20", every gamer knew what the fuck an icosahedron is, and why "natural 20" is a gift from God.
{|border=0
|-
|[[Image:Green_d20.jpg|center|frame|'''BOW DOWN BEFORE YOUR GOD''']]
|[[Image:PennyArcade_papvp2_8.jpg|300px|We're Number One]]
|}

{|
|-
|valign=center| The '''[[d20 System]]''' for role playing came later.<br/>
Like eighteen centuries later.<br/>
Don't believe me? Check this out:
|[[Image:2nd_century_Roman_d20.jpg|center|thumb|200px|2nd century Rome, bitches]]
|}

===d30===
[[Image:D30_olympic.jpg|thumb|right]]

Only ever used for those critical-hit tables when you rolled a natural [[D20|20]].
Or if your DM was rolling damage and felt like being a dick.

But man, would it leave a bruise when your little sister threw it at your head.

===d50===
<center>
[[Rage|Fifty goddamn sides!!!!]]

For when you want to do 2-100 points of damage with a vaguely normal distribution.

... yeah, I don't know either
</center>

It also doubles as a golf ball.

[[Image:D50_Alan_Davies.jpg|center|320px]]

===d100===
[[File:Zocchihedron2.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Golfball.jpg]]
Take that, d50's!

They're useful when you really want to take 5 minutes to find out if you hit something in [[Dark Heresy]]. In other words, better just use a pair of [[D10]]'s like a normal human being.

Apparently it took about 6 years to make this die. I guess this means that it takes 6 years to put the numbers 1-100 on a fucking golf ball.

====Usage====
It may seem awesome when you see it, but as soon as you get one (and whoever's selling it to you is also aware of how unspeakably lame it is, and will probably even tell you) you will find that it has two major flaws: it takes about a minute to stop fucking rolling around and if you aren't blessed with a perfectly level playing surface you will never find out exactly what you've rolled (and when there are six other numbers right next to the 100 and 1, that's a pretty big problem). Oh, and to top it off, it isn't even very balanced, so it's effectively a loaded die.

On the other hand, if you hate your friends, show up to your next meeting and sweep all the d10s off the table, then drop your d100 right in the middle with a theatrical gesture and watch as everyone is mesmerized by its incessant rolling (see: takes about a minute to stop fucking rolling around). Take this opportunity to pocket the d10s, run away and never come back.

[[FATAL]] seemed to expect you to use this (but then again FATAL expects you to play FATAL so you can't expect much).

===d120===
This is the most number of sides that a die can have while being 'mathematically fair die' (that doesn't have the dual problems of rolling forever and being prohibitively hard to read). The d120 stops rolling after a reasonable time (with the condition that this only applies if you don't roll with 'too much force'). It is also a bit tricky to read (but still perfectly possible). The company that sells the die points out that it can act as any of the standard 7 dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d10 of 10s, d12, and d20). And thanks to the chart they released for free, you don't even have to do the math yourself [http://thedicelab.com/d120tables.html]. Of course for the d100 roll you'll have to roll the d120 twice, roll 2 d120, or use a die other than the d120 (although you could still use the d120, e.g. a d10 and a d120). [http://nerdist.com/this-d120-is-the-largest-mathematically-fair-die-possible/]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:premiumdice.jpg|Premium Dice!
Image:premiumdice2.png|Premium Dice cont.
Image:Big_Gay_Purple_d4.png‎|A d4 in the wild, natural weapon readied. As you can see by the notch on the left edge, this one has already claimed a victim.
Image:Caltrop.jpg|Now that's just sick and wrong.
File:I hope you step on a d4.png
Image:Go_outside_die.jpg|Try and MAKE me go outside. Fuck off, d12.
Image:anna_louge_dice.jpg|Even camwhores know that the d20 is sexy, and each face has an exactly 5% chance of appearing.
File:DToM.jpg
</gallery>

==See Also==
*[[Barrel dice]]
*[[Chits]] - The nega-dice of yesteryear.
*[[Crayola Dice]]
*[[Dice pool]]
*[[Exploding die]]
*[[Fudge dice]]
*[[D6 System]]
*[[D20 system]]

(External Links)
[http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20040517a Dungeons & Dragons Dice Roller]
[http://www.dicecollector.com/JM/ Dice Collector gallery of all the dice; all of them]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR2fxoNHIuU Lou Zocchi explains Dice.]

[[Category:Game Mechanics]][[Category:Dice]]

Yu-Gi-Oh

2019-07-10T04:07:00Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* Monster Cards */

[[File:Poogioh.jpeg|500px|thumb|right|With a [[pokemon]] backdrop, too.]]
{{Topquote|The only thing intricate about [[Paradox poker|this game]] is its ban list.|[[Magnus the Red]], ''[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device]]}}

'''Yu-Gi-Oh''' (also written '''Yu-Gi-Oh!''') is a [[Collectible Card Game|CCG]] (stands for "Children's Card Game", according to the popular Abridged Series) produced by Konami which is based off a [[Anime|shonen battle manga]] of the same name. It can be surprisingly fun, and while confusing at first, it becomes second nature to most after just a few games.

While it does have some major rules problems thanks to idiotic rulings by Konami (i.e. missing the timing, semi hidden information going into hidden information zones, and an errata policy based mostly on what cards get reprinted), Yu-gi-oh is not as bad as some people have been led to believe; it has a quite interesting amount of game styles to choose from in the way you use the cards in your "deck" which is quite customisable.

...At least, unless you are playing in a tournament, in which case the majority of players will be playing 3 different deck styles max, because power creep 'n' seep is a bitch like that. The [[#Formats and Ban Lists|banlist]] has usually been the primary means of balance, meant to keep the best current playstyle(s) from overruning the meta for TOO long. In addition to outright banning cards that completely fuck the balance (ideally, anyway), other cards are limited so that the play styles that aren't completely gimped can still perform their strats reliably, without surgically excising chance from the game altogether like several older infamous combos, a few of which necessitated the creation of its Forbidden section.

It's worth noting that there was a major format overhaul recently for very similar reasons; prior to this, a majority of strats relied on running the other player down as soon as possible, in as few turns as possible (e.g. swarming the field with multiple Special Summons, ideally clearing the opposing field in the process), which led to plenty of [[Exterminatus|OTK shit]], and the occasional first turn wipeout. You can imagine the kind of [[RAGE|fun stuff]] that leads to in a tournament. The introduction of Link Monsters and related restrictions on Special Summons (e.g. Extra Deck cards can only be summoned to the dedicated Extra Monster Zone OR Main Monster Zones that a Link Monster points to) halted reliance on this to a significant degree. Unfortunately this really just wound up forcing people to buy new shit and ''really'' fucked over older archetypes with less support. Even with this, reliance on the banlist (along with the cycle of dated shit falling out of use) and little else means one or two archetypes inevitably find themselves head and shoulders above the rest. Such is the life cycle of competitive balancing.

At first it was just played by a few groups of people over the world, but then it got a major increase in its player base after its anime dropped in the West. It is a relatively simple to play game that can keep you entertained for hours thanks to deck building and combo opportunities. It's an alright game for playing with friends, but the competitive scene for it is awful, partly due to the community being [[That Guy|kinda shitty]]; while something of an understatement, it's to be expected from a long-running grog magnet, to say nothing of its various anime and [[Weeaboo|some of the fans]] THOSE have attracted.

Mostly, though, it's due to Konami's usual practice of releasing new stuff, often in the form of 'structure' (i.e. preassembled) decks that generally fall into one of two categories: they're A) broken as shit, which sells more packs while potentially buttfucking the meta until the next banlist; or B) gimmicky as shit and thus utterly useless outside of select reprinted cards, even on a casual level (which was the case for many of the first ones released). In that regard, they're akin to good ol' Games Workshop - which, if you consider their reputation outside of this TCG, is being EXTREMELY generous. This has also given birth to the ''Yu-Gi-Oh! Meta Cycle'':

#Did the company release a structure deck or set containing cards that are either new or powering up an old archetype?
#If yes, do said cards make a new deck which dominates the meta completely and warps the game?
#If yes, sit back and await a sudden update to the Limited/Forbidden list, and take a shot for each of those new cards that make it.
#Enjoy the new format until new overpowered cards are released, which brings you back to step 1. Rinse and repeat.

==How to Play==
Yu-Gi-Oh is rather similar to [[Magic the Gathering]] in terms of play; in fact, it was introduced in the manga as a sort of Magic clone that was one of many featured games (it's even called ''Magic and Wizards''), from which point its popularity took off and changed the manga's entire focus as the game was fleshed out and became something more relatively unique. You can guess how much a [[Skub|point of contention]] this is for the respective fanbases.

Each player starts with a 40-60 card deck plus a 0-15 card extra deck and tries to take his opponent's 8000 life points down to 0. If you are playing a best 2 out of 3 match, you can also use a side deck of up to 10 cards. It also is possible to win by making the opponent run out of main deck cards, as they also lose if they must draw but have no cards left. There also are a small number of cards that allow you to win automatically by meeting a difficult condition, such as the Exodia cards, which make you win if you have all 5 of them in your hand, or Final Countdown, which makes you win in 20 turns. Players take turns to play creatures and spells, attack the opponent's creatures and deal with some of the most badass cards brought to play.

The number of cards you can have in play is currently limited as follows: you can have five monsters (and one which you summon from the extra deck!), five spells/traps and one field spell in play at the same time. If you have five monsters you cannot summon additional ones without sacrificing others; you also can't play spell/trap cards if you already have five of them active, but you can play a field card if you already have one (in which case, the former field gets destroyed).

Note that 8000 is a really fucking huge number of life points to keep track of: you might want to bring a notebook, calculator or app along to keep track of your life points. The manga and anime starts with 2000 instead (later 4000 due to power creep).

Notable compared other TCG's, Yu-Gi-Oh lacks a 'cost' mechanic the way magic has with lands or hearthstone has with mana. The limiting factor for powerful monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh are (generally) that they need other monsters to be 'spent' to bring them out, either on the field or with the aid of a spell card, you need to expend some monster to bring out a bigger one.

===The makeup of a card===
The three basic types of cards in Yu-Gi-Oh are Monster, Spell and Trap.

====Monster Cards====
These cards are your warriors who will do the fighting for you. Monsters have levels, which affects how you summon them. Monsters from level 1 to 4 can be summoned normally. Monsters of level 5 and 6 require you to sacrifice one of your monsters, 7 or higher require two sacrifices. Monsters also have Attributes (think the colors from Magic the Gathering, except there are seven, and they are less important), Monster Types (like creature type, there are 23, including fish, aqua and sea serpent), Attack and Defense (Strength and Toughness). There are eight types of them (or nine if you count tokens). The first four (or five) are from the early days of the game, with the latter four being added in 2008 and onwards:
*Normal - Coloured yellow. A straightforward card with no abilities. They used to be pretty common place as the "basic" units in the earliest stages of the game, but became increasingly rare with the rise of good Effect Monsters. Has received support cards at times, but Effect Monsters remain the most commonly used.
*Effect - Coloured orange unless they also belong to another class of monster. A monster that has a special ability. These are the most commonly used monsters. In the early days of the game the effect monsters were balanced by typically being weaker than normal monsters but eventually powerful effect monsters started showing up. It's almost a rule now that every monster must have an effect.
*Token: Colored grey. Token monsters are a special class of monster which are not kept in any of the decks and do not required that you even have the card to play them). Although most tokens that can be summoned do exist as cards, [[Proxy| you can instead place any form of marker on the monster zone to represent it]]. Because of this, cards that have the ability to summon tokens will always tell you the token's properties. Tokens always count as normal monsters, even if the card that summoned them gives them effect-like properties. Tokens cannot be turned face down and are treated as ceasing to exist if they are removed from the field. Tokens cannot be used as overlays for summoning XYZ monsters, but they can be used to pay the cost for summoning other kinds of monsters, unless the card that summoned them puts a restriction on what they can be used for, and a few cards forbid using tokens to pay their costs. They also cannot be used to pay an effect cost if the effect specifically says to send the paid card to a specific place, since they can't exist off the field. For example, they can be used as a tribute to pay a cost, which would normally send the card to the graveyard, but they can't be used to pay a cost that specifically says to send the paid card to the graveyard. Because they do not exist as actual cards in the deck, it is possible to summon more than three copies of the same token. Most tokens are extremely weak, so their primary purpose is for stalling the opponent or for paying costs.
*Ritual - Coloured blue. A ritual monster is summoned using a ritual spell card and tributing monsters. They are placed in the main deck and cannot be summoned without a ritual spell. Usually has an effect, but not always.
*Fusion - Coloured violet. A fusion monster is one where you have to combine two or more cards in order to summon it. This combining is done by the special abilities of other cards, usually the spell card, Polymerization, though not always. Fusion monsters usually have effects, but not necessarily. In the early days of the game they used to be the final argument of sheer attack power, but over the years they've been overtaken.
**Contact Fusion - A variation of Fusion that involves either sending the cards that make up the fusion material into the graveyard or the banishment zone, or shuffling them into the deck. Polymerization is not needed; this effect is inherent to the Contact Fusion monsters in question. This effect is commonly found on A-to-Z monsters, the Neos, Gladiator Beast and Ritual Beast archetypes, and a few other cards. This means that while the lack of dependency on Polymerization cards makes them easier to play, these cards require their tributes to be on the field instead of either on the field or in the player's hand.
**Transformation Summon - Limited to the Masked HERO archetype, Transformation Summons requires a tribute of one card in favor of another, more powerful one. This requires the play of a Change-type spell, of which there are three. Because all Change cards are Quick-Play, you can play them during the Battle Phase in order to avoid negative effects or targeted destruction by your opponent, as well as attack several times in a single turn.
*Synchros - Coloured white. They go in the fusion deck, now known as an extra deck, and are summoned by sending monsters with a total level equal to theirs to the graveyard, including one tuner monster. These quickly dominated the meta when they came out because of how easy they are to bring out with the number of cards that make it easy to bring the lower level monsters needed to summon them by time they were released. It was so bad that Konami had to adjust the extra deck limit.
**Dark Synchros - Used to summon Dark Synchro monsters,. Instead of adding the values of the Tuner and the non-Tuner monsters together the level of the Tuner monster is ''subtracted'' from the level of the non-Tuner monster. This matters a lot more in the anime, where they are treated as their own card type rather then just being synchros with special conditions like they are in the CCG.
**Double Tuning - The rare Synchro monsters that require two Tuner monsters to summon. There are only five of them in the game.
**Accel Synchro - Just like regular Synchro summoning, except all material cards have to be Synchro cards themselves.
*XYZ - Coloured black with streaking stars. Pronounced "Exceeds", and summoned by placing two or more cards of the same level on top of each other. Instead of a level they have a rank which reflects the level of the monsters that must be "overlayed" to summon them from the extra deck. Like Synchros these are largely the dominate force in competitive play.
**XYZ Evolution - XYZ Evolution monsters can be XYZ summoned as normal, but they can also use a single specific card as XYZ Material. This can be either from the effect of the XYZ monster itself or a Spell card. Many XYZ Evolution monsters are either CXYZ or Number-C monsters.
*Pendulum - Coloured the same colour as the other monster type they are in their top half and green in their bottom half, with a transition between the two, to show how they're like a mix of monster and Spell. Thus you can have Normal Pendulum monsters, Effect Pendulum monsters, XYZ Pendulum, Fusion Pendulum, etc. There are currently no ritual pendulum monsters or link pendulum monsters in existence, though this may change in the future. These are monsters that can also be played as spells in the pendulum zones, and go to the extra deck when they're destroyed while on the field. With the release of Link monsters, the rules have changed to remove the Pendulum zones, so now they are played in the same zones as regular spells. They have a number called a scale, which is used when they are played as a spell card. They also allow you to summon a bunch of monsters in one turn, as long as the levels are between the scales of the two pendulum monsters you have in your pendulum zones. Newfags.
*Link - Coloured blue like Ritual monsters, but in another shade and with a hexagonal background. They have a link rating instead of a level or rank and have no DEF and can never be in defence position. They go in the extra deck, and are summoned by sending a number of monsters you control to the graveyard whose total Link Rating is equal to the summoned monster's Link Rating (monsters that do not have a link rating count as 1). They have Link markers that point to other monster zones, and you can summon other monsters from the Extra Deck to the zones pointed at by the markers. Their effects often relate to the zones pointed to by the arrows. Newerfags.

On top of that, there are several secondary monster types that said monsters have on top of their normal type:
*Flip - When a Flip monster is attacked when it is face down or turned up by its controller or an effect, it triggers its own effect. Having the monster destroyed or exiled outside of being attacked, the effect does not trigger. Can trigger multiple times if an effect turns it face down.
*Gemini - A Gemini monster is played as a regular Normal monster. It can later (either a later turn or outright, depending on what other cards its controller plays) be summoned again as if it entered the field from a player's hand. When it is, it triggers its effect. And no, Gemini Elf is not a Gemini monster.
*Spirit - When a Spirit monster is summoned, it returns to its owner's hand from the field during the End Phase. This means that Spirit monsters have little staying power, and they cannot be Special Summoned.
*Toon - Toon monsters resemble existing monsters in the game in a cartoony style. They rely on the Toon World card, and they are frequently destroyed if Toon World is.
*Tuner - These monsters are mandatory if you want to run a Synchros deck. While it is tempting to make a deck of nothing but Tuner monsters to make sure you always have one, many Synchros monsters require at least one non-Tuner monster or a monster of a particular type instead.
*Union - Often weak on their own, Union monsters can equip themselves to another monster to grant said monster a special effect. If that monster were to be destroyed, its equipped Union monster is destroyed instead.

====Spell Cards====
These cards are for support, augmenting monsters, giving you more cards or life points, stunning the opponent...etc, anything to give you an upper hand in the battle. They are coloured green. They have have six subtypes:
*Normal - A one-time use card that is discarded after its effect is completed
*Continuous - The effect persists, so long as the card is still in play
*Equip - Equipped on a monster card to augment their stats or give them special abilities
*Quick-Play - Like a normal spell, but can be played in response to other card or card effect activations. If they are set they can also be activated during the opponent's turn like a trap card..
*Ritual - A card which lets you sacrifice monsters whose total levels are a certain amount in order to bring forth the patron of the ritual, a ritual monster (see above).
*Field - Changes the attribute of the playing field, which can give certain monsters buffs or penalties (I.E: Water monsters benefit from Umi and Dark monsters benefit from Yami). It used to be that only 1 field spell may be active at a time, but later rules made it that each player may have their own field spell at the same time. Unlike other types of spell cards, you can place a field spell on the field even if your field spell zone is already occupied, which destroys the card in it.

====[[Trap]] Cards====
Trap cards can't be played directly and have to be deployed in the face-down position. As their name implies; they're traps for your opponent, which can be triggered either by your decision or once your opponent meets certain conditions. Thanks to the animu's flair for the dramatic, you're required to say "[[Meme|YOU'VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD!]]" in a loud and smug fashion when activating, while dramatically flipping your trap card. Verbally explaining the trap's effects in a dramatic fashion is optional. They are coloured pink. Trap Cards exist in three kinds:
*Normal - This sort of card can be used once and discarded after its effect is completed
*Continuous - This kind of trap persists so long as the card is still on the field.
*Counter Trap - A trap used to counter other cards; the only thing that can stop a counter trap is another counter trap. Also single-use like normal traps.
*Trap Monster - A trap card that has the ability to summon itself and become a monster. They may be treated as a normal monster or an effect monster depending on the text of the card. Most trap monsters are continuous traps and are treated as a monster and a trap at the same time while they are on the field, and take up two zones instead of one (a monster zone and a spell/trap zone). A few which may be called pseudo trap monsters are normal traps instead and are not treated as a trap at the same time when summoned as a monster and only take up one zone.

===The Turn===
*The turn starts with a '''Begin of Turn''' phase where some things can happen depending on the cards in play, but most of the time this turn is just filler.
*The '''Draw Phase''' allows you to draw 1 card from your deck. Again, some abilities might be triggered in this phase, but it's not all that flashy.
*The '''Standby Phase''' the phase that happens between the Draw and Main Phase. Nothing really happens here, but some abilities use this as part of their trigger requirements.
*The '''First Main Phase''' is where it all happens: you can play 1 monster and as many magic/trap cards as you like. Monsters can either be '''Summoned''' or '''Set'''. Summoning means they are placed in a face-up upright position; this makes their Attack stat the number used in the combat phase. If a monster is set it is placed in a face-down position turned 90 degrees to the right; this makes their Defense stat the number used in combat. You can only summon one monster normally, although card effects may allow you to conduct a "special summon" which is basically the same except that they are almost always summoned face-up and they don't take up your normal summon
*The '''Battle Phase''' has four sub phases. Again it has a Start and End step in which some effects trigger, but most of the time they're just there to look pretty. The big part of this is the Battle and Damage steps: you choose one of your monsters and attack one of your opponent's monsters. You then compare your monster's Attack to the other monster's opposing stat. If it is in Attack Position you compare the two Attack scores: the monster with the lowest Attack is destroyed and its controller loses life equal to the difference in Attack. If the scores are equal both monsters are destroyed. If the monster is in Defense Position you compare your Attack to the other's Defense: if yours is lower or equal then you lose life (but not your monster) equal to the difference (obviously you can't lose zero life), if yours is higher the other monster is destroyed but the opponent does not lose life. If the scores are equal nothing happens. If you attack a face-down monster this way then it flips up: either to reveal a weak monster that your opponent put down to stall for time, an effect monster that does something beneficial when flipped or destroyed, or a large blocker that might deal you damage. All monsters you control may attack only once (Unless an effect says otherwise), one by one; you are allowed to attack the same monster several times.
*After this is the '''Second Main Phase''', which is identical to the First Main Phase. You don't get another summon, so you can't usually summon unless you never in your first main phase, so it's mostly just used to set traps and quick play spells to use in your opponent's turn.
*Finally there is the '''End Phase''' where effects might be triggered and where you have to discard cards from your hand if your hand is over the current hand size cap of six to meet it.

==The Metaplot==
Usually forming in the Duel Terminal Storyline but also shifing into other charecter the Metaplot of Yugioh while usually intresting is often exstatic and while often intresting winds up being hard to compact without Konami made meta-books.
Particualr ones include the stroy of Gagagigo setting from Dark Revelation all the way to Abyss Rising and Memory of the Adversary.

