tsk tsk tsk! You saw that poster to be wary of the Powder Cliff. Any adventurer worth her salt would naturally head straight there. 
"Saturn Devouring His Son" on the wall.
on top of my head I can't quite remember the specific significance it has.
Last edited by urst on 28.08.2017 22:28, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: rephrased spoilertag, sorry
Reason: rephrased spoilertag, sorry
27.08.2017 19:26badgesareus wrote:"Saturn Devouring His Son" on the wall.
on top of my head I can't quite remember the specific significance it has.
27.08.2017 13:21Ragnarok wrote: First of all thank you for this narrative. I have played Enderal once, completing all quests I could find and discovering all locations on the map. I have been waiting for the DLC to begin a new game, to relive it all afresh. Your write up helps my waiting.
I'm in the same boat, except that it took me two playthroughs, and am waiting patiently for the DLC. In the meantime, I'm thoroughly enjoying this first impressions, seeing things in a little different light.
27.08.2017 19:03dyslexicfaser wrote: Looks like I don't have any saves during the dream sequence! I usually just rely on quicksave and autosave.
The only painting coming to mind is of the lady doing the weird prayer that looks like that thing they do in Steven Universe. I assumed that wasn't very rare or important since my house has that art piece too, once I paid 300 pennies for the laborer's set.
You guys will have to tell me what I missed when we get to that point in the story.
27.08.2017 19:20urst wrote: there's also this nice, light-hearted painting "Saturn Devouring His Son" on the wall.
on top of my head I can't quite remember the specific significance it has.
other that beeing generally fitting.
shame on me, I'm sure i'm missing something...
27.08.2017 19:32urst wrote:good point27.08.2017 19:26badgesareus wrote:"Saturn Devouring His Son" on the wall.
on top of my head I can't quite remember the specific significance it has.
I admit I did, but I wasn't exactly expecting the High Ones to take us out for cake and ice cream like Coarek thinks, to begin with.
I see you guys started interpreting the "Saturn Devouring His Son" painting and its relevance to the game. Don't do it too quickly, because I haven't finished the story yet and I want to write something insightful too
- I swing by and pick up the new summons at the Sun Temple magic shop - ‘elemental wolf’ and ‘revive corpse III’, those should be fun - before checking in with the rest of the Order.
My first stop is actually the Chroniclum (or however you say that), the digs of the Nehrimese mages and the Order’s chroniclers and archivists. I’m a little disappointed none of the NPCs have anything to say about Constantine being gone. Maybe news hasn’t trickled down the ranks yet?
On the other hand, Novice Elia (she’s part of a super short quest I did earlier, where you have to track her down in the cemetery district) seems to have moved into Constantine’s room to keep an eye on things (that is, to keep me from stealing all the shit in that room).
Lexil the Archmage has some interesting (read: depressing) backstory now that I’m actually talking to him outside of quest events. Basically, his life was so shitty (Nehrimese noble says: You and your mom are my slaves now!) that eventually it wrapped around to being awesome, when he was sold to a new master who died of fleshmaggots when they came to Enderal (yeah, gotta watch out for… basically everything, on this fuggin’ continent). Since his master was a Sublime (that’s the Enderalean noble caste. Do Enderaleans get to own slaves? Why haven’t I seen slaves around here?), he basically got shuffled into the Order, distinguished himself, yadda yadda now he’s the Archmage. Also his old master probably got killed in the civil war, although his mom went MIA and he’d like to go look for her someday.
- Does anyone have a happy backstory in this game? I’m legitimately trying to think of one.
Maybe the ones with happy backstories don’t feel the need to parade them around within 5 minutes of me asking what their deal is.
- Anyway, on to the council room. Looks like Arantheal is keeping the faith, but the others are none too happy about … anything, really. Us going missing for what was apparently a week. Us returning after a week without a word. The invasion. The price of grain, probably.
The Truchessa (it was Disapproving Order Mom after all! Apparently she was the leader of Enderal while Arantheal was in prison for years, bet that won’t be a problem ever) is angry about Arantheal diverting resources to the Beacon.
Lishari is furious to the point of drawing her sword over Constantine and shouts threats at the Truchessa, who is coldly furious right back, and Arantheal has to bust out his Disappointed Dad voice to get them to back down.
I wasn’t aware she liked Constantine so much, her voice actress is really emoting here; Constantine meanwhile could never even remember her name. In fact, I can’t remember her name, because Constantine kept mispronouncing it on me.
I am watching this alliance disintegrate in front of me, and it’s kind of amazing in a trainwreck sort of way.
Also, hey. Speaking of being none too happy, I just noticed. Why are Jespar and I at the foot of the table?
Literally the entire table is closer to Arantheal than we are. I’ve got a Capital Letter Name too, shouldn’t I be up closer to the front?
- Anyway, there’s some optional ally maintenance you can do before moving on to the next step (Lishari has some ideas and wants to meet at the Dancing Nymph).
Arantheal will tell you some cool backstory about Qyra: land of intellectuals, mages, colleges and constant - goddamn constant - civil wars. I guess when no thought or philosophy is forbidden, you get some radical ideologies.
So basically, the Truchessa was throwing Arantheal’s past mistakes back in his face, y’know, like friends do, and how he accidentally caused one of Qyra’s civil wars to blow up. Manipulated into killing a village of enraged, scared farmers that came at them with pitchforks, basically. Arantheal has since sworn that he would never allow fear of his own death get in the way of his decisions again. What a boss.
Although I have to wonder… shadowsteel swords? Why didn’t I get a shadowsteel sword signing bonus? I just got some shitty steel armor. I’ve never even seen a shadowsteel sword before, is Arantheal holding out on me?
