Application/Important OOC Info
Player Name: HotAndCold
Personal Journal: hotandcoldrp
Contact: DecepticonAF on AIM and decepticonaf@aol.com
Character Name: Redcloak
Canon: Order of the Stick
Age: Chronologically, like, 50-some, physically, like, 20, tops, and mentally, uh, I'll go more into that in the Personality section. It is kind of complicated?
Background: Redcloak's original name has not yet and might not ever be revealed. As such, I'll be referring to him as Redcloak, but with the understanding that he doesn't actually go by that moniker until a number of paragraphs in. Also this section contains HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE OOTS BOOK START OF DARKNESS. MASSIVE. THE CORE STRIP ITSELF HASN'T SPOILED A LOT OF THIS STUFF YET, EVEN. THIS IS YOUR CAPSLOCK WARNING. ALSO, Y'KNOW, SPOILERS FOR THE WEBCOMIC IN GENERAL, BUT. START OF DARKNESS IS THE MEATY STUFF HERE.
But first, let's talk about the history of the Order of the Stick world in general (otherwise known as "the crayon stuff"), because it is Very Important.
In the beginning, there was chaos (not that Xenogears guy, general chaos), until the gods arrived and decided to shape it into the world. There were 4 sets of gods: the Norse mythology-derived Northern gods, the Hinduism-derived Eastern gods, the Chinese Zodiac-derived Southern gods, and the Greek mythology-derived Western gods. Initially, they cooperated in creating the world, but it didn't take long for disagreements of how certain things should work to arise. Rather than talk through these arguments like reasonable adults, the gods instead pulled on the threads of reality, developing tangles. The tangles in the fabric of reality eventually developed into the Snarl, a malevolent, god-killing force.
The Snarl then broke through reality and slaughtered the entirety of the Western pantheon before any of them knew what hit them. It then turned its attention to the world the gods had created and destroyed it, completely annihilating it within 27 minutes of first revealing itself. The remaining gods then hid from it in the Outer Planes for centuries. The leaders of the 3 remaining pantheons met in secret and formulated a plan: they would build a new world with the released threads of the old, determining who would create what and how ahead of time so that new tangles wouldn't be created, and they would build this new world around the Snarl, trapping it inside.
They also agreed to separate the world geographically, and only allow direct divine interference by pantheon members in the area their pantheon ruled over. The gods also created the cleric class, in case something in the lands of one pantheon affected the lands of another pantheon. However, after a few years, the gods noticed that they had failed to provide a way for their clerics to level up. So they got back together and created the humanoid monster races for their clerics to kill for XP: goblinoids, kobolds, lizardfolk, etc. In order to guarantee that the monster races wouldn't settle into their own civilizations and conquer the favored races, the gods distributed the monsters in unusable land, giving them every geographic, economic, and physical disadvantage they could to make sure that they would act as raiders on the outskirts of the favored civilizations.
This continued for a time, until one day, a goblin born with violet skin rose as a warlord. This goblin, who had adopted the title of The Dark One, had an Elite Array of ability scores, along with class levels, possibly even a prestige class. The Dark One was a wise and benevolent ruler, as well as being mighty in battle, and he united the different tribes of goblinoids into a single nation by encouraging them to treat each other as brothers and sisters. He built an incredible army with the goal of creating a lasting goblinoid civilization. Once he had built this army, however, he did not attack the humans. Instead, he met with the assembled leaders of several countries, in order to try and reach an agreement with them to create a fair distribution of land.
Unfortunately, the humans had never intended to actually discuss anything with the Dark One. The meeting was merely a ruse to draw the Dark One out to where he could be quickly offed by an assassin. The humans had thought that this would serve to dissolve the goblinoid army, but instead, it drove them to attack with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance, killing over a million humans in a single year before allied elf and dwarf armies ended their rampage.
All this slaughter in the name of one individual served to raise the Dark One to godhood. Along with the divinity came knowledge, particularly the knowledge of why the goblins were created. The Dark One was not pleased with this knowledge. Some of the already existing gods wanted to destroy the Dark One right then and there, but some of the other evil-aligned gods defended him, and it was eventually agreed that the Dark One would have divine rights over the destiny of the goblins. However, none of the gods, neither the opposed nor the Dark One's allies, saw fit to inform the Dark One of the Snarl. This was not a problem for several centuries, during which the Dark One guided the goblin race, advising them to avoid humans, even as humans attacked goblin settlements more and more frequently.
But, one day, a cleric of the Dark One encountered a rift in the elven forest while fleeing a war party. After some failed divination spells, he attempted to send a live chicken through the rift, only to be drawn in himself and annihilated by the Snarl, as this rift opened up to the dimension where the Snarl was trapped. This, naturally, brought the Dark One's attention to the rift and the Snarl, and he asked his allies about it, eventually learning the first two paragraphs of this history. Thinking that perhaps he could use the Snarl to his advantage, and knowing he could not directly interfere in the elven lands, the Dark One created the Crimson Mantle, which would eventually become Redcloak's titular Red Cloak, and gave it to his high priest, whom he commanded to seize the rift.
Around that same time, maybe a year or so before, a paladin from Azure City, Soon Kim, was on a diplomatic mission to the elven lands with his wife, and they encountered the same rift. Soon's wife investigated, curious about it, and the Snarl killed her. Soon soon (...I'm so sorry) met an elven druid named Lirian, who was investigating wildlife disappearances in the area, and they came to the conclusion that the rift was responsible. They then went on a quest to end the threat of the Snarl, and their adventuring party expanded to include Serini Toormuck, a halfling rogue; Kraagor, a barbarian dwarf; Girard Draketooth, a human illusionist and tracker; and the human wizard Dorukan. They eventually discovered a total of 5 rifts, battling various factions that were attempting to use the rifts for their own means (the Dark One's goblins included), and discovered the knowledge that the rifts could not be removed without the gods remaking the world. However, Lirian and Dorukan managed to formulate a spell combining divine and arcane magic to seal the rifts, and, eventually, create Gates that would lock the seals in place. All 5 rifts were sealed and Gates were constructed around each, although Kraagor was killed by the Snarl in the battle to seal the 5th rift.
However, the remaining party members soon fell into disagreement over how the Gates should be protected. These disagreements quickly escalated, almost resulting in bloodshed before Serini interjected with a compromise: each of the 5 remaining party members would defend the Gate nearest to their homeland, and absolutely never interfere in the matters of another Gate or even see a fellow party member again. The rest of the party agreed and swore an oath to that effect before parting ways for the last time. Dorukan took the Gate in the Redmountain Hills, protecting it with powerful sigils; Lirian took the one in the elven forest, enlisting the aid of the forest's creatures; Girard's was in a desert and protected with illusions; Serini built a tomb for Kraagor and filled it with powerful monsters; and Soon created an elite group of paladins known as the Sapphire Guard at Azure City.
Meanwhile, the Dark One noticed that Gate's power could be warped by the combined power of a sufficiently powerful divine spellcaster and a sufficiently powerful arcane one, allowing the Dark One to be able to shift it to another plane. He realized that if he could shift it to the throne room of the gods on the Outer Planes, then it would give him quite the amount of leverage in negotiations with the other gods for a fair distribution of resources among all the sentient races, allowing his favored goblins a level playing field with the other civilizations. All he needed was control of the gate. This plan will henceforth be referred to with a capital P.
So, the goblin that would one day come to be known as Redcloak grew up in Goblin Hills with his family, the shown members of which are a paternal uncle, his mother, an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. Redcloak entered the clerical field in service to the Dark One. However, on the day that he was first ordained as an Acolyte, his settlement was attacked by members of the Sapphire Guard, who struck down the Revered Master, bearer of the Crimson Mantle. At the urging of the Revered Master's spirit, Redcloak donned the Mantle, which granted him the knowledge of the Dark One's Plan. He then started to vacate the battle in a trance, only to be brought out of it by his younger brother's cries for help. Redcloak rescued his brother, but not before his brother's left eye was cut out by a paladin. They left, and spent the next few years building up a small following of goblins.
4 years after the loss of his village, Redcloak and his goblins were about to launch an attack on a paladin fort when it was attacked by lizardfolk instead. While the lizardfolk were attacking, the aging sorcerer Xykon arrived and began slaughtering paladins and lizardfolk indiscriminately. Impressed with Xykon's arcane power and realizing that the chances of finding a goblin mage with the power necessary to carry out the Plan were very slim, Redcloak and his brother approached Xykon to ask him for his help. They were interrupted by the leader of the lizardfolk, who also asked Xykon for his assistance in the quest of the lizardfolk. Xykon, luckily, had nothing better to do, but he realized that he couldn't team up with both the goblins and the lizardfolk, so he gave them a challenge: both groups would explain their scheme to him and whichever one didn't bore him to sleep, he would do. He ordered the leader of the lizardfolk to start, addressing him as "Scaly". The lizardfolk's leader protested this appellation, insisting that he be called by his actual name, about half of which he got through before Xykon blasted him with lightning, saying that it was too long to remember. Xykon then asked Redcloak for his name, addressing him as "you in the red cloak".
Redcloak promptly introduced himself as "Redcloak" and his brother as "Right-Eye," despite his brother's cut-off protest. Xykon then asked that Redcloak explain the goblin's plans, and, when Redcloak began with "At the dawn of time," he decided that he'd need some coffee first, and so asked that Redcloak and Right-Eye lead him to the nearest diner. The siblings brought him to Evil Diner, where Xykon first encountered the demon roaches, roaches (literally) from hell that break the 4th wall with incredible regularity even for a webcomic known for breaking the 4th wall. Xykon ordered coffee, and was quite pleased to find it was the worst coffee he'd ever consumed, offering the wisdom that an awful cup of coffee forces one to relive all the good cups of coffee one had in their life as a method of coping with the awful coffee. Xykon having been caffeinated, Redcloak proceeded to explain the history of the Dark One and the Snarl as he knew it (the Dark One was only aware of the rift behind Lirian's Gate, you see). He also partially explained the Plan, namely, the part where a divine spellcaster and an arcane one could warp and control the Gate. Xykon misinterpreted this to mean they could control the Snarl and use it to rule the world, and Redcloak conveniently failed to correct him on this matter. Xykon agreed to help the Plan.
