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I think you missed something here:PurpleXVI posted:Update 29: A Missing Pug, Part 1 The last line before choosing any keyword: PurpleXVI posted:
Edit: Triple update on the last page.
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Dec 3, 2021 21:10
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Who's to say? We're still picking through our own dead, much less worried about which of them were still here. Large portions of the sewers are collapsed. There's even word that when a portion of the sea wall collapsed, it opened a new stairwell to a lower level of the sewers.
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My bad, there we go. Can't believe I overlooked it when re-reading the script AND when making the update.
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Dec 3, 2021 23:32
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Update 32: The Majesty of Elvandar, Part 1  With all the chapter 6 exclusive sidequests sorted, and with a minor bug preventing them from leaving a nice murdersword for Locklear later, Gorath and Owyn stride up to the Mac Mordain Cadal. Once again, non-canon since in the book they just cross a mountain pass. Joke's on them, though, because the MMC has exciting new things in it.   As soon as we're in, Naddur stops us like usual and has a few new keywords, in part to inform us that the path to Elvander is open again.  Hope we didn't startle you too badly. We were just looking around for a way to get to Elvandar. I think I'd heard once it was the other side of the Grey Towers. You've found the way! These mines stretch all the way from one side o' the Grey Towers to the other. We had a collapse here, but we've broke through about an 'alf an 'our ago. I saw me brother McCannur for the first time in months! Oh, but there some tragic loss too. There was a falls in the caverns and the passages to it were terrible damaged. I don't know that we'll ever see it again. Terrible, terrible mess those Brak Nurr made. But we can get through to Elvandar? Aye! But I advise you to stick to the main passages as there's some windy bits that can cause some humans distress. As a common we wouldn't let you go alone as you'd get lost, but only the major passages 'ave been cleared. You'll do safe enow. Before we go, could we ask you a few questions? I don't see why not. Whadda ya need to know, laddie?[ELVANDAR] After we leave the Mac Mordain Cadal, which way will we take to Elvandar? I've never been there. Ya don't think for a moment it's going to be as easy as that now do ya, lad? The elves don't exactly invite the rest o' the world in for pleasant tea parties and I think they'll take particular exception to your moredhel friend here. Oh, he's not moredhel, he's... An elf what doesn't know the way to Elvandar? I'm no fool and you'll be an even sorrier whelp if you try that one on one of Warleader Tomas' border rangers. They'll 'ave the both of you 'anging by your ankles from a tree in a sparrow's fall. If what I 'ear from me brother McCannur is true, they may even 'ave cause to shoot your friend on sight. Why? What would they have against Gorath? Not 'im personally, again the moredhel. I've not sure o' the details, but I've 'eard the moredhel are pressing the borders near Moraelin. I'm sure my brother McCannur ken tell ya more aboot it than I. If 'e's not still in the Cadal, he may be on the road to Caldara.[GOODBYE] It's time we should be going, I suppose. Gorath and I both have quite a bit to attend to. Don't we all! But a happier day I've not long had. If ya wish to be going on through to Elvandar, just keep following yar nose west until ya see daylight. How would you say 'thank you' in your native tongue? I don't think ya could get your tongue around it, or I'd tell ya, but I appreciate it nonetheless. Good travelling to you. Thank you, then. Gorath, why don't you lead the way?The conversation is, like others, a bit silly because of how it only barely acknowledges the lore at places. It's pretty common knowledge in the books that elves and dark elves are not huge fans of each other, so Owyn being baffled that the Eledhel might have an issue with his Moredhel buddy is, mildly put, somewhat strange. Still, it's worth noting here that some Moredhel do live in the Green Heart where Elvandar also is and that they tend to be somewhat less warlike than the Northlands Moredhel, they've been persecuted by Delekhan and they generally play a smaller part of the larger plot, generally only stabbing humans when they travel through their territory and largely staying out of the way of Elvandar as well. Also in the first Midkemia book the brave heroes lead Tsurani troops through Green Heart Moredhel refugee columns(they're evacuating to the Northlands to be out of the way of the Kingdom/Tsurani warfare) getting children and non-combatants caught up in the fighting. This is praised as genius tactics. Heroic war crimes!    The MMC has been updated with a couple of new human rogue encounters that are of no real interest, seeing as they have no mages or other non-melee enemies in them. I suppose if anything they're noteworthy for being the last rogues in the game, we've also seen our last Nighthawks and Black Slayers for the remainder of the game.    Past the pit where the kobolds hassled us last time is a section of the mine where we'd previously have been barred by a pop-up dialogue about mine collapses, but where we can now proceed into oddly empty tunnels. It's a mostly straight run west, but we want to take a side passage to the north, with a locked door that either takes a remarkable(for these two) 60 Lockpicking or a Guilder's Passkey, which they're currently carrying almost 20 of.   It leads to this chamber containing a tombstone and three trolls which, for once, Gorath actually gets stuck hacking up(they also take 1.5x damage from Evil Seek, not quite one-shot levels, but enough to make them a lot easier for Owyn to do damage to) since I tossed the tuning fork a while back to make space for supplies and sellable items. We're rapidly moving into the part of the game where supplies are more harshly limited, though, so you better hope you're well-stocked on most things. Some supply management gets easier thanks to improved gear, the better swords and armors generally take less damage from use(though there are a few exceptions, like the rapier, which breaks worryingly quickly), so you can phase out your armor hammers and whetstones to an extent.   Despite the ominous message, this gravestone just hides a rotting corpse, no Shade or trap. What's of more interest are the three chests in the room. One's a code chest.   BUTTON It contains Gambit of the Eight, Black Nimbus, some spare change and three of the "make enemies run away"-potions. A second chest is locked but of less interest since it just contains money and gemstones, plus it requires 85+ lockpicking which would mean finding three Amulets of the Upright Man for Gorath. The third only requires 60 Lockpicking and I really want to get into it but, uh, Gorath has like 40 Lockpicking at this point, so I have to haul the party all the way back to Krondor to buy a couple of Amulets for him then back here. I'm not going to chronicle it, but it was pretty annoying to realize I'd made that oversight and that a key couldn't handle it.  Touch of Lims-Kragma is rare in that it's one of those spells that only appear in one place in the game. Outside of The Light Shall Lie and two other spells we've yet to pick up, I think this is the only one that's exclusively placed like that. We're going to test it out shortly.   BaK posted:The ground shook. We're practically in sight of the exit when we get ambushed by a Brak Nurr. Oh no, what are we going to do?  This hand of mine glows with an awesome power! It's loud roar tells me to defeat you! Take this! My love! My anger! And all of my sorrow!We're going to test out Touch of Lims-Kragma, that's what we're going to do.   So what Touch of Lims-Kragma does is that it makes Owyn run up to an enemy, smack them so hard they go flying to the edge of the combat zone, and then they just die. Only Nighthawks and Rusalki are normal enemies immune to it, everything else just gets annihilated in one blow, which kind of rules. It's hugely inefficient in almost all cases, compared to spells that take out the entire battlefield at once(yeah we're going to have TWO of those before the chapter ends) or paralyze a target more-or-less permanently, but it's cool for making a point.   BaK posted:A long corridor stretched before them.  Welcome to the Green Heart, hope you didn't like being able to see poo poo. The sky is a uniform dark green, everything is a bit shadier and those loving trees constantly obstruct your sightline and rob you of any chance to get ambush on most enemies since you have to manually spot and target them. Also the border police runs up to hassle us the moment we take a step forwards.   What kin o' yourn that come and 'elped us clear out the mess in the mine left as soon as word reached us that fires were approaching Elvandar. Where did the Wyverns come from? Whar else, lad? The Northlands! Some new bastard moredhel leader I hear harassing your kinfolk. I 'ope you 'aven t any kits in 'arms way. No... What of the Moredhel? A few as what 'ad the nerve to cross over from the Moraelin 'ave already got themselves skewered, though I know that the Prince Calin has been on the frontier looking for others. The biggest concern as yet is to put out the flames and get 'elp to those as got trapped behind it all.[PRINCE CALIN] Prince Calin leads? What of Warleader Tomas? Poor news indeed. Three days ago, Tomas led a band o' elves to stem raiders what 'ad come from over the river near Moraelin. They beat the raiders back arights, but in the melee the Warlord took a thrust to 'is side with a tainted blade. They 'ad to carry 'im back to Elvandar, though I understand it wasn't without a struggle. Tomas wanted to stay, but word was carried back to Aglaranna of his condition and that was then end of that. Prince Calin assumed control of the patrols at that point and I ken 'e's still up near the north eastern fringe of the forest carving up moredhel. Does the Warleader yet live? That lad 'as ever been a fighter, and tenacious one at that. Sooner 'e'll let them cut a leg off than succumb to this poison. I wouldna worry. I think it took your kin for a turn though, seeing Tomas fall. I've never eard of it 'appening in the fifteen years 'e's been with your folk.[CLEAR ROADS] We are required in Elvandar quickly. You mentioned fires? Extinguished now, though not without a fair portion o' foot stomping and bucket carrying! I thought for a while the whole forest might become all one ferocious blaze, but Tathar and the rest of Queen Aglarana's Spellweavers managed to put a 'alt to that business. Then we should have no difficulty returning to Elvandar. I don't know I would exactly say that. There's still a fair number of those Wyverns flappin' about the forest, though Tathar's been working night and day to bring the blighters down. Even taught Prince Calin a little bit of spellcraft what can bend the will of those cantankerous lizards, but I understand it still 'asn't put an 'alt to the raids. What of the dwarves? Oh we've volunteered a few men, but as you elves don't much like outsiders in your realm, we've respected your borders. King Dolgan did send a few volunteers to 'elp out the Elf Queen, but the lot o' them took a terrible weariness once they entered the forest and could go na further. They musta fell afoul of one o' your fabled sleeping glades.[CALDARA] If we may face Wyverns, it might be wise if we had our armor repaired. Are there any armorcrafters in Caldara? Are there any leaves in Elvandar? You've gone daft! A course there are armorcrafters in Caldara! You don't 'ave to go all that way though. I can repair it for a few gold, and if ya watch cloose, you might even learn a bit about the craft of repairing armor. Does a hundred sovereigns suit you?[YES] Suits me just fine. What do we need to do? Well, lad, I'd be much obliged if you'd remove any armor you might have on under that tunic of yours and if your elf friend will do the same, we will get to work. Now just watch what I do... Someone told me once a few dents in the armor can actually be beneficial. Something about them catching blows that would ordinary scrape along the surface and into the chinks? Makes some sort of sense when you think about it, I suppose... Maybe it would be a good idea to make armor so that it already has bumps, facets! If it already had them built in, then the armor... You're already finished? Aye, finished. You'll find your armor is in as good a condition as it can be lad, though I daresay you'd 'ave learned a great deal moore if you spent moore time listening and less time talking.So, as I keep saying almost every update, this is totally not how it goes in the book and a bit non-canon as well, as dwarves would absolutely be able to tell the difference between an elf and a moredhel. In the book, Owyn and Gorath cross a freezing pass only to walk right into the arms of a patrol of dwarves who lead them to Caldara, where King Dolgan of the dwarves is hanging out. He recognizes Gorath as not a danger and invites the two of them to stay till the storm settles in a day or so, and ends up becoming friends with Gorath, swapping old war stories and the two of them talk about the differences between their peoples. Dolgan wondering why the Moredhel can't just have chill lives like theirs since, from what he's seen of Moredhel hill forts, they look much like dwarven villages. Gorath laments how miserable his people is, in particular that "we let our children play with swords so that they may cut themselves and learn early lessons," and the two of them end up parting on good terms. Now, Caldara's just like five huts or so, but lets check 'em out, some of them have some funny dialogue.  BaK posted:Owyn knocked on the door. Hickory scented pipe smoke slid underneath, curled gently around his feet. The smell had barely reached his nose when the door was flung open and they were greeted by a smiling dwarf, "Great day! Come in, laddies. Join us." If you back out at any time, you just cut your losses. I'm amused that it rewards you for going all-in and is in no way random. The remaining houses have simpler dialogues, either being empty, having a single surly occupant or a few left-behind goods.   BaK posted:No one had answered the first knock, so Owyn knocked again. As we approach the last dwelling in Caldara, a shop on the eastern end, we get a dialogue pop-up. BaK posted:Gorath halted. Blinking slowly, he put a hand over his stomach, then looked towards his confused looking companion. Hold for a moment, Owyn. I wish to speak to you. Why? What is it? I merely wished to prepare you for things that may transpire before we reach Elvandar. There are magics -- things ancient -- which have kept the moredhel from crossing into the forests of the eledhel, but I feel those things have been awakened. I may have some difficulty in completing our journey. Difficulty. What do you mean? It was not my intent to alarm you. Only to reassure you that no matter what may happen between here and Elvandar, I have come to consider you a friend.Despite this dialogue, nothing actually happens to Gorath or weakens him here. Which I'm not sure whether's an oversight, a scrapped bit or actually supposed to be hinting at something that will happen later.   This is also the last shop in the game that Gorath and Owyn will ever come across. Nothing in the game ever warns you that this is the case, but take the chance to stock up on necessities. It contains all the basic consumables(rope, shovels, rations, whetstones, armor hammers, restoratives), elven quarrels, a special key that you should not buy, Clerical Oilcloths and Powder Bags. Oddly enough it doesn't contain any Dragon Plate armor or Greatswords, but it feels implausible you wouldn't have teched the party up to those by now, and while Greatswords are in short supply, Gorath almost certainly has a better Sword of Lims-Kragma by this point and plenty of enemies drop Dragon Plate both before and after this point. In any case, I stock up a bit on rations and restoratives, and then it's time to fold out the big map of the Green Heart and plot out a course.  