Magical healing is one of those things one has to be careful with within a narrative, because it ultimately risks fundamentally altering the mechanics of the setting. In a situation where all manner of restoration is effortless and without cost, injuries become trivialized. Why worry about someone being injured if you can just fix them? Why fear losing anyone if they can easily be brought back without effort?
Of course, it’s also very convenient, and something that’s easy to fall back to as a quick and simple fix. There’s a careful balance to maintain between having a world of magic, and having a world with recognizeable worries.
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Beyond the Tree, the Misadventures of Hani and Tiny 
beware murloc crossing.
Everyone forgets about Cookie for some reason…
COOKIE!!!!!!!!!
Hello, you killed my leader.
Prepare to die.
Translated: Hi, wanna be my friend.
Think the girls will wanna be friends with him? No, I don’t think so either =P
Cookie’s ALWAYS the last one to get it in Deadmines! Get ‘im Areen!
Blurglle? Mruggl-flurg! Gruggle-bblf; mrrllgl-gack! Lolgle.
Leave it to a murloc to break the awkward new-dynamic tension.
(My inner nerdy fanboy is hoping for romantic tension, but let’s not get our hopes up.)
Is it weird that I only just noticed that Areen has one shoulder armor thing? Does that make her the Micheal Jackson of gnome paladins? Possibly circa Thriller? Cause now I’m seeing a bunch of troggs doing the Thriller Dance. And it is win.
I am too now, and I can only offer my sincere thanks for this win
Historically, asymmetric arm armor isn’t that uncommon. Here, I assume she’s wearing a pauldron on her shield arm for increased protection, and none on her sword arm, which doesn’t hinder movement as much during attacks.
Oh yeah, I know. I just never noticed before in the past, ohhh, 110 pages she’s been in. Like, if I had just now notice that Hani has a backpack. Not quite so dramatic, but still.
Also, was *mostly* kidding before regarding Hani/Te’len shipping (Hey, I’m still a dude. I don’t crush YOUR wildly fanciful hopes and dreams!), but I was flipping back to the archives to get an Areen time-line, where we learn two things:
Te’len is not super comfortable with the idea of sharing a bed with other women.
But Te’len knows Rei is a heavy sleeper.
Am I saying, ‘omg Te’len is teh gay!”? No.
Am I reading too much into this? Yeah, probably.
But am I going to keep an eye on her financial records for an unusual number of Home Depot purchases? You bet.*
Also, in 123, Te’len’s ears are bent on the door frame. This makes me giggle, on the inside.
Also, I want Rei to get Coookie’s Tenderizer. :D
*That one’s obscure, I know.
I love panel 4, the exchange of looks and the fact that Te’len is finally doing something she’s really good at. And, well, all the panels in the last two really! I found the ship battle a little dark on my monitor and therefore hard to follow, but ultimately very satisfying. I also appreciate how wonderfully strong and rugged Hani looks even when being “healed” – like a boxer in the corner at the end of a match.
And then when you least expect it… MURLOC!!!
Brightness is always one of those things that’s difficult to judge; my primary screen has a good amount of luminance so I can sometimes overestimate how much darkness can still be visible, but I try to compensate for that. Most pages in the main cave I’ve actually tried to use anti-saturation more than darkness to sell the idea of dark.
Kitty! :D
What are you doing, elves!? Salute the new captain!
Ahhh, beware of his rolling pin. !
It’s “Under Siege” all over again ^.^
Somehow, I don’t think Cookie’s real name is Steven Sahaugin.
And he’s got a kitty with him!
Yeah, healing. It’s quite the bane of almost every single roleplay. People think that they can just fully restore their wounds in any form of emote fight with one healing spell. It’s not like that. Heck, healing severe wounds shouldn’t rely on yourself but rather the other persons state. You have to mend broken tissue, reconnect vital passageways such as veins, arteries, you have to fix up nerves, you have to restore damaged organs and you basically have to stimulate the entire body’s repair system into working over-drive. No one even cares and just heals fully a person and that their wound just completely disappears and they’re walking fine the next day when they had a broken foot the previous.
