Okay so I wanted there to be a discussion thread because I've got some theories and unlike some people I don't necessarily want to share them with the characters of the quest.

My biggest theory at the moment is that Chee isn't nearly as old as he/she thinks she is. Chee said that the voices have been around as long as he/she can remember, but WE only remember being around since the opening panel of the first Chapter. That, combined with the fact that there's literally no one around to corroborate any of Chee's background story leads me to suspect that perhaps Chee didn't come into existence into just that moment, and all that past history was nothing more than implanted memories from whoever created Chee. Of course, there are some problems with this, such as how Chee would know about that which was on the map we had him/her draw, as well as the necromancer's claim that we'd been dead for at least a year (but if that's merely measured by how distant he could feel the presence of life within a body then it's no matter), but it's still a possibility.

Anyone else got any ideas about the Mystery of Chee?

so... is there a canonical logical internally consistent reason within the story why cheelop is literally genderless, blank down there. Or is it just to prevent this from becoming a waifu quest?

>>349068
you appear to have missed the part where chee has been dead for at least a year and has no soul. meaning something WEIRD is indeed going on.

Wait... A thought just occurred to me.

The lack of gender suggests that whatever created Chee replicated what they saw, but did not know about body parts that were not in view. That might also explain the hat as being re-created by a regeneration function that sees the hat as part of Chee's body.

This leads me to the following theory:
*Chee is born a Cobold, but dies for unknown reasons
*An unknown force moves into Chee's body, merging with it.
*The body is heavily damaged, but the force has seen Chee at some point before death, and repairs all the features that it knows about.
* The remains of Chee's nervous system are assimilated, resulting in the memories that have been related to us.
* Whatever force is animating Chee is either not sapient apart from Chee's body (using a repaired brain to do the thinking), or is otherwise has an alien enough mind that the necromancer can't find a soul.
* As Chee's body has been repaired to be (more or less) biologically be alive, Chee is healed by healing rather than disintegrated like an undead would be.

>>349072
would mean that if the loincloth is left somewhere it would grow back too.

"Chee is Chee" isn't really apt anymore, huh?

I am sure there's a reason for Chee being genderless and more importantly soulless... but I kind of want to believe s/he's still primarily an adorable kobold. I suppose that's getting harder to do.

>>349074
Whatever Chee is, Chee is still adorable.

>>349075
Well yeah!

Well Hopefully he/she isn't an elder monstrosity.

Though I suppose it should be;

Well Hopefully he/she isn't an evil elder monstrosity.

It could be some sort of powerful spell that keeps reverting Chee back to a certain state. Namely, when she's wearing a hat and a loincloth. Would explain why she doesn't eat much or use her genitalia. She might be a perfectly living creature for all we know.

>>349075
Okay maybe we spoke too soon

We should probably go and find out more about his homeland and what happened there. Seek clues.

>>349087
I think making sure Chee doesn't disappear or transform or god knows what is a bit of a higher priority right now

Suggestion 2011/07/07(Thu)09:11 No. 39292 ID: 6a5a08
File 131005507542.jpg - (22.32KB , 425x292 , 12004886767.jpg )

Okay, okay, what if...
Chee is a mimic, doppelganger, or some other generally soulless creature that is capable of transformation, that began thinking it was actually Chee.

>>349072
Branching off of this, it is possible that, having died as a child, Chee never actually learned about gender and thus would not have had the capacity to recognize his/her actual gender, even if he/she were aware of what was down there.

Moreover, it appears that Chee is a material manifestation. We, the ever-present head-voices, may have taken a partial role of the brain.

Think of it like this: Chee has no recognizable soul, as it has left the body. Fragments of the original Chee remain: a latent psychological imprint of what Chee had perceived itself as.

We now act as said alien intelligence -- a soulless amalgam of stray thoughts that otherwise serve as the various functions of her psyche. Chee may very well still be "alive" in this sense, but Chee isn't much more than a single image, a handful of memories, and everything we tell her.

Oh fizgig, I totally forgot.

Remember how we were all wondering about the necromancer that Chee saw and no one else did? Chee was able to see its aura, and had some sort of visceral sense that this was bad (assuming we weren't creating some kind of bias).

Said necromancer also showed Chee where to go (the statue). I'm beginning to think all of these events are actually closely linked. Especially Chee's sudden aptitude for magic.

Perhaps being a "soulless" entity, Chee is more attuned to such things? There's also the thought that perhaps, Chee and this necromancer-entity are somehow related...

being soulless makes chee the best anti-necromancer thing around. can hurt their minions and stuff and they can't do much of anything to her.

