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Tortolia posted:In fairness I was probably playing this when I was 13 or so, and there are definitely other games in that era I came back to later and realized that I was approaching them extremely incorrectly. edit: goddammit I get the worst snipes Guildenstern Mother fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Sep 24, 2021 |
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Sep 24, 2021 04:45
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Tortolia posted:In fairness I was probably playing this when I was 13 or so, and there are definitely other games in that era I came back to later and realized that I was approaching them extremely incorrectly. Yeah this is why I think the tuning fork is new to me, not forgotten knowledge. I'm sure my thought process was Bad guys = kill bad guys, that's how it works!
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Sep 24, 2021 06:18
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Guildenstern Mother posted:The thing about trolls is they never carry loot Not armor or weapons though.
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Sep 24, 2021 09:13
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If you can kill them fighting does get you more experience in Melee Accuracy and stuff, too. Just they're tough as hell and hit like a truck.
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Sep 24, 2021 12:43
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The tuning fork thing is a perfect 90's RPG thing. It kind of makes sense in the context of the story but figuring it out is mostly impossible
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Sep 24, 2021 12:47
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So, uh. I figured out that trap. Turns out that despite playing through this game like three or four times, I never knew it was possible to push the crystals diagonally before until I read it in a FAQ just now wondering what the trick was. That solves the trap in two moves. Locklear goes up forwards-right, then left, that disables all the zappy poles and he can then saunter to the end. Goddamn.
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Sep 24, 2021 15:00
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PurpleXVI posted:Turns out that despite playing through this game like three or four times, I never knew it was possible to push the crystals diagonally before 
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Sep 24, 2021 15:29
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PurpleXVI posted:Turns out that despite playing through this game like three or four times, I never knew it was possible to push the crystals diagonally before
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Sep 24, 2021 16:09
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Does the game even hint at any point, for example saying 'Trolls have very sensitive ears' or some such?
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Sep 25, 2021 02:42
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If they do its buried in a paragraph about something else entirely
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Sep 25, 2021 06:17
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quote:So, as you know by now, the Mind Melt spell is "impossible" to get in the patched version 1.02 of the game. This is the version GoG has, as well as the free abandonware version from before that. And (I think) the CD version - basically everything except the original floppy version.
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Sep 25, 2021 15:18
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Guildenstern Mother posted:If they do its buried in a paragraph about something else entirely I rather like that this game is relatively verbose. That wasn't terribly common back in its era, and I enjoy the writing style. I've never minded a lot of reading in gaming or indeed any walk of life, so this is right up my street. Please do this, Purple. I want to see some Melty Minds. This is supposed to be a completionist LP, after all. (guilt, guilt)
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Sep 25, 2021 16:25
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JustJeff88 posted:I rather like that this game is relatively verbose. That wasn't terribly common back in its era, and I enjoy the writing style. I've never minded a lot of reading in gaming or indeed any walk of life, so this is right up my street. Don't worry, you'll see Mind Melt in the next update, because while we can't get it, enemy casters use the same spell catalogue as the player.  And yeah, you know, I actually enjoy the volume of writing. There's very little of it that isn't good or at least workable, and it's a step up over NAME, JOB, BYE.
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Sep 25, 2021 19:29
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Oooh, somehow I missed this one getting started, but glad I didn't miss too many updates. This was one of my favorite games growing up and glad to see it getting a proper LP treatment. Just to address a few items that have been brought up: 1.) Books have 100 uses. The first use per character is guaranteed to work, but then after that, it's a static chance to actually gain the skill but said chance is fairly low. Generally speaking, it's not worth the hassle to try to activate a book more than once per character; there are easier ways to raise skills than by spam-clicking to try to win a 10% chance. 2.) You mentioned abusing resting in traps to heal up for free, but you can also do the same thing in actual combat if you either chain-stun the last enemy standing (Despair Thy Eyes, the powder, etc) or just beat him up enough to wreck his accuracy. 3.) You didn't go into detail about the skill system, but the effective tl;dr is that any time you're doing training (e.g., like the combat guy in LaMut) or reading a book, you should 'tag' only the skills that will improve. Otherwise, just tag a couple skills you're actively using (Casting/Melee, Defense). 4.) Mind Melt being removed from the game is odd. I know it's a bug, but it's also strange that it's only available in one place, because most other spells have a couple sources.
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Sep 30, 2021 03:18
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Update 08: Dim Adventurers in the Woods, Part 1  Finally, we're here! Thank the gods, it's been over a week and... where is here? It's exactly where we need to be going. ...Gorath? Considering that we turned south off the road to Highcastle, we could only be heading for what you call the Dimwood.   So that answers where, but why? Simple logic, my dear Owyn. So far every ambush we've suffered has been within sight of a road, and in the Dimwood, there are no roads. By logical exclusion, we should be safe until we come out the other side. ... He has a point, every ambush by Moredhel so far has been near a road.On the road south from Highcastle to the Dimwood, there are a few code chests off to the side in a thicket.  HORSEMAN  GAUNTLET  BOTTLE The only interesting thing in them is a new spell for Owyn, Steelfire, which is an in-combat spell that replicates the effect of a sword buffing item(Naphtha) for the duration of the fight. The effect of Steelfire is the same as the Clerical Oilcloth we used against the Brak Nurr, doubling damage for the fight, but it's countered by a different armor buffing item.   See? Even Gorath agrees with me. Onwards! ...so why did you emphasize Moredhel, Gorath? There's worse than my people in the Dimwood.BaK posted:Mist floated in the pass.  Welcome to the Dimwood. As hinted at by the name, it has a lot of trees and, unlike the rest of the Kingdom which is somewhat corridor-esque, with most roads bounded by uncrossable mountains or hills on either side(little side-nooks and crannies aside), it's mostly open. The two rivers that intersect within it split it into three sections that are connected by bridges(the northern and eastern section do not connect, but the south-western section has bridges to both), and it has a northern exit(Highcastle), a western exit(Hawk's Hollow) and a southern exit(Sethanon). It's worth occasionally revisiting since it has one setup during Chapter 1 and gets refreshed during Chapter 3. In general, most later-chapter encounters are additive, meaning they get dropped on top of existing stuff, rather than existing stuff getting wiped, with the exception being chapter 4 which nukes a lot of early encounters off the map and gives it almost a complete refresh in terms of enemy population.    And we're off the road again, of course we are. No safer place! Who ever heard of an elf hiding among the trees? In fairness to Locklear, these aren't moredhel.Giant scorpions are unique to the Dimwood and probably one of the crustiest .jpg's used in this game, even at the original resolution.  They hit reasonably hard, but are actually more fragile than any enemy we've fought so far, despite their huge bulk. The most annoying thing about them is that since their sprite is already "flat," sometimes it can be hard to spot whether they're alive or dead. The sprites jiggle a little bit while alive, but it's even more subtle with the scorpions than it is with humanoid enemies.   Look at how miniscule that change is! In any case, three of them are not a major threat to the party.  What part of this is "safer than the roads" to you?! They don't have swords, the moredhel do. Indeed, it'd be a shame if my people were around, leaving their coded chests everywhere. A scorpion could have dragged it here. MOUSER  A couple of new items in this one, Silverthorn(the plant) and Silverthorn Anti-Venom(the blue globules, and yes, I know what the different between venom and poison are, the developers apparently did not.  ), both of which are, for a couple of reasons, funny things to find. Firstly, Silverthorn is so rare in the Midkemia world that from the Kingdom it's really only in reach at one lake that's regularly guarded by the Moredhel. It's also always fatal without the antidote, in fact it's so fatal that Feist wrote an entire book about it, called Silverthorn, more or less entirely about the quest to find said antidote(which can only be produced from more Silverthorn berries), which makes it hilarious that we're going to find shitloads of Silverthorn antidote littered around the gameworld, and even in stores. Gameplay-wise, silverthorn doesn't boost basic damage, but instead makes enemies take damage over time(and, for the players, also damage-over-time outside of combat), so it's more useful on quarrels where it can be used to poison some enemies on the first round of combat, rather than on swords.    In fact there are a ton of chests in the Dimwood, most of them coded, and not locked, and thus openable at any stage of the game where you care to either brute force them or do a bit of riddle-solving. In chapter 1, each of the forest's three "sections" also only have about two or three fights each, which is not to say that some of them aren't absolute asskickers at this stage, but it means that if you have a bit of an idea of what you're doing(or frankly even if you don't), you can open most of them very early on.  THISTLE  This one contains two things, a scroll of Black Nimbus, which disables lightning poles in traps, allowing you to trivialize them(though no trap ever requires use of the spell and I always like to solve the traps without it, if I can) and yet another crossbow upgrade. It may look like the Tsurani crossbows we already have, but this one has a more rifle-like stock rather than a pistol grip, being a Tsurani Heavy Crossbow, which absolutely kicks rear end. Now we just need some good quarrels to go with it.  FLEAS This one just contains some decent-quality emeralds, almost 200 gold worth of them.  Like the other areas, some number of the encounters in the Dimwood are ambushes. For instance, this is me just about to walk into one.  Containing a new enemy type! Quegans! Quegans are a bit odd in that they get constantly mentioned in the books, but rarely have a major role, in fact I think the Midkemia story they have the biggest role in is in fact Betrayal at Krondor. They're a pirate nation who considers themselves to be the true inheritors of Kesh's ancient mandate of rulership over both Kesh itself and their old colonial province of Bosania(what's now the Kingdom of the Isles), which is what they consider to give them a right to raid shipping and ports on all sides of the Bitter Sea. In BaK they're largely just Moredhel sprite swaps, used to explain opposition that pops up in the south of the Kingdom in places where moredhel would have a lot of trouble moving around subtly, it's explained that they've instead paid a bunch of Quegans to hang out and try to dunk on the party. There are no quegan mages, as I remember it, but they do have archers and their stats tend to be around the same tier as Moredhel.    