Either there is some crazy pride going on here, or the teammates of this injured elf are hiding something. Only other elves we’ve really seen were the other backup band members, so I’m not sure if elves are supposed to be that pale, or if that’s another hint at something being amiss.
I’m going to say undead. We know that vampires have pointy ears, so why not other types of undead? Or, you know, undead elves and such. And in d&d, healing magic hurts undead, so it would make things worse for the guy.
I would have said High Elf, or maybe Gray Elf. My money’s on Grey Elf, with the skin tone and racism.
Also, Drow are usually purple-gray, not light gray.
Drow have been an awful lot of skin shades over the years, from 70% Cacao Dark Chocolate to varying shades and hues of Very Dark Grays (the most popular is rather purplish-tinted) to Jet Black. Gygax’s original comments is that they’re taken from the Svartalfar of Norsemen mythology, which were typically described as coal black – further evidence is that Drow were pretty much always depicted as Coal Black during Gygax’s tenure as the head of TSR.
Of course, artists HATED painting Coal Black Elves (contrast is a serious drag), which was almost certainly a factor in the movement away from Coal Black.
I’m leaning towards variant drow, since the sunshine would almost certainly preclude vampires (or maybe a really nice magic spell is in place – “All the light, none of the sizzle!”)
I’m betting you’re right ChuulBarbarian. Pale skin, sharp looking teeth, and they don’t want positive energy magic. We’ll find out in a few days though.
The fact this is Gnomish baseball means that we have no idea what madness we’re dealing with. Could be zombies, could be drow, could be a bunch of shrunken gnomes inside a pale elf lady suit.
It is pretty similar, but it’s clearly a different dialect, or some variation of Tengwar. There are way too many accents and umlauts, and some of the letters have extra lines. An accent, perhaps?
The first character has no direct corollary in Tengwar, neither in Quenya or Sindarin, or even in the extra letters for Black Speech. The closest is ‘parma’, the equivalent of ‘p’, but it’s nowhere near a match. Parma doesn’t have such a long leg, and has no accent.
The second character is very similar to ‘lambe’, the ‘l’ of the language. It should be noted that lambe in Tolkien’s script has no accent.
The third is pretty similar to ‘númen’, or ‘n’, but this character has a longer leg and an umlaut underneath.
The fourth is the only direct match to Tengwar, and it’s to the vowel ‘a’.
The fifth resembles ‘vala’, ‘w’, with a macron, but that’s hard to make out.
This gives us ‘plnaw’, which is untranslatable. Of course, I could be mistranslating it, and I’d love someone to check my work.
My bet is that the pale elf is making a racial slur of some sort, and, as the alt-text says, we’ll find out more next week.
It looks to me like one of the modes where the vowels are diacritics (like the mode used for the one ring script). That would make the first character perhaps an ‘e’ or ‘i’ combined with a ‘p’, the second perhaps an ‘e’ or ‘i’ combined with an ‘l’, the third perhaps an ‘rs’ combined with an ‘i’ or ‘y’, the fourth an ‘a’ with a short vowel carrier, and the fifth perhaps a ‘u’ or ‘o’ combined with a ‘w’.
Of course, I can’t work out a way to combine them so that they make an actual word. Best guess: “epelrisauw”. Yeah.
It also occurs to me, looking at the poor smashed player’s hand, that his hand hasn’t moved in the slightest.
I wouldn’t think twice about it normally, except his thumb and index finger seem to be making a distinct gesture, and holding his arm aloft like that in that kind of pain strikes me as counter-intuitive. Especially in the second to last panel where the danger’s passed and the help is coming.
It’s PROBABLY nothing, but it’s curious just the same. Arcane gesture? Bizarre sign language? Elvish gesture for calling Mr. purple lizard a giant A-hole? WILL WE EVER KNOW?
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Either there is some crazy pride going on here, or the teammates of this injured elf are hiding something. Only other elves we’ve really seen were the other backup band members, so I’m not sure if elves are supposed to be that pale, or if that’s another hint at something being amiss.
I’m going to say undead. We know that vampires have pointy ears, so why not other types of undead? Or, you know, undead elves and such. And in d&d, healing magic hurts undead, so it would make things worse for the guy.
Drow elf.
I would have said High Elf, or maybe Gray Elf. My money’s on Grey Elf, with the skin tone and racism.
Also, Drow are usually purple-gray, not light gray.
Drow have been an awful lot of skin shades over the years, from 70% Cacao Dark Chocolate to varying shades and hues of Very Dark Grays (the most popular is rather purplish-tinted) to Jet Black. Gygax’s original comments is that they’re taken from the Svartalfar of Norsemen mythology, which were typically described as coal black – further evidence is that Drow were pretty much always depicted as Coal Black during Gygax’s tenure as the head of TSR.
Of course, artists HATED painting Coal Black Elves (contrast is a serious drag), which was almost certainly a factor in the movement away from Coal Black.
