Linear Guild

Linear Guild
File:Linearguild.gif The original Linear Guild, drawn by Rich Burlew. L - R: Nale, Thog, Zz'dtri, Yikyik, Sabine (in human form) and Hilgya.
Publication information
Publisher	Giant In The Playground
First appearance	The Order of the Stick #43
Created by	Rich Burlew
In-story information
Abilities	Various - includes proficient fighters, mages, a fiend.

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

Perfect foils to the Order of the Stick, the Linear Guild follow an "evil opposites" theme as closely as possible. This means that each of the Linear Guild resembles and belongs to a character class or multiclass combination with similar abilities to those of a member of the Order of the Stick. However, they are the exact opposite of that individual in some other respects. This is more obvious in some cases than in others.

Original Members

Nale

Elan's evil twin brother (his name obviously "Elan" spelled backwards), a multiclass fighter/rogue/sorcerer specializing in enchantment spells (which, he eventually came to realize, is the same combination of abilities as his bardic twin, just more complicated). Raised by his ruthless father, a powerful, Lawful Evil general of an evil army, as compared to Elan's Chaotic Good, bar wench mother. Magically, he specializes in enchantment spells, although as, in Dungeons & Dragons, Sorcerers do not have a specialty, this probably represents a preference rather than an actual class-based limitation.

He looks identical to Elan except for a small goatee (a reference to Spock in the Star Trek Mirror Universe), which Nale recently shaved off and glued onto his brother in order to swap places with Elan. He is Lawful Evil. His cunning, scheming and evil nature makes him the opposite of the light-hearted, good-natured and comically inept Elan. He is also in a relationship with Sabine, Haley's opposite, whereas Elan seems somewhat oblivious to Haley's feelings towards him. He is the smartest member of the guild, though he has a tendency to outsmart himself.

He is quite skilled with words and is a master planner. He has also has proven that he can think very quickly on his feet and come up with an intelligent, if not the best, solution to his problems, once again in opposition to Elan, who usually just wings it. He may be best described as a competent "Bond Villain"- he is just as theatric as his brother, often feeling an actual physical need to tell everyone his evil plans, to the point that he sometimes tells them to himself to get rid of the urge, and enjoys gloating at his opponents.

A sadist at heart, he enjoys performing cruel and depraved acts, though he apparently has a standard; when Thog offers a Celine Dion album up as a torture device, Nale claims he's "still civilized". He also has absolutely no sense of loyalty to his teammates, with the possible exception of Sabine, as he merely goes about mechanically replacing members of the Linear Guild when they die/disappear, and has recently sacrificed Thog so his plan against Elan could succeed. He also seems to have a short attention span, as when Sabine leaves for home, he seems to be upset because he does not know how to entertain himself.

Nale can be a master planner, and never forgets details, with a good eye for understanding others' weaknesses. However his tragic flaw is that he over complicates a situation, such as once killing 142 random people, just to point the police to where he would be located (on a map, pushpins of the crimes made arrows to his hideout). He also chose not to kill Elan when he had the chance, wishing to torture him more cruelly by killing his friends first.

A running gag is that when Nale is lying, he openly states what he is lying about in his speech, yet his target never catches on (or when they do, nothing becomes of it). He tends to brag that despite his obvious lies, his bluff skill is able to convince his target of anything.

Nale has currently succeeded in replacing his brother within the Order and has just arrived (by teleportation) with them at Azure City (after a short unexpected detour at a Roc's nest). How long this masquerade will fool Elan's teammates is unclear, but it appears that his intent is to eliminate the other members of the Order as quickly as possible by engineering things so that he ends up alone with each one in turn.

This has changed, however; upon discovering the Order of the Stick's mission to protect the Gates of the Snarl from Xykon, Nale has changed his plans; he now intends to maintain his deception long enough to seize control of the Gates himself, having deduced that Xykon must have devised a way to channel and direct the energy of the Snarl. He has also realised that Haley is in love with Elan, and has taken advantage of this to ask her out on a date while Sabine is away, planning to romance Haley and ultimately kill her at her most emotionally vulnerable. Belkar saw (or rather, smelled) through Nale's disguise, but Nale charmed him before he could strike, ordering him to kill his allies. Due to the Mark of Justice on Belkar's forehead, this is actually impossible for him to do, something Nale doesn't know about yet.