- Arantheal also posits that if Coarek is the Messias (presumably that should be ‘Messiah’), then some of the Emissaries will be fighting on the High Ones’ side, and whatever is granting us our powers isn’t an enemy of the High Ones, but some neutral party. Possibly that mystery woman that stopped time to talk some cryptic nonsense right before I got tied to a rock and drowned near the start of the game.
I have the option to tell him that the Highbear said he wasn’t a real Emissary, but I decide not to do that. It just seems like it wouldn’t help, you know? Call it paranoia over the time Coarek had me murdered for mouthing off.
- Calia also wants to complain about the state of the world and stuff.
And hey, since Jespar has been dodging my attempts to nail him down on the ‘him and me’ angle, when given the option I figure… why not? And start sending some compliments Calia’s way. To her credit, she picks up on it immediately, and I’m given the choice of playing it off as a joke, admitting I like her, or pull some dodge about me being a woman. Girls can’t love girls, you know.
Although since she literally turns into a shadowy demon when in the grip of strong emotion she’s kiiiind of not looking for anything right now.
Which, y’know, that’s fair. She asks me to respect those boundaries, and I do! I totally do. I watched her kill a man until he was dead and then mutilate the corpse for a good 7 seconds afterwards. I don’t want to see Demon Calia again if I forget an anniversary, either.
- And Jespar has a new story about being hired to steal a tribal idol, making the poor decision to accept the advances of a pair of Amazonian native sisters, and waking up sans idol, money and clothes.
He actually appreciates it if I laugh at him about it, the masochist.
I’m kind of surprised he didn’t have a quest for me, considering he mentioned his sister the noble-turned-Apothecary went MIA and he wants to search for her.
- Well, now it’s time to head up to her room at the Dancing Nymph to see what Lishari has to say. She’s pretty sharp, and-
Ooh boy. So that’s Lishari, in bed, as naked as Skyrim ladies ever get. The sword that presumably killed her is stabbed through the mattress, and the blood is everywhere.
I’m not sure which answer would be more unsettling, so I’m not even going to ask ‘Was she stripped down to her underpants before she died, or after?’
And then Yuslan Sha’rim, Nehrimese of the same Order, expert mage and possibly some kind of ghost-whisperer (he spends at least half of every conversation talking to someone named Naea, and plays coy when you ask who Naea is), walks in the door behind me. Because fucking of course.
Yuslan gets way more pissed than when he heard Constantine died (I get the feeling they were an item at some point, he and Lishari), and throws some accusations around. I throw accusations back about his convenient timing, and then claim I was there for a lesbian rendezvous. I panicked, okay?
He seems to buy it, anyway.
So we dig around the room a bit and come up with a bottle of drugs that honestly seems like pretty weak evidence to me, but Yuslan latches onto it.
I also carefully do not point out that Lishari was probably murdered by someone in the Order (she said she had some evidence she wanted me to take a look at), because at this point, with two of the three heads of the Nehrimese mages coming down with a bad case of dead, I’m kind of worried Yuslan would murder somebody and/or leave if I did. And I like them a lot more than the Order, who still only barely (and snidely) tolerate me.
I’ll just have to burn some midnight oil and figure things out solo, like a proper protagonist!
- Before heading back to tell Arantheal the news, I decide head out to Fortress Fogwatch to give my new summons a shakedown run. I have a quest from way back when I first got to Ark, you see: an alchemist named Bal had a grandfather who fucked up and bred some plague mushrooms (just what Enderal needed, more evil mushrooms!), and Bal needs his notes and mushroom samples to try and figure out a cure and redeem the family name.
So yes, this guy wants me to grab a bunch of plague mushrooms, put them in my bag, and bring them back to him in Ark. Whatever, money’s money, and I’m already dead, so I’m probably fine!
- On the way I run into a pretty neat little village full of entropy mages (that’s the evil forbidden magics, remember) and ‘runaway convicts’ being kept chopping wood at all hours. Not sure what’s up with all the wood chopping, to be honest, but the village is basically like the mages just came in and took over some little shithole village in the name of religious/magical freedom and made the villagers their slaves, which is a pretty cool narrative.
They planted explosive runes everywhere around the village, and I learn this by riding right over one and exploding. But it only knocks about half off my health bar, so who cares?
Revive III works pretty well, but not quite well enough: kill a mage and use it on the corpse, and she revives into a kinda-sparkly blue mage-wight and runs off to go blast the shit out of the rest of the town for me. The problem is that after being revived once, the NPC turns into a cloud of dust that can’t be revived again.
Compare this to my new wolf – made entirely of flame – who can be resummoned eternally and who can, I learn shortly, take on three ghost-mages solo. Just doesn’t quite measure up, you know?
- So anyway, I work my way up to Fortress Fogwatch through an extremely evil-looking forest (this looks familiar; did I take my trial here? You know, the crazy dream sequence one. All these evil mushroom forests start to blur together after a while), and then kill roughly 50 undead, including a lot of ghost alchemists who hit hard with their silver swords and also throw magic in a pinch.
Here’s a neat thing, by the way:
Is this Mary Seacole, do you think? The legendary Jamaican herb woman, hotel owner and war nurse?
What with it being put up in an alchemist’s laboratory and all.
- I settle into a plan of attack I like to call ‘Aggro room of monsters, run away while wolfie deals with them’, since 3-4 of these alchemists kick my ass but my wolfbro must have an enormous health bar because he’s totally fine.
If I didn’t have the wolf, I’d be doomed. The difficulty of this quest is not in any way worth the 150 gold pennies the alchemist will give me for completing it, although these piles of silver swords being worth around 75 pennies apiece makes up for it.
