So this strip serves two purposes: building tension ahead of the revelation of what actually happened on/to Earth with the Lathosplosion…and salvaging the Barbessor’s reputation.
Because his most recent appearance did a bit of a number on his reputation as a supremely cerebral figure being aloof from the slings and arrows of physical existence. An idea that had become harder to maintain, in any case, ever since he regressed in age and switched to a character class that is generally considered to have a quite straightforward and healthy relationship to everything concerning physical existence.
And that issue, character class, also slightly diminishes the effectiveness of this salvage attempt. The Professorian engages in scientific research as earnestly and intensely as he has ever done – or, well, the local equivalent to scientific research, which is pondering the orb.
But even a ponderous amount of pondering doesn’t result in any gain of information, and the Professorian’s conclusions regarding the reason are likely correct: He isn’t a spellcaster and doesn’t have a voluminous grey or white beard. And, unfortunately, these two things are absolute requirements for pondering the orb with useful results. You can’t hand out skills like that all nilly-willy to everyone who comes along and asks – game balance requires that certain capabilities need to be restricted to certain classes, and there’s nothing the Barbessor can do about that in his current form.
Buuut…even without any results, the long time he spent pondering the orb, and his visible focus and dedication, should still be enough to restore his intellectual reputation, even without any results. Sometimes, that you ponder is more important than what you ponder.
More on Monday.
Well the solution here is obvious, isn’t it? The Barbessor just needs to multi-class!
Sure, he may miss out on some powerful endgame capstone abilities, but the benefits usually outweigh the loss when you consider most adventurers don’t live long enough to get them anyway. Not to mention it’s faster in these worlds to get the job experience; usually you only need a few days of killing sufficiently challenging things to suddenly gain new skill points and class levels, as opposed to years of quiet study and research.
And doesn’t Barbesorcerer sound like a fun job title? XD
Barbesorcerer is nice, but I actually think he’d be a Professorcerarian if he mulit-classed, since the “Professor” part may not be a class, but still is a similarly fundamental feature of his personality. XD
But, yeah…I haven’t really spent any time fleshing out what’s going on in the fantasy world with the Professorian and K’ip, since it wasn’t really intended to have any direct bearing on the plot. Generic fantasy/RPG shenanigans, I didn’t define it more clearly than that. But…if I had to write a plot for the adventures of those two in their fantasy realm, I think it would be highly likely that the Barbessor would acquire some level of knowledge of magic at some point. He’s certainly grown fond of the simple, down-to-earh appeal of the barbarian approach to problem solution to a degree, but I’d say his mind is just to inquisitive by nature to leave something as intriguing as magic unresearched in the long run…