Don't know why it's only showing a broken link on the front page so I'll post it here until someone can fix it in the morning. Hope it was worth the wait Later!

(editted to remove pic since it's up now)

WOOT! first post.

Buffet. I love it Well that settles that debate. Don't know why the main page isn't working, all I got was a blank screen.
Thanks for posting the page here Lar. I thought my computer had gone wonky on me.

Nice Comic, as usual. But is is just me or is Richard getting bigger again? Compared to the Bunny of Doom he looks like it.

Maybe eating Babys helps him to regrow back to his old self?

Aww, Richard's missing out on Thanksgiving dinner too.

Worth the wait as always.

Could be. Of course it could also just be perspective. We should ask Lar. After he takes a well deserved break

Lil' baby richard was in the candyshop ^^

Gaten looks quite human in this comic! Oh well. The half-elf idea would have been fun.

As expected, Richard ate the babies!! I wonder how many he got before they stopped him? He must have ate fast and gotten pretty full, seeing as how the infants are the same size he is.

So there's earth, fire and water elementals! That's so cool. Maybe chalice is some kind of element-related artifact?

Considering the weeping women I would guess he ate at least a good third of the villages youngest.

Yeah, I wondered just how far he got. I figured that he had just fired up the BBQ as Benny ran in.

Baby Back Ribs...

I liked the sarcastic humor of Richard, and i gues he's the evil part of the story an dall (which is needed offc),
but eating babies?
Not my idea of funny..... but hey someone must like it

_{And yea i know it's just a comic}

you seem to be new to this comic... he ordered in an earlier issue a "wrapped up baby to go"

according to the women in the background I would guess he was caught in action

Gues i missed that mate, been reading LFGcomics since about februari this year so i had the privilige of reading a whole book before having to wait a few days for each new page

In WoW undeads can eat corpses too hehe
Just gave it to much thought probably and thought about all those poor villige people (sickening if it was irl )
and it felt a little disturbing.
But then again i'm not a all powerfull evil undead warlock megalomaniac who enjoys a slaughterfest hehe .

No... no, he didn't, did he?

I mean, yes, Richard has been making jokes about baby-eating before, but I do hope Benny rushed in and stopped him before he actually got that far. Otherwise the women wouldn't be wailing, they'd be holding pitchforks and running the "heroes" out of town. If any of the babies had actually died, I can't realistically see how Gaten would be able to ignore that deed or smooth it over and still be a good guy. The gnomes at least were a bunch of wankers, they had to coming, dramatically speaking.

I have this bad feeling that the group will soon be re-enacting the Vietnam War quote: "We had to destroy the village to save it."


In other news: A magic chalice? From ancient Kethenecia no doubt. Now, D&D has a couple of magic items that can summon elementals, but never different elementals from the same item. Now we've already seen water, fire, and earth. elementals. I don't know, it could just be a random monster slaying quest, or it could be something more suspicious.

As for the drought, well these things happen in nature, but... somehow I can't shake the suspicion this one was created by someone? Or am I getting paranoid and seeing evil meddling archmages everywhere?

Somehow I'm not sure if our protagonists have returned to quite the same timeline, or age where they started from. Previously there was desert, the Kethen wastelands. Now there's a grassland with trees. Yes, I know, when Benny remarked about plants and chipmunks suddenly appearing around the city instead the sand dunes Krunch said that the land is starting to "heal" now that Kethenecia has returned. But we've seen whole trees and green bushes, trees don't grow overnight in a desert, not to mention it doesn't particularly look like desert vegetation. So that means the desert isn't getting wetter and slowly growing over and becoming fertile again, it means the desert landscape is being magically replaced with this other landscape of open woodland and grasslands. As if the two landscapes, like the city that disappeared, shared the same space but not the same "phase" (in Star Trek terms).

Not to mention that to the villagers, the green fertile land has to have been here quite a while, perhaps as long as they can think back, because otherwise they wouldn't mention a drought as a condition deviating from normal. If you live in an arid environment like a sand desert, the definition of "drought" only starts when it hasn't rained in years.

And where do the volcanoes fit in, the ones where we first saw Richard's imp and its foul army? They can't be too far away, unless imps can run over water.