Squire, explain to me why your genius plan hasn't saved me from being chased around by Moredhel with swords. It's passing strange that my people would be here in the Dimwood as well, they may have simply predicted we'd attempt this route.  Then why have they spent the time setting up all these supply drops? Obviously we've stumbled upon an unrelated moredhel conspiracy and Arutha will reward us all for it.   WATER This one just contains a few generic supplies and I can't open the other one because it's one of the rare ones that is locked, and in this case with an absurdly strong lock. If you're quite done rooting through my people's spare clothes and rations, we should follow the river to find a way across.   Do you guys hear something? Like a faint moaning sound? Meet the Rusalki. Or, not the, but a, since they're disconcertingly common in some regions of the game world. They're ghosts who have only one attack, a ranged frost blast that does 20 damage and more or less always hits. However, for inexplicable reasons it's considered a magic attack, and thus can't be used in melee. So if there's only one, like here, they're easily dealt with by rushing up to them and making sure they can't do anything.    When killed, they slowly fade downwards into the ground which, combined with the overhead hack animation of many melee attacks makes it look like Locklear and Gorath are playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole.  This adventure is getting too strange. First moredhel, then trolls and giant scorpions, now ghosts? Cool, the ghost is gone. Now let's start digging up her grave. This is one grave you abso-loving-lutely WANT to dig into, though.  Firstly, it contains a rapier with a tier 3 bless. Rapiers in BaK are, oddly enough, elf-typed weapons, despite the fact that the two canonical rapier-users in the books(Jimmy the Hand and Arutha) are both human. Doesn't matter, though, this is gonna be Gorath's mainstay for a while since while it loses a little bit of damage, it almost guarantees hits when making Thrust attacks. Secondly, it contains River Song, one of the best spells in the game.  Well, what's so great about it?It allows you to summon allied rusalki in combat, up to four per battle. They don't hit super hard, and they're not super durable, but they can be summoned next to enemy casters to disrupt them or behind the enemy where they either split up the formation(if not ignored) or provide fire support(if ignored). Almost every battle where the option is given, starting off with a cast of River Song is a good move. At only 20 Stamina/Health per cast, it's not even an expensive spell, either. I'd definitely argue that it is, in fact, undercosted for how supremely useful it is.  Right next to the Rusalki encounter is another cluster of chests. Two of them are almost overlapping, so it's easy to miss that there are four of them.  SNAIL. This one actually puzzled me for a bit since I was casting around for stuff like BOOTS or SHOES or an inanimate object of some sort that people brought with them, because of the "bloodless" part. Are snails actually bloodless? I mean, they gotta have some sort of blood analogue, at least.  STOVE This one contains a new spell called Nightfingers which is the second spell in the game that requires a material component. It lets you nick an item from an enemy's inventory in combat, but not something they're equipped with. However, you also get these items if you just stab said enemy and take it off their corpse, so really the only use would be some sort of weird speedrun strat to try and get an important consumable or key from an enemy that you're not expecting to be able to beat(or don't want to waste time fighting). If it let you steal from stores or something it'd be a lot more useful. Secondly, the material component is a gross thing to haul around.  BELL  SHOE  Said material component is in the last chest, this loving severed hand. Which is the third issue with Nightfingers, actually being able to use it requires sacrificing some of your already-at-a-premium inventory space that could instead be used for rations, quarrels, healing items or for picking up gems and other things you can sell to exchange for godos and services.   Well, looks like there's no crossing upstream. Time to head downstream. Please don't let there be any more ghosts.    Enemies ahead. More ghosts? More scorpions?  Just moredhel, but some of them are wearing fancy cloaks... Meet the Witch Hag, they're the second kind of Moredhel spellcaster in the game, and are more annoying than the yellow-cloaked mages because you can never rely on them to carry anything worth selling, while the yellow-cloaked mages reliably at least have a sword and maybe some rations. Their other special trait is that, alongside goblins, they take double damage from Mind Melt if you're either playing version 1.01 or you adjust the game's code to unfuck the 1.02 patch.  Owyn blinds her and then runs up to harass her to keep her from casting anything because witch hags usually have a very "gently caress you for existing" spell loadout. This one isn't too bad, but she still knows Skyfire(40 damage, always hits) and Mind Melt(45 damage max, and the AI loves to cast their spells maxed out, likewise always hits), which is more guaranteed damage in one turn of getting to act than either of her bodyguards is likely to be able to apply across the entirety of the fight.  It's not too challenging a fight, which contributes to me feeling somewhat cocky as the party continues into the Dimwood.   Thankfully the next encounter is just a magical trap out in the middle of nowhere.  The main danger in this one is the terrible perspective which might prevent you from realizing that there are actually three turrets forming a T-shape, but once you've got that spotted, it's easy to solve.  Transparent crystal to bust the lightning spitter, solid crystal to block the leftmost fireball cannon, then bail. Or you could just let someone eat the 30 damage and sprint for the end line right off the bat if you're lazy.  Like most magical traps, it guards chests, three of them! The Dimwood probably accounts for close to half the moredhel wordchests in the game.  MATTRESS  This one contains some money and Mirrorwall, which crates a static obstacle on the battlefield which, if hit, will return projectile spells to the sender. Probably the best use is to plug holes so enemies have trouble approaching your casters, or to just cast a spell that kills enemies instead.  SQUARE  The big haul here is some blessed armor, +10% defense is pretty great.  SNOWFLAKE  And here the big deal is that now both Gorath and Locklear have Tsurani Heavy Crossbows. This means that now their bolts, if they're not just bog standard quarrels, will often do more damage than their sword swings for a while. The downside is that quarrels have an easier time missing and might in some cases be dangerous to allies if they miss. Still, how bad can it go?   Poking through the woods for the way out, the party runs into a few more scorpions. Four of them means that one actually goes for Owyn and he has to drink some steroids(Fadamor's Formula, the yellow potion in his inventory) to fight it off. It's a very useful consumable as it increases strength(and therefore damage) by 10 for the duration of the fight. It means that his anemic 6-damage staff pokes are now 16-damage staff bonks which actually help kill enemies faster for the duration.   Why are there so many Moredhel chests in the Dimwood?!  You think too much about the small details, Owyn, instead you should think about how we're dismantling the Moredhel supply chain. We're going to be famous! Heroes! BROOM More blessed armor and some flaming quarrels for Gorath.  SURF Gold and steroids.  PATH Contains an overworld spell, The Unseen which is... a bit odd. For instance, Eyes of Ishap is a spell which for the same cost as The Unseen spots all containers. Then you've got The Unseen, which only spots containers specifically containing food. I'm not sure why you'd ever cast this.  Also lying around the Dimwood is the occasional dead deer, usually killed by traps. The party, being idiots, will happily saunter over and pick the meat off an animal that's been lying dead in a trap for who knows how long, and something like 2/3rds of the time, predictably, these animals provide Spoiled or Poisoned rations.   A graveyard in the middle of the Dimwood? Well, there WAS that big battle here some years ago... That was down south, near Sethanon, this is clearly another moredhel plot. Perhaps they think we're too scrupulous to defile a few graves to find their hidden supplies, but they're about to learn how wrong they are! Owyn, hand me the shovel.BaK posted:Smoke seeped from the earth.  Shades are like spookier Rusalki, they function in much the same way except that they look like fart clouds and can still do their ranged 20-damage attack in melee rather than being neutered if you violate their personal space. They can actually be reasonably scary in groups, but just this one alone can't cause too much damage.   Squire! Promise me we're done digging up graves! I didn't know ghosts were real! Just a bit of bracing exercise, Owyn, now, where were we? Without moving backwards or forwards, I turn a few degrees to look at a moredhel wordlock chest. The astute reader might, however, notice that the background behind the graves has changed, this is because "event" battles, like shades and traps, are programmed to dump the player at a specific location and facing after the fight. This will shortly become very relevant.  HASTE  This chest is mostly noteworthy for having a blessed Tapir, which is a great find. In any case, I grab what I can and then instantly move again, except...  When I was facing the graves from the other side, there were enemies in the background. Getting teleported by the shade fight put me inside their aggression range, and since I didn't scout them, they automatically win initiative and...  This is not a good fight to lose initiative on.    The three hags initiate hostilities by blasting Gorath for 85 damage(all of his stamina gone instantly) and then hitting him with Grief of 1000 Nights which paralyzes him(same effect as the powder bags Owyn is hauling around, since enemies always seem to cast spells at max cost if able, Gorath is now paralyzed for 32 rounds. This sucks! Oh and Owyn can't summon up rusalki or anything since he's being dogpiled by two fighters.   If I'd been smart, I would've had Owyn use said powder on the two warriors, but I think of getting him clear to tackle a caster first and he eats poo poo for his trouble while Locklear manages to take down one Witch Hag. The one saving grace of the fight is that the hags have low health/stamina and their initial casting means they're a couple of whacks from death or retreating and can't cast much more as it is. The cube spell there is Hocho's Haven, i.e. that one hag has ablative HP to prevent Locklear from killing her quite as easily.  Gorath is somehow still alive, because being completely paralyzed in no way impacts his defensive stats and this idiot moredhel is having one hell of a time shoving a sword through his brain.  In the end it's down to one epic duel which... BaK posted:Locklear gasped. So, uh, let's try that again, shall we?  This time we reload, actually face the enemy and see if we can't get surprise on them.    Locklear still starts out the battle getting to be a lightning rod as one of the hags tags him with Skyfire, but Owyn spends every turn casting River Song and cluttering up the hags' vicinity with rusalki, distracting them from casting spells.  Owyn dusts the moredhel that tries to interrupt him, and Gorath and Locklear can freely go in and start swinging at the witches while they're busy running from the ghosts. It does a lot to make the whole fight easier.  We have to be more careful in the future, that could easily have gone badly for us. Pf, perhaps in some alternate timeline that didn't actually happen we got owned, but not in this one. We are still the undefeated champions of Dimwood.This clears out the immediate area and the party can now go do more moredhel crosswords.     