Getting to Elvandar is as simple as rolling up the brown main road or following the South Trail. There are no majorly difficult battles along the way. However, almost every corner of the Green Heart contains something unique and interesting, or something needed for getting to a thing that is unique and interesting, so that's not what we'll be doing. Instead we'll be moving first north up the East Trail, into the little dead end up there, then to the southwest, then to the northeast, and then finally to the center west.   If you know where you're going, it's often worth it to avoid the paths and road since that lets you dodge some encounters, too. Though there are a couple of locations that it's absolutely miserable to try and find without using said paths and roads, even if you've got an annotated map like I have I had a couple that it took me a while to spot.   The most common enemies in the woods are Wyverns which have ranged attacks for 20 to 40 damage, which can be nasty if they get init on you. Blue-bellied wyverns take double damage from fire-themed spells(primarily Flamecast) and yellow-bellied Wyverns take double damage from ice-themed spells(i.e. Fetters of Rime), which is nice to keep in mind since the double damage from Flamecast can be a one-shot-kill against them. With Fetters it matters a bit less since it also paralyzes them which is effectively a kill.    I also end up walking into a nasty ambush because the trees conceal most enemies until they're right on the line of getting in your grill. Thankfully neither of these Witch Hags have Grief or Despair, so it's just a scary battle, not a dangerous battle.   It would have been much worse if I didn't distract the warriors with Gorath and then wriggle Owyn loose to let fly with a couple of Evil Seek casts.    Several places in the woods there are also these super-easily-missed ropes leading up to elven treehouses. Good loving luck finding even a couple of them without using a guide of some sort, plus a couple of them are actually nasty traps. Sadly, while I have dumps of the text, even the guide appears to have given up on detailing their contents or the traps' effects. The following is supposed to be one of the ones north of Caldara, but I couldn't find it. BaK posted:Owyn grabbed the rope and used it to climb the tree. Once at the top he called to Gorath, who quickly joined him. Presumably that's like a 50 damage trap or something, not enough to kill anyone unless you walk around half-healed(which is a really bad idea), but enough to make you waste some supplies. Minor traps like that would be a lot scarier if the game's sense of urgency was reinforced by an actual soft or hard time cap of some sort and you thus couldn't take a week to camp out somewhere any time you felt like it. Oh yeah and then the party walks into a magical trap.  I couldn't quite think my way out of this one, but I solved it anyway.  Transparent crystal knocks out the first zap pole, solid crystals block the two other zap poles and then I Black Nimbus the last pair so I can squeeze my way around to the right. I think the pro move would've been to just shift one of the solid crystals diagonally up and to the left so it's immediately above the first disabled zap pole and thus offers me enough space to squeeze past without needing to disable the rightmost pair.    Generic moredhel are the best enemies in the woods since their cloaks actually stand out. Witch hags and wyverns both tend to blend into the foliage and become almost completely invisible. Once I'm at the end of this little side path here, I'm right at the entrance to the northeasternmost valley "dead end."  Without a map, at least the overhead one, you might completely miss that there's even an entrance here. It, of course, also has a trap.  The wizard in here can really be trouble since he knows Grief, but thankfully he doesn't cast it.  Instead he whips an Unfortunate Flux at Owyn, and I, not having checked up on his stats beforehand, don't know that this knocks him so low it almost certainly prevents his AI from casting more spells.  Not wanting to spend time hacking through the Wyvern in front of him, I have Gorath circle around and eat the 30 damage from the Blaster to finish the mage right away. A smarter move might've been to have Owyn just spawn a couple of Beasthounds with a Horn there, but that might've also made them block off my ability to easily disable the trap, I don't know how summons act once all actual enemies are dead and just the trap remains.  Once the enemies are dead, the trap is easily disabled. Transparent crystal makes a blaster pop the nearest poles, solid crystal blocks the distant blaster.   It's a good thing the trap is there, too, because this little valley is absolutely the most tree-dense part of the Green Heart. Without the trap to draw your attention to it, you might simply give up and assume there's nothing worthwhile in there. Eventually, though, you'll stumble into the lower left corner... Bak posted:They were not alone.  I do not raid with my kin. Grant me passage, eledhel. I have come to look upon the face of the Shining Moon. The old tongue... I think then your coming will be well received in Elvandar. Tell my mother and Warleader Tomas I am well and I will continue on toward Moraelin to meet the moredhel there. Perhaps we can yet put a halt to their raids. What's the Shining Moon? Is it in Elvandar? She, not it, young human friend. Your companion refers to our Queen Aglaranna. In your tongue it means something like Shining Moon. Is the way to Elvandar passable? The attacks directed by the moredhel have made travel a difficulty. Fires are burning all across Elvandar and the Spellweavers are hard pressed to attend to them all. Most roads are impassable, but the western path was clear last I heard of it.[SURVIVAL] I'm surprised you've been able to survive alone with the moredhel raiding over your borders. How have you escaped? The moredhel can do little harm to the eledhel within Elvandar and they would be fools to try. It would take remarkable strength of will for a moredhel to enter the forest with any evil intent and even a more remarkable will for him to survive such an attempt. It is part of the magic that protects our home. What about Gorath? He hasn't had any problems entering the forest. You have not told the boy? My returning is of no consequence to him. He has his own quest to fulfill. Returning? You mean you've been here before? You will understand certain things later should events unfold as I imagine. There is still the matter of your survival to deal with, however. Though our cousin Gorath moves with great grace, you are not so sure-footed. For your part in my rescue, I should like to teach you how to move the elven way. What about Gorath? It is not custom between our kin, but if you wish it...I will teach him what I know of using a crossbow... Come. We cannot be long at this.BaK posted:Calin waited. [WYVERNS] How have you been holding off the wyverns? I would have thought this many of them could have burned Elvandar to the ground. Fortunately, the spells the moredhel have been using to control them aren't too strong or too complicated. Even with what little knowledge I have about magic, Tathar managed to teach me a cantrip that will turn them away. Sounds like it might come in useful. If you have time, do you think you could teach it to me? You can have the scroll I studied. I don't think I will need it any longer, though I warn you, you'll need to find one of those beast's eggs each time you cast the spell. Tathar tried to explain the principle to me, but I had trouble following the complexities of it.[ELVANDAR] What way will take us the most quickly to Elvandar? If it were merely a matter of which way would take the least distance, I would suggest you take the northern bridge, but I understand from my scouts that wyverns have been alighting in heavy numbers near there. It would be far less dangerous to travel to the far western bridge and there cross through the sleeping glades, though you may have some difficulties dealing with them. From there, bear directly north until you reach Grey Horn. You will find an entrance to a subterranean, ancient ruin there. Once you emerge from it, you will be very near the heart of Elvandar itself.[ANCIENT RUIN] One nice thing about travelling underground, at least there is less chance of something dropping down on us from above. With all these wyverns flying about, I half expect one to come flapping out of nowhere any time I turn my head. You may not find you are quite so enthusiastic about the ancient ruin once you pass through it. We do not use it much. Please tell me it isn't infested with a Brak Nurr or something equally repulsive. Infested? An interesting description, but not in the way you may think. None of the elven blood may easily walk its corridors without some measure of dread. It is of the Valheru, then. The Warleader assures us none of their ancient essence may touch us here, but the malevolence that permeates that place cannot be easily dismissed. We have not been so foolish, however, to leave it open to any that wish simply to enter it. There is too great a danger something there has been unfound that is beyond our control. Only a few of the elves have a key that will unlock its doors. How are we going to get in, then? I will give Gorath the key I carry. That is all that is required. As simple as that? There is nothing simple about it. The force of will it has taken for Gorath to have come even this close to Elvandar is monumental. Unless his reason for being here was of the utmost importance, he would have fled this forest long ago. I trust him.[SLEEPING GLADES] You said we might encounter some difficulty with the sleeping glades? It is one of Elvandar's natural defenses. Those who enter them suddenly find themselves quite drowsy and will sleep for days on end. Many die in their sleep from lack of nourishment. Effective, if non-selective. I assume there is a way they may be crossed. It wouldn't be practical to live in a house for which there is no door. Though the sizes of the glades are variable, when you approach them, you'll experience a slight feeling of disorientation. There is, however, a little known path that can carry you safely through them. The glades run parallel to a mountain range Southwest of here, north of the river's fork. They are difficult to cross, but you may circumnavigate them. If you head to the fork of the river then stay close to the mountains to the north, you should be untroubled by the glades.Phew, that was a lot of text for a non-canon encounter. Prince Calin is Aglaranna's son but not Tomas' son, he's the son of the late elf king and does in fact feature in the book! Just... not quite here. The mechanical impacts of the conversation are also nice. Owyn gets +10 Stealth and Gorath gets +10 Crossbows(shame we can't get him a Bessy Mauler, too.) and the party gets a Key of Lineages. It's, oddly enough, a key that can be bought in several places, but only used in one place, and even then, you need to talk to Prince Calin(which also gives you the key anyway) for it to function. Very odd. BaK posted:Even an untrained artisan would be considered a fool if he failed to recognize the elven key of lineages. Three interlocked triangles formed the head of the long steel key, the irmatrix representing the ancient Midkemian tribes of the eledhel, the moredhel and the glamredhel. Lastly he's the only place to learn Thy Master's Will, which would be much better if Owyn wasn't more or less guaranteed to have Flamecast and Fetters of Rime by this point or if the Wyverns were tougher to kill and thus an instakill spell for them would be nice. As it is, it's generally a waste of your inventory space to cart wyvern eggs around and there are better ways to tackle them, as just mentioned. As we leave Calin, we head straight west since there's a code chest by the riverside.   Yeah that's real loving easy to make out. Goddamn.  SPONGE I was about to complain that this seemed like a very anachronistic tool for a medieval setting, but on googling it turns out that sponges(as in actual sea sponge sponges, after drying them out), were used for sponge-related purposes by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Apparently some of them are still soft after their being dried out and can thus be employed for those purposes. Now you know! The chest just contains some valuables, a sword-boosting Killian's Root Oil and a useless Wyvern's Egg.   Next up, I head all the way down past the main road to the South Trail, and then I walk roughly halfway west along the trail towards the bridge before turning dead north and heading to the river. There are no clues anywhere in the game that this is a smart thing to do. Supposedly there's a text trigger that will point you towards the river, but I never hit it.    What we've found is a non-hostile Rusalki hanging out by the river. This is interesting enough to be worth walking over and seeing what's up with her. BaK posted:The rusalki was trying to communicate.  How do you know such things about us? I know many things. You are on a quest, are you not? Yes, we are. Can you help us? Not directly, no. Only if you would be willing to find the moredhel spellcaster who has been perverting the will's of my kin with a strange device, and retrieve from this man an item stolen from me. He holds an item named after my own person...Eliaem's heart. Return with it, and I will do what I may to assist you.This is in fact the exact same type of Eliaem's Heart that I bought for Patrus near the end of Chapte 5, so if you hauled one down here from Dencamp's store earlier, you could complete the quest without really completing the quest, but Eliaem seems nice enough, so let's actually help her out. We'll be going that direction anyway. First, we're gonna head all the way to the southwesternmost area of the Green Heart...    Because there's of course another hidden chest here. Actually three, but the two just-locked ones we don't really care about. The third one, which has a 95-damage trap(but with 0 disarm difficulty...) is the one we care about, because it contains more war crimes.  Mad God's Rage is the third-last game Owyn will pick up in the game, and it's going to be funny to use. We'll be testing it out shortly. Now we head north from where we found these chests...    Hey you! In the piss-coloured cloak! Hand over the heart! I don't think he's open to negotiating, Owyn. I didn't figure he would be, but it's going to make me feel slightly better about what comes next.  So what Mad God's Rage does is that it rattles all enemies on the battlefield and then starts randomly striking them with lightning that usually does about 20 damage. It will do this until all of them are dead, but each bolt of lightning also takes three points of stamina/health off the caster, so it's effective for making sure everyone loving dies, but against sufficiently numerous/beefy enemies, it can be dangerous to whip out. It also only works outdoors, rather like Skyfire.   For instance that pack of enemies, none of which were particularly beefy health-wise, drained about half of Owyn's total health pool(he started at at bit less than full because normal resting only gets characters up to 80%).  Now to get this thing back to Eliaem. I sure hope the game isn't jankily programmed and accidentally corrupts our reward when we turn it in. (the game is jankily programmed and without appropriate precautions it will corrupt our reward when turned in)    So if you want to be on the safe side, no matter what patch you're using, ensure that you have at least 13 free slots in your inventory(not in either one of them, just in total) before turning in the poor lady's heart. Explanation to follow.