==Archetype==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
Unless you possess some sort of post-human intellect that allows you to see synergy between otherwise unrelated cards and have supernatural luck to make these combinations work, you'll want to stick to an archetype for your deck. Archetypes are series of cards of a similar theme or kind, often with a series of related monsters. Through their interwoven and complementary mechanics a deck can become greater than the sum of its parts. There are dozens upon dozens of archetypes in the game, with many of them having their own sub-archetypes. Also, there is fluff of sorts for many of them, but this tends to have no real bearing on the game. Some of the archetypes are:
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

* '''Blackwing''' - A bunch of birds focused on summoning a bunch of monsters quickly, then using them as synchro fuel or transferring their attack power of the member that can attack the opponent's life points directly. Was broken when it came out (and still is) that it quickly became a tournament staple and actually resulted in executives forcing rewrites to the anime so that a minor recurring character who used it joined the main cast to promote it further. Even Tag Force, an official video game, openly calls it broken.
* '''Blue-Eyes''' - Based on the famous Blue-Eyes White Dragon used by Seto Kaiba in the first series, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon itself has the distinction of being the most powerful Normal Monster in the game at 3000/2500. With its plentiful support a well-built Blue-Eyes deck can, with a bit of luck, [[meme|summon a bunch of monsters in one turn]] and lay a massive smackdown through regular monsters and powerful Rank-8 Xyz monsters. This archetype is very old, so it includes a lot of awesome but impractical cards such as "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon". With its light scales and disintegrating breath the Blue-Eyes is based on [[Bahamut]] from [[D&D]].
* '''Burning Abyss''' - Taking its inspiration from the Inferno part of Dante's Divine Comedy, the Burning Abyss archetype is based around swarming the field, then summoning its Xyz, Synchro, Fusion and Ritual boss monsters. On their own the Burning Abyss monsters (called Malebranches) are not very strong: except for the boss monsters they are all Level 3 and top at 1700 ATK and 2000 DEF. On top of that, if you control a non-Burning Abyss monster all of them go to the graveyard, and if you don't have a spell or trap card on the field you can special summon them. The Malebranches have a variety of effects to help them not immediately crumble come your opponent's battle phase.
* '''Chaos''' - Uses a lot of LIGHT and DARK monsters and revolves around banishing cards (like destroying them, but they will super duper never come back, totally, unless you play this or several other banish-based archetypes). Technically only an archetype because of one card which only works for Rituals, given the number of cards in Japanese that don't have the name of the archetype in English. Just UDE things. The Black Luster Solder monster, another of Yugi's favourites, is part of this. Home to a shit tonne of previously broken cards, including an upgraded version of Black Luster Soldier, and Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End, which [[Exterminatus|blows up everything]].
* '''Cyber Dragon''' - The original Cyber Dragon is Power Creep: The Card, to the point that there's still a popular fan format which is "everything that came before Cyber Dragon". The main strategy is quickly summoning the above Level 5 2100 ATK monster to the field (without Tributes) and then using the "Power Bond" card to create an 8000+ ATK Fusion Monster that runs over everything. Or to create a Rank-5 Xyz Monster, depending on which strategy Konami are trying to support at the moment.
* '''Dark Magician''' - The signature monster of Yugi Muto from the original series. On its own the Dark Magician is... not very good. 2500/2100 for a two-Tribute monster is middling, even back in the day. Summoned Skull provided the same ATK for only one Tribute, and for two Tributes you could instead get a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. To mitigate this the archetype includes a fair number of spell cards to support and protect the Dark Magician.
:* '''Dark Magician Girl''' - A sub-archetype based around gaining power and summoning more Spellcaster-type monsters. The Dark Magician girl is notable for being one of the most popular [[waifu]]s of the game.
* '''Egyptian Gods''' - Giant God-Soldier of Obelisk, Sky Dragon of Osiris and Winged God-Dragon of Ra, aka Obelisk the Tormentor, Slifer the Sky Dragon and Winged Dragon of Ra. The only three monsters in the game with the Divine-Beast type, they are legendary monsters based around the Egyptian gods Ra, Osiris and... [[Wat|Obelisk]]. They all require THREE Tributes to summon normally but they are beefy: their summoning cannot be negated and no cards can be activated as a reaction to their summoning. Obelisk has a hefty 4000/4000, cannot be targeted by spells, traps or card effects (but can still be destroyed by non-targeted effects). By tributing 2 monsters Obelisk can destroy all monsters your opponent controls, but Obelisk cannot attack that turn. Slifer's has all monsters your opponent summons lose 2000 ATK (if they hit 0 they are destroyed), and Slifer's ATK and DEF are equal to the number of cards in your hand x1000. Ra starts out with 0 ATK/DEF, and by paying all but 100 of your LP Ra's ATK and DEF becomes equal to the paid. By paying 1000 LP you can destroy one monster on the field. It's obvious that these two abilities are difficult to use at the same time. While powerful they're difficult and risky to use. Suffers from how destruction effect heavy Yu-Gi-Oh is and how only one of them has any protection from it
* '''Elemental HERO''' - Used by Jaden Yuki from GX, the HERO monsters (based on superheroes) require extensive use of Fusion Summoning to get your good monsters on the field and attack with them. A serious source of [[skub]] because of the heavy reliance on summoning, the fact that they were used by the GX protagonist, that they were in every set of the GX era meaning that they clogged up booster space, and there were a LOT of them. Seriously: about two dozen in the main deck, over three dozen in the Extra Deck, and that's not even counting all their support cards and sub archetypes. On top of all that the HERO monsters are terrible, with only a few being worth running. Has some of the worst support cards in the game thanks to mediocre effects tied to overly obtuse activation requirements
:* '''Destiny HERO''' - Like the Elemental HERO monsters, except 50% more [[British Empire|British]] and 50% more [[edgy]]. Used by Aster Phoenix from GX.
:* '''Evil HERO''' - As above, but less Britishness and with extra edge. Used by Jaden Yuki once he goes evil in the third season of GX.
:* '''Masked HERO''' - Based on [[Mantis Warriors|Kamen Rider]], the Masked HERO cards use Transformation Fusion to turn Elemental HERO monsters into Masked HERO monsters, who have powerful effects. The three transformation cards are all Quick Play cards, allowing you to change your monsters mid-turn to attack over and over again.
* '''Exodia''' - The most famous win condition, Exodia comes in five pieces. If you have all pieces in your hand you win the duel. While on their own it's very unlikely to obtain all parts, when combined with a wide variety of draw and search engines you become able to draw just about your entire deck in one turn and obtain all the parts. This means that playing an Exodia deck automatically makes you [[That Guy]], even in the eyes of other That Guys with their own That Guy decks. There are a number of monsters based on Exodia and are supported by him, but they're mostly even more difficult to use than regular Exodia.
* '''Gem-Knights''' - A gemstone-themed archetype of warriors who can combine to create more powerful beings in order to face more powerful opponents. And before you ask: the Gem-Knights came around just over three years before Steven Universe became a thing. The Gem-Knights are [[Paladin|a bunch of honorable warriors who fight to protect the weak]]. They are very reliant on Fusion Monsters: of the 24 monsters in the archetype there are 12 Normal, Effect and Gemini monsters, 11 Fusion monsters and one Xyz monster. To aid in this they have access to six cards that allows Fusion for Gem-Knights in a variety of ways.
* '''Gishki''' - A revival of the long neglected Ritual summoning method, they are built around finding both Ritual Monsters and the Gishki Aquamirror Ritual card, which allows them to summon all of their monsters. They are one of the archetypes featured in the Duel Terminal arcade machines, where they made their debut.
* '''Gravekeeper''' - One of the oldest archetypes and one of the few that play up the Egyptian aspect of the game, Gravekeeper Monsters resemble Egyptians protecting tombs and those who rest in them. Some of the artwork resembles characters from ancient Egypt as depicted in the anime/manga. They heavily depend on the Necrovalley Field Spell, which shuts down just about anything having to do with the graveyard. Despite being able to mess over many other archetypes this way a well-placed negation or card destruction will leave them quite vulnerable.
* '''Harpie''' - The signature archetype of Mai Valentine from the original show, the Harpie monsters resemble, well, [[Harpy|harpies]]. Attractive winged women who don't wear a lot of clothing, their archetype is built on swarming the field with monsters and beat the opponent down that way. Originally the archetype was kinda sucky, but with later support cards it became a decent deck. Not great, just decent.
* '''Ice Barrier''' - A shit archetype which spawned two broken cards that aren't even used in it. They have no well-defined strategy at all but they have Synchro Monsters (Brionac and Trishula) that can be used in other decks and have superb effects: Brionac allowed the player to repeatedly bounce their own cards back to the hand and reuse on-activation effects, which was so broken they had to issue an erratum, and Trishula removes 1 card each from the hand, field and Graveyard when summoned.
* '''Jar''' - Just about the biggest middle finger you can play to your opponent, Jar monsters are weak (except for Pot of The Forbidden) monsters resembling jars with a grinning creature inside. They all have very powerful but annoying flip effects, from discarding your hand and drawing a new card to wiping the board followed by forced revealing of cards, playing some of them and putting the rest in the graveyard. These are all supremely annoying effects, and the most annoying ones are outright forbidden. Playing them automatically makes you [[That Guy]] on the same level of an Exodia player, except even Exodia players think you're being That Guy because Jars get rid of Exodia pieces so easily.
* '''Jinzo''' - A small archetype dating back to the early days, Jinzo (short for the [[Japan]]ese ''jinzoningen'', which means cyborg) itself is a Lvl 6 2400/1500 Monster that stops the activtion of and negates all Trap cards on the field. Given that Trap cards are a notable part of the game, Jinzo was quite feared back in the day for outright shutting down an entire type of card. At one point it even was Limited to stave off its reign of terror, but in the modern day it is Unlimited because it is easier to get rid of. Jinzo spawned a few spinoffs that either shut down Trap cards as well or aid in summoning other Jinzo monsters. But with the fact that there are only five Jinzo monsters and one Equip card they are better suited as support for a deck rather than a standalone archetype. Jinzo became one of Joey Wheeler's signature monsters halfway into the Battle City arc of the original show.
* '''Kaiju''' - GOJIRA! Yes, of course Godzilla and Friends were adapted into the game. Their gimmick is twofold: you can summon one to your opponent's side of the field to make it easier to summon one of your own (because Kaiju do love to battle one another, and because this is done by tributing one of their pre-existing monsters), and their non-Monster cards generate Kaiju Counters which can be spent for a variety of potent effects. Their roster includes expies of Godizlla, Mothra, Gamera, Gigan, Kumonga, Ghidorah and Mecha Godzilla, and strangely enough Dark Lugiel from Ultraman as well.
* '''Kozmo''' - You know what's neat? The Wizard of Oz. You know what's also neat? [[Star Wars]]. So what happens when you slap those two together? You get the Kozmo archetype. Oh yes. Luke Skywalker is now [[promotions|a smokin' hot redhead]], R2-D2, C-3PO and Chewbacca are the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion, Ben Kenobi has been replaced by a rather attractive Good Witch of the North and even the Darth Vader and Darth Maul of the set (The Wicked Witches of the West and East respectively) are pretty. You'd think "Oh [[Japan]]" at this, but the archetype is actually exclusive to the TCG. The archetype consists of two kinds of cards: the "pilots" are used to summon the second type, the spaceships. Summoning the spaceships is as easy as banishing the pilot in order to get a spaceship on the field. In turn, a spaceship that's in the graveyard can be banished to summon a pilot from the deck. This means that it's ridiculously easy to get extremely powerful cards on the field, and aimed destruction is easily avoided. There was even a very easy one-turn kill available that lead to several Kozmo cards being Limited.
* '''Kuriboh''' - One of the contenders for the title of series mascot, Kuriboh are a series of Lvl 1 300/200 or lower monsters with a series of effects that involve negating your opponent's attacks. Yugi, Jaden and Yuma from the first, second and fourth series all have their own Kuribohs which saw frequent use. Because of their low stats Kurioh have great difficulty standing on their own, and require support from powerful monsters in order to win a duel instead of avoiding losing it. Despite the support, only one Kuriboh was ever used seriously and that was purely as an effect.
* '''Monarch''' - A series of tall humanoids dressed in armor, the Monarch archetype consists of a series of six 2400/1000 Monsters supported by two 2800/1000 Monsters and upgraded versions of the core six, a series of Spell/Trap cards, weaker 800/1000 Monsters and a few other cards built around Tribute Summoning. When you successfully do so the Monarchs destroy or otherwise remove cards from your opponent's field, giving you the advantage. They can Tribute Summon at a relatively high speed and can even shut down your opponent's Extra Deck, but this is at the cost of many Monarch cards revolve about you either not using or having an empty Extra Deck on your own. They can be frighteningly effective and fast, filling their field while emptying their opponent's. Monarchs are a rather large archetype, with around 40 cards (but don't build a deck of 1 of each of these cards: it won't work very well). Exactly what they are monarchs of is unknown. Their ability to remove stuff from the field while generating a beatstick that only requires a monster tribute to fuel them makes the archetype extremely splashable, especially in decks focused on special summoning.
* '''Nekroz''' - see "Gishki", but insert the words "broken" and "busted" as necessary between all the words. Technically not in Duel Terminal, though, but they were part of the follow-up to the Duel Terminal story that was being rolled out between 2014-17, to the point that their Ritual Monsters were corrupted versions of Duel Terminal story favourites.
* '''Neo''' - An archetype built around Elemental HERO Neos, Jaden Yuki's signature monster. The archetype revolves around using Contact Fusion involving Neos and a Neo-Spacian Monster to summon a better monster. These monsters are not specatcular on their own, and they're made even worse by the fact that they return to the Extra Deck at the end of the turn. This made an already iffy archetype drop even more in use, even when you look at its best monsters.
* '''Number''' - Central to the plot of ZEXAL, the Numbers are Monsters whose names start with a number. While they are all Xyz monsters this is the only thing they have in common: their archetypes, attributes, types and effects are all widely different. Some of them are generic, while others work exclusively in certain archetypes.
* '''Odd-Eyes''' - The archetype used by Yuya Sakaki, the protagonist of ARC-V. The Odd-Eyes monsters are a group of dragons with heterochromia, giving them mismatched eye colors. The archetypes consists of a large number of high level, high power (7+, 2500+ ATK) dragons and their support cards, which includes the Magican archetype. A large number of them are Pendulum cards designed to summon a large number of them onto the field quickly. There are also several cards that are both Pendulum and another type: Fusion Pendulum, Synchro Pendulum and Xyz Pendulum.
: '''Supreme King''' - Near the end of ARC-V a new sub-archetype was introduced to reflect the series' villain: the Supreme King archetype. The main card of this archetype is Supreme King Z-ARC, a Fusion Pendulum monster that requires you to tribute 1 Fusion, 1 Synchro, 1 Xyz and 1 Pendulum dragon-typed monster. In return you get a 4000/4000 beast that cannot be destroyed or targeted by your opponent and can Special Summon a Supreme King Dragon card from your (extra) deck if it destroyes a monster. With the changes made to the game regarding Link Summoning this archetype has become next to unusable.
* '''Spellbook''' - An odd archetype that has a ''single'' monster card (not that central ''and'' also a member of an otherwise unrelated archetype as well), and is entirely (bar one trap) spell card based. They focus on tutoring other cards of the archetype out and supporting Spellcaster monsters, but are prevented from spamming them by only allowing one of each card name to be activated per turn. Due to their ability to thin the deck and support monsters they don't have, they are typically combined with other archetypes.
* '''Ojama''' - Named after the Japanese phrase Ojamashimasu ("pardon me for interrupting"), the Ojamas resemble small ugly imps in tiny speedos. ''Oh you, Japan.'' They are the main archetype used by Chazz Princeton, one of the main characters of GX, and the spirit of Ojama Yellow acts as Chazz' sidekick in the show. Standing at a weak 0/1000 each, the core Ojama monsters are not very tough. Instead they rely on a mix of spell and trap cards to clog up the opponent's side of the board with tokens that they cannot tribute and stall the battle, allowing for the summoning of the Ojama King and using their field spell to switch around the ATK and DEF of all Ojama monsters, followed by either a wipe of the opponent's side of the board or destroying all other Ojamas on the field to make the Ojama King unreasonably buff. A gimmicky and not very powerful archetype that's fun to play but annoying to play against.
* '''Performapal/Performage''' - One of the most broken archetypes of its time and a contender for the most powerful deck of the game pre-nerf, Performapal and Performage are based on circus animals and circus perfomers respectively. The former is the other archetype of ARC-V's Yuya Sakaki, who uses the circus animals for his signature Entertainment Dueling style. Both archetypes are based on Pendulum Summoning and shenanigans in the battle phase that break the game so utterly, Konami was forced to employ the second emergency ban list in the game's history. ''Even then'' it remained powerful enough to remain a meta staple until the [[power creep]] set in. It's safe to say that a lot of people did not like them a lot, with the cartoony art being the least of their complaints.
* '''Red-Eyes''' - The Red-Eyes Black Dragon (Red-Eyes B. Dragon because they wanted to avoid the association with black magic) is one of the game's most famous cards and the signature card of Duelist Kingdom's Joey Wheeler. On its own the Red-Eyes is not very impressive: 2400/2000 at level 7 is just not worth it, even with its good attribute and type: outclassed by the Dark Magician and the Summoned Skull alike it's just not up to par. What it makes up with however is its support and mind-boggling versatility: Gemini, Burn, Pendulum, Toolbox and more are all options for the archetype. This means that the archetype is capable of a great many things, but herein lies the trap: an improperly built deck will only get in its own way. A good Red-Eyes deck is the result of a great degree of finetuning to make a specialized deck. The archetype is also lacking in defensive measures and doesn't have a large number of good trap cards to support it, so a powerful opponent will simply steamroll a Red-Eyes deck.
* '''Six Samurai''' - An unimpressive archetype that focused on shifting what monster was destroyed by battle with a bit of swarming.
: '''Legendary Six Samurai''' - A much better archetype that focuses primarily on swarming and deck searching to fuel that summon. This surplus of monsters on the field is then used to summon their quite good boss monster, and supporting it with tribute monsters (they're also good at summoning utility synchro monsters from outside the tribe). Since it so heavily focuses on a single card it's very vulnerable to limited list changes.
* '''roid''' - Cars with faces. A deck that sucks, played in GX by a character who sucks. Sometimes called "Vehicroids" so as not to be confused with...
: '''Speedroid''' - These are technically roids, but they look completely different and have a completely different strategy. This gave them a headache when it came to attempting to making Vehicroids not garbage, as they had to support them in a way that didn't help Speedroids. Their strategy somehow managed to hurt the Vehicroid deck. But hey, it's Konami.
* '''SPYRAL''' - A TCG-only set that's two parts [[James Bond]], one part [[Metal Gear]] and a nod at the Spyral agency from DC Comics. The archetype revolves around getting its core monster, SPYRAL Super Agent, onto the table followed by using a set of support cards to keep it on the field. It also involves looking frequently at your opponent's hand (which fits with the spy theme) to trigger effects. This means that the SPYRAL archetype suffers from a few weaknesses that, if exploited, can utterly shut it down.
</div></div>

==Formats and Ban Lists==
Yu-Gi-Oh has a strange relationship with what cards are legal or not. Unlike the two other big card games, [[Pokémon]] and [[Magic: The Gathering]] Yu-Gi-Oh does not have a "standard" format that says "all cards in sets X, Y and Z can be played and the rest cannot". This means that every single card, printed from ''Legend of the Blue Eyes White Dragon'' to the latest set can be used in a deck, as long as they're not on the ban lists. This means that in effect there are several thousand cards legal to use in your deck, with only a fraction being limited and only a handful being outright banned. Cards have four levels of legality, determining how many you can have of any one card in your Main, Extra and Side Decks:

* Unlimited: 3
* Semi-Limited: 2
* Limited: 1
* Forbidden: 0

There are also Illegal cards: cards that were never intended to see use in official duels or tournaments. These are often promotional materials, with all but six of them having conditions that allows their player to win the match. Not the duel: ''the best-out-of-three match''. The six remaining ones are two cards based on the anime, one being a promotional card handed out during the World Championship of 2007 that is quite useful in the right kind of deck, and the last three remaining cards being the unofficial versions of the three Egyptian Gods.

Exactly which cards are of what legality is determined by the region you're in. Yu-Gi-Oh has two regions where the game has different names: the Official Card Game and the Trading Card Game, shortened to OCG and TCG respectively. The OCG is played in Asia while the TCG is played in the rest of the world. Both regions have their own ban lists, meaning that a deck that is played in one region might not work as well or is perhaps not even legal in the other. This literally happened only because of money: a card (Shock Master) was completely broken, but it was a valuable promo card in the OCG and not in the TCG, meaning Konami of Japan stalled its banning for the rest of the world.

This is even further complicated that while the OCG has only one format, the TCG has two: Advanced and Traditional. The difference between the two is akin to the difference between Legacy and Vintage: Advanced restricts more cards to create a more balanced experience and has quite a few cards that are illegal in the format. Traditional is a friendlier kind of game: all Forbidden cards are Limited. If you want to use Illegal cards then you need your opponent's permission first due to the amount of [[cheese]] found in the banlist. Advanced is the format used in official tournaments and events, making it akin to Standard. In other words, Traditional and no banlist at all are for fun games with friends, and Advanced is for more serious games.

Beyond the "standard" tournament rules, Konami has also recently introduced the Generation Duel format, where players pick a Forbidden and Limited list for their decks from a set corresponding to the cards that were new when the various cartoons were released. This is the closest Yu-Gi-Oh comes to having an explicit list of legal cards, as every Generation Duel banlist has entries that ban card types that weren't extant when that list's cartoon was airing, and some ban ''all'' effect monsters that don't have a list entry.

==Simulators==
Since Konami <s>is</s> was primarily a video game company, Yu-Gi-Oh has far more video game versions than any other TCG. Indeed, it's one of the video game franchises with the most released games, clocking in at over 50. These can be simple games with nothing to do but fighting opponents and navigating a menu, repeats of the anime storyline or, more rarely, completely original plots set in the same world as the anime. Unfortunately, these games vary wildly in quality, with many being shit, almost always due to cheating AI and gimmicks that aren't card games. Among the ones considered best are ''Stairway to the Destined Duel'' (OG), ''World Championships 2008'' (GX) and ''Over the Nexus'' (5Ds), which coincidentally were all released near the end of one of the anime series and before the next round of gimmicks were introduced to the card game. ''Over the Nexus'' in particular has a surprisingly high degree of effort put into it, with an original story, customizable avatar, a bunch of side-quests and tons of shit to find. There's also a bunch that play by the anime "rules", many of which were made prior to many of the actual card game's rules being codified.

Unfortunately with Konami's move to focusing on pachinko, they stopped making many games at all, including Yu-Gi-Oh ones, and so we only have Duel Links, which is unfortunately a mobile game and thus a relatively stripped-down experience and (far more pressing) is riddled with microtransactions.

YGOPro Percy is a fan made program to play other people online without actually buying any cardboard.

==The Anime==
[[Image:Banditkeith.jpg|450px|thumb|right|This is what the rest of the world thinks all people look like... IN AMERICA.]]
* Yu-Gi-Oh was clumsily "advertised" by a cartoon for children about adults playing a children's card game, which shared the same name.
* Season 0 Yami Yuugi is a well known follower of [[Tzeentch]] (as if the Egyptian gig wasn't enough of a give away). Mostly it was about Yami Yuugi punishing local bullies and scumbags by challenging them to a "Yami No Game", a dark and demented game of Yami's making with a stringent set of rules (dependent on the current challenge) that are meant to test the person's true character. If the person looses a Yami Game, or breaks the rules in any way, he will either kill them or [[Grimdark|give them such realistically horrifying hallucinations that they turn into a gibbering, hapless wreck]]. As an example, Yami once played table hockey with a puck full of nitroglycerin and blew the other guy to bits. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWXTZ8zuuDQ In another game in the anime, he tricked an armed criminal holding his girlfriend hostage into pouring 180 proof vodka all over himself and putting a lighter on his hand. Ensuring that if he did anything wrong, he'd burn a horrible death]. Subsequent Yamis... well, he IS the King of Games, but his punishments weren't AS horrific so he arguably drifted away from it somewhat, but outside of the DURO MONSTA CARDO scene where he invokes [[Khorne]], he's still in [[JUST AS PLANNED]] territory.
* Dan Green voices both Yugis in the English version.
* As previously mentioned offhandedly near the top of the page, there is an Abridged series of the second anime. An affectionate parody that "dubbed" episodes of the series into non-canon humor, it's so popular that enough imitators of it focusing on other media entirely happened for the "Abridged series"-style of fan parodies to be considered a genre on its own. Also, there's even ''more'' memes from it than the actual show.
* The aforementioned program Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters was so popular, they released a spin-off sequel show called Yu-Gi-Oh GX, about children attending a university that teaches students how to play a children's card game (really). Even the US dubbers noticed how stupid this was, and would write dialog that mocked the franchise, making [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2bml9_is-littlekuriboh-writing-for-yu-gi_fun#.Ub5g-_k3uSo some parts] of the show look like an Abridged parody. It's also inafamous for randomly getting really good in the 3rd season. (You can skip most of the first season.)
* This spawned another spin-off, Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's, where angsty emo teenagers play a children's card game on motorcycles, in a setting that's some sort of attempt at dystopian [[cyberpunk]]. Seriously, that's actually the premise. Not terrible. Surprisingly interesting and edgy at times. The dub is mediocre compared to the subbed, as 4kids of course excised the more "mature" parts from their localization. This is the show that introduced Synchro monsters to the game.
* This was followed by Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal, which is basically [[anime|Naruto]] with card games instead of ninjas, set in an alternate universe from 5Ds where Synchros don't exist. Xyz monsters were invented here. It gets better after the Barians are introduced.
* Next up was Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V, which seemed to have remembered the other series and summoning methods existed, but the promise the show had got butchered once they traveled to the Synchro dimension, a world similar to that of 5D's... and then literally shot itself it the foot with what could be considered the most nonsenical twist in all of anime. See the Zarc page for more details on that.
* The most recent (started in May 2017) one is Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS (which stands for Virtual Reality Artificial Intelligence Network System), which introduces Link monsters. Its villains, the Knights of Hanoi, are basically [[Anonymous]] with a technomagical supercharge whose goal is to wipe out a race of AI at costs believing them to be a threat to humanity. The protagonist is an antihero seeking revenge on The Knights of Hanoi for cruel experiment he was put through as a child.

==[[TL;DR]]==
A decent card game that could have been better, even great, if not for the two-headed giant that is Konami's incompetence and the crappy player base. Hey, at least it gave birth to a memetastic set of anime and parodies thereof.

{{Card Games}}

[[Category:Weeaboo]]

Furry

2019-07-10T03:43:10Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* See Also */

{{promotions}}
{{heresy}}
[[Image:BAWWW.jpg|right|thumb|Fig. a: This furry is not making any friends here.]]
{{Topquote|I have run with the tigers and I know wild beasts better than the priests. Animals are neither gods nor fiends, but men in their way without the lust and greed of man.|Kull, Exile of Atlantis}}
''If you're looking for actual /tg/ races that are based on the principle of "humanoid animal", see [[Beastfolk]].''

A '''Furry''' (not to be confused with '''fury''', which they tend to create) are people who are (often obsessive) fans of anthropomorphic animals. Some furries are merely keen on Disney, the Rats of NIMH, [[My Little Pony]], or Usagi Yojimbo (these are the tolerable ones); at the other end of the spectrum lie the Otherkin, people who [[What|genuinely believe]] that they are animals or dragons trapped inside human bodies. Some furries make and wear fursuits in an attempt to resemble their avatars in real life, which tends to make the participants look ridiculous most of the time unless the costume is well made (which, credit where credit is due, happens extraordinarily often) or they're at a con full of them (and even then...).

The Furry community is based mostly in meritocratic elitism, with good [[drawfags]] in the upper levels of their social pyramid and the average Disney/Warner Brothers' animation fanboy in the lowest. Drama, misanthropy and other emo behaviors are very common in the hierarchy, often representing humankind as sociopathic or genocidal in their literary works or comics. Many furry comics have a homosexual or bisexual theme, not unlike anime. (NOTE: this has nothing to do with statistics involving LGBTQ+ individuals in the furry community. This is merely a byproduct of the fact that many [[Tumblr|"safe havens"]] that are host to furries often overlap with those accepting of gay communities). Many are avid supporters of the LGBTQ+ community, and they are always trying to become a part of it; for what it's worth, most of them don't care about furries, barring those involved in the fandom, but only consider them a problem when they go [[Chris-chan|bashit fucking crazy]]. There's also a vocal 'minority' of furries who ''are'' right wing, if not full-on [[/pol/]] themselves, though [[Derp|they're usually all the more ridicule-worthy for it]].