BRIDGE  TROLLS I wonder if the misspellings here are intentional, like this is a goblin wordchest rather than a moredhel wordchest. In any case, it contains Gambit of the Eight which is a terrible spell that's also the most powerful spell in the game. It places a mine that does 10x the cost worth of damage, and loses one point of damage power every round(this making the damage done double as duration). It's terrible because it needs to be combined with a luckily placed enemy that you can move on to the mine with Invitation or Winds of Eortis, but it's powerful because no other damage-dealing spell in the game offers that much potential damage done(to a single target, anyway).  SNARE I don't get this one. Where do bones feature in a snare? As the bait? This one contains a nice, expensive emerald which is a decent haul.  MIRROR  Out of this cluster of chests, this one is ABSOLUTELY the big score. While it looks superficially like a suit of the starter Kingdom armor, that's actually a suit of Grey Tower Plate, which is three tiers above(sadly optimized for dwarves which are unavailable as PC's in the game) and it also has a level three bless. This goes on Owyn and will almost certainly be staying on him for a while, since he's now got a big enough suite of gamebreaking spells that he's almost set for the rest of the game, and thus no longer dead weight(I kid, Owyn's always very useful). Bit of a cruel plant for new players, mind you, since the only real difference, graphically, between basic Kingdom armor and Grey Tower armor is the horns on the helmet, so a new player might miss what a great score it is.  SPURS  Just for the armor reference, LOOK how similar that is!  GALLOWS This one contains a blessed two-handed broadsword, which is frankly a bit odd since so many other chests in the Dimwood contain better weapons.     I thought you'd never find the bridge, human. Feel free to step in with your superior pathfinding skills any time.At this point, Owyn pipes up and points out that it's weird there are so many Moredhel in the Dimwood... BaK posted:Owyn cleared his throat. He caugh't Gorath's attention, then stopped. Probably just videogame logic, though. Likely no deeper point to them being there. In any case, the party's now navigated most of the trip from the northern entrance to the western exit, which requires them to go almost all the way around the Dimwood clockwise, and the remainder is just a few traps, a few trivial fights and Locklear getting owned by a couple of scorpions in one battle.    WEARY    LAKE One of the chests in this cluster is just normally locked, rather than being passworded.  It contains a pack of enchanted quarrels, the best crossbow ammo in the game, and a Winds of Eortis scroll, which is the reverse of Invitation, shoving enemies away rather than pulling them close.  ADVICE The other chests just contain generic, useful but unexciting supplies like whetstones and rations. As I move away from the cluster, though, I pilot the party right into yet another magical trap.  My first move is to have Owyn "powder" the pirate right next to him. Gorath and Locklear can't hop over and help because that would require getting shot in the head by fireballs, so instead I have them bring out their new crossbows!  Gorath massively whiffs and plunks a flaming crossbow bolt right into Owyn's forehead like the champion warrior he is.  Thankfully the next couple of shots hit and Owyn is able to abscond from the fight with no more scars.    ORANGE  ASHES  BLADE I like it when some of these play with the basic formula, like the SQUARE chest, throwing you for a loop in a fun way.  BOOK  ICICLE  GRAVE  EYES   Gorath, how long have we been in these woods? Two weeks. And how long would it have taken us just to walk down the road from LaMut to Krondor? Three days. If Locklear leads us on another detour I'll... I'll... Complain about it and do nothing? ...yes.  FARRIER This one I feel is pretty rough because who the gently caress these days knows what a farrier is? This chest contains Grief of 1000 Nights, which replaces Despair Thy Eyes for most applications. You get more stunned turns for the price, it has the same (short) list of immune enemies and you can actually tell when and for how long an enemy is affected.  LOGS   Is that a road...? It's a road! Gods above, we're saved!  No poo poo.    This doesn't matter. None of this matters.Simple solutions here, solid crystal goes in the lightning trap to shatter it(so it gets out of the way), transparent crystal above trips a fireball to disable the zapper.  Then the second transparent crystal triggers the lower cannon, allowing Owyn to block the rightmost cannon with the remaining solid crystal.  And once that's done, we can get the gently caress out of the Dimwood... for now. [CONTINUED NEXT POST]
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Oct 1, 2021 00:10
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Update 09: Dim Adventurers in the Woods, Part 2  We pick the West option since we still have a last couple of local chapter 1-ish quests to clear up.  This map is just for reference to help show what a hilariously roundabout route the team has taken so far.  It's good to be back on a normal road again, now, we should- What? Go to Armengar? Elvander? Queg? The Kingdom of Roldem? ...I was going to say "take a stroll up to Loriel to investigate that stolen ruby."   So much for your theory that this route would throw my people off our tracks, squire. Obviously the moredhel are too primitive for my advanced stratagem, so, new plan: we murder every moredhel south of the Teeth of the World. Finally something that makes a bit of sense.    I almost feel bad for this guy. He's either the bravest or the dumbest moredhel in existence. I've been feeling that way about a lot of the ones we've been killing. Delekhan hasn't been sending his best. He gets to be embarrassingly smacked into the dirt by Owyn's staff.   BaK posted:A piece of paper dangled from the doorknob. And here I was wondering how this detour could get any worse. Do we still have some healing herbs? Thankfully Orno only gives us a "light" plague of 21%, which I counter by dropping healing herbs on everyone. Without it, the Plague % would slowly rise, with it, it drops instead and I tell the party to take a quick nap.  It should be obvious that we could just sleep this off, but since we're headed to Loriel anyway... let's see what Michele has for us.     Loriel is one of those towns that's only relevant in one chapter, in this case chapter 1. It never gets any refreshed content and the only reason to visit would be to hit up the inn for more bard bucks when they refresh, and the two points of interest are Michele and Kiefer. BaK posted:A thin little man greeted them at the door. That was remarkably suspicious. We should drag him outside and interrogate him. Impossible, an upstanding citizen of the Kingdom would never lie to me, a squire. Let's head off to Hawk's Hollow... once we get our plague sores cured, that is.BaK posted:The house's occupant was talkative. Whoops, wrong house. Not a lot of them around here, though, we probably won't get the wrong one twice in a row.BaK posted:Michele escorted them inside. Despite the town's residents making every effort to make Michele sound suspicious, and her own behavior not helping much, Michele is actually entirely on the up and up. She'll cure the Plague condition, and only that, but she'll do it far cheaper than any temple and for all party members in one go. Thankfully I think the game has only like, two other places you can get yourself plagued, so we won't have much need for revisiting her. If we didn't want to trust her, though, we could head out the back of town and visit the Temple of Ishap isolated in the woody nook behind it...    We've already seen what the other services temples offer are, so let's take a look at the local head priest's dialogue. BaK posted:Acolytes escorted them. I genuinely am sad that the religions of Midkemia don't feature more in the stories, because what little snippets we get genuinely make it sound like there's something interesting there at times. Anyway, time to head south to Hawk's Hollow! Little of interest happens during the trip except for a few moredhel suicide pacts deciding to end their lives on the team's swords.     Hey! Be careful, I almost tripped over that guy! I'll try to be more noisy about it the next time I dispatch an assassin sent for us. Perhaps you'd like a notarized letter? Or a warbling battle cry? I just don't want to put my foot in his everything is all.BaK posted:Locklear smiled.  Scoundrel, I would have thought you strung up for impersonating a Duke by now! How are you, Isaac?! It's been since Arutha' s wedding, hasn't it? The very day. You should have heard the fit Master of Ceremonies deLacy threw when he found out I wasn't the Count of Dorgin's son. I daresay he would have tossed me over the palace walls himself if he hadn't been busy with the details of the blessed event. I've kept busy since then, spent the last few years on the road doing odd jobs along the border. You'd be surprised at all the things I've learned and seen since I've left Krondor. Surprise me then. You alway were a rumormonger. Well...what would you like to know about?[SAFE PASSAGE] I've just returned from a military assignment and it's imperative that I get south as soon and as inconspicuously as possible. Are there any places you think we should avoid? At all costs, you'll want to avoid the road from Eggley to Tanneurs. There is a festival to be held in Eggley and it's likely your elven companion would be spotted right away. What makes you think we're off to Krondor? Elves don't come much out of Elvandar and they are even less likely to travel in the company of a boy and seigneur when they do take to voyaging. Whatever you three are about, I assumed it must involve the good of the Kingdom. Krondor would be the only logical place for you to go.[MIND READERS] These roads seem littered with those anxious to anticipate our movements. Do you know of anyone in this area that seems to have unusual skills? Some one who seems like they know your thoughts? No... For a fact I can't say that I have, but a certain pokiir player that I lost a great deal of money to in Eggley comes to mind. Name of Devon, I believe. It took me quite a while to make up the funds I lost during a single night playing against him. He very nearly took every sovereign I'd made in a month's time.[STOLEN GEMS] Did you by any chance purchase a ruby from Keifer Alescook in Loriel? He told us he sold it to someone named Isaac and the description he gave us sounded like you. Why? You want to buy it from me? It's not like it's the only ruby in the world you know... The ruby he sold you was stolen from a Tsurani magician who was passing through LaMut. The Garrison would like the stone back. We were hoping we could talk you into at least returning it to Keifer to get your money back. I'm sorry to hear about your dilemma, but I had no idea the stone was stolen when I paid Keifer's price and I have my own little problem. I need the stone so I can pay off a sword crafter and get my blade repaired. Can't you pay him with gold? He specifically barters in gems and the ruby will cover my costs plus a little more. I should have enough left over to eat for a month or more. What if we can repair your sword for you? What, here? In the middle of the road? Since I don't have a workshop, I don't see that we can do it anywhere else. Well...I suppose. My blade is fairly expensive and I'd hate to see it further damaged. It's conceivable you could do more harm than good, so unless you're really skilled at weaponcraft...well... Do you really think you're that good? Good enough. Your blade? Please be careful, I paid quite a bit for it.[CLANGING ENSUES] Well, I have to say this, you appear to know what you're doing. It looks much better than it did. And it will hold the edge?: You could cut up the whole of Delekhan's moss-rangers and it'd still be sharp for a month after. Well...it looks as if you've come through on your end of the bargain. Remind me to give you the ruby before you leave.This entire detour is canon(though it has some additional parts in the book that we haven't seen yet...) and, surprisingly, Isaac gives us no static, coughing up a 1% quality ruby. There's a competency cutoff for being able to fix his sword(45% weaponcrafting on any member of the party), and trying while below that will screw up the quest as Isaac insists on keeping the ruby to get his now completely hosed sword repaired. I presume it's intentionally a 1% ruby so the player doesn't gently caress up and accidentally sell it because it's worth money before they get to LaMut. Speaking of screwing things up, wasn't there something else we needed to do down here by Hawk's Hollow? I'm only reminding you of it so Locklear doesn't haul is back here when we're almost at the gates of Krondor, but we were looking for a chest. Oh, yes, that scribe wanted us to take a poke at a chest down here for entirely unsuspicious reasons. We'll go through Hawk's Hollow and poke around for it.  