The Necromancer Melt:

This has only happened twice and we don't even have the full story of circumstances this time (yet) so we can't establish a pattern as things stand. Despite that, both times the character we (as the voices) have been speaking to have been wearing the hat.

Last time it was supposedly because of weird necro-stuff, but now I'm getting awfully suspicious of that hat.

Jeez, hats aren't meant to work this way

Why are all the cool characters dying? :<

If it's the hat that causes the necromelting, simply taking it off and destroying it probably won't work: it'll just reappear on Chee.

In any case, Shabin must run to have a chance to solve this mystery. Can't solve much when you're dead.

Or maybe we should just screw it all, let the kobold camp decompose in a grievous manner and see who we'll get bounced to next? What do you think?

>>349096
Hat-related antics:
1). Chee returns to village to find villagers slaughtered.
2). Chee is assaulted by Chop. Hat is lost.
3). Hat reappears when Chee goes out into the forest on the scouting party, this has no known cause.
4). Pakin get's necro'd (Chee is wearing hat).
5). Hat re-appears when Lancelot comes to visit, the only one (aside from the strangely missing Fraga at the time) who would remember Chee had a hat.
6). Shabin takes hat.
7). Chee teleports hat back onto her head using freaky hat antics. Afterwards Chee finds missingno?
8). Shabin wears hat.
9). Fraga is now being necro'd.

The problem I see here is #3: no one knew Chee before, except possibly Lancelot, who first believed her a girl. Lancelot is the reason for #5. Either way, something caused her hat to come back in #3 and the only other connection is Lancelot, as Shabin (#7) is nowhere to be seen.

My biggest issue, however, is that the "necromancer" we saw with the creepy flame-aura right before #5 appeared, but there was no hat.

Everyone is a shapeshifter.

>>349100
Addendum: Shabin only enables #7 to happen because Lancelot (Kradis) caused #5 when he visited... and since Sabin never SAW Chee with a hat when she was first brought in, Sabin never would have known otherwise.

This means that our two Unknown Quantities are Kradis and the necro-bold. Despite Fraga's disappearance during the scene with Beaky Face and the zombolds, I can't list him as one, as he never caused hat antics before then -- and is the only character (other than Shabin) to have spent the most time with Chee directly.

or it's all a huge coincidence and the hat is not evil.

which then correlates that lagotrope is fucking with us about it.

>>349104
Which is a unique pleasure on its own, really. I don't mind.

>>349104

if it turns out that the hat is just a hat, I'm going to laugh very, very hard.

>>349108
Yeah, but at the same time, I'll be a little sad. I mean, have you seen how that hat magically changes size and shape?

>>349110
Yeah. Just like the One Ring.

>>349115
Oh gods, it is the One Hat... And it's not "Cheelop", but "Cheeron"!

I just realized Chee had the same has as Yellow.

>>349072
>>349092
That's as good a theory as any, but there's nothing much that supports it.

>>349094
That was a good theory, but now it's invalid due to Shabin seeing auras. If that's anything abnormal, it's due to our presence rather than soullessness.

>>349110
I'd just judge that as a lack of art consistency, quite frankly. And the hat disappearing/reappearing as an aesthetic thing more than anything else.

so the necromancer draws power via the hat.

remind our host later on to take a shit in the hat and see what happens.

>>349122
That's it, Chee is the product of a lich-ifying spell gone awry, she's still nominally alive but the hat is her phylactery. The construct asked >How does one become weaker in your position?
suggesting that Chee's particular situation (soullessness, surely?) is not unheard of among necromancers and lends itself to great magical strength. (Or that Chee is so weak she couldn't get weaker. I think we can discount that.)
Now we just have to guard the hat from getting soulsucked.

>>349117
In place of a dark lord, you would have a genderless 'bold, not dark but adorable and terrible as the Moon! All shall love it and despair!

>>349124
It just thought Shabin was Cheelop. Chee isn't actually weakened. Shabin just looks like Chee due to having her hat and us. Unless we're the hat? That would make sense since when Shabin took the hat we became able to talk to her and became unable to talk to Cheelop.

>>349125
No Chee lost us and Shabin gained us before we noticed anything about the hat shenanigans and then we asked Shabin to take the hat.

>>349120
>I'd just judge that as a lack of art consistency, quite frankly. And the hat disappearing/reappearing as an aesthetic thing more than anything else.