[[Image:FurryInANutshell.jpg|left|thumb|The diverse constituencies of the furry community in a nutshell.]]
Furries get a lot of hate in a lot of places on the internet, which stems form several sources; a big one is the really insecure subtype of furry who posts their "fursona" on deviantart and proceeds to spew bile at anyone who doesn't kiss their ass about it. Another big part of it is the type of furry most commonly referred to by /tg/ and 4chan, which is the erotic furry, also known as the "furvert", which is a specific sexual fetish for anthropomorphic animals. Erotic furries are fond of [[cybering|cybersex]], which they refer to as "yiffing", supposedly for the sound a fox makes while copulating. There are fewer erotic furries in the furry community than the average fa/tg/uy believes, but by the same token there are more of them than the average furry will admit to, depending on the furry in question. While sexual attraction to anthropomorphic animals *by itself* isn't too deviant or disturbing, the problem is that like many fetishes it has an odd tendency to occur in conjunction with other, more extreme ones (more on that in a bit). Because of these various factors, this type of furry is considered by 4chan, out of all possible factions, as the vilest and most nauseating form of [[heresy]] in all of existence, with only the ultimate [[Exterminatus|Banhammer]] as the solution. [[What|Even to the point where *all* forms of furry porn are banned on /d/, a board that accepts pretty much everything else, even outright felonies like rape.]]

Antipathy toward furries on /tg/ and 4chan runs high principally due to a profound weariness with thin-skinned furries complaining of persecution. If you are a furry and feel the need to talk about it, the best way to survive on /tg/ is to admit from the outset that you are a sick bastard and that you don't expect anyone to praise you for it. (Addendum: Since 40k has very little to do with the fandom, it's generally safe to just not refer to yourself as one, lest ye call down the collective nerd rage of the fa/tg/uys on you, as shown in fig. a.) Furry threads make for very effective [[troll]]ing experience, especially if erotic furry art is involved.

[[File:Unconventional Armour.jpg|250px|right|thumb|/tg/ bitches about anthropomorphic animals all the time in sci-fi and fantasy settings, yet they have a insatiable fetish for cat women in skimpy armor. The irony is real.]]
In a somewhat ironic twist, /tg/'s burning hatred for furries is what allowed /tg/ to come into being; [[Warhammer Wednesday]] was created as a direct response to furries attempting to spam /b/ every day of the week. The popularity of this day caught Moot's attention, leading to the creation of the /tg/ board.

Furries have their own RPGs, most notably ''[[Ironclaw]]'', and its Asian themed companion book ''Jadeclaw'', as well as ''[[Furry Pirates]]'' and ''[[Albedo]]''.

/tg/, /v/, /x/ and other boards (not really /b/, because half of them are furfags anyways) have a profound hatred for all things furry and will [[Exterminatus|rage, sage, kill, maim and ultimately burn]] the thread into the desolate wastelands of 404. (Any thread you may happen to see featuring monstergirls, centaurs, gnolls, or other sexualized sapient creatures is merely a figment of your imagination.)

Note: some furfags like to take it to the extreme and have recently tried to take /tg/ for themselves, only to have to resort to copious amounts of samefagging after the majority of fa/tg/uys got bored of saging their threads into oblivion. It is also theorized that furfags that invade /tg/ usually come from the bottomless pit of horror called tgchan.

Scalies are anthropomorphic creatures of the reptile and amphibian variety. As furries are nicknamed such for their humanoid shape covered in fur, scalies tend to have a coating of scales much like the animals they represent. However, some scalies, including draconids, have very light or no true scales, but flesh more like a human's.

Scalies are also furry fans with a preference for lizard, reptile, dragon and dinosaur characters and themes. It is also a self-moniker for the users of alt.fan.dragons, a Usenet discussion group for all things drakōn. They are not to be confused with [[dragonborn]] (because they don't ask to be fucked and raped constantly).

==Yiffing==
{{heresy}}
[[File:Damn Furry DMs.JPG|thumb|right|A 'typical' furry [[/d/M]] in action.]]
Yiffing refers to sex between furries, and is most commonly used outside the fandom in the form of "Yiff in Hell", indicating to publicly erotic furries that they or their sexual practices are not welcome in a given locale. As mentioned before, it frequently ventures into [[/d/|absolutely wild territory guaranteed to squick even the most hardened of internet users.]] For the most part, furries might have been tolerated had the fandom simply left it at "animal people fucking" and not become host to an array of utterly fucked up shit: watersports, adult babies, various forms of vore (most not even from natural orifices), ''actual bestiality'', and scat are all just scratching the surface.

Of course /tg/, being /tg/, knows everyone gets off to ''something'' that would be considered fucked up by at least a significant amount of people - after all, we have to let loose somehow and not all of us are the same. Plus, there's no fetish amongst furries that isn't already expressed in plenty amongst non-furries - [[8chan]] has ''an entire fucking board'' dedicated to non-furry vore, for example, and that's not counting the fetishes ranging from bondage to guro in the 'non-furry' world [[Roman Empire|since the fucking Romans]]. Furries are simply the poster child for people who take it to completely unfathomable heights, due to the frequent overlap between furries and other /d/-tier fetishes, such that one may feel an insatiable urge to drink bleach afterward. It's not uncommon to see even other furries giving [[Chakat|the worst parts of their fandom]] a wide berth, although many onlookers [[Exterminatus|would make no distinction in that regard anyway]].

Some people like to joke that the influx of furries into hell drove the immortal Prince of Darkness into attempting suicide (and succeeding), and he was replaced with the [[Slaanesh|Prince of Pleasure]], because it turns out Chaos accepts pretty much anyone.

==You might be considered a furry (by some) if...==

As the only attribute consistently required to be considered a furry is an interest in anthropomorphic animals (def: having human characteristics, such as human speech, clothes, etc) you might be a furry if you identify with and/or are a devoted fan of:

*[[Beastmen]]
*[[Skaven]]
*[[Lizardmen]]
*[[Minotaur]]
*[[Centaur]]
*[[Satyr]]
*Some subspecies of [[Demon]]

(Clarification: Just because you are interested in any of these does NOT force you to become a furry. It's a fandom like anime is. You can like something without associating with the ravening horde of crazy fanboys/girls.)

==Things That are Not Furry==
[[Image:Furry chart.jpg|thumb|right|[[Meme|100% is fine too]].]]
[[Image:Cheesy.jpg|thumb|right|DANGEROUSLY CHEESY]]

Distaste for furries often backfires on /tg/ when overly zealous anons cannot find any furries to abuse and turn their attention to people involved in innocuous practices. In particular, you should check yourself if you find you are calling someone a furry for any of the following:

*Playing [[Bunnies and Burrows]] (without masturbating).
*Discussing ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness'' (without masturbating).
*Watching Disney movies and other movies with anthropomorphic characters (again, without masturbating). Disney movies may cause anthropomorphic animals to pique your interest, but does not, by default, MAKE you a furry.
*[[Monstergirls]]. Suggesting they count as furry to any stray weeaboo on /tg/ will result in them [[Eversor|broiling over with rage]].
*Playing [[gnoll]]s, [[minotaur]]s, [[Ork]]s, [[kobolds]] and in some extreme cases [[Eldar|elves]] (without masturbating).
*Discussing something such as ''Ruby Quest'' (without masturbating), which primarily has given the characters animal features in order to easily differentiate between them within its simple style.
*Discussing [[Werewolves]], playing [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]] or [[Werewolf: The Forsaken]] (without masturbating) as, despite the frequent overlap, they are not furry by themselves.
*Playing [[Space Wolves]] (without masturbating).
*Playing [[Tyranids]] (without masturbating).
*Playing [[Beastfolk]] in general (without masturbating).

Dispute rages over what exactly constitutes furry. As a general guideline "If it has a snout, it's out" works well-enough; however (and especially on /tg/) fantasy races complicate that particular equation a bit. [[Gnoll]]s, [[Minotaur]]s, [[Beastmen]] and their ilk are a well-established part of many a RPG/Wargame setting and have been there long before the furry craze. It's important to note the difference however: Beastmen, Wulfen and the like are clearly set out in the lore as monsters-they aren't sexualised and aren't really tolerated. There's no Beastman-Human relationships in Warhammer, because the lore is quite clear on them being hated and reviled, with every interaction starting and ending at the tip of a sword.

There are two major schools of thought on the subject. [[Skub|One holds that catgirls and other essentially near-hairless human characters with only one or two animal features]] (such as ears, minute resemblance of claws/fur on the body or a tail) [[Skub|are not furry, and the boundary of furry is only breached when you start sighting other obviously animal characteristics]] such as an altered skeletal structure, a face that resembles an actual animal and full-body-fur (this does not stop trolls from calling [[Horo]] furry, however). On the other hand, the second school of thought maintains that nobody fucking cares. There are hints of a still forming third school developing around the idea of [[Exterminatus|exterminating]] all of them and let [[Gary Gygax]] sort it out.

=== Monstergirls vs. Furries ===

One will note that the above doesn't constitute a strong defense of [[Monstergirls]] as not being Furry (as, unlike the other non-furry fur-adjacent-fandoms mentioned above, the two do share a rather ''*ahem*'' one-handed approach to things). This is because, sadly, Monstergirls has some overlap with furrydom. There are a few distinctions that may be worth making between the two, though:

* Monstergirls are usually an attempt to make monsters '''more''' human, usually due to a desire for something "exotic" and/or the fa/tg/uy or fa/tg/irl in question having poor luck with ''actual'' humans; Furries are frequently driven by a desire to make people '''less''' human, at least in appearance (with the target of dehumanization usually being the furry fan him/herself).
* Monstergirl settings usually make a point of having humans be present. Furry works are frequently describable as "ordinary (if perhaps porny) life, but '''everybody''' is an animal".
* Monstergirls are, well, monsters who happen to be conventionally attractive. Most Monstergirl works make a point of discussing and showing differences in thinking (whether cultural or biological) between the Monstergirls and normal humans. Again, Furry works are frequently describable as "'''ordinary''' (if perhaps porny) life, but everybody is an animal".
* Furry erotica has an especially bad habit of going into '''too many''' weird (and/or sickening) fetishes; Monstergirl-related porn tends to be more "mass market" in their erotic goals, with a good chunk of written fiction being completely romance-oriented (although admittedly there are a few high-profile [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia|exceptions to this trend]]).
* Monstergirl fans seem to be an 'ordinary' (if ''also'' porn-heavy) fandom, with all the perks and pitfalls of any other. Furrydom overlaps more with being a "lifestyle", with all the bullshit that the phrase "alternative lifestyles" usually involves.
* Perhaps most importantly, sanity. Erotic Furries are well-known for their blurring of fantasy and reality in their minds and fan-conventions; Monstergirl fans seem to be more clear on the distinction between the two.

A close reading of some furry webcomics crying about [[#Fursecution|"fursection"]] can be highly enlightening on several of these points, if you're of strong enough stomach to do so.

[[Skub|Whether these distinctions actually differentiate the two is left up to the reader to decide.]]

==Furries on /tg/==
[[Image:Buggy_chart.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Insects are furry too.]]
Besides the usual angst over furry porn getting spammed, if furries are brought up at all, this is mostly in the context of fantasy roleplaying games that feature anthropomorphic species like Gnolls and Kobolds, etc. As mentioned above, this is a gray area where playing one of these characters does not necessarily mean one is a furry; even so, accusations can still be made, since genuine furries can use playing a canon furry species as a smokescreen for creating their [[magical realm]]. The key is to figure out ahead of time whether the player in question cares about roleplaying an adventurer and not roleplaying a sexual fetish. Actually, that's a good general rule to go by, furry or not.

With regards to WH40k, there's less ambiguity. The Imperium's stance on non-humans is [[heresy|quite clear]]. Yes, [[Wulfen]] do technically straddle the line into anthro territory, but the fluff makes it clear that they're barely tolerated as it is, and the [[Inquisition]] is too busy dealing with daemonic shit to get into another fight with the [[Space Wolves]]. Yet despite all this, you do have the occasional furry try to slip something in that, by all rights, should ordinarily result in [[Exterminatus]] right from the get-go. Because of this, furries have been classified as [[Extra Heresy]]. See the [[Fur Heresy]] for one such example.

===Flare===
Originally introduced to /tg/ by some creepy furfag that would spam her picture in [[drawfag]] threads constantly, Flare was since kidnapped from her creator to receive an extreme makeover in the hands of /tg/: Her backstory is that, hated by absolutely everyone, she had to endure constant abuse and fighting ever since childhood, turning her into a sociopathic fuckup. Posting an image of old Flare with or without text used to be the easiest form of trolling on all of /tg/ (Not even [[4e]] [[D&D]] could have elicited as much blind rage from the board) but the new Flare has since cut the worst edge out of it. More importantly, what /tg/ did to her is bugging the shit out of the original Flarefag, which is awesome.

There is no art of her anywhere except the original image and the ones that drawfags have made. Trolls sometimes refer to Flare as a mascot of /tg/, but this is so unthinkably wrong and horrifying that you are advised to stop thinking about the possibility {{BLAM|before we make you.}}

===Chakat===
Like Flare, this is an imported concept that /tg/ rapidly grew to hate. The short story is that [[Chakat]]s are a race of hermaphroditic furry centaurs [[Mary Sue|who are super amazing at everything and everyone wants to fuck them]], and engage in [[FATAL|metric fucktons of sexual fetishes including incest]]. And if you're not sexually attracted to them, then you're a horrible person and [[rape|they'll ''make'' you love them]]. In short, they're everything wrong with furries in one package. Originally a [[Star Trek]] fanfic race, they've since attempted to [[Chakats Meet the Hammer of the Emperor|invade]] every other sci-fi franchise, despite being hated even by other furries. So if one of your players attempts to play a Chakat character, you'll know what to expect. On the other hand, with a few tweaks, they'd make for a great villain...

Also, their inventor is a [[My Little Pony|brony]]. Make of that what you will.

===The Furry Test===
If you are developing a character or race, or are looking at someone else’s, and are wondering if they are technically furry or not, take this simple test. Just go through the list of traits and add the indicated points for each one that applies.
Note: a lot of these traits are also synonymous with [[Mary Sue|Mary Sues]] and indeed the two have a tendency to occur together, so this test probably isn't that valid. The worst furries most worthy of purging (read: most of them), are almost without exception blatant and shameless Mary Sues in addition to their other [[heresy|depravities]].

*Add 3 if they resemble an anthropomorphic animal.
*Add 4 if they are ''specifically'' an anthropomorphic animal (fox, wolf, etc.).
*Add 4 if they are a Sonic fan character.
*Add 5 if they are a [[My Little Pony]] fan character.
*Add 2 if their sexual characteristics are gone into with ''any'' detail.
*Add 1 if they have a vibrant and unnatural coloration (often a lazy attempt at [[Original character, do not steal]]).
*Add 2 if they are the subject of fetish material.
*Add 3 if they are are the subject of fetish material in universe.
*Add 2 if they are always depicted on the side of good.
*Add 3 if Humans are the real monsters.
*Add 1 if they are [[Chakat|overly perfect, physically and/or morally]].
*Add 7 if their nonhuman traits grants them any powers,

Now add up your final score.
Anything over 10 is definitely furry.
Anything over 20 is firmly in "you sick bastard" territory. Your synthetic abominations will be converted into a cybernetic slaves of the Auric Bara'ki empire, or else Age backwards into their infancy and mind-wiped, so as to free them from your lingering horror, {{BLAM|you sick bastard.}}
Anything over 30 is indescribably fucked up.

=="Fursecution"==
If you've read this far then you've seen several references to "thin-skinned furries complaining of 'fursecution'". The problem is that, like with any largely hated group of people, such persecution does indeed exist (stop laughing), and the net is often widened to include 'sane' furries (e.g. simple fans of the [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FunnyAnimal "Funny Animal"] style), who may be nonsexual and might potentially share that disdain for their more depraved "brethren". Furries who ''do'' have the pertinent fetish but lack any ''other'' fetishes may display that they know where to draw the line; hell, even some of the sexual ones have their limits. In the cases where someone manages to check off most or (somehow) hall of the more objectively despicable traits on the list, there's a point where the a constant stream of rage wouldn't do much good... but then, we don't come to 4chan to make healthy life choices, do we?

Another complication is that humans ''are'' like other animals in at least one notable way: we tend to act the way we're treated. Thus if you consistently act like an asshole to someone, they'll often eventually act like an asshole back. In this way furries are somewhat like other skubby subcultures, such as LBGTQ folks, vegans, theists AND atheists, and anyone with either an ethnicity or political viewpoint - obviously not in terms of honest-to-god oppression, but in terms of the common narrative where the insecure and/or arrogant vocal minorities ''within'' the larger group get so annoying in their bitching about persecution (be it 'imaginary' or otherwise), that they "enable" ''actual'' persecution against the ''whole'' group. By that token, recognizing that furries are too easy a target is not mutually exclusive of the fact that more than quite a few of them legitimately ''deserve'' the shit they get.

==Gallery==

<gallery>
Image:Animalabuse.jpg|Why any sane person should hate furries.
Image:Geek-hierarchy-pic15.jpg|Furry [[LARP]]ers.
Image:Dnd.jpg|Furcadia, an infamous furry graphical MUD.
Image:Exterminatus.jpg|This is what /tg/ actually believes.
Image:DeathToTheFurries.jpg|[[/b/|/b/rothers]] do not like any more than [[/tg/|fa/tg/uys]] do.
Image:SuiseisororitasHQ.JPG
Image:Get_furry_out_of_here.jpg
Image:Anonymarines_vs_furries.jpg
Image:One_wing_troll_dragon.jpg|Flare before
Image:True Flare.jpg|Flare after
Image:Flarebanned.jpg|No mods on /tg/, you say?
Image:Flaresprons_anonib.jpg
Image:RatAssMacro.png
File:Space_wolves_sergeant_by_GordonFreeguy.png|Not sure if heresy...
File:Art.png
File:Animated_yiff_furry_marines_1211613516571.gif|HERESY IN THE EXTREME
File:5_years_later_still_ruining_by_flyingdebris-d488kxr.jpg|Five years later - the war is still going strong.
File:M_does_not_approve.jpg|[[/m/]] supports /tg/ in its quest against the Fur-Tide.
File:Gnoll.jpg|Another awesome fantasy race is consumed by the fur-tide.
File:Dr. Steinman Parody.png|That's what happens when you <del>do drugs</del> draw furry porn for years. It screws up your mind.
File:Making chaos cultists look sane.jpeg|Congrats, fuckwit, you just made Khornate Guardsmen look reasonable
File:Dragons on a car 1.jpg|thumb|left|Example of an erotic scalie fantasy.
Image:D&d_beasts__senmurv_gay_pride.jpg|A suspiciously furry D&D creature. (For the record: That's a "Simurgh", actual real life [[Mythology|mythological]] bird...only the artist has somehow made it 500,000 times more furry, LGBT-pridey, and just plain stupid looking for some reason.)
</gallery>

==See Also==
* [[Albedo]] - A hard sci-fi furry setting that manages to earn /tg/'s grudging respect by being both old school and surprisingly well thought out.
* [[Beastmen]] - When furries become violent [[Chaos]] worshipers.
* [[Space Wolves]] - When furries become violent [[Emperor]] Worshipers.
* [[Confrontation]]
* [[Fur Heresy]]
* ''[[Furry Pirates]]''
* ''[[Ironclaw|Iron Claw]]''
* [[Chakat]], something most furries prefer, understandably, to not be associated with.
** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEmh5a_wSyw | Slaaneshi furries nearly destroy the world, but an unsung hero named Viktor stops them]
* [[Sergal]], like Chakats, a homebrewed race that is still based on humanoid animals (in this case a sort of wolf/shark/lizard mix).
* [[Centaur]]s, although people argue if they are furries or [[monstergirl]]s.
* [[Minotaur]]s, which like centaurs get claimed by both sides.
* [[Catfolk]], who despite being furries are somehow more /tg/-acceptable than [[catgirl]]s.
* [[Lupin]]s, an actual D&D race of anthro wolves who went from Renaissance French swashbucklers in [[Red Steel]] to pseudo-Native American werewolf hunters who ride around on giant wolves.
* [[Ratfolk]], another race marginalized for "official furriness!"
* [[Gnolls]], anthro hyenas who mostly manage to avoid the furry connections
* [[Lizardfolk]], because some furries prefer scales.
* [[Dragonborn]], who really appeal to furries, though some furries complain that they don't have tails.
* [[Kobold]]s, an anthro lizard race who manage to be popular on /tg/ despite being anthro.
* [[FAPP]], a furry tabletop game for <s>furfags</s> players who enjoy exploring the most perverse of [[Magical Realm]]s.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrJVZZLv2GE In which] [[Black Templars|The Emperor's finest]] do what they can to save us from the utter [[heresy]] that is furries. AVENGE ME, BROTHER!
* [[Harkness Test]]

[[Category:Furry]]
[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:RAGE]]

Order of the Stick

2019-07-10T03:37:20Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* The Party */

{{/co/}}
[[Image:PostersTogetherBig.jpg|center|500px]]

{{Topquote|Holy shit, this is still ongoing?!|Every anon, at some point}}

'''Order of the Stick''' (also known as '''WORDSWORDSWORDS'''), written and drawn by Rich Burlew, is by far one of the most popular /tg/-related [[webcomic]]s in existence. Essentially, it's about a party of classic [[Dungeons & Dragons]]-style adventurers on an epic, high fantasy adventure, except they are well aware they're actually in a game (which isn't to say that they break the fourth wall, but rather they casually discuss things like saving throws and to-hit bonuses as though they were common knowledge). However, it quickly grew from a very funny parody of D&D to serious pastiche of fantasy in general (this is known by our friends at TVTropes as [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CerebusSyndrome Cerebus Syndrome]), gaining a complicated-yet-interesting plot, a host of characters from all sides of the [[Alignment]] table, while retaining the humourous tone the comic is known for.

This has caused OotS to devolve into a [[skub]] topic, at least on /tg/. Half of /tg/ thinks the comic has shit pacing, poor jokes, and an army of sycophants who refuse to see that everything has gone wrong, whereas the other half of /tg/ believes that the comic is just as funny as it always was, and with better plotlines than most fantasy novels to boot. Many fa/tg/uys also complain that the comic is "too simplistic" art-wise, given it has a strict stick-figure aesthetic. Burlew has proven his drawing chops on many occasions and notes in the FAQ that the stick-figures "bring the right air of humor to the strip," not to mention the fact that the style, for better or worse, has become the comic's hallmark and can't be changed now. Also, compared to [[Servants of the Imperium]], the later OotS strips are pure gold. That being said, Burlew is a fan of the "wall of text" method of comic design, and frequently seems like he'd be much happier just writing a book.

In other words, standard skub stuff, and has given rise to the fa/tg/uy project [[thog edits]], redos of the comic to eliminate the words and in the process twist the dialogue into something dirty.

[[Image:Miko_ready_to_smite.png|thumb|Spared no expense on the art budget for this climax]]

Rich Burlew's only other claim to fame is coming in second place (or, as he likes to call it, "first loser") in [[Wizards of the Coast]]'s "design a campaign setting" contest. He lost to Keith Baker's [[Eberron]]. This is either a great thing or a terrible thing, depending on how you feel about Eberron. Unfortunately, WotC kept all rights to the setting and put the designers under NDA, so we'll never actually see his entry, as it seems they locked it in a darkened room and forgot about it.

The comic has been put into a number of printed volumes, with the latest volumes funded via [[Kickstarter]].

==The Cast==
Of course a D&D story would be nothing without [[PC]]s, [[BBEG]]s and a supporting cast of [[NPC]]s. They are on all sides of the spectrum between [[skub]] tier and god tier.

{{spoilers}}

===The Party===
The titular Order of the Stick, named first for the artstyle, then retconned into a nearby object. All of their builds are purposely terrible (on Burlew's part) to both A) make the fight scenes last longer than two panels, and to B) emphasize reliance on clever tactics and teamwork to win. The exception, impossibly enough, being Elan.

