Tom Sewell

Really? Send me a copy of your revised Overwatch program which allows you to summon a million-carat flawless purple diamond shaped like Napoleon's hat that gives you unlimited shots against orcs wearing clown noses, propeller beanies, and swim fins, or at least a screen shot.

Maybe we'd actually get players using Teenagers From Outer Space (TFOS) or TWERPS? I regret writing that last paragraph, because it forced me to realize that TFOS is so ancient there are no knacks for smartphones!

Which in the article you cited Gary Gygax basically stole from Jack Vance, although I remember reading decades ago it was inspired by another source. We all know (or should) that Dan loves games: Card games, board games, and above all computer games (video/console games are just computer games using dedicated computers.) He's aware of tabletop roleplaying games like D&D because he made Tensaided. Since I have yet to get a single response to the tabletop RPG thread I started called imaginatively "RPG for EGS", I'd say there aren't that many people on the EGS forums who know or care about tabletop RPGs. However, I kind of think Dan has played Champions or GURPS Supers because of what Ellen said when she was sparring with Grace at Greg's dojo. The conversation went like this: GREG: Ellen, don't you have any transformation beams with less... awkward results? ELLEN: Not if you want "amping up" and "rapid fire". All my other beams have cool down times between shots. "Amping Up" and "Rapid Fire" are both power enhancements and cool-down times power limitations which are used to customize powers--and spells--in both game systems. As experience increases, enhancements can be increased, limitations reduced, and new enhancements added--sometimes with exclusive limitations. This is not something I've ever seen done in a computer game; the functions have to be hard-coded in. The basic rules that Champions and the Hero System are built on were thought up by one guy during one boring college lecture. And you can do anything in a tabletop game just by creating a house rule that all the players agree on. Try doing that with Overwatch.

Magus is a wizard by the standard of his own world, or at least he was training to become their version of a wizard. Anyway, at least two of Magus' spells have worked in the Moperverse. Whether or not all of the spells he had in his own world will work has yet to be demonstrated. And actually it hasn't been settled whether or not any of the main eight characters except Tedd are or are not wizards by the definition Edward gave. Just because they get "free" spells based on experience levels like they are living inside a D&D campaign or the umpteen fantasy computer games that stole that mechanic from Dungeons & Dragons doesn't mean that they will never have the ability to learn the spells of others, which is what qualifies a magic user as a "wizard" according to Edward the Endless Barrel of Exposition. And can any Vampires learn spells? Another open question, particularly as it regards to how dangerous Sirleck actually is.

That phrase "made us think" makes me think. It makes me think that maybe Pandora's very first appearance in EGS wasn't on January 8th, 2007. The creepy little girl goes on to tell Edward, Wolf, and Cranium that the egg that fell from his nest will be a hawk and that they are all little mice. If Pandora was even considering helping Magus, why would she try to make Edward and the others think Magus was a monster? That's the next comic after the first three in Hidden Genesis, the comics which Dan linked to in his commentary for this comic--which has two panels with Voltaire. Add that together with the very-much-established-in-canon ability of all Immortals to change their appearances, plus Voltaire's demonstrated ability to impersonate the voice and the manner of speaking of someone else (calling Sirleck and representing himself as Abner the detective) and what do we get? Well, maybe we get at least the possibility that it was Voltaire in the role of Creepy Little Girl on January 8th and again on January 10th, 2007. After all, we already know it was Voltaire who left that pithos amulet on Dexter that gave Adrian the false suspicion that it was his mother who put Noah in danger. Think of Voltaire standing behind the hideous form of Sirleck on the first page of Catspaws.

Kind of like finally opening the box Schroedinger's cat was both alive and dead inside?

No magic that Magus knows about, no magic that she knows about... but no magic? Do you think even Pele could kick something into an angry airborne griffin? Perhaps we should keep in mind that Pandora wanted to give Ashley a mark more than two months before the encounter with said griffin, and six days post-griffin to think that maybe there is an excuse to give Ashley a mark.

