Darths & Droids ([syndicated profile] darths_and_droids_feed) wrote2025-09-23 09:12 am

Episode 2678: Lost in Time... and Lost in Space. And Meaning

Episode 2678: Lost in Time... and Lost in Space. And Meaning

Mysterious background characters are cool. Always drop them into adventures. You don't even need to do anything ever again with the vast majority of them. They add verisimilitude, making your campaign setting seem alive and populated with real people.

But when you need someone to suddenly be important, then that shoeshine boy they met three adventures ago can turn out to be someone highly relevant and interesting.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

And the players will never trust background PCs again. Or at least, never trust that shapeshifters they kill are actually dead without personally disintegrating the body afterward. At least Babu can't split themselves into multiple beings. That really would be a nightmare of an adversary.

In retrospect, perhaps we should have been much more suspicious about the frog being. At the same time, it's not exactly surprising the new identity didn't get investigated more. There were at least four different scenes between landing on D'Qar and this one where the players are getting ready to attack the Peace Moon! I mean, why bother to get bogged down with a single background detail when there's a hyperspace cannon planet attack to prepare for? Especially when Jim's character is gathering up explosives.

Transcript

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-23 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2896 Rerun

Comic #2896

I'm just glad I didn't start out doing puns on "lizard man".


2025-09-23 Rerun commentary: Then there was the third uncle who converted to Islam, and kept on recounting various sayings of the prophet Muhammad at every opportunity. All his friends called him the walking Hobbith.

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-22 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2895 Rerun

Comic #2895

My initial draft of this strip had Charles Darwin's last line completely different:

Charles Darwin: Natural selection? Hmmm...
But there's only so many times I could get away with variants of that idea. And then a friend suggested this instead. Much smarter.
2025-09-22 Rerun commentary: My friend's offhand comment was indeed a clever lamarck.

Darths & Droids ([syndicated profile] darths_and_droids_feed) wrote2025-09-21 09:12 am

Episode 2677: Close Encounter of the Word Kind

Episode 2677: Close Encounter of the Word Kind

Anything weird that happens in an adventure, you can later blame on some other agent altogether.

Rocks fell and everyone nearly died in some random adventure a year ago on the other side of the continent? That was me!

This gives your villains an aura of forethought and planning that no PC could ever hope to match.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Man, that is a long time planning this out. There hadn't even been a sign of time shenanigans yet! I guess this has been the overarching theme for the sequel comics plot. I also wonder how long the GM has planned this speech. Just as long as this particular scene with these kinds of hints? I know I couldn't pull out all of these five-dollar words on a dime.

So if Babu Frik né Boba Fett wants to destroy Han, Luke, and Chewie, that means finding out more about them is the goal for the comic. And with only Chewie living, I suppose that could be one way they get Babu to be helpful, at least for the moment. Pete at least would have no problem pushing Chewie under the bus here; there's no immediate danger to Chewbacca given that he's a prisoner of the First Order, so it's hardly betraying the party. And maybe that's sort of what the movie is as well, given that there's still no panicking or fighting happening here over Threepio's red eyes.

Transcript

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-21 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2894 Rerun

Comic #2894

Oh dang, this comic is already linked from this TV Tropes page.


2025-09-21 Rerun commentary: Cornmarket Street is the major central street of Oxford. It's interesting that someone casually walking down the street in the background is wearing a cape.

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-20 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2893 Rerun

Comic #2893

Before her reappearance last time in this theme, we last saw Loren Ipsum almost two years ago. Yes, she escaped the great universe destruction too.


2025-09-20 Rerun commentary: I think after Hitler's Brain, Loren is the next best villain in IWC. It's interesting that the Fantasy party never really had a villain. I suppose the Balrog might sorta count, but not really. And the Space gang had Serron, which was enough.

Dork Tower ([syndicated profile] dorktower_feed) wrote2025-09-19 05:00 am
Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-19 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2892 Rerun

Comic #2892

Reducing your experimental subjects to a plasma of component particles is generally not a good way to get results*.

Particularly if you're in market research.

 

 

 

* Okay, if you're in some sort of hadron-colliding line of work, maybe.


2025-09-19 Rerun commentary: On the other hand, it could depend on what sort of results you're after. Like, if I was hunting vampires, I'd be pretty happy with that result.

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-18 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2891 Rerun

Comic #2891

These photos were taken in a park near my place. It's full of eucalypts and wattles and other native trees I can't name, and there are lots of birds. Rainbow lorikeets are common, as well as kookaburras, Australian magpies, currawongs, noisy miners. We also occasionally get galahs and sulphur-crested cockatoos. And I've seen king parrots in there a couple of times.


2025-09-18 Rerun commentary: Having taken up an interest in spotting birds, I can now report that this park also contains: grey butcherbirds, tawny frogmouths, crested pigeons, eastern whipbirds, little corellas, and sometimes powerful owls. And seasonally, in summer, Pacific koels and channel-billed cuckoos (which migrate from New Guinea). Also, since this comic was originally published, Australian brushturkeys have become extremely common, having expanded their range southwards as climate change drives them towards previously cooler regions. There are also fruit bats (not sure what species), ring-tailed possums, eastern water dragons, and various other lizard species.

Darths & Droids ([syndicated profile] darths_and_droids_feed) wrote2025-09-18 09:13 am

Episode 2676: Emit Nidal Lad In Time

Episode 2676: Emit Nidal Lad In Time

Really, can you go wrong with time shenanigans?

Yes. Yes, you definitely can.

Which is what makes them great for story telling!

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Wow. Now that is some convoluted planning by the GM. Or great improvisation from previous plot threads; the GM has gotten very good at that over the years.