* Roy Greenhilt, the party's [[fighter]] and leader. Despite avoiding the whole "INT is a fighter's [[dump stat]]" thing, he still spends most of his time hitting things with his green-hilted (get it?) greatsword, putting up with the party's bullshit and, for a good chunk of the comic, being dead. Comes up with the plans and gives out the orders too, if they'd <s>down</s>upgraded to 4e he'd be a [[warlord]]. Or a tactician archetype in [[Pathfinder]]. Or a battle-master in [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition|5e]]. Or... let's just say that subsequent editions were much kinder to his archetype than the one he's playing in. There was a gag about him not going for [[warblade]], a class he'd probably excel at, because his bitter old wizard father didn't want to shell out for a ''doctorate'' from Fighter College.
* Haley Starshine, the party's [[rogue]] and second in command. [[Blood Ravens|Will steal everything that isn't bolted down, then steal the bolts, followed by stealing the thing that was bolted down.]] Has an actual reason to do so: to pay off her father's life-sentence in prison. Then, when she met him he wanted nothing to do with her because she was snackin' on the rapier of the son of the man who put him there. Welp. Wields a bow and is comfortable with fighting as dirty as possible to win. Despite her greed and cynicism she is a loyal party member, and manages to stay "[[Chaotic Good]]-ish." Dating Elan after a messy incident involving her being unable to speak for about a hundred comics and him meeting a Final Fantasy character.
* Elan, the party's [[bard]]. He is the living embodiment of every derpy character you ever rolled up just to screw with your friends. He's as thick as a loaf of fine [[meatbread]], sucks at barding duties (often resulting in "wacky" hijinks) and has a [[prestige class]] that forces him to make bad puns as he fights. As the story goes on, he starts to suck less, and it helps that he's the ONLY member of the team with an optimized build. (Maxed CHA for everything bard-related, plus that prestige class adds it to his attack and damage, meaning that he doesn't suffer from [[MAD]] as much as a typical bard.) Apparently, if Haley can be trusted, that maxed CHA is worth a good deal "under the hood." As a bard consciously aware that he exists in a fantasy story, Elan is the character most, "narratively equipped," to deal with the environment and is often able to use rules of traditional storytelling to predict, even manipulate events. In other words, he's a metagamer.
* Durkon Thundershield, the [[dwarf]]en [[cleric]]. Gruff, dutiful and honorable, as all good dwarves should be. Pretty stereotypical and solid in his support of the team. Has an accent so thick that it affects the way his dialouge is spelled, despite no other dwarf family in the comic talking like him. His clan had a vision that his return would herald a great cataclysm, so they sent him away and told him they'd tell him when he could come back and never did, because no one in fantasy stories has ever read a fantasy story. Was turned into a [[vampire]] for 200 strips until he got staked, died, got resurrected, died ''again'' 30 seconds later after an ill-advised marriage proposal, then got resurrected for real. Received a hell of a plot dump from Thor while dead, and was tasked with convincing Redcloak to betray his dark god and save the world(s). Also now wields a powerful lightning hammer which Thor told him where to find.
* Belkar Bitterleaf, the chaotic evil [[halfling]] [[multiclassing|multiclassed]] [[ranger]]-[[barbarian]]. A hard-drinking, hard-fighting, hard-fucking killing machine, Belkar is one of the best characters in the comic. [[Murderhobo|He kills what he can't fuck and he fucks what he can't kill, sometimes fucking things before he kills them]] (but not the other way around, ew). His style of fighting involves stabbing as many dudes as possible with as many knives as possible. Despite being able to steamroll regular enemies, his low Will means that any spellcasters he faces will kick his ass, and his effed-up build (barbarian-ranger is an unhappy marriage where XP is concerned, and his low STR means he mostly has to kill minions with tricky maneuvering) means that bigger people (like Roy) can still kick his ass. Still, he is murderously awesome and the PC with the biggest body count thus far. Has a pet cat called Mr. Scruffy, hurting him will cause Belkar to rip you inside out,and vice versa. Also has a motherfucking allosaurus (currently polymorphed into a small lizard).
* Vaarsuvius, the [[elven]] [[wizard]]. V's undescribed gender is something of a running joke -emphasis on "something"- in the series (which makes you wonder what their voice must sound like for it to be of no help in the matter). He has a spouse at home who also is of unknown gender, and it isn't even clear if they are the same or different sexes. V's primary M.O. is "fireball", if that doesn't work it's "more fireball" (fitting, given their name). He also likes to prank people with the Explosive Runes spell. Other forms of blaster magic may or may not be prominent. The fact that this is probably the worst way to play a wizard in no way diminishes the fact that V is easily the most powerful member of the Order by a country-mile, able to turn the tide of entire battles unless some convenient dramatic device takes them out of the action for a while, which it often has. While they used to possess an ego befitting both an elf and a wizard, V was recently taken down a notch when they were forced to sell their soul to a [[Tanar'ri|demon]], [[Baatezu|devil]] and [[Yugoloth|daemon]] (all at the same time) to save their spouse and (adopted) children from a black [[dragon]]. Is currently flipping the fuck out for having [[powergamer|killed up to a quarter of all black dragons in existence]] alongside their direct non-blood related (read: non-dragon) families in order to posthumously spite said dragon.

===Antagonists===
====Team Evil====
* Xykon the [[lich]]. An [[epic]] level [[sorcerer]], Xykon is bored out of his skull and as such toys around with holes in reality that serve as gates to [[Warp|a dimension containing a world-eating snarl]]. Doesn't like [[wizard]]s because they were condescending to him during his life, and likes beating the shit out of them with his ability to cast spells over and over again (like Energy Drain). He is wholly and unapologetically evil, and [[Eldrad|kind of a dick]], but he's still kind of funny because his charisma is through the fucking roof.
* Redcloak the [[goblin]] [[cleric]]. Xykon's main henchgoblin and ruler of a major goblin tribe, Redcloak is the guy who's told to "get it done". And hoo boy, does he get it done. He murders the resistance to his people's occupation of a major city, has another of Xykon's servants eaten by her own wights and reveals that he was using Xykon from the beginning for the good of his people, all in the span of a half dozen pages. Has a lot of backstory in the prequel comic, but you have to pay for it so f*#$ that noise.
* The Monster in the Darkness is a creature of many mysteries and few truths. All we know that it has two yellow eyes and acts even stupider than Elan. It also is stupidly powerful: it can punch people so far they are launched into the sky; it stomping on the ground is powerful enough to cause localized earthquakes; and it can teleport people with but a word and a thought. Has the personality of a child (a non-evil one). After extended contact with O-Chul, has begun to think for himself, discovering, to his own surprise, that he is actually ''extremely'' intelligent and doesn't ''want'' Team Evil to win, and so has begun subtly undermining their efforts from within, something that has been enormously successful because none of his teammates see it coming or expect him to do ''anything'' smart. [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?488773-Summon-MitD-IX-Roll-on-Section-3a If you think you've got the brains, feel free to jump on the ride that never ends and try to follow the breadcrumbs and figure out what he is.] We'll wait. [[Troll| Remember to only pick ones with Trenchant Political Analysis as a listed special attack!]]
* Tsukiko, a mystic theurge. A necrophile necromancer with a crush on Xykon. She was in charge of the wight brigade until she discovered Redcloak's plan to double-cross Xykon, which got her eaten by her own wights for her troubles.
====The Linear Guild====
* Started out as evil counterparts of the PCs (which was deliberately done by their leader, Elan's twin brother Nale (get it? Nale is Elan backwards!)). The Guild consists of three core members plus two other slots that keep having replacements due to death or quitting:
** Nale, a Fighter-Rogue-Sorcerer multiclass specializing in enchantment, which is, if you didn't notice, basically a [[bard]] only [[Tzeentch|more complicated]] and capable of being Lawful Evil. Is permanently dead; he was stabbed by his father and was subsequently disintegrated for murdering Malack and rejecting his father's attempt to reconcile.
** Sabine, a [[succubus]] and Nale's lover with whom she shares a deep and fulfilling relationship based on human sacrifice. Is currently stuck somewhere in the Lower Planes, trying to get revenge on her boyfriend's murderer, and since Thog is also probably dead she the last member not to die or quit.
** Thog, a [[Half-Orc]] [[barbarian]] who's part of the Dumbass Triumvirate alongside Elan and the Monster in the Darkness. He talks like the Incredible Hulk. Although unconfirmed, he likely is dead after Roy tricked him into collapsing a ceiling on himself, burying him under a ton of rubble.
* On the four different occasions the teams have clashed the Linear Guild employed a subset of the following people:
* '''First Encounter'''
** Zz'Dtri, the [[drow]] wizard. An obvious copy of [[Drizzt]], he was hauled off by the lawyers of [[Wizards of the Coast]] for being an obvious [[Drizzt]] copy. [[Wat|Yes, that happened]]. Later returned ([[Wat|because he was a parody, not a copy, protected speech bitches!]]) and clashed with V using all the interim levels to tailor his build just to fighting the wizard. This did him no good against Durkon, the party cleric, particularly with that vampire strength boost. Currently dead
** Hilgya Firehelm, a dwarven cleric of [[Troll|Loki]] who fucked, fought and fled from Durkon during the Guild's first encounter with the Order, in that approximate order. Reappeared after over 1000 strips to save the party from a vampire horde in the nick of time. Has a self-serving memory, believing everyone around her is selfish when she's one of the most selfish beings on the planet. Brought Durkon's baby into the battle [[Dwarf_Fortress|like a true dorf]].
** Yikyik the [[kobold]] ranger. Was beheaded by Belkar and turned into a [[hat]]. Currently dead.
* '''Second Encounter'''
** Pompey the [[half-elf]] wizard (get it? Pompey and Vaarsuvius are named after Pompeii and Vesuvius! We're clever). Had a crush on Roy's sister and teamed up with the Linear Guild so that he could have her, but he was defeated, imprisoned, and then escaped, signing on with Leeky. Has not been seen since.
** Leeky Windstaff the [[gnome]] [[druid]]. Turned into a giant monster and rampaged through a city (get it? [[CoDzilla]]!) before being defeated by Durkon and escaping alongside Pompey.
** Yokyok, son of Yikyik. A parody of [[The Princess Bride|Inigo Montoya]] who attacked Belkar for... oh do I even have to say it? Belkar was under a curse preventing him from killing, so he set a tavern full of [[adventurer]]s loose on Yokyok, then turned his head into a nacho repository. Currently dead.
* '''Third Encounter'''
** Yukyuk. Yet another kobold: this one was dominated (the status effect, mind you) by V and got used as a litter box ([[Sick| without being decapitate first!]]) and living trap-springer before dying in a horrific accident protecting a [[cat]].
* '''Fourth Encounter'''
* The fourth encounter with the Linear Guild included Tarquin and Malack (as below). It also involved Chancellor Kilkil (Urd, a Kobold variant... with wings! Its in the 2nd ed MM), who is more a clerk and personal assistant than a combatant, though he is a hyper-competent bureaucrat and a flying calculator.
** General Tarquin, a human [[warlord]], general of the Empress of Blood and de facto ruler of the Empire of Blood. Despite the suggestion of him being aligned to [[Khorne]] this is far from the truth: he is a friendly and cheerful person like his son Elan, but at the same time is outright ruthless and has the evil smarts like his other son, Nale. He is the ultimate in [[Alignment|Lawful Evil]]: he understands that his rule is not eternal, but his legacy can be. As such he is forging an entire continent into his empire: even when he is defeated (which he holds as being inevitable) he gets to be a legend. Though he's not very keen on the "being stabbed by a hero" part, it would mean he gets to live like a god for who-knows-how-long, and only the last few minutes sucked. [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html The man himself explains it best.] On the other hand, given his Lawful obsession with forcing the messy chaos of reality to conform to the outline of a neat little story, refusing to conform to the character archetype he expects you to fill (e.g. playing a [[bard]] when he thinks you're the protagonist) causes him to quickly fly into a fit of [[butthurt]] rage to put [[That Guy]] to shame and start [[railroading]]. On joining the Linear Guild he disguised himself as Thog.
** Minister Malack is a lizardfolk (possibly yuan-ti) cleric of Nergal and serves as adviser to the Empress of Blood and Tarquin. Is actually a [[vampire]] and has just turned Durkon into one. Like his former adventuring companion Tarquin, Malack is an affable and well-spoken person and is the heir to the Empire of Blood after Tarquin's death. When he does become the next Emperor he plans to [[Emperor|sacrifice a thousand people to his god per day]] [[grimdark|in rooms that serve as gas chambers/abattoirs, the sacrifices generated by a continent's worth of people living and dying for the glory of Nergal]] (although the writer later stated he means meat packing rooms as he plans to use the thousand sacrifices to feed to himself and his vampiric spawn, who'll be running the empire). Like I said, real nice guy. Has a beef with Nale for killing three of his "children", but set aside his grudge at Tarquin's behest. Even then he is a honorable person: when he promises not to kill someone despite it serving his goals, he does so. A very different sort of Lawful Evil, but still fits. Perma-dead, having been killed by Nale with sunlight, which has a disintegration effect on vampires.

===Other Characters===
* Miko Miyazaki, an absolutely and fanatically [[Lawful Stupid]] [[Paladin]]. None of the other paladins like her so they send her on far away missions as much as possible. She is sent to capture the Order of the Stick after they destroy one of the gates containing the Snarl and though Roy initially is attracted to her he later realizes that she really is a horrible unlikeable person. She is so convinced that she is a good person who does everything right due to being a servant of the gods that she becomes increasingly detached from reality as the evidences stacks up that she is doing wrong. After losing her paladin powers, she tries to redeem herself by sacrificing herself to save the day, but [[Fail|the only thing she accomplished was making the situation worse]].
* O-Chul. The Lawful [[Awesome]] Paladin. He is everything that a paladin should be and everything that Miko isn't. He is reasonable and a nice guy. While captured by Team Evil, he is put through all kinds of tortures both for Xykon's amusement and Redcloak trying to get information and survives all of them, never giving up defying them. During his time as a prisoner he manages to befriend The Monster in the Darkness and convince him that Xykon and Redcloak are not his friends. He is another poorly optimized character. He used to be a normal Fighter so his charisma score is terrible, and thus is bad at casting his paladin spells, but has an insanely high constitution that lets him tank godly amounts of damage (he has a hit point total on par with ''young adult dragons'').

==Before You Get Butthurt About Battle Strategies...==
''Here's the thing: No matter what I draw in any battle scene, within ten minutes of posting it someone chimes in about how the characters are stupid for not executing this, that, or the other tactic. Never mind that said tactic would likely end the fight in one panel when it is my job to provide you with an entertaining battle scene. Never mind that said tactic may result in the person winning whom the plot does not need to win. Never mind that the fight may not be over yet. No, all that matters is that these characters are not living up to someone's imagined D&D tactical mastery.''

''Well, I don't give a damn anymore. The characters fight the way they fight to make an interesting page. They may make subpar decisions, I don't care. I don't spend enough time with the D&D rules anymore to eke out all of these Ultimate Killer Strategies anyway, so we're really running up against the limits of my knowledge and ability. The characters can't be better strategists than I am, and I care more about other aspects. Such strategies are usually boring to read and visually bland to look at anyway. There aren't going to be a lot of invisible save-or-die effects thrown around, because there are only so many ways I can draw characters succeeding at Fortitude saves (and then I still have to verbally explain what just happened). You should stop expecting them, because I'm not going to use them.''

''My job is to entertain, not to showcase perfect D&D tactics. If you can't be entertained by anything BUT perfect D&D tactics, that's on you.''

--A quote from the author

It helps that Burlew has never revealed what anyone's level is, specifically so he can fudge the rules. To pull a random example, Vaar snags 13 people in Mass Enlarge Person, implying they're level 13, only to immediately use four Wiz6 spells (Mass Bull's Strength, Mass Bear's Endurance, two Disintegrate's) in less than two minutes -- level 13 Wizards should only be able use two Wiz6 spells per day.

In spite of this, however, fans have speculated extensively on the levels, abilities, and feats of various characters, and have managed to create a [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?545476-Class-and-Level-Geekery-XV-What-s-the-Damage-of-a-Thrown-Pineapple fairly comprehensive list] of these, usually accurate to 1-2 levels.

== Links ==
* [[Skub]]
* [http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html The website]
* [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick The TVTropes article] where you can see all the clichés Burlew uses/makes fun of.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Webcomics]]

Order of the Stick

2019-07-10T03:34:51Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* The Party */

{{/co/}}
[[Image:PostersTogetherBig.jpg|center|500px]]

{{Topquote|Holy shit, this is still ongoing?!|Every anon, at some point}}

'''Order of the Stick''' (also known as '''WORDSWORDSWORDS'''), written and drawn by Rich Burlew, is by far one of the most popular /tg/-related [[webcomic]]s in existence. Essentially, it's about a party of classic [[Dungeons & Dragons]]-style adventurers on an epic, high fantasy adventure, except they are well aware they're actually in a game (which isn't to say that they break the fourth wall, but rather they casually discuss things like saving throws and to-hit bonuses as though they were common knowledge). However, it quickly grew from a very funny parody of D&D to serious pastiche of fantasy in general (this is known by our friends at TVTropes as [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CerebusSyndrome Cerebus Syndrome]), gaining a complicated-yet-interesting plot, a host of characters from all sides of the [[Alignment]] table, while retaining the humourous tone the comic is known for.

This has caused OotS to devolve into a [[skub]] topic, at least on /tg/. Half of /tg/ thinks the comic has shit pacing, poor jokes, and an army of sycophants who refuse to see that everything has gone wrong, whereas the other half of /tg/ believes that the comic is just as funny as it always was, and with better plotlines than most fantasy novels to boot. Many fa/tg/uys also complain that the comic is "too simplistic" art-wise, given it has a strict stick-figure aesthetic. Burlew has proven his drawing chops on many occasions and notes in the FAQ that the stick-figures "bring the right air of humor to the strip," not to mention the fact that the style, for better or worse, has become the comic's hallmark and can't be changed now. Also, compared to [[Servants of the Imperium]], the later OotS strips are pure gold. That being said, Burlew is a fan of the "wall of text" method of comic design, and frequently seems like he'd be much happier just writing a book.

In other words, standard skub stuff, and has given rise to the fa/tg/uy project [[thog edits]], redos of the comic to eliminate the words and in the process twist the dialogue into something dirty.

[[Image:Miko_ready_to_smite.png|thumb|Spared no expense on the art budget for this climax]]

Rich Burlew's only other claim to fame is coming in second place (or, as he likes to call it, "first loser") in [[Wizards of the Coast]]'s "design a campaign setting" contest. He lost to Keith Baker's [[Eberron]]. This is either a great thing or a terrible thing, depending on how you feel about Eberron. Unfortunately, WotC kept all rights to the setting and put the designers under NDA, so we'll never actually see his entry, as it seems they locked it in a darkened room and forgot about it.

The comic has been put into a number of printed volumes, with the latest volumes funded via [[Kickstarter]].

==The Cast==
Of course a D&D story would be nothing without [[PC]]s, [[BBEG]]s and a supporting cast of [[NPC]]s. They are on all sides of the spectrum between [[skub]] tier and god tier.

{{spoilers}}

===The Party===
The titular Order of the Stick, named first for the artstyle, then retconned into a nearby object. All of their builds are purposely terrible (on Burlew's part) to both A) make the fight scenes last longer than two panels, and to B) emphasize reliance on clever tactics and teamwork to win. The exception, impossibly enough, being Elan.

* Roy Greenhilt, the party's [[fighter]] and leader. Despite avoiding the whole "INT is a fighter's [[dump stat]]" thing, he still spends most of his time hitting things with his green-hilted (get it?) greatsword, putting up with the party's bullshit and, for a good chunk of the comic, being dead. Comes up with the plans and gives out the orders too, if they'd <s>down</s>upgraded to 4e he'd be a [[warlord]]. Or a tactician archetype in [[Pathfinder]]. Or a battle-master in [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition|5e]]. Or... let's just say that subsequent editions were much kinder to his archetype than the one he's playing in. There was a gag about him not going for [[warblade]], a class he'd probably excel at, because his bitter old wizard father didn't want to shell out for a ''doctorate'' from Fighter College.
* Haley Starshine, the party's [[rogue]] and second in command. [[Blood Ravens|Will steal everything that isn't bolted down, then steal the bolts, followed by stealing the thing that was bolted down.]] Has an actual reason to do so: to pay off her father's life-sentence in prison. Then, when she met him he wanted nothing to do with her because she was snackin' on the rapier of the son of the man who put him there. Welp. Wields a bow and is comfortable with fighting as dirty as possible to win. Despite her greed and cynicism she is a loyal party member, and manages to stay "[[Chaotic Good]]-ish." Dating Elan after a messy incident involving her being unable to speak for about a hundred comics and him meeting a Final Fantasy character.
* Elan, the party's [[bard]]. He is the living embodiment of every derpy character you ever rolled up just to screw with your friends. He's as thick as a loaf of fine [[meatbread]], sucks at barding duties (often resulting in "wacky" hijinks) and has a [[prestige class]] that forces him to make bad puns as he fights. As the story goes on, he starts to suck less, and it helps that he's the ONLY member of the team with an optimized build. (Maxed CHA for everything bard-related, plus that prestige class adds it to his attack and damage, meaning that he doesn't suffer from [[MAD]] as much as a typical bard.) Apparently, if Haley can be trusted, that maxed CHA is worth a good deal "under the hood." As a bard consciously aware that he exists in a fantasy story, Elan is the character most, "narratively equipped," to deal with the environment and is often able to use rules of traditional storytelling to predict, even manipulate events. In other words, he's a metagamer.
* Durkon Thundershield, the [[dwarf]]en [[cleric]]. Gruff, dutiful and honorable, as all good dwarves should be. Pretty stereotypical and solid in his support of the team. Has an accent so thick that it affects the way his dialouge is spelled, despite no other dwarf family in the comic talking like him. His clan had a vision that his return would herald a great cataclysm, so they sent him away and told him they'd tell him when he could come back and never did, because no one in fantasy stories has ever read a fantasy story. Was turned into a [[vampire]] for 200 strips until he got staked, died, got resurrected, died ''again'' 30 seconds later after an ill-advised marriage proposal, then got resurrected for real. Received a hell of a plot dump from Thor while dead, and was tasked with convincing Redcloak to betray his dark god and save the world(s). Also now wields a powerful lightning hammer which Thor told him where to find.
* Belkar Bitterleaf, the chaotic evil [[halfling]] [[multiclassing|multiclassed]] [[ranger]]-[[barbarian]]. A hard-drinking, hard-fighting, hard-fucking killing machine, Belkar is one of the best characters in the comic. [[Murderhobo|He kills what he can't fuck and he fucks what he can't kill, sometimes fucking things before he kills them]] (but not the other way around, ew). His style of fighting involves stabbing as many dudes as possible with as many knives as possible. Despite being able to steamroll regular enemies, his low Will means that any spellcasters he faces will kick his ass, and his effed-up build (barbarian-ranger is an unhappy marriage where XP is concerned, and his low STR means he mostly has to kill minions with tricky maneuvering) means that bigger people (like Roy) can still kick his ass. Still, he is murderously awesome and the PC with the biggest body count thus far. Has a pet cat called Mr. Scruffy, hurting him will cause Belkar to rip you inside out,and vice versa. Also has a motherfucking allosaurus (currently polymorphed into a small lizard).
* Vaarsuvius, the [[elven]] [[wizard]]. V's undescribed gender is something of a running joke -emphasis on "something"- in the series (which makes you wonder what their voice must sound like for it to be of no help in the matter). V's primary M.O. is "fireball", if that doesn't work it's "more fireball" (fitting, given their name). He also likes to prank people with the Explosive Runes spell. Other forms of blaster magic may or may not be prominent. The fact that this is probably the worst way to play a wizard in no way diminishes the fact that V is easily the most powerful member of the Order by a country-mile, able to turn the tide of entire battles unless some convenient dramatic device takes them out of the action for a while, which it often has. While they used to possess an ego befitting both an elf and a wizard, V was recently taken down a notch when they were forced to sell their soul to a [[Tanar'ri|demon]], [[Baatezu|devil]] and [[Yugoloth|daemon]] (all at the same time) to save their spouse and (adopted) children from a black [[dragon]]. Is currently flipping the fuck out for having [[powergamer|killed up to a quarter of all black dragons in existence]] alongside their direct non-blood related (read: non-dragon) families in order to posthumously spite said dragon.