Hawk's Hollow is a small town with few points of interest, but one of them is very interesting though, in all honesty, from a min-maxing standpoint, I shouldn't be making use of it until chapter 2(the reason why being a spoiler, so ask me again when we reach chapter 2). BaK posted:A man invited them inside. Lucan provides a 5%(without training) boost to everyone's lockpicking skills. Once again, extremely invaluable, especially in the early game, since some "will mangle the entire party" trapped chests have a 90% skill requirement to not blow up everyone's faces. There's one other interesting house in Hawk's Hollow... BaK posted:The door opened a fraction of an inch. As far as I'm aware, this is never explained or tied into anything else, but it does help with the feeling that about half the Kingdom of the Isles is suffering from some form of psychosis. There are a lot of weirdos around. I'll say, sometimes it feels like we're the only normal people in the Kingdom. Um, who're you talking to, squire? Never you mind, let's go find that chest.  The chest is actually a bit challenging to find without a guide, as the scribe up near Yabon only says it's "west of Hawk's Hollow" and that describes a pretty decent section of the map. Still, the gang eventually stumble upon it behind a hill, guarded by a trio of rogues.   It turns out that while they may be dab hands with swords, they're not competent ghost busters and, once again, River Song saves the day.  Something seems suspicious about this errand. Pipe down, Gorath, I've almost got this l- ... Do you, uh, want a hand getting the half-molten remains of the lock out of your forehead? Please.All the chest contains is an emerald, which is still nice. Also thankfully the trap is less murderous than the one in the Mac Mordain Cadal, only handing out 25 damage which the party could've weathered right out of the gate. Easy for you to say, I've got splinters. Splinters. Luckily I remember there's a temple west of Hawk's Hollow...   BaK posted:They were shown to a chamber. I will never understand the relationship you humans have with your gods. What do you mean? Every temple we've visited, the squire simply barges in, demands to talk to the person in charge, and then bores them until they tell us to go away. I'm not sure how else you expect to get anything out of the gods. How do you moredhel deal with yours? We break into their abandoned basements and steal their stuff. Perhaps we can learn something from the moredhel after all...  And with that, we're mostly done with the detour. We're back to the north/south road from LaMut to Krondor. Now we just gotta get back to LaMut, hand in the ruby, then head up to Yabon to tell the scribe that we're not very happy about the medical bills he got us. On the way is a minor town, Zun, known only for regular duels between the hard-drinking witches of the area. In the game, it's even less of a place than Loriel, but it does have a reason to stop by...   Namely, two of the houses have some unique dialogues if you harass the residents. House 1: BaK posted:Locklear knocked on the door of the small wooden house, then waited patiently for someone to answer. After several seconds, a woman appeared and ushered them inside."I don't have time to talk unless it's really important, sirs. I have to finish preparing some mushrooms that I picked for the shopkeeper over at Keges. He nearly ran out of healing restoratives yesterday and you know what they say, 'You can kill me but you can't eat me'." House 2: BaK posted:The door swung open. And if you're wondering? Yes. That does actually do damage to Locklear. It's not just descriptive text. Next time, someone else gets to open the door.Anyway, let's skip northwards, no reason to chronicle the trip. First LaMut...  BaK posted:The Garrison was impressive. Selling looted stuff from Dimwood has kind of put the party ahead of the curve, I don't think I've ever had this rich a party before at this stage of the game(and I left behind so many suits of armor, weapons and consumables that I couldn't carry...), but if it's your first time playing and you're playing the game "straight," then beelining for Hawk's Hollow to get the gem isn't a bad idea! Now, for the scribe up by Yabon...  BaK posted:Locklear angrily shoved open the door to Jeremy's house. Interestingly, if you never met the scribe, but already found the chest, the dialogue is quite a bit different: BaK posted:"I really should have that cleaned, I suppose." Locklear jerked upright at the sound of the gruff voice. Padding from around the corner of the house, a balding man stopped next to Owyn and held up a palm stained with black ink. "A scribe tends to make quite a mess. Occupational hazard." Either way you get your reward. In general the game is good about allowing for these little twists, or preventing them from happening in the first place by only unlocking later "steps" in a quest after you've done the first one(s). A lot of dialogue also changes per chapter, for instance, the Kenting Rush/Cavall Keep area actually has quite a bit of dialogue exclusive to Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, which most players would probably never see(I'll show it off any "missed" dialogue from earlier chapters where we didn't visit an area, when we do get there. There's no "gameplay content" to miss in the area, after all.). The book he hands the party has a description that implies it's worthless, and a use text description that sounds much the same... BaK posted:Many times [Gorath] flipped back the cover of the book to reaffirm that the title had in some way been connected to the migration of birds. While the author had begun a discussion on winged wildlife, he had quickly meandered into a discussion of the famed battles of Midkemia, continued on to a reiteration of various battle songs, diverted to a rant about the prices of ale in the Kingdom's taverns, tangentially lamented about the plight of magicians and then ended on a humorous anecdote about his mother-in-law having consumed a vial of Fadamor's Formula to outslug a Tsurani warrior in a bar brawl. But in reality, what it does is provide a guaranteed +5% bonus to all skills on first use, with an 8% chance of actually functioning on subsequent uses. Since it has 100 uses, you would probably squeeze another few successes out of it if you spent them all, but each reading also consumes 15 in-game hours(and with it, rations). Reading through the entire set of "charges" would consume 62.5 in-game days and thus quite a lot of rations as well. Not that it would necessarily be a bad idea to do, even so, after all, sufficient resting actually increases the characters' health and stamina(or, possibly, simply passed time, based on some FAQs). Enough theory, however, it's time to cap off this update by getting back on the road!  Ahhh, south of Zun at last! I can practically smell the sea from here! It'll be refreshing to visit some warmer climes. I've had just about enough of mountains and winter weather. I thought you moredhel would be used to it, living up in the Northlands. Being used to it doesn't mean we're happy about it. Hmmm... but is this the right way?VOTE Run straight south to Krondor? OR Detour through Questor's View, Eggley and Tanneurs? Taking this trip will add an extra wrinkle to the Isaac/Stolen Gems subplot.
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Oct 1, 2021 00:10
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I think it's time to get this chapter complete so I'm voting Krondor
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Oct 1, 2021 00:51
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Selling Malaka's Ruby isn't as big of deal as you'd think, because (a) the shops in this game are quirky as hell in a way I'm assuming you'll show off and (b) IIRC the game just checks your inventory for any ruby so you could just grab a different one. Also, let's just go to Krondor, given that we've already explored so much. No sense in completely cleaning out everything in Chapter 1 and leaving ourselves with nothing left to discover.
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Oct 1, 2021 00:55
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Krondor. This game is not called Betrayal at Eggley, after all.
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Oct 1, 2021 02:02
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Yeah, I think it's time to get to Krondor finally, after that 'shortcut'.
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Oct 1, 2021 02:09
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Queg plays an important role in some of the later books as ablative armor
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Oct 1, 2021 03:03
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I didn't get the riddle with BLADE as the answer Also, I just now realised how ridiculous the PC portraits look.
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Oct 1, 2021 03:22
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I don't think there's anything in the Egg/Tan section that is chap1 exclusive, is there? If there is we should for sure do that.
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Oct 1, 2021 04:12
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Krondor!
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Oct 1, 2021 06:10
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PurpleXVI posted:VOTE
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Oct 1, 2021 07:56
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Guildenstern Mother posted:I don't think there's anything in the Egg/Tan section that is chap1 exclusive, is there? If there is we should for sure do that. It's not exclusive, but the Isaac-related content there will be less interesting after chapter 1, in my opinion. Plus, as part of this Extremely Canon Playthrough, what the party discovers there is canon for them to discover(though they actually learn it in when meeting Isaac in the book).
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Oct 1, 2021 09:40
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PurpleXVI posted:It's not exclusive, but the Isaac-related content there will be less interesting after chapter 1, in my opinion. Plus, as part of this Extremely Canon Playthrough, what the party discovers there is canon for them to discover(though they actually learn it in when meeting Isaac in the book). Detour it is then!
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Oct 1, 2021 09:53
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PurpleXVI posted:It's not exclusive, but the Isaac-related content there will be less interesting after chapter 1, in my opinion. Plus, as part of this Extremely Canon Playthrough, what the party discovers there is canon for them to discover(though they actually learn it in when meeting Isaac in the book). Another vote for Detour then.
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Oct 1, 2021 09:55
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JustJeff88 posted:I didn't get the riddle with BLADE as the answer B is the first letter of Blessed, L is the second letter of Slow, and so on.
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Oct 1, 2021 11:41
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One trick I used to do as a kid solving the wordlocks (which my mother loved helping with, it was kind of adorable, but this was her idea) was write down every letter on each slot and see if I could puzzle out possible words from them if I was stuck. It helped!
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Oct 1, 2021 13:07
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Tiggum posted:Always detour. what kind of gamer actually heads straight for an objective, sheesh
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Oct 1, 2021 14:21
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Detour if it makes sense with your LPer knowledge of what is chapter limited, but don't do content that can be used to better flesh out later chapters imo.