I’m leaning towards variant drow, since the sunshine would almost certainly preclude vampires (or maybe a really nice magic spell is in place – “All the light, none of the sizzle!”)
I’m betting you’re right ChuulBarbarian. Pale skin, sharp looking teeth, and they don’t want positive energy magic. We’ll find out in a few days though.
Maybe spells are like the dopage of gnomish baseball?
Alternatively, the rules preclude outside help.
Or she’s afraid that Roxy’s an enemy out to harm them, subtly or unsubtly.
Crazy Pride? I’m pretty sure it’s just crazy.
The fact this is Gnomish baseball means that we have no idea what madness we’re dealing with. Could be zombies, could be drow, could be a bunch of shrunken gnomes inside a pale elf lady suit.
And those are the sane options!
Cue for Roxie’s spat with the Pale Elf Chick to escalate up to Chaos-Level.
I’m guessing these are dark elves.
She’s pretty pale for a dark elf. Gotta be undead.
Not if she’s inside-out! (Uh…that’s the way it works, right?)
I have it on good accounts that elves have a creamy center.
Slow down there pal, it’s not THAT kind of webcomic 😛
She says her staff will handle it but she’s not even holding a staff.
MEDICAL staff. … That doesn’t clarify things.
Her medical employees responsible for the team’s health.
They seem to be missing staves too. Yeesh, what kind of clerics are they? No staves, no maces…
Medical staff? I don’t see a caduceus either…
Oh, that’s easy… they’re using a pair of staves to form the stretcher, of course. Hidden in plain sight…
Yeah, but the circumstance penalty to using them that way… They’d need still spell at the very least, to say nothing of improvised tool penalties.
Unless they’re twin staves of stretcher bearing. That might work in their favor…
Staves are spell trigger items. All you need is a command word, no somatic components.
You beat me to it.
Has anyone translated the Elvish comment? It looks like the script from the Appendix of Lord of the Rings 🙂
I’m pretty sure that guy has to win before he can get a ring.
On the other hand, after the beating he just took, I’m sure his appendix will be easy to inspect.
It is pretty similar, but it’s clearly a different dialect, or some variation of Tengwar. There are way too many accents and umlauts, and some of the letters have extra lines. An accent, perhaps?
The first character has no direct corollary in Tengwar, neither in Quenya or Sindarin, or even in the extra letters for Black Speech. The closest is ‘parma’, the equivalent of ‘p’, but it’s nowhere near a match. Parma doesn’t have such a long leg, and has no accent.
The second character is very similar to ‘lambe’, the ‘l’ of the language. It should be noted that lambe in Tolkien’s script has no accent.
The third is pretty similar to ‘númen’, or ‘n’, but this character has a longer leg and an umlaut underneath.
The fourth is the only direct match to Tengwar, and it’s to the vowel ‘a’.
The fifth resembles ‘vala’, ‘w’, with a macron, but that’s hard to make out.
This gives us ‘plnaw’, which is untranslatable. Of course, I could be mistranslating it, and I’d love someone to check my work.
My bet is that the pale elf is making a racial slur of some sort, and, as the alt-text says, we’ll find out more next week.
It looks to me like one of the modes where the vowels are diacritics (like the mode used for the one ring script). That would make the first character perhaps an ‘e’ or ‘i’ combined with a ‘p’, the second perhaps an ‘e’ or ‘i’ combined with an ‘l’, the third perhaps an ‘rs’ combined with an ‘i’ or ‘y’, the fourth an ‘a’ with a short vowel carrier, and the fifth perhaps a ‘u’ or ‘o’ combined with a ‘w’.
Of course, I can’t work out a way to combine them so that they make an actual word. Best guess: “epelrisauw”. Yeah.
Guessing this elf’s not so big on elves raised by barbarians – human barbarians, to be exact…
Methinks her teammate needs some help practicing bleeding.
I wonder if Roxie even speaks elven?
You’re all overthinking it. The solution is simple. Elves are dicks.
Ikr! Damn treehuggers, getting in the way of hard-working, kinda happy and sort-of-helping-out-of-their-free-will dwarves all the time!
It also occurs to me, looking at the poor smashed player’s hand, that his hand hasn’t moved in the slightest.
I wouldn’t think twice about it normally, except his thumb and index finger seem to be making a distinct gesture, and holding his arm aloft like that in that kind of pain strikes me as counter-intuitive. Especially in the second to last panel where the danger’s passed and the help is coming.
It’s PROBABLY nothing, but it’s curious just the same. Arcane gesture? Bizarre sign language? Elvish gesture for calling Mr. purple lizard a giant A-hole? WILL WE EVER KNOW?
Or just undead.
In the last comic, his hand was spread in terror right before the Lizardman cleated all over him. The fingers just curled from the pain that followed.
I think they don’t want to be disgraced, being asociated with a bard
I like her, she’s perky!