That's the joke.

I sort of asked in the main thread a few times, but nobody answered, so I'm asking here.

Anybody know who the artist of the quest is? I'm sort of getting a Reaver vibe, but I'm not positive.

>>349132
Check it out:
>>349066
He's using his name.

>>349133

So the author of Kobold Camp is making a quest now? Welcome!

Elephant Guy 2011/07/07(Thu)16:08 No. 39342 ID: 364f46
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>>/quest/323054

With recent events, I noticed a striking number of parallels with a certain infamous anime...
* Kid protagonist who has emotional baggage rapidly approaching the size of a planet
* A quite standard (for the genre) special thing the protagonist has [in this case, the head voices] turns out not to be normal in a particularly horrible way that involves people melting
* Various tropes that are artistic license in other series [in this case, persistent hat, voices in a different character, cartoon anatomy of main character] turn out to by justified by yet more horrifying secrets
* Series starts out humorous but gets increasingly mind screwing and traumatic as it progresses

CheeQuest is to Quests as Neon Geneis Evangelion is to giant robot series.

>>349180
. . . and to think i normally dislike mecha

Hey Lagotrope, I like your quest so much that it urged me to make a wiki placeholder for it: http://quest.lv/wiki/CheeQuest

lol so tsundere

Do we have to deal with this animu trope again? It's just about one of the most tired cliches I've ever seen.

>>349180
..huh, never occurred to me. I do hope to have an ending that makes a lick of sense, though.

>>349195
Awesome, thank you on both counts!

>>349180
And yet oddly enough, it makes more sense.

Not to mention it's one of the more engrossing quests I've followed.

but.. i like the tsundere trope. and it sounds like she means it when she said it's to make chee stronger.

Just because everyone out there is using a particular character archetype doesn't mean this author can't pull it off right. Shabin is amusing, if nothing else.

>>349268
True. Shabin is one of the more endearing tsundere person personalities, rather than the than the typical "I'm really just a softie-bitch"

I really hope the author expected sexual talk to happen. If sexuality is the subject, tgchan will derp it like no tomorrow. Chee better snap out of it.

>>349315
Chee is less sexual than a barbie doll.

So, yeah. Chee has nothing. Any sexual contact would have to be nose-related, oral, or done via hands or feet.

I really doubt Chee's gonna get into that kind of relationship anyway.

I got this.

we need to get someone to polymorph Chee some naughty bits.

I reaaally hate people who insist on trying to grill Cheelop about his/her potential genitalia and every possible orifice and physical process he/she may or may not have.

>>349319
It's important. Not for the sex thing, but for the fact that CHEE BARELY EATS AND DOES NOT EXCRETE. Chee doesn't even count as a living creature.

>>349315
After interjecting a love potion into the quest, I was pretty much asking for it.

Without actually asking for it.

need to toughen chee up so Shabin doesn't need looming death to admit things.

That's assuming it's actually a love potion. It's rather cliche; I'm hoping it's actually something much more interesting.

what about an inverted love potion? whoever drinks it becomes SUPER attractive to you.

Hat teleported back on Chee's head instantly after seeing Shabin.. Worth noting.

I wonder what would happen if we tried physically damaging the hat.

Elephant Guy 2011/07/10(Sun)14:43 No. 39592 ID: 29b739
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>>/quest/324687

physical strength =/= combat prowess

which is why I'm hoping Chee ends up turning into something like this.

  >>349392
That's why I said ASSASSINO! He climbed up a wall from the sides Altair/Ezio style, dodged a lot of ranged weapons, aced with throwing knives and junk. If he's that agile, he should be able to counter, taunt, and kick Chop like a pro.

His healing spell just takes the place of the portable medicine Ezio carries around. I also hope he can learn telekinetic spells if only to reenact this scene, with REAL telekinesis kyle!

you still need SOME physical strength, in order to push the blade hard enough and not be bogged down by the weight of the weapon.

>>349394
there's probably a spell for increasing strength for a short time

Chee also needs endurance, so she doesn't get tired too fast. Remember, she tried to swing around a sword and got tired?

>>349393
we can possibly still do a wizard/rogue combo

it would be ideal for a small sized creature that relies on agility and aim. ranged backstab damage is also nice.

>>349394
Chee is pretty strong, though. We know this because most of those missile weapons require considerable strength. It's not like a gun where you only have to pull the trigger.

I think the giant is just really fucking tough.

Strength training requires you tear your muscles and allow them to heal over and over again.