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Dec 7, 2021 03:05
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Update 33: The Majesty of Elvandar, Part 2BaK posted:Owyn stood before the Rusalki. Is the shell valuable? In ways you may never fully imagine, but its uses are many. While it bears little on that which you seek, you may yet find another thing you desire. What of Elvandar? Which is the best route there? By two roads may you reach the Queen of the Eledhel. If you wander the main roads there are many hazards, but your enemies shall face you. Wander the path less travelled and you may find you face a less substantial opponent. In this, Prince Calin may be of some assistance. Fare well..."So yeah, she just vomits out a pile of sandwiches and a shell at us. The thing is that it's 12 full stacks of rations and the shell, and as usual, if you receive too many items from an NPC they drop into a bag on the ground you can pick up. But if the game tries to cram too many items into a bag at once, the bag can corrupt. I think the bag has 10 slots, so just three free inventory slots would technically save you, but why take the chance?  BaK posted:There was something different about the shell. Perhaps it was in the color or texture, but he was sure he had never seen another quite like it in all the trading meets he had ever attended. The oddest thing about it was a pattern of ten bumps on the inner lip of the shell. Now, if you cast your memory waaaaay back, to when we read the Abbot's Journal, it ends with this. BaK posted:He also did tell me other things strange and wondrous of the legend, saying a spell had been bound into a shell that would repair the blade which had long been broke away, describing this shell as one marked with an uneven surface of ten misformed lumps ...." Congrats, we just found the first half of remaking the Guarda Revanche, the most rear end-beatingest, busted sword in the game. Still missing the other half, though. I take this chance to sort some of the less useful items out of the party's inventory and stock up on rations, since they're just going to be vital for the next parts since the supply of them will be somewhat limited from here on out unless I feel like making a long trek back to a store. For now, though, I follow the South Trail over and across the bridge and then, and this is important, and then I do not, under any circumstances, go west of the bridge after passing over to its northern side. Once again, that's going to get explained, but for now we've got a Green Heart to loot. What we want to reach is the North Trail, in particular where the North Trail curves up to actually heading north.   Along the way I get ambushed by a Witch Hag and her three wyverns, which almost ends poorly.  She wings Gorath with a Fetters of Rime while two of the Wyverns are still alive, at which point the wyverns eat Gorath and start dogpiling Owyn. The only response to a dogpile, is a dogsummon, which saves the day.  Amazingly enough, after hitting one of the wyverns with a powder bag, it turns out that two angry dogs are, in fact, a match for a small dragon. This sadly takes a chunk out of the party's Restoratives budget to get Gorath back on his feet, almost a full stack.   Someone also left a magic trap lying around under some dead leaves and branches.  It's mostly easy to see what to do, the main thing is doing it in the right order to avoid painting yourself into a corner and having to eat some shots to get past. Just always remember that blasters can't shoot past active lightning rods and you'll be good for this one.    What we're interested in here is this well hidden just off the path. It's bugged! Like really, super, incredibly bugged. Like gamebreakingly bugged. BaK posted:The well seemed ordinary upon first glance. So the way this is bugged depends on what version you're on. What it's meant to do is take one charge of Fadamor's Formula(yellow +strength booster) out of your backpack and increase Strength for Owyn and Gorath by 3 points. But in patch 1.01 it instead clears out your entire inventory of them(so the solution is to leave all but one charge in a bag on the ground), and in patch 1.01 it checks whether you have any Fadamor's Formula... but then doesn't remove any, allowing you to boost strength to gamebreaking amounts with just a single vial and sufficient patience. I give both of them a few drinks and then move on. There are also a number of treehouses in the area to check... BaK posted:Owyn was about to knock on the door when he heard loud voices coming from inside the small house. He listened but couldn't make out what was being said. He was about to knock again when the door swung open and three very loud and seemingly very drunk dwarves came charging out... None of them have any mechanical effects, either beneficient or harmful, they're just little fluff things. Now, with that sorted out, we continne up to the end of the north trail and to the northeastern area past the river near Calin. There's an extremely important thing to collect up here.    If you stick to the river and follow it until you spot these tents, you know you're in the right area. The tents contain nothing of interest, but the trigger for the fight I'm looking for is practically right on top of them.   Now the most important step in this fight is to kill that Witch Hag. Just nuke her! Summon dogs, throw a Touch of Lims Kragma, blast her with an Evil Seek, just make sure that she does not retreat, because you need to loot her body.   She's carrying a scroll of the most busted-rear end spell in the game and also the worst usable item in the game, Roric's Seal. BaK posted:Unable to identify the signet on the face of the ring, Owyn checked the inner surface for an inscription. Barely legible was a short epithet written for an unknown reader: I think it works, this ring of mine, but it'll sneeze, 'bout half the time. What it does is cast the currently-inaccessible spell Mind Melt up to ten times before running out of charges. Possibly. Every use has a 20% chance of actually working as intended at full damage, then a 30% chance of failing and a 50% chance of backfiring and hitting the user for half damage. It goes in the bin. The spell, meanwhile, is Firestorm. When cast, it targets every enemy that the caster has line of sight to and blasts them with a Fetters of Rime-looking projectile for 4x damage, and since it can have up to 30 health points invested in it, that's 120 damage to all enemies in the battlefield. More or less a guaranteed battlefield wipe unless some enemies are in the way of others or they're very-high-health enemies like giants or upper-end Pantathians. After this absolute bounty, there are then a further three chests hidden past the camp.   SADDLE  STARS  RAIN These chests are worth checking out for even a well-stocked party. In addition to useless Wyvern Eggs, there are some valuables(gems) in case you're short on gold and rations, some weapon boosters, a full stack of powder bags for Owyn and the second place in the game to find River Song if you missed it back in the Dimwood. Now we've almost tapped out the Green Heart, time to head allllll the way back to the bridge leading down to the South Trail but not cross it.    If you stick to the river and move all the way west, then cling to the cliffs as you move north, you'll be fine. But just a short distance north of the river and east of the cliff/west of the road there's a large "Sleeping Glade" that Calin warned us about, which eats 1 ration per character per step as it forces them to rest for a full day. Getting in too deep without the rations to get out can easily lead to the party starving to death. Of course, if you're flush with money, you can also skirt the edges to rest super-rapidly over and over, then back to the store, then back to the sleeping glades, etc. as stamina/health increases(very slowly) based on time rested.   At the far northern end is the entrance to the Valheru Ruins which Calin told us about. Attempting to enter it without his permission eats 2 points of strength permanently off both Gorath and Owyn every time it's attempted. Entering with his permission grants +6 strength to both instead. BaK posted:Owyn used the key.    The ruins are a short route featuring four battles with two shades, none of them are a threat but they do give me a chance to show off Firestorm.     BaK posted:Latham McCann Loved the mines. Never wanted to leave. I really feel like this should've maybe been back in the Mac Mordain Cadal. There are 50 gold sovereigns under here but... lemme spoil you. Owyn and Gorath won't see another store for the rest of the game. You can ignore all valuables and gold unless you intend to head back to the Caldara shop.   So for instance this chest is a cruel joke. You need enough Lockpicking that Gorath will have to carry at least one, probably two, Amulets of the Upright Man to un-trap it. It contains 1600 gold, a patently ridiculous amount, and the trap does 175 damage which WILL kill the party, no ifs or buts.    Near the end is a long corridor with two side chambers containing code chests.  LIFE  EQUALS The items of interest in here are another Roric's Seal ring, another Mad God's Rage scroll, a full-quality Elven Crossbow and stacks of elven and enchanted arrows. Despite that, the third chest is the real score.  GLAMREDHEL  It contains the hilt of the Guarda Revanche! Time to smash it together with the shell and see what happens. BaK posted:Set with brilliant stones of lapis and sapphire, the hilt was beautifully jeweled, but the sword blade had been long broken away. Still, as Gorath held it in his hand, he sensed it had the potential to be a deadly weapon. Alright, that was worth the time spent tracking the drat thing down. Bad. rear end.The Guarda is just loving busted, it has roughly DOUBLE the damage bonuses compared to the Sword of Lims-Kragma in both modes, combined with vastly better accuracy bonuses AND it's got an elven racial bonus, too. The guide also claims that it retains any enhancements(Naphtha, Alfathain's Icer, Clerical Oilcloths, etc.) permanently, but as far as I can tell after testing it on the next pair of shades, that isn't true. It does, however, absolutely slap, and vaporizes Shades with a single hit. Like, for context, no enemy in the game has health above 260, and the average is closer to 60 in the early game, 80 in the midgame and 100 in the endgame. The Guarda has a base damage with Gorath's current stats of about 160. Anything Owyn can't clear with a Firestorm, Gorath can annihilate with a sharp edge. In any case, all that now stands between us and the back door to Elvandar is about ten steps. We could also just have walked up to the front door outside, but then we would have missed out on this excellent murderstick.   BaK posted:A long corridor stretched before them. [img]https://lpix.org/4184659/Teleportome.mkv_snapshot_00.01_[2021.12.07_02.24.51].jpg[/img] [img]https://lpix.org/4184658/Teleportome.mkv_snapshot_00.04_[2021.12.07_02.25.05].jpg[/img] [img]https://lpix.org/4184657/Teleportome.mkv_snapshot_00.07_[2021.12.07_02.25.12].jpg[/img]  And yes, that lame-rear end TV static effect is how Owyn and Gorath get teleported off to chase down Pug and haul him home to save the day. Because the writers had a basic understanding of cliffhangers, however, we immediately jump away from the scene to...  BaK posted:Bells tolled in the towers of Northwarden.   My death will be unimportant... If you think we shall torture you unto death, I would advise that you ponder my mood. Anxious though I am to have answer, I will keep you screaming this side of death a month or a year or until I feel well satisfied that we have heard all that you have to say! A day, a month, you've already lost! Nail my entrails to your door post, feed...my brain to your dogs, it will not matter! Even if you act now, you will be too late! You do...not...listen! We know...the secret of Se-thanon! We shall free him! What secret? Why to Sethanon? Ten years ago we attacked...with Murmandamus...you captured, imprisoned him... Deluded fool, we killed Murmandamus at Sethanon and burned his bones for potash! There is nothing there for Delekhan to find! A lie...we have spied...What else could...you guard so closely? How does he think he will win past our garrison at Highcastle! He hasn't enough men! Answer me! Riiift-machine!...The Six have a machine...It can take them place to place...like a door between great distances...Even while your troops die at Sethanon...we will walk through the machine! We shall be through the Dimwood and inside Sethanon a week before you can reach us! Your troops will be exhausted! The day will be ours! A rift-machine inside the Dimwood! That bastard Tsurani magician has been consorting with Delekhan! Torturer, tell Seigneurs James and Locklear to ride to the Dimwood. They must find and destroy that rift-machine while I hie to Highcastle and divert our forces once more! Time is of the essence!   Well, didn't think I'd be back in the Dimwood that quickly. I wasn't hoping to be back in the Dimwood ever. What, you boys aren't eager to have a picnic with Delekhan's moss troopers? C'mon, let's find the nearest Moredhel and roast his feet over a fire so we can find out what's going on here.Next chapter: Locky, Jimmy and Patrus save the day. This time probably without defrauding the Kingdom of thousands of gold coins' worth of diamonds.