Nale's date with Haley went well and he succeeded in getting her to accompany him to a private room in the inn, where he intended to stab her in mid-kiss. His plan was interrupted by first Sabine, who, in a fit of jealousy, came crashing in through the door, and then by his brother, Elan, who came swinging in through the window in a typically dramatic fashion. Also, Thog entered the room after Elan, in a leprechaun costume which startled Nale, saying: "You know, the first two, I probably should've seen coming. The leprechaun costume? Not so much."

Thog

A half-orc barbarian with two levels in fighter who likes puppies, ice cream with sprinkles, and rocket skates. He wields a greataxe and displays a childlike innocence while simultaneously killing without mercy. It is possible that his low intelligence (low enough to impair his speech so that he always speaks about himself in the third person) means he does not really understand what he is doing. For instance, when Nale framed Elan and Thog was arrested, he admitted to being guilty and, when asked, explained the entire plot to the guard, apparently not realizing that he had done something wrong and was facing capital punishment (unfortunately for the guard the confession came out in such a ludicrous linguistic form, such as referring to Elan as "Not-Nale", that the guard could not make heads or tails of it). On the other hand, Thog has been known to suggest torture methods (the playing of a Celine Dion album; a plan rejected by Nale as he's "still civilized"), which would require at least a small degree of intelligence. Thog's speech is always depicted in lower-case bold letters in the comic, a convention also used for other low-intelligence characters, and possibly as a reference to Calvin and Hobbes. Thog's stupidity and follower mentality makes him the opposite of Roy Greenhilt, the competent leader. Also, while Roy is clearly attracted to beautiful girls to the point of clouding his judgement, Thog is afraid of them, because he fears cooties. Thog was under arrest by the Cliffport Police Department, charged with multiple crimes, but escaped with Elan after Elan cleverly persuaded him into destroying their prison bars, then used illusions to fool the guardsmen. For reasons that have yet to be explained, Thog is currently wearing a leprechaun costume (prior to this he was wearing a Moogle costume).

Sabine

A shapeshifting fiend; second-in-command of the Linear Guild (and thus the opposite number of Haley Starshine) and Nale's lover. Exactly what type of fiend she is has never been stated; one likely candidate is a succubus. The abilities she has shown (energy draining and shapeshifting) and her batlike wings are in line with those of a succubus. Interestingly, she uses Plane Shift, thinking she can use it once a day, and a succubus can't use that power. Though capable of becoming anyone, Sabine prefers to shapeshift into dark-skinned individuals, since she is also dark-skinned. She also possesses incredible 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, but since she used both arrows at once, Haley is unsure which of her arrows (silver or cold iron) was able to do damage.

She once made an attempt to seduce Roy (saying that she'll do "whatever he wants"), after her enhancement spells wore off in mid-battle, leaving her vulnerable, but it failed and ended with her being thrown from a window (what he wanted) - this would seem to suggest that she is, in fact, a succubus and was attempting to get close enough to drain Roy's energies. Despite her defeat by Roy, 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 was forced to leave to go to the Lower Planes because of a deal she made with an unknown group of demons 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).

Exactly how Sabine is supposed to be the "evil opposite" of Haley is not obvious. There is no particular resemblance between the two, nor they do not share a class or abilities. It may simply be that Sabine's relationship with Nale is certainly not inhibited by any shyness on either side (Sabine's shapeshifting abilities allow them to explore most of the possible human permutations; they also practice human sacrifice to help keep their relationship healthy), while Haley cannot even make herself say that she is in love with Elan. Rich Burlew has stated that there is another, as yet unrevealed way in which the two could be considered opposites. This may well be related to Sabine being a fiend and the fact that Haley has hinted that she keeps her true nature hidden.

While Sabine was assigned to work with Nale by her demonic masters, she appears to be genuinely in love with him. She became extremely jealous seeing him dance with Haley and, after taking advice (while in disguise) from a somewhat bemused Vaarsuvius, she followed Nale and Haley back to a private inn room and crashed in on them while they were kissing, shouting his name as she did so. That this clearly risked revealing his masquerade as Elan seems not to have crossed her mind.

Hilgya Firehelm

A dwarven cleric of Loki who left her ancestral homelands to escape her arranged marriage to her supportive husband Ivan, whom she instead unjustly regarded as cruel. She had a short liaison with her opposite number, Durkon Thundershield after the Guild left her for dead, and has since left for places unknown after Durkon's rejection of her. Hilgya's freespirited attitude and hedonism made her the opposite of the dutiful and unassuming Durkon.