===Antagonists===
====Team Evil====
* Xykon the [[lich]]. An [[epic]] level [[sorcerer]], Xykon is bored out of his skull and as such toys around with holes in reality that serve as gates to [[Warp|a dimension containing a world-eating snarl]]. Doesn't like [[wizard]]s because they were condescending to him during his life, and likes beating the shit out of them with his ability to cast spells over and over again (like Energy Drain). He is wholly and unapologetically evil, and [[Eldrad|kind of a dick]], but he's still kind of funny because his charisma is through the fucking roof.
* Redcloak the [[goblin]] [[cleric]]. Xykon's main henchgoblin and ruler of a major goblin tribe, Redcloak is the guy who's told to "get it done". And hoo boy, does he get it done. He murders the resistance to his people's occupation of a major city, has another of Xykon's servants eaten by her own wights and reveals that he was using Xykon from the beginning for the good of his people, all in the span of a half dozen pages. Has a lot of backstory in the prequel comic, but you have to pay for it so f*#$ that noise.
* The Monster in the Darkness is a creature of many mysteries and few truths. All we know that it has two yellow eyes and acts even stupider than Elan. It also is stupidly powerful: it can punch people so far they are launched into the sky; it stomping on the ground is powerful enough to cause localized earthquakes; and it can teleport people with but a word and a thought. Has the personality of a child (a non-evil one). After extended contact with O-Chul, has begun to think for himself, discovering, to his own surprise, that he is actually ''extremely'' intelligent and doesn't ''want'' Team Evil to win, and so has begun subtly undermining their efforts from within, something that has been enormously successful because none of his teammates see it coming or expect him to do ''anything'' smart. [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?488773-Summon-MitD-IX-Roll-on-Section-3a If you think you've got the brains, feel free to jump on the ride that never ends and try to follow the breadcrumbs and figure out what he is.] We'll wait. [[Troll| Remember to only pick ones with Trenchant Political Analysis as a listed special attack!]]
* Tsukiko, a mystic theurge. A necrophile necromancer with a crush on Xykon. She was in charge of the wight brigade until she discovered Redcloak's plan to double-cross Xykon, which got her eaten by her own wights for her troubles.
====The Linear Guild====
* Started out as evil counterparts of the PCs (which was deliberately done by their leader, Elan's twin brother Nale (get it? Nale is Elan backwards!)). The Guild consists of three core members plus two other slots that keep having replacements due to death or quitting:
** Nale, a Fighter-Rogue-Sorcerer multiclass specializing in enchantment, which is, if you didn't notice, basically a [[bard]] only [[Tzeentch|more complicated]] and capable of being Lawful Evil. Is permanently dead; he was stabbed by his father and was subsequently disintegrated for murdering Malack and rejecting his father's attempt to reconcile.
** Sabine, a [[succubus]] and Nale's lover with whom she shares a deep and fulfilling relationship based on human sacrifice. Is currently stuck somewhere in the Lower Planes, trying to get revenge on her boyfriend's murderer, and since Thog is also probably dead she the last member not to die or quit.
** Thog, a [[Half-Orc]] [[barbarian]] who's part of the Dumbass Triumvirate alongside Elan and the Monster in the Darkness. He talks like the Incredible Hulk. Although unconfirmed, he likely is dead after Roy tricked him into collapsing a ceiling on himself, burying him under a ton of rubble.
* On the four different occasions the teams have clashed the Linear Guild employed a subset of the following people:
* '''First Encounter'''
** Zz'Dtri, the [[drow]] wizard. An obvious copy of [[Drizzt]], he was hauled off by the lawyers of [[Wizards of the Coast]] for being an obvious [[Drizzt]] copy. [[Wat|Yes, that happened]]. Later returned ([[Wat|because he was a parody, not a copy, protected speech bitches!]]) and clashed with V using all the interim levels to tailor his build just to fighting the wizard. This did him no good against Durkon, the party cleric, particularly with that vampire strength boost. Currently dead
** Hilgya Firehelm, a dwarven cleric of [[Troll|Loki]] who fucked, fought and fled from Durkon during the Guild's first encounter with the Order, in that approximate order. Reappeared after over 1000 strips to save the party from a vampire horde in the nick of time. Has a self-serving memory, believing everyone around her is selfish when she's one of the most selfish beings on the planet. Brought Durkon's baby into the battle [[Dwarf_Fortress|like a true dorf]].
** Yikyik the [[kobold]] ranger. Was beheaded by Belkar and turned into a [[hat]]. Currently dead.
* '''Second Encounter'''
** Pompey the [[half-elf]] wizard (get it? Pompey and Vaarsuvius are named after Pompeii and Vesuvius! We're clever). Had a crush on Roy's sister and teamed up with the Linear Guild so that he could have her, but he was defeated, imprisoned, and then escaped, signing on with Leeky. Has not been seen since.
** Leeky Windstaff the [[gnome]] [[druid]]. Turned into a giant monster and rampaged through a city (get it? [[CoDzilla]]!) before being defeated by Durkon and escaping alongside Pompey.
** Yokyok, son of Yikyik. A parody of [[The Princess Bride|Inigo Montoya]] who attacked Belkar for... oh do I even have to say it? Belkar was under a curse preventing him from killing, so he set a tavern full of [[adventurer]]s loose on Yokyok, then turned his head into a nacho repository. Currently dead.
* '''Third Encounter'''
** Yukyuk. Yet another kobold: this one was dominated (the status effect, mind you) by V and got used as a litter box ([[Sick| without being decapitate first!]]) and living trap-springer before dying in a horrific accident protecting a [[cat]].
* '''Fourth Encounter'''
* The fourth encounter with the Linear Guild included Tarquin and Malack (as below). It also involved Chancellor Kilkil (Urd, a Kobold variant... with wings! Its in the 2nd ed MM), who is more a clerk and personal assistant than a combatant, though he is a hyper-competent bureaucrat and a flying calculator.
** General Tarquin, a human [[warlord]], general of the Empress of Blood and de facto ruler of the Empire of Blood. Despite the suggestion of him being aligned to [[Khorne]] this is far from the truth: he is a friendly and cheerful person like his son Elan, but at the same time is outright ruthless and has the evil smarts like his other son, Nale. He is the ultimate in [[Alignment|Lawful Evil]]: he understands that his rule is not eternal, but his legacy can be. As such he is forging an entire continent into his empire: even when he is defeated (which he holds as being inevitable) he gets to be a legend. Though he's not very keen on the "being stabbed by a hero" part, it would mean he gets to live like a god for who-knows-how-long, and only the last few minutes sucked. [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html The man himself explains it best.] On the other hand, given his Lawful obsession with forcing the messy chaos of reality to conform to the outline of a neat little story, refusing to conform to the character archetype he expects you to fill (e.g. playing a [[bard]] when he thinks you're the protagonist) causes him to quickly fly into a fit of [[butthurt]] rage to put [[That Guy]] to shame and start [[railroading]]. On joining the Linear Guild he disguised himself as Thog.
** Minister Malack is a lizardfolk (possibly yuan-ti) cleric of Nergal and serves as adviser to the Empress of Blood and Tarquin. Is actually a [[vampire]] and has just turned Durkon into one. Like his former adventuring companion Tarquin, Malack is an affable and well-spoken person and is the heir to the Empire of Blood after Tarquin's death. When he does become the next Emperor he plans to [[Emperor|sacrifice a thousand people to his god per day]] [[grimdark|in rooms that serve as gas chambers/abattoirs, the sacrifices generated by a continent's worth of people living and dying for the glory of Nergal]] (although the writer later stated he means meat packing rooms as he plans to use the thousand sacrifices to feed to himself and his vampiric spawn, who'll be running the empire). Like I said, real nice guy. Has a beef with Nale for killing three of his "children", but set aside his grudge at Tarquin's behest. Even then he is a honorable person: when he promises not to kill someone despite it serving his goals, he does so. A very different sort of Lawful Evil, but still fits. Perma-dead, having been killed by Nale with sunlight, which has a disintegration effect on vampires.

===Other Characters===
* Miko Miyazaki, an absolutely and fanatically [[Lawful Stupid]] [[Paladin]]. None of the other paladins like her so they send her on far away missions as much as possible. She is sent to capture the Order of the Stick after they destroy one of the gates containing the Snarl and though Roy initially is attracted to her he later realizes that she really is a horrible unlikeable person. She is so convinced that she is a good person who does everything right due to being a servant of the gods that she becomes increasingly detached from reality as the evidences stacks up that she is doing wrong. After losing her paladin powers, she tries to redeem herself by sacrificing herself to save the day, but [[Fail|the only thing she accomplished was making the situation worse]].
* O-Chul. The Lawful [[Awesome]] Paladin. He is everything that a paladin should be and everything that Miko isn't. He is reasonable and a nice guy. While captured by Team Evil, he is put through all kinds of tortures both for Xykon's amusement and Redcloak trying to get information and survives all of them, never giving up defying them. During his time as a prisoner he manages to befriend The Monster in the Darkness and convince him that Xykon and Redcloak are not his friends. He is another poorly optimized character. He used to be a normal Fighter so his charisma score is terrible, and thus is bad at casting his paladin spells, but has an insanely high constitution that lets him tank godly amounts of damage (he has a hit point total on par with ''young adult dragons'').

==Before You Get Butthurt About Battle Strategies...==
''Here's the thing: No matter what I draw in any battle scene, within ten minutes of posting it someone chimes in about how the characters are stupid for not executing this, that, or the other tactic. Never mind that said tactic would likely end the fight in one panel when it is my job to provide you with an entertaining battle scene. Never mind that said tactic may result in the person winning whom the plot does not need to win. Never mind that the fight may not be over yet. No, all that matters is that these characters are not living up to someone's imagined D&D tactical mastery.''

''Well, I don't give a damn anymore. The characters fight the way they fight to make an interesting page. They may make subpar decisions, I don't care. I don't spend enough time with the D&D rules anymore to eke out all of these Ultimate Killer Strategies anyway, so we're really running up against the limits of my knowledge and ability. The characters can't be better strategists than I am, and I care more about other aspects. Such strategies are usually boring to read and visually bland to look at anyway. There aren't going to be a lot of invisible save-or-die effects thrown around, because there are only so many ways I can draw characters succeeding at Fortitude saves (and then I still have to verbally explain what just happened). You should stop expecting them, because I'm not going to use them.''

''My job is to entertain, not to showcase perfect D&D tactics. If you can't be entertained by anything BUT perfect D&D tactics, that's on you.''

--A quote from the author

It helps that Burlew has never revealed what anyone's level is, specifically so he can fudge the rules. To pull a random example, Vaar snags 13 people in Mass Enlarge Person, implying they're level 13, only to immediately use four Wiz6 spells (Mass Bull's Strength, Mass Bear's Endurance, two Disintegrate's) in less than two minutes -- level 13 Wizards should only be able use two Wiz6 spells per day.

In spite of this, however, fans have speculated extensively on the levels, abilities, and feats of various characters, and have managed to create a [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?545476-Class-and-Level-Geekery-XV-What-s-the-Damage-of-a-Thrown-Pineapple fairly comprehensive list] of these, usually accurate to 1-2 levels.

== Links ==
* [[Skub]]
* [http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html The website]
* [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick The TVTropes article] where you can see all the clichés Burlew uses/makes fun of.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Webcomics]]

Order of the Stick

2019-07-10T03:16:04Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* The Linear Guild */

{{/co/}}
[[Image:PostersTogetherBig.jpg|center|500px]]

{{Topquote|Holy shit, this is still ongoing?!|Every anon, at some point}}

'''Order of the Stick''' (also known as '''WORDSWORDSWORDS'''), written and drawn by Rich Burlew, is by far one of the most popular /tg/-related [[webcomic]]s in existence. Essentially, it's about a party of classic [[Dungeons & Dragons]]-style adventurers on an epic, high fantasy adventure, except they are well aware they're actually in a game (which isn't to say that they break the fourth wall, but rather they casually discuss things like saving throws and to-hit bonuses as though they were common knowledge). However, it quickly grew from a very funny parody of D&D to serious pastiche of fantasy in general (this is known by our friends at TVTropes as [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CerebusSyndrome Cerebus Syndrome]), gaining a complicated-yet-interesting plot, a host of characters from all sides of the [[Alignment]] table, while retaining the humourous tone the comic is known for.

This has caused OotS to devolve into a [[skub]] topic, at least on /tg/. Half of /tg/ thinks the comic has shit pacing, poor jokes, and an army of sycophants who refuse to see that everything has gone wrong, whereas the other half of /tg/ believes that the comic is just as funny as it always was, and with better plotlines than most fantasy novels to boot. Many fa/tg/uys also complain that the comic is "too simplistic" art-wise, given it has a strict stick-figure aesthetic. Burlew has proven his drawing chops on many occasions and notes in the FAQ that the stick-figures "bring the right air of humor to the strip," not to mention the fact that the style, for better or worse, has become the comic's hallmark and can't be changed now. Also, compared to [[Servants of the Imperium]], the later OotS strips are pure gold. That being said, Burlew is a fan of the "wall of text" method of comic design, and frequently seems like he'd be much happier just writing a book.

In other words, standard skub stuff, and has given rise to the fa/tg/uy project [[thog edits]], redos of the comic to eliminate the words and in the process twist the dialogue into something dirty.

[[Image:Miko_ready_to_smite.png|thumb|Spared no expense on the art budget for this climax]]

Rich Burlew's only other claim to fame is coming in second place (or, as he likes to call it, "first loser") in [[Wizards of the Coast]]'s "design a campaign setting" contest. He lost to Keith Baker's [[Eberron]]. This is either a great thing or a terrible thing, depending on how you feel about Eberron. Unfortunately, WotC kept all rights to the setting and put the designers under NDA, so we'll never actually see his entry, as it seems they locked it in a darkened room and forgot about it.

The comic has been put into a number of printed volumes, with the latest volumes funded via [[Kickstarter]].

==The Cast==
Of course a D&D story would be nothing without [[PC]]s, [[BBEG]]s and a supporting cast of [[NPC]]s. They are on all sides of the spectrum between [[skub]] tier and god tier.

{{spoilers}}

===The Party===
The titular Order of the Stick, named first for the artstyle, then retconned into a nearby object. All of their builds are purposely terrible (on Burlew's part) to both A) make the fight scenes last longer than two panels, and to B) emphasize reliance on clever tactics and teamwork to win. The exception, impossibly enough, being Elan.

* Roy Greenhilt, the party's [[fighter]] and leader. Despite avoiding the whole "INT is a fighter's [[dump stat]]" thing, he still spends most of his time hitting things with his green-hilted (get it?) greatsword, putting up with the party's bullshit and, for a good chunk of the comic, being dead. Comes up with the plans and gives out the orders too, if they'd <s>down</s>upgraded to 4e he'd be a [[warlord]]. Or a tactician archetype in [[Pathfinder]]. Or a battle-master in [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition|5e]]. Or... let's just say that subsequent editions were much kinder to his archetype than the one he's playing in. There was a gag about him not going for [[warblade]], a class he'd probably excel at, because his bitter old wizard father didn't want to shell out for a ''doctorate'' from Fighter College.
* Haley Starshine, the party's [[rogue]] and second in command. [[Blood Ravens|Will steal everything that isn't bolted down, then steal the bolts, followed by stealing the thing that was bolted down.]] Has an actual reason to do so: to pay off her father's life-sentence in prison. Then, when she met him he wanted nothing to do with her because she was snackin' on the rapier of the son of the man who put him there. Welp. Wields a bow and is comfortable with fighting as dirty as possible to win. Despite her greed and cynicism she is a loyal party member, and manages to stay "[[Chaotic Good]]-ish." Dating Elan after a messy incident involving her being unable to speak for about a hundred comics and him meeting a Final Fantasy character.
* Elan, the party's [[bard]]. He is the living embodiment of every derpy character you ever rolled up just to screw with your friends. He's as thick as a loaf of fine [[meatbread]], sucks at barding duties (often resulting in "wacky" hijinks) and has a [[prestige class]] that forces him to make bad puns as he fights. As the story goes on, he starts to suck less, and it helps that he's the ONLY member of the team with an optimized build. (Maxed CHA for everything bard-related, plus that prestige class adds it to his attack and damage, meaning that he doesn't suffer from [[MAD]] as much as a typical bard.) Apparently, if Haley can be trusted, that maxed CHA is worth a good deal "under the hood." As a bard consciously aware that he exists in a fantasy story, Elan is the character most, "narratively equipped," to deal with the environment and is often able to use rules of traditional storytelling to predict, even manipulate events. In other words, he's a metagamer.
* Durkon Thundershield, the [[dwarf]]en [[cleric]]. Gruff, dutiful and honorable, as all good dwarves should be. Pretty stereotypical and solid in his support of the team. Has an accent so thick that it affects the way his dialouge is spelled, despite no other dwarf family in the comic talking like him. His clan had a vision that his return would herald a great cataclysm, so they sent him away and told him they'd tell him when he could come back and never did, because no one in fantasy stories has ever read a fantasy story. Was turned into a [[vampire]] for 200 strips until he got staked, died, got resurrected, died ''again'' 30 seconds later after an ill-advised marriage proposal, then got resurrected for real. Received a hell of a plot dump from Thor while dead, and was tasked with convincing Redcloak to betray his dark god and save the world(s). Also now wields a powerful lightning hammer which Thor told him where to find.
* Belkar Bitterleaf, the chaotic evil [[halfling]] [[multiclassing|multiclassed]] [[ranger]]-[[barbarian]]. A hard-drinking, hard-fighting, hard-fucking killing machine, Belkar is one of the best characters in the comic. [[Murderhobo|He kills what he can't fuck and he fucks what he can't kill, sometimes fucking things before he kills them]] (but not the other way around, ew). His style of fighting involves stabbing as many dudes as possible with as many knives as possible. Despite being able to steamroll regular enemies, his low Will means that any spellcasters he faces will kick his ass, and his effed-up build (barbarian-ranger is an unhappy marriage where XP is concerned, and his low STR means he mostly has to kill minions with tricky maneuvering) means that bigger people (like Roy) can still kick his ass. Still, he is murderously awesome and the PC with the biggest body count thus far. Has a pet cat called Mr. Scruffy, hurting him will cause Belkar to rip you inside out,and vice versa. Also has a motherfucking allosaurus (currently polymorphed into a small lizard).
* Vaarsuvius, the [[elven]] [[wizard]]. V's undescribed gender is something of a running joke -emphasis on "something"- in the series (which makes you wonder what their voice must sound like for it to be of no help in the matter). V's primary M.O. is "fireball", if that doesn't work it's "more fireball" (fitting, given their name). Other forms of blaster magic may or may not be prominent. The fact that this is probably the worst way to play a wizard in no way diminishes the fact that V is easily the most powerful member of the Order by a country-mile, able to turn the tide of entire battles unless some convenient dramatic device takes them out of the action for a while, which it often has. While they used to possess an ego befitting both an elf and a wizard, V was recently taken down a notch when they were forced to sell their soul to a [[Tanar'ri|demon]], [[Baatezu|devil]] and [[Yugoloth|daemon]] (all at the same time) to save their spouse and (adopted) children from a black [[dragon]]. Is currently flipping the fuck out for having [[powergamer|killed up to a quarter of all black dragons in existence]] alongside their direct non-blood related (read: non-dragon) families in order to posthumously spite said dragon.

===Antagonists===
====Team Evil====
* Xykon the [[lich]]. An [[epic]] level [[sorcerer]], Xykon is bored out of his skull and as such toys around with holes in reality that serve as gates to [[Warp|a dimension containing a world-eating snarl]]. Doesn't like [[wizard]]s because they were condescending to him during his life, and likes beating the shit out of them with his ability to cast spells over and over again (like Energy Drain). He is wholly and unapologetically evil, and [[Eldrad|kind of a dick]], but he's still kind of funny because his charisma is through the fucking roof.
* Redcloak the [[goblin]] [[cleric]]. Xykon's main henchgoblin and ruler of a major goblin tribe, Redcloak is the guy who's told to "get it done". And hoo boy, does he get it done. He murders the resistance to his people's occupation of a major city, has another of Xykon's servants eaten by her own wights and reveals that he was using Xykon from the beginning for the good of his people, all in the span of a half dozen pages. Has a lot of backstory in the prequel comic, but you have to pay for it so f*#$ that noise.
* The Monster in the Darkness is a creature of many mysteries and few truths. All we know that it has two yellow eyes and acts even stupider than Elan. It also is stupidly powerful: it can punch people so far they are launched into the sky; it stomping on the ground is powerful enough to cause localized earthquakes; and it can teleport people with but a word and a thought. Has the personality of a child (a non-evil one). After extended contact with O-Chul, has begun to think for himself, discovering, to his own surprise, that he is actually ''extremely'' intelligent and doesn't ''want'' Team Evil to win, and so has begun subtly undermining their efforts from within, something that has been enormously successful because none of his teammates see it coming or expect him to do ''anything'' smart. [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?488773-Summon-MitD-IX-Roll-on-Section-3a If you think you've got the brains, feel free to jump on the ride that never ends and try to follow the breadcrumbs and figure out what he is.] We'll wait. [[Troll| Remember to only pick ones with Trenchant Political Analysis as a listed special attack!]]
* Tsukiko, a mystic theurge. A necrophile necromancer with a crush on Xykon. She was in charge of the wight brigade until she discovered Redcloak's plan to double-cross Xykon, which got her eaten by her own wights for her troubles.
====The Linear Guild====
* Started out as evil counterparts of the PCs (which was deliberately done by their leader, Elan's twin brother Nale (get it? Nale is Elan backwards!)). The Guild consists of three core members plus two other slots that keep having replacements due to death or quitting:
** Nale, a Fighter-Rogue-Sorcerer multiclass specializing in enchantment, which is, if you didn't notice, basically a [[bard]] only [[Tzeentch|more complicated]] and capable of being Lawful Evil. Is permanently dead; he was stabbed by his father and was subsequently disintegrated for murdering Malack and rejecting his father's attempt to reconcile.
** Sabine, a [[succubus]] and Nale's lover with whom she shares a deep and fulfilling relationship based on human sacrifice. Is currently stuck somewhere in the Lower Planes, trying to get revenge on her boyfriend's murderer, and since Thog is also probably dead she the last member not to die or quit.
** Thog, a [[Half-Orc]] [[barbarian]] who's part of the Dumbass Triumvirate alongside Elan and the Monster in the Darkness. He talks like the Incredible Hulk. Although unconfirmed, he likely is dead after Roy tricked him into collapsing a ceiling on himself, burying him under a ton of rubble.
* On the four different occasions the teams have clashed the Linear Guild employed a subset of the following people:
* '''First Encounter'''
** Zz'Dtri, the [[drow]] wizard. An obvious copy of [[Drizzt]], he was hauled off by the lawyers of [[Wizards of the Coast]] for being an obvious [[Drizzt]] copy. [[Wat|Yes, that happened]]. Later returned ([[Wat|because he was a parody, not a copy, protected speech bitches!]]) and clashed with V using all the interim levels to tailor his build just to fighting the wizard. This did him no good against Durkon, the party cleric, particularly with that vampire strength boost. Currently dead
** Hilgya Firehelm, a dwarven cleric of [[Troll|Loki]] who fucked, fought and fled from Durkon during the Guild's first encounter with the Order, in that approximate order. Reappeared after over 1000 strips to save the party from a vampire horde in the nick of time. Has a self-serving memory, believing everyone around her is selfish when she's one of the most selfish beings on the planet. Brought Durkon's baby into the battle [[Dwarf_Fortress|like a true dorf]].
** Yikyik the [[kobold]] ranger. Was beheaded by Belkar and turned into a [[hat]]. Currently dead.
* '''Second Encounter'''
** Pompey the [[half-elf]] wizard (get it? Pompey and Vaarsuvius are named after Pompeii and Vesuvius! We're clever). Had a crush on Roy's sister and teamed up with the Linear Guild so that he could have her, but he was defeated, imprisoned, and then escaped, signing on with Leeky. Has not been seen since.
** Leeky Windstaff the [[gnome]] [[druid]]. Turned into a giant monster and rampaged through a city (get it? [[CoDzilla]]!) before being defeated by Durkon and escaping alongside Pompey.
** Yokyok, son of Yikyik. A parody of [[The Princess Bride|Inigo Montoya]] who attacked Belkar for... oh do I even have to say it? Belkar was under a curse preventing him from killing, so he set a tavern full of [[adventurer]]s loose on Yokyok, then turned his head into a nacho repository. Currently dead.
* '''Third Encounter'''
** Yukyuk. Yet another kobold: this one was dominated (the status effect, mind you) by V and got used as a litter box ([[Sick| without being decapitate first!]]) and living trap-springer before dying in a horrific accident protecting a [[cat]].
* '''Fourth Encounter'''
* The fourth encounter with the Linear Guild included Tarquin and Malack (as below). It also involved Chancellor Kilkil (Urd, a Kobold variant... with wings! Its in the 2nd ed MM), who is more a clerk and personal assistant than a combatant, though he is a hyper-competent bureaucrat and a flying calculator.
** General Tarquin, a human [[warlord]], general of the Empress of Blood and de facto ruler of the Empire of Blood. Despite the suggestion of him being aligned to [[Khorne]] this is far from the truth: he is a friendly and cheerful person like his son Elan, but at the same time is outright ruthless and has the evil smarts like his other son, Nale. He is the ultimate in [[Alignment|Lawful Evil]]: he understands that his rule is not eternal, but his legacy can be. As such he is forging an entire continent into his empire: even when he is defeated (which he holds as being inevitable) he gets to be a legend. Though he's not very keen on the "being stabbed by a hero" part, it would mean he gets to live like a god for who-knows-how-long, and only the last few minutes sucked. [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html The man himself explains it best.] On the other hand, given his Lawful obsession with forcing the messy chaos of reality to conform to the outline of a neat little story, refusing to conform to the character archetype he expects you to fill (e.g. playing a [[bard]] when he thinks you're the protagonist) causes him to quickly fly into a fit of [[butthurt]] rage to put [[That Guy]] to shame and start [[railroading]]. On joining the Linear Guild he disguised himself as Thog.
** Minister Malack is a lizardfolk (possibly yuan-ti) cleric of Nergal and serves as adviser to the Empress of Blood and Tarquin. Is actually a [[vampire]] and has just turned Durkon into one. Like his former adventuring companion Tarquin, Malack is an affable and well-spoken person and is the heir to the Empire of Blood after Tarquin's death. When he does become the next Emperor he plans to [[Emperor|sacrifice a thousand people to his god per day]] [[grimdark|in rooms that serve as gas chambers/abattoirs, the sacrifices generated by a continent's worth of people living and dying for the glory of Nergal]] (although the writer later stated he means meat packing rooms as he plans to use the thousand sacrifices to feed to himself and his vampiric spawn, who'll be running the empire). Like I said, real nice guy. Has a beef with Nale for killing three of his "children", but set aside his grudge at Tarquin's behest. Even then he is a honorable person: when he promises not to kill someone despite it serving his goals, he does so. A very different sort of Lawful Evil, but still fits. Perma-dead, having been killed by Nale with sunlight, which has a disintegration effect on vampires.

===Other Characters===
* Miko Miyazaki, an absolutely and fanatically [[Lawful Stupid]] [[Paladin]]. None of the other paladins like her so they send her on far away missions as much as possible. She is sent to capture the Order of the Stick after they destroy one of the gates containing the Snarl and though Roy initially is attracted to her he later realizes that she really is a horrible unlikeable person. She is so convinced that she is a good person who does everything right due to being a servant of the gods that she becomes increasingly detached from reality as the evidences stacks up that she is doing wrong. After losing her paladin powers, she tries to redeem herself by sacrificing herself to save the day, but [[Fail|the only thing she accomplished was making the situation worse]].
* O-Chul. The Lawful [[Awesome]] Paladin. He is everything that a paladin should be and everything that Miko isn't. He is reasonable and a nice guy. While captured by Team Evil, he is put through all kinds of tortures both for Xykon's amusement and Redcloak trying to get information and survives all of them, never giving up defying them. During his time as a prisoner he manages to befriend The Monster in the Darkness and convince him that Xykon and Redcloak are not his friends. He is another poorly optimized character. He used to be a normal Fighter so his charisma score is terrible, and thus is bad at casting his paladin spells, but has an insanely high constitution that lets him tank godly amounts of damage (he has a hit point total on par with ''young adult dragons'').

==Before You Get Butthurt About Battle Strategies...==
''Here's the thing: No matter what I draw in any battle scene, within ten minutes of posting it someone chimes in about how the characters are stupid for not executing this, that, or the other tactic. Never mind that said tactic would likely end the fight in one panel when it is my job to provide you with an entertaining battle scene. Never mind that said tactic may result in the person winning whom the plot does not need to win. Never mind that the fight may not be over yet. No, all that matters is that these characters are not living up to someone's imagined D&D tactical mastery.''

''Well, I don't give a damn anymore. The characters fight the way they fight to make an interesting page. They may make subpar decisions, I don't care. I don't spend enough time with the D&D rules anymore to eke out all of these Ultimate Killer Strategies anyway, so we're really running up against the limits of my knowledge and ability. The characters can't be better strategists than I am, and I care more about other aspects. Such strategies are usually boring to read and visually bland to look at anyway. There aren't going to be a lot of invisible save-or-die effects thrown around, because there are only so many ways I can draw characters succeeding at Fortitude saves (and then I still have to verbally explain what just happened). You should stop expecting them, because I'm not going to use them.''

