To be even more fair, I would have thought that a snake would not be interested in a big talking box. A sticky-and-smelly one, to boot.
Well, not interested in eating it, anyway. I have no idea how curious a snake could be.
Mimics may take the forms of inanimate objects, but they’re considered to be living creatures, made of flesh. They just look like wood.
The disguise might not even be all that effective on creatures with a good sense of smell. Given Mimic’s surprise at Prestige’s achievement here, it seems likely that he can’t do that himself.
Well, I still think that the genre DID change already! When do we see snakes in Noir?
Mimic is now Indiana Jones instead of Sam Spade (just the hat is still a Fedora). And this is what Stabs is trying to tell…
Noir does generally adhere to the idea that humans (or dwarves), not nature, are the real source of most problems (except for that incessant rain, although even that might be due to air pollution from factories). But which do druids count as?
Not related to this strip, but, now that the Scavenger Hunt is over, I wanted to mention that, searching for a call bell, where I thought it would be (9-43, panel 6) I found that the myrmarchs showed up with the book and the candle, but no bell.
Given their relative sizes in panel 3, there must be some *serious* forced perspective for Bizarro Madeline to look as big relative to Stabs as she does in panel 5.
Even in panel 3, she looks about one-third Stabs’s height… just much less heavy due to weight/volume scaling as the third power of height, and also due to halflings tending to be on the plump side for their height.
Growing up, when one of us would fail to find something in plain sight inches away from where we were looking, my father would always say, “If it were a snake, it would have bit you.”.
Constrictors don’t generally crush windpipes. They stop your blood flow by squeezing hard enough to pinch your blood vessels shut.
Also Mimic doesn’t seem to have enjoyed being constricted last time it happened, although he’s clearly gotten over it since. I guess with Tarta he at least made friends first 🙂
Well, what constrictors actually do is prevent their prey from expanding their lungs, by ratcheting in every time the prey exhales, thus causing it to die of asphyxiation. Snakes aren’t strong enough to actually crush anything or squeeze incompressible liquids.
Liquids might be (near) incompressible, but blood vessels certainly aren’t. A constrictor doesn’t need to compress blood at all to kill an animal, all it needs to do is stop the flow of blood reaching the heart or vital organs. Veins are particularly compressible – that’s why a finger with an elastic band on it will gradually turn red, as blood starts getting stuck there and can’t return to the rest of the body. A constrictor applying the same principle by winding around the animal’s torso and compressing the major veins could stop most blood flowing back to the heart, and leave it with nothing to supply the lungs and brain.
BTW Milo that link is – not exactly paywalled, but requires subscription to read the full article.
“BTW Milo that link is – not exactly paywalled, but requires subscription to read the full article.”
Umm, it’s not?
Although that site also serves paywalled articles, the one I linked to is free. At least for me, it has a “Download full-text PDF” button that works fine even with cookies disabled entirely. (My browser is configured to block all cookies from any website that I haven’t explicitly whitelisted, and I haven’t whitelisted this one. I certainly don’t have an account there.)
The layman-friendly article I linked afterwards also looks fine to me.
Which one are you having trouble with and what are you seeing?
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To be fair, snakes aren’t known for their eyesight either.
To be even more fair, I would have thought that a snake would not be interested in a big talking box. A sticky-and-smelly one, to boot.
Well, not interested in eating it, anyway. I have no idea how curious a snake could be.
Mimics may take the forms of inanimate objects, but they’re considered to be living creatures, made of flesh. They just look like wood.
The disguise might not even be all that effective on creatures with a good sense of smell. Given Mimic’s surprise at Prestige’s achievement here, it seems likely that he can’t do that himself.
Doesn’t the snake look sort of like Tarta?
Serpently!
Serpendipity!
Why did it have to be snakes…
Well, I still think that the genre DID change already! When do we see snakes in Noir?
Mimic is now Indiana Jones instead of Sam Spade (just the hat is still a Fedora). And this is what Stabs is trying to tell…
When do we see mimics or druids in Noir?
Noir does generally adhere to the idea that humans (or dwarves), not nature, are the real source of most problems (except for that incessant rain, although even that might be due to air pollution from factories). But which do druids count as?
Presumably to urban wildlife, since there are parks and all the scavenger wildlife.
The belt has to do what it can with what it’s got
I wouldn’t worry too much, our new Dwarven druid has already proven to be a bit of a hugger….especially in her choice of animals!
Not related to this strip, but, now that the Scavenger Hunt is over, I wanted to mention that, searching for a call bell, where I thought it would be (9-43, panel 6) I found that the myrmarchs showed up with the book and the candle, but no bell.
Tarta returns, it appears.
Anti-Madeline can look unusually tall next to a halfling.
I guess she looks like she’s about a quarterling.
Given their relative sizes in panel 3, there must be some *serious* forced perspective for Bizarro Madeline to look as big relative to Stabs as she does in panel 5.
Even in panel 3, she looks about one-third Stabs’s height… just much less heavy due to weight/volume scaling as the third power of height, and also due to halflings tending to be on the plump side for their height.
Yeah, that wasn’t great work on my part. I’ve fixed it now.
Looks like Tarta finally got through the door.
Growing up, when one of us would fail to find something in plain sight inches away from where we were looking, my father would always say, “If it were a snake, it would have bit you.”.
Ha! My father said that too, and for some reason out of the blue I was reminded of it just a few days ago.
Mimic’s not worried because he doesn’t have a wind pipe to crush.
Constrictors don’t generally crush windpipes. They stop your blood flow by squeezing hard enough to pinch your blood vessels shut.
Also Mimic doesn’t seem to have enjoyed being constricted last time it happened, although he’s clearly gotten over it since. I guess with Tarta he at least made friends first 🙂
Well, what constrictors actually do is prevent their prey from expanding their lungs, by ratcheting in every time the prey exhales, thus causing it to die of asphyxiation. Snakes aren’t strong enough to actually crush anything or squeeze incompressible liquids.
At least, non-magical snakes aren’t.
Or, here’s a more layman-friendly article.
Liquids might be (near) incompressible, but blood vessels certainly aren’t. A constrictor doesn’t need to compress blood at all to kill an animal, all it needs to do is stop the flow of blood reaching the heart or vital organs. Veins are particularly compressible – that’s why a finger with an elastic band on it will gradually turn red, as blood starts getting stuck there and can’t return to the rest of the body. A constrictor applying the same principle by winding around the animal’s torso and compressing the major veins could stop most blood flowing back to the heart, and leave it with nothing to supply the lungs and brain.
BTW Milo that link is – not exactly paywalled, but requires subscription to read the full article.
“BTW Milo that link is – not exactly paywalled, but requires subscription to read the full article.”
Umm, it’s not?
Although that site also serves paywalled articles, the one I linked to is free. At least for me, it has a “Download full-text PDF” button that works fine even with cookies disabled entirely. (My browser is configured to block all cookies from any website that I haven’t explicitly whitelisted, and I haven’t whitelisted this one. I certainly don’t have an account there.)
The layman-friendly article I linked afterwards also looks fine to me.
Which one are you having trouble with and what are you seeing?
I doubt that mimics have blood either.
They do. Looks like it’s red, even.
There’s nothing *fundamentally* wrong with his perception, it’s just that right now he’s suffering a blindness penalty for keeping his eye shut.
Wrong.
Oops, it looks like I posted this in the wrong place 🙁 Can that be fixed? It’s meant to be a reply to Philadelphus above.
The Druid probably found the black market by scent. Wacky weed supposedly smells like oregano. I’m not sure Mimic wants a hug now.