This is something I've wondered for a while. If Richard is so powerful, and so all mighty (which he obviously is as we can all agree) why does he hang around these guys, instead of being off somewhere destroying people/things/universes at his will?

well, why should he hang around elsewhere, since his comrades are obviously giving him every opportunity to spread mayhem?
right in the beginning he admits that he´s bored. slaughter without purpose is obviously not working out for him.
plus i disagree on the almightypart. dick´s got amazing powers, true, but almighty he´s not i´d wager.
and let´s not forget that there are hidden layers to our favourite warlock. there are many things we don´t know about him yet, and his motives are part of this.

All of this, and phrases such as...

"We'll cut a bloody swath through Legra, like never seen before!"*
&
"Richard, I need you to blow up a mountain."


*Not the exact quote.

Because the promise of unmitigated gore while traveling with the group is what keeps him with them. He knows they can't really do anything to him, so they don't stop him.

Well, benny could kill him, if she's lucky... She'll just have to destraoy that gem of his along with his body when He's sleeping.

"We'll return to Legarion and cut a swathe of death and destruction, the likes of which have never been before seen, through the king's Legion and their dragons"

Page 114

because this is a comic and it would be boring to see Richard killing pople each page...we need ome story, therefore characters.
or if you want a fanboyish response: because he wants to kill them later...or they are his mother.

Thats the one, cheers, this is why he hangs around.

Because he can and it's more helpful to the comic.

Plus, y'know, the mayhem he gets to cause anyway, and he's an attention whore who likes having someone around to appreciate his occasional melodrama.

that´s certainly true! he loves his audience, and it has to be either appreciative or shocked.

"Boredom, mostly."

Seriously though, the more I think about the first encounter of Richard and Cale, the more convinced I become that they didn't just meet by a chance. I start to believe Richard sought Cale on purpose - not a random, naive elf, but the elf. For what purpose, we can now only wonder, but isn't it thrilling to watch powerful warlock follow the rest of the coterie for no obvious reason? Curious how none of them suspects anything, they're satisfied with the simple - and shallow - explanation "with us he can kill even more".

Page 158...

I'm starting to remember.

My life. Before I was turned.

I recall my home, my family.

I recall my lord father's distate of my chosen profession.

It comes in flashes, waves, in colors.

It comes.

And it's changing me.

Like Cale, I sense that I am on a path.

I don't know where it will lead, yet I am compelled to follow.

For the first time in hundreds of years, I have a goal.

I accept the verdict [Of slipping away from pure evil].

But I deny the sentence.

I have a destiny.

Cause he wuvs his Cale.

Boredom, that's the reason.

This, he pretty much says so when Cale asks him why he won't leave him alone. Well that and apparently he's starting to remember and feels that he has a purpose with them. Whether this is good or bad is up to debate.

Maybe Cale's got a magnet in his pocket and Richard has some metal in his crotch.

Becuase what else is he gonna do?

He can do pretty muc anything he wants. Why not try something new and different? Not to mention the whole: "I have a destiny now" thing. Hes been 'aive' for a long time. Hundreds of years in fact. He's been comepleatly an uterly evil, now we're trying out a little good.

It's simple really, if he worked for the legion, he'd have a lot less people to kill, while he works Cale and his people, he has the entire legion to kill

This. Richard is hanging around with Cale and the others because he seems to feel that it is leading him to his purpose, his destiny. That and, well, just how many people has he gotten to joyfully slaughter since he started following the group?

how else he can spread misery? :3

I vote for boredom

besides who wants to follow a destiny unless your extreemly bored?

i give my vote to master plan of purest evil and just because he is helping them do good now doesn't mean he could pull something that only the most vile soul could ever dream of having after (like cales kingdom and alll the souls Cale brought there to turn to undead and then conquer everything mwuahahahahahaha!!!!!

You have problems.

Hi-five on that one!!! I have long sine thought that Richard is planning something so evil and so incredibly vile that nobody can even imagine it. That´s also why he didn´t tell the guys at the trial in the underworld why he was doing some thing things that were seemingly good. Who knows, maybe he´s even planning to overthrow them and take over the underworld. Yeah, I really hope Richard rules the underworld when I get there! That´d be a really cool hell (or 13 really cool hells).