I generally tend to take the compromise of apply healing, apply bandage and tell them to take it easy for a week or two for their bodies to adjust and not to tear things up again during that process.
To be honest though, I tend to detest emote fights period because they often tend to devolve into all manner of weird where you have the strongest clashes of one perception versus another. If they’re not handled along explicitly decided even ground, they’ll usually end up a mess of “movie moments” and absurd choreography.
It doesn’t help when people try to take mechanics verbatim without first unabstracting them.
Mlllrgllrllg Mrrrllggg Mlrglrgl mrrglrgllll rrrgggglll
Translation: Awsome cookie! Murloc power go!
Oddly enough, I have never run into Cookie when doing Deadmines.
…
Um…yeah.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???
Must. Go. Into. Deadmines. NOW!!!
Great artistry, as always, Nhani! You are making me insanely jealous…I need to figure out how to export the models, change them around so I can get proper posing/expressions…all that jazz.
MUST! KNOW!!! HOW!!!!!!! :-)
To be honest (and as I’ve said multiple times, in fact!) most of what I do is actually not too far from beginner level; the most difficult part, I think, would be getting your hands on a 3D rendering studio and learning the basics of that; figuring out the tools you have like cutting, extruding or otherwise altering vertices, edges and faces around to suit your need.
There’s a wealth of tutorials available for free online, though, so it’s really about having the time, finding a program and getting started. There’s a whole lot you just have to feel your way through, like bone placement, morph design, where you might need added support bones or a few extra edges to ward off deformations.. soforth.
Modelviewer can export to MS3D (Milkshape 3D format), which can be converted to a large number of other formats. Other than that, the only really important things to know, I think, is that I use Skeletal Animation for overall posing, and Morph Target Animation for facial animations and subtle model detail changes.
Really, if you want to take a stab at it, just find yourself a proper rendering studio, google some tutorials and get started. So long you’re willing to take time to understand the tools and terminology, I don’t think it’s really that difficult ;)
I’m definitely going to have to make the time for this. The rewards are…well…seriously, just look at your comic to see the rewards! Of course, I would also be looking at it from a machinima perspective as well – it’s been awhile since I’ve done any work with machinima and I have several projects that are just waiting in the wings…
If you want, I could probably sniff up and e-mail you a few suggestions where to get started. The really welcome thing with using 3D rendering is that the techniques you generally use for posing and expression are essentially intended for animation, so once you know how to do the rigging and posing, you just need to add timing (and time) to make it into machinima.
At the end of the day, making a really quick and simple rig doesn’t take too long when you know what you’re doing; the quick and dirty Cookie rig I did for #227 took 2-3 hours to make from imported model to finished poseable.
So, yeah. If you’re interested in 3D graphics – take a look at it. It’s not really as difficult as it might seem; it’s another dimension to think in, but otherwise it’s just about dragging and moving points and lines around to form more complex shapes. Exporting from Modelviewer gives you the base model and texture coordinates already, so you just have to clean and rig it, really.
…you never run into Cookie when you run into the Deadmines? O.o
Seriously? Words fail to describe this mindsplode I just suffered.
I’ve only gone through DM three times, truth be told. I don’t really know why – I have nothing against it, and actually enjoy the instance. It’s just that the first time was in a noob group (myself included at that time) and we wiped fairly early on, then our tank left and that left us rapidly hearthing the **** out. The second time, we focused only on getting VanCleef and never really went beyond that. The third time was more of a cake and pie run – go about halfway in to stock up on greens, then get out and disenchant them, go back in and come back out.
Gonna have to go through and just take my sweet time :-)
Love Cookie and how he was introduced,
the way he posed, everything about him.
He’s the neon light that makes the Deadmines shine.
Hahaha…ah, figures the love of Cookie would win over eventually. Two posts of Murloc-speech and here we are, Areen Vs. Cookie. Always great fun, this one. And the random dungeons I’ve run into where everyone kills VanCleef and then cries out “COOKIE!” have been grin-causing moments I’ve enjoyed.
Now the question remains: Will Cookie get a personality like everyone else so far in the Deadmines?