Or maybe I'm overthinking things here. A wizard did it. As good an explanation as anything. I mean, if I were Cale, I would be asking the villagers a few more questions, like, "How long have you been living here?" and "Did you see something unusual happen in that direction three months ago?" or "Have you ever heard of Kethenecia? Seen sand dragons? Met any elves like me?"

Considering the fact that the LfG World is propably highly Magical is is not very unlikely that Trees can grow as fast given the proper magical Energys.

Lets think about the Kethenecia Region as a Puzzle with the City beeing its centerpiece. Without it it would be incomplete so the magical flows doesn't go right hence it barrens to a desert.

After the City is back the flow is about to return to normal so de Landscape regenerate back to it's supposed state (as i read in your sig you know Pratchett...maybe the LfG World is also based on Narrativium like Discworld).

And the Party was orginially heading from the Coast inwards to Kethenecia, so its possible the Village is even more inwards from the Coast.

Still the sudden disapperance of masses of Sand should be suspect to them but..Villagers...the same as Redshirts.

Anyway just my thoughts.

Kuptal also mentions that a Imp can do anything, given the right motivation.

And as the Women are weeping in despair I say he DID eat at least one. I'm not sure who said it (but i think it was Kirtan Loor in one of the X-Wing Books), hurt a child and the parents are getting mad at you. Kill a child and they will be overcome by suffering.

If he was just heating the Grill they would not be so crying, they would be trying to grill him in return.

Another Edit: Who said Richard got busted? I mean they could just have found the remains while Benny get him out of it fast enough.

*has a strange idea*

I just had the Imagination of Chibi-Richard usng the Bones of his Meal to create litte Mobiles and hang them above the now empty beds. Sounds sick but...i could Imagine him doing it.

Something else is fishy (or maybe I'm expecting too much realism from a fantasy comic):
Who needs a bagful of maps to dig new wells? What were they really looking for? I'm not a surveyor, but shouldn't you first dig the existing wells deeper if they've dried up, and then look for places like dried-up riverbeds or places where vegetation is still lush, and try to sink a well there? Why go all the way to "outlying regions of the valley" to dig new wells? What good is a well if it's 10 miles away? Don't give me that "locating "untapped sources of water" talk, Gaten; it's not like you're pumping off groundwater, do you (like the Australians do)? It's not an oil well you're drilling here.

Problem is we the readers get more information here than the characters because we're seeing Gaten's flashbacks while he is narrating.

Also, we have so far seen no fields, only uncultivated grasslands. If those are parts of the village's Commons, these people sure like to live off the land. No herds on the grass either.... or maybe the domesticated animals were all brought into the stables for safety or killed by the elementals.

I don't quite believe Gaten's story, but on the other hand he doesn't seem to be lying. If anyone is playing false here, my bet is on that Milos guy.

Remember the nice trampled-dirt road going from Kethenecia to the village, but it wasn't pitted or rutted from weather and carts, no old horse dung, nothing. And if these people have no carts because they don't have neighbors to trade with, why the road? (Again, I fully accept the excuse explanation "It's a fantasy comic." Fantasy cities rarely have agriculture around them, just as floors of "natural" caves in SF and fantasy TV series are always perfectly flat and clean except for the occasional styrofoam boulder...)


Definitely. But don't give Lar ideas.

Long, discriptive posts scare me...
I simply think that everything will make sense when it happens, so I dont try to guess what will happen...
Personally, I find nothing wrong with baby eating in a COMIC, especially since its Richard. As long as they dont show it happening. 0.o
Its people who want to eat babies in real life we should be worried about... fortunately there arent any as far as I know.

From what we see here,obviously Richard made the most of
the buffet laid out in front of him.*snort*
Good point there,Tobrian,but I'm not sure if those details
do have a relation with the plot...

I dunno if the women are shouting at them or crying in the background.

Here's to hoping that the women were merely confused at why Benny was being mean and removed her "baby" from the nursery from all the other baby friends.

But this is Richard, so it's likely he's already eaten a baby or two... Buffet, well no Thanksgiving for Richard this year

I don't think he was looking for new spots to dig wells; Tobrian made several excellent points regarding that. What stood out to me was the gear those villagers were packing. It struck me as highly suspicious. If anything, I think Gaten was looking for that chalice, and he certainly found it. Perhaps he didn't know about the elementals, but from all the maps, and the villagers needing to use the maps to find a particular spot...