3 years later, they launched an attack on Lirian's Gate. The attack initially did fairly well at first, cutting through the forest all the way to the Gate in 11 days. Lirian, however, had something called the Guardian Virus on her side: a magical virus (of the biological, not the computer variety, natch) which attacked the parts of the brain that store and process spell energy and stayed in the nervous system forever, causing a permanent loss of all spellcasting powers. Xykon and all the goblin clerics soon succumbed to the virus, allowing Lirian's forces an easy victory. Redcloak was spared the effects of the virus, most likely due to the Crimson Mantle.
Lirian was merciful, and gathered Xykon and the surviving goblins and placed them in a sealed stone cavern underground, filled with plants that would allow them to survive down there for years, if not indefinitely. Of course, Xykon and the goblins had no intentions of staying down there long enough to even come close to finding out what the limit was. Redcloak presented Xykon with a feasible plan for escape: he would turn Xykon into a lich, an immortal sorcerous skeleton of incredible power. Xykon, once it was explained to him that it was "lich," not "leech," and that a lich was an entirely different and vastly superior form of undead than a zombie, agreed to this plan after maybe 5 seconds of thought. Right-Eye then took Redcloak aside and expressed doubts as to the wisdom of this plan. He pointed out that Xykon had been personally responsible for the death of many goblins already and that he could be replaced in the Plan by any other sufficiently skilled arcane caster, and couldn't Redcloak just get them out of the cavern himself with the clerical magic that Lirian wasn't aware he'd retained? Redcloak countered with the points that clerical magic wasn't that destructive, that they'd stuck with Xykon too long to switch and find a new arcane caster now, and that Xykon could be controlled by making his phylactery (the thing that would store Xykon's soul were his lich body to ever be destroyed) something they'd always have access to, like, say, for example, Redcloak's own holy symbol. Right-Eye reluctantly agreed, almost entirely due to that final point, and Redcloak spent the next 4 months turning Xykon into a lich.
Xykon adjusted to his new lich body very quickly, proceeding to test out his paralyzing touch on all the non-Redcloak goblins present, thereby killing all of them but Right-Eye, the only one with a high enough save to survive, although he remained paralyzed. Redcloak suggested waiting a day so he could prepare and cast Remove Paralysis on Right-Eye, but Xykon turned this suggestion down, reasoning that someone may have heard the ruckus when he turned into a lich. They broke out of the stone prison, and Xykon confronted Lirian once more. Meanwhile, Redcloak went to stow away the still paralyzed Right-Eye, but he was stopped by a treant. Not in the mood to deal with this kind of nonsense, Redcloak simply cast Flame Strike on the wooden monster. The wooden monster which promptly fell into another wooden monster behind it. And another. And another. Until the entire wood caught on fire, including the two treants who were tied to the Gate. They attempted to flee, despite Redcloak's protests, and destroyed the Gate, much to the goblin's horror. Meanwhile, however, Xykon managed to defeat Lirian, learning of the existence of other Gates shortly before he killed her, bound her soul to a gem, and then animated her corpse as a zombie. (Xykon, in case you had somehow failed to notice, is a complete bastard and he only gets worse.)
Xykon informed Redcloak that these other Gates existed, preventing Redcloak from falling into a case of Not-So-Heroic-BSOD. The measly group of villains then retreated and regrouped at the Evil Diner, where Xykon found himself with the sudden discovery that being turned into a lich had caused him to lose his sense of taste. His reaction was understandably bad. He murdered the waitress, and then attacked Right-Eye. Redcloak threatened to destroy the phylactery, but Xykon countered with the truth that the phylactery was nothing more than a pricey bauble unless Xykon himself was destroyed first, and that if Redcloak dared to harm it in the slightest, then Xykon would gruesomely kill both the goblin brothers. When Xykon further threatened Redcloak for not informing him that he would lose his sense of taste, Redcloak reasoned that he was the only one who knew the rituals to control the Gates and was therefore that his death would mean that Xykon had become a lich for nothing. Xykon accepted this, but then made it very clear that he was in charge from there on out, like it or not. Right-Eye was furious at this and suggested that they abandon Xykon and start again from scratch, but Redcloak pointed out that at this point, Xykon knew just as much as they did and that if they weren't working with him, then they were working against him, and they couldn't afford to do that, given how dangerous he was now.
6 years later, Right-Eye met in secret with Eugene Greenhilt, a powerful wizard who had been seeking Xykon in the past after Xykon had brutally murdered his beloved mentor. However, it turned out that Eugene had gotten married and settled down in the years since he'd adventured in pursuit of Xykon, and that he was no longer interested in revenge. Instead, he suggested to Right-Eye that he and Redcloak simply quit working for Xykon and settle down with some goblin women instead. Right-Eye took these words to heart and promptly returned to the fortress Xykon and his army currently inhabited. There, he tried to convince Redcloak to leave and go with him, but Redcloak staunchly refused, and it soon devolved into a fierce argument before Right-Eye conceded that he couldn't convince Redcloak and simply left by himself.
The brothers wouldn't meet again for 18 years. In the intervening time, Right-Eye had indeed followed Eugene's advice, getting married and fathering 3 children: two boys and a girl. Redcloak, meanwhile, had been continuing trying to get the Plan on track to no success, up until Xykon disappeared about 3 years before Redcloak apparently decided at random to get back in touch with his little brother. Redcloak stayed with Right-Eye and his family for a brief period of time, during which he took Right-Eye's children to the local circus, where he first encountered the Monster in Darkness. Impressed by how the Monster in Darkness was apparently a powerful and terrifying Monster, Redcloak offered him a job, offering to even triple the salary the circus was paying him (that is to say, absolutely nothing). The Monster in Darkness, an incredibly childish creature, happily agreed to this plan, and Redcloak soon plotted to spring him from the circus to use in the Plan. Right-Eye, however, gave Redcloak a tempting counter-offer, namely, a blind date with his wife's cousin, a beautiful, intelligent goblin with an interest in religion.
Redcloak chose to spring the Monster in Darkness from the circus.
He was followed to the circus by Right-Eye's eldest son, Ridi, who had expressed a desire in becoming a wizard against his father's wishes. While Redcloak and his nephew argued, the Monster in Darkness managed to send the cart Redcloak had placed him in careening down a hill into one of those strength test bell things, thereby alerting the entire circus. Redcloak fought off most of the circus while they escaped, but they were eventually surrounded by ninja clowns, and it seemed that all was lost, until Right-Eye attacked the clowns with cotton candy. This allowed them to escape, and they headed home, Redcloak expressing a desire to let the Plan go and settle down in town with his family.
Unfortunately, Xykon was waiting at Right-Eye's doorstep. It turned out that he had spent the last 3 years seeking out the locations of the other Gates and had found the diary of Serini Toormuck, which included the encrypted locations of all 5 Gates. He ordered Redcloak and Right-Eye to pack up and get ready to head to the Redmountain Hills. Right-Eye protested, saying that they no longer worked for Xykon, but Xykon countered with, "I don't know... it just doesn't sound right to me. I was pretty certain that there are only two types of goblins within a 20 mile radius: Those that worked for me, and those whose internal organs are distressingly... external." Right-Eye conceded that he, his family, and the rest of their village all worked for Xykon. Pleased, Xykon ordered him to mobilize the village and torch all the buildings.
It took about a year to get to the Redmountain Hills, and Xykon's army settled in for over a year of siege, waiting for the wizard Dorukan to show himself. At some point during these 2 and a half years, Right-Eye smuggled his daughter out of the army, but his wife and sons all fell to adventurers. Finally, Xykon came up with an idea. Knowing that Dorukan was scrying on them, and having found out that Dorukan and Lirian were in a relationship from his reading of Serini's diary, Xykon presented the zombified corpse of Lirian, alongside an ogre, and announced to Dorukan that if he didn't show himself in the next 60 seconds, Xykon would order the ogre to start chowing down on Lirian's corpse. When Dorukan Sent a message that he didn't care what Xykon did with Lirian's corpse, as it was just an empty shell and not Lirian herself, Xykon pointed out that it might upset Lirian herself, whose soul was still Bound to that gemstone. He very nearly reached the end of his countdown before Dorukan appeared and attacked.
While the two arcane casters fought, Redcloak went down and ordered Right-Eye to gather the rest of the goblins to storm the castle. Right-Eye refused, saying that it wasn't their chance to seize the castle, but rather, their chance to kill Xykon once and for all. He explained his plan to Redcloak: he would drink a Fly potion and Sneak Attack Xykon with a magic positive energy dagger, which would allow Dorukan to successfully destroy Xykon's body, at which point, if Redcloak smashed the phylactery, Xykon's soul would also be destroyed and the lich would be no more. They argued vehemently, Right-Eye saying that Redcloak was out of touch with the goblin people and frozen in time as the same angry kid who took the Crimon Mantle off of the Revered Master all those years ago and that he was too stubborn to admit that he was wrong to begin with. Eventually, however, he came to realize that he couldn't possibly convince Redcloak with words, and that only actions would do the trick, so he drank his Fly potion and headed up to Sneak Attack Xykon.
He didn't reach Xykon before Redcloak cast Disintegrate on him.
He technically survived the subsequent fall, but only long enough for him and Redcloak to say their final good-byes to each other, with Right-Eye addressing Redcloak as "Redcloak," a moniker he had repeatedly stated his distaste for, instead of the "Brother" he usually addressed him with.
Meanwhile, Xykon managed to Energy Drain Dorukan to death, using Soul Bind to Bind his soul to the same gem as Lirian. He went to Redcloak for healing and asked what happened to Right-Eye. Redcloak lied and said that Right-Eye had been flying up to help Xykon with the angels Dorukan had summoned to battle Xykon at the time Right-Eye'd launched his attack, when someone must have zapped him with something and he fell. Xykon then ordered Redcloak to animate Right-Eye's corpse (that is, of course, turn him into a zombie), and Redcloak refused, saying he'd bury him instead.
