Power Twins Comics

Yeah, yeah.

Remember, the kid did threaten to (try to) kill him first.

At first level Widrob had no attack spells at all.  He survived solely on his ability to convince his foes to be slain by his friends.  He’s not the hammer, nor the anvil.  Widrob is more like the carbon flux which makes it worthwhile to place hot iron between the two to get pounded flat.

You might notice the new spelling of Lisa’s name.  This is the technical spelling, the other is the phonetically correct spelling.  Both are right.

It is a fairly well established part of dogma that trolls regenerate.  It’s also established that fire inhibits this ability.  For the people who didn’t know that, that’s why Lisa was set on fire.  As for the other girl, well, if you know who she is, you know that Lisa considers most of her actions foolery.

I’ve mentioned that Lisa as a character went through a few iterations before becoming the knight-priest of war.  One of those was actually as a gladiator an instrument of “panem et circenses.”  In her official biography, she spent a year or so fighting in gladiatorial games.  She actually wasn’t very good at it.  Gladiators are as much about the celebrity and show of the match as they are about ability to win a fight.  Lisa is more about personally overwhelming and destroying her foes.

She’s a bit like one of my favorite scenes in Stargate SG1.  The team brings weapons to supply a band of rebel Jaffa.  When the rebels are disappointed that the humans brought rifles (technically carbines) and pistols instead of staff weapons, Jack holds an impromptu shooting contest, with the Jaffas’ best marksman armed with a staff weapon and Major Carter firing a P-90.

After humiliating the staff weapon’s performance he holds one up and declares, “This is a weapon of terror.  It’s made to intimidate your enemy.”  He then holds up a P-90, shouting, “this is a weapon of war.  It’s made to kill your enemy.”

I know it’s terrible to return to comics with something that resembles an inside joke, but it’s more of an obscure reference. It’s no secret that I am a long time player of role playing games, and this comic comes from something that irritated me and several of my peers in this hobby.

At issue is people – gamers – with no imagination. There was a novelist who introduced a character that became phenomenally popular. So popular, in fact, that it spawned a whole “generation” of players who wanted to try out the obscure (and classically evil) dark-elves. The problem is none of these players could figure out how to make a fresh and interesting character, so they copied the one they liked… verbatim.

Legions of dual wielding dark elves marched forth from their implausible subterranean cities, renouncing their race to become outcasts of both worlds, trying to make amends for the the evil nature of their kin. Exactly how one becomes a ranger while being raised underground, they don’t quite think to address, just as they never considered an original name. Dritz, Ridtz, Ziddt, Zzdirt, Trizzy-D, et al. convinced DMs everywhere that dark elves had a separate alphabet for names, and it included only four consonants and one vowel.

In fairness to the dark elf and those that did make original characters from them, this problem with gamers is not limited to Drizzt Do’Urden. Unimaginative and inexperienced players often clone the characters they like from popular sources. It’s just annoying when they try to pretend it’s original. A late artist friend of mine was once commissioned to paint a superhero character that another gamer had “created.”  The hero, “Labec” was described as looking “just like, Cable” (of X-Men fame). His powers? “Just like Cable!” (of course) Though he could use the money, my friend suggested the guy just buy a poster, it would be cheaper. “Wait, you were going to charge me [for a commissioned original oil painting]?”

So, yeah, if you are a cloned character, don’t sit next to an armored psychopath, lest you be punched in the throat.