''My job is to entertain, not to showcase perfect D&D tactics. If you can't be entertained by anything BUT perfect D&D tactics, that's on you.''

--A quote from the author

It helps that Burlew has never revealed what anyone's level is, specifically so he can fudge the rules. To pull a random example, Vaar snags 13 people in Mass Enlarge Person, implying they're level 13, only to immediately use four Wiz6 spells (Mass Bull's Strength, Mass Bear's Endurance, two Disintegrate's) in less than two minutes -- level 13 Wizards should only be able use two Wiz6 spells per day.

In spite of this, however, fans have speculated extensively on the levels, abilities, and feats of various characters, and have managed to create a [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?545476-Class-and-Level-Geekery-XV-What-s-the-Damage-of-a-Thrown-Pineapple fairly comprehensive list] of these, usually accurate to 1-2 levels.

== Links ==
* [[Skub]]
* [http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html The website]
* [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick The TVTropes article] where you can see all the clichés Burlew uses/makes fun of.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Webcomics]]

Order of the Stick

2019-07-10T03:04:26Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* Team Evil and other antagonists */

{{/co/}}
[[Image:PostersTogetherBig.jpg|center|500px]]

{{Topquote|Holy shit, this is still ongoing?!|Every anon, at some point}}

'''Order of the Stick''' (also known as '''WORDSWORDSWORDS'''), written and drawn by Rich Burlew, is by far one of the most popular /tg/-related [[webcomic]]s in existence. Essentially, it's about a party of classic [[Dungeons & Dragons]]-style adventurers on an epic, high fantasy adventure, except they are well aware they're actually in a game (which isn't to say that they break the fourth wall, but rather they casually discuss things like saving throws and to-hit bonuses as though they were common knowledge). However, it quickly grew from a very funny parody of D&D to serious pastiche of fantasy in general (this is known by our friends at TVTropes as [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CerebusSyndrome Cerebus Syndrome]), gaining a complicated-yet-interesting plot, a host of characters from all sides of the [[Alignment]] table, while retaining the humourous tone the comic is known for.

This has caused OotS to devolve into a [[skub]] topic, at least on /tg/. Half of /tg/ thinks the comic has shit pacing, poor jokes, and an army of sycophants who refuse to see that everything has gone wrong, whereas the other half of /tg/ believes that the comic is just as funny as it always was, and with better plotlines than most fantasy novels to boot. Many fa/tg/uys also complain that the comic is "too simplistic" art-wise, given it has a strict stick-figure aesthetic. Burlew has proven his drawing chops on many occasions and notes in the FAQ that the stick-figures "bring the right air of humor to the strip," not to mention the fact that the style, for better or worse, has become the comic's hallmark and can't be changed now. Also, compared to [[Servants of the Imperium]], the later OotS strips are pure gold. That being said, Burlew is a fan of the "wall of text" method of comic design, and frequently seems like he'd be much happier just writing a book.

In other words, standard skub stuff, and has given rise to the fa/tg/uy project [[thog edits]], redos of the comic to eliminate the words and in the process twist the dialogue into something dirty.

[[Image:Miko_ready_to_smite.png|thumb|Spared no expense on the art budget for this climax]]

Rich Burlew's only other claim to fame is coming in second place (or, as he likes to call it, "first loser") in [[Wizards of the Coast]]'s "design a campaign setting" contest. He lost to Keith Baker's [[Eberron]]. This is either a great thing or a terrible thing, depending on how you feel about Eberron. Unfortunately, WotC kept all rights to the setting and put the designers under NDA, so we'll never actually see his entry, as it seems they locked it in a darkened room and forgot about it.

The comic has been put into a number of printed volumes, with the latest volumes funded via [[Kickstarter]].

==The Cast==
Of course a D&D story would be nothing without [[PC]]s, [[BBEG]]s and a supporting cast of [[NPC]]s. They are on all sides of the spectrum between [[skub]] tier and god tier.

{{spoilers}}

===The Party===
The titular Order of the Stick, named first for the artstyle, then retconned into a nearby object. All of their builds are purposely terrible (on Burlew's part) to both A) make the fight scenes last longer than two panels, and to B) emphasize reliance on clever tactics and teamwork to win. The exception, impossibly enough, being Elan.

* Roy Greenhilt, the party's [[fighter]] and leader. Despite avoiding the whole "INT is a fighter's [[dump stat]]" thing, he still spends most of his time hitting things with his green-hilted (get it?) greatsword, putting up with the party's bullshit and, for a good chunk of the comic, being dead. Comes up with the plans and gives out the orders too, if they'd <s>down</s>upgraded to 4e he'd be a [[warlord]]. Or a tactician archetype in [[Pathfinder]]. Or a battle-master in [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition|5e]]. Or... let's just say that subsequent editions were much kinder to his archetype than the one he's playing in. There was a gag about him not going for [[warblade]], a class he'd probably excel at, because his bitter old wizard father didn't want to shell out for a ''doctorate'' from Fighter College.
* Haley Starshine, the party's [[rogue]] and second in command. [[Blood Ravens|Will steal everything that isn't bolted down, then steal the bolts, followed by stealing the thing that was bolted down.]] Has an actual reason to do so: to pay off her father's life-sentence in prison. Then, when she met him he wanted nothing to do with her because she was snackin' on the rapier of the son of the man who put him there. Welp. Wields a bow and is comfortable with fighting as dirty as possible to win. Despite her greed and cynicism she is a loyal party member, and manages to stay "[[Chaotic Good]]-ish." Dating Elan after a messy incident involving her being unable to speak for about a hundred comics and him meeting a Final Fantasy character.
* Elan, the party's [[bard]]. He is the living embodiment of every derpy character you ever rolled up just to screw with your friends. He's as thick as a loaf of fine [[meatbread]], sucks at barding duties (often resulting in "wacky" hijinks) and has a [[prestige class]] that forces him to make bad puns as he fights. As the story goes on, he starts to suck less, and it helps that he's the ONLY member of the team with an optimized build. (Maxed CHA for everything bard-related, plus that prestige class adds it to his attack and damage, meaning that he doesn't suffer from [[MAD]] as much as a typical bard.) Apparently, if Haley can be trusted, that maxed CHA is worth a good deal "under the hood." As a bard consciously aware that he exists in a fantasy story, Elan is the character most, "narratively equipped," to deal with the environment and is often able to use rules of traditional storytelling to predict, even manipulate events. In other words, he's a metagamer.
* Durkon Thundershield, the [[dwarf]]en [[cleric]]. Gruff, dutiful and honorable, as all good dwarves should be. Pretty stereotypical and solid in his support of the team. Has an accent so thick that it affects the way his dialouge is spelled, despite no other dwarf family in the comic talking like him. His clan had a vision that his return would herald a great cataclysm, so they sent him away and told him they'd tell him when he could come back and never did, because no one in fantasy stories has ever read a fantasy story. Was turned into a [[vampire]] for 200 strips until he got staked, died, got resurrected, died ''again'' 30 seconds later after an ill-advised marriage proposal, then got resurrected for real. Received a hell of a plot dump from Thor while dead, and was tasked with convincing Redcloak to betray his dark god and save the world(s). Also now wields a powerful lightning hammer which Thor told him where to find.
* Belkar Bitterleaf, the chaotic evil [[halfling]] [[multiclassing|multiclassed]] [[ranger]]-[[barbarian]]. A hard-drinking, hard-fighting, hard-fucking killing machine, Belkar is one of the best characters in the comic. [[Murderhobo|He kills what he can't fuck and he fucks what he can't kill, sometimes fucking things before he kills them]] (but not the other way around, ew). His style of fighting involves stabbing as many dudes as possible with as many knives as possible. Despite being able to steamroll regular enemies, his low Will means that any spellcasters he faces will kick his ass, and his effed-up build (barbarian-ranger is an unhappy marriage where XP is concerned, and his low STR means he mostly has to kill minions with tricky maneuvering) means that bigger people (like Roy) can still kick his ass. Still, he is murderously awesome and the PC with the biggest body count thus far. Has a pet cat called Mr. Scruffy, hurting him will cause Belkar to rip you inside out,and vice versa. Also has a motherfucking allosaurus (currently polymorphed into a small lizard).
* Vaarsuvius, the [[elven]] [[wizard]]. V's undescribed gender is something of a running joke -emphasis on "something"- in the series (which makes you wonder what their voice must sound like for it to be of no help in the matter). V's primary M.O. is "fireball", if that doesn't work it's "more fireball" (fitting, given their name). Other forms of blaster magic may or may not be prominent. The fact that this is probably the worst way to play a wizard in no way diminishes the fact that V is easily the most powerful member of the Order by a country-mile, able to turn the tide of entire battles unless some convenient dramatic device takes them out of the action for a while, which it often has. While they used to possess an ego befitting both an elf and a wizard, V was recently taken down a notch when they were forced to sell their soul to a [[Tanar'ri|demon]], [[Baatezu|devil]] and [[Yugoloth|daemon]] (all at the same time) to save their spouse and (adopted) children from a black [[dragon]]. Is currently flipping the fuck out for having [[powergamer|killed up to a quarter of all black dragons in existence]] alongside their direct non-blood related (read: non-dragon) families in order to posthumously spite said dragon.

===Antagonists===
====Team Evil====
* Xykon the [[lich]]. An [[epic]] level [[sorcerer]], Xykon is bored out of his skull and as such toys around with holes in reality that serve as gates to [[Warp|a dimension containing a world-eating snarl]]. Doesn't like [[wizard]]s because they were condescending to him during his life, and likes beating the shit out of them with his ability to cast spells over and over again (like Energy Drain). He is wholly and unapologetically evil, and [[Eldrad|kind of a dick]], but he's still kind of funny because his charisma is through the fucking roof.
* Redcloak the [[goblin]] [[cleric]]. Xykon's main henchgoblin and ruler of a major goblin tribe, Redcloak is the guy who's told to "get it done". And hoo boy, does he get it done. He murders the resistance to his people's occupation of a major city, has another of Xykon's servants eaten by her own wights and reveals that he was using Xykon from the beginning for the good of his people, all in the span of a half dozen pages. Has a lot of backstory in the prequel comic, but you have to pay for it so f*#$ that noise.
* The Monster in the Darkness is a creature of many mysteries and few truths. All we know that it has two yellow eyes and acts even stupider than Elan. It also is stupidly powerful: it can punch people so far they are launched into the sky; it stomping on the ground is powerful enough to cause localized earthquakes; and it can teleport people with but a word and a thought. Has the personality of a child (a non-evil one). After extended contact with O-Chul, has begun to think for himself, discovering, to his own surprise, that he is actually ''extremely'' intelligent and doesn't ''want'' Team Evil to win, and so has begun subtly undermining their efforts from within, something that has been enormously successful because none of his teammates see it coming or expect him to do ''anything'' smart. [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?488773-Summon-MitD-IX-Roll-on-Section-3a If you think you've got the brains, feel free to jump on the ride that never ends and try to follow the breadcrumbs and figure out what he is.] We'll wait. [[Troll| Remember to only pick ones with Trenchant Political Analysis as a listed special attack!]]
* Tsukiko, a mystic theurge. A necrophile necromancer with a crush on Xykon. She was in charge of the wight brigade until she discovered Redcloak's plan to double-cross Xykon, which got her eaten by her own wights for her troubles.
====The Linear Guild====
* Started out as evil counterparts of the PCs (which was deliberately done by their leader, Elan's twin brother Nale (get it? Nale is Elan backwards!)). The Guild consists of three core members plus two other slots that keep having replacements due to death or quitting:
** Nale, a Fighter-Rogue-Sorcerer multiclass specializing in enchantment, which is, if you didn't notice, basically a [[bard]] only [[Tzeentch|more complicated]] and capable of being Lawful Evil. Is permanently dead; he was stabbed by his father and was subsequently disintegrated for murdering Malack and rejecting his father's attempt to reconcile.
** Sabine, a [[succubus]] and Nale's lover with whom she shares a deep and fulfilling relationship based on human sacrifice. Is currently stuck somewhere in the Lower Planes, trying to get revenge on her boyfriend's murderer, and since Thog is also probably dead she the last member not to die or quit.
** Thog, a [[Half-Orc]] [[barbarian]] who's part of the Dumbass Triumvirate alongside Elan and the Monster in the Darkness. Although unconfirmed, he likely is dead after Roy tricked him into collapsing a ceiling on himself and burying him under a ton of rubble.
* On the four different occasions the teams have clashed the Linear Guild employed a subset of the following people:
** Zz'Dtri, the [[drow]] wizard. An obvious copy of [[Drizzt]], he was hauled off by the lawyers of [[Wizards of the Coast]] for being an obvious [[Drizzt]] copy. [[Wat|Yes, that happened]]. Later returned ([[Wat|because he was a parody, not a copy, protected speech bitches!]]) and clashed with V using all the interim levels to tailor his build just to fighting the wizard. This did him no good against Durkon, the party cleric, particularly with that vampire strength boost. Currently dead
** Hilgya Firehelm, a dwarven cleric of [[Troll|Loki]] who fucked, fought and fled from Durkon during the Guild's first encounter with the Order, in that approximate order. Reappeared after over 1000 strips to save the party from a vampire horde in the nick of time. Has a self-serving memory, believing everyone around her is selfish when she's one of the most selfish beings on the planet. Brought Durkon's baby into the battle [[Dwarf_Fortress|like a true dorf]].
** Yikyik the [[kobold]] ranger. Was beheaded by Belkar and turned into a [[hat]]. Currently dead.
* '''Second Encounter'''
** Pompey the [[half-elf]] wizard (get it? Pompey and Vaarsuvius are named after Pompeii and Vesuvius! We're clever). Had a crush on Roy's sister and teamed up with the Linear Guild so that he could have her, but he was defeated, imprisoned, and then escaped, signing on with Leeky. Has not been seen since.
** Leeky Windstaff the [[gnome]] [[druid]]. Turned into a giant monster and rampaged through a city (get it? [[CoDzilla]]!) before being defeated by Durkon and escaping alongside Pompey.
** Yokyok, son of Yikyik. A parody of [[The Princess Bride|Inigo Montoya]] who attacked Belkar for... oh do I even have to say it? Belkar was under a curse preventing him from killing, so he set a tavern full of [[adventurer]]s loose on Yokyok, then turned his head into a nacho repository. Currently dead.
* '''Third Encounter'''
** Yukyuk. Yet another kobold: this one was dominated (the status effect, mind you) by V and got used as a litter box and living trap-springer before dying in a horrific accident protecting a [[cat]]. Currently dead.
* '''Fourth Encounter'''
* The fourth encounter with the Linear Guild included Tarquin and Malack (as below). It also involved Chancellor Kilkil (Urd, a Kobold variant... with wings! Its in the 2nd ed MM), who is more a clerk and personal assistant than a combatant, though he is a hyper-competent bureaucrat and a flying calculator.
** General Tarquin, a human [[warlord]], general of the Empress of Blood and de facto ruler of the Empire of Blood. Despite the suggestion of him being aligned to [[Khorne]] this is far from the truth: he is a friendly and cheerful person like his son Elan, but at the same time is outright ruthless and has the evil smarts like his other son, Nale. He is the ultimate in [[Alignment|Lawful Evil]]: he understands that his rule is not eternal, but his legacy can be. As such he is forging an entire continent into his empire: even when he is defeated (which he holds as being inevitable) he gets to be a legend. Though he's not very keen on the "being stabbed by a hero" part, it would mean he gets to live like a god for who-knows-how-long, and only the last few minutes sucked. [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html The man himself explains it best.] On the other hand, given his Lawful obsession with forcing the messy chaos of reality to conform to the outline of a neat little story, refusing to conform to the character archetype he expects you to fill (e.g. playing a [[bard]] when he thinks you're the protagonist) causes him to quickly fly into a fit of [[butthurt]] rage to put [[That Guy]] to shame and start [[railroading]].
** Minister Malack is a lizardfolk (possibly yuan-ti) cleric of Nergal and serves as adviser to the Empress of Blood and Tarquin. Is actually a [[vampire]] and has just turned Durkon into one. Like his former adventuring companion Tarquin, Malack is an affable and well-spoken person and is the heir to the Empire of Blood after Tarquin's death. When he does become the next Emperor he plans to [[Emperor|sacrifice a thousand people to his god per day]] [[grimdark|in rooms that serve as gas chambers/abattoirs, the sacrifices generated by a continent's worth of people living and dying for the glory of Nergal]] (although the writer later stated he means meat packing rooms as he plans to use the thousand sacrifices to feed to himself and his vampiric spawn, who'll be running the empire). Like I said, real nice guy. Has a beef with Nale for killing three of his "children", but set aside his grudge at Tarquin's behest. Even then he is a honorable person: when he promises not to kill someone despite it serving his goals, he does so. A very different sort of Lawful Evil, but still fits. Perma-dead, having been killed by Nale with sunlight, which has a disintegration effect on vampires.

===Other Characters===
* Miko Miyazaki, an absolutely and fanatically [[Lawful Stupid]] [[Paladin]]. None of the other paladins like her so they send her on far away missions as much as possible. She is sent to capture the Order of the Stick after they destroy one of the gates containing the Snarl and though Roy initially is attracted to her he later realizes that she really is a horrible unlikeable person. She is so convinced that she is a good person who does everything right due to being a servant of the gods that she becomes increasingly detached from reality as the evidences stacks up that she is doing wrong. After losing her paladin powers, she tries to redeem herself by sacrificing herself to save the day, but [[Fail|the only thing she accomplished was making the situation worse]].
* O-Chul. The Lawful [[Awesome]] Paladin. He is everything that a paladin should be and everything that Miko isn't. He is reasonable and a nice guy. While captured by Team Evil, he is put through all kinds of tortures both for Xykon's amusement and Redcloak trying to get information and survives all of them, never giving up defying them. During his time as a prisoner he manages to befriend The Monster in the Darkness and convince him that Xykon and Redcloak are not his friends. He is another poorly optimized character. He used to be a normal Fighter so his charisma score is terrible, and thus is bad at casting his paladin spells, but has an insanely high constitution that lets him tank godly amounts of damage (he has a hit point total on par with ''young adult dragons'').

==Before You Get Butthurt About Battle Strategies...==
''Here's the thing: No matter what I draw in any battle scene, within ten minutes of posting it someone chimes in about how the characters are stupid for not executing this, that, or the other tactic. Never mind that said tactic would likely end the fight in one panel when it is my job to provide you with an entertaining battle scene. Never mind that said tactic may result in the person winning whom the plot does not need to win. Never mind that the fight may not be over yet. No, all that matters is that these characters are not living up to someone's imagined D&D tactical mastery.''

''Well, I don't give a damn anymore. The characters fight the way they fight to make an interesting page. They may make subpar decisions, I don't care. I don't spend enough time with the D&D rules anymore to eke out all of these Ultimate Killer Strategies anyway, so we're really running up against the limits of my knowledge and ability. The characters can't be better strategists than I am, and I care more about other aspects. Such strategies are usually boring to read and visually bland to look at anyway. There aren't going to be a lot of invisible save-or-die effects thrown around, because there are only so many ways I can draw characters succeeding at Fortitude saves (and then I still have to verbally explain what just happened). You should stop expecting them, because I'm not going to use them.''

''My job is to entertain, not to showcase perfect D&D tactics. If you can't be entertained by anything BUT perfect D&D tactics, that's on you.''

--A quote from the author

It helps that Burlew has never revealed what anyone's level is, specifically so he can fudge the rules. To pull a random example, Vaar snags 13 people in Mass Enlarge Person, implying they're level 13, only to immediately use four Wiz6 spells (Mass Bull's Strength, Mass Bear's Endurance, two Disintegrate's) in less than two minutes -- level 13 Wizards should only be able use two Wiz6 spells per day.

In spite of this, however, fans have speculated extensively on the levels, abilities, and feats of various characters, and have managed to create a [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?545476-Class-and-Level-Geekery-XV-What-s-the-Damage-of-a-Thrown-Pineapple fairly comprehensive list] of these, usually accurate to 1-2 levels.

== Links ==
* [[Skub]]
* [http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html The website]
* [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick The TVTropes article] where you can see all the clichés Burlew uses/makes fun of.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Webcomics]]

The Elder Scrolls

2019-07-09T23:26:39Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:40EF:5769:4BA2:C07B: /* Daedra */

{{/vg/}}
[[File:Crabomancy.jpg|300px|thumb|right|During the Oblivion Crisis, the Dunmer of House Redoran revived a whole city, Ald'ruhn, which was made out of shell of the Great Skar to fight on their side, as a Giant Friendly Crab. This series is hardcore like that. They still lost.]]
'''The Elder Scrolls''' is a [[video game|vidya]] series, and the setting of five main games and a number of spinoffs. Despite being a vidja, it is considered a type II game.

/tg/ also has a [[Scrollhammer|40k/WHFB hack named Scrollhammer]], [[Scrollhammer 2nd Edition|Infinity hack 2nd edition]], and a number of pen and paper games (notably [[Morrowind PNP]] and the [[Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG|UESRPG]]) set in [[The Elder Scrolls]] universe.

Its canon is notoriously unstable and intentionally 'postmodern'. Long story short: imagine every canon clusterfuck 40K has ever experienced, only there are no editions to draw a neat line between lore changes. And on at least one occasion, time has been known to break in order to allow simultaneous mutually exclusive outcomes. You know how in 40K everything is canon, but not everything is necessarily true? Here, nothing is canon and everything is true, especially when it contradicts itself, so histories are intentionally interpretive and unreliable.

==Setting==
[[File:Elder_Scrolls_Cosmology.jpg|400px|thumb|right|An approximation of the cosmology of the Elder Scrolls. Not shown: mindfucks.]]
The games mainly take place in Tamriel, a continent consisting of nine separate lands. After being [[Anal Circumference|buttfucked]] by the [[Eldar|Ayleid]] for several centuries, humanity rises up and overthrow their elven overlords, and took control themselves. Then, a few thousand years later, a man named [[God-Emperor|Tiber]] [[Alpharius|Septim]] steps up and leads his armies to [[Great Crusade|conquer all of Tamriel to found the Third Empire of Cyrodiil]]. But instead of exterminating all the elves and beast races, they were allowed to co-exist with the other races and a time of prosperity began, ending with the death of Emperor [[Star Trek|Jean-Luc Picard the 7th]], and [[Khorne|Mehrunes Dagon]] then began to fuck his way from [[Warp|Oblivion]] into Tamriel, starting a chain of events that resulted in him being kicked back into hell by the Emperor's lost son, [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Sean Bean]].

Being Sean Bean meant he died in the process, and without an Emperor the Empire began to crumble. The Aldmeri Dominion (think Ayleid 2.0) sensed their weakness and began a war to subjugate the lesser races. The Empire only barely managed to stop them, and a tense cease-fire is currently in effect. The fluff of this series, unfortunately, suffers greatly from dissonance between written background and shown foreground due to all the shit mentioned in the intro.

There's also a bunch of other weird cosomology crap involved, but it's all kind of trippy and kind of in a grey area when it comes to canon. Don't think too much about it, unless you're into that. The setting works if you don't care for it, and it works if you do. The games themselves don't acknowledge the "deeper" lore outside some in-game books and a few references thrown in some main-story dialogue.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
If you ''do'' want to read on some of the (possibly) weirdest, at times incomprehensible, yet at times original without being ~~subversive because we can~~ lore ever written, click to open.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

'''Creation of the world'''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJD-Ufi1jGk Listen to this.] This is the main theme of Morrowind, the third game in the series. It also contains the history of the cosmology of The Elder Scrolls. Listen to it, because it's a damn fine tune. But as you listen to it, you might realise there are no spoken words in this music. So how can it tell the history of a setting? Well, sit that five-dollar ass of yours down before I make [[Tzeentch|change]].

Long ago there was an entity who had fallen deeply in love, but his brother loved the same person, so he out of jealousy killed his loved one. That brought such distress to him that he fell into a coma of sorts, he "hid in a sun" and started dreaming. Thus he became The Godhead. From his dreams sprung Anu and Padomay, Stasis and Change. These "brothers" (the term used in the loosest sense here, solely on being related but different forces) accidentally created Nir, Grey maybe, personification of creation itself. But Padomay grew jealous of the relationship between Anu and Nir and out of spite decided to break her. Nir was killed and Creation was shattered, maimed for ever. Anu then fought Padomay and they were cast out of time forever, even though they still exist and will always exist as long as there is Order and Chaos. You might have thought to yourself, "Didn't that happen twice?", yes it did. Everything in the Dream mimics original Godhead and his mind, everything comes from it. In this case Anu was avatar of the Dreamer while Padomay represented Godheads brother and Nir their shared love. Same scenario of two mirror brothers, one being force of Stasis, The King and one being force of Change, The Rebel always repeats. The souls or core concepts of Anu and Padomay on which all of creation runs are called, Anui-El (IS) and Sithis (IS NOT).

Eventually from endless energies and "blood" of Anu and Padomay came the Et'ada (Et'ada means original spirit, while Ada means just generally any spirit), each representing different idea and concepts. Et'ada tended to categorize themselves with Anu or Padomay. Auri-El, Kyne and other Et'ada who lean more towards Order are Anuic while more chaotic ones like Mehrunes Dagon or Molag Bal are more Padomaic. Later after creation of realms those who were Anuic became Aedra, which means "our ancestor" in Ehlnofex, because Aedra took part in creation of the world we usually visit in TES games, while those Padomaic spirits who did not take part in creation and created their own solo realms became Daedra, which translates to "not our ancestor" (though that was not always the case, Jyggalag for example is a Daedra, but he is clearly Anuicly aligned.)