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Dec 7, 2021 03:05
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Update 34: A Very Dramatic Twist So, the end of chapter 6 dropped us back to Locklear, James and Patrus, as well as shuffling us from Northwarden to the Dimwood. This is reasonably canonical to the book, missing the part where the three of them only arrive there in record speed because of massively abusing Restoratives(which in the book only give a feeling of being fully recovered rather than actually healing any damage or exhaustion done. James feeling the consequences of this is actually relevant to the start of the following book.)    Reasonably enough we're at the northern entrance to the Dimwood, next to the Fife and Laurel which is the only shop we're getting for this chapter and which would be shuttered if we hadn't done the quest for Craig either in chapter 3 or 6. Not that it's very useful to have the Fife and Laurel open since they're lacking in basic necessities like rations, though they do have restoratives and antivenom. If you didn't exit Chapter 5 with a full stash of antivenom, buy as much as you can afford here. If necessary fight a fight or two, cart back some armor and swords, sell them, and then buy antivenom. I've complained about poisoned weapons before, but Patrus, Locklear or both Patrus and Locklear were poisoned at the end of practically every fight I got into here, and with rations in short supply(enemies are carrying almost none), resting out poisonings is somewhat difficult. The way around this is that several of the otherwise-empty treestumps in the Dimwood have been stuffed full of huge piles of rations. If this is your first visit, you might stumble upon them normally, but since most containers don't get refilled, I could see most players reasonably ignoring containers they've emptied during previous visits.  The Dimwood has, of course, also gotten repopulated with new encounters. All encounters from previous chapters, except the one group of Pantathians from chapter 3, are swept away and replaced with encounters which are, by and large, tougher. There are no more wild animals, instead it's all goblins and moredhel(and a quegian or two) carrying top-quality gear, often boosted with naphtha, ice, poison or clerical oilcloths for that extra little sting to keep the player on their toes.   The northern section sees the least changes, though, so I immediately head for the bridge to the northeast section, prompting a dialogue pop-up as I'm almost there. BaK posted:Patrus was beginning to look pale.  Not the most difficult thing Arutha ever had us do. Remember that berry hunt we went on after the Riftwar? Very nearly wouldn't have found them if we hadn't realized the rain fall had been heavier that year. I'm just sorry we had to drag poor old Patrus along on this one. You worry 'bout your own skins, you whelps. I ken I can run with the best of 'em and you two ain't no exception. Get runny nosed on me and I'll brain the both of you. Better listen to him, Jimmy. He's a killer. Umhum. I believe you're right. So, where do you think we should start looking for this rift machine? Your guess would be a good as mine. Since we just came from the north, I'd say it's a good bet it isn't up there anywhere. That still leaves east, west, south and everything in between. Like spearing fish in a barrel. That being the case, I suppose we just try to be as systematic as possible. I say we make a sweep east, then maybe move to the south or the west. East? Why? West seems as good a direction. Not sure. But the instinct that's telling me east is the same one that's kept me alive this long, and I've learned not to ignore it. If you've got a better idea, I'll follow your lead...This bit of conversation would matter more if the only way to go from here wasn't east.  There's no bridge across the river between the north and west sections.    We get this far without running into any battles, shockingly enough. Mostly by happenstance, not because I was avoiding them. You can pretty much blaze through the northeast section of the Dimwood without giving a drat, but if you either don't know what you're doing or just want to get as much content as possible, you want to head over to the easternmost part of this section, in particular the gap between two large hills... BaK posted:They were not alone.  Prince Arutha told us that a Tsurani magician has given over a rift machine to the moredhel for use in this battle. We've come down here to locate and destroy it before Delekhan can get full use of it. How did you get here? We never saw you at the castle. When a portion of the Southern Arrow company began to fall back from Northwarden, I decided to follow after them and make sure they weren't up to any mischief. As you might have guessed, they had that infernal machine of theirs set up a few miles to the north, but they spotted me and assumed that I was a human mercenary that was slacking behind... ...so you played along and went through the gate and ended up here. How did you know you wouldn't end up in Sar-Sargoth? I didn't, but I was surrounded by moredhel. I imagined that my best hope for survival lay on the other side of wherever that door led. Whenever we emerged here, I told the captain that I had to rejoin my unit and I was off. There were a few close moments along the way, but I won free at last. Why didn't you try to destroy it? I thought about it, but the device was surrounded by moredhel at the time so I decided I'd try to gather some help. You three are the first humans I've seen in a week.[RIFT MACHINE] Relative to where we are now, where is the rift-machine? Is it nearby? I'm not sure. To escape the moredhel camp, I slipped under a stack of canvas bags in the back of a supply wagon they brought with them. After we had travelled for a few hours, they pulled over for a nature break and I was able to get away. I do recall hearing water as we were moving out, however. So you were near a waterfall or a river... At least that gives us an idea of where we can start our search. Anything else we should know? From listening to the wagon drivers talk, I get the feeling I wasn't the only unexpected visitor through that machine of theirs. Apparently some rebel moredhel chieftain came through and caused them a good deal of grief, then headed south towards where one of their warlords is staging for the attack on Sethanon. They were none too happy about him being on the loose. I'm hoping I can find him myself so I can ask him a few questions. Any idea who this warlord in the south is? I believe it's Delekhan's son Moraeulf, though I couldn't be certain of it. They were bandying about names so fast, I was having a little trouble understanding all of it. My moredhel isn't all it used to be.[SETHANON] What is it with Sethanon and the moredhel? This is the second time they've attacked there and I never understood why they struck ten years ago. There's nothing in Sethanon but a heap of ruins. At least the last time we had an army to get in their way. Even at a forced march, Prince Arutha's men can't get here for another few days and they'll be exhausted once they arrive and...now that I think of it, why is Delekhan bringing an army? If he expected to arrive at Sethanon behind our lines, he could simply walk in, take what he wants, then turn around and walk through that rift-gate without a scratch unless he expected someone else to be there! Who does he think will be at Sethanon? What does it mean? It means they didn't get what they came for the last time they raided. It also means Delekhan has been watching Sethanon for quite some time, possibly as long as the end of the last battle. He knows Squire Phillip's men will be in the way. Squire Phillip's men? What would a squire be doing leading a counter-attack? It would take me too long to explain it to you at the moment. Suffice to say, I don't think Delekhan and his men will be having a good day once they get to Sethanon. If we're lucky, they will be deterred long enough for Arutha to start nibbling away at their flanks.[SUPPLIES] The one major advantage I can see in our favor is that we and the moredhel are at equal disadvantage. Neither of us will have a clear supply of materials and they will have to hold some of theirs out so they can retreat to the Northlands when the time comes. If they intend on retreating. They didn't seem to be too interested in it the last time they came. A bit of advice though. If you come across any food, I'd suggest holding on to it. We've found several of their food caches and poisoned them as we did at Northwarden, and with two armies marching through here at the same time, I imagine food is about to get scarce. As unpleasant an option as it may seem, you may have to resort to taking food off dead moredhel.So this appearance of Martin's is as close as we get to canonical for him in the game. In the book, he shows up in the Dimwood along with Calin, having arrived with a team of elven rangers more or less just-in-case. They've been engaged in a running battle with the Moredhel for a while when James and his gang show up, and James ropes him into a scheme to get into the Moredhel camp. In any case, we should probably head south and look for this renegade moredhel chieftain. It might be someone we know.    I soon run out of luck in terms of avoiding battles, and start seriously wishing that I'd had the foresight to have James bring some Weed Walkers with him out of chapter 3, because losing surprise in these battles is super rough. The init system works weird, too, and even when I do win surprise, usually James and Locklear get to act and then enemies act before Patrus, often spoiling his chance to get any spells off. Anyway, this is what happens when I completely lose surprise.  I swear, almost every enemy caster in Chapter 7 knows Fetters of Rime and it suuuuuuucks.  Patrus is reduced to using only items, because even when the only neighbouring enemy is paralyzed, it still distracts him. Also the remaining Quegian just calmly stands there pumping crossbow bolts into Locklear's head while James tries to chase down the enemy wizards. Thankfully Locklear is sturdy enough to survive the five or six bolts that are lodged in his forehead by the time this is over, somehow.  Yep, even while his friends are screaming in mortal agony in the background, all this rear end in a top hat can think of is how funny it looks when the bolts stuck in Locklear are plentiful enough to spell out "LOL."  Who's laughing now?    Ahem, in any case. If you head straight south and a little bit west from Martin, you're almost guaranteed to hit the next dialogue trigger before you hit the river. BaK posted:James yelped.  You're assuming quite a bit. I don't think any of us have good reason to trust you, moredhel. Just now you all felt the pelt of my stones, each which hit your heads just as easily as would have a moredhel throwing knife. If I had wished you harm, you would already have been dead. You speak the Kingdom tongue remarkably well. Handy skill for a spy. We cannot trade our goods with the traders who come from the Kingdom or from far off places if we speak only our native tongue. It would seem it is beneath them to learn our language. Granted. I'm still listening. There is a device which is being used by Delekhan to invade this wood. If it is left operational, it will mean utter defeat for you. If Delekhan succeeds in his goal, he will use whatever it is hidden in Sethanon to gain the power that eluded Murmandamus' grasp. It will mean a new tyranny for your Kingdom and for mine. We already know about the device. Bled it out of one of the field captains that attacked Northwarden. If you really mean to help us, tell us where to find the device. On a peninsula where the rivers meet. It is accessible only by passing through an illusion of a mountain created by the Six, though I am not sure from here where it is located. I have been looking for a magical artifact since I slipped out of the camp. Artifact? For what purpose? Shortly after they began staging soldiers through the rift, I discovered the gate could be disrupted by something they called a Waani, a word foreign to me. I found such an item on a magician who was guarding the gate. Before I slew him, I discovered if thrown into the maelstrom of the gate, it would cause it to collapse. I had thought it permanently destroyed... Delekhan has a number of tricks up his sleeve. So, do you think we might be able to find another of these devices? From what little I learned before I slew the magician, they are necessary in the creation of a gate. If one is to build a bridge, it is usually wise to bring more planks of wood than necessary in case one should snap. Seems to be a reasonable assumption. Now it's just a matter of locating this...Waani? Who would have them? If any would know it would be the leader of the rearguard, Moraeulf. He has his troops preparing themselves for the final advance near the southern tip of this wood... Then I suppose it's time we went and had a talk with him. Had a talk with him, Jimmy? Do you propose we simply walk up to him and ask for this device that will destroy his campaign? Not without saying hello first. We'll pose as Quegians and hope he doesn't see through us. In all this chaos, he can't possibly know everyone in all his companies. An admirable gamble. I approve... Hear that, Locky? The moredhel approves. It must be a good idea. Let's get moving before I regain my common sense. Goodbye, Obkhar.Obkhar's presence here is entirely non-canonical, in the book he just sets a route straight back to the Green Heart and his clan. Also once again, the writers of the game trying desperately to make the Moredhel more than one-note villains. In any case, now it's time to head to the southern section of the Dimwood.    Except that poo poo, the moredhel are actually smart enough to set a big pile of goblins to guarding this bridge. Now, if you're psychic, you'll go to the northernmost part of this zone, crack a few chests and learn that one of the chests you already cracked last time you were here contains a note with a password for these green dorks. That'd just let you walk past them. Now, on the other hand, if you didn't do that... BaK posted:The bridge was heavily guarded.  Five goblins aren't inherently tough, but since you can never get surprise on them, they're almost guaranteed to get some hits in and every single one of these pricks has a poisoned sword. So, yeah, once again Locklear and Patrus are smacked full of silverthorn. Thankfully I wasn't an idiot and brought a stack and a half of antivenom out of Chapter 5, but even that supply is getting strained.    Now we can either go east or west. West would be best if we're just aiming to speedrun the chapter, but going east provides a bit of lore and also some information that would be useful to a new player, so we're headed that way first.    The encounters this way are mageless and thus not a threat of any caliber, letting us get to the next dialogue prompt easily. BaK posted:They were not alone.  Uh...we're...Quegian, warlord. If you could stay speaking in the Kingdom tongue, may be we could understand one another better? Sebah! How progresses the transfer from the Tsurani gate? We were ambushed, Lord Moraeulf! Several men, heavily armed were moving through the Dimwood. We were lucky to escape! Kingdom soldiers? Perhaps... I know they weren't under our standards so they probably weren't mercenary. We heard sounds farther off from where they came from. It might be a whole army. Obkhar may have reached someone and raised the alarm. drat! This will complicate the march to Sethanon. How close were they to the Six's rift-machine? No idea. We got turned around during the attack... Our couriers were killed and we needed field reports. We hoped you could help us. What do you need to know?[RIFT MACHINE] The magicians at the rift-machine tell me there seems to be a malfunction with the gate. They need one of the parts they had stored away. But the gate still functions? No. Failed just before the magicians sent us and it is beyond repair with what they have. They said they need the devices they stored with you. It is hidden in a box, locked with our...special...locks. Victory is the password. You will find it in a canyon being near the southwest corner of this wood. The box is there.In the book, they get Calin and Martin to chase them right at Moreaulf and his bodyguards, lending credence to their claims of being Quegian mercenaries. Then they casually mention that it's Calin and "a huge man with a longbow" that have been chasing them through the woods, which gets Moreaulf all het up and sends him screaming into the trees, since the Moredhel of the Northlands hate both Martin and Calin considerably. We've got a bit farther to go before we can get near the rift machine and sort it out, sadly we can't just talk our way in. This gives us our next waypoint, though, off we are to the southwest...     This trip only results in walking into a single pack of goblins. It feels as though the developers knew how easy it would be to paint the players into a corner if they didn't bring enough supplies from chapter 3 into 5, and then from 5 into 7, and resisted the temptation to absolutely plaster the Dimwood in new spawns. The downside is that it somewhat detracts from the feeling we're supposed to have that the Moredhel are pumping troops into the Dimwood as quickly as they can get them lined up and walked through the rift in Sar-Sargoth.    Considering that Moreaulf already told us the password, I suppose I don't have to spoiler that this one's VICTORY.  All those rations are poisoned, by the way, which would be a rude surprise if you were low on rations and didn't think to check them before hauling them into the party's inventory. After your first poor surprise with spoiled or poisoned rations, though, you learn to be a bit obsessive about checking every single sandwich the party finds. No magical spare part, though, hmmm... BaK posted:They searched the chest. Still, at least that gives us another waypoint to follow! This time we're headed northwards, which completes our circuit of all of the Dimwood except the easternmost bits where the Pantathians were hiding out in chapter 3.    Can you see the waiting ambush in this screenshot? Several of the fights in chapter 7 have absurd activation radiuses, meaning that even if you have good scouting/stealth stats, sometimes it's actually hard to spot the enemy before the combat triggers due to proximity.   The Dimwood's also gotten a fresh supply of magical traps shipped in from the Northlands along with the fresh supply of murderous non-humans. This one's a bit tricky since you could technically paint yourself into a corner if you shuffle the crystals around in the wrong order or into a position you can't get them out of again.  This is the correct solution, in any case.  And this is our destination on the far side of the trap, and also where I realize that I actually missed a sidequest, accessible in chapters 2, 3 and 6, where the resident of this house, a witch named Wilindi, asks your help unpoisoning her well since her prick neighbour poisoned it on account of him being a prick. I promise that's the only bit of missed content, though! Honest! In any case, if you can see the goblins that are about to jump on the party and poison Locklear until his bloodstream's more silverthorn than hemogoblin, I applaud you, because I sure can't.  Welcome to die. Seven goddamn goblins who get init on me.  Amazingly, though, they just invite Patrus to the "hit by crossbow bolts ten times in the same battle"-club, rather than swarming him with swords, allowing him to finally make use of the Infinity Pool we found on one of the six moredhel magicians back in Chapter 6(not to be confused with the OTHER six magicians that have been part of the plot since chapter 1). BaK posted:A pervasive feeling of malice radiated from the pendant. Within its depths bloody points of light pulsed, swarming from one side of the glass to the other as anything brushed against its featureless surface. The highest payout in terms of raw damage is obviously Evil Seek, and starting at 90 damage rather than 60 means it gets to harvest a lot of heads.  Killing three and setting one to fleeing, it's what turns the battle around. Without that, even with Patrus using his Lightning Staff(which is what blows up the fleeing goblin before it gets away), they would've almost certainly have managed to wear down Patrus and/or Locklear, and then been able to pile on James. While his sky-high Defense makes it unlikely they'd hit him with swords, the crossbow bolts only care about user accuracy, and a few hits from those would take chunks out of his Health, reducing his Defense, and then it would've been a downhill slide.  Lotta dead goblins! Now would you believe that if I took another step forward, I'd be in another huge goblin fight? Once again, loving huge aggro zones. So I step back and rest the gang up, then walk up again.  This time one of the goblins is visible. Part of it is that for every step you take, enemies "move" within their aggro zones. Their location in terms of starting a fight doesn't change, but their visible position to interact with changes. Sometimes they wobble a bit around the same spot, but in other cases their movements are huge. I'm guessing that since they have a huge aggro zone, they also move around a lot and are thus sometimes on the far side of their aggro zone and out of view.   