I decide to turn in the mushroom samples to the Apothecarius in Sun Temple instead of the guy who hired me, partly because the last thing Undercity needs is another plague, and partly to punish Bal for making me do this and then paying me a pittance for it.
The Takeaway:
I wonder if we’re shifting into the endgame here? There’s a war on, and narratively important NPCs are suddenly dropping like flies. I would say I’m less invested in Lishari’s death than Constantine’s (or my own!), or if, say, Jespar bought the farm, but she’s still a solid secondary NPC who got killed offscreen just to raise the stakes. And I’m at least half convinced that Jorek or the Truchessa will turn out to be the hand holding the knife.
I also appreciate the game giving me the choice of whether to go the inflammatory route or not. Sure it’s probably not going to matter either way, but it feels like I have the choice to hold back some information for the sake of politics or hurt feelings, or just throw caution to the wind and go full disclosure, and that’s a good feeling.
Fogwatch Fortress turned out to be a fairly mediocre quest. One man’s quest to redeem his family name isn’t a bad narrative, but it’s not as visceral as say, Kor’s priesthood purging their undesirables. Where the letters prime us to care about the wives who didn’t make it, which in turn keeps us going until we find the sunken temple and the rest of the bodies. Having more journals from the researchers might have done the trick here, but all we got was the grandfather’s regrets which was a little insufficient and late.
My first stop is actually the Chroniclum (or however you say that), the digs of the Nehrimese mages and the Order’s chroniclers and archivists. I’m a little disappointed none of the NPCs have anything to say about Constantine being gone. Maybe news hasn’t trickled down the ranks yet?
On the other hand, Novice Elia (she’s part of a super short quest I did earlier, where you have to track her down in the cemetery district) seems to have moved into Constantine’s room to keep an eye on things (that is, to keep me from stealing all the shit in that room).
Lexil the Archmage has some interesting (read: depressing) backstory now that I’m actually talking to him outside of quest events. Basically, his life was so shitty (Nehrimese noble says: You and your mom are my slaves now!) that eventually it wrapped around to being awesome, when he was sold to a new master who died of fleshmaggots when they came to Enderal (yeah, gotta watch out for… basically everything, on this fuggin’ continent). Since his master was a Sublime (that’s the Enderalean noble caste. Do Enderaleans get to own slaves? Why haven’t I seen slaves around here?), he basically got shuffled into the Order, distinguished himself, yadda yadda now he’s the Archmage. Also his old master probably got killed in the civil war, although his mom went MIA and he’d like to go look for her someday.
- Does anyone have a happy backstory in this game? I’m legitimately trying to think of one.
Maybe the ones with happy backstories don’t feel the need to parade them around within 5 minutes of me asking what their deal is.
- Anyway, on to the council room. Looks like Arantheal is keeping the faith, but the others are none too happy about … anything, really. Us going missing for what was apparently a week. Us returning after a week without a word. The invasion. The price of grain, probably.
The Truchessa (it was Disapproving Order Mom after all! Apparently she was the leader of Enderal while Arantheal was in prison for years, bet that won’t be a problem ever) is angry about Arantheal diverting resources to the Beacon.
Lishari is furious to the point of drawing her sword over Constantine and shouts threats at the Truchessa, who is coldly furious right back, and Arantheal has to bust out his Disappointed Dad voice to get them to back down.
I wasn’t aware she liked Constantine so much, her voice actress is really emoting here; Constantine meanwhile could never even remember her name. In fact, I can’t remember her name, because Constantine kept mispronouncing it on me.
I am watching this alliance disintegrate in front of me, and it’s kind of amazing in a trainwreck sort of way.
Also, hey. Speaking of being none too happy, I just noticed. Why are Jespar and I at the foot of the table?
Literally the entire table is closer to Arantheal than we are. I’ve got a Capital Letter Name too, shouldn’t I be up closer to the front?
- Anyway, there’s some optional ally maintenance you can do before moving on to the next step (Lishari has some ideas and wants to meet at the Dancing Nymph).
Arantheal will tell you some cool backstory about Qyra: land of intellectuals, mages, colleges and constant - goddamn constant - civil wars. I guess when no thought or philosophy is forbidden, you get some radical ideologies.
So basically, the Truchessa was throwing Arantheal’s past mistakes back in his face, y’know, like friends do, and how he accidentally caused one of Qyra’s civil wars to blow up. Manipulated into killing a village of enraged, scared farmers that came at them with pitchforks, basically. Arantheal has since sworn that he would never allow fear of his own death get in the way of his decisions again. What a boss.
Although I have to wonder… shadowsteel swords? Why didn’t I get a shadowsteel sword signing bonus? I just got some shitty steel armor. I’ve never even seen a shadowsteel sword before, is Arantheal holding out on me?
- Arantheal also posits that if Coarek is the Messias (presumably that should be ‘Messiah’), then some of the Emissaries will be fighting on the High Ones’ side, and whatever is granting us our powers isn’t an enemy of the High Ones, but some neutral party. Possibly that mystery woman that stopped time to talk some cryptic nonsense right before I got tied to a rock and drowned near the start of the game.
I have the option to tell him that the Highbear said he wasn’t a real Emissary, but I decide not to do that. It just seems like it wouldn’t help, you know? Call it paranoia over the time Coarek had me murdered for mouthing off.
- Calia also wants to complain about the state of the world and stuff.
And hey, since Jespar has been dodging my attempts to nail him down on the ‘him and me’ angle, when given the option I figure… why not? And start sending some compliments Calia’s way. To her credit, she picks up on it immediately, and I’m given the choice of playing it off as a joke, admitting I like her, or pull some dodge about me being a woman. Girls can’t love girls, you know.
