Rusty and Co.

"Okay, forget the lockpicks... Does anyone have HANDS?"

—Mimic

Rusty and Co. is a fantasy webcomic by Mike R., based on Dungeons and Dragons, about a monstrous trio of adventurers. Literally.

With the charismatic Mimic, absurdly cute rust monster Rusty, and the silent yet deadly Gelatinous Cube, the three set out in search of fame, fortune, and experience levels. Of course, things that would be obstacles to more conventional adventurers pose no problem for these three, whereas other more simple tasks create great difficulties. Expect hilarity (with a side of Lampshade Hanging) to ensue.

Can be found here. Has a Character Sheet.

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Tropes used in Rusty and Co. include:

• Action Girl: It seems that each level has one, including the Princess, Madeline, Roxanne and Prestige Perkins.
• Alt Text
• Ancestral Weapon: The dwarf's quest is to recover one of these.
• Art Evolution: After the first chapter (or level, as it's called), the artwork becomes more streamlined. This gets lampshaded in a bonus strip, with a Shout-Out to The Order of the Stick.
• Art Shift: Pulled off due to the Belt of Genre Changing.
• Aside Glance
  • Prestige, after seeing the capabilities of Stabs.

Prestige: I was just chased by brain-eating monster mobsters, and that was still the scariest thing I've seen all day.

• • Mimic manages the exploit of doing an obvious one while lacking eyes:

Madeline: Have you seen any monsters acting weird?
(beat panel)
Mimic: Yer gonna have t'be more specific than that.

• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: This is what results from Rusty getting hold of the Belt of Genre Changing.

Rusty: EAT TOKYO?

• An Axe to Grind
  • Cleave-Hand. This also doubles as Hook Hand.
  • Handsome D'an the illithid, who's carrying a huge axe with him.
• Badass Boast: Of the villainous variety:

Calamitus: Do you think mundane matter could best my formidable necromantic powers? I have transcended the limits of mere flesh and blood...and I will shatter your bodies and dance upon your entrails!

• Badass in a Nice Suit: The illithid mobsters.
• Bar Brawl: Madeline ends up starting one.
• Bare Your Midriff: Princess' first outfit, and the Pixie Chicks'.
• Beat Panel: Plenty.
• Big Eater
  • Rusty's solution to just about everything is "Eat <metal thing relevant to problem>?"
  • Cube is seen eating several hundred slices of pizza.
• Bland-Name Product: Who doesn't want a can of Cloaker-Cola while listening to music on their Eye-pad and checking Feysbook using Druid?
• Blinding Bangs: Used to great effect to hide the fact that one of the Pixie Chicks helping the Princess is really Roxanne.
• Blob Monster
  • Gelatinous Cube
  • the Gibbering Mouther
• Brain Bleach: Mimic wants lots of beer so he can forget that the Princess is in love with a wight.
• Brick Joke
  • Remember the dwarf from level 1? Yes, the same one who gave the first quest, was killed by Gelatinous Cube, got better, and was killed again by Cube? He's seen at the very end of level 4, in the aftermath of the Big Bad battle. It's never explained how he got better a second time...
  • Remember the "magic" hoe Madeline purchased from a gnome? Well, on Level 5 that guy tries to sell more cutlery.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes
• Captain Color Beard: Plaidbeard, the dwarven pirate.
• Chekhov's Badger Launcher
• Chekhov's Gunman: Remember the barbarian ("Robespierre SMASH!")? He reappears. So far, twice.
• Con Man: Or con gnome, to be precise. This is how Madeline got her hoe, which she originally thought was magic.
• Cool Horse: Parodied.
• Curse Cut Short: By a well-placed Written Sound Effect.

Handsome D'an: I don't care! Shoot them up their <DING>

• Cute Monster Girl: Yuan-Tiffany
• Death Is Cheap: Averted and explained in one of the third-level critical missives.
• The Don: Don Polpo
• Double Entendre: Rusty's "Eat hoe?" on seeing Madeline leads to Mimic concluding that the comic will never pass muster with the Comics Code Authority.
• The Dragon
  • Cleave-Hand, for Grinner.
  • V'innie, for Don Polpo.
• Evil Gloating: Calamitus has a nasty tendency to get caught up in this, allowing the good guys to surprise him.
• Eye Poke: Prestige Perkins tries this on the Illithid door-keeper Handsome D'an, who has enough good sense to step back. Too bad she still uses the extended fingers to cast "Melf's Acid Arrow" right in his face.
• Finger-Poke of Doom
  • Subverted (in a literal sense) with a magic spell.

Calamitus: Well, that's the good thing about magic. {{[[[Beat]] ...}}] It's handy.

• • And again by Prestige. It's not the finger that's deadly, it's the Melf's Acid Arrow being emitted by it.
• Fourth Wall Mail Slot: Critical Missives in-between chapters.
• Full Set Bonus
• Genre Roulette: With an item called the Belt of Genre Changing... you can guess what happens.
• Genre Savvy: The blackguard Malevolus is smart enough to realize how dangerous the one-two punch of Rusty and Gelatinous Cube's abilities really is.

Malevolus: The exit is this way!

• Giant Squid: There's a Kraken in the moat of the two vampire hipsters. And it wears puppets on his tentacles.
• Golem: Calamitus's giant metal golem.

Rusty: Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue???

• Hipster: The two vampires. It's even pointed out in their description on the cast page.
• Hulk Speak: Krog and Robespierre.
• Hybrid Overkill Avoidance: Offered as advice.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: "Level" chapters.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: The wight in the forest pulls one:

Mimic: Yoiks! Who're you? We don' wanna hurt youse!
Wight: I... was once... the White Knight.
(beat)
Wight: But now I am... the Night Wight.
Mimic: A'ight, well... now we wanna hurt youse.