Only six? Child's play. They get added to the pile. Sadly these ones actually charge Patrus on turn one(even spotting them, I flubbed the ambush check), forcing him to churn out some Rusalki with his Eliaem's Heart and otherwise spam some Skyfire from his Lightning Staff. Now let's check out that drat house. BaK posted:A boy hurried from the house.  Sethanon Garrison? I've never heard Arutha mention anything about troops being stationed near Sethanon and you're far too young for senior duty. How old do you think I am? Eighteen, maybe nineteen summers. About the same age as a squire we know from Tiburn. While Count Beleforte's son Owyn was taking his first baby steps, my wife and I had already had a son for three years. I'm thirty seven summers old and hold the rank of Captain in the Kingdom Army. When my commander noticed how young I looked, even as a veteran officer, he struck on the idea that I would make an ideal courier for the secret garrison. Sink me! A spy for the Kingdom! Even if the things you say about yourself are true the rest of your story's impossible. Arutha would have told me about a secret garrison. Has he ever explained to you why there is an absolute ban on visitation to Sethanon? Can you recall any other occasion in which Prince Arutha or King Lyam have forbidden people to visit battle sites? No, but I always assumed he wished to keep it as a memorial to the battle there. A memorial that cannot be visited by its veterans? You're trying to rationalize, Seigneur. Not even the members of the garrison are allowed near Sethanon unless an armed force approaches. Their orders are to destroy any who come against it. And now I must find a way to get word to them that the moredhel are advancing. Do you have any ideas on the subject?[SUPPLIES] I don't know how my friend Locklear here feels, but I would appreciate it if you could point us towards a decent meal. We've had trouble finding anything to eat. Not surprising. We've had evidence the moredhel were spying on Sethanon for several months now and it's logical to assume they've been stripping the local resources to pave the way for this attack. They pulled the same trick the last time they headed to Sethanon. We anticipated something was up and took the liberty of making some of our own provisions. Wilindi has graciously lent us the use of her house for a while to store goods. Take what you need, but please no more. We are far short of necessities. If you keep an eye out for old tree trunks, you'll find some of the rations we've stored against this possibility, though I would be careful if I were you. Some of them have likely gone bad by now.[WAANI] We found your note in the moredhel chest. Do you still have the Waani that was in it? If you mean the magical device, yes, though neither I nor Wilindi have been able to find out what it's used for. We were hoping it could be used against the moredhel somehow. Pah! No toad-stickin' witch could figgur how! It's Tsurani and probably one o' those infernal Greater Path ob-e-jects. Pompous little buggers made up a whole new magic just to make my liver itch! Though she might have said it differently, I believe Wilindi would agree. She's still studying it intensely. I'll fetch it before you leave.[GOODBYE] We need to get back to our mission. Will you be able to hold things together here? Unless another band of goblins come round, I should be all right. I need to stay here and keep an eye on the supplies, but you'll be welcome if you need to come back. That's appreciated. Farewell, squire.Lotta words! And not entirely non-canon. The entire Waani thing, of course, is for the game only, and Squire Philip doesn't feature in the book, but the Sethanon garrison does feature because, well. So the Valheru have come up a few times, and their thing was that they flew to other planets(yes, other planets) on dragons, stripped them of treasure and slaves, and lorded it up on Midkemia. Then once the gods appeared, the Valheru made war on them by turning themselves into a giant kaiju made up of all their kind, a fight they lost. But the Valheru did also make their secret weapon, the Lifestone, a sort of anti-life nuke which they hid under what's now Sethanon. Without mortals on the world, the gods would wither away, while the Valheru would somehow survive it. The entire plot of the Magician books, Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon is the attempt of the Valheru Kaiju to return and trigger the Lifestone. The Valheru, known to the Tsurani as The Enemy, attempt to return through the Tsurani rift, which triggers a lot of dumb bullshit and a lot of deaths because Macros can't just loving tell people poo poo. Then when Murmandamus 2 declares war on the Kingdom, it's actually entirely to kill a shitload of people for magical power to simultaneously activate the Lifestone and draw the Valheru back to Midkemia. Evil fuckin' rocks, always trouble. Anyway, let's see what Philip's got for us. First there's the Waani.  Weird loving thing. Now, about those supplies...  He wasn't joking. Though it does seem a bit pointless that you have access to this huge storehouse AFTER dealing with most of the big battles of the chapter. It would seem a bit less cruel if you had access to this at the start of the chapter, perhaps if there was a bridge connecting the north and west sections of the Dimwood. Still, we're loading up on everything that could possibly be handy here, especially Restoratives, and I keep the party topped up even beyond what resting can do since I'm now drowning in the stuff. As for the Rift Machine...  It's immediately south of the N on the Dimwood map, on the little isolated peninsula, as Obkhar said, behind an illusionary mountain. Technically I think you can walk through said mountain even in chapter 1, 2, 3 or 6, but there's nothing there then, not even a chest, just a puzzle.    Approaching the illusionary mountain gives you a surprise that's not as nasty as it seems, since neither of these dickhead wizards have any save-or-die spells, just damaging spells.    It's mercifully low-population for an enemy army camp, but it does have a trap and one nasty encounter.    Once again, the main threat is painting yourself into a corner. Novel as it is to put one of the party members in the Shame Triangle, it would be a bit more interesting if you somehow needed all three.    The final hurdle of the chapter(yes, it's really THAT short) is two magicians.   Two magicians who both have 130+ health, know Fetters and know Grief. Let's try that again.  Second time around I spot them before engaging but still flub surprise, but this time they settle for making Patrus' head explode rather than paralyzing him, so he can whip out the Infinity Pool again and blast them with a 1.5X max power Evil Seek, which really fucks up their day.   Surely, this cannot possibly go badly. BaK posted:James held the Waani in his hand.    This is done SO much better in the book. Lacking the Waani or other magical thingummy for busting up the Rift Machine, and with Moredhel troops pouring through at regular intervals, they know they gotta shut it down fast, so Patrus intentionally sacrifices himself to destroy it. Just having him blow up as a more or less random thing feels pointless and a bit cruel to one of the funnier characters in the game.  Oh and then the chapter ends just as someone else is teleporting in! Sucks to be James and Locklear.  BaK posted:Golden sweat traced his jawline.    This is the worst vacation I've ever been on.Meanwhile, Gorath and Owyn are on another planet. On another planet and they've turned off the magic, how am I supposed to commit war crimes now?I mean they wouldn't make me do an entire chapter without magic... right? Right...? 
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Dec 10, 2021 01:53
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I've been keeping up with this, and it's been interesting learning about the books that correlate with the game, as well as the game itself. I've never read Feist's stuff and I'm getting a fair idea of it through this LP, so thanks for that. If they do end up intending to make you do a chapter without magic, then there at least shouldn't be any enemy magic users to look out for. Right?
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Dec 10, 2021 02:50
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Duke Martin saying that he doesn't know why the moredhel want Sethanon so badly, or at least pretending to not know why, is I believe non-canon. In the books he is one of the few who known, including the king, as both are brothers of Arutha who is directly involved with the supernatural aspects of what went on there. A very young James and Locklear were both at Sethanon, but they weren't privy to the final magical battle elements of the battle at Sethanon, just the 'nearly killed by an army of tens of thousands' bit.
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Dec 10, 2021 06:11
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They at least knew some really weird poo poo went down and that it wasn't a normal battle. I'm excited about Owyn and Gorath's Excellent Adventure. This is such a fun chapter with all sorts of weird mechanics. Chap 7 always felt like padding to me, just an excuse to not have James & Co's plotline die off. Its not a bad chapter, just doesn't stick out much narratively. Kind of like Chap 2 is essentially the prologue to Chap 3 and can't really stand on its own.
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Dec 10, 2021 07:56
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I really don't get the "is this canon to the books" asides. I mean, if the game contradicted previously established lore - fine, that kinda makes sense. But the novelization contradicting the game - feels like no reason to get cannons involved. Or even trebuchets. First time I played, it took me quite a while to figure out how things work in the new world. Thankfully, Owen was a full-pledged kung-fu master with his staff at that point.
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Dec 10, 2021 21:06
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Xander77 posted:I really don't get the "is this canon to the books" asides. I mean, if the game contradicted previously established lore - fine, that kinda makes sense. And I mean, it does at several points. But eh, I just thought it's interesting to point out how things deviated for the novelization, because sometimes it's very clear "we changed this so half the book wasn't these morons killing trolls in the woods for gold and better swords," other times it's "oh gently caress this part totally violated canon, we have to rewrite it" and occasionally it's a change(like Patrus' death), that wasn't necessary to make the book work, but makes the story flow better.
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Dec 10, 2021 21:17
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I find the novel/game comparisons interesting personally.  Guildenstern Mother posted:I'm excited about Owyn and Gorath's Excellent Adventure. This is such a fun chapter with all sorts of weird mechanics. Chap 7 always felt like padding to me, just an excuse to not have James & Co's plotline die off. Its not a bad chapter, just doesn't stick out much narratively. Kind of like Chap 2 is essentially the prologue to Chap 3 and can't really stand on its own.
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Dec 10, 2021 21:58
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MagusofStars posted:I find the novel/game comparisons interesting personally. Same! I really enjoy the books despite their flaws, but I'm less familiar with the game.
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Dec 10, 2021 22:50
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Yes, likewise I'm enjoying the comparisons.
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Dec 11, 2021 03:06
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Update 35: The Beach Episode, Part 1 I managed to lose this update once beyond even the recovery of the forums' "replace" function, so it may be a bit more curt than usual.   Welcome to another planet. It's sandy. It's crystally. We can't use magic(for about five minutes). We don't have a map. All we have is a compass and backpacks filled to bursting with rusalki sandwiches because if there's one place in the game where a gameover from starvation is technically possible if you don't know what you're doing and prepared poorly, it's Chapter 8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U0Lh8-apvc&t=1663s Also the track at the timestamp 27:43 plays as the only music for the area, which adds some atmosphere and a sense that you've stumbled into a very nasty part of town. This later turns out to be not true, but I applaud the effort. Thankfully we're prevented from getting totally lost because there are still paths here that will lead us to all but one or two relevant points of interest.   BaK posted:Gorath opened the door.  The blue crystals are titled Raw Manna and they're about half of how we're going to get Owyn hurling around magic death again, while the note is a note from Pug and the only hint we have so far on what to do on this island. We want to ignore it for a bit, sure, but it's entirely possible to start off walking in the wrong direction and miss this. BaK posted:As Owyn rattled the manna in his cupped hands, violent pulses of blue light flashed between individual shards and prickled his fingers. Though he had never encountered it in this form, he sensed the crystals were magical, perhaps manna, the very essence of magic. It would still need to be converted into a form they could use. We could just head off north, but to make things slightly easier we should scour the area for further dwellings and also bump into (and kill) some of the locals.  BaK posted:The enemy was surprised.  There are 3.5 different enemies in this part of the world and here are two of them. Nethermanders(the orange-ish beetles), which have absurd amounts of health and do almost no damage, and Panth Tiandn(the Pantathians wielding swords), which have absurd amounts of health(about 160 for the Nethermanders, which I think is the highest for non-special, non-unique enemies in the game), do almost no damage, and sometimes do even less damage at range. Both of them will never, ever be any sort of threat or challenge. Like, they literally do between 1 and 7 points of damage per hit, nothing faced so far in the game has been that weak. The Panth Tiandn also, uniquely, have slings which they use for a ranged attack that's even weaker than their melee attack.   This particular pack was guarding a little coastal hut. The vividly coloured plant/crystal(the game never says anything about it, but in the book they're portrayed as crystallized plantlife) is a container that will always contain Raw Manna, there are tons of them over the island and we'll never run out of it. There just aren't enough spells to cast for that. As for the hut... BaK posted:Owyn nudged open the strange door.  Congrats, now we can cast spells again. The staff is slightly better at doing damage than a normal or lightning staff, and when you rub Raw Manna on it and wield it, you can then cast spells with Owyn again. Each spell happens perfectly normally, except that it also burns an amount of Raw Manna equal to the amount of health/stamina expended on the spell. Each staff can hold up to 100 Manna at once, but I've never used more than 60 health on spells in one fight except for the time I cast Mad God's Rage.  A final trio of houses contains another note, though one that isn't a note. When you attempt to read it it instead turns out to be...  A map! Being an island it's limited how lost you can get anyway, but it's useful in part because if you missed Pug's first note, you'd probably be drawn to the only real landmark, to the north, and thus be set back upon the path towards completing the chapter. Off to the north we go, to follow Pug's trail.    Just before we reach the northern peak of the island there's another little gaggle of huts, one contains another note from Pug, and another's an "ambush" hut. Several huts around the island will spring enemies on you, with no warning if your Scouting is low or with some warning if it's high. Aside from the notes, the crystal staff and one other thing, though, there's never anything of interest in the huts. Usually just one or two ration packs or more commonly more Raw Manna which, as mentioned, you will never be short on. About that note, though... BaK posted:Tomas: This might warn you off from interacting with the pillars to the north, but you literally can't complete the area without doing so. Even the pillar that made pug "ill for days" only does about 14 damage if you touch it, so you'll be recovered in an hour or two of resting.   Time to poke all the pillars in a roughly clockwise order! BaK posted:The pillar was smooth to his touch. So it should be obvious that some of these interactions affect our stats. If you touch all the pillars it's +15 Assessment, +10 Strength(!) and +10 Defense, as well as losing about 14 current(not max) health. Additionally, we now have our first proper clue on how to get a hold of Pug, though Dhatsavan could have stretched his divine powers to giving us a rough hint of where the Cup is. It's hidden in the southeast corner of the island, but you could waste a decent amount of time finding that out, though it would somewhat narrow itself down since you start in the northwest, the northeast is sealed by a barrier that wards you off and the southwest is sealed by a barrier that kills you. I also rather like the name for this world, Timirianya, and how the local gods warded off the Valheru by just turning off all the magic, thus threatening them with getting stranded in a giant litterbox for eternity.    Even though the northeast of the island is sealed off, you can still pass by it if you skirt the central mountain on the way to the southeast. If you do poke your head too close to the warded zone, though, you get the following dialogue: BaK posted:Owyn yelped. Seems we've run into some kind of magical barrier here. Whoever, or whatever, is inside apparently doesn't want us coming in. How can this be possible if one may not perform magic in this place? You haven't been paying attention to what I said. It's not impossible, just very difficult. Whoever has constructed this magical barrier has access to a huge amount of manna. Perhaps Pug is somehow responsible for this. Actually... This must be where Dhatsavan has him imprisoned! Pug must be inside here! The voice you heard within the pillars? Yes... Well, at least we will know where to come and get him once we've retrieved this cup that he wants. Let's get back to searching...Sticking near the mountain also lets us find another note from Pug stashed in one of the local dwellings. BaK posted:Tomas: This is a bit different in the book. Here, Pug liberates the Cup from Dhatsavan and the Panth Tiandn then loot it from him after he uses it without a manual. In the book, Pug steals it from the Panth and they then recover it after he knocks himself out with it and Dhatsavan puts him on ice for his own protection. It's a minor difference, ultimately.   It bugs me slightly that they could be bothered to do a new model for the "houses" on Timirianya but still use the same Midkemia bridge model. Could've at least swapped it over to being some of the local sandy colours or something. Anyway, crossing this creek puts us in the southeast part of the map, which is mostly populated with the .5 enemy of this island, actual Pantathians. However...  While I'm busy learning that Firestorm can actually miss, I also learn something else about these Pantathians: they have no melee attack and the only spell they ever cast is a very low-powered Hocho's Haven. I'm unsure if this is intentional "the snake dudes can't wizard without manna either" or if they were meant to be more scary but someone hosed that up(I lean towards the latter since the raw game data lists them as having plenty other spells they know). It mostly just makes them very annoying since they're about as durable as the Panth Tiandn but keep running away from me, necessitating a whole lot of extra effort to corral them close to Gorath or blow them up with magic. I eventually start just freezing them all with Grief to make it easier on myself.    After hacking our way through more snake people and their livestock(or pets, possibly? I don't know if Nethermanders are meant to be either. But it does seem a bit rude to just arrive on their world and start killing them and their alien dogs), we eventually reach a tent containing the Cup.  BaK posted:Tarnished, dented, peeling; while age had left its marks on the ancient ceremonial cup it had not diminished the majesty of the artisan's work. Four leprous serpents reared from the sides of the battered chalice, their eyes of ruby seething with mysterious intent. Unless we want to end up like Pug, i.e. badly knocked out because we're loving idiots, we shouldn't mess with the cup for now. It does have some utility after we've been back to Dhatsavan, however.   Let's collect ourselves some praise!