Although since she literally turns into a shadowy demon when in the grip of strong emotion she’s kiiiind of not looking for anything right now.
Which, y’know, that’s fair. She asks me to respect those boundaries, and I do! I totally do. I watched her kill a man until he was dead and then mutilate the corpse for a good 7 seconds afterwards. I don’t want to see Demon Calia again if I forget an anniversary, either.
- And Jespar has a new story about being hired to steal a tribal idol, making the poor decision to accept the advances of a pair of Amazonian native sisters, and waking up sans idol, money and clothes.
He actually appreciates it if I laugh at him about it, the masochist.
I’m kind of surprised he didn’t have a quest for me, considering he mentioned his sister the noble-turned-Apothecary went MIA and he wants to search for her.
- Well, now it’s time to head up to her room at the Dancing Nymph to see what Lishari has to say. She’s pretty sharp, and-
Ooh boy. So that’s Lishari, in bed, as naked as Skyrim ladies ever get. The sword that presumably killed her is stabbed through the mattress, and the blood is everywhere.
I’m not sure which answer would be more unsettling, so I’m not even going to ask ‘Was she stripped down to her underpants before she died, or after?’
And then Yuslan Sha’rim, Nehrimese of the same Order, expert mage and possibly some kind of ghost-whisperer (he spends at least half of every conversation talking to someone named Naea, and plays coy when you ask who Naea is), walks in the door behind me. Because fucking of course.
Yuslan gets way more pissed than when he heard Constantine died (I get the feeling they were an item at some point, he and Lishari), and throws some accusations around. I throw accusations back about his convenient timing, and then claim I was there for a lesbian rendezvous. I panicked, okay?
He seems to buy it, anyway.
So we dig around the room a bit and come up with a bottle of drugs that honestly seems like pretty weak evidence to me, but Yuslan latches onto it.
I also carefully do not point out that Lishari was probably murdered by someone in the Order (she said she had some evidence she wanted me to take a look at), because at this point, with two of the three heads of the Nehrimese mages coming down with a bad case of dead, I’m kind of worried Yuslan would murder somebody and/or leave if I did. And I like them a lot more than the Order, who still only barely (and snidely) tolerate me.
I’ll just have to burn some midnight oil and figure things out solo, like a proper protagonist!
- Before heading back to tell Arantheal the news, I decide head out to Fortress Fogwatch to give my new summons a shakedown run. I have a quest from way back when I first got to Ark, you see: an alchemist named Bal had a grandfather who fucked up and bred some plague mushrooms (just what Enderal needed, more evil mushrooms!), and Bal needs his notes and mushroom samples to try and figure out a cure and redeem the family name.
So yes, this guy wants me to grab a bunch of plague mushrooms, put them in my bag, and bring them back to him in Ark. Whatever, money’s money, and I’m already dead, so I’m probably fine!
- On the way I run into a pretty neat little village full of entropy mages (that’s the evil forbidden magics, remember) and ‘runaway convicts’ being kept chopping wood at all hours. Not sure what’s up with all the wood chopping, to be honest, but the village is basically like the mages just came in and took over some little shithole village in the name of religious/magical freedom and made the villagers their slaves, which is a pretty cool narrative.
They planted explosive runes everywhere around the village, and I learn this by riding right over one and exploding. But it only knocks about half off my health bar, so who cares?
Revive III works pretty well, but not quite well enough: kill a mage and use it on the corpse, and she revives into a kinda-sparkly blue mage-wight and runs off to go blast the shit out of the rest of the town for me. The problem is that after being revived once, the NPC turns into a cloud of dust that can’t be revived again.
Compare this to my new wolf – made entirely of flame – who can be resummoned eternally and who can, I learn shortly, take on three ghost-mages solo. Just doesn’t quite measure up, you know?
- So anyway, I work my way up to Fortress Fogwatch through an extremely evil-looking forest (this looks familiar; did I take my trial here? You know, the crazy dream sequence one. All these evil mushroom forests start to blur together after a while), and then kill roughly 50 undead, including a lot of ghost alchemists who hit hard with their silver swords and also throw magic in a pinch.
Here’s a neat thing, by the way:
Is this Mary Seacole, do you think? The legendary Jamaican herb woman, hotel owner and war nurse?
What with it being put up in an alchemist’s laboratory and all.
- I settle into a plan of attack I like to call ‘Aggro room of monsters, run away while wolfie deals with them’, since 3-4 of these alchemists kick my ass but my wolfbro must have an enormous health bar because he’s totally fine.
If I didn’t have the wolf, I’d be doomed. The difficulty of this quest is not in any way worth the 150 gold pennies the alchemist will give me for completing it, although these piles of silver swords being worth around 75 pennies apiece makes up for it.
I decide to turn in the mushroom samples to the Apothecarius in Sun Temple instead of the guy who hired me, partly because the last thing Undercity needs is another plague, and partly to punish Bal for making me do this and then paying me a pittance for it.
The Takeaway:
I wonder if we’re shifting into the endgame here? There’s a war on, and narratively important NPCs are suddenly dropping like flies. I would say I’m less invested in Lishari’s death than Constantine’s (or my own!), or if, say, Jespar bought the farm, but she’s still a solid secondary NPC who got killed offscreen just to raise the stakes. And I’m at least half convinced that Jorek or the Truchessa will turn out to be the hand holding the knife.
I also appreciate the game giving me the choice of whether to go the inflammatory route or not. Sure it’s probably not going to matter either way, but it feels like I have the choice to hold back some information for the sake of politics or hurt feelings, or just throw caution to the wind and go full disclosure, and that’s a good feeling.