I'm not entirely certain I'm correct, but it seems to me he was looking for that chalice.

*puts on prophet hat*

Before Gaten was so suddenly put off his topic by Richard's shenanigans, he talked about a golden chalice that was found, which coincided with the appearance of the elementals. Now, I hope, I HOPE, that next update either Cale or Krunch will ask Gaten where the chalice is. Because that chalice might be the key to sending the elementals back to their planes of origin, instead of tediously battling one elemental after another or (worse) facing never-ending hordes of them. Krunch is a scholar, he should be digging for more information.

At least that's what the majority of roleplayers would have their characters do: investigate the origin of the invasion.

Perhaps Benny and Richard will be able to put their vast knowledge of practical magic to good use and banish the elementals. That owuld give Richard something more worthwhile to do than trying in vain to fwoom enemies or provide comic relief.

Although I'm afraid it will be revealed that the chalice is still lying out there in the fields where it was found and dropped; dropped because Gaten called the boy who found the chalice "Jarl" [which btw off-topic is the Scandinavian word for a high-ranking nobleman] but later only spoke of one survivor whom he didn't name... which points to Jarl being dead, after all he was the one holding the chalice and probably the one killed first.

Which means the group will have to go out and find the dig site. Of course the whole chalice bit might turn out to be a red herring, sheer coincidence, and have nothing to do with why elementals attacked that group. [edited to add] But at least it will give the characters something to do, allow them to become active, instead of being merely reactive as per Cale's plan of manning the barricades and waiting for the elementals' attack. Now don't get me wrong Cale's plan isn't bad, but as he himself said he is no mage; Cale still thinks like a warrior, a defender. His lack of thaumaturgical knowledge means he doesn't consider things from that angle.

No offense, but I think you might be over-analyzing it a little bit. I don't think Lar would take the time to draw horse dung. It doesn't really add anything to the story. You dont see such things in games either, such as World of Warcraft or Oblivion. Most people dont think of such things, so it's kinda a waste of time...

Small detail noticed, the survivor appears to be the man who calls to Gaten, the guy with the green hat and goatee. In the panel right above that one, that guy is running away, or someone who looks suspiciously like him. Also, we've learned in past experiences, that when names are given to small characters they normally turn out more important to the plot then expected.

You're probably right (I've been watching too much Dexter, where every tiny detail is important). I was just grasping at straws trying to find indication that this whole village is another evil test for Cale, another hoax perpetrated by the archmage.

Ok, I figure that the chalice is either one of two-possibly three-things.

Option one, it's completely coincidental, and has nothing to do with elementals appearing. That's boring, so I don't think it's the right one.

Option two, it somehow drew the elementals, and they are attacking the things closest to where it appeared, witch probably argues for it being in the village, if the elementals are surrounding the village.

Or option three, the elementals were again drawn by the chalice, but they're fighting over it. All the elementals want the chalice for some reason, and this option again argues that the chalice is in the village.

I like the last option the best, just because it seems to be the option that will offer the most blood, guts, and gore for its trouble.

Oh, and I still wanna know how these complete yahoos even knew what an elemental was! I thought only powerful sorcerers/wizards/magic workers or wise scholars would even be able to ID them.

On the subject of smaller characters with names being eventually important, Milos not only has a name, he is the one who found and guided the group to the village. Also, Gaten says, of all the messengers sent out, Milos is the only one to return.

Perhaps I'm paranoid, but I'm getting suspicious Milos might have killed the other messengers. Also, I suppose it's logical to think he saw Kethenecia and headed there hoping for people to help, but if a whole city seemed to pop out of nowhere, I'd be a bit antsy about approaching it.

I have my eye on that peasant...

Hahahaha. Flawless. Look at the embarrased look the rabbit has Great one, Lar!

Bwahaha. Best Thanksgiving dinner evar. Poor Richard, though, not getting to enjoy it to the fullest. What I don't get, is why so many people are going 'Z0MG, he totally didnt did he? He surely must be joking!!!"

Seriously. We've known Richard's favourite food since Pg. 14. As someone mentioned before, he requests a baby to go on Pg. 20. This is a man(?) who slaughters entire villages, commits patricide, creates widows from wives and decimates orphanages on a frequent basis. Why would he be joking about baby eating?