The same reason that Mister Mxyzptlk messes around with Superman, sure he could use his reality warping powers to wear the entire DC universe like a hat but it's a lot more fun to mess around with the Man of Steel.
I think Richard spent a lot of time ravaging little towns and wandering around without a purpose, got bored of that and decided that he would use his powers to aid Cale in his quest with the added bonus of plenty of Legion soldiers to smite and fwoosh.

I've actually thought about stuff along these lines before and i have to say, if you had all the power of Richard and was as old as Richard undoubtedly is, you two would be bored and need something to do, like Richard says they give him a purpose, a destiny. Also because Richard is so much more powerful than he lets on (or at least i think he is ) he doesn't really take anything very seriously, Cale's quest, the legions, they're all play things to him, that's why he takes the time to make funnies and kill people in "peculiar and imaginative fashions." I'll bet even his defeats are just because he can't be bothered with some what of an actual fight.

Also hi, i'm a first time poster on these particular forums, you didn't seem to have a beginners section so i jumped right in.

Honestly Richard has never really done anything that struck me as being 'phenomenal Cosmic Power!!!' like most people on the forums seem to think. He does things that pretty much any decent wielder of the black arts could pull off. He just looks powerful because there aren't many other spellcasters that we've seen. I think Richard has the best feats of any character we've seen but I doubt he's the most powerful person in the LFG world.
As to why he hangs out with Cale I'll say it again: he's bored and he finds Cale and Co interesting to tag along with.

O tempora, o mores, so now people who can enchase heads of others in blocks of ice, cast fireballs, blow up mountains, defeat the whole lot of fiends and demons alone, and much, much more are considered average. How spoiled our civilisation is! Seriously though, I don't say Richard is the most powerful - blah, blah - character ever, but you stated it yourself: it's almost 300 pages of the comic and we haven't yet seen anyone to surpass him. When he really wants to, he can perform awesome actions none other of the coterie would be able to. And perhaps spellcasters are rather rare in the LFG universe or maybe Richard actually is more powerful than them. Either way, it does make him a little bit unique

I never said he was all powerful but he certainly does seem to poses something in excess of anyone else, turn dragons to ice for fun, slaughtering a village of about 2000 pop (need that checked), leading a small army of the undead, as kresyda said killing a large group of demons, i could go on. BUT the main point is was trying to get across is that he just seems so bored of indiscriminate killing that he has started to get creative with both the killing itself and how to dispose of the body, both of which he gets to do a lot of when with the others, at least at the start of the comic, but then he dropped the bomb shell in the ruined court about destiny which means he's now following Cale for a mixture of killing and purpose.

Of course this is all speculation and my opinion

Why? Because he can.

I agree with most people somewhat with the bored explanation. It probably was boredom to begin with. But, as Bruwulf points out, there are several points where Richard makes it explicit that the reason he is currently with them is because his destiny is connected with Cale's. He's probably the only one in the group who has a decent idea of what their destiny is (maybe Pella too). Not too long ago there was an entire page where he explained to the Archmage/fellbunny that he knew about everything and pretty much said 'well, you screwed up, but I'm sending my army over and I'll get everything back on track. There have also been plenty of clues suggesting that Richard isn't quite as shallow as he acts.

Look at this page for an in-depth explanation.

I sense a disturbing lack of faith (followed by force-choke)


EXACTLY!!! And of course evil master plan!!!

Bring it, I see your force choke and raise you an Omega Sanction.

Nah, I think by now everyone knows that the felbunny is Richard's mother.

no thats Cale

=^-^=

I second that notion, maybe he has no real reason, but he did state he feels its his destiny to follow them, maybe he's there because he wants to see how it turns out?

Or maybe it's for the pie.

The big reason Richard first started hanging around, IMO, and I know someone mentinoed it before, is becausse he's bored: it's also been mentioned, by Richard, that he's starting to remember. He apparently believes that his destiny is tied in with Cale's, somehow.

Maybe it's because he gets to blow up stuff.

What I think would be a fun idea is if Richard was the future undead version of the Archmage who looking back at his life and his mistakes is going to try to see to it that Cale succeeds with Kethenicia and as such he would never come to be Richard (because his turning is somehow related to Kethenicia's failure) It's a wacky idea and I don't think it holds much water but like I said it would be fun if it were the case.

That doesn't sound as farfetched as you think.

It's not all that farfetched at all, really.