Fogwatch Fortress turned out to be a fairly mediocre quest. One man’s quest to redeem his family name isn’t a bad narrative, but it’s not as visceral as say, Kor’s priesthood purging their undesirables. Where the letters prime us to care about the wives who didn’t make it, which in turn keeps us going until we find the sunken temple and the rest of the bodies. Having more journals from the researchers might have done the trick here, but all we got was the grandfather’s regrets which was a little insufficient and late.
Is this Mary Seacole, do you think? The legendary Jamaican herb woman, hotel owner and war nurse?
"Serving Maid" by Thomas Waterman Wood:
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/ser ... -wood.html
German Angst at work here.
"Serving Maid" by Thomas Waterman Wood:
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/ser ... -wood.html
- Does anyone have a happy backstory in this game? I’m legitimately trying to think of one.
dyslexicfaser, amazing write-up, read more like a novel. Love that you go out and try the new spells to see how they work and which ones work better.
It will be interesting to see you work the romance angles and whom you choose or not choose.
Not sure if you want to know whether you are getting to the end game or not, so I'll spoilerize just in case
badgesareus: funny but true comment about German angst.
It will be interesting to see you work the romance angles and whom you choose or not choose.
Not sure if you want to know whether you are getting to the end game or not, so I'll spoilerize just in case
badgesareus: funny but true comment about German angst.
- It’s a little odd, but according to my map marker I’m supposed to report Lishari’s death to Lexil the Archmage. He’s posed pretty fabulously when I find him, leafing through an ancient tome. #JustArchmageThings.
He has a few kind words for Lishari, but honestly the whole thing feels weirdly understated. They’re kicking the investigation over to ‘Commander Eren’, who I don’t think I’ve ever met or heard of. Not exactly bringing their A-game to the investigation, is what I’m saying.
Lexil and Tealor Arantheal have much more to say about the Beacon than about their ally found stabbed to death in her room. See, it’s got three spots for power to be plugged in. I just knew I was going to have to Legend of Zelda this shit up at some point. I could feel it.
Hey Prophetess, you ever heard of the ‘black stones’?
What kind of undesirable side-effects? Wait, don’t tell me, I can guess.
I said I can guess!
Always, it comes back to insanity and death.
On the upside, good thematic callback to me burning my house down and murdering the fam in a fit of insanity. If I have to go back to my home in Nehrim to get one of your Beacon gizmos, Lexil …
Well honestly, that would be pretty cool. Yeah. I’m down. Who wouldn’t want to sift through the destroyed remnants of their childhood home looking for a shiny ball that’ll probably drive them mad with power, and might have done once already?
- Also:
Elia. Elia, can I … help you?
… No? Not gonna say a word. Just gonna … chill? Okay, cool. You do you, girl.
- Unfortunately, I prooobably shouldn’t have put this meeting off to do Fortress Fogwatch, because Lexil tells me he’s got some things to get together, and to come back tomorrow. So I’m stuck cooling my heels.
- Well, I’ve got a quest from the ‘A GOD AM I’ inventor guy, to go find his wayward apprentice, anyway. So I’m off to a new area called ‘Wellwatch’.
Why is this game so beautiful, holy shit. I mean, I’m not sure how the seasons work in Enderal, but SureAI sure can make some evocative scenery.
- On the way to the campsite where what’s-her-face was dragged off, I run into a bandit camp-slash-quarry that got murdered but good by some… wood elementals or something? Spriggans? Very large dryad type things surrounded by a cloud of stinging flies, named <Goldenforst Matriarchs>.
Whatever, they’re not ‘ard enough to deal with flame-wolf. Bit of a mismatch, there. Right? Fire, meet tree. You already have so much in common; like being on fire.
… Is that supposed to be ‘Goldenforest’, by the way? Just asking.
More importantly, I wander into an innocuous cave attached to the quarry called ‘Cliff Diving Grotto’, and run into a new type of undead. Lost Ones, clad in black and silver armor and wielding bows of similar make.
This is gonna be one of those dungeons.
- Or it would be, except the pathing is REALLY bad, in here. As long as I cower behind this rock and fire about 50 arrows downrange, the two Lost Ones at the entrance just run back and forth and I can take my time and bring them down like one of those carnival shooting gallery games with the cork guns.
The next, a batch of four, are likewise not much of a challenge. I’m not sure if it’s the speed they run at or more bad pathing, but none of them even get close. My wolf doesn’t even deploy, just hangs around doing his best to foul my shots.
Down, then up, and then… Markul Darkhand, kin to my friend from the Madness Time beneath Ark. This one has a pretty nasty fire and ice combination attack: an AOE freezing mist that keeps the enemy from moving at more than a crawl, and then a fireball as a finisher.
That just means my wolf runs in ahead of me as I cower like the coward I am, and tears the poor lich open like a turkey.
This wolf, man. Somebody was talking earlier about who I might be romancing, Jespar or Calia? I’m mostly wondering at this point just how restrictive the local laws are. I mean, what a hero and her elemental wolf get up to behind closed doors is nobody’s business but theirs, right?
- There’s a few more Lost Ones between me and the exit, but I sail right on through to find this guy:
Am I weird for finding him adorable? With his little lantern and sword and skeleton grin?
Just me? Okay then.
- Off to find Pathira, then. There’s a mysterious blood splatter at her camp, so… I’m guessing she’s not off picking flowers. The minimap marker clicks off; it’s time to do some detective work.
Except we appear to be close enough to aggro a Goldenforst Matriarch. No sweat, right? Except during the fight, something goes wrong.
Something about the mob (charm spells?), or a bug, or something... I am beset by base treachery.
Elemental wolf bites hurt a lot.