• Insult Friendly Fire: Mimic accidentally does this to Gelatinous Cube when he sees another cube.
• Knight in Shining Armor: The wight in the forest claims he used to be one.
• Knights and Knaves
  • Done with two talking doors. Mimic's solution? Become a third door.
  • Parodied again later (in level 5), with two even more obnoxious doors. Rusty's solution is deliciously straightforward, and hinges on his ability to eat metal.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Malevolus is about to have a "You shall not pass" moment, then he looks at the adversaries and does the math.

Malevolus: ... And if you want to reach the Inner Sanctum, you'll need to go...
... through... (looks at Rusty, then Cube, then think what happens when the both of them go through him)
... that tunnel there, then hang a right, then the next right, then straight on to the big doors.

• Luminescent Blush
  • Happens to Gelatinous Cube of all people.

Madeline: Wasn't he green a moment ago?
Mimic: Okay, seriously, ya gotta stop stickin' your hand in strangers.

• • Also to Madeline herself.
• The Mafia: Complete with illithid (mind flayer) members.
• The Nose Knows
  • When the Princess defends her smoking, Mimic points out that monsters hunt through smeell.
  • Stabs can recognize that Prestige is a cop by smell alone.
  • The guards to the Inner Santcum of the Tentacallis Dungeon are grimlocks, who are blind and hunt through smell.
  • And Madeline can smell Character Alignment.
• Offscreen Crash:

Mimic: Boris Vallejo ain't gonna paint that.
Roxanne: Exit Grinner, stage right... er... and stage left.

• Oh Crap
  • When Presti accidentally bursts into Don Polpo's dining room.
  • Presti again, when she sees the Magic Missile built by the Tentacallis.
• Oh My Gods: Literally used by Prestige Perkins after Mimic and Cube save her.
• Our Gryphons Are Different: They're quite friendly to their fellow monsters.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: See Double Entendre.
• Paper-Thin Disguise
  • The Princess uses this. She really should take off her hat first.
  • Used again by Prestige. It's her ability to fake an illithid's smell that helps pull this off.
• Pirates: Plaidbeard and his crew. Played as a comical type 1.
• Point That Somewhere Else: Plaidbeard to Madeline's hoe.
• Princesses Rule: The unnamed princess appears to rule the local area. No-one of higher rank has been shown, and her face decorates the courtrooms.
• Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Madeline's quest hooks, courtesy of Derek the Cleric.

Mimic: Am I on Dr. Seuss's Candid Camera?

• Punctuation Shaker: The illithid mobsters: T'oni, R'occo, D'an, S'al, S'ammy, V'innie, B'enny, J'immy...
• Reality Warper: Anyone who gets their hands (or tentacles, or whatever) on the Belt of Genre Changing effectively gains this power.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Subverted with the wight.
• Running Gag / Once Per Episode: Mimic's suggestions that the group "disguise ourselves as common, unassuming pieces of furniture". He's always ignored.
• Schizo-Tech: Electric guitars and soda machines accompany your traditional fantasy fare. Oh, and a Magic Missile.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sir Malevolus cuts and runs from the threat posed by Rusty and Cube.
• Seashell Bra: "They're just B-shells, but thanks."
• Secondary Character Title: Rusty is more of a mascot overall; the main protagonist thus far is Mimic.
• Shout-Out: Oh so many, the aforementioned one to The Order of the Stick being only one of them.
• Snake People: A redheaded, female yuan-ti appears in the Tentacallis' dungeons.
• Something We Forgot: Mimic forgot all about Stabs, leaving her to face an army of monsters. Cut to Stabs Atop a Mountain of Corpses.
• Sssssnaketalk: Yuan-Tiffany mixes this with a Texan accent.
• Step Three: Profit: On Madeline's first appearance.

1. Find Baddies.
2. Smite Baddies.
3. Profit!

• Talking Is a Free Action: Averted humorously, with the Alt Text lampshading the whole thing.

Mimic: Do somethin'!
Prestige: I can't, I'm too busy screaaaaaaaaming!

• Talk Like a Pirate: Plaidbeard, of course.
• Talk to the Fist: Madeline delivers one to Plaidbeard. Mimic objects to it (if only because he wanted to hear more about what was going on).
• They Have the Scent: Why Mimic warns the princess against smoking.
• Umbrella Drink: Put to unusal use by Prestige to uncloak an invisible informant.
• Unexplained Recovery
  • "I got better" is used word for word by a dwarf quest giver (who got killed by Cube).
  • Calamitus.
  • Even better, the Grinner.
• Unsound Effect: Quite a few of them. See the below example for the most obvious one.
• Vancian Magic: Lampshaded with a "VANCE!" Unsound Effect for a Color Spray spell.
• Visible Silence: Robespierre does this upon being approached by an information-seeking Mimic.
• Visual Pun: When Gelatinous Cube seizes the Belt of Genre Changing, the result in the next panel is naturally... Cubism.
• Volleying Insults: The "pirate" duel.
• Wall of Blather
  • The Wight's long explanation about the mission and the Princess is blanked out by a summary.
  • Calamitus doing his monologue is similarly obscured, as Mimic and Princess aren't paying attention.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer: Eat hammer? Roxanne's first appearance also references this trope, when she says that she wants to do something with all the points she put into whittling.
• Wrong Turn At Albuquerque: Spoofed with a Xorn in Level 6.

Xorn: I knew I should'a taken that left turn at Abeir-Toril.

• X-Ray Sparks: Parodied by Mimic, who shouldn't have bones to begin with.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Used for the signs, most notably the "Ye Olde Proverbial Hook Inn".