In the Dawn Era, time, in the shape of Akatosh (Ara, Auriel, Auri-El Tosh'Raka, AKHAT; take your pick), was non-linear. It flowed freely wherever it wanted, without direction, form of shape. In this temporal soup floated the souls of the proto-Mer. Think pea soup, except with millions of Ada of all sorts instead of peas. Time, in this form, was a single point. It was called the Ur-Tower, Ada-Mantia. Except it was not really a point or a tower, but more of a sound.

''Bom. (0:00 to 0:01 of the song)''

The Et'Ada saw it, and it was good. Except for one. A being born from Padomay who wanted no name, but eventually came to be first known as Lorkhan (LKHAN, Shor, Sep, Shezarr, maybe even Shepard). Having little interest with the rest of the Et'Ada's activities, or more likely inactivity, he spent his time wandering the Aurbis (all of existence), eventually coming to the very edge. He saw the universe, shaped like a wheel with eight spokes. Then he looked at the wheel from another perspective, and it looked like a Tower, a perfect line. An I.

"I."

This was his first word, and he would never, ever forget it. He understood everything right then and there, all of creation and its true nature was revealed to him.

Wanting to share this revelation with the other Ada but knowing that none of them would be able to comprehend it as they were, he came up with a plan for a creation and showed it to Magnus, The Grand Architect. Magnus went along with the plan and recruited the help of the Et'ada that we know as Aedra today: Akatosh, Dibella, Julianos, Kynareth, Mara, Stendarr, Zenithar and many other lesser spirits that you probably never heard of to serve as the basis of their creation. Except that they did not know this last part, Lorkhan had fooled them. Their divinity was drained into the creation, or re-creation of long shattered Nir, Nirn was born. When they discovered they were tricked the Et'Ada were [[RAGE|not amused]]. Magnus buggered off into infinity along with his servants, tearing through the edge of Mundus and creating The Sun and The Stars in the process...yeah, everything you see in sky is a giant non euclidean portal to realm of infinite energy, the original crib of Et'ada, The Aetherius. Others gave Lorkhan his due: [[RIP AND TEAR|Trinimac tore his heart out and Auriel(Elven aspect of Akatosh) shot it out over the sea]], where it landed in a spot and created a crater that would gain the moniker "Red Mountain". The halves of Lorkhan's body became the moons Masser and Secunda, [[Emperor|the last visible remnants of a corpse god.]] But this was [[just as planned]], throughout the whole thing the Heart of Lorkhan was laughing at them like a maniac, because Red Mountain was Red Tower, the second Tower, and the beat of his heart would be added to the sound of Akatosh. His Heart would become the prison for The Dragon God of Time.

''Bom bom. (0:01 to 0:07 of the song)''

This completely, utterly and irrevocably buttfucked spacetime. Because there now was a second point in existence, time could no longer flow anywhere it wanted and had to flow from Akatosh to Lorkhan. With time becoming linear, Nirn could start to grow. Aedra were drained and "dying", so they had to reproduce, create worshipers or someone that could sustain them. Slowly Ehlnofey, the "Earth Bones", Ada of all forms and shapes, some descendants of crazy reproduction, started popping up. Some created simple truths and laws for Nirn, for example gravity, others reproduced more, creating less energized spirits that slowly stabilized in different ways, slowly becoming mortal. They are ancestors of Humans (Men) and Elves (Mer). These Ehlnofey fortified their borders from the chaos outside, hid their pocket of calm, and attempted to live on as before. Other Ehlnofey arrived on Nirn scattered amid the confused jumble of the shattered worlds, wandering and finding each other over the years. Eventually, the wandering Ehlnofey found the hidden land of Old Ehlnofey, and were amazed and happy to find their kin and a comfy place, built by them. The wandering Ehlnofey expected to be welcomed into the peaceful realm, but the Old Ehlnofey being arrogant douchebags, refused to accept their kin. Anywho, war broke out between them and raged across the whole of Nirn and sunk large part of planet in ocean. Old Ehlofney (the asshole ones), who primarly lived in Tamriel, became Elves (gee, you didn't expect that, did you?), while their kin on other continents became Humans (Yokudans, Atmorans and Akaviri/Tsaesci).

''Bom bom. (0:07 to 0:39 of the song)''

The Mer, one of the first to mortalize were not [[RAGE|not pleased]] by this. They blamed Lorkhan for their predicament, naming him the Doom Drum, bringer of mortality, death and the herald of all misfortune. But they made the best out of the situation, and the races of Mer prospered. New Towers came into existence, one by one: Walk-Brass Tower, White-Gold Tower, Snow-Throat Tower, Crystal-Like-Law, Orchalc, Khajit and Tree-Sap.

''Bom bom. (0:39 to 1:19 of the song)''

But, as time went on (something new back then), more and more happened. New peoples stood up. Empires were founded and fell. The races of Men were discovered, the beast races prospered, and the Empires of Men were founded.

''Bom bom. (1:19 to 1:42 of the song)''

Yet nothing is eternal. The Thalmor, the ruling faction of the High Elves, desires nothing less than the destruction of the Doom Drum and all of creation so time once again becomes non-linear, mortality would get destroyed and they could return their eternal soup-floating. Removing Lorkhan would stop the music of existence, and everything once again becomes singular.

''Bom bom. Bom. (1:42 to 1:55 of the song)''

And then... silence.

'''On the importance of Towers'''

For every Tower there is a Stone, an artifact that can be used to activate or deactivate a Tower. For Ada-Mantia Tower this is the Moment of Creation itself (making it rather difficult to obtain), for Red Tower this is the Heart of Lorkhan and for White-Gold Tower this is the Amulet of Kings. The Towers serve many purpose besides keeping [[Homestuck|spacetime]] from becoming a massive alinear clusterfuck. What is this? Well, it's easier for you to do it yourself that for me to explain. Make yourself a print of the map of Tamriel further down on this page. Then get yourself a pin board and a black, a red, two brown, three white, and two green tacks. Put the map against the pinboard and do the following:

*Put the white tacks through the map in the Imperial City in Cyrodiil, the Throat of the World slightly south-east of Whiterun in Skyrim, and Crystal Tower in the Summerset Isles (northern part, west of King's Watch). (White-Gold, Snow-Throat and Crystal-Like-Law)
*Put the green tacks in Yokuda (exact location unknown) and in Valenwood (somewhere in the middle). (Orchalc and Tree-Sap)
*Put the brown tacks in Daggerfall (southernmost tip of High Rock) and in Elsweyr (again in the middle). (Walk-Brass and Khajiit)
*Put the red tack in the middle of Vvardenfell in Morrowind. (Red)
*Put the black tack on the little island deep in the Iliac Bay near High Rock. (Ata-Mantia)

That's the locations of the Towers that keep time flowing. All's fine and dandy with those holding the world together, right? Wrong! Some have been destroyed or deactivated over the course of time; three times, this was done by the player. [[Fail|Whoops]]. Remove the following:

*Red Tower (deactivated in Morrowind by you)
*White-Gold Tower (deactivated in Oblivion by you)
*Crystal Tower (destroyed in Oblivion by the Daedra)
*Khajiit Tower (Their leader, the Mane was killed, likely assassinated by Thalmor. S/He was also known as the Mane Moon which appeared when Secunda and Masser overlap)
*Tree-Sap Tower (both located in Thalmor territory, likely deactivated)
*Orichalc Tower (destroyed along with Yokuda)

Snow-Throat Tower is very much active (but damaged), but its Stone is an unknown cave. Walk-Brass Tower is very much active, but somehow it is "besieging reality well into the Fifth Era", meaning that it's in the future yet somehow active. Which is not a bad thing, since [[Titans_40k|Walk-Brass tower is a fuckhueg robot]] that has a nasty habit of fucking Time so hard it breaks. So yeah, the only things standing between Tamriel and the primordial time-grog are a mountain and one of the [[Void Dragon]]'s action figures. Unless, of course, Akavir and\or Pyandonea would be revealed to host their own Towers, which is likely since certain prominent rulers of both lands somehow managed to achieve godhood, something that Towers are very helpful at.

Removing the Tower-Tacks has another side effect: the veil between [[Materium|Nirn]] and [[Warp|Oblivion]] becomes thinner. At the time of Oblivion it had even grown so thin that the Daedra could slip into this realm on their own accord. So your actions in Morrowind partially caused the Oblivion Crisis. [[Fail|Way to go, champ.]] And what happens if you remove all the tacks? Right, your map falls off the pin board, Mundus falls into Oblivion.

Thalmor, who often claim the need to deactivate all Towers, don't really need that. Their main goal is the biggest and newest anchor of existence, Talos (essentially Lorkhan 2.0), hence why they try to ban his worship so hard and unmake him. Thalmor want him and all of mankind to be gone, believing their extermination necessary to unmake the Mundus.

'''How to Break your Dragon (Or Jump Your Shark)'''

You might have heard the phrase "Dragon Break" (both words capitalized) a few times. Simply put, this means cock-slapping Time so hard it breaks and becomes non-linear for a while. But not just any cock-slap, oh no. This is the hard part: Imagine a dick if you will. A really big dick (no, this does not make you [[gay]] <s>unless you imagine balls touching</s>). So big in fact, that even Long Dick Johnson would say "That's a big fucking dick". Right, you see it? The biggest fucking dick your feeble mind could comprehend? Good.

Now, imagine if you will, Time. How you do this is up to you: [[Doctor Who|causality, a linear progression of cause and effect]], floaty magic thingies, [[Tallarn|sand]], a clock, perhaps even a more anthropomorphic presentation in the shape of a [[loli]] or a cute [[monstergirl]]. Right. Now take the dick and slap Time in the face. Cockslap it so hard that time itself just outright breaks and loses its linearity. This is a Dragon Break. The name itself is derived from the notion that the Linearity of Time is Akatosh, who is a dragon. Hence if you break time, you "Break the Dragon". While inside a Dragon Break time is perceived to pass normally, but when one exits it might appear that a lot more or less time than you observed has passed in the rest of the world.

The first known Dragon Break occurred near the end of the Dragon War, where a trio of [[Vikings|Nords]] confronted Alduin the World-Eater, First-Born and Aspect of Akatosh that personifies the End of Time (meaning that somehow he was [[Wat|his own father]]), the leader of the [[dragon]]s. The Nords created a localized Dragon Break to fling Alduin into the future so that he wasn't their problem anymore. Mind you, they had no idea where the stuff they shunted was actually going; they just knew it disappeared things, and decided that making Alduin someone else's problem was as good as killing him, essentially causing (or at least amplifying) all the problems in the 4th Era out of laziness. [[Eldrad|What a bunch of dicks.]]

The second known Dragon Break happened during the Battle of Red Mountain, where the First Council of the [[Elf|Chimer]] went to war with the [[Dwarves|Dwemer]]. The Dwemer were working on a giant golem they called Numidium. However, it had one minor design flaw: every time someone pushed the "ON" switch it fucked the dragon right up the butt, no lube. This allowed for the multiple truths on the events that transpired on Red Mountain: Ayem, Seht and Vehk stood by their friend Nerevar as he succumbed to his wounds. Almalexia, Sotha Sil and Vivec murdered their Hortator (war-leader) Nerevar. Ayem Seht Vehk = Almalexia Sotha Sil Vivec = ALMSIVI. Everything is true, nothing is correct.

The third suspected Dragon Break occurred during the time of the Alessian Empire, when Saint Alessia freed Man from the slavery of their Mer rulers (think of her as a booby [[Sigmar]]). A cult of the Alessian Order known as Marukhati, lead by monkey man Marukh. wanted to exorcise the aspects of Auriel from Akatosh, basically substracting the Elf from the Dragon. This is said to have resulted in a thousand-and-eight year Dragon Break and might have resulted in creating more Dragon aspects than just Auri-El and Akatosh. But some claim that this was little more than [[Administratum|a fuckup of the scholars and historians of the time]].

The fourth known Dragon Break took place when [[Emperor|Tiber Septim]] unleashed Numidium on the Khajiit of Elsweyr. This included the subjugation of Elsweyr, Valenwood and eventually the Summerset Isles. Tiber Septim threatened to activate it again and have it wreck the Aldmeri Dominion, but they liked their assholes to only be violated by one another, so they too stood down. It has been recorded that Numidium was then used to destroy hostile royal families to replace them with the Emperor's puppets, likely by having it step on them.

The fifth and currently final known Dragon Break occurred during the events of Daggerfall, where it was turned on in the Iliac Bay. But because of the nature of Numidium fucking space-time a new lovehole when it activates (hence, "turned on"), a number of the states in the region obtained the "FUCK EVERYTHING" button of Numidium and pressed it at the same time. Two days of hilarity later, everyone conquered one another until the Empire ended as top dog and everyone swore fealty to the Empire. Because of the events surrounding the activation of the Dragon Break, Numidium disappeared and fell into the future, where it still stands as Walk-Brass Tower.

When the Dragon Breaks happen, Akatosh deploys the Jill to fix time so that everything does not fall apart. These minute-menders (akin to angels) tend to take the form of great wyrms who fly around and fix the little bits of time with the power of their Voice (i.e.: they shout at holes in space-time until they bitch down). If this sounds familiar to you... it is! Jills are female Dragons, while Drakes are the male ones; Dragons can't really reproduce and are born of Time/Akatosh, but it's more of a conceptual thing, with Jills having the concept of healing while Drakes have the concept of Domination. So yeah, Dragons you kill, fight, kill and soul-rob to increase your own unholy power are actually servants and minor aspects of Akatosh. So in other words, [[Adeptus Evangelion|you have been killing the heralds of a new era]].

...Or at least ''you would be if they were actually doing what they were supposed to do'' - as it turns out, some time before that first Dragon Break Alduin, who is also aspect of Akatosh himself decided that he would rather rule over the broken bits of time himself, and the dragons are bound to obey him without question. It's not certain if he did it because he knew that he wouldn't get to eat the world this time around or if he just felt like ruling the world instead of resetting it. So all of reality is increasingly fucked and the only beings who can fix it stopped giving a shit a long time ago. Gods plotting against themselves is fairly common in TES since most of the Gods are broken and crazy with tons of split personalities.

There is also the whole issue of Aka-Tusk, or simply Aka. Apparently all the Dragon Aspects of time at one point or another were Great Dragon God of Time known as Aka-Tusk, but got broken and shed millions of times, maybe even before the Marukhati Dragonbreak. We may never know because Dragonbreaks are usually at least partially retroactive.

And then there is the whole issue of Akatosh and Lorkhan being one being and Akatosh being trapped in Heart of Lorkhan literally. This timey wimey bullshit is really getting out of hand.

'''CHIM: Or "You took HOW MUCH LSD!?'''

[[File:Chim explained.png|300px|thumb|right|CHIM. It's sort of like this.]]
That muffled explosion you just heard was caused by a number of people exploding out of sheer [[rage]]. Sit tight, because this shit is meta wrapped in an enigma inside a mindfuck.

In Morrowind you can find a series of books titled the 36 Sermons of Vivec. If you pick them up and read them at face value they might appear as parts of a religious text, filled with metaphors, truths twisted throughout the ages, and copious amounts of [[Anal Circumference|buttfucking]] (no, seriously). In these books you will find several references to CHIM, The Tower, and The Ruling King. Now, early on in the books Vivec is shown as the teacher of Lord Indoril Nerevar (more on him below), yet Nerevar does not understand the lessons. Because he was not the intended student. Instead, these lessons were meant for you. Not only for your player character, but for ''you'', the player. For if one attains CHIM, one's physical form becomes a mere avatar of the self.

But now you may wonder, what the Charles fucking Dickens *is* CHIM?

Imagine if you will, a great wheel with eight spokes. The wheel is everything that exists: Aurbis. The hub is Nirn, the world that the series takes place on. The spokes are the Aedra, the <s>Nine</s> Eight Divines. The space between the spokes is Oblivion, where the Daedra reside. Mundus encompasses both Nirn, its moons and the realms of the Aedra. Now, if you were to turn the wheel 90 degrees, you'd be looking at the rim of the wheel so it resembles I (as in, the thin side of a disk). This is the Tower, the Secret of Aurbis, holder of the secret. CHIM. The wheel is the entire universe. Outside there exist only two forces: Anu and Padhome, stasis and change. Think a great void filled with only two bubbles: there where these bubbles touch exists the wheel. Now, the Tower is not something physical, but an ideal. Something that can be attained, conquered, stolen. For one to reside within the tower, is to know the truth of all that is. This was the revelation of Lorkhan's that made him want to create Nirn.

This truth is that everything is a dream. The supreme power in TES is the Godhead, the unknown creator of all. Everything, Aurbis, Anu, and Padomay - all created in the dreams of the Godhead. Attaining CHIM is to know this, the relentless alien terror that is God and your place in it. Everything you know, are and do is but a dream. Now, if you discover this one of two things can happen. The most common one is to realize you do and don't exist at the same time: you lose your individuality (you zero-sum) and become one with the dreamer, the Godhead, and you disappear in the proverbial puff of logic. The second option is the rare one: to realize that you are part of the Godhead, you *are* the Godhead. If everything is an extension of the same thing, and that the thing can reshape reality with a thought, being a dreamer within the dream.

If you thought that shit was meta, just you wait. The principles behind CHIM can be taken further to mean that the Godhead and its dreams are a metaphor for the computer running the game and the game itself. In-universe the metaphor of the godhead and being awake within the dream is needed to prevent characters who realize this from zero-summing out of existence at the resulting paradox. It can be inferred that a character who achieves CHIM essentially gains access to the console and the Construction Set. Talos used the Construction Set to retcon Cyrodiil from a jungle land into a generic European fantasy land (Talos has a terrible imagination). Vivec gave himself levitation abilities by using the console to erase the texture file for his chair (no seriously). Whether or not the player achieves CHIM varies. Generally when a player becomes fully immersed in the game, they do not have CHIM. However, a player who gets fed up of getting bugged by cliff racers every five seconds and installs a mod that removes them from the game is using CHIM. They are remembering that the world they are in is a game and altering it as they see fit. Exploits, mods, console commands, etc can all be explained in-universe as the player character achieving CHIM and using it to reshape reality or bend its rules... or all of that could be stupid speculation.

Meta as FUCK.

You can go deeper than that and find Amaranth though, but that is whole another level of [[mindfuck]].

'''It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine'''

We've mentioned a few times that the world of Nirn is slowing being destroyed by a few reasons. In a normal fantasy setting, this would be a terrible thing, and the hero must try and stop it; however, the Elder Scrolls isn't a normal fantasy setting. One of the dragons, Paarthurnax, mentions that when the world ends, Alduin, the first born of Akatosh, will/might simply recreate it, thus returning it to the point of creation. Granted he also states liking the current one is a good enough reason to fight Alduin (''that and the fact that Alduin is an absolute prick who would rather rule over the broken remains of the old one instead of actually doing his job'').

This is due to the Kalpic nature of Nirn; Kalpa is the time span from Convention to the end of the world, one turn of a wheel. Eventually, Alduin The World Eater grows in size and literally eats the world, turns the Kalpa like a wheel and everything resets back to the Convention, the moment when Heart of Lorkhan was torn out, time became linear. From that point on things can go differently in different Kalpas; for example, according to Seven Flights of Aldudagga, one Kalpa had Molag Bal as its ruler and Dreughs as the supreme race. That being said, it is possible to end the Kalpic cycle and destroy shit for good, hence what the Thalmor are trying to do. They also believe that this will make them Ada (Spirit/God) again.

In essence, the world might be ending, few care and fewer understand, and Elder Scrolls lore is more complicated than trying to keep track of the number of penises [[Slaanesh]] has at the moment.

'''Seriously?'''

Remember way at the beginning of this page, we said that how crazy the Elder Scrolls series is depends on if you take an ex-writer's blogposts as gospel? Well, if you don't, and only trust what you see in-game, it looks a bit like this.

The Godhead almost certainly doesn't exist. Neither does CHIM. Only two in-game sources claim it does; one is a colossal liar and the other is shown to be wrong about absolutely everything that comes out of his mouth. They're both bugfuck nuts and they both end up dead at your hands. The big historical event allegedly caused by CHIM could easily not have been. At least two alternate theories have been suggested: either the event never actually took place and was the result of a [[skub|transcription error]], which is boring, or the White-Gold Tower did it on its own after humans booted the elves from the Imperial City and moved in, which is not. Speaking of, the Tower thing is definitely true, because the plot of Oblivion is, broadly, that the bad guy shut one down and tore reality a new asshole. The Dragonbreak is an empirical event that happens within living memory; in Oblivion you can read the Imperial report on what the fuck happened in the last one, and you can see one happen in Skyrim. The kalpa thing is definitely happening, and you hear as much directly from the mouth of a time-spirit who knew Alduin personally. You meet Pelinal Whitestrake's ghost in a DLC questline, and he doesn't ''seem'' to be a robot, or even remotely crazy.

Mantling deserves special mention, even though it hasn't been mentioned anywhere else on the page. Basically, by adopting the mannerisms and vestments of something else, you become that something else. In a word: [[awesome|apotheosis]]. You mantle a daedric prince at the end of Shivering Isles, and use your new divine powers to kick the ass of another daedric prince. Have we mentioned that these games are really, really good and you should play them? SI also added the caveat that whatever you're mantling has to be either dead or gone in a big way for you to pull it off, and you're basically filling in its place in the universe.
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==Gods, Deities and other important people==
Most of the Gods in The Elder Scrolls are Et'Ada, the "original spirits" that came from the interplay of Anu and Padomay. These spirits later depending on their alignment with creation got categorized into Aedra and Daedra, if you took part in creation of Nirn you are Aedra, if you were egotistic dick and went to Oblivion to make your small shitty realm, you are Daedra.

===Aedra===
The Aedra (Our ancestors in Aldmeris) are Et'Ada of Anuic origin. Many of them took part in the creation of Nirn, during which they "died", their essences fused together into Mundus. As such they do not have "physical" forms like the Daedra have. Yet their spirits live on in Nirn: as the Gods of the world they live in every part of it. While not as "focused" as their Daedric counterparts they are more widespread, worshiped and give their blessings and artifacts more freely than the Daedra, plus they have control over one realm that everyone wants to have, Nirn.

Eight of the Aedra are worshipped in Tamriel as the Eight Divines (along with the human god-hero Tiber Septim, aka. Talos, to make the more assonant Nine Divines), a fusion of the old Nordic pantheon and the Aedra worshipped by the Ayleids:
*'''Akatosh''': Also known as Auri-El to the Altmer and the father of the dragons, the chief deity of the Eight and the top god of the Cyrodiilic Empire as he represents duty, legitimacy, endurance and obedience (but his different identities also have additional roles. Akatosh proper is the god of time, but Auri-El is the god of the sun, which it is worth noting can be used as a timekeeping device. All the other gods also work like this, as Divinity in this setting is ''weird''). His artifacts are Auriel's Bow, and Auriel's Shield, which have completely different powers depending which game you are playing. In the most recent games the appeared in, the bow infuses arrows fired from it with the power of the sun to do more damage to the undead, and the Shield can absorb energy from attacks it blocks and release it as wave similar to the Unrelenting Force shout.
*'''Arkay''': Lord of the Wheel of Life, master of life and death, burials and funeral rites. Arkay priests are some of the fiercest necromancer hunters around, as those foul practices are an affront to their god.
*'''Dibella''': Goddess of beauty, love and affection, as well as art and music. Effectively Nirn's equivalent of Aphrodite. She teaches that, "No matter the seed, if the shoot is nurtured with love, will not the flower be beautiful?" Oh boy. Her artifact is the Brush of Truepaint, which can turn a canvas into a portal to a world made of paint that the artist creates with their imagination.
*'''Julianos''': God of wisdom and logic; literature, lore, history and contradiction are the domains of Julianos. Though Magnus is the god of magic, many wizards worship Julianos. The scholarly Bretons also hold a particular reverence for him. Monastic orders dedicated to Julianos are the keepers of the Elder Scrolls.
*'''Kynareth''': Goddess of heavens, winds and the elements. Known as Kyne among the Nords and the widow of Shor. It is said that Kyne gifted men with the Thu'um so they could harness the power of dragons and save themselves from Akatosh's errant children. His artifact is the Lord's Mail, a cuirass that grants its wearer healing, magicka absorption, and the ability to cure their self of poison.
*'''Mara''': Goddess of agriculture, compassion, fertility, love-... Hey, wait a minute, doesn't that overlap with Dibella? Well, it does, and it is complicated. Among the Nords, Mara is Kyne's handmaiden and Shor's bit on the side. Among the Altmer, Bosmer and Bretons, Mara is the wife of Akatosh/Auri-El. Among the now extinct Kothringi of Black Marsh, Mara was just one of three aspects to an older Mother goddess with Kynareth and Dibella as the other two aspects. As said above, Divinity in this setting is ''weird''. Whatever the case, weddings in Tamriel are overseen by priests of Mara.
*'''Stendarr''': God of mercy, charity and justice. Apologist of men and patron deity of the Imperial Legion and many Breton knightly orders. Stendarr welcomes heretics, the afflicted, hopeless and forgotten just as readily as his devout followers. However his mercy ends at the enemies of mortals, the abhorrent and unnatural. Stendarr's priests are often hunters of lesser Daedra, lycanthropes, vampires and undead. Real bro-tier god overall. His artifact is Stendarr's Hammer, a hammer that increases the user's stamina and does incredible damage, however, the hammer is also very fragile and far too heavy for a mortal to use.
*'''Zenithar''': God of honest work and commerce. Very strong ties to the people of Cyrodiil, and many in High Rock and Hammerfell too.
*'''Talos''': NOT actually an Aedra, but worth mentioning as he is often placed among the other Eight. Talos, known in life as Tiber Septim and Ysmir to the Nords, is the greatest god-hero of mankind. He conquered all of Tamriel and ushered in the Third Empire of Cyrodiil at the end of the Second Era. When he died, his spirit ascended to godhood. As of the Fourth Era, Talos worship is banned in the Empire as per the terms of the White-Gold Concordat, because the idea of a man becoming a god pisses the stupid sparkly prisses off to no end. That, and it is also likely that Talos is helping to hold the world together, and the Thalmor know this and want to starve him of worship, effectively destroying all Nirn to regain the divinity Lorkhan is said to have stolen from them. Fucking elves.