Sirleck's definitely carnivorous, but more of a vulture. If he can take over Elliot or Magus and their powers too, then he'd have the power of an eagle but still the instincts of a vulture. If he can take over Magus-Elliot, he's a Quetzalcoatlus norphropi, but still thinking like a vulture. Did he command Ashley not to run? Or even to stay put?

Magus doesn't seem very much like a hawk to the human mice, does he, particularly to the human mouse in the back seat now.

It's also Voltaire in Panel 4. What might that mean? Voltaire has been aware of Magus since he was knocked into the Moperverse about three years earlier. Voltaire is a sadistic jerk, but that's not exactly a big mystery, is it? Magus doesn't know Voltaire attacked him; Dan shows it happening when Magus is looking in the other direction. Maybe the "hawk" Pandora was talking about the "egg" growing up to become isn't Magus; maybe it's Voltaire.

My first thought was that Terra was an alternate Tedd, and I'm sorry if I ever wavered from that now. And I now wonder if there's an alternate Lucy in the Magusverse...

Possibly Dan hadn't created Sirleck back on January 30th in the previous Moperverse year, which due to the mysterious and variable time dilation between that universe and our own, corresponds to a period around July 2002 in our time. Sirleck's first appearance, in "Meanwhile in Chicago", of the following March 20th didn't happen relative to our universe until April 9th, 2010. Before we go on further, Monday's EGS is already up.

Easily? If finding a rich host was easy, why would Sirleck keep riding this particular brain-dead old man? Plus this would be adding a complication. Yes, it could have happened, but is there really a good reason for it to have happened that way, a reason that would make the story better? A reason for Dan to worry about?

Uh, no. Sirleck said he bribed the guard, and whether or not he actually did bribe the guard, he had to be possessing the old man in January when he could have bribed the guard and when Magus set up the whole thing with Sirleck.

Or maybe the guard forgot. Trust me, when you get old enough, remembering to go to the toilet is sometimes a problem. The guard told them when he let them out his superiors told him to. Whether or not he was telling the truth is an unanswered question. Perhaps after thinking it over he thought it was better to let them go than to report Elliot got in despite the guard's vigilance. Or maybe "his superiors" were really Sirleck. Whatever, they were let go; maybe Dan will explain further someday. It also set up the joke Elliot made about Ellen finding her way because, since she isn't a man, she can ask for directions.

If that happens, I will be very disappointed if Dan doesn't have GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! in the comic or at least in his commentary.

A good point as far as it goes, but I wasn't suggesting that Sirleck should have possessed him back then. Now is another matter, though, isn't it? But getting back to back then, Sirleck seems to be pretty tight with spending money on anything that doesn't benefit himself, and bribing that guard strikes me as something he would think he could economize on. Besides, the guard did konk out Elliot and arrest Tedd. Of course, maybe Sirleck bribed a different guard, or a phony guard. Or maybe the corrupt old guard didn't have the decency to stay bribed. From my end, I got the notification of your post after I posted. I assume my post went on a different stack than yours.

Unless it does count. But assuming Sirleck has left Ellen and is in material form as he must be prior to taking a new host, one of these things could happen: Elliot kicks Sirleck into the diamond Magus blasts him into the diamond, or even teleports him into it. Ashley kicks the diamond into him. If she can hit a griffin in midair, she can do it. Anyone with the strength and coordination grabs Sirleck by his tail and hammer-throws him into the diamond. And if touching the diamond while Sirleck is possessing Ellen simply separates him from Ellen, he might not be able to get out of the material plane fast enough to prevent any of the above. BTW, your last post bumped my last post; it should have come before yours. Not your fault; system glitch.

