Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales is an book released on May 2011. It is a compilation of bonus material including the strips featured in Dragon magazine, a collection of stories by the Order of the Stick known as "Stick Tales", and an adventure of Julio Scoundrél.
Title[]
The title is a pun on the 19th century nursery rhyme “What Are Little Boys Made Of?”. The rhyme posits that little boys are made of “Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails”. The pun plays on the contents of the book which rather than the usual serial story are short stories, the Snail, an antagonist, and the Dragon magazine strips.
"Julio Scoundrél and the Curse of the Mummy Queen"[]
"Julio Scoundrél and the Curse of the Mummy Queen" is a "comic within a comic" that follows sky pirate Julio Scoundrél on one of his adventures.
Julio has just defeated a giant albino sky octopus aboard the Mechane, when Virginia, a woman that he rescued from an evil villain's clutches two days previously, informs him that her home village is being held hostage by the Mummy Queen of Sandy Valley as the Mummy Queen had stolen a big sapphire from the village. Julio goes off to find the sapphire, intending to steal it for himself.
Julio rushes into the tomb and defeats the Mummy Queen's Jackalfolk and concubine Imherstu. However, once Julio defeats the concubine the Mummy Queen reveals her curse: Whoever defeats her concubine becomes her concubine. However, Julio makes a deal with her that if he has sex with her, she will free him from the curse.
After having sex with her and going back to his ship, Virginia reveals the sapphire is needed to keep the water drinkable. Julio relunctantly gives her the sapphire, and then the comic ends with a faux mailbox where readers sent in their letters.
Rich Burlew said that Julio's story was designed to be more action-oriented like a comic book. Originally Rich planned on making the art fully hand-drawn, but decided against it due to being very time-consuming and hand-drawn art taking up a lot of space. In the story, the art is more dynamic and has shadows.
In later commentary, Burlew noted that the "villain" Virginia was rescued from is, in fact, Tarquin.
Cast[]
- Julio Scoundrel
- Virginia
- Fidel Secundus
- Julio's other crew members
- The Mummy Queen
- Imherstu
"In the Realm of the Dragon"[]
"In the Realm of the Dragon" is a single strip that focuses on the Imperial Court of the Realm of the Dragon as a new recruit joins. The court goes to the dragon in order to get economic advice. The dragon freezes a man to death with his breath over his desire to eat his breakfast fish, which is taken to mean that current taxation policies are freezing economic growth. Then, the recruit asks how much taxes needed to be cut, which dragon eats the top of a man, which is taken to mean that taxing should be cut by 50%.
Cast[]
- Realm of the Dragon Elder
- Otaruk
- Realm of the Dragon newbie
- White Emperor
Dragon magazine strips[]
- See also: Dragon magazine
The Dragon strips are also printed with the book as the main attraction. Unlike the others, they are printed in colour, as they were in the original Dragon issues. There are also several bonus strips that weren't originally in the Dragon magazine, including further strips that make the The Snail a recurring villain, the introduction of the psionic Psteve, and a strip involving a medusa called Melissa.
Cast[]
- Roy Greenhilt
- Durkon Thundershield
- Haley Starshine
- Elan
- Vaarsuvius
- Belkar Bitterleaf
- Wernsworth and Bogglesby
- Clyde the Conjurer™
- The Snail
- Mr Jones and Phil Rodriguez
- Mimick
- Psteve
- Randall and the other adventurer for hire
- The Dragon
- Past Dragon magazine characters, including Telerie Windyarm and Snarf from 'SnarfQuest; Fineous Fingers; Phil and Dixie; Wormy; the Knights of the Dinner Table; and Yamara.
- Melissa and Mr Greygray
Edition Wars: Invaders from the Fourth Dimension[]
The Order encounters the Fourth Edition versions of themselves, who have travelled from their own dimension to ask one thing of their 3.5 selves — to stop existing. 4e Vaarsuvius explains that there is only a finite amount of time in the multiverse, so every moment one of the parties spends adventuring is a moment that the other cannot. For this reason, they ask the 3.5e Order to merge with the 4e one.
3.5 Roy refuses on behalf of the party (while Belkar gives a more aggressive refusal), and a fight between the two teams begins. Each member fights the alter-dimension version of themselves while observing the differences in game mechanics, as well as their character development. 3.5 Belkar is killed and his Order of the Stick promptly retreats.