According to Metzen’s “Of Blood and Honor” healing with the Light can be a tiring thing, as was evident in a comment made by Tirion Fordring’s man-at-arms, who mentioned that the Junior Paladin Barthilas was resting after doing some considerable healing of Tirion’s wounds.
Also I believe to have heard someone once mention that when druids heal they draw upon the close enviroments natural fauna and whatnot, and actually decrease said immediate area’s amount of life, which may lead some to believe that healing with nature magic should only be done when really necessary (as I would assume is the case in this one). Example of such could be the grass slowly withering in accordance to how much the druid draws upon the natural life surrounding him/her, and perchance even leaves falling to the ground, its tree being drained to a degree by the druid’s healing magicks.
However, I am unable to verify the latter example with a citation from any sourcebook. Perchance someone else can?
I believe the one and only standing example of the latter is actually of Knaak’s doing somewhere in the War of the Ancients trilogy where he has Malfurion heal the young dragon Korialstrasz from massive injury, a significant patch of land willingly offering up enough energy to be wilted afterward.
That’s the only example I can think of however, and to my knowledge Knaak has never described druidic powers to have that kind of possible effect in any other situation ever, so I’m not sure to what extents you’d call that canon and to what extents you’d call it dramatic convenience. After all, we’re talking the same Knaak who tends to play up the effects of magic quite significantly, and in fact tends to resolve dramatic plot moments through the use of magic without any real cost ascribed.
Cookie could write better dramatic stuff than Knaak… >_>
COOOOOOOKIEEEEEEE! <3
New team members yes kk? ^^
And yea, i like you thought on healing, infact, Dark Legacy Comics did a pretty good concept of it aswell :P
And after some browsing: http://www.darklegacycomics.com/221.html. (first few panels anywho)
Hani put in her place.. by someone who cares about her… odd how that happens to her now and then.
About Magical healing, I liked the way it’s handled in The Witcher’s book (from Andrzej Sapkowski) : It heal the wound, but act as a fragile replacment for actual flesh, meaning that any action performed with recently healed muscles will result in worsening the wound, causing further symptoms and possibly permanent wounds.
My two cents :)
Aw, Cookie! I feel awful for having forgotten all about him what with all the recent happenings. But now he’s here, and I can only hope they won’t chop him up too severely. The cat is a lovely addition! <3
Brrghll rwlrwlarghl urgllrawwwl!
Cookiee!!!! One thing i’ll never forget to the day i die XD
Did they name him Cookie because he was a good cook, or because he made good cookies? =/
yeah, Cookie, I was hoping he’d come around too :D
he looks hungry… translation “hey boys! soup’s on!”
I love how the panel has them all looking at Cookie like “you have to be kidding me”. I don’t see the murloc cook lasting to long, maybe laying with a lump on his head and his rolling pin next to him.
I like panel 4 and 5. Te’len’s look says, “You may be the fighter, but this is MY bailiwick.” And Hani seems to accept that more or less; at least, she doesn’t shrug off the arm around her shoulders. It’s a nicely done moment.
I agree about that magic sentiment you have. It makes things difficult. The way I handle it is I portray it as a way to heal /flesh/ wounds. Very minor things. Like, if you needed surgery – it would do the same as the stitching afterward. It can stop bleeding. In other cases, less energy costing, it can speed up the natural mending of wounds. Seems the most druidic way to do things.
Anything more, in my opinion, would cost a tremendous amount of energy, and possibly render the healer exhausted and in need of rest.
As for ressurection, I dunno. That’s a really, really fine line. Druids should not realistically be able to ressurect because in essence that could disturb the balance of things. However, possibly using a powerful reagent or some sort of healing amplification, I’d portray it at best as being able to stabilize a lethally wounded, dying person and give them a good chance for survival. Likely by means of one of the spells that speed the healing process, but amplified to the point where it can save someone.
.. Let’s leave bringing back the dead to the scourge and keep it something bad. :| It blurs a line of death mattering otherwise… it at least has to change the person effected, and drastically.
But that’s just me. I do think it best that Te would not use any magic druidic thing to heal a wound that is not life threatening. I don’t mean to second guess you or anything, I guess I just like displaying my views. xD;