Strength training+magical healing=YES

If the healing works that way... It'd be weird to see Chee as Beef McVanderhuge though.

Next time, should we ask Shabin and/or Fraga to come with us if we were to get banished? I see absolutely no reason why they would ever accept in their right mind, but hey.

I'd suggest shifting secondary focus from strength to anatomical study: that way Chee can heal where it matters the most AND strike with knives/rocks where it hurts the most.

Primary focus stays on healing, of course.

I'm beginning to think that Chee is a weapon. Something designed to grow ever stronger until the time comes when it is unstoppable. On that day, the necromancers kick us out and take complete control.

>>349472
then we need to teach chee the concept of love so when ordered to kill, chee will not listen because shabin is more important.

This is a good plan, however Chee has already demonstrated severe magical instability, and needs both us and the hat to function. I agree that Chee is a weapon, but disagree that we are supposed to just be instantly hurled out.

I don't think the hat is needed at all for her to function. It was described as a scrying device, nothing more.

>>349474
We'd need a soul for that.

>>349481
It's not that a soul is required to know how to love. It's that if you don't have a soul, LOVE WILL GRANT YOU ONE.

Say, why haven't we had a magician look at the hat and see if theres a way we can destroy it. Like try burning it.

>>349489
Chop already jammed a blade through it. And left it in a tree 20 miles away. It came back. I don't think fire will work.

EveryZig 2011/07/11(Mon)20:01 No. 39698 ID: 830984
File 131043971163.jpg - (28.40KB , 550x500 , oddjob_010620071057.jpg )

>>349484
So Chee = Spikesby?

>>349489
Necrobold probably tried that already. What I was wondering would be if we could attach something to the hat and get it to travel with the hat. Something like a rim of razors. (Pic related)

Guys Guys I just realized.

Chop has no genitals either.

>>349508
well he reacted the first ti--

wait no he didn't, at least not as much as someone getting kicked in the genitals SHOULD react

oh my god

Yeah, there's something fishy about Chop. We probably should have figured that out a whole lot sooner, seeing as he's twice the size of any other kobold.

>>349511
i was being facetious, personally. he's massive, but then, shabin's eyes are weird, the headmaster's a nutcase, and chee doesn't have a soul. i somehow think every kobold here is a bit off.

Chop is body. That means out of Chee and Shabin one is mind and one is soul.
As Chee has no soul, that makes Chee the mind. So, Shabin's power must be Heart. Also soul.

This is how my logic works.

chop could just be so fucking tough that a crotch shot by chee's puny legs was worthless.

>>349528
>shabin is heart

by your powers combined

i am captain necrobold

>>349531
I still stand by the decision that bolds have their reproductive organs in-part in the nose.

Prolly explains Cunny Quest and how she survived.

>>349535

Damn you xD

>>349134
>author of Koboldcamp
Could someone give me a link to that, please? I can't find it in the archives or graveyard.

>>349546
It's not what you think, it's a mod for Dwarf Fortress.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=70558.0

OH GOD CHEE IS GOING TO DIE

AGAIN

>>349550
This may become a "like usual" soon xD

Tom's eyes seem sort of familiar to me. Anyone else?
They seem kind of... sharp and glowing.

So what's our plan now, gang?

Keep Chee as a phylactery, or help her gain her freedom and become a real girl?

Uh. I never thought I'd say this, but... any chance you could slow down a little? I just woke up to about 50 more pages and I have no idea what's going on anymore: reading all that at the same time is leaving me so confused.

Too damn fast. It's like we're on /tg/.

Anonymous 2011/07/12(Tue)22:58 No. 39761 ID: b6ca92
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>>349560
You are complaining about pretty much the only quest that updates more than once a week?
>MFW

>>349560
And I never thought I'd hear that. Though I'm a little confused as to why you're confused because you had to read it all at once instead of as it was updating.

Maybe it's just confusing? I do need to work on some clarity in both art and words.

Well, if enough people voice the same opinions on matter of pacing, then I'll adjust it accordingly.

>>349562
I wouldn't change a thing, I love the pacing. These things are way more fun when they're in near real time.

It reminds me of RubyQuest, or of this place when it first started and that kind of update schedule was the norm.

>>349560
No. NO. FUCK NO.

>>349560
You can choose to read slower, if that's your preference. You can certainly come on IRC and ask questions.

>>349562
I'm appreciating the pace now. But I also know that once I end up with less time, I will almost certainly have difficulty keeping up, and a week off the grid would leave me behind for ages.