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Dec 12, 2021 20:46
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Update 36: The Beach Episode, Part 2BaK posted:Owyn touched Dhatsavan's column. I don't think I've talked much about Macros before, but if Midkemia really was all based on a TTRPG game, then Macros the Hack was absolutely the worst kind of GMPC. Immortal, time-travelling, always right, planned for everything, has the biggest and the baddest and the coolest magics all of the time, every time. Literally every aspect of the books would've been better without him and, frankly, on top of that, he's never really all that necessary. Like, mostly what he does is show up at pivotal moments and smugly declare: "ah, yes, you see, what you did only worked out because I was working behind the scenes to make it work out." thus cheapening the struggles and accomplishments of everyone else involved in the books. A few other things about this conversation are made clearer in the book or make a bit more sense if you've read the books. The mentioned Hall, for instance, is a method of interplanetary/dimensional travel, and it's rather clear that the Panth Tiandn have been trying to use the magic locked inside the Cup to escape off the world despite its shortage of manna. They're described as less intelligent and magically capable than the Pantathians, but more skilled at crafting and unraveling magical items, and thus often having been used to do Alma-Lodka's magical grunt work. Dhatsavan is pleased both because getting the cup away from them interrupted their studies and set them back centuries, and because he can see the cup vanish along with the party once they leave, thus keeping the Panth Tiandn stuck forever rather than loving up other places. Now, let's go rescue Pug. I'm sure that he'll be a vast archmage that will trivialize all encounters from here on out.   BaK posted:There was motion in the tent.  He was unable to come and he sent us after you. He gave us the spell which you left to him... Unable to come? Why? What has happened to him? He was injured during an attack on Elvandar by the moredhel. Queen Aglaranna assures us that he will be all right... I can't believe that Makala's plans would be served by sending you here, so for the moment I will have to trust your word... In looking at you, it occurs to me your face is familiar. Are you the magician boy who came into Krondor with Seigneur Locklear a few months ago? Yes, and you remember Gorath? His face has been hard for me to forget these last few nights. He was the first tool of Makala's in this grand scheme... You accuse us of being liars and spies? I'm not implicating you were a willing participant, Gorath. You were as unknowing in your part as I must assume Delekhan is in his. When you said he had raised the war banners of Murmandamus over Sar-Sargoth, I became somewhat alarmed. Having seen Murmandamus' death with my own eyes, I had no reason to believe he still lived, but forces acting in his name caused the calamity at Sethanon and I thought it possible the Pantathians were once again responsible. After some investigation I found they were indeed interfering with affairs in the Kingdom, but were acting through a band of magical thieves searching for various magical items - trinkets - in no way directly responsible for what was happening in the Northlands or posing immediate threat to Midkemia... With the issue resolved, I believed then Delekhan was merely exploiting the reputation of his predecessor to gain power... So then what did Gorath tell you that was so important? It was only after Makala tricked me into coming here that Gorath's testimony to Prince Arutha took on any significance. In passing, he had mentioned Delekhan wearing a helm of black, shaped like a dragon. Murmandamus wore such a helm and had it with him when Prince Arutha cut him down... Whoever had given Delekhan Murmandamus' helm had to have had been inside the caverns beneath Sethanon. There are only four magicians I can think of who might have had the wiles to slip inside the first perimeter of defenses that have been placed there. One is Macros, but since he was instrumental in averting catastrophe there, I cannot believe he would be responsible. Another is a magician whom Macros once told me of, named Nakor the Isalani; but again, I have reason to believe the Northlands would hold little interest for him. The only others who would be capable are Elghar and Makala, but Elghar has been quite busy with his students at Stardock... Leaving your only suspect as Makala. But why is he doing all of this? Why would he be pushing Delekhan into a war with the Kingdom? If he was ingenious enough to get within the caverns, he would still need considerable help achieving his final objective - a chamber containing an artifact of unbelievable destructive power about which he has been indefatigably interested. I left behind a dragon to guard it, and even my powers would be sorely taxed in a single battle against a dragon her age, let alone one with the special capabilities of the one who sleeps under Sethanon. Once she is alarmed, she will no doubt summon help from a secret garrison of soldiers which King Lyam ordered to remain in the region of Sethanon, soldiers whom Makala surely would have detected on his first visit and intends to counter with Delekhan's moredhel troops... But that's why Prince Arutha sent us to find you! He's afraid that Delekhan is going to have magicians working at the siege at Northwarden! Maybe if we can stop them there... Unfortunately, I'm of no use to anyone at the moment, let alone Prince Arutha. In my blind haste to find Gamina, I used a magical artifact that would have best been left alone... We already know something about it. You said before that you were going to have to trust us, so you'll have to trust me now when I tell you I think I can help. I hope for all our sakes that I'm not wrong about this...BaK posted:Pug shook as he lifted the jeweled Cup of Rlnn Skrr, feeling power flare within the jeweled artifact. In ever expanding circles, his consciousness stretched outward, touched on the minds of those with whom he travelled, finding awe, confusion, fear, pain, knowledge... So! The instant you meet Pug, the game automatically makes use of the Cup, which teaches Pug every spell in Owyn's repetoire. Subsequent uses of the Cup teaches both of them a random spell you don't already know with, I think, only Union and Strength Drain left out of the potential pool. Of course each time it also knocks the party out for a period and consumes rations, so over-use can end up starving you. Speaking of meeting Pug, let's have a look at his loadout.   No armor, kind of bad at everything except CAST SPELL, he gets Gorath's Weed Walkers so he doesn't gently caress everything up whenever we try to murder some snake people from ambush. The funny-shaped staff he has is THE STAFF OF MACROS, which can cast Flamecast for free a number of times and also gives a bonus to Spell Accuracy. BaK posted:The stave's appearance was deceptive. On first glance it appeared to have more in common with a simple walking stick than a staff of power, but its exceptional balance would make it a superior fighting stick. Whoever had made it had purposely concealed its magical properties. The note he has is just another map of the island like the one we already found. His Ring of Prandur is unique in that it has 100 charges unlike the base 10 charges any other time you find or buy one. I also found a second Crystal Staff along the way and charged it fully, which I swap in for the one he starts with. Once I finished that bit of swappery of stuff and try to leave, however...  We must find my daughter, Gamina! In my current state, I am unable to reach her mind. I know not of your travels, but I was not able to complete my search. Then we shall continue our random wanderings?! I have no desire for our search to be random. Assistance may lie to the north at the pillar of Dhatsavan, Lord of the Gates. While trapped, I found my mind focusing there... We know the pillar of which you speak. Then lead the way, my friend...Thankfully this is the last time we'll be heading back to Dhatsavan.   BaK posted:Pug studied the column. Seek the old hordes of the Valheru? I do not understand... I gather you do understand how this place was not always as it is now. At some point, after Gamina is safe, please inquire further... As for now, it is enough to know that when the Valheru left this land they left behind something else as well. Whatever it is, it would be buried, like their ruins. For it to have remained intact for so many years, it must have been protected by some sort of magical defense...perhaps one produced by the Pillars. Gorath and I have never come across any such defenses here. In my search I was able to cover all but the southern end of the isle. We should start there... We have searched the southeast end of the isle, which leaves only... Prepare yourselves. We journey to the southwest.I hate it when people gently caress up "hoard" and "horde." Pet peeve. Though, once again, I like that the game is a bit nuanced by giving the Panth Tiandn a change for growth and maturation. This isn't in the book, where they're just scaly orcs for the team to hack down and move through. Now, off to the southwest! Nothing interesting happens on the way.   Now, I wouldn't blame anyone for getting stuck here because finding the old "Hoards of the Valheru" isn't easy. You might expect a chest, or a dungeon, or even a small hut they're stored in.  Nope, it's a brown bit of dirt on a slightly different shade of brown dirt. There are also two of these, make sure you get both since you actually can't complete chapter 8 without them.  Both scrolls are Strength Drain, and the armor is Valheru Armor, the best type in the game. BaK posted:Lustrous as no armor should be, it was unthinkable the suit had ever been in battle. Impossibly light, the breastplate was forged of a material that seemed like white gold but was harder than any steel Gorath had ever encountered. It's base 70% compared to Dragon Plate's base 55%, and also has a bonus for elves. This is found a bit later in the book, where Pug encourages Gorath to wear it since it would make him practically invincible, but Gorath refuses to wear it since he doesn't want any of the temptations of Valheru gear that so enchant the Moredhel. Assuming I understand the calculations right, this should mean that with "only" a type 1 bless, the advantages of Valheru Armor over type 3 bless Dragon Plate is minor, but I'm tossing a suit on Pug since he doesn't have anything else, and swapping the other in for Gorath anyway simply on principle because these boys deserve the best of the best. We are now also, finally, completely without clues. Nothing remains that really points us in any specific direction.   However, if we return to the southeast section of the island and follow the edge of the central mountain from south to north...    There's a dungeon hidden away here.    It's small and has only a handful of encounters, not even any containers to loot. There's a forced combat right at entry, this pack of very quickly dead Panth Tiandn, and then there's one more fight that needs to be fought to complete the chapter, not long after.    Entering this chamber you might be able to vaguely make out something new and weird looming ahead. BaK posted:Their approach was undetected.  The new friends joining the fray are Wind Elementals. In all other Midkemia books where they appear, they just need to be hit until they die, since contact with anything other than air hurts them and touching the ground outright destroys them. But here, they're special. They have no health/stamina scores and no-sell all direct attacks, instead, being Strength Drained to 0 Strength kills them instantly, but they also recover all Strength they've lost at the end of each round. Apparently as a sort of janky "did you bring Pug?"-check, one of them has enough Strength that it requires two Drain Strength casts in one round to kill it.   They also do practically no damage, but later I learned that it's actually strength drain damage, so in a bigger fight with mixed enemies they could actually be somewhat troublesome, not here, though, these space nerds go down like a sack of wet laundry.   What the gently caress did they do to Owyn there? He looks like a lovely sprite or paperdoll from some early RPG.   BaK posted:Pug took Gamina into his arms. So, this is VERY different in the book. Without any raw magic around to use for creating a Rift to bring them back to Midkemia, they spend a week or two on Timirianya, harvesting all the mana plants on the island and hoping it's enough to jump start a rift to bring them back. It obviously is, but according to Pug it was a very close thing. They stop off in Krondor first to drop off Gamina. Much of this is also happening while James, Locklear and Patrus are still at Northwarden. Then they go to Sethanon where they arrive just as Patrus is preparing to destroy the Rift Machine, as he sacrifices himself to leap into it, they lend him the power needed to destroy the rift.  BaK posted:Locklear's eyes hardened.   Duke Pug! Never have I been half so relieved to see a friendly face. We were expecting moredhel magicians... Tsurani magicians, James, or rather magicians trained by a Tsurani. No moredhel witch would have the capability to make a rift machine nor would they chance going into battle with such poor odds of success. I still should like to know how exactly it was that Delekhan managed to make contact with Makala? I had hoped that the moredhel would be wary of another such attack following the defeat of Murmandamus ten years ago. Prince Arutha said they hope to find Murmandamus and free him. The moredhel are convinced we've been holding him captive all these long years. So Gorath has told me. Doubtless Makala exploited that belief to his advantage. That at least explains one wrinkle. The moredhel have never forgiven us for that loss. But why is Makala doing all of this? Obviously he isn't in this to rescue a dead moredhel leader. For the moment I believe I know, but I don't wish to say until I have taken a better look at something. This last problem I will have to unravel myself, with some assistance from Gorath and Owyn. From here I think we will be able to teleport into the caverns beneath Sethanon. It is there our objective lies. What of Locklear and myself? Once Prince Arutha arrives with his reinforcements, deliver my assurance that he will not face anything magical from the moredhel. If Makala indeed has assistants, they will be uninterested in the Prince. They will be waiting for me.After this exchange there's then a sharp cut to...   The caves under Sethanon. In the book, once again, there's a difference, as Pug also brings James and Locklear along on this trip. But we're now at the last stretch, the last dungeon crawl of the game, and also the least wordy part of the game. Next time: We finish the game.