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Oct 1, 2021 14:47
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Xerophyte posted:B is the first letter of Blessed, L is the second letter of Slow, and so on. Ah, I see. I thought that it was a reference to a video game series at the time that I did not know about.
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Oct 1, 2021 14:56
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MagusofStars posted:Selling Malaka's Ruby isn't as big of deal as you'd think, because (a) the shops in this game are quirky as hell in a way I'm assuming you'll show off and (b) IIRC the game just checks your inventory for any ruby so you could just grab a different one. ... Per my guide, go for the detour but leave the training opportunities for chapter 2.
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Oct 1, 2021 15:02
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Detour it is!
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Oct 1, 2021 22:45
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I'll change my vote to Detour.
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Oct 1, 2021 23:22
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Tortolia posted:Detour if it makes sense with your LPer knowledge of what is chapter limited, but don't do content that can be used to better flesh out later chapters imo. Do this.
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Oct 2, 2021 00:06
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Update 10: Words, Words, Words Part 1 Southwards it is!  As soon as we move south of Zun, though, we get a pop-up as a result of the party having sufficient Scouting skill. Gorath alerts us to a small bird suddenly flying out of the brush, as though startled...  Which is actually kind of a problem for us, it means we've reached a dangerous threshold, because as soon as we take another step forwards...  We start gaining skills. gently caress. To explain, this means our skills have gotten over the threshold where we can spot some "ambush" attacks and also move past them without actually getting attacked, which gains us XP towards becoming even better at said ability, and there's no way to opt out of being sneaky, to pick all the fights we can. We're now utterly locked out of certain fights(all of them generic, though, nothing containing any plot), which is on the one hand useful: less getting stabbed. But on the other hand trouble: less getting to train for stabbing enemies and less chance to pry valuable stuff and packed lunches off their corpses.  Strange... I was sure someone was lurking in ambush. So much for your vaunted "elven senses."   The Bitter Sea... I haven't been here since I was a child, before humans settled the area. Wait, just how old are you? About two hundred years. Well, it looks like you're not the only one camping around here. And if they're moredhel, that means they'll also have left out chests!  DAY NIGHT With us having jumped a bit off the intended track in terms of progression, most chests down the coast road have nothing that interests us except for spare change, occasional food and some gems. This one, though, contains a Flamecast scroll which would be our first new spell for Owyn if we'd headed straight south. As it is, we still keep it in our packs since spell scrolls tend to sell for really nice prices, more than a full suit of armor or high-quality sword, despite only taking up one space in a character's backpack.    Most of the encounters are pretty mild, too, just moredhel warriors and the occasional quegan in packs of two or three.   This area also has a lot of the little blue-ish sidepaths which lead nowhere, not to chests, not to enemies, not to homes. I think this is about the only one between Zun and Questor's View that actually leads to something, in this case.. BaK posted:The man who greeted them at the door smelled of fish. "Folks call me Chanty," he said after Owyn introduced himself.    Of course, we can't just have a nice walk without getting ambushed by someone. Please stand still and wait for my friends to come cave your skulls in. These particular moredhel are a marker for the party to turn off the road and run into the woods where they've hidden some chests...  And a trap.  This one I don't quite get. There seems to be no solution other than having someone tank a fireball and then running to the end line. Thankfully, however, Owyn has Black Nimbus by this point.  And with the zappy poles disabled, Locklear can go under the fireball cannon and up behind it.   RING  SMOKE  EYES Hey, didn't we already have a chest with EYES as the answer? You try coming up with hundreds of riddles without some repeating answers, boy. Why even have the riddle? Why not just lock the chest? When you're 200 years old, you'll understand. What Gorath means is he doesn't have a good answer but doesn't want to admit a human one-upped his race.All three chests just contain minor valuables, the sort of thing that's irrelevant to us at this point but would be necessary for affording supplies to a party going straight down the road.    It's no surprise that the party makes it to Questor's View unscathed, and Questor's View actually has some useful things going on! Chatty NPC's, a working inn and a trainer!  BaK posted:"Come in! Come in!" chimed a courteous young woman in a brightly colored apron. She held the cottage door open. Kneeling in front of a stone fireplace a young man was placing several small logs into a crackling fire. The man looked up with a smile. "Yes, please! We just finished eating, but I had some luck fishing today so there's plenty to go around." True to their word, these nice people will literally just hand us free rations.  Here Owyn bards up some more spare change and we get one of the rare "sleep" dialogues upon taking a day's rest to cap up the hit points that we can't recover from resting in the wild. BaK posted:The guestbook was open. It's an odd note since none of the party ever make an effort at disguising their names(either in the game or in the novelization), except to occasionally rename Gorath to "Thorgath." Perhaps it was originally meant to be a bigger deal that they were travelling in secret. In any case, there are two more houses to check out... BaK posted:There were stirrings inside the house. And here I thought I'd never be impressed with human warrior spirit. Pretty bloodthirsty, I'll give them that. I guess that's what you get here in the wild West of the Kingdom.Then, of course, we're going next door to Tad's house. BaK posted:Locklear knocked loudly. Presently a finely dressed man greeted them, as he spoke he wiped sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief, "Fine day, don't you think? I'm Tad Questor. Have you come for a lesson?" His eyebrows raised in a hopeful arch. "Lesson?" inquired Locklear. The man disappeared into his house and returned with a blunt tipped fencing foil. "Have you come to learn the finer arts of swordsmanship?" he asked, punctuating his question with several impressive maneuvers. "I could give you all a quick lesson for only 75 sovereigns. How does that sound?" Tad is another +5% melee skill, but if you pick up some training from both him and Sumani, you'll get pushed well ahead of the skill curve. It's enough, in fact, that Locklear might well hit 100% Accuracy: Melee before the game is over, which would be great.   Hmmm... Squire? I'm just wondering... between Isaac's comments about mind readers and that nightmaster taking an interest in our names. Maybe we haven't thrown the Moredhel off our tracks yet. Humans? Have you noticed the warriors up ahead? Don't tell me you're planning to take us off on another wild goose chase. Just because you can't see the brilliance of my plans doesn't mean it isn't there. Die, dogs of Delekhan! I suppose they have made sure we're not short of travelling funds. See? That settles it, we're taking the route to Eggley and Tanneurs for now. Say, where's Gorath? He'd usually have some salty interjection by now. Did you two not hear a thing? I was busy convincing Owyn that we need to turn north at this intersection. You're outvoted two to one, so don't even argue.    The roads in the triangle formed by Questor's View, Hawk's Hollow and Eggley are an absolute mess of minor paths and, in at least two cases, pointless roundabouts that exist purely to disorientate the inattentive traveller.    I take a brief detour because A) I want to collect some more temple dialogue + another teleport option and B) I know there's something of interest up here.  These "Quegans" are pretty far in-land. I must agree with Owyn, don't "pirates" usually ply their trade at sea? Pirates or cosplaying bandits, they're trouble either way, let's tell them to shove off. These guys get a special bit of ambush dialogue, but, considering that they're just three Quegans without mage support or exceptional gear, they die as easily as anyone else.   BaK posted:A priestess escorted them.  Once again, we've accidentally helped someone out.     BaK posted:The door swung open. Just for killing three Quegans, we get 60 Sovereigns, which is almost more gold than we'd be likely to earn during the entire trip from to LaMut to Krondor if we just shot the most direct possible. Clearly, good works are their own reward. Now, to head down to Eggley...  We get five steps away from Franklin's house before the party stumbles straight into an ambush.  If you lose initiative against enemy mages, you can expect to have one or more party members knocked out on round one, either via health loss or high-cost Grief casts(or a few other nasty spells we don't see as much of). Despair Thy Eyes is a rare showing, but actually a relief when it does, since it only lasts two rounds.  It's a fight that, honestly, could easily go badly if you don't have River Song to even the numbers and harass the mage or Grief to lock him down with. And even if you just Griefed him, Owyn and Locklear would still be facing 3:2 odds from the warriors who'll prevent Owyn from getting off more than one or two spells unless their AI decides to do something wonky.  As it is, one of them "luckily" gets stuck on trying to carve Gorath down, but I manage to conclude the battle before he gets it done, and the mage doesn't get a chance to hit Owyn or Locklear with any more spells. This fight is, in my opinion, not one you're gonna win without surprise if you get here as early as possible(i.e. straight down the coast then shoot through Questor's View right away).  The boys pull through, though, and make it a whole five more steps down the road before they stumble into an ambush of flavour text. BaK posted:Locklear disappeared. Huh, just looping around the same area again and again? Sure those aren't our tracks?   ...this town feels a bit empty. Strange, it's supposed to be a minor, but active, farming town... And didn't Isaac say they were organizing a festival? That usually draws more people, not less.All the buildings in Eggley are empty, and the store is locked(much too well for us to open for a while yet), in fact the only one we can interact with meaningfully is the tavern.  Bartender, a mug of your strongest exposition!BaK posted:Locklear motioned to the figure across the room.  