Faced with a large rune-covered door, Haley attempts to remove traps, but unleashes a hellhound. Belkar is carried away by the hound in the melee while the rest of the party is unable to follow due to the delicate trap work.
Cast
- The Order of the Stick
- Mr. Scruffy ◀ ▶
- Giant Hellhound ▶
Transcript
- Panel 1
Roy: Huh. Left corridor, right corridor, or big door in the middle.
Haley: Obvious door is obvious. I say we turn right.
Roy: True, but it may not have been when this place was all glamered up.
- Panel 2
Haley: Maybe you're right. It's covered in magical runes and stuff, but they're hard to see.
Haley: Not showy enough to be a deliberate decoy.
Roy: Can you disarm them? You know, without a hapless kobold to kill?
Belkar: If not, I think Nale has a spare I can go get.
- Panel 3
Haley: Whoa…it's complicated. All these traps are set to trigger if any one of them is disarmed.
Haley: I need to block the connections before I can…
Haley: Give me a boost, I think I need to start from the top.
- Panel 4
Durkon: Guidance.
Haley: OK, if I break this line here…
Haley: And scratch that there…
Elan (singing): ♪♪Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle, fiddle around with really complex stuff!♪
- Panel 5
An angry hellhound is summoned with a "poof!"
Hellhound: GRRAAWRR!
Haley: Oops.
Roy: Haley!
Haley: Hey, I disarmed the one that would have given it Stoneskin and Haste!
Elan continues to play his lute, "♪♪♪"
- Panel 6
Belkar: You guys keep working. This is exactly why Team Player Belkar was all the way in the back.
Belkar: Potential blast radius had nothing to do with it at all.
- Panel 7
The hellhound breathes flame, "WOOOSHH!", but Belkar and Mr. Scruffy evade.
Belkar: Ha! Missed us, fleabag!
- Panel 8
Belkar: "Hello, welcome to Hot-Dog-On-A-Stick. May I take your order?"
Belkar tumbles over the hellhound and lands his daggers in its back. "shthunk! shthunk!"
Belkar: I'll take TWO—with extra relish!
- Panel 9
Roy reaches for his sword...
Haley: No, Roy—don't move! The tool is touching a Meteor Swarm rune!!
Elan (singing): ♪Stay, stay, stay, stay still or we're all toast anyway!♪
- Panel 10
Belker: Don't worry, Roy! As soon as this dog stops running, I'll kill it back to Hell!
Roy: Belkar! Come on!
Roy: We can't split the—I mean, we specifically named a book after this, for crying out loud!
Elan: "Snips, Snails, and—?"
Haley: Not that one, honey.
Elan continues to play, "♪♪♪"
D&D Context
- Guidance is a cantrip (0th level) which imparts a +1 bonus to Haley's skill check to disable the device.
- Elan's singing is a bard class feature which similarly Inspires Competence, giving a +2 to the Disable Device check.
- The Hell Hound is a monster in D&D first introduced in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement for original D&D (0th edition). It is based on the creature from Greek and English folklore. Based on its size and strength, the creature is likely a Nessian Warhound, a special breed of Hell Hound.
Trivia
- Yukyuk was used to disarm the traps on the exterior of the pyramid in #840.
- Don't Split the Party is the name of the fourth book of Order of the Stick comics. Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales is the name of a compilation book released in 2011 featuring the strips from Dragon magazine as well as other comics inside and outside the continuity of the main Order of the Stick books. The title of this strip, "The First Title Also Still Applies", refers to the title of the first book Dungeon Crawlin' Fools.
- This is the first appearance of the Giant Hellhound.
- The trap runes on the door are written in Blambot's "WizardSpeak Worn" font. When deciphered, they read, "Why do you keep looking for secret messages? Don't you have better things to do with your time? I mean this is getting rather silly."