The Altmer also worship, or at least acknowledge, other Aedra that don't belong to the Eight Divines above, but are worshipped in most elven lands, these being:
*'''Jephre''': The god of songs and forests and the spirit of Now, also called Y'ffre. He was one of the first spirits to become Ehlnofey, or Earth Bones, and set in place the rules of nature and life on Nirn. The Bosmer consider him their main god and he's the reason they're carnivores and cannibals.
*'''Lorkhan''': The Creator-Trickster-Tester god present in every races mythology. Known alternatively as Lorkhaj, Shor, Sheor, Sep, or Shezarr, every single version goes the same way: creation happens, other spirits and gods get pissed at him, he's bound, he's killed/torn to pieces/separated from his divine center and forced to wander the earth. His heart landed in Red Mountain, and was destroyed in Morrowind, and some say that his corpse became the two moons of Nirn.
*'''Magnus''': The god of magic and the supposed architect of creation. When he realized what he made, he ran the fuck away, ripping a hole through creation to Aetherius, with this hole becoming the sun. Some part of him got caught in creation though, becoming the force of magic. He also had a host of assistants called the Magna-Ge, who ripped similiar holes in creation when running away, these becoming the stars. His associated artifact is the Staff of Magnus, which has the power to drain magicka, and possibly the Eye of Magnus, a mysterious floating orb of incredible power whose purpose is unclear, though may have been one of the tools Magnus used to create the world.
*'''Phynaster''': An Ancestor-God of the Altmer, though some Bretons also worship him, who taught them how to live another 100 years by using a shoter walking stride.
*'''Syrabane''': Another Ancestor-God of the Altmer, who aided men in destroying the Sload kingdom of Thras. Often called the Apprentice's God, as the younger members of the Mage's Guild worship him.
*'''Trinimac''': The warrior god of the ancient Aldmer, who lead armies against the men. He eventually got eaten by Boethiah and became Malacath (more below).
*'''Xarxes''': The scribe to Auri-El, and the god of ancestry and secret knowledge. He made his wife Oghma ([[Oghma|no, not that one]]) from his [[Wat|favorite moments in history]].

===Daedra===
"Not Our Ancestors" in Aldmeris and "Our stronger, better ancestors" in Dunmeris, the Daedra (singular: Daedroth, not to be confused with the crocodile-like Daedra called Daedroth) are the Et'Ada who did not partake in the creation of the world. Because they didn't quasi-suicide themselves to pour their essence into the world, their power is both more focused, but their power on Nirn is more limited compared to their Aedric counterparts. As such their powers are limited to the likes of curses and artifacts, and can only walk the realm in forms that severely limit their powers.

Daedric Princes instead have their own singular realms, the Realms of Oblivion. A Daedric Prince is Omnipotent within their realm, because it is part of them and their mind. Their own realms are made out of them, similar to how Nirn is made out of Aedra; the Daedra are still fully alive and have much greater control over their own realm, but the tradeoff is that each realm is pretty small. Despite serving as the setting's "devils" (in that the word Daedra pretty much means Devil), they are not all completely evil. They range from "hates undead" and "wants to hunt dangerous game" to "prince of destruction" and "king of [[rape]]". Even if they are benevolent at times, the Daedra are not to be trifled with and are very dangerous.

* '''Azura:''' The Daedra associated with periods of change, twilight in particular, and magic and prophecy. Allegedly Nocturnal's sister, and one of the few Daedra not to be considered evil, though she is intensely prideful and easily aggravated, treating the Dunmer with a character not unlike how old testament Yahweh treated the 12 tribes of Israel. Azura is worshipped by the Dunmer and Khajit, though she had a mutual hatred for the Dwemer. Her realm of Oblivion is Moonshadow, a beautiful place of silver cities, gardens, and perpetual twilight. Her artifact is Azura's Star, an item which can hold the souls of living creatures. If this sounds like the soul gem items found across the series, it is, but Azura's Star is a max capacity soul gem they doesn't get consumed upon use, and is thus reusable.
* '''Boethiah:''' The Daedra associated with deceit, ambition, treachery, competition and sedition. Goes hand in hand with Mephala and is basically her louder sibling. Despite sounding like some kind of fucked up noble, Boethiah often takes the appearance of a patrician warrior (can be female, but usually male), and they enjoy inflicting mayhem and bloodshed on mortals. Regarded by the Dunmer, either through worship or hatred, and some versions of their origin tale has all sorts of scholarly pursuits emerging from their teachings. Their realm is Attribution's Share (also known as Snake Mount), a place of [[Tzeentch|labyrinthine policies and betrayals]]. Their artifacts are Goldbrand, a high end katana, and the Ebony Mail, high end armor that cause poison damage to those around the wearer.
*'''Clavicus Vile:''' The Daedra associated with wishes and pacts. He's the asshole genie who ensures that all the wishes and pacts are twisted so he comes out on top, usually while gaining the soul of the one foolish enough to deal with him. He appears as a jovial fellow with horns sprouting from his forehead, and is usually accompanied by '''Barbas''', a dog who holds half of Clavicus' power. His realm is the Fields of Regret, which, despite its name, is a tranquil countryside, dotted with cities of glass and ornate buildings. His artifact is the Masque of Clavicus Vile, which makes its wearer more popular and likeable.
*'''Hermaeus Mora:''' The Daedra associated with fate and forbidden knowledge. Supposedly the sibling of Mephala, he seeks gather and obtain as much knowledge as possible. He often appears as a collection of eyes, tentacles, and pincers. His realm is Apocrypha, an endless library filled with and made from books of forbidden knowledge, with seas of ink and tentacles. His artifacts are the Black Books, which transport their reader to Apocrypha and can grant access to forbidden knowledge, and the Oghma Infinium, a tome that can allow one to achieve near-demigod level abilities.
*'''Hircine:''' The Daedra associated with hunting and therianthropes. He created the many werebeasts that exist in Tamriel, and claims their souls upon death. He appears either as an animal or a man, with the horns of a deer, unless he appears as deer. His realm is the Hunting Grounds, a realm of dense woodlands and vast grasslands, inhabited by daedra, beasts, and therianthropes, where werebears and Nords hunt by day, and Hircine along with a pack of werewolves hunts by night. His artifacts are the Saviour's Hide, a hide cuirass that makes the wearer more resistant to magic, and the Ring of Hircine, a ring that allows one to transform into a werewolf, if not already a lycanthrope, and lycanthropes to control their transformations.
*'''Malacath:''' The Daedra associated with orcs, [[goblin]]s, [[ogre]]s, curses, and outcasts. Originally he was '''Trinimac''', one of the ancestor sprits of the Altmer, who was eaten by Boethiah and then shat out as Malacath, though he says the story is too literal minded, and there are those who say that Trinimac and Malacath are two separate deities. He appears a muscular orc wielding a heavy weapon. His realm is Ashpit, a realm of dust and ash, dotted with palaces of smoke and gardens, where levitation and magical breathing are necessary to survive. His artifacts are the Scourge, a mace that banishes all daedra that make contact with it, and Volendrung, a Dwemer made warhammer.
*'''Mehrunes Dagon:''' The Deadra associated with destruction, revolution, change, ambition, and energy. One of the more evil daedra, of whom little is known, and the antagonist of [[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion|Oblivion]]. He appears as red-skinned giant with four arms, carrying a two-headed axe. His realm is the Deadlands (no, not [[Deadlands|that one]]), a realm of scorched, volcanic islands and ruined structures amidst a sea of lava, with hostile life living on the islands. He once was a good guy before a curse was put on him by Alduin for interfering with his devouring of the world. His artifact is Mehrunes' Razor, a dagger that has a [[Vorpal Sword| small chance of instantly killing whatever it cuts]].
*'''Mephala:''' The Daedra associated with spiders, webs, lies, secrets, plots and murder. Sibling to Hermaeus Mora, the Dunmer worship her as one of the "Good Daedra", with her having taught them the arts of stealth and assassination. The Morag Tong, the assassin's guild in Morrowind, worships her through murder. She often appears as female of some form, but sometimes appears as a male. Her realm is the Spiral Skein, a wheel-shaped realm, with her palace in the middle, and the space between the "spokes" dedicated to one of eight sins. Her artifacts are the Ring of Khajiiti, a ring that makes its wearer faster and harder to detect, and the Ebony Blade, a life-leeching katana.
*'''Meridia:''' The Daedra asssociated with light and the energies of living things, and one of the few non-evil Daedric Princes. She was originally believed to have been one of the Magna-Ge, the spirits that followed Magnus to Aetherius, but was cast out for consorting with daedra, eventually creating her realm by bending and shaping the light of the sun. She hates all undead with a passion, and usually rewards those who destroy them. She either appears as an orb of light, or a blonde-haired woman in a gown. Despite all this, she generally does not command popular worship due to her haughty, bitter and aloof manner, stemming from her exile from the magna-ge. The last time she threw her support behind a mortal race She made the mistake of being the patron of the Heartland High Elves of Cyrodil, who were into human slavery and were generally tyrants. They ended up being near exterminated. There are hints in the lore that Molag Bal is obsessed with her and caused her fall from heaven. Her realm is the Colored Rooms, a cross between a coral reef and a field of floating stones, strewn with colorful trails of dust/clouds. Her artifacts are the Ring of Khajiiti and the Dawnbringer, a sword that burns the undead and upon killing them makes them explode.
*'''Molag Bal:''' The Daedra associated with domination, enslavement, rape, and vampires. Arguably the most evil of the Daedric Princes, as he simply desires to harvest souls of mortals by inciting strife and discord among them. He also created the first vampire by raping a Nedic woman. He appears as a monstrous being of varying appearance, but usually has horns and hooves. His realm is Coldharbour, which is an apocalyptic and desolate reflection of Nirn. His artifact is the Mace of Molag Bal, a mace that drains the energies of those it hits and traps their souls upon death. Main antagonist of both the original game and Elder Scrolls Online, with Mehrunes Dagon basically stealing his invasion plans. Seriously Mehrunes invades Nirn in the same ways in the same order.
*'''Namira:''' The Daedra associated with ancient darkness, revulsion, and cannibals. Not much is known of her, other than she's associated with anything revolting, and her followers prefer to live in dark and squalid conditions. Her realm is the Scuttling Void, of which nothing is really known about. Her artifact is the Ring of Namira, a ring that boosts one health after cannibalizing a corpse, or reflects damage back onto the wearer's attacker.
*'''Nocturnal:''' The Daedra associated with darkness, night, and thieves. Most thieves in Tamriel revere her to some degree, for obvious reasons, and the Thieves Guild reveres her as their patron. She appears often as a dark-haired woman in a hooded gown, accompanied by ravens. Her realm is Evergloam, a realm in perpetual twilight, consisting of a primary plane and constantly shifting pocket planes. Her artifacts are the Skeleton Key, a key/lockpick that can open anything from locks to portals to one's hidden potential, the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, a cowl that hides the wearer's true identity and makes him a better thief, and the Bow of Shadows, a bow that can turn its wielder invisible.
*'''Peryite:''' [[Nurgle]]'s less-jovial cousin, this is the Daedra associated with tasks, pestilence, and natural order. Peryite is considered one of the weakest Daedric Princes (not that ''any'' daedric prince can be called "weak" by mortal standards), and is charged with keeping the lower realms of Oblivion and the lesser daedra in line. He often appears as a green, four-legged dragon, but sometimes appears as ghostly apparitions of vermin. His realm is The Pits, which resembles Deadlands in its landscape. His artifact is the Spellbreaker, a shield that can reflect magic.
*'''Sanguine:''' Basically just a less-rapey or /d/isgusting [[Slaanesh]]. The Daedra associated with hedonism, debauchery, indulgence, and revelry. He's often depicted on seals and signs of brothels and whorehouses. He appears as a portly dremora, with a bottle in one hand and a whore in another. His realms are the Myriad Realms of Revelry, countless pocket realms that are fashioned to meet the needs and demands of its visitors. His artifact is the Sanguine Rose, a rose-shaped staff/staff-sized rose that summons a dremora to fight for its owner.
*'''Sheogorath:''' Everyone's favorite, This is the lolrandom [[Chaotic Stupid]] Daedra associated with madness and creativity. There are many stories and legends about him, like how he invented music from [[Rip and tear|the body parts of a woman he killed]] and how he trolled everyone of the other Daedric Princes at various points. You take his position at the end of the Shivering Isles expansion. He appears as an elderly, fine-dressed gentleman with a cane. His realm is the Shivering Isles, a landmass surrounded by islands that's divided in two, to represent both shades of madness. His artifact is the Wabbajack, a staff that does something completely random when used.
**'''Jyggalag:''' The [[Lawful Stupid]] Daedra associated with logic, order, and deduction. Originally, he was the most powerful of the Daedric Princes, but the others cursed him to become Sheogorath, who represented everything he hated. The curse did allow him to return at the end of every era, and by the end of the Shivering Isles expansion, the curse is broken and he heads off to parts unknown, having yet to make a reappearance in the games despite his DLC being canon. He appears a as a giant, gray knight wielding a sword.
*'''Vaermina:''' The Daedra associated with dreams and nightmares. One of the more evil daedra, with some saying that torture also belongs to her sphere of influence. She appears as an old woman in a robe, wielding a staff. Her realm is Quagmire, a nightmarish realm where Vaermina draws the minds of mortals, collecting their memories and leavings nightmares in return. Her artifact is the Skull of Corruption, a staff that creates a clone of the target, who then attacks the target.

==Races==
[[File:Tamriel.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Tamriel, shown alongside the now sunken islands of Yokuda, the original home of the Redguards, and Pyandonea, a land inhabited by the Maormer, sea elves.]]
The first two Elder Scrolls games had eight playable races; the three after that added Imperials and Orcs as playable races. There's also a ton of unplayable races as well, but UESP can explain them better than us.

The races of Tamriel are generally divided into three categories; the races of Men are the various ethnicities of [[human]], the Mer races are the different species of [[elf]], and the [[Beastmen]] are explained as "where the fuck did these dudes come from?"

===Men===
*'''Imperials:''' Also known as the "Cyrodiilics", the Imperials are a civilised and cosmopolitan people, more or less Roman in culture (but in very early lore they were actually Mesoamerican). Like practically all humans in fantasy settings, they're average at nearly everything, control the world, and are kind of boring compared to everyone else. They've forged three continent-spanning empires in their history, and the first time involved a time-bending magical giant robot. They've also in the past had a space race with the Altmer to colonise Masser and Secunda. Yes, really.
*'''Nords:''' The First Men of the setting. Basically manly, magic and elf-hating not-Vikings from the frozen land of Skyrim. Tend to be very very badass because they have to live in an inhospitable hellhole with bears, sabre-tooth cats, trolls, giants, big nopey frost spiders the size of bears and they also fought and killed all the dragons in the past. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Their ancestors, the Atmorans, nearly exterminated the entire Snow Elf race with just five hundred warriors.]] Nord women are tall, blonde and gorgeous, and love candlelit conversations over mead, long walks on the frozen beaches, and killing things with big swords and axes.
*'''Bretons:''' Best described as [[Half-Elf|half-elves]] from [[Bretonnia]] with a hint of French-ness. Probably the least badass of the humans here (which is all relative - many great heroes throughout Tamriel's history were Bretons) but they are still the most gifted with magic because of their elf blood. They even get a magic resistance out of the deal. True to the French stereotype, they're great cooks but also a bit snobby. Their home province of High Rock isn't even a united kingdom, but rather a patchwork quilt of petty kingdoms, embroiled in political conflict and usually only tangentially aligned with the Empire.
*'''Redguard:''' Fantasy Moors/Africans. Skilled warriors hailing from the sunken islands of Yokuda (the sinking of which they were the apparent cause by their warriors overusing a forbidden sword technique that let them split atoms), and the only guys to have invented gunpowder. Redguards are some of the greatest sailors in Tamriel, and they tend to scorn magic due to religious taboos against necromancy and their many past wars with the magic-proficient Bretons. Destruction magic is the only kind of magic they tolerate because doing more damage can't be a bad thing.

===Mer (Elves)===
*'''Bosmer ([[Wood Elves]]):''' Wood Elves in the "Dwarf Fortress" sense, only less insane. They are some of the greatest archers in Tamriel and they have a long history of warring with the Khajiit. They also happen to be cannibals because of an ancient pact they made with the forest god Y'ffre (basically said forest god won't let them eat vegetation, so they can't afford to let ''any'' meat go to waste). Through this pact they can also turn themselves into monsters, though this trick is only used when the existence of Valenwood itself is threatened. They also have no understanding of woodworking and they brew alcohol from the fermented flesh of their dead enemies. Hardcore. (As a note on the cannibalism thing, you don't actually have to worry about getting shanked and eaten by every wood elf you <s>meat</s> meet, it's just their standard means of dealing with dead bodies.)
*'''Altmer ([[High Elves]]):''' Every stereotype of Elves being narcissistic pricks, amplified a hundredfold. As of the Fourth Era, their home of Summerset Isle (now Alinor) is governed by the Thalmor, fucking literal elven Nazis who are out to unravel all creation because they believe mortality was a cruel trick played on them by the gods of Men (and no, this belief is not just some quirk of the Thalmor, the ancient Aldmer believed this as well). They even practice eugenics and kill any undesirable progeny. Nearly every Altmer is either a wizard or a magical warrior.
*'''Dunmer ([[Dark Elves]]):''' Elves with a blue-grey tint to their skin who got cursed by their Daedric patron for complex reasons. Their culture is a bizarre mish-mash of China, Japan, Mongolia, ancient Mesopotamia and the Biblical Israelites, with northern English accents. They primarily worship the Daedra along with the Tribunal, three mortals who ascended to godhood by tapping into the Heart of Lorkhan. Highly supremacist and xenophobic, the Fourth Era has bitten them in the arse hard, as most of Morrowind was devastated by volcanic eruption and their Argonian slaves have occupied what's left, leaving most surviving Dunmer as unwelcome refugees. How the mighty have fallen.
*'''Orsimer ([[Orcs]]):''' Also known as the "Pariah Elves", descended from a race of Elves who got screwed over due to Daedric faggotry. Most Orsimer live assimilated into other cultures or in destitute and isolated strongholds, akin to native reservations, far out in the wilderness. Every time they have tried to build a new city-state in High Rock, Orsinium, the Bretons or Redguards came and knocked it over and as of the Fourth Era the Orcs have been effectively enslaved by the Bretons at sword-point. Also, the Nords only wish they could be as hardcore warriors as the Orcs, which means the two races have something of an odd friendship. Worth noting is the fact that at the time of the very first game, Orcs [[/pol/|''weren't even considered PEOPLE'']] by Tamrielic culture, but by the time of Oblivion nobody would think twice about walking into a shop to find that it was run by an orc anymore than they would a shopkeeper of any of the above races.

===Beastmen===
[[File:Khajiit Family.jpg|300px|thumb|right|A family of Khajiit. Given how these things work it is very possible that the housecat that the catgirl is holding is the father of the tiger in the back. TES is weird like that.]]
*'''Argonians:''' A race of warm-blooded lizard people, well-spoken and skilled as both warriors and mages. Have a weird connection to semi-sentient trees called Hist where they may or may not be gene engineered super soldiers enslaved by said Hist trees. Also, they actually start life as perfectly ordinary lizards that only gain sapience and humanoid shape upon eating the sap of said trees. Despite being weirdos and the targets of discrimination, they have an unbreakable hold on their homeland: Tiber Septim never truly conquered Black Marsh, he just barely conquered some of the border towns and called it a win and apparently the Argonians didn't care enough to contest it; and during the Oblivion Crisis, the Dremora were eventually forced to close the gates [[awesome|because the Argonians were sending invading armies through them]].
*'''[[Catfolk|Khajiit]]:''' Technically related to Elves, but hard to tell by looking because they have many different forms that are determined at birth by the waxing and waning of Masser and Secunda: some Khajiit look like the Bosmer, some like furries, some look like housecats except they can talk and use magic, and some get to be completely badass horse-sized tigers, named Battlecats by the Imperials. They are skilled desert raiders, merchants and farmers. Their culture is basically the Romani. Their prime export is said Moon Sugar, a substance that can be best described as [[Doomrider|magical cocaine made from crystallised moonlight]]. Like Argonians, they are a prime target for racism.

==Games==
Though several spinoffs were made, when referring to "The Elder Scrolls" only the five central games are being referred to.

===The Elder Scrolls I: Arena===
Jagar Tharn, the Imperial Battlemage and trusted servant of the Emperor Uriel Septim VII turns evil, locks the Emperor inside Oblivion, and takes over Tamriel. His apprentice Ria Silmane discovered this and told the player, so Tharn killed the former and imprisoned the latter. Yet Silmane persisted, and helped the player escape prison and revealed how Tharn could be destroyed: by recovering the eight parts of the Staff of Chaos from all over the empire. The player succeeds, kills Tharn, returns the Emperor and all is well. This was the only game where the player could visit all of Tamriel.

===The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall===
The player, a personal friend of the Emperor, is sent to the city of Daggerfall, High Rock to investigate a haunting by the ghost of the former king. Things quickly get out of hand when you discover the Numidium, a massive golem used by Tiber Septim to gain control over Tamriel. There are several mutually exclusive endings possible; canon opted to [[what|make them all happen]] in an event called the Warp in the West, a Dragon Break, which is a specific type of event where divine fuckery causes [[FATAL|time and space to take it up the ass hard]].

===The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind===
[[File:Morrowind.jpg|300px|thumb|right|If you can explain at least 75% of what's going on on this image, you are a true fan.]]
{{Main|The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind}}
Morrowind ships the player to the island of Vvardenfell, in the Dunmer province of Morrowind, where you are to report to the [[Snowflame|perpetually shirtless crackhead]] called Caius Cossades to investigate a [[Cultist-Chan|cult]] that is growing rapidly in size. This cult is revealed to be the doings of the Sixth House, a clan of Dunmer that was destroyed after its leader, Lord Voryn Dagoth, rebelled against Lord Indoril Nerevar, the leader of the war against the Dwemer. Nerevar died shortly afterwards (though it is unclear if he died from the wounds Dagoth inflicted on him, or that his advisors, the Tribunal, killed their lord so they could use the tools of the Dwemer to grant themselves near-divinity), and the Tribunal took over as the god-kings of the Dunmer. There was only one problem: Dagoth wasn't actually dead, and he granted himself near-divinity too.

You take the role of Nerevar's incarnation, and long story short you kill him properly.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ow5lGFju1c Here is a great review about the game. Every N'wah in existence worth their salt must watch it.]

===The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion===
{{Main|The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion}}
Emperor Uriel Septim VII and his heirs are assassinated, and it's up to the player who was unintentionally released from prison to fix that shit by finding the Emperor's last son who had been sought out the last known child of the Camoran Dynasty, the family who had ruled over man for years before Alesseia came and slap their shit. It was the first big-name RPG to appear on seventh generation consoles, and made the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 work for their money. By the end of the game, you end up driving off an army of Daedra but the Septim dynasty comes to an end.

===The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim===
[[File:Song of Skyrim.jpg|500px|thumb|Dat Nord Frost Resistance]]
Also known as the Volsunga Saga: The Game.

You're a prisoner, but in a shocking turn of events, this time you're actually told WHY! Turns out you crossed the damn border illegally, you filthy alien (of course, if you are a Nord it's just chalked up to bullshit bureaucracy). And you're to be executed along with the a group of captured rebels called Stormcloaks, along with their leader - Ulfric Stormcloak (who is voiced by Vladimir Kullich). Before you're sent to Sovngarde (Guess what that is. Go on.), a giant dragon god named Alduin the World Eater decides to introduce himself to the world. Alduin being referred to as Akatosh's firstborn son is an outright confirmation that he is also an aspect of him. Some background characters speculate that Alduin is Akatosh himself in the role of a destroyer. You end up learning you're the legendary Dragonborn who can basically do any of the shit a real dragon can do (besides, you know, flying), and defeat Alduin. And possibly stop the civil war too.

===The Elder Scrolls Online===
TES: the MMORPG. Early on it suffered from growing pains and problems, but after surviving the hate and becoming only buy to play, it became a rather nice game.

===The Elder Scrolls VI===
Recently announced at E3 2018, the game was confirmed to be in production. Rumors speculate that, based on the trailer, it will be based in either High Rock or Hammerfell. Almost certainly Hammerfell since not only was High Rock already covered in Daggerfall but because High Rock is the most forgettable province (it has stiff competition) some people have their memories play tricks on them and remember Daggerfall as the Hammerfall game (the name doesn't help) so this will finally clear up the confusion.

==Gallery==
{{promotions}}
<center>
<gallery>
image:Lel.jpg
image:N'wahs with attitude.jpg
image:1402853718622.jpg
image:Averagedayatbeth.png|This is depressingly true.
image:Tribunal_awaken.jpg|[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|Almsivi!]]
image:Kobold romance diary by Weaver.jpg|An average day for a TES protagonist.
</gallery>
</center>

==See also==
*[http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, the definitive wiki for the series.]
*[[Scrollhammer]]: if the Elder Scrolls and Warhammer had a bastard son, it would probably be like this.
*[[Scrollhammer 2nd Edition]]: If Elder Scrolls and Infinity had a bastard son.
*[[Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG]]: A pen and paper [[RPG]] currently dead because Seht decided to take a break, but he's back now. Core 3E is pretty polished with many supplements actively being worked on and released by various anons.

[[Category:Video Games]]