The Order of the Stick Megathread

[Meister]

Order of the what?

The Order of the Stick is an excellent fantasy webcomic, available over at www.giantitp.com. It's got simple stick figure visuals and makes fun of D&D rules a lot. It also has a suspenseful story, very good characterization and outstanding pacing.

The Order of the Stick is a group of adventurers tasked with protecting the five gates that hold together the fabric of reality. They're up against the undead sorcerer Xykon and his associate Redcloak, a goblin cleric, who want to use the gates for their own evil purposes. So far they only managed to destroy three of the gates between them.

Recent events:

- Vaarsuvius made a deal with evil outsiders to gain ultimate arcane power to save his family from a black dragon. He held on to it for a whopping 20 minutes and, in that time, managed to kill about a quarter of the planet's entire black dragon population. Then he tried to kill Xykon, which went considerably less well and pretty much only accomplished pissing Xykon of to the point where he's actually willing to head for the next gate again instead of sitting around in a city with a dimensional rift in it. Good going, Vaarsuvius.

- Although he did manage to escape with O-Chul, who had been imprisoned by Xykon for probably close to a year now. So there's that.

- The Order itself has been separated for about as long, too, and they only recently found together again. Roy is only minutes away from being resurrected so they can all have a proper reunion.

- After which Rich Burlew will probably have reached another book's worth of episodes and take the opportunity to take a break for a few weeks, making this the most awkwardly timed new thread in a while.

e: anyone who attempts to argue that Vaarsuvius is definitely male/female because another character referred to him or her as such will be publicly ridiculed. It's never more than that character's own take on V's gender.