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Dec 12, 2021 20:56
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So Pug in the games is a...little different than in the books. In the books, he's quite intelligent, thinks things through, and is the most powerful wizard (non-PlotDeviceMacros division) not just in Krondor/Kingdom but most places period. And here he's kind of an idiot who rushes off to chase after Gamina without hesitation, drinks from a magic cup of Forgetfulness, can't be arsed to wear armor while going to battle, and (presumably for game balance reasons) somehow has lovely enough stats that he's probably worse than Chapter 8 Owyn in literally everything including magic.
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Dec 12, 2021 22:31
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I don't have words for those portraits, the wigs are killing me. lol
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Dec 12, 2021 23:03
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MagusofStars posted:And here he's kind of an idiot who rushes off to chase after Gamina without hesitation Hey, he stopped to put a sweet-rear end .gif on his wall first. cugel posted:I don't have words for those portraits, the wigs are killing me. If you want some extra comedy, the one cover of a Midkemia book I have that features an adult Pug/Milamber has him with short, dark hair and a beard.
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Dec 12, 2021 23:37
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I know that when I become an archmage, the first thing I'm going to do is wear an open tunic without buttons. Pajamas? Nonsense, never heard of the word.
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Dec 12, 2021 23:38
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I disagree a fair bit on the role of Macros in the early books, but Pug in this game looks like Rowan Atkinson after someone dumped custard on his head.
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Dec 13, 2021 00:53
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I confess one reason I never tried to play Betrayal at Krondor myself was the terrible low-res developers-in-bad-costumes aesthetics of all the characters.
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Dec 13, 2021 01:10
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PurpleXVI posted:Hey, he stopped to put a sweet-rear end .gif on his wall first. Oh, it's basically the entire cast. Locklear ~canonically~ has sunstreaked hair so that's why there was that throwaway comment about dumping his head in a barrel of pitch way back when, but he's the only one who gets the textual 'yeah, we know, it's different' go figure why.
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Dec 13, 2021 02:29
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PurpleXVI posted:I don't think I've talked much about Macros before, but if Midkemia really was all based on a TTRPG game, then Macros the Hack was absolutely the worst kind of GMPC. Immortal, time-travelling, always right, planned for everything, has the biggest and the baddest and the coolest magics all of the time, every time. Literally every aspect of the books would've been better without him and, frankly, on top of that, he's never really all that necessary. Like, mostly what he does is show up at pivotal moments and smugly declare: "ah, yes, you see, what you did only worked out because I was working behind the scenes to make it work out." thus cheapening the struggles and accomplishments of everyone else involved in the books. I didn't mind that while reading the books, but I agree with this reading. I didn't mind because I never cared about the heroes, so them getting short-changed narratively wasn't a problem. Pug and Tomas were interesting for the world building around them. The princes were nobility and gently caress that, even if I'm more accepting of nobles in a fantasy setting (I hate nobility in contemporary settings). I was aware of the game in french magazines back then, and read the books years after that. Adaptation is a thing, and I'm more of a don't do it. If you have to adapt a book, I prefer an unfaithful adaptation who cares about the medium than a scrupulous one. Like cutting Tom Bombadil from the LOTR movies was the right call. I'm rambling, but my imagination and the covers of the french traduction of Feist's books don't agree with the dev in renfair costumes graphics.
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Dec 13, 2021 05:00
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cugel posted:I was aware of the game in french magazines back then, and read the books years after that. Adaptation is a thing, and I'm more of a don't do it. If you have to adapt a book, I prefer an unfaithful adaptation who cares about the medium than a scrupulous one. Like cutting Tom Bombadil from the LOTR movies was the right call. I'm rambling, but my imagination and the covers of the french traduction of Feist's books don't agree with the dev in renfair costumes graphics.  This is the cover I was thinking of. Also, I agree, some amount of adaptation is necessary, and largely I feel like Betrayal's changes generally imply a more interesting world than Feist's. Like it's a world where Moredhel can mingle with humans without getting stabbed on sight, and a world where even Moredhel and Panth Tiandn have a chance of reforming their ways rather than being genetically destined to be Chaotic Evil.
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Dec 13, 2021 12:36
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PurpleXVI posted:Hey, he stopped to put a sweet-rear end .gif on his wall first. His choosing to wear a beard is even part of his characterisation. He was a slave on Kelewan before becoming a magician and slaves there wear beards, and everyone else was very confused that he chose to keep the beard after being freed. Long flowing blond hair is... certainly a look. I wonder if their logic was that Gamina is blonde, and they just forgot that she's not Pug's biological daughter? Then again nobody really looks like their canon descriptions here. Or their canon age, mostly.
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Dec 13, 2021 15:17
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Yeah, that's the cover from the edition I read too. Edit: And as an example of what I think is a great adaptation: Galaxy Quest, adapting Star Trek while being free from the baggage a real adaptation carry. cugel fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 15:27
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I generally don't let real-world morality seep into my opinion of fantasy literature. Reading fictional work is going to mean fictional values, and if I don't want to see that sort of thing then I shouldn't read fiction. Real-world morals are already horrid; I read for escapism.cugel posted:I didn't mind that while reading the books, but I agree with this reading. I didn't mind because I never cared about the heroes, so them getting short-changed narratively wasn't a problem. Pug and Tomas were interesting for the world building around them. The princes were nobility and gently caress that, even if I'm more accepting of nobles in a fantasy setting (I hate nobility in contemporary settings). I've read the French translations of the early novels; I assume that they are the same as yours. I thought that they were quite well done.
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Dec 13, 2021 16:12
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JustJeff88 posted:I generally don't let real-world morality seep into my opinion of fantasy literature. Reading fictional work is going to mean fictional values, and if I don't want to see that sort of thing then I shouldn't read fiction. Real-world morals are already horrid; I read for escapism. I mean, I can generally separate the two by going: "Different times, different standards for what was done and what was progressive." But at the same time, some authors REALLY just slather on, say, the monarchist longings and loathing for the common peasant so thickly that it seeps through my suspension of disbelief.
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Dec 13, 2021 17:06
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Yeah, there's a limit. Fictional universe, but the author is a human living in our world, writing books to be read by people living in our world, and the history of using fiction as a lens to examine our world is as long as the history of fiction. There's meaning in what, and how, they choose to write about. You can only excuse so much. (this is not specifically about Feist) Psion fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 19:31
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Loathing for the common peasant and admiration for the all-conquering hero who solves everything with a swing of his fist \ blade are one way in which chivalric romances remained with us regardless of democratic processes in real life and print. If anything, they are now stronger than ever - how many clever tricksters or lucky fools headline blockbuster releases in the 21st century, as compared to the 1920's?
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Dec 13, 2021 20:46
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Update 37: The SFX Budget Welcome to the Lifestone caves beneath Sethanon, the final, ultimate challenge of our skills as a gamer. The final, climactic conflict for these characters we've followed through roughly 24 hours of pro gamer gameplay. Walking into the ring today we've got... Gorath! Formerly of the Ardanien, now of Elvandar. Hates Delekhan, geared out in the sickest armory known to Midkemia, has amazing facial hair. Owyn Beleforte! Once a mere embezzler of his father's funds, now brimming with enough magical war crimes to kill you with a touch or wipe out entire squads of enemies with a gesture. Pug conDoin! From kitchen boy to mage's apprentice to royal cousin and now to an awesome wielder of cosmic power. A recent enchanted concussion has knocked a lot of that cosmic power out of him, however, and for today he'll be playing second fiddle to Owyn.However, Pug still wields one superpower that Owyn can't match...  destruction. It was this that the false Murmandamus sought to achieve during the Great Uprising...Exposition! False Murmandamus? What do you mean? He was not truly moredhel. He was a Pantathian who took on the semblance of a moredhel so he could achieve his goal. The point is irrelevant. What he sought was to activate the Lifestone. If that had happened, the devastation of Timirianya would seem a garden compared to what would be left of Midkemia. If the Valheru are dead, what does it matter? If no one knows how to use it, then it can't be of any danger to us. Not so. The souls of the Valheru are bound to the stone and it may be that tampering with it may allow them to emerge once more, perhaps even to inhabit a living body. Even in a symbiotic state, we have no certain way of knowing what destruction they would be capable of. So Makala wants to destroy everything? He is not mad, but his curiosity may lead to more trouble than he imagines. Hopefully, we can find and stop him before he can do anything catastrophic. But why tell us about any of this? I'm a squire from Tiburn and Gorath is a renegade from the Northlands. Isn't that dangerous? Your stations are unimportant. I was once a kitchen boy in the court of Crydee. I trust you because apparently Macros prefigured your involvement in this and did nothing to warn me before he left Midkemia. For whatever reason, I think he believes it necessary you be involved in these events and he invariably acts for the greater good, however mysterious his reasons may be.Because Gorath doesn't interject here when Pug brings up Murmandamus having been a false Moredhel, I suspect this dialogue wasn't meant to play until a later point in the dungeon. But now, onwards!    I see, they're softening us up with goblins and dogs to keep us on our toes... an odd thing about this encounter is that the goblins here drop a key(the Ward of Ralen-Sheb) which is (bar one door) the key needed for every door in the dungeon, thus making it entirely irrelevant that the doors are locked at all.  BaK posted:Even without looking at the key, Pug sensed something abnormal about it. "The key is...pulsing," he said. "The inscriptions on the haft have aspects about them that look elven, but parts also appear moredhel. Whatever it is, I have the feeling it predates the Kingdom, the Northlands or even Elvandar itself."    Okay lemme be honest, every single battle in here bar one is trivial as gently caress. So far it's been very obvious what the most dangerous type of battle is: battles featuring multiple enemy casters or a combination of enemy casters and blockers. A single caster gets dunked on even if he takes out one party member first, enemies without casters can't do enough damage fast enough to gently caress the party up.    And like... we've had those challenges in earlier chapters! We've had some nailbiters, even fights that kicked my rear end! So what I'm unsure about is whether Dynamix didn't understand what constituted real difficulty in their own system(stuff like the "climactic" battle against Navon being just a single guy with no real tricks or resistances suggests this may be the case...) or whether they intentionally pulled their punches in Chapter 9 because this would be the second chapter with no shop access and because casual players might get painted into a corner by being short on supplies.   How did they even squeeze giants down here? And why did they bring so many dogs? Ahem, in any case, our first objective is obviously to seek out the Lifestone, which we don't know where is, so all we can really do is wander randomly until we bump into these giants, try to move past their corpses and then...  Can you disassemble it? Not directly. We will have to go to the source of its generation and eliminate the problem there. So if we find Makala, we'll be able to remove it. No. Makala is already within, investigating the Lifestone as we speak. He will have spellweavers scattered through this location to maintain a shield of this power. I don't think he was absolutely certain that I would have found the cup. So he knew you were going to find it? About two years ago, he was absent from Midkemia for a number of months - shortly after I informed him that I would divulge no more about this chamber and the events at the end of the Great Uprising of the moredhel. When he reappeared, he dismissed his absence saying that he had been travelling. So you think he ran across the cup himself? Among other things. It's the only way he could have known about its powers and left it for me to discover. It is also probably about the time he decided to make contact with the moredhel... It's time we found the Six. Delekhan's magical assistants? Not having seen them, I can't be certain whether they are native or not, but I suspect they aren't moredhel spellweavers, despite whatever appearance they may be using. Makala has played your ruler for a fool. Delekhan won't stand to benefit in the slightest from this raid, despite anything Makala might have indicated... Enough speculation... The sooner we find the Six, the sooner we can get this shield down.Now our objective changes, it's time to find, and dunk on, The Six, which we've been hearing about all game.    Inexplicably, one single door, one that we have to pass through to complete the game, is locked by a Virtue Key rather than the Ward of Ralen-Sheb. Considering that one group of enemies on this level also drops a Virtue Key, it seems intentional but also a bit odd.   In addition to the stairs down, this room contains the only chest on the first level that I'll be opening. The remainder are somewhat out of the way, usually contain traps I can't disarm and also contain things I don't need. This one, however, contains something I deeply need.  PIPE  The rope... which is only here in version 1.02, there are a few other sources of rope in the dungeon, but this is the only large one before the pit that needs crossing to complete the dungeon(the only other one before said pit is only two units of rope, and there are other pits on the first level that you don't need to cross and which don't lead to more rope...), meaning that in prior versions it was somewhat possible to softlock yourself by tossing your rope on Timirianya or in the Green Heart.  BaK posted:Pug searched his memory.   While I neither need or want anything in the chests down here, some of them are code chests, and there will be no puzzle left behind.  PLOW  BULL   Most of the encounters down here feel like placeholders, like this, this is just a single Wind Elemental. Two Strength Drains, boom gone.    I don't even know what to say. It feels like they gave up a bit on the level design at this point.   But here we go, our first member of The Six! Like some other enemies, they get unique combat dialogues. BaK posted:Pug snapped his fingers.  They're all theoretically very dangerous(except for one who they apparently forgot to give any spells, whoops!), being almost as sturdy as Pantathians and armed with a serious spell loadout that almost always includes Grief. Unfortunately they're A) alone, B) never win initiative against me and C) lack the most important immunity of all.  Touch of Lims-Kragma is the winning move every time. In the book, James and Locklear are still accompanying the party at this point and they help Pug make short work of the Six. As it turns out, the Six expect complete obedience from anyone who isn't a mage(on Kelewan, mages are considered above the law in all ways and can order non-wizards to do anything or give them anything and are almost always obeyed) and thus about half of them die because they're only prepared for sorcerous assaults, not for Locklear just blasting them with a crossbow from across the room. They don't get much characterization, but Pug laments that they all look like younger mages who've been flim-flammed by Makala, dying for no good reason.  