It was at this point that Xykon revealed that he was aware of what Redcloak had done, asking if there had been a "big sale down at the Testicle Store or something". He also revealed that he was wearing a magic ring that would have shielded him from the positive energy of the dagger even if Right-Eye had successfully attacked him. Shocked, Redcloak asked why Xykon didn't just kill Right-Eye himself in advance, if he knew what he was planning. Xykon said that the answer was obvious: he wanted to see if Redcloak would kill him for him. Mostly because he was curious to see if Redcloak had it in him, but also because it gave him insurance, because now he knew that Redcloak would always act in his interest, even if he wasn't around to make sure of it and that Redcloak would protect the phylactery if his body was ever destroyed. Because if Redcloak destroyed the phylactery, he would have to face the realization that he'd killed Right-Eye over nothing, and he didn't have the balls for that. And Redcloak couldn't raise Right-Eye, either, because then Right-Eye would know what Redcloak did, and Redcloak really didn't have the balls for that. And so Redcloak would end up following Xykon forever, because, in Xykon's own words, "as long as you're loyal to me, I'll let you pretend this never happened. We'll just go about our daily business, and you can hide from the horrifying truth of what you've become-namely, a murderer who just killed his baby brother in cold blood. And hey, we can both pretend that you don't really have any options about any of the despicable actions I ask you to take from here on out, rather than acknowledging that, like Right-Eye, you do in fact have a choice. But unlike Right-Eye there, you're too chickenshit to ever make it. You'll obey me forever now, because I give you an excuse for your inexcusable behavior."
Xykon and Redcloak thus firmly cemented as metaphorical butch and bitch respectively, Redcloak Animated Right-Eye's corpse and helped move the army into Dorukan's castle.
6 months later, a party of adventurers ventured into the castle. This party was the Order of the Stick. It was led by Roy Greenhilt, human fighter and Eugene Greenhilt's son, who was seeking out Xykon to complete his father's Blood Oath of Vengeance, which, it turned out, not only followed Eugene into the afterlife, but was passed down to his children as well. The other party members were Haley Starshine, a human rogue; Durkon Thundershield, a dwarf cleric; Vaarsuvius, elven sorcerer; Elan, a human bard; and Belkar Bitterleaf, a halfling ranger. Xykon sent some mercenaries after the party, but they all ultimately failed. Meanwhile, Xykon experimented with Dorukan's Gate, or more specifically, the more literal gate that had been constructed in front of it and sealed with a powerful rune. Eventually, the Order managed to make their way to Xykon's lair and engaged Xykon's forces in battle. Redcloak was not a major force in this battle, his participation mostly being casting Bolster Undead. Meanwhile, Roy confronted Xykon in battle, and when Xykon cast Shatter on his family sword, he fell into a berserker rage and punched Xykon's head off before picking his body and head up and throwing them into the rune-sealed gate, which destroyed them. Redcloak promptly beat feet, taking the Monster in Darkness with him.
They emerged from their escape tunnel in the Southern Mountains, where they discovered a settlement of hobgoblins. Redcloak expressed distaste at their presence, including in their bad qualities things such as their sense of duty, their emphasis on military, their code of honor, the discipline, etc., all of which, naturally, did nothing to persuade Xykon not to recruit them as minions. And so Xykon had Redcloak set on the path to becoming the hobgoblins' supreme leader. This required him to become an official member of the hobgoblin tribe first, which required a ridiculous amount of ridiculous rituals. When Xykon asked if there was a faster way for Redcloak to become supreme leader, the hobgoblin who was carrying out the rituals told them that killing the current supreme leader would do the trick. Or, rather, got most of the way through telling them before Redcloak, assuming that he was the supreme leader himself, cast Slay Living on him and killed him. The actual supreme leader of the hobgoblins then claimed that why, yes, that guy definitely was the supreme leader when asked.
Now thoroughly established as the supreme leader of the hobgoblins, Redcloak and Xykon began making preparations to get back into Xykon's spare fortress. Unfortunately, this required going through what the hobgoblins called the sadly-not-ironically-named "Perilous Path of Crushing Doom," on which even the slightest noise could set off a deadly rockslide, although once a rockslide had occurred, there wouldn't be another one until the next rainfall. Initially upon hearing of this, Redcloak decided that it was too dangerous to send anyone up and that he would investigate personally, until the Monster in Darkness made an observation about how noble it was that Redcloak would risk his own life rather than send any hobgoblins to their death despite his large dislike for the hobgoblins, at which point Redcloak changed his mind and ordered a group of 20 warriors to go up the path on scouting duty and to shout if they didn't find anything. The path thus cleared, they ventured up it to the fortress, finding it guarded by a monster, which was easily dealt with by sacrificing more hobgoblins to it, as it fell asleep after eating. The fortress was also filled with just about every Good-aligned monster in the Monster Manual (not as many as one might think, though, as very few Evil-aligned adventurers makes for very little need for many Good-aligned monsters), which were all easily vanquished. They soon made it to the fortress's library, finding their objective: Serini's diary. Xykon ordered Redcloak to mobilize the troops while he decoded the locations of the other Gates, at which point they discovered that the 300 or so hobgoblins they'd been ordering around were merely Legion One... out of 87, much to Xykon's delight.
A good deal of time passed (very nearly 100 strips, even), and Xykon and co. had fully prepared their troops to move out. The question then became where to move the troops out towards. Xykon had managed to decipher the locations of the remaining three Gates: one was across the ocean, and thus not a feasible choice. Another was far, far to the north, and would require marching through 8 human nations before reaching it. The third, however, was Soon's Gate in Azure City, much to the pleasure of Xykon and Redcloak in particular. And so Xykon's army set out for Azure City.
The army progressed without much event, Xykon, Redcloak, and the Monster in Darkness venturing ahead to take out the Azurite watchtowers along the way so that the city wouldn't be forewarned of their arrival. At the last tower, however, they encountered Miko Miyazaki, a member of the Sapphire Guard. She and Redcloak immediately leapt into battle against each other, while Xykon made bets on the outcome with the demon cockroaches rather than help. Once Redcloak was knocked down, however, Xykon sealed Miko in a magic cage before he went to destroy the magical warning beacon before it could be activated. Xykon was going to kill Miko, but when she called Xykon an unnatural abomination before claiming that the gods had removed all fear from her, Redcloak went off on an angry rant about how lacking fear made her just as unnatural as Xykon, and Xykon decided to let her stew on that while he and Redcloak went back to fetch their army. However, Miko managed to escape the force cage. The Monster in Darkness had been left behind to guard her, but it managed to accidentally knock her out of the watchtower completely, allowing her to ride off to Azure City, warning them of the approaching army.
This, however, was exactly according to Xykon's plan. Miko's escape had given Xykon what he needed to be able to scry on her, meaning that if she visited the Gate, he would know and, therefore, know where to find it when they arrived. Unfortunately for Xykon and co., the throne room where Soon's Gate, so small that it had been sealed with a single sapphire, around which the throne of the Lord of Azure City and, in fact, the entire castle itself had been built, was shielded against scrying. Unfortunately for the protagonists of the comic, Hinjo, the new Lord of the city after Miko murdered the old one for reasons that have nothing to do with Redcloak and are too complicated to get into here, explained this salient detail outside of the throne room while taking Miko to jail. Now that they knew where to find the Gate and that the eve of the battle was at hand, Redcloak attempted to talk tactics with Xykon, but eventually came up with a plan himself instead. He created three different skeletal undead: a death knight, a huecuva, and an Eye of Fear and Flame, and put the death knight and the Eye of Fear and Flame in charge of two different units, while the huecuva stayed in the back with him. Xykon himself would ride a zombified and, more importantly, invisible dragon to the castle while Azure City's forces were distracted with the decoys, then kill and zombify everyone there to open up a second front inside the city.
And so the attack was launched the next morning. Redcloak started by firing 5 Titanium Elementals at the wall. (Yes, titanium. In Redcloak's own words, "Hey, it's not my fault everyone else limits themselves to four elements. Some of us got passing grades in Chem.") These Elementals managed to open up a few holes in the walls of the city, but were quickly brought down by the Order of the Stick, who also soon managed to decloak Xykon, thus ruining the second front plan. Roy Greenhilt managed to jump up onto the dragon and engaged Xykon in battle directly, which turned out to be a Very Bad Plan for him, as it caused his death. The plan thereby ruined, Xykon decided to head straight for the throne room, where he was confronted by nearly the entirety of the Sapphire Guard. Xykon tossed a bouncy ball inscribed with a Symbol of Insanity into the group and allowed the Guard to slaughter each other, while the paladin O-Chul raced to destroy the Gate to keep it out of Xykon's hands, until Xykon stopped him with his Paralyzing Touch just as he raised his blade to destroy it. Unfortunately for Xykon, however, his massacre of the Guard allowed them to rise again as ghosts under the command of the spirit of Soon Kim himself and attack again.
Meanwhile, Redcloak continued to pass along orders from the back of the army. Unsympathetic to the hobgoblins, he ordered that the southern section of the army continue to press their attack, despite overwhelming casualties. That is, until a hobgoblin pushed him out of the way of an incoming catapult-launched boulder, sacrificing his life and forcing Redcloak to realize the horror of what he'd been doing. Determined that the deaths of the southern section of the army not be in vain, Redcloak summoned a mammoth and ordered that they withdraw and join with the northern section of the army at the breach. The unified army stormed through the scarcely defended (most of the Azurite army had fled when they saw the full force of hobgoblins approaching) breach with ease, and Redcloak continued towards the castle with 4 of the legions. Entry to the castle was also easily gained, as Redcloak had arranged for a hobgoblin ninja to discreetly kill the guard of the gate winch.
Inside the castle's courtyard, Redcloak encountered the High Priest of the Twelve Gods. They engaged in a clerical duel, which is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds, as it consisted entirely of saving throws being made until Redcloak cast Destruction and the High Priest failed to make his save, being immediately reduced to a greasy smear with a simple ZOT! He then summoned a Chlorine Elemental and ordered it to kill all the humans in the courtyard, at which point he encountered the mystic theurge, Tsukiko, whom Xykon had conducted a job interview with and hired in the middle of the battle earlier. Not at all happy about this, Redcloak brushed her off on his way into the castle and cast Blade Barrier over the entrance, trapping her in the courtyard with the Chlorine Elemental, who, of course, didn't have any exceptions for her in its orders.
