The Linear Guild: Difference between revisions

[[Category:Film and Media]]

''For other uses of the word [[Succubus]], see [[Succubus (disambiguation)]].''

'''The Linear Guild''' are a fictional team of villains from the webcomic ''The Order of the Stick'', created and written by Rich Burlew.

One of these characters, '''[[The_Linear_Guild#Sabine_The_Succubus|Sabine]]''', has been described as being a Succubus in nature.

==Core Members==

===Nale===

Nale, Elan's evil twin brother (his name is also "Elan" spelled backwards), a multiclass fighter/rogue/sorcerer who specializes in enchantments which, he eventually came to realize, is the same combination of abilities as his bardic twin, just more complicated. He was raised by his ruthless, lawful evil father, a powerful general of an evil army, while Elan was raised by the two's mother, a kindly, chaotic good barmaid. In terms of magic, he has stated he specializes in Enchantment spells. In Dungeons & Dragons, Sorcerers do not have a class-based specialty, so this means he may have taken the Spell Focus (Enchantment) feat and simply selected a large number of enchantments for his repertoire.     

===Sabine The Succubus===

A shapeshifting fiend or devil, and a self-described 'evil incarnation of illicit sex'; second-in-command of the Linear Guild (and thus the opposite number of Haley Starshine) and Nale's lover.   

Initially, it was not explicitly stated what type of fiend she; it was not until [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0637.html nearly six hundred strips after her debut] that Sabine was officially revealed as a [[Succubus (Dungeons and Dragons)|succubus]] (In particular an advanced succubus, as a regular succubus has a Challenge Rating of 7 and would not be a threat to members of the Order in combat).  The abilities she has shown (energy draining and shapeshifting) and her batlike wings are in line with those of a succubus, although she also uses Plane Shift, apparently available to her once a day, which is not an innate succubus ability.

Though capable of mimicking anyone, Sabine prefers to shapeshift into dark-skinned individuals, since she is also dark-skinned.

She also possesses high fiend-based racial bonuses, making her incredibly hard to damage in combat, though Roy's newly-enhanced sword is capable of it, and his skill in combat is better than Sabine's when she is not enhancing herself with spells.

Haley was able to damage her despite fiend bonuses with two arrows, one of silver and the other of cold iron, multiple times, but since she used both arrows at once each time, Haley is unsure which of her arrows (silver or cold iron) are able to do damage.

She once made an attempt to seduce Roy (saying that she'll do "whatever he wants"), after her enchantment spells wore off in mid-battle, leaving her vulnerable, but it failed and ended with her defenestration (which Roy describes as being exactly what he wanted).

That she attempted to attain proximity to Roy, close enough to drain his life energies, also points to her being a succubus.

Despite her defeat, Sabine recovered before she could be taken into custody and used her shapeshifting ability to replace a member of the Cliffport Police Department. She used this disguise to rescue Pompey after he was taken into custody. She arrived at Azure City and hooked up with Nale, though she was forced to leave to go to the Lower Planes because of a deal she made with an unknown group of fiends, later revealed to be the "Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission" (IFCC), promising to inform them of anything that might tip the balance of good and evil. Sabine despises Pompey, considering the half-elf to be a "little pervert" (although given her established relaxed attitude towards perversion in general, this seems unlikely to be the sole cause of her dislike).

When she returned from the Lower Planes Sabine became extremely upset seeing Nale dance with Haley and, after taking advice (while in disguise) from a somewhat bemused (and intoxicated) Vaarsuvius, she followed the pair back to a private inn room and crashed in on them while they were kissing, shouting his name as she did so. However, Nale "ordered" Thog to "bull rush tackle hug" Sabine so he could duel Elan, and thus she was unable to participate in the final showdown. During a lull in the fight, Sabine explained that she wasn't jealous but rather angry at Nale trying to kill Haley, which she wanted to do herself. Defeated by Haley and Durkon, Sabine recently spent time in the cells of the Sapphire Guard, along with Nale and Thog. She attempted to persuade the imprisoned Miko Miyazaki, a fallen Paladin to convert to being a Blackguard and also flirted with the fallen paladin. This merely resulted in Miko attempting unsuccessfully to kill her, which left Sabine's head inconveniently twisted backwards. Following battle damages to the cell, Sabine escaped with Nale and Thog, flying away from Azure City in search of another of the Snarl's gates.

==Other Original Members==

===Hilgya Firehelm===

A dwarfen cleric of Loki who left her ancestral homelands to escape her arranged marriage to her supportive and loving husband Ivan, whom she instead unjustly regarded as cruel.

A kobold ranger who was prejudiced against halflings, in contrast to fellow ranger Belkar Bitterleaf's prejudice against kobolds. The two's intense hatred for each other culminated at the Order vs. Guild battle, where Yikyik was defeated (and subsequently turned into a "swanky new leather hat") by Belkar.  

His name may be a reference to Pun-Pun, a theoretical kobold character build with almost limitless power, although the similarities seem to begin and end with their race.

==Replacements==

Yokyok initially had the advantage, as the fight took place in a city and the rune on Belkar's head prevents him from dealing lethal damage in city limits to living beings; however, the rune apparently has no rules regarding the use of ''other'' people to kill a foe, and Yokyok was [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0357.html slain] when Belkar offered a whole tavern of adventurers 200 gold pieces for kobold heads (A trick that also worked due to Yokyok's species being seen as evil and as a sort of pest). His head was seen in the next strip serving as a bowl for Belkar's tortilla chips (sharing a similar fate with his father) and the rest of him was apparently made into a salsa dip (although Belkar privately admitted to Haley that he had no intention of actually eating it, just using it to horrify Roy).

==The Order of the Stick Adventure Game==

==External Links==