I do believe this is the loneliest tavern I've ever visited. Where is everyone? Everyone is elsewhere. With the exception of Rake, myself and a handful of boarders that have wandered in from off the road, there's not been another soul in town since the Festival. Everyone? Why? What happened here? Come the eighth hour of last evening, a cloaked gentlemen entered through that same door there and took a seat. He ordered a joint of beef, a loaf of bread and a mug of ale. I remembered these things because I had ordered the same. Soon as he had finished his meal he went to the tavernkeeper and tossed down fifty golden sovereigns, turned round and was gone by the door. Before the first of those coins stopped their spinning on the counter, the rest of the people in the tavern rushed out after him. The keeper didn't even latch the door... Some sort of deal? Nope. Some sort of drat local ritual. It seems I arrived in the middle of a ceremony that was called the Festival of the Stranger. Traditionally the elders of the town would gather in the tavern and draw lots and the one with the longest lot was dubbed The Stranger. On the first night of the festival, The Stranger comes around and offers the members of the town fake sovereigns - they called them nimptos - and then the citizens of the town leave to sleep in the fields. Of course, I wasn't aware of what was going on. And they're supposed to stay in the fields? Ah, no, no, no. The next morning, the elected Stranger is to circle the village three times while swinging a strand of hemp over his head. When he is done, he cuts the length of rope and sets it on the road to let the people know that they can come back. They then know that Killian is looking with good fortune on their township and that she won't strike their fields dead. If the strand is not placed, however, it means that she is displeased and any citizen that attempts to return to town will be struck dead. Was the Stranger killed by Killian? No, not Killian, but by a man named the Collector to whom he owed money who didn't know about the town's tradition. It didn't matter to the citizens of Eggley, though. They still chose to see it as a sign from Killian and they haven't returned since, think the place is cursed and won't return until the curse is lifted. They've relocated in Tanneurs, Hawk's Hollow, and a few in Malac's Cross. They all believe they've done the right thing and have given me permission to do whatever I wanted here. Out of respect for them, I've decided to keep the old town name of Eggley. I don't know. It seems people would have to be pretty thick to believe all of that. Would they? Would you have the nerve to spit on a shrine of Ishap? No...but...I guess I can see your point. Everyone has their beliefs. Many people in these villages at one time were farmers, and it is difficult for them to simply turn their backs on the goddess of nature. They require her blessing before they can go on to new lives. You should remember that before you judge something to be ignorant. So - as my new job as bartender of this tavern, I suppose it's my duty to see if you need anything? Can I set you up?With the initial greetings sorted, Devon has a number of keywords, though some of them are only available because we talked to Isaac earlier, it should be relatively obvious which ones those are. [FESTIVAL] Which god did you say this Festival of the Stranger was in celebration of? The fertility goddess - Bringer of Harvests, The Earth Mother, Silban. Pick a name. All mean the same thing. She's the wench to whom ma and pa ugly pray to have little runt ugly and enough wheat to eat through the winter. Can't say I have much use for her. Is there a temple of hers nearby, or... Straight west of Eggley, then north at the crossroads. Big white building with the columns, smells like a whore's bedchamber. Hard to miss.[MOREDHEL] Someone we ran into up the road told us they had seen a moredhel near here. I don't suppose you've seen him have you? Him? I've seen enough moredhel to start a barrel ball city league. Whole clump of them came by here a few weeks ago heading south in packs of twos and threes down the road towards Tanneurs. Were they armed? Like the war god Tith's own legions. Looked like they might be out to sign up as caravan guards, but who would hire them? Did you get a look at any of them? None of them came close enough to the Stranger that I could get a good look at them. Now that I think of it, it's kind of peculiar. On the off occasions when moredhel will crash through a town, they'll usually kick up some kind of ruckus with the locals to prove who's the toughest kid on the block. These just marched through town like they were in a parade review, like they were expecting someone to watch them come through.This whole conversation is weird and lore-violating. Canonically Moredhel are never seen south of the Teeth of the World except as raiders overrunning a human border town for loot and perhaps slaves/prisoners. They have no trading relationship with humans except weapon runners and smugglers, they barely even recognize humans as fellow sapients, filing them alongside goblins and trolls as some sort of noisy wild animal instead. I mean, this is honestly way more interesting than Feist's usual handling of non-humans, who tend to have very un-nuanced, mono-culture existences where everyone is either good or evil. Only the Kingdom, Tsurani and Keshians really get to have any depth, internal cultures or internal politics in the main-line books. [BUILDINGS] With a whole town to yourself, I'm surprised you haven't opened up any of the other shops or houses. I'm leaving them be until I know what's eventually going to happen here. Never know when some folk is going to show up and want his property back. I don't want to be the idiot holding the bag. If most of the folks were smart, they probably locked their houses and I'm not much of a lockpick. Know anyone who is? Strange character named Abuk. I ran across him when I was working for the Dauphiness Cassandra of Queg. We discovered him once when we boarded a Keshian vessel. After he helped open a few choice chests of mercantile, we chained him up in the belly of the ship so we could make a present of him to Cassandra. But when we docked in Palanque, all we found in the hold of the ship was a note saying he could be found in Silden if ever we needed his services. I've never hired anyone else for a lockpicking job since.[POKIIR] Now I think of it, a man we know told us he lost at pokiir to a Devon here in Eggley. Would you be he? Depends on why you're asking, now doesn't it? If you're interested in playing a hand or two, then I might say I'm the same man. If, however, your friend decided to send round a few bravos to collect what I rightfully won from him... What's yours is yours as far as I'm concerned. I was just wondering how good a player you were. Isaac said that you had an unusual talent for it. Isaac? Isaac said I had an unusual talent for it? Now if that's not the pot calling the kettle black, I've never heard it at all. While we we're playing, it was as if that scuff knew every thought I had in my head. Every time he would fold he'd just look over at his elven friends with a big smile. Elven friends? Like Thorgath here? They could have been brothers by the look of them. Yeah, he looked kinda like your friend, but he drat sure wasn't an elf. He was wearing the clothes of one of Delekhan's moss-troopers. Moredhel. No doubt about it.Once again, why in the gently caress would a moredhel that everyone recognizes as dressed like one, just be hanging around in a Kingdom town? This is handled somewhat better in the novel where, even though the party never reaches Eggley, the guards around Hawk's Hollow clearly have no idea what Moredhel look like, being so southernly, stating clearly that Gorath can't be one because he lacks the glowing red eyes and giant vampiric fangs they usually have. At this point, we can now gamble with Devon, however there's a hidden bit of dialogue here which is only triggered if we start the gambling dialogue, then back out without actually gambling. [A GAME] I'm more familiar with pashawa, but I've played pokiir a few times with men from the Shamata garrison. You play by special rules? Straight game. Mercy's rules, full deck, nothing wild. Only special rule I have is you cheat, I ventilate your liver. Simple as that. Interested in playing?[NO] Not today. It's nothing personal you understand, I just don't feel Banath's with me at the moment. I've had runs of luck like that. Once I was riding high while I was working for the Dauphiness of Palanque, won fifteen straight games of lin-lan in a tavern against this miserable old seadog, but he refused to give up. Middle of the sixteenth game, he pulls out a diamond half the size of my fist and says he wants to bet it. I tell him I don't have enough money to match a bet like that, but he suggests I put up the purse I'm carrying for the Dauphiness. How did he find out about it? Let's say the liquor told him... So, I put up the purse. He pulls out a Blue Lady, a Red Knight, two Yellow Squires and a King's Jester. Lost the whole lot to him. The Dauphiness was less than pleased. I had to work for that witch as a bodyguard for two years to pay off what I lost in that purse.This opens up the SELF-DEFENSE keyword... SELF DEFENSE (if Isaac) If you were a Dauphiness' bodyguard, you must be a superb swordsman. Perhaps you could teach us a thing or two? I have my tricks. You don't stay alive as long as I do without picking something up here and there. I might be able to give you a few pointers if you're willing to pay. Eighty sovereigns a session. Interested?[YES] BaK posted:Devon waved towards the door. Seizing a pitted Salamanca from under the bar's counter, he followed them into the open yard before The Stranger Tavern, then passed them up to lead the way across a grassy field. Slowly the ground inclined, giving way to a rocky hillface and a tumble of ancient, mold-eaten gravestones. This provides an incredibly huge boost to Defense for everyone, +10! 15 if it's the only skill tagged for everyone. Completely crazy and increases the party's survivability by a lot. Now we can finally say goodbye to Devon and get back on the road. Thank you for your hospitality, Devon. It was a pleasant respite from travelling the roads. Remember that next time you talk to someone about Eggley. Time to start some new rumors. That we will. Goodbye, Devon. That was a hell of a lot of dialogue but... there's more to come. Obviously at this point we're gonna hoof it back to the Temple of Silban to ask what the hell's up with the Festival before heading back down here, if we do... BaK posted:A messenger went to find the high priestess.    Why are we wasting our time with these fool farmers and their superstitions when we should be heading to Krondor? Well, firstly, because there's probably a reward. Secondly, because any chaos in the area will be to Delekhan's benefit if it comes to war. Lastly, because now you've made it a point of pride that we'll be doing it to spite you.[Continued in another post since, despite being only 1 hour of gameplay, this was already up to 80000 characters by the end]
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Oct 6, 2021 13:46
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Update 11: Words, Words, Words Part 2 Just outside of Tanneurs, there's yet another trap. It almost feels like the area has more of them than standard combat encounters.  The perspective here hides the pillar behind the solid crystal, but the solution is simple once you figure it out. Circle around the triangle of death, nudge the transparent crystal upwards to blast the top pillar, then shuffle the solid crystal in the path of one of the two cannons so you can walk between the crystal and the pillar to escape unscathed.   Tanneurs doesn't have a lot of interesting text, but it does have an abandoned house containing a nice prize.   The Horn of Algon-Kokoon summons a big angry war dog on to the battlefield and, being a melee attacker, it's excellent for pissing off enemy mages as, unlike Rusalki, it'll keep chasing them around. It's a decent backup item for those times when some dickhead moredhel runs up to Owyn on round one and prevents him from focusing on his nerdy wizardry.   Now, the Collector is supposed to be here, but being the sneaky prick that he is, he isn't any of the characters on the main screen. Instead, to meet him, we have to talk to the local gambler(who's in no mood for gambling while the Collector is around) and then rent a room for the night. BaK posted:They joined a shifty-eyed man. This is enough to satisfy the priests of Silban, but this tavern has a very, VERY important bug, present in all chapters. Now that we can gamble, do so. Lowest bet, do it until you lose. Then bard. Now gamble again, until we lose. Then bard again. For some reason, every time you lose to the gambler, your flag for having barded or not in this inn, in a given chapter, is reset. It's probably the lowest-effort way to earn infinite money, as long as you have the barding skill to satisfy the minimum barding requirements for the inn(helpfully, the otherwise-lousy Tanneurs store actually sells a practice lute). I do it a few times just to confirm that it works, but I don't use it any more than that. The game generally provides you with enough money to progress without too much pain.   