Redcloak and a hobgoblin cleric made their way all the way to the throne room, where they found Xykon in battle with the Guard's ghosts, and not doing too well at that. Redcloak healed him, then came to the conclusion that since these were positive energy spirits, and, as such, the negative energy spell Rebuke Undead should dismiss them in the same way that the positive energy spell Turn Undead dismisses negative energy spirits. He and the hobgoblin cleric tested this theory: Redcloak's Rebuke was effective, but the hobgoblin's was not, as the throne room was consecrated and the hobgoblin was not high enough level to overcome it. Because of this, Redcloak sent the hobgoblin out of the room, while he and Xykon continued to battle Soon's forces. While Redcloak's Rebukes did not directly affect Soon, the dismissal of the paladin spirits did momentarily stun him, so Redcloak had Xykon directly engage Soon to keep him occupied while Redcloak himself continued to Rebuke the paladins. This was not an easy task, and Xykon and Redcloak both sustained fairly heavy damage before Redcloak managed to dismiss the entirety of the ghost Guard save Soon. Soon, however, managed to best Xykon in combat and was nearly about to kill both villains when Miko arrived in the throne room and, seeing O-Chul frozen in front of the throne with his blade raised, came to the conclusion that finishing his work and destroying the Gate was somehow a good idea and proceeded to do exactly that. Xykon took the distraction this gave Soon as an opportunity to take Redcloak and get the hell out of Dodge.
The Gate promptly exploded, destroying a huge chunk of the castle along with it.
Xykon brought Redcloak down into the midst of the hobgoblin army, where they regrouped. Healed up, Xykon suggested that they pack their bags and hit the road to find the next Gate, but Redcloak convinced him to stay in Azure City longer so that they could research the next Gate and hopefully not almost get their asses handed to them by a room full of ghosts next time.
While getting settled, Redcloak noticed that a single boat remained in the harbor, so he set off to go sink it. He summoned a fiendish octopus to help. Unfortunately, this boat held a pair of the few surviving Guard members, one of whom had a shark mount. The other surviving Guard member happened to be Hinjo, who attempted to attack Redcloak directly, only to end up getting a Disintegrate spell to the face for his troubles. While this didn't kill Hinjo, it did knock him back onto the boat and also unconscious, causing the captain of the boat to order it to set sail in spite of Hinjo's orders. Redcloak then admonished himself for not capturing Hinjo himself, thinking that Hinjo would have some knowledge of how the other Gates were protected. Luckily, however, the Monster in Darkness managed to find O-Chul, who had managed to survive the Gate's explosion. Meanwhile, Xykon cast Cloister over Azure City, which would prevent any attempts at magical contact between the City and the outside.
In the months that followed, Xykon's army managed to settle in the City fairly thoroughly, even as the rift where the Gate had been slowly expanded. What humans remained in the city were captured and enslaved, save for a few resistance groups. Redcloak himself mostly occupied himself with interrogating O-Chul to try and find out how Girard's Gate was protected. This was made somewhat difficult due to Xykon's habit of amusing himself by throwing O-Chul into elaborate deathtraps and betting on his odds of survival. After a particularly eventful deathtrap involving an acid-breathing shark, Redcloak took O-Chul on a little "field trip" up to see the rift. Redcloak observed that while all reports he had heard of the Snarl before the Gates were constructed involved it reaching out to undo those nearby, but the Snarl had set neither claw nor tangle outside the massive rift. Of course, Redcloak was a great believer in the scientific method, so he showed O-Chul how he was planning on pushing two groups of slaves off a tower: one group would be pushed into the rift and hopefully one would manage to scream something useful before being undone, and the other would be pushed off the other side of the tower as the control group.
Redcloak also pointed out to O-Chul that if he would just tell him how Girard's Gate was protected, then he wouldn't have time to indulge these experiments and would instead immediately leave for the Gate, which, of course, would leave Azure City open to be retaken. O-Chul seemed to be convinced, but failed his Bluff Check terribly. The two argued, Redcloak taking the stance that the paladins following Soon's oath and not keeping up with the other Gates was so counter-productive and ridiculous that it must be false, despite all forms of divination confirming it as truth. When O-Chul continued to fail to produce the information that he honestly did lack, Redcloak was amazed and, frankly, somewhat disgusted by O-Chul's apparent willingness to allow Redcloak to sacrifice innocents like that. However, Redcloak didn't actually go through with this plan, ordering the slaves to be sent back to their cells with the knowledge that their paladin was willing to let them die and that the goblins showed mercy. Unfortunately for Redcloak, what the slaves actually took from the demonstration was admiration for O-Chul's resistance and they began to organize themselves into a resistance of their own.
Now, though, Redcloak was finally convinced that O-Chul didn't know a thing. This did not, however, make much of a difference, as getting any knowledge from O-Chul hadn't been the point for a while. The point was giving Xykon a reason to continue to sit and figuratively twiddle his thumbs in Azure City while Redcloak made sure that the hobgoblins could continue to sustain themselves without him present. And since that's where he currently is in canon, that's where I'll be taking him from.
Personality: Redcloak is a fanatic speciesist. This guy hates humans. I mean, just really fucking hates them. (You can see why I've got him headed to the Netherworld instead of Memento Eden, I hope.) He considers them to be amoral savages, judgmental and egotistical, huge hypocrites, and all manners of other unflattering adjectives and nouns (and possibly even adverbs!). Naturally, this is not at all surprising, given what's happened to him, but it is one of his most basic characteristics. His speciesism is most apparent against humans, but he seems to have a level of disdain for most non-goblin species in general. Of course, Redcloak is a lot more than just a fanatic speciesist. For example, while he does hate humans and will not hesitate in the least to kill one in battle in an incredibly ruthless, merciless, and efficient manner, he also apparently can't bring himself to kill defenseless innocents, as pretty thoroughly demonstrated by his failure to go through with having the Azurite slaves thrown off the tower when O-Chul failed to cave to his demands. It could even be argued that Redcloak had no intention to have the slaves thrown to their deaths at all in the first place. He very clearly expected O-Chul to give in, given how upset and then disgusted he was when he didn't. I mean, just look at this strip. He totally wasn't ever going to do it. He even acknowledges that he won't like it. It's things like this that keep him from being Evil with a capital E like Xykon.
Redcloak is single-minded in his dedication to the Plan. This practically goes without saying considering everything he's done for its sake. The thing is that furthering the Plan has overtaken the good of the goblin race in Redcloak's mind. While Redcloak believes (or, at least, convinces himself that he believes) that the Plan and what's best for the goblin race are one and the same, the fact of the matter is that they sometimes simply aren't, especially when Xykon's involved, and when these cases arise, Redcloak almost universally chooses the Plan over his fellow goblin, commonly justifying the lost goblins as martyrdom and a necessary sacrifice. Redcloak is particularly stubborn in regards to the Plan: he'll throw good lives after bad rather than admit that he could be wrong about it or that the Plan isn't the One True Way to Equality for Goblinkind.
Redcloak has pretty high INT and WIS scores. (In Layman's Terms, he's smart and pretty good about applying said smarts.) He is, without a doubt, the main strategic/tactical/all-around-planning force behind the actions he and Xykon take (not that Xykon never contributes, but more that Redcloak handles the planning more often than not). He's a pretty clever guy and generally makes good decisions, though he has, on occasion, fallen prey to overthinking, such as the first battle for Lirian's Gate, where he failed to prepare his strongest fire spell because he assumed all the treants would be warded against it. Of course, he has also fallen prey to underthinking, such as the second battle for Lirian's Gate, in which he did cast Flame Strike on the treants and ended up burning the forest down. Both of these failings were mostly due to Redcloak's dedication to efficiency. He failed to prepare Flame Strike the first time because he assumed it would be useless and thus a waste of time and a good spell slot. He cast it without thinking of how it might spread the second time because he was in a hurry to get the paralyzed Right-Eye somewhere safe. Redcloak is a planner by nature, really, and he often has difficulty seizing the moment. He is stubbornly patient and tends to stick with something even when it would objectively smarter to figuratively get the hell out of Dodge.
Redcloak tends to slide around some on the maturity scale. On the one hand, he's around 50 years old and many of those 50-or-so years have been hard ones and some horrible things have happened in those years and they most certainly have had an effect on Redcloak. On the other, he hasn't really grown any in the past 35-ish years, and that's not just physically. I believe Right-Eye put it best: "Brother, you may have had a lifetime, but you haven't had a life since the day you put on that cloak. [...] You're frozen in time. You're the same angry kid who took that artifact off of your master's corpse that day." Although he doesn't completely have the emotional maturity of a teenager, he is sometimes lacking in the full-fledged maturity of an adult: he can be irrationally stubborn, he tends to get a bit more upset than he should when things don't go his way, his default immediate reaction to something he doesn't like tends to be "act really snippy about it," he tends to hold incredible grudges, etc. His emotional development is not completely frozen, however; his sudden realization of what a complete ass he's been about the hobgoblins is evidence enough of that. I think the most accurate comparison to Redcloak's mental age is a teenager who is wise beyond his years but fundamentally still a teenager, hard as he may try to distance himself from that.
And a list of shallower observations. Redcloak is a deadpan snarker. Like almost everyone in Order of the Stick, he does occasionally break the 4th wall. (My personal favorite example is when he hung a lampshade on lampshade-hanging.) He is, by my estimations, at least 15th level and probably either-Lawful-or-Neutral Evil Square in alignment. He relies more or less entirely on his magical prowess in battle and has never been shown to wield a weapon. He's probably physically weak. His Clerical Domains are apparently Destruction and possibly Law though I maintain that dialogue suggests otherwise. (Disintegrate is not a universal Cleric spells; Redcloak's also been shown using Smite, which is the granted power of the Destruction Domain.) He's a nerd. He's particularly interested in economics and other basics of civilization. Parallels to Communism could possibly be drawn: The Dark One united the goblins by encouraging them all to treat each other as family and it's very emphasized that the goblins want a level playing field with the other races; it's all quite proletariat-and-bourgeoisie-esque. But then we're getting out of the "shallower observations" part.
Class Title: Goblin Cleric
Immediate Possessions: One holy symbol/phylactery, which basically looks like a pendant on a necklace; one somewhat tattered red cloak, more accurately referred to as the Crimson Mantle, which is a divine artifact created by the Dark One and the main indicator of his rank as the Dark One's High Priest; and a number of various unimportant somatic spell components of negligible cost that no one ever keeps track of anyway, myself included. And I think that we can all agree that if I'm not keeping track of it, it's really insignificant.
Deposited Possessions: A sizeable collection of D&D sourcebooks. Uhhhh, let's say around 10,000 HL.