The 3.5 team formulate a plan to defeat their opponents. As Vaarsuvius explains, their weakness is that they cannot attack long-ranged, so the best plan of action is to fire at the 4e party from a distance. Haley buys several scrolls and potions.
The following morning, the 3.5es follow through their plan by firing fireballs and arrows at the other Order of the Stick. The 4es run up the hill to attack their counterparts at a closer range, but are blocked by a blade barrier and summoned celestial. 4e Belkar avoids the hazards, but is killed by his counterpart who is under an Greater Invisibility spell.
Both sides take further blows, but before either party wins the combat, they make a compromise. The two Roys realise there is another way around this: instead of getting rid of either one of the parties, they can make more time for both of them by travelling to other 'worlds' and making them unenjoyable. The two teams set about ruining World of Warcraft, Superman, Twilight, soccer, Mario, chess, Call of Duty and Magic: The Gathering.
The two parties then settle their differences — except Roy and Roy, who begin fighting again over each other's game systems.
Cast[]
- 3.5 and 4e Roy Greenhilt
- 3.5 and 4e Durkon Thundershield
- 3.5 and 4e Haley Starshine
- 3.5 and 4e Elan
- 3.5 and 4e Vaarsuvius
- 3.5 and 4e Belkar Bitterleaf
- Larry Gardener
- Characters from various 'worlds'
Stick Tales[]
As the Order of the Stick travel to the Western Continent, Elan decides to tell stories before they go to bed.
Elan and the Beanstalk – Elan's story[]
A poor boy (Elan), who lives with his mother, is asked by her to sell their only possession, a cow, Milky. He grudgingly accepts, and leaves to sell her when he is stopped by a wizard (Vaarsuvius). The wizard offers him Sean Bean for the cow for the research of the spell "Delayed Blast Firebull", who is subsequently killed, so the offer is reduced to one single bean. The boys still accepts, much to the dismay of his mother, who throws the bean out the window. Over night, the bean grows into a huge beanstalk.
Though Elan said the story was over, the audience asks for a bit more than simply, "They had no food, and now they do! Problem solved!" Haley suggests that Story Elan climbs the beanstalk. The very next day, the boy sees the beanstalk and climbs it out of curiousity. It leads to a huge castle. The serving girl working there (Haley) lets him in because she finds him attractive, but forces him to hide in the oven when she hears her master, the giant (Roy) coming. The giant is keeping a goose which craps out gold (Belkar) in a small cage because it is a mass murderer.
The giant falls asleep and the boy, the serving girl and the goose escape, but as they are leaving the giant wakes up and chases them down the beanstalk. Once the two humans and the goose are safely at the bottom, the boys neighbout, Mr. Thundershield (Durkon), chops down the beanstalk but the giant survives the fall.
All the major characters are at a conflict between punishing the goose, keeping food for Elan's family, and the serving girl's live at the Thieves' Guild. Later, the wizard who bought Milky returned her over the revelation that (s)he needed a smaller animal to live in a small, uncomfortable cage (s)he already had. It was decided that the goose lived in the wizard's cage, Elan keep Milky to gather her poop, and give it to the wizard, and the wizard trading the goose's golden poop in exchange, to Durkon's amazement. Elan married the serving girl, who she later quit the Thieves' Guild to have kids. Then, the story ends.
Little Red Riding Hoodlum – Haley's story[]
Little Red Riding Hoodlum (Haley) is a wanted criminal for stealing a large amount of rubies. She is on her way to sell them to a wizard (Vaarsuvius) for a profit when she is stopped by a police officer (CPPD Rookie). Red is wearing a disguise and has the rubies baked into cookies. She gives the officer two of her decoy normal muffins and continues on her way.
Later on, Red is stopped by a wolf (Belkar) who asks for one of her muffins. As she has no more decoys left, she refuses. Making up a ruse that they are for her sick grandparent rather than the wizard. Hungry, the wolf sends her on a different route, while he gets to the wizard's house before her and hides the wizard in a cupboard, taking his/her place.
Red soon arrives, but is clearly not fooled by the wolf lying in bed who claims to be her grandparent. She explains that what she said was a lie. Angry, the wolf demands a muffin, just as a friendly wood cutter (Elan) leaps through the window. As the wolf is distracted, Red knocks him out with her bag of sap.
