Grrl Power #1172 – Super(natural)PAC
Oh sheeeeit, haven’t seen her in a while!
Okay, some (most) of you are probably all, “Um… who is that?” It’s Sciona, who is possessing Escorpia‘s murdered body. (She got better.) Of course, no one in the room knows this. She’s obviously been busy since she, I don’t know, took over some nowhere town in Mexico? Or just stuck all her disembodied pals in a bindle and marched across the border. Woe to the ICE unit that tried to detain her.
I bet you guys thought this page would be Maxima, Dabbler and Halo on an alien magic heavy planet kicking the shit out of a dracolich or something, but no! Get ready for some hot and heavy budget meeting action!
See, Maxima wants her own private dungeon. Like having a garden in your own backyard. Why buy groceries like a sucker when you can have fresh tomatoes four months out of the year assuming the rabbits don’t get ’em first?
Can you imagine the dungeon farming industry in an industrialized, capitalist society? You could go into the grocery store and just pick up a bag of dragon scales, and of course there’d be “imitation dragon scales” which are really salamander scales but they work the same in about 15% of alchemical solutions so the FD&DA allows it. Then there’d be a call for “free range” alchemical ingredients, but of course no one wants rust monsters in their neighborhood so all the dungeon farms have to be out in the middle of nowhere in case some of them escape. And then there’d be stuff like “organic eye of newt” that costs 2.5 times as much even though it’s the same thing because how could you have inorganic eye of newt, but some people will pay extra to feel good about themselves by getting shafted by “Ma and Pa Farms” which are owned by Colosso Corpo Farm.
Oh, and feel free to ignore any inconsistencies in Ingsol’s accent. My initial strategy with him was to transpose all his “V’s” and “W’s” but that doesn’t always make for super legible dialog. Plus, neither of those are the most common letters, so when reading his lines, remember that his actual accent is Chekov looking for nuclear wessels meets The Count from Sesame Street. Aah-ah-ah!
The June vote incentive is finally up! Maxima is prepping for her night out.
And in the Patreon variants, she gets (un)dressed and takes a look through all the makeup options.
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Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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With Escorpia,does this smell like a trap?!?
Not today anyway. Sciona has shown she can can play a longer game. I’m betting her eventual goal is to gain access to a potion that can allow her to regenerate her Alari body.
There are 2 types of dungeons basically,
1. A tyrant had a very multi-layer underground jail built to “punish” people he didn’t like, in most cases a place to put people he wanted to disappear/die. These places sit forgotten after the castle above crumbles and those in there either become the creatures, or they move in. Once they begin to get out the locals seal it up to stop the attacks to the locals.
2. An ancient cave system that had become infested with said creatures that the leaders/locals were forced to seal up because of constant attacks to farms and villages. Most commonly known as a dragon cave/dungeon.
I feel in either case this would be a very difficult thing to build much less maintain, most WoW dungeons were the latter, while Baldor’s gate (for example) were the former. In either case someone would still have to go to a real one, collect these creatures, transplant them in Max’s, plus set up an ecosystem in said dungeon so they don’t get out and start eating Joe Blow’s garden or family. It’s a hell of an undertaking, and loaded heavily with risks to the public AND those who would benefit from the dungeon. Let not forget the social justice league going nuts about “saving” the creatures inside from “government experiments”!
You forgot
1) dungeons designed as a deterrent (to foil tomb robbers, a buffer zone for a dragon’s lair)
2) dungeons that create or summon their own “infestation” (by accident usually, a la Resident Evil)
You are missing Type 3, which is a much more modern trope: The Living Dungeon.
At which point, all bets are off on what you find inside.
Tripply so if the Dungeon Core in question is an Isekai Protag with a sense of humor. Or worse yet, a love of puns.
Thediem or Delta?
Or, heaven forbid, Illysore.
I recognize Delta and thediem, what story is illysore from?
“I was reincarnated as a Magic Academy!”
hey! Xanth dungeons are FUN! just watch out for the stuffed cat butt mounted on the wall and yellow giant caterpillars…
Absolutely leave the stuffed cat butt mounted in the wall alone on Xanth, unless your name is Bink, then feel free to disregard absolutely any risk of anything magical doing anything truly harmful to you.