Job: History of Evil Teacher. Salary: 10,000HL/day
Rooming Assignment: Room 108 (w/ Orpheus)
Personal Journal: hotandcoldrp
Contact: DecepticonAF on AIM and decepticonaf@aol.com
Character Name: Redcloak
Canon: Order of the Stick
Age: Chronologically, like, 50-some, physically, like, 20, tops, and mentally, uh, I'll go more into that in the Personality section. It is kind of complicated?
Background: Redcloak's original name has not yet and might not ever be revealed. As such, I'll be referring to him as Redcloak, but with the understanding that he doesn't actually go by that moniker until a number of paragraphs in. Also this section contains HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE OOTS BOOK START OF DARKNESS. MASSIVE. THE CORE STRIP ITSELF HASN'T SPOILED A LOT OF THIS STUFF YET, EVEN. THIS IS YOUR CAPSLOCK WARNING. ALSO, Y'KNOW, SPOILERS FOR THE WEBCOMIC IN GENERAL, BUT. START OF DARKNESS IS THE MEATY STUFF HERE.
But first, let's talk about the history of the Order of the Stick world in general (otherwise known as "the crayon stuff"), because it is Very Important.
In the beginning, there was chaos (not that Xenogears guy, general chaos), until the gods arrived and decided to shape it into the world. There were 4 sets of gods: the Norse mythology-derived Northern gods, the Hinduism-derived Eastern gods, the Chinese Zodiac-derived Southern gods, and the Greek mythology-derived Western gods. Initially, they cooperated in creating the world, but it didn't take long for disagreements of how certain things should work to arise. Rather than talk through these arguments like reasonable adults, the gods instead pulled on the threads of reality, developing tangles. The tangles in the fabric of reality eventually developed into the Snarl, a malevolent, god-killing force.
The Snarl then broke through reality and slaughtered the entirety of the Western pantheon before any of them knew what hit them. It then turned its attention to the world the gods had created and destroyed it, completely annihilating it within 27 minutes of first revealing itself. The remaining gods then hid from it in the Outer Planes for centuries. The leaders of the 3 remaining pantheons met in secret and formulated a plan: they would build a new world with the released threads of the old, determining who would create what and how ahead of time so that new tangles wouldn't be created, and they would build this new world around the Snarl, trapping it inside.
They also agreed to separate the world geographically, and only allow direct divine interference by pantheon members in the area their pantheon ruled over. The gods also created the cleric class, in case something in the lands of one pantheon affected the lands of another pantheon. However, after a few years, the gods noticed that they had failed to provide a way for their clerics to level up. So they got back together and created the humanoid monster races for their clerics to kill for XP: goblinoids, kobolds, lizardfolk, etc. In order to guarantee that the monster races wouldn't settle into their own civilizations and conquer the favored races, the gods distributed the monsters in unusable land, giving them every geographic, economic, and physical disadvantage they could to make sure that they would act as raiders on the outskirts of the favored civilizations.
This continued for a time, until one day, a goblin born with violet skin rose as a warlord. This goblin, who had adopted the title of The Dark One, had an Elite Array of ability scores, along with class levels, possibly even a prestige class. The Dark One was a wise and benevolent ruler, as well as being mighty in battle, and he united the different tribes of goblinoids into a single nation by encouraging them to treat each other as brothers and sisters. He built an incredible army with the goal of creating a lasting goblinoid civilization. Once he had built this army, however, he did not attack the humans. Instead, he met with the assembled leaders of several countries, in order to try and reach an agreement with them to create a fair distribution of land.
Unfortunately, the humans had never intended to actually discuss anything with the Dark One. The meeting was merely a ruse to draw the Dark One out to where he could be quickly offed by an assassin. The humans had thought that this would serve to dissolve the goblinoid army, but instead, it drove them to attack with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance, killing over a million humans in a single year before allied elf and dwarf armies ended their rampage.
All this slaughter in the name of one individual served to raise the Dark One to godhood. Along with the divinity came knowledge, particularly the knowledge of why the goblins were created. The Dark One was not pleased with this knowledge. Some of the already existing gods wanted to destroy the Dark One right then and there, but some of the other evil-aligned gods defended him, and it was eventually agreed that the Dark One would have divine rights over the destiny of the goblins. However, none of the gods, neither the opposed nor the Dark One's allies, saw fit to inform the Dark One of the Snarl. This was not a problem for several centuries, during which the Dark One guided the goblin race, advising them to avoid humans, even as humans attacked goblin settlements more and more frequently.
But, one day, a cleric of the Dark One encountered a rift in the elven forest while fleeing a war party. After some failed divination spells, he attempted to send a live chicken through the rift, only to be drawn in himself and annihilated by the Snarl, as this rift opened up to the dimension where the Snarl was trapped. This, naturally, brought the Dark One's attention to the rift and the Snarl, and he asked his allies about it, eventually learning the first two paragraphs of this history. Thinking that perhaps he could use the Snarl to his advantage, and knowing he could not directly interfere in the elven lands, the Dark One created the Crimson Mantle, which would eventually become Redcloak's titular Red Cloak, and gave it to his high priest, whom he commanded to seize the rift.
Around that same time, maybe a year or so before, a paladin from Azure City, Soon Kim, was on a diplomatic mission to the elven lands with his wife, and they encountered the same rift. Soon's wife investigated, curious about it, and the Snarl killed her. Soon soon (...I'm so sorry) met an elven druid named Lirian, who was investigating wildlife disappearances in the area, and they came to the conclusion that the rift was responsible. They then went on a quest to end the threat of the Snarl, and their adventuring party expanded to include Serini Toormuck, a halfling rogue; Kraagor, a barbarian dwarf; Girard Draketooth, a human illusionist and tracker; and the human wizard Dorukan. They eventually discovered a total of 5 rifts, battling various factions that were attempting to use the rifts for their own means (the Dark One's goblins included), and discovered the knowledge that the rifts could not be removed without the gods remaking the world. However, Lirian and Dorukan managed to formulate a spell combining divine and arcane magic to seal the rifts, and, eventually, create Gates that would lock the seals in place. All 5 rifts were sealed and Gates were constructed around each, although Kraagor was killed by the Snarl in the battle to seal the 5th rift.
However, the remaining party members soon fell into disagreement over how the Gates should be protected. These disagreements quickly escalated, almost resulting in bloodshed before Serini interjected with a compromise: each of the 5 remaining party members would defend the Gate nearest to their homeland, and absolutely never interfere in the matters of another Gate or even see a fellow party member again. The rest of the party agreed and swore an oath to that effect before parting ways for the last time. Dorukan took the Gate in the Redmountain Hills, protecting it with powerful sigils; Lirian took the one in the elven forest, enlisting the aid of the forest's creatures; Girard's was in a desert and protected with illusions; Serini built a tomb for Kraagor and filled it with powerful monsters; and Soon created an elite group of paladins known as the Sapphire Guard at Azure City.
Meanwhile, the Dark One noticed that Gate's power could be warped by the combined power of a sufficiently powerful divine spellcaster and a sufficiently powerful arcane one, allowing the Dark One to be able to shift it to another plane. He realized that if he could shift it to the throne room of the gods on the Outer Planes, then it would give him quite the amount of leverage in negotiations with the other gods for a fair distribution of resources among all the sentient races, allowing his favored goblins a level playing field with the other civilizations. All he needed was control of the gate. This plan will henceforth be referred to with a capital P.
So, the goblin that would one day come to be known as Redcloak grew up in Goblin Hills with his family, the shown members of which are a paternal uncle, his mother, an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. Redcloak entered the clerical field in service to the Dark One. However, on the day that he was first ordained as an Acolyte, his settlement was attacked by members of the Sapphire Guard, who struck down the Revered Master, bearer of the Crimson Mantle. At the urging of the Revered Master's spirit, Redcloak donned the Mantle, which granted him the knowledge of the Dark One's Plan. He then started to vacate the battle in a trance, only to be brought out of it by his younger brother's cries for help. Redcloak rescued his brother, but not before his brother's left eye was cut out by a paladin. They left, and spent the next few years building up a small following of goblins.
4 years after the loss of his village, Redcloak and his goblins were about to launch an attack on a paladin fort when it was attacked by lizardfolk instead. While the lizardfolk were attacking, the aging sorcerer Xykon arrived and began slaughtering paladins and lizardfolk indiscriminately. Impressed with Xykon's arcane power and realizing that the chances of finding a goblin mage with the power necessary to carry out the Plan were very slim, Redcloak and his brother approached Xykon to ask him for his help. They were interrupted by the leader of the lizardfolk, who also asked Xykon for his assistance in the quest of the lizardfolk. Xykon, luckily, had nothing better to do, but he realized that he couldn't team up with both the goblins and the lizardfolk, so he gave them a challenge: both groups would explain their scheme to him and whichever one didn't bore him to sleep, he would do. He ordered the leader of the lizardfolk to start, addressing him as "Scaly". The lizardfolk's leader protested this appellation, insisting that he be called by his actual name, about half of which he got through before Xykon blasted him with lightning, saying that it was too long to remember. Xykon then asked Redcloak for his name, addressing him as "you in the red cloak".
Redcloak promptly introduced himself as "Redcloak" and his brother as "Right-Eye," despite his brother's cut-off protest. Xykon then asked that Redcloak explain the goblin's plans, and, when Redcloak began with "At the dawn of time," he decided that he'd need some coffee first, and so asked that Redcloak and Right-Eye lead him to the nearest diner. The siblings brought him to Evil Diner, where Xykon first encountered the demon roaches, roaches (literally) from hell that break the 4th wall with incredible regularity even for a webcomic known for breaking the 4th wall. Xykon ordered coffee, and was quite pleased to find it was the worst coffee he'd ever consumed, offering the wisdom that an awful cup of coffee forces one to relive all the good cups of coffee one had in their life as a method of coping with the awful coffee. Xykon having been caffeinated, Redcloak proceeded to explain the history of the Dark One and the Snarl as he knew it (the Dark One was only aware of the rift behind Lirian's Gate, you see). He also partially explained the Plan, namely, the part where a divine spellcaster and an arcane one could warp and control the Gate. Xykon misinterpreted this to mean they could control the Snarl and use it to rule the world, and Redcloak conveniently failed to correct him on this matter. Xykon agreed to help the Plan.