We've got two reasons for heading back north now. Firstly, the reward from the Temple, and secondly because we now know that Isaac knows more about the local Moredhel than he's been letting on.  BaK posted:A messenger went to find the high priestess. That's... more metal than probably most of us expected. I definitely did not expect that to happen. The reward is nice, though, several full stacks of green potions and some herbal pouches. Are all your human sects so... vengeful? Kahooli's faithful, probably. I never even knew it was possible to piss off the temple of Silban. Remind me never to do it myself.With our rightful reward collected and dickheads punished, we head back up to Hawk's Hollow to deal with another dickhead...    Alright, when you spot Isaac, fan out. Despite that limp of his, he can move at a fair clip if he senses danger. I could probably hit him with a crossbow bolt the moment we see him, then he won't be running anywhere. Tempting, but for old times' sake I should probably give him a chance to explain himself. Now that we've visited Devon and talked to him, we have a number of new topics to grill Isaac about... [HIS SPYING] We met your pokiir playing friend in Eggley and he told us a bit about the match he played with you. He told us about the elven friends that came along with you, but as you pointed out before, elves rarely come out of Elvandar and would be very unlikely to be travelling from town to town playing pokiir. Talk, Isaac. Why are you working with the moredhel, Isaac? What are they doing in the Kingdom? I don't seem to be the only one keeping company with them, seigneur... I'm not in a mood to be trifled with, Isaac. Talk! Seeing as how they've seen fit to dismiss me, I can't see it will hurt matters. They're operating out of a barn near Yellow Mule. I found an old farmer there who wasn't particular about who rented his land and harbored loyalty to neither his lord nor to the Prince. A moredhel named Nago moved in there and has been using it as a base of operations to hire Quegian mercenaries. Makes sense. Mercenaries would be able to move in the Kingdom without being noticed. What are they planning? I made it a policy not to know. Knowledge has a tendency to shorten your life, especially when you're working with lunatics. Think what you like, but this was purely a business transaction. They paid me and I made the pick-ups and drop-offs to the moredhel lockchests. That was all I did for them.[NAGO] You said this Nago fellow was using a barn as a base of operations. What could we expect if we run across him? Trouble. He's a magician, well armed, and was carrying enough gold in sovereigns to hire several dozen Quegian Mercenaries for months. Rowe nearly fainted when Nago handed over a pouch with four hundred golden sovereigns. Rowe? The old man who owns the barn. If Nago is half as ruthless as I suspect, he may have hired the old fellow to work for him, but I couldn't be certain.[LAST ORDERS] What were your last orders before Nago released you? I released myself. I had the feeling I was coming to the end of my usefulness to the moredhel and I made my plans accordingly. When they asked me to pick up a ruby from Keifer Alescook and deliver it to a specific moredhel lockchest, I realized they were planning to take care of two problems at the same time. The moredhel courier would an assassin. They had planned to kill me and, at the same time, erase any evidence to whom the ruby had been delivered.[GOODBYE] It's time we were going. I would tell you to take care of yourself Isaac, but you were always quite good at doing that... You never allow your grudges to die, do you? Grudges have nothing to do with this. I simply know to trust my bump of trouble when someone is trying to fool me. Goodbye, Isaac. I have a suspicion we may meet again.There's also a dialogue I couldn't get to trigger, and which the Krondor archive site says may be bugged wherein Locklear interrogates Isaac about the local moredhel lockchests, wringing five passwords out of him so that if you get stuck on some of the local chests, you can try those and see if any of them work. We can now also compare the game to the book a bit. In the book, the party skips from LaMut to Loriel to Hawk's Hollow(getting badly injured on the way, they're basically all dead on their feet and only saved by a passing priest in Hawk's Hollow), where they confront Isaac about working with the Moredhel. Book Locklear is a lot less forgiving, though, and orders Isaac to leave behind a note to the Moredhel to give them false information, which Isaac complains will mark him for death. Locklear proceeds to not give a gently caress and tells Isaac that if they don't get his full cooperation, he'll make sure the authorities are after him to see him hung as a traitor. Afterwards, they head south and use a non-game path across the mountains to reach Nago's hideout, arriving just before frostbite sets in(in the book, the start of the story is practically in the dead of winter). There's a good bit more characterization for Gorath in the book, too, as he allows the others to be healed by the priest before him(despite being at least as badly, if not worse, hurt) and is the one who knows of the hidden path across the mountains from his time near the Bitter Sea as a boy. He clearly considers himself responsible for the two younger humans despite not wanting to care about them. It also sees the beginning of Gorath learning things about humans that he considers to not be entirely awful, like Locklear's sense of honour about letting Isaac go because he's an old friend. Since we can't use that path, though, we have to head back to Questor's View and continue down the coastal road...   I don't understand why you let him go, it would have been easy to kill him ourselves or hand him over to the guards. That's not how we do things, Gorath. I've seen enough humans to know that's not true. Fine, then it's not how I do things. Probably only because Isaac wasn't carrying any valuables. Heh. Someone's on the road up ahead. Not more Quegans, is it?  Tempest? Surely you have heard. The learned monks of Sarth have predicted a terrible storm is coming this way and I would hate to think of anyone caught out in it. Why a man could catch his death of the fevers. If you would like, you may ride it out in my barn. And what profit would you turn in this enterprise? Five golden sovereigns, a reasonable sum, and the guard over my cows. You can sleep in the hay loft of my barn but my wife and I don't take in elves. Seven gold pieces, the elf stays with us and we each get a hard roll for breakfast. Ten gold and the lot of you milk cows the next morning. That's the offer. Take it or leave it. A moment while I talk this over with my friends. This is the guy! The one Isaac told us about, it's clearly an ambush! I can take him out in one swing, it'll be painless... for us. Tempting, but no. If he doesn't report back, Nago will know something's up, we have to play along for now.[YES] Deal. Where is this barn of yours? Keep heading south - you should pass the Abbaye of Ishap at Sarth. You'll know you're right close to it when you've passed up the Temple of Sung. From there it's just around Yellow Mule mountain. When you find the barn, just go knock on the door and my wife will fix you up. Thank you, farmer. Your hospitality will be remembered.In the book, the party never meets Rowe, but here it's notable for how meeting Rowe doesn't trigger any response in-game, despite the game otherwise being pretty well-written with regards to staying aware of the party having taken actions or gained knowledge that would make the conversation they're having be jarring and weird.    At least now I suppose we have an advantage in that they think to catch us entirely by surprise, but we'll be prepared for them. Ha ha, I'm sure I heard that wrong, I'm sure you meant to say: "We'll pretend Yellow Mule doesn't exist and head down to Krondor." Not a chance in hell. That son of a bitch Nago is going to pay dearly for all those ambushes.  I bump into a few small Moredhel patrols that are trivial to clear out, before arriving at the path to Sarth. One thing that always puzzled me is that Rowe is running around like two days' travel north of his own farm, as the side path to Yellow Mule is well south of Sarth. Oh well, gives us a chance to poke our heads in and see what the monks are up to.   Sarth has a good deal of backstory to it! It's an old robber baron fortress converted into an Ishapian chapel dedicated to knowledge, where they're transcribing, cataloguing and storing texts of all kinds. It mostly features in Silverthorn, where, while travelling north, Arutha and his gang are harried by Nighthawks and a weird, demonic abomination that attempts to hunt them from the skies. Taking refuge at Sarth, the monks give them magical cover and the lead priest uses a magical amulet to enchant Arutha's rapier, turning it into a potent artifact that can do damage to even demonic creatures. It's also noteworthy, to me, for being the worst-written part of that entire book, it feels so clunky. To us, however, Sarth is "merely" an Ishapian chapel(oddly enough with no teleporter mandala), a very, very nice shop and an entrance to a dungeon area where we can't do anything at the moment.  BaK posted:The abbot came quickly. Now, about that store...   In addition to containing a lot of misc. magical stuff like enchanted quarrels, this place also sells spell scrolls(mostly ones Owyn already has, though, and others that I'd rather find for free) and also buys them. For instance, here we can sell that Flamecast scroll for a nice, fat 130 gold. I don't care about those things, though, what I care about is that staff. In addition to being a nice boost, damage-and-accuracy wise, for Owyn, it also has charges. Those charges are all free casts of Skyfire, the lightning spell those goddamn Witch Hags hit us with in the Dimwood. It works on any enemy outdoors that's carrying metal(i.e. armor or a sword), and will hit them without fail, doing 40 damage. This means it only does 2/3rds of the damage of a Flamecast, but there's no potential friendly fire or missing with it, so it's a very reliable way to hit enemies and I always used it as my primary damage spell as a kid. Owyn gets this one, I have the money, so I may as well use some of it, as these staves are quite rare. Unlike swords, which are all over the place, there are only two non-shop locations in the entire game to get a hold of one of these. Leaving Sarth, there's a corn field next to the entrance road which is easy to miss because you can't interact meaningfully with corn in the game, it's always unripe, and unlike other fields in the game, there are no houses or barns(which may be looted) to draw you closer. This one matters, though, because we can scam a priest.  BaK posted:A garden was nearby.  I hope we aren't disturbing you. No, no. I was about to leave the garden anyway. Busy hands set the mind to work you know. On your way to Sarth? Perhaps, brother...? Brother Marc of Sarth. Glad to meet you. We don't get many illirati here. Books don't seem to interest the commoners as much as gold or wenching. But we have scholars enough, all going blind from reading worm eaten books and a dozen boys scribbling away their youth in our vaults. It is an unusual place. I've a friend who visited here once. He told me that you worship the god of Knowledge. They do say that, yes, and I suppose after a fashion it is true. If there is a question that can be answered in no other place, your best hope is to look in our vaults.Looks like we found the perfect mark in... Marc. Someone who walks around complaining about how the common rubes only care about fun, rather than books, is someone we won't feel too bad about defrauding a little. [CASTING] Do you know anything about spell casting? I know a little of it, though Brother Dominic knows more about it than I. As soon as he finishes his studies on Quegian civil codes, I'm certain he would be more than happy to sit down and talk to you about it. He should be only another two or three months at it I would think. I'm afraid we don't have two or three months to wait. Why don't we leave the brother alone, nephew? Tsk, tsk, tsk! Now don't discourage the boy from asking questions or he'll become afraid to question anything. I think I might have some time to teach him a bit about focusing if you can spare a few sovereigns, say fifty. Is that acceptable to everyone?