Your (1) is usually called a “Labyrinth”, not a dungeon, but I suppose it’s a moot point. After D&D, pretty much anything that contains killable monsters is called a dungeon. It could be a cave, a particularly dense patch of forest, an old castle, an abandoned town – dungeon, sayeth the DM.
Also, if you do a little research, you’ll find it’s not all that hard for an aspiring witch to acquire ‘eye of newt’ – you don’t even have to maim a newt for it. It’s “witch code” for mustard seed.
We refer to flying open air ruins in Tears of the Kingdom as dungeons. It is a stuck term now.
I’m sad to learn the dragons in their universe are so pathetically sad as to be easily beat by Maxima :p
Maxima can blow through alien warships at will, without putting all her points into “beam spam.” The dragon isn’t pathetic, Max is just OP OP XD
If the dragon is sapient and intelligent, then this could be seen as abuse and bullying.
If the dragon is just sentient, then this could be seen as poaching.
But I’m assuming the actual plan is to basically have a farm, making the dragon basically livestock. Although the image seems to suggest one of the first two things instead.
Actually it sort of reminds me of what Sciona was wanting to do with supers, come to think of it. :)
I agree. Maxima is outlining both sides of the deal. The dragon isn’t given a chance to negotiate what it would like. And if it doesn’t take the deal, hints of violence.
it’s only really poaching if the dragon is still an egg
I think this makes a lot of dangerous assumptions about dragons in the Grrlverse.
There are several manhwa that explore the idea of manifesting fantasy dungeons with lucrative materials and treasures in a modern setting. I recently got into “I stole the number one ranker’s soul” or whatever it’s called, and dragon scales and similar stuff are a LITTLE rarer, because all the adventurers covet them for continued adventuring. But there is essentially a modernized market for them.
An example would be the pixie demon lord in “Reincarnated as a Slime” – it generates monsters on each level that get stronger and stronger as you go deeper, because the god-level storm dragon Veldora Tempest lives at the bottom, and his magical aura amplifies the monster generation magic of the dungeon itself, depending on proximity to him.
lol the dragon looks like they want to say, ‘Can I have the first option please?’ or something like that, I mean as a dragon I’d rather not anger a super that can remove my teeth and rather just enjoy mutton chops.
Sad part is, Maxima did not even need a potion brewed from the dragon’s own scales to defeat him.
So Dabbler the alchemist is perfectly fine with distributing potions to the backwards magic-lite civilization all the while Dabbler the scientist/advanced civilization member pooh-poohs on letting the backwards tech-lite civilization from advancements? Seems a little bit sketchy of a stance.
That’s because the super advanced civilization has an outright law that forbids her, while the council seems amicable to the idea i f it gets them their dungeon. Besides, Max already knows about magic, and so would the majority of the leadership in the team, most likely. So it’s not like it’s a stretch that they might decide to pull all A.R.C Swat members into the secret, so they can use the potions without causing a ruckus. With the appropriate NDA’s and threats of summary execution should they spill the classified info, of course.
I don’t think we have any indication that there’s an intergalactic law against sharing technology. Or that there’s any real intergalactic law at all. There’s the Xevoarchy, which is a collective military force, shared among many independent alien governments, to enforce their agreements with each other. Fracture station has rules about what may travel through certain gates on their station. The general agreement along these galactic civilizations is that it’s best for species to overcome the great filters on their own. That does not necessarily mean that they have any laws regarding it.
I begin to suspect that humans are unusually litigious, thinking that all behavior a society deems good must be legally required, and all deemed bad must be legally prohibited.
“Everything that is not prohibited is compulsory.”
You can’t really reverse engineer magical potions like you can a railgun or a fusion reactor, so the supply is far more easily controlled. Besides, there’s already a significant local magical presence with the knowledge to make said potions, it’s just the ingredients that are a pain to source.
A difference of approach between the high tier technological socieits and the high tier magical ones.