- That happens twice, actually, and I just barely manage to kill the Matriarch and wolfie with a sliver of health left on the second go-round. I see how it is.
Well, y’know what, wolfie? I don’t even NEED you! I have this hideous thing!
I can barely stand to look at it, but it’s level 30 to your 26, and it’s probably got like, magic and shit. I’m gonna take it on magical adventures in the Goldenforst, and learn valuable lessons and maybe doom all humanity to living under the mighty bootheel of a new Centurion God-king! And it’ll be awesome!
So there. *sniff*
The Takeaway:
I have to say, the Order’s response to Constantine and Lishari’s death is not comforting in the least. After all, I’m a suspicious foreigner, too, y’know? If I died on one of these little jaunts (y’know, for real) (like, permanently) I wonder if the Keepers clustered around that table in the Sun Temple would shake their heads and murmur ‘sad’ before moving on to other business?
Luckily, they can’t get rid of me that easily.
He has a few kind words for Lishari, but honestly the whole thing feels weirdly understated. They’re kicking the investigation over to ‘Commander Eren’, who I don’t think I’ve ever met or heard of. Not exactly bringing their A-game to the investigation, is what I’m saying.
Lexil and Tealor Arantheal have much more to say about the Beacon than about their ally found stabbed to death in her room. See, it’s got three spots for power to be plugged in. I just knew I was going to have to Legend of Zelda this shit up at some point. I could feel it.
Hey Prophetess, you ever heard of the ‘black stones’?
What kind of undesirable side-effects? Wait, don’t tell me, I can guess.
I said I can guess!
Always, it comes back to insanity and death.
On the upside, good thematic callback to me burning my house down and murdering the fam in a fit of insanity. If I have to go back to my home in Nehrim to get one of your Beacon gizmos, Lexil …
Well honestly, that would be pretty cool. Yeah. I’m down. Who wouldn’t want to sift through the destroyed remnants of their childhood home looking for a shiny ball that’ll probably drive them mad with power, and might have done once already?
- Also:
Elia. Elia, can I … help you?
… No? Not gonna say a word. Just gonna … chill? Okay, cool. You do you, girl.
- Unfortunately, I prooobably shouldn’t have put this meeting off to do Fortress Fogwatch, because Lexil tells me he’s got some things to get together, and to come back tomorrow. So I’m stuck cooling my heels.
- Well, I’ve got a quest from the ‘A GOD AM I’ inventor guy, to go find his wayward apprentice, anyway. So I’m off to a new area called ‘Wellwatch’.
Why is this game so beautiful, holy shit. I mean, I’m not sure how the seasons work in Enderal, but SureAI sure can make some evocative scenery.
- On the way to the campsite where what’s-her-face was dragged off, I run into a bandit camp-slash-quarry that got murdered but good by some… wood elementals or something? Spriggans? Very large dryad type things surrounded by a cloud of stinging flies, named <Goldenforst Matriarchs>.
Whatever, they’re not ‘ard enough to deal with flame-wolf. Bit of a mismatch, there. Right? Fire, meet tree. You already have so much in common; like being on fire.
… Is that supposed to be ‘Goldenforest’, by the way? Just asking.
More importantly, I wander into an innocuous cave attached to the quarry called ‘Cliff Diving Grotto’, and run into a new type of undead. Lost Ones, clad in black and silver armor and wielding bows of similar make.
This is gonna be one of those dungeons.
- Or it would be, except the pathing is REALLY bad, in here. As long as I cower behind this rock and fire about 50 arrows downrange, the two Lost Ones at the entrance just run back and forth and I can take my time and bring them down like one of those carnival shooting gallery games with the cork guns.
The next, a batch of four, are likewise not much of a challenge. I’m not sure if it’s the speed they run at or more bad pathing, but none of them even get close. My wolf doesn’t even deploy, just hangs around doing his best to foul my shots.
Down, then up, and then… Markul Darkhand, kin to my friend from the Madness Time beneath Ark. This one has a pretty nasty fire and ice combination attack: an AOE freezing mist that keeps the enemy from moving at more than a crawl, and then a fireball as a finisher.
That just means my wolf runs in ahead of me as I cower like the coward I am, and tears the poor lich open like a turkey.
This wolf, man. Somebody was talking earlier about who I might be romancing, Jespar or Calia? I’m mostly wondering at this point just how restrictive the local laws are. I mean, what a hero and her elemental wolf get up to behind closed doors is nobody’s business but theirs, right?
- There’s a few more Lost Ones between me and the exit, but I sail right on through to find this guy:
Am I weird for finding him adorable? With his little lantern and sword and skeleton grin?
Just me? Okay then.
- Off to find Pathira, then. There’s a mysterious blood splatter at her camp, so… I’m guessing she’s not off picking flowers. The minimap marker clicks off; it’s time to do some detective work.
Except we appear to be close enough to aggro a Goldenforst Matriarch. No sweat, right? Except during the fight, something goes wrong.
Something about the mob (charm spells?), or a bug, or something... I am beset by base treachery.
Elemental wolf bites hurt a lot.
- That happens twice, actually, and I just barely manage to kill the Matriarch and wolfie with a sliver of health left on the second go-round. I see how it is.
Well, y’know what, wolfie? I don’t even NEED you! I have this hideous thing!
I can barely stand to look at it, but it’s level 30 to your 26, and it’s probably got like, magic and shit. I’m gonna take it on magical adventures in the Goldenforst, and learn valuable lessons and maybe doom all humanity to living under the mighty bootheel of a new Centurion God-king! And it’ll be awesome!