3 years later, they launched an attack on Lirian's Gate. The attack initially did fairly well at first, cutting through the forest all the way to the Gate in 11 days. Lirian, however, had something called the Guardian Virus on her side: a magical virus (of the biological, not the computer variety, natch) which attacked the parts of the brain that store and process spell energy and stayed in the nervous system forever, causing a permanent loss of all spellcasting powers. Xykon and all the goblin clerics soon succumbed to the virus, allowing Lirian's forces an easy victory. Redcloak was spared the effects of the virus, most likely due to the Crimson Mantle.
Lirian was merciful, and gathered Xykon and the surviving goblins and placed them in a sealed stone cavern underground, filled with plants that would allow them to survive down there for years, if not indefinitely. Of course, Xykon and the goblins had no intentions of staying down there long enough to even come close to finding out what the limit was. Redcloak presented Xykon with a feasible plan for escape: he would turn Xykon into a lich, an immortal sorcerous skeleton of incredible power. Xykon, once it was explained to him that it was "lich," not "leech," and that a lich was an entirely different and vastly superior form of undead than a zombie, agreed to this plan after maybe 5 seconds of thought. Right-Eye then took Redcloak aside and expressed doubts as to the wisdom of this plan. He pointed out that Xykon had been personally responsible for the death of many goblins already and that he could be replaced in the Plan by any other sufficiently skilled arcane caster, and couldn't Redcloak just get them out of the cavern himself with the clerical magic that Lirian wasn't aware he'd retained? Redcloak countered with the points that clerical magic wasn't that destructive, that they'd stuck with Xykon too long to switch and find a new arcane caster now, and that Xykon could be controlled by making his phylactery (the thing that would store Xykon's soul were his lich body to ever be destroyed) something they'd always have access to, like, say, for example, Redcloak's own holy symbol. Right-Eye reluctantly agreed, almost entirely due to that final point, and Redcloak spent the next 4 months turning Xykon into a lich.
Xykon adjusted to his new lich body very quickly, proceeding to test out his paralyzing touch on all the non-Redcloak goblins present, thereby killing all of them but Right-Eye, the only one with a high enough save to survive, although he remained paralyzed. Redcloak suggested waiting a day so he could prepare and cast Remove Paralysis on Right-Eye, but Xykon turned this suggestion down, reasoning that someone may have heard the ruckus when he turned into a lich. They broke out of the stone prison, and Xykon confronted Lirian once more. Meanwhile, Redcloak went to stow away the still paralyzed Right-Eye, but he was stopped by a treant. Not in the mood to deal with this kind of nonsense, Redcloak simply cast Flame Strike on the wooden monster. The wooden monster which promptly fell into another wooden monster behind it. And another. And another. Until the entire wood caught on fire, including the two treants who were tied to the Gate. They attempted to flee, despite Redcloak's protests, and destroyed the Gate, much to the goblin's horror. Meanwhile, however, Xykon managed to defeat Lirian, learning of the existence of other Gates shortly before he killed her, bound her soul to a gem, and then animated her corpse as a zombie. (Xykon, in case you had somehow failed to notice, is a complete bastard and he only gets worse.)
Xykon informed Redcloak that these other Gates existed, preventing Redcloak from falling into a case of Not-So-Heroic-BSOD. The measly group of villains then retreated and regrouped at the Evil Diner, where Xykon found himself with the sudden discovery that being turned into a lich had caused him to lose his sense of taste. His reaction was understandably bad. He murdered the waitress, and then attacked Right-Eye. Redcloak threatened to destroy the phylactery, but Xykon countered with the truth that the phylactery was nothing more than a pricey bauble unless Xykon himself was destroyed first, and that if Redcloak dared to harm it in the slightest, then Xykon would gruesomely kill both the goblin brothers. When Xykon further threatened Redcloak for not informing him that he would lose his sense of taste, Redcloak reasoned that he was the only one who knew the rituals to control the Gates and was therefore that his death would mean that Xykon had become a lich for nothing. Xykon accepted this, but then made it very clear that he was in charge from there on out, like it or not. Right-Eye was furious at this and suggested that they abandon Xykon and start again from scratch, but Redcloak pointed out that at this point, Xykon knew just as much as they did and that if they weren't working with him, then they were working against him, and they couldn't afford to do that, given how dangerous he was now.
6 years later, Right-Eye met in secret with Eugene Greenhilt, a powerful wizard who had been seeking Xykon in the past after Xykon had brutally murdered his beloved mentor. However, it turned out that Eugene had gotten married and settled down in the years since he'd adventured in pursuit of Xykon, and that he was no longer interested in revenge. Instead, he suggested to Right-Eye that he and Redcloak simply quit working for Xykon and settle down with some goblin women instead. Right-Eye took these words to heart and promptly returned to the fortress Xykon and his army currently inhabited. There, he tried to convince Redcloak to leave and go with him, but Redcloak staunchly refused, and it soon devolved into a fierce argument before Right-Eye conceded that he couldn't convince Redcloak and simply left by himself.
The brothers wouldn't meet again for 18 years. In the intervening time, Right-Eye had indeed followed Eugene's advice, getting married and fathering 3 children: two boys and a girl. Redcloak, meanwhile, had been continuing trying to get the Plan on track to no success, up until Xykon disappeared about 3 years before Redcloak apparently decided at random to get back in touch with his little brother. Redcloak stayed with Right-Eye and his family for a brief period of time, during which he took Right-Eye's children to the local circus, where he first encountered the Monster in Darkness. Impressed by how the Monster in Darkness was apparently a powerful and terrifying Monster, Redcloak offered him a job, offering to even triple the salary the circus was paying him (that is to say, absolutely nothing). The Monster in Darkness, an incredibly childish creature, happily agreed to this plan, and Redcloak soon plotted to spring him from the circus to use in the Plan. Right-Eye, however, gave Redcloak a tempting counter-offer, namely, a blind date with his wife's cousin, a beautiful, intelligent goblin with an interest in religion.
Redcloak chose to spring the Monster in Darkness from the circus.
He was followed to the circus by Right-Eye's eldest son, Ridi, who had expressed a desire in becoming a wizard against his father's wishes. While Redcloak and his nephew argued, the Monster in Darkness managed to send the cart Redcloak had placed him in careening down a hill into one of those strength test bell things, thereby alerting the entire circus. Redcloak fought off most of the circus while they escaped, but they were eventually surrounded by ninja clowns, and it seemed that all was lost, until Right-Eye attacked the clowns with cotton candy. This allowed them to escape, and they headed home, Redcloak expressing a desire to let the Plan go and settle down in town with his family.
Unfortunately, Xykon was waiting at Right-Eye's doorstep. It turned out that he had spent the last 3 years seeking out the locations of the other Gates and had found the diary of Serini Toormuck, which included the encrypted locations of all 5 Gates. He ordered Redcloak and Right-Eye to pack up and get ready to head to the Redmountain Hills. Right-Eye protested, saying that they no longer worked for Xykon, but Xykon countered with, "I don't know... it just doesn't sound right to me. I was pretty certain that there are only two types of goblins within a 20 mile radius: Those that worked for me, and those whose internal organs are distressingly... external." Right-Eye conceded that he, his family, and the rest of their village all worked for Xykon. Pleased, Xykon ordered him to mobilize the village and torch all the buildings.
It took about a year to get to the Redmountain Hills, and Xykon's army settled in for over a year of siege, waiting for the wizard Dorukan to show himself. At some point during these 2 and a half years, Right-Eye smuggled his daughter out of the army, but his wife and sons all fell to adventurers. Finally, Xykon came up with an idea. Knowing that Dorukan was scrying on them, and having found out that Dorukan and Lirian were in a relationship from his reading of Serini's diary, Xykon presented the zombified corpse of Lirian, alongside an ogre, and announced to Dorukan that if he didn't show himself in the next 60 seconds, Xykon would order the ogre to start chowing down on Lirian's corpse. When Dorukan Sent a message that he didn't care what Xykon did with Lirian's corpse, as it was just an empty shell and not Lirian herself, Xykon pointed out that it might upset Lirian herself, whose soul was still Bound to that gemstone. He very nearly reached the end of his countdown before Dorukan appeared and attacked.
While the two arcane casters fought, Redcloak went down and ordered Right-Eye to gather the rest of the goblins to storm the castle. Right-Eye refused, saying that it wasn't their chance to seize the castle, but rather, their chance to kill Xykon once and for all. He explained his plan to Redcloak: he would drink a Fly potion and Sneak Attack Xykon with a magic positive energy dagger, which would allow Dorukan to successfully destroy Xykon's body, at which point, if Redcloak smashed the phylactery, Xykon's soul would also be destroyed and the lich would be no more. They argued vehemently, Right-Eye saying that Redcloak was out of touch with the goblin people and frozen in time as the same angry kid who took the Crimon Mantle off of the Revered Master all those years ago and that he was too stubborn to admit that he was wrong to begin with. Eventually, however, he came to realize that he couldn't possibly convince Redcloak with words, and that only actions would do the trick, so he drank his Fly potion and headed up to Sneak Attack Xykon.
He didn't reach Xykon before Redcloak cast Disintegrate on him.
He technically survived the subsequent fall, but only long enough for him and Redcloak to say their final good-byes to each other, with Right-Eye addressing Redcloak as "Redcloak," a moniker he had repeatedly stated his distaste for, instead of the "Brother" he usually addressed him with.
Meanwhile, Xykon managed to Energy Drain Dorukan to death, using Soul Bind to Bind his soul to the same gem as Lirian. He went to Redcloak for healing and asked what happened to Right-Eye. Redcloak lied and said that Right-Eye had been flying up to help Xykon with the angels Dorukan had summoned to battle Xykon at the time Right-Eye'd launched his attack, when someone must have zapped him with something and he fell. Xykon then ordered Redcloak to animate Right-Eye's corpse (that is, of course, turn him into a zombie), and Redcloak refused, saying he'd bury him instead.