And from the hoarde of wailing women, I'm sure he picked a few off before Benny got there. :3

I can't see how Richard could have eaten a baby. He's baby-sized himself! He'd suffer from some very serious indigestion if he tried to eat a whole one at once. Seriously, he'd explode!

My bet is he was gnawing happily on a leg when found. The women's reactions could then be interpreted as 'Get that little bullying brat of yours away from our precious children!'

Their look is more like: "Look what he's done to our children!" I guess he started the feast and was soon discovered. Or maybe he started cooking... Who knows...

He wanted to stay at the buffet. XD

Hey. Long-time reader/lurker, first time poster.

About the baby thing, it's not at all out of character for Richard to snack down on some babies, nor is it outside of the style of the comic for him to get away with doing it. Heck, the comic sometimes even shows fully Richard's atrocities (they made a whole cartoon complete with song about it).

I think the concern is that Looking For Group isn't just a comedy comic, it's also trying to be a plotted drama comic. There are plot developments and character arcs, and in order for us to take those seriously we have to believe in the characters and the world they're in. That's sometimes hard to do with Richard.

Let me give you an example - when Cale couldn't bring himself to kill that child in Kethnecia was meant to be a moment of development for him. It's a serious moral quandry that pushes him over the edge, for never before had he willingly and intentionally slain an innocent. Yet this character moment rings exceptionally hollow, because just moments before Cale's travel companion slaughtered a whole village of nameless peasents that put Cale's one brief dilemma to shame. Even Cale had managed to kill quite a few ostensibly good people by this point, entirely by accident, and had certainly witnessed greater atrocities without getting jaded. The lives of non-main-characters seem worthless to the reader, lessening the impact of death.

It's happening here with this village, too. If Richard's just going to eat their children, burn down their houses, and kill them for fun then why should we care at all about wether the group succeeds in saving them? Heck, why should Cale? How can we believe in his character when he has clear and consistent evidence that Richard constantly counters his good work, yet he keeps bringing him along?

That's why the imp's revenge on Richard made a lot of sense to me at first. By having Richard cursed, we could be sure he wouldn't flip out and kill the whole village the first time they meet. After all, had he been at full power and NOT killed them all, we'd have been disappointed (It wouldn't fit with his past behaviour), yet if he had, there'd be no plot. That's why I'm suspecting that he either A) didn't kill the babies, or B ) killed few enough to avoid destroying the village's integrity, because otherwise there simply is no plot here.

A comparison may be drawn to 8-bit theater. That comic also has a homicidal mage that kills everyone they come across, but this works because his travel companions are equally two-dimensional and underdeveloped, and the plot takes on a very silly and slapstick tone. We aren't expected to feel pathos for any of them, nor is the world expected to make sense. Looking for group seems to take itself a little more seriously than that, but if it's to work then some concessions to dramatic flow might be necessary.

So, what's going to happen to the rabbit.

And what type of goblet is too special to be touched by sunlight?

Poor Richard will be having a mediocre, baby-less Thanksgiving poor guy.

Tobrian, the times where I can make it through your posts, I always get the urge to re-read the comic. There's all those little things I never catch.

The chalice story is a little fishy to me. From Gaten's flashback, which might not even have been an accurate interpretation of the survivor's story, the chalice was buried underground and was found out of coincidence? Of course, to keep plots moving along, coincidences are needed, but...

As for the distraught women in the background, it could have nothing to do with Richard's appetite at all. They could be worried about the group taking an "infant" into battle.

I agree. Unless these are pretty dumb villagers, they wouldn't try and go to the other side of a big valley to dig a well. That Kind of defeats the purpose.

Now for Milos. Two things. 1) He's and older looking guy, but hes the ONLY messenger who returned out of so many other brave volunteers. 2) He looks suspiciously like that Archmage; the eyebrows and face structure. At least to me he does. If the Archmage has already taken the form of a little child to steer Cale on his way to kingship, I see no reason why he wouldn't take the form of a poor villager to lead Cale to the village so he can save it.

Well. Milos does seem like the archmage. Otherwise. Where would he be?

