Xykon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Xykon | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
Xykon is the main villain of the webcomic The Order of the Stick, created and written by Rich Burlew.
Born human, Xykon became a sorcerer of great power and evil. Forty years prior to the events of the comic, while still among the living, he slew Fyron, the mentor of Eugene Greenhilt (though Xykon remembers very little of this event due to the sheer number of people swearing revenge on him for killing their loved ones in front of them). This lead to Eugene swearing a "Blood Oath of Vengeance" against the sorceror, an oath that, with his death, has now passed down to Eugene's children, Roy and Julia.
Approximately thirty years prior to the events of the webcomic, Xykon died, only to return as a lich, granting him even greater power.
Around six months prior to the start of the webcomic, Xykon took over the Dungeon of Dorukan, killing the wizard Dorukan, with the aim of gaining access to a mystical gate on the lowest level of the dungeon. He intended to unseal the gate and use it to tap the energies of the Snarl to grant him hitherto unheard-of levels of magical power. Filling the dungeon with goblins, mercenaries and undead minions, he waited for his chance to unlock the gate.
That chance came with the arrival of the Order of the Stick, led by Roy Greenhilt, out to fulfil his father's blood oath. Needing people of pure heart to open the gate, Xykon allowed them to gain access to his throne room and attempted to bluff them into completing his plan. Elan the bard was on the verge of doing so, when Haley Starshine, who had learned the details of Xykon's plan from one of his goblin minions, stopped him. The annoyed lich inflicted pain on the pair, only to be confronted by Roy. Angered to learn that Xykon had no particular interest in his oath, on the grounds that he'd slain more people than he could be bothered to remember, then enraged by the lich's casual destruction of his ancestral greatsword, Roy knocked off Xykon's head (a mere inconvenience to the lich), then threw both parts of his foe into the gate. The energies of the gate completely destroyed Xykon's body. With their master gone, Xykon's forces either ran or attempted to surrender (only to be killed by Belkar). Dungeon, gate and the castle above were all destroyed when Elan set off the self-destruct system that Dorukan had built into his stronghold.
Although his physical form was destroyed, Xykon's phylactery, made from the unholy symbol of his chief minion, the goblin high priest Redcloak, remained intact, allowing him to regrow his body over the next few weeks. He assembled a new, much larger army of hobgoblins (88 legions of approximately 300 hobgoblins each) and used them to reclaim his tower from an infestation of good-aligned creatures. He added many of these to his forces in undead form, most notably a zombie silver dragon which serves as his mount.
He is continuing with his master plan to gain power, having turned his attention to the three remaining Gates located around the world, each of which could be used in the same manner as Dorukan's. Selecting the Azure City Gate as his next target, they successfully assaulted the outer watchtowers of the realm, eliminating the guards, imprisoning the paladin Miko Miyazaki (although he intended her to escape, allowing him to use her as a scrying focus to successfully determine the precise location of the Gate) and destroying the warning beacon before it could be activated. The army (approximately 30,000 Hobgoblins and several hundred zombies, ghouls and siege engines) have arrived at Azure City and the attack is underway. Xykon's disregard for such things as tactics has meant that they are using a plan constructed by Redcloak to assault the city. This involves using three decoy Xykons, a cowardly Eye of Fear and Flame leading the southern division, a Death Knight leading a charge at the breach in Azure City's walls made by Redcloak's titanium elementals and a Huecuva (undead cleric) holding position in the rear; all three are humanoid skeletal creatures that look no different than a lich, to the extent that Redcloak gave them colored pendants to tell them apart. The real Xykon was flying towards the castle on an undead dragon with Greater Invisibility cast which was revealed and then dispelled by Durkon. He then made several passes over the battlements, however he was warded off and then assaulted mid-flight by Roy and his Starmetal sword.
Xykon is, in many ways, a highly stereotypical evil overlord as seen in many fantasy novels and roleplaying games and does his best to live up to all the clichés associated with the role. He is rarely surprised by anything and cannot remember the names of the Order (often butchering Roy Greenhilt's surname into Bluepommel, Redblade or some other variation, if he is able to remember at all who he is) and has to be reminded by Redcloak who they are, which hints at his vast experience with adventurers and villains. He is often shown to be rather casual about his evil deeds and is rarely in a serious mood. He finds tactical discussions tedious, apparently feeling that simply throwing his minions, who he generally regards as being completely expendable, into the fray in huge numbers will get the job done. He has used the gullibility of heroes against the Order of the Stick, and he knows the genre conventions of evil.
| The Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew | |
|---|---|
| Characters: | Roy Greenhilt | Durkon Thundershield | Haley Starshine | Elan | Vaarsuvius | Belkar Bitterleaf | Xykon | Miko Miyazaki |
| Character lists: | General list | Linear Guild |
| Locations: | General list |