It was at this point that Xykon revealed that he was aware of what Redcloak had done, asking if there had been a "big sale down at the Testicle Store or something". He also revealed that he was wearing a magic ring that would have shielded him from the positive energy of the dagger even if Right-Eye had successfully attacked him. Shocked, Redcloak asked why Xykon didn't just kill Right-Eye himself in advance, if he knew what he was planning. Xykon said that the answer was obvious: he wanted to see if Redcloak would kill him for him. Mostly because he was curious to see if Redcloak had it in him, but also because it gave him insurance, because now he knew that Redcloak would always act in his interest, even if he wasn't around to make sure of it and that Redcloak would protect the phylactery if his body was ever destroyed. Because if Redcloak destroyed the phylactery, he would have to face the realization that he'd killed Right-Eye over nothing, and he didn't have the balls for that. And Redcloak couldn't raise Right-Eye, either, because then Right-Eye would know what Redcloak did, and Redcloak really didn't have the balls for that. And so Redcloak would end up following Xykon forever, because, in Xykon's own words, "as long as you're loyal to me, I'll let you pretend this never happened. We'll just go about our daily business, and you can hide from the horrifying truth of what you've become-namely, a murderer who just killed his baby brother in cold blood. And hey, we can both pretend that you don't really have any options about any of the despicable actions I ask you to take from here on out, rather than acknowledging that, like Right-Eye, you do in fact have a choice. But unlike Right-Eye there, you're too chickenshit to ever make it. You'll obey me forever now, because I give you an excuse for your inexcusable behavior."
Xykon and Redcloak thus firmly cemented as metaphorical butch and bitch respectively, Redcloak Animated Right-Eye's corpse and helped move the army into Dorukan's castle.
6 months later, a party of adventurers ventured into the castle. This party was the Order of the Stick. It was led by Roy Greenhilt, human fighter and Eugene Greenhilt's son, who was seeking out Xykon to complete his father's Blood Oath of Vengeance, which, it turned out, not only followed Eugene into the afterlife, but was passed down to his children as well. The other party members were Haley Starshine, a human rogue; Durkon Thundershield, a dwarf cleric; Vaarsuvius, elven sorcerer; Elan, a human bard; and Belkar Bitterleaf, a halfling ranger. Xykon sent some mercenaries after the party, but they all ultimately failed. Meanwhile, Xykon experimented with Dorukan's Gate, or more specifically, the more literal gate that had been constructed in front of it and sealed with a powerful rune. Eventually, the Order managed to make their way to Xykon's lair and engaged Xykon's forces in battle. Redcloak was not a major force in this battle, his participation mostly being casting Bolster Undead. Meanwhile, Roy confronted Xykon in battle, and when Xykon cast Shatter on his family sword, he fell into a berserker rage and punched Xykon's head off before picking his body and head up and throwing them into the rune-sealed gate, which destroyed them. Redcloak promptly beat feet, taking the Monster in Darkness with him.
They emerged from their escape tunnel in the Southern Mountains, where they discovered a settlement of hobgoblins. Redcloak expressed distaste at their presence, including in their bad qualities things such as their sense of duty, their emphasis on military, their code of honor, the discipline, etc., all of which, naturally, did nothing to persuade Xykon not to recruit them as minions. And so Xykon had Redcloak set on the path to becoming the hobgoblins' supreme leader. This required him to become an official member of the hobgoblin tribe first, which required a ridiculous amount of ridiculous rituals. When Xykon asked if there was a faster way for Redcloak to become supreme leader, the hobgoblin who was carrying out the rituals told them that killing the current supreme leader would do the trick. Or, rather, got most of the way through telling them before Redcloak, assuming that he was the supreme leader himself, cast Slay Living on him and killed him. The actual supreme leader of the hobgoblins then claimed that why, yes, that guy definitely was the supreme leader when asked.
Now thoroughly established as the supreme leader of the hobgoblins, Redcloak and Xykon began making preparations to get back into Xykon's spare fortress. Unfortunately, this required going through what the hobgoblins called the sadly-not-ironically-named "Perilous Path of Crushing Doom," on which even the slightest noise could set off a deadly rockslide, although once a rockslide had occurred, there wouldn't be another one until the next rainfall. Initially upon hearing of this, Redcloak decided that it was too dangerous to send anyone up and that he would investigate personally, until the Monster in Darkness made an observation about how noble it was that Redcloak would risk his own life rather than send any hobgoblins to their death despite his large dislike for the hobgoblins, at which point Redcloak changed his mind and ordered a group of 20 warriors to go up the path on scouting duty and to shout if they didn't find anything. The path thus cleared, they ventured up it to the fortress, finding it guarded by a monster, which was easily dealt with by sacrificing more hobgoblins to it, as it fell asleep after eating. The fortress was also filled with just about every Good-aligned monster in the Monster Manual (not as many as one might think, though, as very few Evil-aligned adventurers makes for very little need for many Good-aligned monsters), which were all easily vanquished. They soon made it to the fortress's library, finding their objective: Serini's diary. Xykon ordered Redcloak to mobilize the troops while he decoded the locations of the other Gates, at which point they discovered that the 300 or so hobgoblins they'd been ordering around were merely Legion One... out of 87, much to Xykon's delight.
A good deal of time passed (very nearly 100 strips, even), and Xykon and co. had fully prepared their troops to move out. The question then became where to move the troops out towards. Xykon had managed to decipher the locations of the remaining three Gates: one was across the ocean, and thus not a feasible choice. Another was far, far to the north, and would require marching through 8 human nations before reaching it. The third, however, was Soon's Gate in Azure City, much to the pleasure of Xykon and Redcloak in particular. And so Xykon's army set out for Azure City.
The army progressed without much event, Xykon, Redcloak, and the Monster in Darkness venturing ahead to take out the Azurite watchtowers along the way so that the city wouldn't be forewarned of their arrival. At the last tower, however, they encountered Miko Miyazaki, a member of the Sapphire Guard. She and Redcloak immediately leapt into battle against each other, while Xykon made bets on the outcome with the demon cockroaches rather than help. Once Redcloak was knocked down, however, Xykon sealed Miko in a magic cage before he went to destroy the magical warning beacon before it could be activated. Xykon was going to kill Miko, but when she called Xykon an unnatural abomination before claiming that the gods had removed all fear from her, Redcloak went off on an angry rant about how lacking fear made her just as unnatural as Xykon, and Xykon decided to let her stew on that while he and Redcloak went back to fetch their army. However, Miko managed to escape the force cage. The Monster in Darkness had been left behind to guard her, but it managed to accidentally knock her out of the watchtower completely, allowing her to ride off to Azure City, warning them of the approaching army.
This, however, was exactly according to Xykon's plan. Miko's escape had given Xykon what he needed to be able to scry on her, meaning that if she visited the Gate, he would know and, therefore, know where to find it when they arrived. Unfortunately for Xykon and co., the throne room where Soon's Gate, so small that it had been sealed with a single sapphire, around which the throne of the Lord of Azure City and, in fact, the entire castle itself had been built, was shielded against scrying. Unfortunately for the protagonists of the comic, Hinjo, the new Lord of the city after Miko murdered the old one for reasons that have nothing to do with Redcloak and are too complicated to get into here, explained this salient detail outside of the throne room while taking Miko to jail. Now that they knew where to find the Gate and that the eve of the battle was at hand, Redcloak attempted to talk tactics with Xykon, but eventually came up with a plan himself instead. He created three different skeletal undead: a death knight, a huecuva, and an Eye of Fear and Flame, and put the death knight and the Eye of Fear and Flame in charge of two different units, while the huecuva stayed in the back with him. Xykon himself would ride a zombified and, more importantly, invisible dragon to the castle while Azure City's forces were distracted with the decoys, then kill and zombify everyone there to open up a second front inside the city.
And so the attack was launched the next morning. Redcloak started by firing 5 Titanium Elementals at the wall. (Yes, titanium. In Redcloak's own words, "Hey, it's not my fault everyone else limits themselves to four elements. Some of us got passing grades in Chem.") These Elementals managed to open up a few holes in the walls of the city, but were quickly brought down by the Order of the Stick, who also soon managed to decloak Xykon, thus ruining the second front plan. Roy Greenhilt managed to jump up onto the dragon and engaged Xykon in battle directly, which turned out to be a Very Bad Plan for him, as it caused his death. The plan thereby ruined, Xykon decided to head straight for the throne room, where he was confronted by nearly the entirety of the Sapphire Guard. Xykon tossed a bouncy ball inscribed with a Symbol of Insanity into the group and allowed the Guard to slaughter each other, while the paladin O-Chul raced to destroy the Gate to keep it out of Xykon's hands, until Xykon stopped him with his Paralyzing Touch just as he raised his blade to destroy it. Unfortunately for Xykon, however, his massacre of the Guard allowed them to rise again as ghosts under the command of the spirit of Soon Kim himself and attack again.
Meanwhile, Redcloak continued to pass along orders from the back of the army. Unsympathetic to the hobgoblins, he ordered that the southern section of the army continue to press their attack, despite overwhelming casualties. That is, until a hobgoblin pushed him out of the way of an incoming catapult-launched boulder, sacrificing his life and forcing Redcloak to realize the horror of what he'd been doing. Determined that the deaths of the southern section of the army not be in vain, Redcloak summoned a mammoth and ordered that they withdraw and join with the northern section of the army at the breach. The unified army stormed through the scarcely defended (most of the Azurite army had fled when they saw the full force of hobgoblins approaching) breach with ease, and Redcloak continued towards the castle with 4 of the legions. Entry to the castle was also easily gained, as Redcloak had arranged for a hobgoblin ninja to discreetly kill the guard of the gate winch.
Inside the castle's courtyard, Redcloak encountered the High Priest of the Twelve Gods. They engaged in a clerical duel, which is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds, as it consisted entirely of saving throws being made until Redcloak cast Destruction and the High Priest failed to make his save, being immediately reduced to a greasy smear with a simple ZOT! He then summoned a Chlorine Elemental and ordered it to kill all the humans in the courtyard, at which point he encountered the mystic theurge, Tsukiko, whom Xykon had conducted a job interview with and hired in the middle of the battle earlier. Not at all happy about this, Redcloak brushed her off on his way into the castle and cast Blade Barrier over the entrance, trapping her in the courtyard with the Chlorine Elemental, who, of course, didn't have any exceptions for her in its orders.