[YES] More than acceptable. Where do we start? Ah, an enthusiastic student! Delightful. This will be a pleasure to teach.BaK posted:Owyn blanched. This training A) show us that Owyn is a Jedi who can throw people around with the Force and B) improves Owyn's Casting Accuracy by 10 points, which will help make some of the projectile spells a lot more useful. [SPELLS] Now that I know a little more about spell casting, perhaps there's a simple spell you could teach me? Owyn... Just something simple, so we can defend ourselves in case we run in to anyone hostile on the road. I don't know what you imagine is waiting out there for you, but I believe I have just the thing. I will have to run up to the Vaults to search for it, but it is a little spell called Flamecast. Of course, there will be the matter of a fee, say 30 sovereigns. I know precisely where it is if you want me to run and get it. Shall I?[YES] You can be quick about it? I won't be a moment. I will return as quickly as my little feet can move me.BaK posted:They waited. We've just paid 30 gold for a spell scroll that we can now turn around and sell for 130 gold. It should be obvious to everyone that this is definitely the virtuous choice. [ROAD SOUTH] Are there any hazards on the road south from here to Krondor? We are in something of a hurry and I would hate to run into any unexpected delays. I haven't heard any complaints from the travellers that have been through here in the past few weeks. I don't think the mercenaries that stopped by to speak to Brother Dominic said anything of it. Mercenaries? They're not in Quegian press gangs, are they? Not to my knowledge, no. These lot landed just south of Questor's View on a ship called the Foamspinner. As much as they've been up and down the road, I assumed they were in on a shore leave. Were there many of them? Many of them? If you laid them head to foot, I imagine you could walk across the Straits of Darkness without getting your feet wet. It seems one of those Quegian galleys can carry a small village from one place to an other![INNS] Do you know of any good inns in the area? I think I might sleep a little better if I could bed down on something other than cold ground tonight. There are a few. You might try Babon's Hostel in Questor's View or the old Bywater Inn. If it weren't for my duties here, I would be half inclined to join you. Some acolyte somewhere has been trying his hand at dream sendings and I've not had a good night's sleep in weeks. Dream sendings? It's a way to send messages over long distances. Only certain magicians have the talent for it. Whoever it is, they can't be too far away because his images are fairly strong. What do they seem to be trying to say? I'm not certain. The images are too disjointed, though now I think of it, I thought I had seen your elf friend's face before. Now I know why. His face was in the sendings.Most of these questions don't have any prerequisites from other places, so if you didn't pick up the hint from Isaac on the first visit, or interrogated him on the second visit, you might suddenly have an idea how the Moredhel somehow keep finding the party and attacking them. Obviously someone is sending and receiving psychic spy reports. [BAD WEATHER] So when is the storm going to hit? We're a little concerned about finding a place to stay so we don't get soaked. Storm? It is the first I have heard of such a meteorological disturbance. Brother Gierom didn't mention it to me before I left the abbey this morning. That's strange. We met a gentleman named Rowe who said a storm had been predicted by the brothers at the Abbey. I wonder why he would tell you such a thing. Of course, he has been acting peculiarly since his wife died. Terrible tragedy, and striking at such a time when he had to give up his farm. I really must feel for the poor old soulAnd this gives you a hint that Rowe might not be on the up and up and that you should be careful when approaching his farm. This is one point, in my mind, where the game suffers a bit from its lack of fidelity. A few weather effects, a crusty thunder.mid and some rain effects would work well to make the player feel like they should be seeking shelter(even if it had no mechanical effects) and thus perhaps make them miss some of the clues from Rowe. Maybe if resting in barns was as good as resting in inns and allowed 100% health recovery, rather than the 80% of wilderness resting, then his offer might seem a lot more tempting to a party that had gotten badly dinged up. But as it is, taking him up on his barn offer and accepting the bait(either knowingly or not) is kind of a roleplaying choice more than anything else. [GOODBYE] Seems we at least have a few things to think about. Thank you, Brother Marc. Always a pleasure to help. Come back and visit me again. Perhaps we will. Goodbye!It's worth revisiting Marc next chapter even though he'll be somewhat out of the way, as he will have some interesting things to share.    We're drawing close to Yellow Mule... I look forward to getting my hands around Nago's neck. As much as I look forward to the revenge, I wonder if we're biting off more than we can chew. Nago is a powerful spellweaver, but if he thought he could handle us himself, he would have. He hides and throws assassins at us from afar because he fears us. Still... there's a Temple of Sung in the area, a bit of divine favour would make me feel better about this.  BaK posted:Locklear asked to see the high priestess. This isn't just fluff talk, by the way, at the moment this Temple can't cure anyone because the priests are asleep on their feet. Thankfully, though, the encounters north of the Temple of Sung are light, the trip from it and all the way back up to Questor's View are, in fact, almost as lightly populated as the reach between Highcastle and Northwarden in Chapter 1.     A couple of Quegans serve as warm-up exercises as the party approach the ominous barn... I'm shaking like a leaf, let's get this over with!BaK posted:The air rippled.  You always lose initiative coming into this battle, and it resultingly has the potential to go quite poorly as Nago has a big assortment of spells. Flamecast, Skyfire, Hocho's Haven and Mind Melt we all know, but in addition to that he also knows Fetters of Rime(like a non-explosive Flamecast that ALSO applies paralysis like Grief of 1000 Nights) and Strength Drain(reduces the target's Strength stat by up to 20 for the remainder of the battle and increases the caster's strength by half that, also for the remainder).   He starts off with what I feared most, nailing Owyn with Fetters of Rime and taking him out of the fight. This means that my #1 priority now is to prevent this rear end in a top hat from casting another spell before the fight ends.   Thankfully the rest of the moredhel are mostly busy chasing Gorath and Locklear, rather than beating down the defenseless Owyn who, thanks to his Grey Tower Plate and the defense training from Devon, they almost can't hit, and once Nago goes down, the rest of the fight is no longer a great challenge.   Gorath even nails this perfect crossbow shot right between Owyn and Locklear to drop the last Moredhel fighter before he can get any ideas about running away. Now... time to paw through their corpses for anything interesting.  Predictably, only Nago yields anything worth talking about.  Normally he'd also be the first real meaningful sword upgrade on the most direct route, there's also an ice wand(Alfathain's Icer) which applies a frost modifier to a weapon for one battle, a +50% damage boost, and a note full of exposition: BaK posted:Master, Shame for Nago that we found none of these chests(yet) and thus aren't fooled. Also, as a funny thing, a bug in version 1.01 was that this note was also placed on another character, much later in the game, thus probably leading to a lot of confusion, especially since it also replaced an actual clue for that chapter that said character was meant to be carrying instead.This fight also canonical and, in fact, spookily so, since in the book Owyn gets grazed by a Fetters of Rime spell that almost loses them the fight, but since it only partially paralyzes him, he manages to prevent Nago from casting any spells for long enough that Locklear and Gorath can put down his guards, then chop him in half. Instead of a note ABOUT the fake evidence, however, in the book, they find the notes themselves on Nago's desk in the barn, ready for planting all sorts of places, each of them implying some sort of slightly plausible location for an attack from Delekhan to mislead Kingdom troops.  Revenge is sweet. Cutting that spellweaver in half was worth those ten sovereigns to Rowe. A settled debt long in the coming, but I'd never thought I'd actually get to do so. Do all you Moredhel have a feud or a blood debt out for each other? Not all, I probably wouldn't start sparring with my ex-wives if I met them.Before we continue back south, we pop back to the Temple of Sung to see how they're doing now the annoying Dream Sender in the neighbourhood is gone... BaK posted:Kellan greeted them. This teaches Owyn Hocho's Haven for free, I'm not sure if there's some alternate text if you already know, but the BaK site doesn't indicate any, so I would assume not. Now, however, we're practically right on top of Krondor, so let's finish this road trip.    A last few Quegans attempt to get in our way, but we sweep them aside effortlessly.  That'll teach them to get in our way.   BaK posted:The path turned. The answer is obviously yes, as we can do nothing else, though in the book the party waits for a patrol to pass by(while Gorath makes uncharitable comments about humanity's cities), then slip into the city alongside them. However, once they do, they have the same problems that the party's about to have.  Krondor! It's got the amenities you'd normally want from a big city, though one of them(the temple), we can't currently access. Two shops, even, and of course an inn as well. I quickly sell what spare gear the party has and then head for the palace, but... BaK posted:Locklear made a face as he shook the bars. Let's not even think about the fact that we are, at the moment, dealing with a fortress that has literally only one entrance, and that being a big dramatic portcullis at the front. Let's just accept it as it's how the game is going to chase us into the only required dungeon of chapter 1...   Can't we just go back to letting moredhel shoot arrows at us? I liked that part more. Welcome to the sewers of Krondor which is... honestly? Probably the most re-occurring location within the city across the books, and also an area that I got lost in so many times as a kid. Next time, we'll actually get into the palace, for sure, probably!
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Oct 6, 2021 13:46
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As a little bonus, I also took some screenshots of the manual which has some slightly higher-quality versions of some of the costumes that were turned into .jpegs for the game... For instance, look how loving ridiculous Locklear is this higher-resolution image, look at that loving moustache, what the hell.  This Brak Nurr looks like it's made out of chunks of styrofoam.  The Rusalki absolutely looks like someone who was press-ganged into her appearance and does not want to be here, and don't even get me started on how silly the Quegan looks. There are another couple I'll share as we reach their relevant characters/enemies and which look similarly somewhat silly.
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Oct 6, 2021 13:49
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