So there. *sniff*
The Takeaway:
I have to say, the Order’s response to Constantine and Lishari’s death is not comforting in the least. After all, I’m a suspicious foreigner, too, y’know? If I died on one of these little jaunts (y’know, for real) (like, permanently) I wonder if the Keepers clustered around that table in the Sun Temple would shake their heads and murmur ‘sad’ before moving on to other business?
Luckily, they can’t get rid of me that easily.
Your last pic is rather interesting. I've used the oorbaya, but I never took a close look at it, as I was usually busy not dying. It looks like it has a giant heart; isn't that a bit exposed? Looks like a combo of too much arcane fever with too many protein shakes.
edit: I do hope you will continue this side quest all the way to its end; I'm sure your impressions will be quite interesting!
edit: I do hope you will continue this side quest all the way to its end; I'm sure your impressions will be quite interesting!
01.09.2017 21:17badgesareus wrote: Your last pic is rather interesting. I've used the oorbaya, but I never took a close look at it, as I was usually busy not dying. It looks like it has a giant heart; isn't that a bit exposed? Looks like a combo of too much arcane fever with too many protein shakes.
edit: I do hope you will continue this side quest all the way to its end; I'm sure your impressions will be quite interesting!
Absolutely disgusting, whatever it is. And a little like you're supposed to hit its glowing weak point for massive damage like a Legend of Zelda puzzle boss.
I'm frankly glad the SureAI team couldn't find a disgusting enough idle noise for it to make; it just roars during combat. The wolf was bad enough; it howls from time to time, and I always spin around expecting to get teeth buried in my throat like usual.
Admittedly as much as I love her, Lishari was a thorn in the side to the powers-that-be, mouthing off in her inimitable way.
As far as being a coward, I'm happy for those chances. It can't be hard all of the time, can it?
As far as being a coward, I'm happy for those chances. It can't be hard all of the time, can it?
The region is almost always named "Goldenforst". I came upon a few instances of "Golden Forest" and I think one "Goldenfrost".
Well I wonder what's the story behind this name, because Goldenforst makes no sense (?) while Golden Forest does. Nevertheless it's in fact a golden forest.
Well I wonder what's the story behind this name, because Goldenforst makes no sense (?) while Golden Forest does. Nevertheless it's in fact a golden forest.
R'Q, I think it was a little lost in translation from the original German. There are a few other words like that popping up.
@R´Q You can report such things in the bugtracker. The exact place would be important.
Sometimes a screenshot is helpful.
Sometimes a screenshot is helpful.
I think it was a little lost in translation from the original German
03.09.2017 00:36badgesareus wrote:It wasn't exactly lost in translation, it just wasn't translated at all in many instances, as "forst" is one of the German words for "forest." (according to google translate, which is never wrong.)I think it was a little lost in translation from the original German
- So there we are, following a blood trail for a couple hundred feet that obviously contains more blood than anybody should have inside them.
I’m thinking to myself there’s no way this lady is still alive.
The trail takes us up some wooden palisade type structure, with cannons on it. With bandits in it, of course! I hope the bandits will resist the invading Nehrimese for us, since they control all of Enderal’s mines and quarries and, apparently, our defensive structures too.
Well, maybe they would have if I hadn’t just filled them full of magic arrows.
- I’m not sure why entering some dungeons alerts everyone in the first room, leading to my swift beatdown when my summoned critter doesn’t come through the door with me, and sometimes lets me get the drop on them instead. Maybe that’s intentional?
This is one of the former, so I immediately run outside and begin a fighting retreat back down the structure until the bandits are dead. The first room is actually a huge cavern-type room built into what must be the mountain, with bedrolls and tables filled with clutter and huge kegs of what I assume are alcohol. Aside from a watchtower type structure inside the cavern which doesn’t make any goddamn sense, it’s pretty homey. At least up here, anyway; downstairs is a supply room, and a whole lotta jail cells and bear traps everywhere.
- The Oorbaya does a pitiful fraction of the physical damage my wolf does (which is odd given it’s like 8 feet tall with arms like bloody tree trunks), but it’s pretty sturdy and periodically explodes in a huge purple wave of energy that looks like it hits the entire room. Including myself, although thankfully there’s no damage to go along with the nausea-inducing energy backwash.
It also sounds like a cannon going off, which turns out to be a downside when it aggros every bandit in the place down on our heads.
I’m probably going to be forgiving the elemental wolf pretty quickly if the alternative is ‘fight the entire dungeon simultaneously.’
- Also, the starling lady I came here to find, Pahtira, is actually fine! In a cage, but fine.
She tells me she’s hurt, but she’s not, you know, covered in blood or anything.
It sure is convenient that the blood trail which didn’t actually come from my quarry still led me right to her, but whatever. Maybe the bandits regularly drag prey (human or animal) back to the fort…? I don’t know.
- Pahtira sends me on another fetch quest to get that steering unit to complete the Centurion. It’s apparently located inside yet another old fortress for some reason (that’s been taken over by bandits, of course). Are these bandits raiding Pyrean ruins and making off with the goods?
… It would be pretty cool to see a bandit faction in Dwemer-type gear.
- There are three Vatyr roaming around outside the fort. Been a while since I met any of those, but I definitely don’t remember them moving this quick! It takes these guys about two or three seconds to run from bow range into face-stabbing range.
Then I reload and make sure to put my minion between us properly this time.
I found the Vatyr to be much more dangerous than the bandits inside the fort, leading me to assume that the bandits have been trapped in there for days while the Vatyr prowl around below.
I mean, this guy had his own name, so presumably he was supposed to be some kind of bandit king...
But mostly I’m just impressed with how prettily he burns.
This works so much better when wolfie stays pointed in the right direction.