This guy died next to a pair of riddle chests for us to have fun with.  BOOK  STAKE This one was one of the puzzles I had to look up the answer to.    The assortment of enemies down here is odd, like why are there wyverns hanging out? We even encounter a third type of Wyvern down here, purple-bellied "hatchling" wyverns which are weak explicitly to Killian's Rage for some reason.  The only member of the Six who stands out is this guy, who brings a Wind Elemental in lieu of any spells, weirdly enough.   DEATH  PROMISE In chest-related interesting things down here, there's an insane chest trapped with 200 damage, which requires 90 lockpicking to disarm, and which contains the game's second scroll of Firestorm and also a second Staff of Macros. Despite how OP Firestorm is, at this point it's completely irrelevant. There's also no prompt or dialogue when you finally clean out the last of the Six, so better hope you're keeping count or at least found that extra rope either in the PIPE chest or on a corpse in a murky corner down here, otherwise you only get to go back up and check once.  Once the last of them is dead, there's just one last oddity to show off down here...   This thing, whatever the hell it is. The game calls it a "Servitor of Lims-Kragma" and it appears to be some sort of three-headed monstrosity that can spit fireballs. Since it is, understandably, immune to Touch of Lims-Kragma, it gets to eat an Evil Seek(which it takes double damage from), and then Gorath puts it down with a crossbow bolt(according to the game site it has 260 total health, but it goes down after only about 160 damage, so not sure what's up with that). It doesn't drop anything, it's not guarding anything, it's not super threatening and it can be entirely avoided. I guess the developers just had one leftover sprite and wanted to cram it in somewhere it wouldn't raise too many weird questions. Time to head back up and see how Makala's doing. Hope he hasn't ended the world yet or anything.    BaK posted:The hallway widened.  Makala is reckless, but I do not think he will have crippled you permanently. He must have unearthed some Valheru artifact, likely a product of Lyron-Baktos, the Master of Dragons. While he would be incapable of ruling your mind, he could still command your dragon's flesh. My inability to know my own future blinded us to the possibility. It's something we will have to attend to later... Gorath, I wish you to stay here and guard the Oracle. Thank you. It pains me that protection is necessary. Pug, you may require my strength when you reach the Tsurani magician... You will have a difficult time in the Lifestone chamber. No Gorath. You have already given too much to this quest and seen what should have been seen by no one other than myself. You would never so much as scratch Makala's skin before he burned you to cinders. He will be more respectful in the presence of magicians and less likely to do anything rash. For now, you have a responsibility to guard the Oracle.This bit is somewhat canonical, though Locklear and James also get left behind to guard the Oracle, and Makala just knocked the Oracle out with sleeping gas rather than some Valheru artifact or another. BaK posted:Pug hurried Owyn under an archway.  -calculation, but I had thought with us you would grow to gentleness. We Tsurani are of course bereft of that quality. Save your prating for the Assembly! You have returned my friendship with cold contempt, treated with my daughter as a wolf to his prey and have defied my interdict to visit Sethanon. Assume nothing between us now other than the respect due between practitioners. Why has the Assembly of Magicians seen fit to interpose itself into Midkemian affairs? As a whole, the Assembly was unable to reach consensus on this matter; they hesitate to dabble in matters that might arouse your ire. Otherwise disposed with a small problem concerning House Acoma they decided those who felt this investigation necessary could conduct it of their own volition. I undertook that responsibility. I should be careful taking such weight upon your shoulders. It may yet crush you. Ten years ago you engaged in a battle to bar the Valheru entrance to your world, a battle in which you requested the service of several companies of Tsurani foot soldiers. As such, the battle became a matter of imperial interest and fell within the jurisdiction of the Assembly. You, however, have thwarted all our efforts to gather information about that battle and have forbade our investigation of Sethanon. Many sons of great houses fell but their bodies were never recovered for the proper rites. Your attempts at evasion are execrable, Makala! Never has the Assembly concerned itself with the souls of the dead and I don't believe they are practicing a new found piety. You wished to learn how I defeated the Valheru. Indeed. How could we not? The Valheru were a race of unspeakable evil and dread power who once nearly destroyed our world. Although my brothers harbor you the greatest respect Pug, you would be incapable of turning aside such monstrous power unaided. Judging by the numerous defenses that ringed this abandoned town, we assumed the only possible solution. You concealed a thing of power in the caverns here. I cannot fault your fears, but your methodology has been despicable. The Lifestone was created in the darkest days of the Mad God's Rage, a war in which the Valheru strove to destroy the gods of Midkemia. With it they believed they could conquer every corner of the universe, and in all likelihood, they could have. It must be eternally locked away here and its existence must die out with that small handful of us that have looked upon it. You will speak to none of the Assembly about what you have found here or you shall answer to me. I cannot in good conscience keep such a secret. What if such a weapon were wielded against the Empire? Could not such a weapon lay waste to all her children? We cannot simply bury such a weapon. It must be destroyed for the good of all future generations of the Empire and the Kingdom. Impossible. We have no way to know what would happen if we attempted to destroy it. It may not be tested without potentially disturbing the Valheru whose souls now occupy the stone. As I suspected. You have done nothing to study it. Great though your power may be, you haven't an inkling what secrets lie within that stone. It's very existence is obscene! It must not fall into the hands of a hostile power. Makala, do not tamper with the stone. It must be left untouched for the good of all! I judge now as is my right as a Great One of the Assembly of Magicians. It must be destroyed, Pug ... for the good of the Empire!So, Makala's motivations are at last revealed and they're not very different from in the book, with one notable difference which is that in the book Makala doesn't acknowledge the Lifestone as the product of evil Valheru sorcery, but instead he simply assumes it to be some sort of weapon that can be copied and decides that the Empire of Tsuranuanni needs its own version once he's thoroughly analyzed it. That big sword in the top, by the way, is Tomas', one that he inherited from the Valheru lord Ashen-Shugar. When the False Murmandamus called upon the Valheru at the end of Darkness At Sethanon, they manifested in the chamber and tried to activate the Lifestone, at which point Tomas stabbed through them and into the stone, which left his magic sword stuck there and drained the essence of the Valheru into the stone. It also made everyone for miles around insanely buzzed and summoned a swarm of dragons to Midkemia which someone comments is going to cause some chaos but which I don't think ever actually get brought up again. This is also where the Oracle gets set to stand guard over the Lifestone, since prior to that her body was just a normal dragon's, but in a fight with an ally of the False Murmandamus, her brain got deleted, so Pug skipped a couple of planets over and fetched the mind of the Oracle from her doomed world and slotted it into the dragon's body. He also brought along her vaguely defined humanoid servants who, I think, are never relevant again. In any case, it's fighting time.  Oh, looks like Makala's-  -not alone after all. drat. In the book he summons a pair of Wind Elementals instead, which Pug and Owyn melt easily. Then while they do that, he tosses Pug around with some magic, during which Owyn snags up the Horn of Algon-Kokoon(found elsewhere in the Sethanon caverns) and summons two huge dogs which harry Makala, preventing him from casting any spells. He puts up a barrier to keep them away, but Pug disables it and Makala is literally owned by a pair of dogs, after which Owyn muses on what a VAST RESPONSIBILITY it is to be able to summon dogs with a horn. It's a kind of weird squence. Here, though, we gotta do it the hard way. The Dreads are very tanky and can poo poo about 100 damage per turn, at range, even after moving, and Makala is obviously a wizard, but a SUPER buff one(260 total health) and can cast Grief. We do not want to let him do that, ever.  So the first thing we do is clog up the battlefield. The Lifestone also functions as an impassable object, so it blocks both spells and movement, which is really annoying.  Oh, yeah, and the Dread projectiles count as Flamecasts so they also have splash damage. They can REALLY gently caress your day up. Additionally, both the Dreads and Makala have a laundry list of spells they're either wholly resistant to or which they take half damage from.  Thankfully everyone's full up on Restoratives, so I just have Owyn keep spamming out more summons while he recovers. Dogs are good ablative armor.  Also the Dreads aren't immune to Touch of Lims-Kragma, a poor decision on their part, and also slightly odd since Dreads are supposed to be like, hyper-undead, from a literally negative universe and whenever they're present in the normal universe they're practically just holes in creation itself that exist only to consume life and warmth. Like entropy elementals. Seems strange that the goddess of death should have any hold over them. Still, it makes them go down fast.  Also neither they or Makala are immune to Fetters of Rime. I'd have started off with that if the loving Lifestone hadn't blocked Owyn's line of fire. Plus it was kind of funny to swarm the end boss with angry dogs.  Appropriately enough, the finishing blow is Pug smashing in Makala's huge head with his staff, and then... BaK posted:It was over.  Ah, yes, the gold standard for showing how magical something is, drawing some spiky purple wiggles around it.     I hope you like this gif, I couldn't loving stop laughing as I was making it. WHO EVEN THOUGHT THIS LOOKED GOOD. JUST KEEP IT IN TEXT IF YOU CAN'T MAKE IT LOOK BETTER.  BaK posted:Owyn stared blankly at the Lifestone. Phew! That was quite the drat novel at the end there. Once again, the ending of the book and the game are quite similar, with the main difference being that James, Locklear and Gorath all come stumbling into the chamber at the end, fighting Delekhan's closest bodyguards, and that at the very end, Narab stabbing the hell out of Delekhan is orchestrated with the Kingdom forces, since he's promised to rally the remaining Moredhel and bring them back north without starting any further trouble. Narab, like Liallan, have a brief cameo in a later book where it turns out that the two of them are struggling for control of the Northlands. And... that's Betrayal at Krondor. One of the first games I really got into as a kid. As an adult, and especially with a guide, it's kind of effortlessly broken over your knee, and so many things about it are dated, even for the time but... it has a special place in my heart. The next game in the series, which I will also LP barring any technical issues, is Return to Krondor, not made by Dynamix. Instead, Dynamix sold the license back to Feist after the game did poorly on floppy, but then after it released on CD and sold much better, they decided to make an intentionally BaK-esque game: Betrayal in Antara, which will be somewhat wilder to LP since it's in no way as well-documented as BaK or even RtK, and also doesn't rely on any pre-existing setting for its lore and background. So the big question is, do people want to see an LP of Betrayal in Antara or are we skipping straight to Return to Krondor? PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 22:02
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quote:Exposion! Explosion! Although I assume you meant exposition there.
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Dec 13, 2021 22:35
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I've never actually seen more than one or two chapters into BaA, so that would be awesome, but I think the reason is because it was kind of boring, so maybe it wouldn't be.
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Dec 13, 2021 22:46
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I would be interested in seeing Antara if that’s possible. I remember reading as a kid that it was kind of mediocre but never got to play it.
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Dec 13, 2021 22:47
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Antara for a good look at a game that isn't particularly great but is trying. I am down with Owyn being loving pissed at Pug for lecturing him 'not to be petulant' after telling him to murder his best elf bud. Poor Gorath. Killed by the plot necessity to have the renegade bad guy turned good sacrifice himself at the end.
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Dec 13, 2021 22:50
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Antara
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Dec 13, 2021 23:39
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Cooked Auto posted:Explosion! Of course, the only AMAZING EXPLOSION is at the very end of the post. Guildenstern Mother posted:I've never actually seen more than one or two chapters into BaA, so that would be awesome, but I think the reason is because it was kind of boring, so maybe it wouldn't be. Full disclosure: I have only the faintest memories of Antara, but what I remember is that even playing it a few years after Krondor, which my kid brain mostly understood, I still found Antara kind of strange and in a couple of places a bit spooky as well. So it'll be a journey of discovery together!
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Dec 13, 2021 23:47
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Congrats on finishing BaK!  very much enjoyed reading along.My vote for next LP is Return to Krondor. I don’t remember much of it but I know we get at least to see one returning fan favorite. Snugglecakes fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 00:58
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Your ability to do game after game and put out frequent updates with loads of pictures and texts never ceases to amaze me, Purple. I assume that you're a Danish prince (surely the queen has loads of children/grandchildren) with a great internet connection and gently caress all else to do.PurpleXVI posted:I mean, I can generally separate the two by going: "Different times, different standards for what was done and what was progressive." But at the same time, some authors REALLY just slather on, say, the monarchist longings and loathing for the common peasant so thickly that it seeps through my suspension of disbelief. I will confess that the classism and slavery of the Tsurani homeworld really rubs me the wrong way, but I suspect that the authors were genuinely trying to paint them as the objectively bad guys. I could be wrong, though. Not that feudal societies are grand, mind you, but if you read the Empire trilogy it's quite stomach-churning.
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Dec 14, 2021 04:23
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JustJeff88 posted:Your ability to do game after game and put out frequent updates with loads of pictures and texts never ceases to amaze me, Purple. I assume that you're a Danish prince (surely the queen has loads of children/grandchildren) with a great internet connection and gently caress all else to do. Mostly I just enjoy the attention and have very long-winded opinions on everything, but at least for a month or two I'll be off work on extended sick leave, so there I really will have gently caress all else to do. JustJeff88 posted:I will confess that the classism and slavery of the Tsurani homeworld really rubs me the wrong way, but I suspect that the authors were genuinely trying to paint them as the objectively bad guys. I could be wrong, though. Not that feudal societies are grand, mind you, but if you read the Empire trilogy it's quite stomach-churning. Yeeeaaaah, despite having no tradition of slavery, the Kingdom is very happy to find common ground with an entire nation that has a huge history of slavery, and while the slavery is never presented, in itself, as good. But it still feels like Feist portrays most of Kelewan's slaveholders as "alright," rather than abusive pricks, and the Tsurani as a whole as "alright" except for a few bigger assholes in charge. In general Feist very much seems to try and portray the whole Empire vs Kingdom conflict as "it's just a few dickheads jockeying for political power, the Tsurani are actually good people  " despite the fact that they are INSANELY warlike, keep slaves, use slaves and prisoners for lethal bloodsports for their own entertainment, etc.
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Dec 14, 2021 14:11
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