Zz'dtri

A Drow wizard who wielded dual scimitars with a 3.0 version of the fly spell, among other spells, such as haste. During a one-sided battle with his opposite number, Vaarsuvius, he was dragged off by lawyers for being a rather obvious violation of the copyright on the character Drizz't Do'Urden (this was a play off an older joke within the comic). Zz'dtri's taciturn and laconic nature and unwillingness to share his knowledge made him the opposite of the rather long-winded, lecturing Vaarsuvius.

Yikyik

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.

Replacements

After losing Yikyik, Hilgya, and Zz'dtri in their first battle with the Order of the Stick, the guild recruited replacements for the slain/deserted/sued party members:

Pompey

An evil half-elf student wizard whom the Linear Guild recruited from Warthog's School of Wizardry and Sorcery (an obvious play on Harry Potter's Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, complete with a "Larry Gardener" whose life Thog ended, to general approval) to be the new opposite number to Vaarsuvius. Pompey is a wizard who specializes in the spellcasting school of Conjuration, having chosen Enchantment and Evocation as his barred schools. This makes him a more direct opposite of Vaarsuvius, who does freely use Enchantment and Evocation, but is barred from using Conjuration spells due to his/her own specialization (also the fact that he has a distinguishable gender can be considered an opposite to the androgynous Vaarsuvius). He seems to favour Fiendish Giant Vermin as the target for his summoning spells. Captured by Roy in Cliffport and handed over to the CPPD, Pompey was almost immediately rescued by Sabine in her guise as a CPPD officer and is still at large. Nale has assigned him to watch the local prison, currently containing Elan, Thog and, most probably, Leeky Windstaff and to inform his leader if any significant events occur there.

It is speculated that his name is a reference to the city of Pompeii, which was destroyed when the volcano Vesuvius erupted; the similarity between the names Vesuvius and Vaarsuvius could foreshadow Pompey's death at the hands of Vaarsuvius. It has also been proposed that he is named for the Roman leader Pompey, based upon the fact that the historical Pompey married Julius Caesar's daughter Julia, and the OotS's Pompey had a crush on Roy's sister Julia.

In comparison to Vaarsuvius, who displays no attraction to either gender (presumably because of his/her marriage), Pompey is quite lecherous and readily flirts with any attractive female, including Sabine, despite her relationship with Nale. The primary reason why Pompey was left behind in Cliffport was because she refused to carry him on the three-day flight to Azure City and thus be forced to endure his constant "accidental" gropes.

Leeky Windstaff

A neutral evil gnome druid. As the new evil opposite for Durkon, his last name is an element followed by an item in his possession (which was broken when Durkon summoned a lightning storm). He is seen commanding trees to attack the citizens of Cliffport, which clicks completely with Durkon's utter terror of them. He is extroverted where Durkon is usually calm and was kicked out of his druid circle because he is clearly unbalanced, where Durkon was banished for reasons beyond his control and knowledge. His animal companion was a hawk (named "Kitty"), who was slain by Roy, and he is of sufficient level that he is capable of shapeshifting into the form of a dire bear. When last seen, Leeky had surrendered to the Order after they defeated him in battle and has presumably been handed over to the local authorities. He is arguably the most powerful of any of the Linear Guild or Order of the stick as it took many characters working together to take him down (as well as willful misinterpretation on Thor's part of the spell "Control Weather"). This apparent strength is a D&D joke, since many players consider that Druids tend to become the most powerful party members past approx. 8th level.

As a gnome that is neutral evil and a worshipper of nature rather than a specific god, Leeky Windstaff is the complete opposite of Durkon: a short, amoral and psychotic person devoted to a physical thing, rather than a short, moral, and kindhearted person devoted to a god.

Yokyok

The son of Yikyik, who joined the Guild to seek revenge on Belkar (in the style of Inigo Montoya). Yokyok could be seen as Belkar's opposite since he had a clear reason and somewhat acceptable motivation for seeking someone out in order to kill them, whereas Belkar kills indiscriminately and often for his own amusement. The single long rapier he carried also served as a counter to Belkar's two short daggers (and is another nod to Inigo Montoya). His actions seem to suggest an alignment opposite of Belkar's Chaotic Evil, as Yokyok disliked the rest of the Linear Guild, regarding them as scoundrels, and was working with them only because Nale promised to deliver Belkar to him.

What Yokyok's class was is unknown at present, but his clothing and choice of weapon would suggest that he was a Duelist or Swashbuckler.

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 slain when Belkar offered a whole tavern of adventurers 200 gold pieces for kobold heads. His head was seen in the next strip serving as a bowl for Belkar's tortilla chips 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).