And wait, does this mean that Boba Fett was that maybe-Guavian? I'd figured it was just another rathtar. Also curious now is that the rathtar is meant to be The Rathtar, which would also mean that there can't be two in the later attack. I mean higher numbered comic page. Man, talking about things when something's got Merlin Sickness can be confusing.

Frankly, at this point with all the time related shenanigans, I wouldn't be surprised if Force Timestop shows up again somehow and causes related problems, even if it's only done by comic panel manipulation.

Transcript

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-17 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2890 Rerun

Comic #2890

Always get payment before handing over the goods.

Second law of transplant organ delivery.

After "get it there in 30 minutes or it's free".


2025-09-17 Rerun commentary: Iki Piki's "Um" in the first panel is a callback gag to when Paris was a ghost. In case any of you missed that.

Darths & Droids ([syndicated profile] darths_and_droids_feed) wrote2025-09-16 09:13 am

Episode 2675: Ombrage à Trois

Episode 2675: Ombrage à Trois

Bearers of bad news often get a bad rap. In reality they seldom deserve it, but in fiction or gaming...

Go ahead and take out your frustration on them! Especially if you're the bad guy.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Chewbacca hardly counts as the third. That was just Han Solo pushing Chewie under the space bus. The Wookiee is such a chew toy sometimes.

And hey! We got those panel cracks again! Or maybe panel stabs? Either way, those were a neat edit to the comic. I wonder if we'll get another edit like that next comic.

Transcript

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-16 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2889 Rerun

Comic #2889

Yes folks, it's that time of year again! This is the Eighth Annual Christmas Eve Cthulhu Mythos Irregular Webcomic! This one is to the tune of Winter Wonderland. Which is still popular as a Christmas song here in Australia, despite the fact that (a) the song doesn't mention Christmas at all, (b) it doesn't snow in most of the populated places in Australia, and (c) Christmas is in the middle of summer anyway.

Yep, you never hear that song in winter here, but it's all over the place in summer. Clearly something abominable and non-Euclidean is going on.

Lyrics by Steven Marsh (direct descendant of Obed Marsh).

Artwork is all Creative Commons, by:

All except Catgunner's are capped from the Innsmouth location in Second Life, which you can explore here. If you dare.
2025-09-16 Rerun commentary: As it turned out, this was also thew last Annual Christmas Eve Cthulhu Mythos Irregular Webcomic! A year after this strip was published, I'd stopped making comics (for the first time) and was doing weekly extended annotation topics on IWC. When I resumed making comics again in 2015, I didn't pick up the tradition again. It was becoming harder each year, with fewer carols to choose from. I know there are hundreds of Christmas songs, but I really only wanted to do the well-known ones that I knew myself. And even here I was recruiting others to write the lyrics for me - although Steven Marsh loved doing this sort of parody and contributed many of the most horrendous pun jokes to IWC over the years.

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-15 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2888 Rerun

Comic #2888

I believe this is the first time we've ever seen the outside of Hitler's chamber. I know because I couldn't remember ever having built it before.


2025-09-15 Rerun commentary: I remember when I discovered there were Lego brains in jars, and I ordered something like 20 of them from one of the online Lego brick reselling sites. I think this might be the first comic where I used more than one of them.

Darths & Droids ([syndicated profile] darths_and_droids_feed) wrote2025-09-14 09:11 am

Episode 2674: Once Upon a Crime

Episode 2674: Once Upon a Crime

You know how fictional villains often act in completely over-the-top ways, yet none of their goons seem to take this as a red flag and get the heck out of there before it all falls to pieces? You can bring some semblance of reality back to proceedings by having some of their subordinates actually call them out on it. Or threaten to leave. Or actually leave.

Or give them a plausible reason why they might stay even though they know they work for a lunatic. Family ties can be one of those reasons.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

This is also about the fourth time we've had this flashback? That's how bad it is. Zorii seems to be the sane one here, but I don't think she'll be of much help in talking Boba down. It's hard to come back from five exclamation points, you know. How Threepio gets back to normal is going to be interesting as I can't see why Boba would want to put them back to normal at the moment.

And since this is Boba's last chance at an appearance such as it is (since it's Episode IX and all), I hope we get more flashback panels in the next week. I'd thought we'd had a great conclusion to his story back in Episode VI, so seeing it embellished more here will be very enjoyable.

Transcript

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-14 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2887 Rerun

Comic #2887

Yeah, seriously. If you go into Westminster Abbey, Isaac Newton is entombed in this magnificent monument containing a marble statue of the scientist, surmounted by cherubim and a globe. Just around the corner, set into the floor, is a plain stone slab, below which lies the remains of Charles Darwin.

This is no insult to Darwin, of course, because next to him lie several other great scientists, including Ernest Rutherford, J. J. Thomson, Charles Lyell, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, and John Herschel, as well as memorials to others such as William Herschel (father of John), James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, James Watt, Paul Dirac, George Stokes, Thomas Young, and Alfred Russell Wallace.


2025-09-14 Rerun commentary: The photo is one I took in Westminster Abbey myself. Being a physicist, of course I had to get a photo of Newton's tomb.

Irregular Webcomic! ([syndicated profile] irregular_comic_rss3_feed) wrote2025-09-13 10:11 am

Irregular Webcomic! #2886 Rerun

Comic #2886

The envelope please...


2025-09-13 Rerun commentary: Parting water is a magical effect reserved for clerics in Dungeons & Dragons (at least the older editions; not sure about the latest one). Quite a few of the cleric-only spells replicate effects of Biblical miracles, such as plagues of insects, creating food and water, turning sticks into snakes, and so on. Oh, and raising the dead, of course. It kinda makes sense, but at the same time it's kind of a weird way to wall off effects that magic-users can't do.