Typically your advanced science civilization play “king of the hill” but with controlled toll bridges, and get to decide who is “worthy” of joining their ranks or is advanced enough/socially acceptable enough to allow access to more advanced technology and will enforce this brutally at times. Even Dabbler would need to watch her back.
Meanwhile advanced magical socieites *once we get far enough past the magic-kingdom types who try to hoard or outlaw magic so only nobles and such can use it* and get to the world of Whimsy, Architects of Magic, Societies of Sorcery types at the high tier magic civilizations they don’t play king of the hill…in fact it can be an opposite problem where they have to be convinced to NOT propagate magic across worlds and dimensions. To not spread mana beasts and pocket dimension dungeons, connect worlds together via surreal interdimensional portals that look like cottage core mansions, caves, castles, have magic chests just randomly manifest with potions and mutate the local life forms into super magical versions of themselves.
to convince these to take it slow, go through channels so the locals not only can prepare but also pick and choose what magic *which tends to come in bundles of both good and bad aspects…you want the cure all antidote well you also have to take acid slimes and giant predatory plants or tower quests to earn the magic weapons and items etc..),
So in short High Science (you must convince us to give you lightsabers)
High Magic (you must convince us why not to give them swords of light)
and every middle stage between low tier and high tier acting as the middle mans negotiating.
LOLO (literal laugh out loud) that she added in the mint sauce. Absurd but nice touch.
Bah, would rather have a good steak sauce: Lea & Perrin’s or HP
“Can you imagine the dungeon farming industry in an industrialized, capitalist society? ”
Sporemageddon has exactly this. It is even more unpleasant for anyone not in the upper echelons of society than you would imagine.
Shoulda recognized Sciopia from her tat :(
She may have gotten better, but is she still bitter?
Nice to see Kat again
So who’s all attending besides Max and the ARC-Light?!?
They are listed under Characters
I’m pretty sure Scarlett is there in between Zephan and Gault, but she isn’t listed in the character list, and I can’t name the lady with blue hair on the left, though seeing as Dabbler is listed in the characters, but I don’t see her, that’s probably her.
So Scorpiona is back! I wonder how she and her ‘soulmates’ will react to the Alari colony forming in Galtyn?
“Ah, Senator Armstrong. A pleasure to meet you.”
Food, Dungeons, and Dragons Agency?
I think it’s a play on the Food and Drug Administration, the entity we have in the USA that makes sure your local meat factory isn’t packing the ground beef with feces, rats and rat poison, (or at least that the amount of which gets into the beef is miniscule enough that it doesn’t present a meaningful threat). I assume the extra D is for Dungeons, but I could be wrong.
Nope. First problem I see is the Dragon goes to the Twilight Council & says “Help Help I’m bein’ oppressed!”
And, to be honest, that’s a pretty good case Sapient-rights wise.
“I am being regularly mugged for my body parts! How would you feel if somebody repeatedly broke into your home and demanded to cut off locks of your hair? And threatened to rip out your TEETH if you refused to give it to them?”
“Maybe stop raiding the locals first. How would you like it if some big bully regularly demanded you offer up your offspring or face destruction? Karma’s not a bitch, but she is golden!”
“That’s a racist and unfair stereotype of dragonkind! Shame on you! Be better!”
:)
(btw not too far off of what could happen in the comic. Tom was offended by Sydney’s making a stereotype obout Fiends, remember. :) )
“We found your lair by following the trail of entrails and your poop had a locket containing the mayors’ daughters portrait!”
“What type of sicko goes through another person’s poop? Is that what gets you off? I’m obviously being framed by an anti-dragon and corrupt government trying anything to perpetuate this cycle of violence upon dragonkind, and it goes right up to the mayor’s office itself! Now if you will, leave me alone, I need time to compose myself. Good day sir!
…
I SAID GOOD DAY!” *sob*
(I’m having way too much fun with this scenario)
Its a crappy job, so I got some adjusted Ninjas to do it….
How dare you turn a wholesome hypothetical argument between people and a dragon and dragon poop into something filthy and disreputable by using puns!
