Quote Originally Posted by Nik Hasta View Post
I also figured Xykon would turn up. This is the more interesting of the two though.

This attack is him flatly not having an answer to refute Durkon's offer with.

Durkon gave him the best possible outcome, on a platter no less. Retaining their territories, a concerted effort to uplift Goblins out of the social-racial-ghetto they currently reside in within D&D, divine intervention to keep other gods off their backs and apparent amnesty for all the crimes he's committed.

And he can't justify with any kind of rationale why he won't take it so he's throwing his toys out of the pram, attacking a peaceful diplomat and, a tragic way, kind of being the stereotype of the Goblin as it exists in D&D.

Now, will Durkon's faith in the diplomatic process be shaken? I personally think not.
Agreed that this was the more interesting option. Redcloak is perfectly capable of screwing things over without Xykon thank you very much.

As sound as the offer is, it just goes against the plan he's been working towards since inheriting the red cloak. He's so close to finishing the plan and he's sacrificed so much for it. One single polite discussion wasn't going to change his mind fully (at least not without a really high Persuasion roll). Even if the offer is better than his current path it's going to take more time to fix. Also, the possibility of the entire world being destroyed and reset has always been a possibility in Redcloak's mind, so that being part of the equation probably didn't have much bearing on him.

And yeah, Durkon isn't going to let this stop him. It's probably a disappointing outcome but not an unexpected one. He'll just have to get ready for another round of diplomacy. Probably in worse circumstances than this, but that's the job.

I'm drawing parallels between this scene and when Vaarsuvius made their deal with the IFCC. Both Redcloak and Vaarsuvius were presented with options that had a high likelyhood of turning out really well for them (though I'm still a bit suspect about the scenario the IFCC presented to Vaarsuvius) but they both decided to go along with a much more hazardous option because they're both too stubborn about how they want to achieve their goal. So I really hope that they can have a discussion about this as well.