These elementals: they must have been summoned by some other great person, so he must have known when the people found the goblet. Also, shouldn't the village be overtaken by now?

The Goblet of Truth! It has the magical power to make elementals angry!

Cheap joke? Yes
Fun to make? Yes

I love the accusing look on Cale's face. Seriously, one of these days man. One of these days, Richard will cross a line and Cale will attempt to retaliate. *wibble* I can't wait!

Anyone else think that kid from the first issue is gonna come back? The kid who's dad was used as a meat shield? He didn't have a name but he can still be important. Everything seems to have a purpose and little things like that can become major plot devices in the future.

Heh, better off making a topic for farfetched comic theories...

Actually, I thought it looked like he was suppressing a smile. One of those, "Ah, man. What did he do this time?" looks.

Nah, he looks pissed to me. Suppressed pissed, but pissed.

Emo Cale turning back to his formal happy-go-lucky self. Yey

Yeah. Emo Cale is boring.

Yipeee! I guess that solves both the pointy ear and the kid in the candy store vs. napping Richard dilemma.

Aside from the roads (after all, the background in those strips was given rough attention at best, it's safe to say it's not relevant), I agree with Tobrian. Lord Gaten probably isn't telling the whole truth. I'd definitely say the group he sent out was really looking for the chalice rather than some distant well. Seriously, panel three is a classic treasure hunting shot. I think the 'as soon as it was licked by the sun' expression is just a fancy way of saying it; it's likely the elementals attacked simply as soon as the chalice was removed from the pit.

And if Krunch's usual sober expression means anything in the panels after the story, it's likely he has some suspicions too but will keep them to himself for the time being - at least until he and the group get a chance to talk in private. Cale also looks rather thoughtful in panel seven, but he tends to do that a lot in the past time.

I definitely think Lord Gaten is up to something. For now, I think I'll go with the standard scenario of a power-hungry lord searching for a powerful artifact. Taking a wild guess, I'll say the chalice really is in the village, otherwise why would the elementals attack so ferociously what could be several miles away from the original point of disturbance?

So yeah, I'm eager to see how the story will develop.

Concerning Richard's buffet, I don't think he actually got as far as eating a baby. Firstly, there would be some... technical difficulties, what with his size and all. Secondly, I think that if he actually did it, the villagers' reactions would be a lot more intense. What Tobrian said about parents of dead children being too depressed to do anything about it might be true, but the other villagers should be eager to get the monstrosity that ate someone else's child the hell out of the village.
Although, for the first explanation, I wouldn't be surprised if they group visited the nursery to find a pack of shrunk, partially damaged babies... XD
I think the most Richard might have done is kill/injure a child in such a fashion that it looks like an accident, something he can't be held entirely accountable for. Which would explain the villagers' distress but lack of intense protest.
Something like Richard setting the nursery on fire without actually managing to kill any babies would also explain the reaction.

I agree that the point of the little shrinking arc was to neutralise Richard enough for the group to help the villagers without completely removing him from the story. I doubt we've seen the last of Hctib Elttil, though. XD

I like Cale's and Benny's expressions in the last panel. And Pella is grinning! And I absolutely adore the whole 'accomplices' look of Richard and the bunny...

EDITED TO ADD:

Actually, don't you think it's possible that Lord Gaten WAS looking for the Chalice, but for a slighly more respectable reason? They were faced with a drought. Maybe digging deeper into the old wells didn't work, so he sent a group to search for a relic that supposedly granted prosperity. A Holy Grail reference? It just could be...

And if we take that idea one step further, suppose the elemental invasion ends the moment a worthy man (Gaten being the false candidate, Cale being the real one?) touches it? Discovering that would certainly help make Cale king in the blink of an eye... And this entire time, the Chalice isn't at the site of its discovery, but is really in the village but not in Gaten's possession. Instead, suppose it's been taken by the unworthy hands of a corrupt villager, thusly upsetting the elementals enough to attack the village to reclaim the chalice. Which gives all those people suspicious of Milos something good to chew on....

I agree with a good bit of what you've said, and...

*gnaw gnaw gnaw*

I dig the look on the bunny-mount's face. It's almost sheepish, like "What? What'd we do?"

My point exactly

Just came up with a name for Ricahrd bunny mount. Frank.

Cookies for those who know why.