I’m actually sort of interested in how this could be turned to a canny Dragon’s interests. How many sheep is a truckload? (I got something between 200-600 on a random Google search, presumably meaning a truck specifically meant to transport sheep.) A quick search also showed the value of a full grown sheep at between $200-$300. Lowballing at 200 sheep valued at $$200 each (and ignoring the sauce entirely), that dragon stands to make at least $40,000 ( possibly several times as much) on this transaction if they can bargain their way to a lump sum reward rather than goods and services. Surely just getting the Dragon an appropriate amount of gold would be simpler than arranging transportation of goods and the costs to pay drivers, suppliers, etc.
“Oh what’s that? This isn’t a negotiation, you say? Well alright, I’m sure no one else will be interested in the offer. You know, we Dragons don’t get out much but I’ve heard fantastic things about this little country called Galtyn. In fact, I may already have a meeting and rough drawn up terms which I’m sure they would hate to hear I was unable to fulfill because of extreme violence against me person…”
Seeing as the council is in on the dungeon plans, and has been wanting to construct one for decades, I suspect they’ve already considered and disregarded that angle. I also suspect they don’t really care about the rights of any sapients that don’t have representation on the council. It’s not a fundamentally evil organization — but that doesn’t make it a fundamentally good one either. It’s a bunch of self-interested groups that have negotiated some kind of peace, not a sapient-rights organization.
So. having Scorpia here feels weird to me. Even if she isn’t a “known” powered-individual (maybe yes, maybe no, what with the drugs and the cartels. We certainly keep tabs on normal cartel members above a certain grade in Mexico in particular, just don’t know if Scorpia hit that threshold), it seems like ARCs protection of various figures, like senators, would include a general “check to make sure no staffer is actually psychically controlling a major figure in our government” order. And any thorough check by ARCDark would hopefully turn up “possessed and dangerous” in this case? or ARCDark needs to beef up it’s discovery skills.
I have seen a few series *most notable and least esoteric being Superior Spiderman*, where a possession check/mind control check failed because there was either only one soul or one mind in that body.
The Alari aren’t possessing living people, they take control of and apparently quickly heal a corpse. So invasion of the body snatchers only with the same body, they target someone, get them alone, kill them, and one of the *unknown number, unless all the skully spirits we saw on panel was the full number…who apparently are going along with Sciona’s plans, guess being left behind in a tube didn’t engender any loyalties to the colony that landed in Galtyn*
so they get the target alone, kill them, body hop.
only downside is as we saw with Sciona they don’t inherit any of the body’s memories, so research on target.
But unless your soul/mind check has the person’s specific signature on file and is just the usual checking for extra passengers in there type of check, they could go unnoticed.
Is anyone else having trouble following the comic? I have no clue what’s happening over the last two pages with all these jumps.
now you’re comic-ing with portals
“Chekov looking for nuclear wessels meets The Count from Sesame Street” — so, Londo Mollari?
Oooookay, this idea just kinda breaks all the rules of the internal logic of this comic. So you are going to create a dungeon, and somehow populate it with extremely dangerous creatures like dragons. Are you forcing them to live there? Where are you going to put it so that if they want to roam about they dont eat civilians. Why would they come there to be basically milked like cows as a resource. Even Maxima’s incentive seems to go very much agains the nature of creatures of great power, will and potentially ego.
Then there is the fact that just having what should be kinda cool and epic quest items (which could have made for interesting story fodder) just becomes a cheap resource farm. It all feels weirdly out of place and just a cut and paste kinda fix.
Hate to say this but comic feels like its been meandering about for a while now. The first several years seemed to be more focussed on story and character. I felt like you had outlines for plots and subplots and even tangents but this idea and other things that have been happening in story of late just feel so random like there is no longer any sort of narrative or character focus. Lots of loose threads with no resolution, subplots and and arch. Feels like you have been writing by the seat of your pants.
I hope you can appreciate these are criticisms of a long time fan of this series and that Ive noticed my enjoyment/interest has been waning for a bit now and I think Ive identified the why of it. I dont know if this will help in any way or if anyone else feels like this but I felt compelled to offer my observations.