- So I grab the macguffin and head back to Ark, where of course I find the ‘heavily injured’ Pahtira beat me home. I bet she just didn’t want to assault a fortress manned by bandits after wading through Vatyr, the wimp.
I’m not sure what’s going on between Pahtira and Yerai (that’s the inventor guy), except that Yerai is his passive-aggressive self while Pahtira is coming off very snippy. They do not have a good working relationship, these two.
Look at how sassy she looks! It’s all hands-on-hips and crossed-arms, with her.
I also really like her outfit, with the big stompy Dwemer-type boots and gauntlets. This feels like a lady who does a lot of tromping around and sticking her hands into dangerous places, and needs protection to make sure she’s not pulling back a bloody stump.
- Speaking of dangerous things likely to result in dismemberment, they want me to go a starling spaceship that apparently crash landed here in Enderal, in a glacier. Now that the robot’s chassis is finished they still need a power source to run it.
Pahtira’s tagging along to help with… something or other, but she mentions casually that there’s likely to be an array of traps to turn intruders into dust, bones, or puddles of flesh.
Starling traps apparently come in ‘death’, ‘vaporization’ and ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ varieties.
The Takeaway:
Now, that’s pretty cool (spaceship!), but at this point I kind of want to apotheosize into the golden robot if they’re gonna make me save their lives, finish the chassis and find a power core.
Well, the main quest has ticked over to a new day now, but I figure I might as well finish up this quest line first.
Onward to Agnod!
I’m thinking to myself there’s no way this lady is still alive.
The trail takes us up some wooden palisade type structure, with cannons on it. With bandits in it, of course! I hope the bandits will resist the invading Nehrimese for us, since they control all of Enderal’s mines and quarries and, apparently, our defensive structures too.
Well, maybe they would have if I hadn’t just filled them full of magic arrows.
- I’m not sure why entering some dungeons alerts everyone in the first room, leading to my swift beatdown when my summoned critter doesn’t come through the door with me, and sometimes lets me get the drop on them instead. Maybe that’s intentional?
This is one of the former, so I immediately run outside and begin a fighting retreat back down the structure until the bandits are dead. The first room is actually a huge cavern-type room built into what must be the mountain, with bedrolls and tables filled with clutter and huge kegs of what I assume are alcohol. Aside from a watchtower type structure inside the cavern which doesn’t make any goddamn sense, it’s pretty homey. At least up here, anyway; downstairs is a supply room, and a whole lotta jail cells and bear traps everywhere.
- The Oorbaya does a pitiful fraction of the physical damage my wolf does (which is odd given it’s like 8 feet tall with arms like bloody tree trunks), but it’s pretty sturdy and periodically explodes in a huge purple wave of energy that looks like it hits the entire room. Including myself, although thankfully there’s no damage to go along with the nausea-inducing energy backwash.
It also sounds like a cannon going off, which turns out to be a downside when it aggros every bandit in the place down on our heads.
I’m probably going to be forgiving the elemental wolf pretty quickly if the alternative is ‘fight the entire dungeon simultaneously.’
- Also, the starling lady I came here to find, Pahtira, is actually fine! In a cage, but fine.
She tells me she’s hurt, but she’s not, you know, covered in blood or anything.
It sure is convenient that the blood trail which didn’t actually come from my quarry still led me right to her, but whatever. Maybe the bandits regularly drag prey (human or animal) back to the fort…? I don’t know.
- Pahtira sends me on another fetch quest to get that steering unit to complete the Centurion. It’s apparently located inside yet another old fortress for some reason (that’s been taken over by bandits, of course). Are these bandits raiding Pyrean ruins and making off with the goods?
… It would be pretty cool to see a bandit faction in Dwemer-type gear.
- There are three Vatyr roaming around outside the fort. Been a while since I met any of those, but I definitely don’t remember them moving this quick! It takes these guys about two or three seconds to run from bow range into face-stabbing range.
Then I reload and make sure to put my minion between us properly this time.
I found the Vatyr to be much more dangerous than the bandits inside the fort, leading me to assume that the bandits have been trapped in there for days while the Vatyr prowl around below.
I mean, this guy had his own name, so presumably he was supposed to be some kind of bandit king...
But mostly I’m just impressed with how prettily he burns.
This works so much better when wolfie stays pointed in the right direction.
- So I grab the macguffin and head back to Ark, where of course I find the ‘heavily injured’ Pahtira beat me home. I bet she just didn’t want to assault a fortress manned by bandits after wading through Vatyr, the wimp.
I’m not sure what’s going on between Pahtira and Yerai (that’s the inventor guy), except that Yerai is his passive-aggressive self while Pahtira is coming off very snippy. They do not have a good working relationship, these two.
Look at how sassy she looks! It’s all hands-on-hips and crossed-arms, with her.
I also really like her outfit, with the big stompy Dwemer-type boots and gauntlets. This feels like a lady who does a lot of tromping around and sticking her hands into dangerous places, and needs protection to make sure she’s not pulling back a bloody stump.
- Speaking of dangerous things likely to result in dismemberment, they want me to go a starling spaceship that apparently crash landed here in Enderal, in a glacier. Now that the robot’s chassis is finished they still need a power source to run it.
Pahtira’s tagging along to help with… something or other, but she mentions casually that there’s likely to be an array of traps to turn intruders into dust, bones, or puddles of flesh.
Starling traps apparently come in ‘death’, ‘vaporization’ and ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ varieties.
The Takeaway:
Now, that’s pretty cool (spaceship!), but at this point I kind of want to apotheosize into the golden robot if they’re gonna make me save their lives, finish the chassis and find a power core.
Well, the main quest has ticked over to a new day now, but I figure I might as well finish up this quest line first.
Onward to Agnod!
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