Redcloak and a hobgoblin cleric made their way all the way to the throne room, where they found Xykon in battle with the Guard's ghosts, and not doing too well at that. Redcloak healed him, then came to the conclusion that since these were positive energy spirits, and, as such, the negative energy spell Rebuke Undead should dismiss them in the same way that the positive energy spell Turn Undead dismisses negative energy spirits. He and the hobgoblin cleric tested this theory: Redcloak's Rebuke was effective, but the hobgoblin's was not, as the throne room was consecrated and the hobgoblin was not high enough level to overcome it. Because of this, Redcloak sent the hobgoblin out of the room, while he and Xykon continued to battle Soon's forces. While Redcloak's Rebukes did not directly affect Soon, the dismissal of the paladin spirits did momentarily stun him, so Redcloak had Xykon directly engage Soon to keep him occupied while Redcloak himself continued to Rebuke the paladins. This was not an easy task, and Xykon and Redcloak both sustained fairly heavy damage before Redcloak managed to dismiss the entirety of the ghost Guard save Soon. Soon, however, managed to best Xykon in combat and was nearly about to kill both villains when Miko arrived in the throne room and, seeing O-Chul frozen in front of the throne with his blade raised, came to the conclusion that finishing his work and destroying the Gate was somehow a good idea and proceeded to do exactly that. Xykon took the distraction this gave Soon as an opportunity to take Redcloak and get the hell out of Dodge.
The Gate promptly exploded, destroying a huge chunk of the castle along with it.
Xykon brought Redcloak down into the midst of the hobgoblin army, where they regrouped. Healed up, Xykon suggested that they pack their bags and hit the road to find the next Gate, but Redcloak convinced him to stay in Azure City longer so that they could research the next Gate and hopefully not almost get their asses handed to them by a room full of ghosts next time.
While getting settled, Redcloak noticed that a single boat remained in the harbor, so he set off to go sink it. He summoned a fiendish octopus to help. Unfortunately, this boat held a pair of the few surviving Guard members, one of whom had a shark mount. The other surviving Guard member happened to be Hinjo, who attempted to attack Redcloak directly, only to end up getting a Disintegrate spell to the face for his troubles. While this didn't kill Hinjo, it did knock him back onto the boat and also unconscious, causing the captain of the boat to order it to set sail in spite of Hinjo's orders. Redcloak then admonished himself for not capturing Hinjo himself, thinking that Hinjo would have some knowledge of how the other Gates were protected. Luckily, however, the Monster in Darkness managed to find O-Chul, who had managed to survive the Gate's explosion. Meanwhile, Xykon cast Cloister over Azure City, which would prevent any attempts at magical contact between the City and the outside.
In the months that followed, Xykon's army managed to settle in the City fairly thoroughly, even as the rift where the Gate had been slowly expanded. What humans remained in the city were captured and enslaved, save for a few resistance groups. Redcloak himself mostly occupied himself with interrogating O-Chul to try and find out how Girard's Gate was protected. This was made somewhat difficult due to Xykon's habit of amusing himself by throwing O-Chul into elaborate deathtraps and betting on his odds of survival. After a particularly eventful deathtrap involving an acid-breathing shark, Redcloak took O-Chul on a little "field trip" up to see the rift. Redcloak observed that while all reports he had heard of the Snarl before the Gates were constructed involved it reaching out to undo those nearby, but the Snarl had set neither claw nor tangle outside the massive rift. Of course, Redcloak was a great believer in the scientific method, so he showed O-Chul how he was planning on pushing two groups of slaves off a tower: one group would be pushed into the rift and hopefully one would manage to scream something useful before being undone, and the other would be pushed off the other side of the tower as the control group.
Redcloak also pointed out to O-Chul that if he would just tell him how Girard's Gate was protected, then he wouldn't have time to indulge these experiments and would instead immediately leave for the Gate, which, of course, would leave Azure City open to be retaken. O-Chul seemed to be convinced, but failed his Bluff Check terribly. The two argued, Redcloak taking the stance that the paladins following Soon's oath and not keeping up with the other Gates was so counter-productive and ridiculous that it must be false, despite all forms of divination confirming it as truth. When O-Chul continued to fail to produce the information that he honestly did lack, Redcloak was amazed and, frankly, somewhat disgusted by O-Chul's apparent willingness to allow Redcloak to sacrifice innocents like that. However, Redcloak didn't actually go through with this plan, ordering the slaves to be sent back to their cells with the knowledge that their paladin was willing to let them die and that the goblins showed mercy. Unfortunately for Redcloak, what the slaves actually took from the demonstration was admiration for O-Chul's resistance and they began to organize themselves into a resistance of their own.
Now, though, Redcloak was finally convinced that O-Chul didn't know a thing. This did not, however, make much of a difference, as getting any knowledge from O-Chul hadn't been the point for a while. The point was giving Xykon a reason to continue to sit and figuratively twiddle his thumbs in Azure City while Redcloak made sure that the hobgoblins could continue to sustain themselves without him present. And since that's where he currently is in canon, that's where I'll be taking him from.
Personality: Redcloak is a fanatic speciesist. This guy hates humans. I mean, just really fucking hates them. (You can see why I've got him headed to the Netherworld instead of Memento Eden, I hope.) He considers them to be amoral savages, judgmental and egotistical, huge hypocrites, and all manners of other unflattering adjectives and nouns (and possibly even adverbs!). Naturally, this is not at all surprising, given what's happened to him, but it is one of his most basic characteristics. His speciesism is most apparent against humans, but he seems to have a level of disdain for most non-goblin species in general. Of course, Redcloak is a lot more than just a fanatic speciesist. For example, while he does hate humans and will not hesitate in the least to kill one in battle in an incredibly ruthless, merciless, and efficient manner, he also apparently can't bring himself to kill defenseless innocents, as pretty thoroughly demonstrated by his failure to go through with having the Azurite slaves thrown off the tower when O-Chul failed to cave to his demands. It could even be argued that Redcloak had no intention to have the slaves thrown to their deaths at all in the first place. He very clearly expected O-Chul to give in, given how upset and then disgusted he was when he didn't. I mean, just look at this strip. He totally wasn't ever going to do it. He even acknowledges that he won't like it. It's things like this that keep him from being Evil with a capital E like Xykon.
Redcloak is single-minded in his dedication to the Plan. This practically goes without saying considering everything he's done for its sake. The thing is that furthering the Plan has overtaken the good of the goblin race in Redcloak's mind. While Redcloak believes (or, at least, convinces himself that he believes) that the Plan and what's best for the goblin race are one and the same, the fact of the matter is that they sometimes simply aren't, especially when Xykon's involved, and when these cases arise, Redcloak almost universally chooses the Plan over his fellow goblin, commonly justifying the lost goblins as martyrdom and a necessary sacrifice. Redcloak is particularly stubborn in regards to the Plan: he'll throw good lives after bad rather than admit that he could be wrong about it or that the Plan isn't the One True Way to Equality for Goblinkind.
Redcloak has pretty high INT and WIS scores. (In Layman's Terms, he's smart and pretty good about applying said smarts.) He is, without a doubt, the main strategic/tactical/all-around-planning force behind the actions he and Xykon take (not that Xykon never contributes, but more that Redcloak handles the planning more often than not). He's a pretty clever guy and generally makes good decisions, though he has, on occasion, fallen prey to overthinking, such as the first battle for Lirian's Gate, where he failed to prepare his strongest fire spell because he assumed all the treants would be warded against it. Of course, he has also fallen prey to underthinking, such as the second battle for Lirian's Gate, in which he did cast Flame Strike on the treants and ended up burning the forest down. Both of these failings were mostly due to Redcloak's dedication to efficiency. He failed to prepare Flame Strike the first time because he assumed it would be useless and thus a waste of time and a good spell slot. He cast it without thinking of how it might spread the second time because he was in a hurry to get the paralyzed Right-Eye somewhere safe. Redcloak is a planner by nature, really, and he often has difficulty seizing the moment. He is stubbornly patient and tends to stick with something even when it would objectively smarter to figuratively get the hell out of Dodge.
Redcloak tends to slide around some on the maturity scale. On the one hand, he's around 50 years old and many of those 50-or-so years have been hard ones and some horrible things have happened in those years and they most certainly have had an effect on Redcloak. On the other, he hasn't really grown any in the past 35-ish years, and that's not just physically. I believe Right-Eye put it best: "Brother, you may have had a lifetime, but you haven't had a life since the day you put on that cloak. [...] You're frozen in time. You're the same angry kid who took that artifact off of your master's corpse that day." Although he doesn't completely have the emotional maturity of a teenager, he is sometimes lacking in the full-fledged maturity of an adult: he can be irrationally stubborn, he tends to get a bit more upset than he should when things don't go his way, his default immediate reaction to something he doesn't like tends to be "act really snippy about it," he tends to hold incredible grudges, etc. His emotional development is not completely frozen, however; his sudden realization of what a complete ass he's been about the hobgoblins is evidence enough of that. I think the most accurate comparison to Redcloak's mental age is a teenager who is wise beyond his years but fundamentally still a teenager, hard as he may try to distance himself from that.
And a list of shallower observations. Redcloak is a deadpan snarker. Like almost everyone in Order of the Stick, he does occasionally break the 4th wall. (My personal favorite example is when he hung a lampshade on lampshade-hanging.) He is, by my estimations, at least 15th level and probably either-Lawful-or-Neutral Evil Square in alignment. He relies more or less entirely on his magical prowess in battle and has never been shown to wield a weapon. He's probably physically weak. His Clerical Domains are apparently Destruction and possibly Law though I maintain that dialogue suggests otherwise. (Disintegrate is not a universal Cleric spells; Redcloak's also been shown using Smite, which is the granted power of the Destruction Domain.) He's a nerd. He's particularly interested in economics and other basics of civilization. Parallels to Communism could possibly be drawn: The Dark One united the goblins by encouraging them all to treat each other as family and it's very emphasized that the goblins want a level playing field with the other races; it's all quite proletariat-and-bourgeoisie-esque. But then we're getting out of the "shallower observations" part.
Class Title: Goblin Cleric
Immediate Possessions: One holy symbol/phylactery, which basically looks like a pendant on a necklace; one somewhat tattered red cloak, more accurately referred to as the Crimson Mantle, which is a divine artifact created by the Dark One and the main indicator of his rank as the Dark One's High Priest; and a number of various unimportant somatic spell components of negligible cost that no one ever keeps track of anyway, myself included. And I think that we can all agree that if I'm not keeping track of it, it's really insignificant.
Deposited Possessions: A sizeable collection of D&D sourcebooks. Uhhhh, let's say around 10,000 HL.
Job: History of Evil Teacher. Salary: 10,000HL/day
Rooming Assignment: Room 108 (w/ Orpheus)