After his head has cleared, the wolf wakes up to find himself in the middle of the forest with no clothes on. A druid (Leeky Windstaff) approaches him and tells him he is his animal companion, the worst possible punishment for the wolf.
Goldenleaf – Belkar's story[]
Greenhilt, Northern Secret Service (Roy) arrives on a secret island in the southern ocean and finds his newfound colleague, Lien. They both have been bestowed the task to stop super villain Goldenleaf (Belkar) who had made threats to their home towns Cliffport and Azure City.
A little while later they spring a gas trap and find themselves in formalwear, eating dinner with Goldenleaf himself. Goldenleaf pulls a lever and the pair of them fall into a pit, with spiked walls closing in on both sides. They are both killed.
The Tragedy of Greenhilt, Prince of Denmark – Roy's story[]
Bernardo and his lover (Daigo and Kazumi) are making love on the tower wall, when they are interupted by Horatio (Belkar). After a moment, the three direct their attention to the ghost of Roy's father, the king. The scene then cuts to the king Xlaudius (Xykon)'s throne room. Redcloak plays his advisor. Chancellor Shojonius (Lord Shojo) asks for his daughter Laerta Liyazaki (Miko) to return to France to continue her studies. Xlaudius accepts. Roy, who is the prince and Xlaudius's nephew comes to confront the king on his quandries - his father is dead and his mother has married his uncle Xlaudius, the very man he suspects has murdered his father. Xlaudius of course offers no consolation.
Upon hearing that his father's ghost has been seen floating around the battlemnts, Roy seeks out the phantom. Eugene tells him that he was murdered by his brother, and fades, crying to be avenged. The course of action Roy takes to accomplish this is to pretend to be insane. Ocelia (Celia), Shojonius's other daughter, reports this to her father, who in turn tells Xlaudius.
Soon after, Roy first encounters the Player King (Elan) and his Playerettes (Haley, Therkla and Jenny). Roy assembles a new plan: to have the Playerettes enact the scene of his father's murder and gauge Xlaudius's guilt based on his reaction. However, when it comes to the performance, the Player King has changed Roy's script so much, it is not recognizable as the story of Eugene's murder. Despite this, Xlaudius still lets slip the truth, that he poisoned his brother so that he could be king.
Later that night, Roy sneaks up on Xlaudius and chops off his head. This doesn't kill him, as he is an undead lich. When Roy comes a short while later to speak to his mother, Shojonius is hiding behind the curtain. When he reveals that he is not the bumbling idiot he pretends to be, Roy acts rashly. Believing it to be Xlaudius disguising his voice, he kills Shojonius, only realising afterwards his error.
For his act, Roy is banished to England. Here he meets Lord Fortinbras (Hinjo) who is leading an army to Denmark to lay seige to Xlaudius. Laerta returns to Denmark and learns of her father's death. Meanwhile, Roy has been kidnapped by pirates (Bozzok, Crystal and Hank) who promise to deliver him home.
Ocelia, sick of the idiotic hijinks of the people around her, leaves for the Plane of Air to find her birth parents. Laerta misinterprets and believes her to be dead. As she swears vengeance, we see the Player King and Haley leaving the castle with two full bags of swag.
Roy arrives in Denmark to find Nale and Thog digging a tunnel underground so they can get into the king's treasure vault. When Roy queries, Nale tells him that they are burying their friend, Yikyik. When Roy gets to the castle, Laerta challenges him to a sword duel. As they battle, Sara accidentally drinks poison. Roy beats Laerta, stabbing her with her own poison-soaked blade, but not before she has had chance to wound him so that he too is poisoned. She and Roy's mother die from the same means along side each other.
Before the poison affects him, Roy tries madly to force some of the poison down Xlaudius's throat, but as he is undead, it is in vain. Just as Roy dies, Fortinbras's army charges into the throne room. Fortinbras kills Xlaudius with 'Smite Evil'. Durkon, court cleric, raises Roy, but he is still under the effect of the poison, so he dies again. Durkon goes to fetch more diamonds from the treasure vault so that Roy can be raised again, but is shocked to find the room empty, with just one note on the floor:
You've been played!
-The Playerettes