I finally went back to read through the entire "giant block of text" (Dan's own words in his commentary) in #165 to mine it for any information on the first trip to the PTTAPUTASF*. For your edification and my own, here it all is, with highlighting and notes: GRACE: Alright, here we go. As you already know, Tedd's father works for the government. I was able to get access to certain information as a result of that, and have discovered an interesting little itme that is being kept at the government's "Paranormal Things That Are of Little Use to Anyone Storage Facility", or PTTAPUTASF. There is an artifact kept at the PTTAPUTASF called the Dewitchery Diamond that dates back to Medieval Times**. The Dewitchery Diamond is said to be able to separate someone who has been cursed with another form from that curse and return them to normal. All you have to do is touch it. This is such a low priority government building that Tedd here actually has the clearance necessary to get in thanks to his father, but you can't legally accompany him and he can't legally remove the diamond for you to touch. Fortunately, however, the facility is so low priority that there appears to be only one elderly security guard*** who constantly guards the front of the building so once Tedd is inside he should be able to sneak you in through the back and get you to the diamond. There are only security cameras at the doors, which is good but you'll have to use a window to get in because of this. Afterwards, you just have to make it to the second floor, touch the diamond and get back out. I'll stay back here for a number of reasons including but not limited to the facts that the less people sneaking in the better, if I'm caught I might be taken away for testing or something, and someone needs to stay behind to feed Jeremy. Now P is out of town and is estimated to be a three-hour trip by car**** so it's best you leave ASAP. * PTTAPUTASF does not exactly match up with what Dan made Grace say it stood for. I think Dan had in mind something like this: Paranormal Things That Are Perfectly (Probably? Possibly?) Useless To Anyone Storage Facility ** If the Dewitchery Diamond dates back to our medieval times, by convention that means no later than 1485. However, that doesn't mean Pandora's last reset was that long ago; we don't know how long the diamond existed before it created the werewolf that killed Blaike. And Erasmus hadn't made that mistranslation turning a jar into a box until some time in the 1500s. ***One elderly guard? Why would Sirleck bother to bribe him? Surely you don't think Sirleck could have lied to Magus! ****A three hour ride. Somehow that reminds me of a boat ride from somwhere... Interesting information. And all pretty much irrelevant if the diamond has been moved.

So All of Me did make it to the Valley of the Kings 24-plex.

Actually this is a revision I added only a few minutes ago. I think it's more likely than my earlier speculation because it is funny. It gets rid of Sirleck in a very appropriate way (his scheme to steal a better body ends with him with no body) and it leaves Magus merged with Elliot. Since Elliot is the most central character in Daniel Elliot Shive's webcomic, he's not going to just be missing in action for very long. Either he's going to be a voice inside Magus' mind, or their merged body is going to be alternately run by Magus and Elliot, a similiar dynamic to Elliot's uncontrolled gender switches. Plus it opens up a niche for Terra to come back into the story as yet another member of Elliot's harem. To be fair, Elliot hasn't even caught up with Tenchi Muyo yet, and I think neither myself nor Dan will live long enough to have Elliot break the standard Negima! set for harem size.

As I speculated earlier, he might split into the (miserable excuse for the) human he was before giving up (what little) empathy he had and a body thief who could create more body thieves. All in all, not that funny. OR: The unprecedented situation destroys both Sirleck and the diamond. If this happens before Magus-Elliot touches the diamond...

This sounds a line from the Politics thread. Noah has no future in politics. Too open and honest.

Actually Noah explained why he didn't kill it while he was still fighting it.

You know, I don't think Magus knows about Susan's powers at all--and he wouldn't have been present to spy on Nanase when she told Ashley (and everyone else present) that she'd help kill a vampire once because Elliot was there, which could and probably did mean that Helen and Demetrius were there too. And if they were still following Elliot when he went to the forest preserve with the griffins, they might have picked up that Nanase got angry when Lady Andrea revealed (more or less) that Helen and Demetrius were the same Immortals who had drafted Nanase and Susan into killing the vampire in France. The fact that Magus didn't get the reference to "Princess Power" seals the deal for me unless Dan makes it not so.