This Is a Good Stick
The Dungeon: #8
Of Sticks and Staffs
The impetus of this week’s strip was rather mundane: we realized our wizard wasn’t properly outfitted for adventure.
Robe ✅
Point hat ✅
Staff ❌
A wizard without a staff is just an old man in a bathrobe. It’s unnatural. Perhaps even a bit unseemly.
You may have thought the inspiration was the long-held tradition of boys turning mundane sticks into guns and swords and objects with other, more phallic purposes. Maybe that’s even what happened here. I’m not Freud; the subconscious is a foreign place with alien intent.
The one thing that was an intentional decision: the title of the strip. “This is a good stick” is a callback to Aragorn at Helm’s Deep trying to cheer up a teenager who’s facing death holding the equivalent of a sharp stick. The moment is meant to drive home the danger, to give the battle stakes in the form of a gawky kid who hasn’t even started shaving. Humanize the drama. And it does. But after you’ve seen The Two Towers a dozen times, Aragorn holding an obviously rust-pitted sword with a straight face becomes hilarious.
To come full circle, and round back to D&D: last year my friend Chad rolled up a new character with awful stats. Which led to one of my proudest creations:
Regale Us With Tales of Your Own Adventures
What’s your favorite item you’ve ever received in a game? It doesn’t even have to be magic. It could just be a stick you believe is magical. Let us know in the comments!