Print Page - Planescape Torment: Angst in the Afterlife

Startiing over again
Character creation is pretty limited. Your appearance and gender are locked in. You are the Nameless One so no, you cannot call yourself Drizzzt the Fourth. You start off with 9's in all stats and can allocate 21 points to raise which every ones you want. I remember that you can only really be 3 "classes": fighter, mage, and rogue. Knowing how much talking this games has you do, and remembering some pretty cool spells, I am going to pump up Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma and be a mage later: everyone starts as a fighter. Con's important too for regeneration. I think I played the first time as a fighter all the way through and while there were some cool weapons about, a distinct lack or armor, shields and ranged weapons makes playing a tank type a little different than most rpgs. You also begin this game as level 3.

And boy, apparently dying and coming back to life over and over is really hard on the complexion. I’m all gray and scarred up. Even the floating skull things he has a better shot with the ladies that I do in this state.

Mortuary of Mustiness…

As mentioned, you start the game by coming to lying on a metal table in a morgue. Morte (hey look, his name is a play on the word death...) floats on over to introduce himself and this little slice of the world. Guess what, or rather who? That’s right, you begin our tale with a handy dose of amnesia (rpg plotline staple #23), no equipment, and no money. In talking to Morte, his gives you a little background on where you are, but not much on who you are. Basically you are trapped in the Mortuary until you can find a way out; as Morte says “this place is locked up tighter than a chastity belt”

Your first clues come from the message someone carved into the skin of your back. Find the center of all things, find my journal, find Pharod. Don’t tell anyone who I am or what happened. Easy enough, I have no idea who I am, what happened to me, where my journal is, and no idea who Pharod is etc. Blank slate, that’s me.

Morte joins your party immediately. He’s a level 2 chaotic good fighter who can’t equip much of anything ( ‘es got no arms don’t ‘e) other than teeth and earnings. However, being a floating skull does make him somewhat hard to hit and resistant to damage. Plus, he can chew your legs off!

To get out of the first room, Morte suggests we find a weapon and attack some of the zombie workers to see if any of them has a key. Begin the rpg standard “search every container and explore every nook and cranny” sequence. I find a scalpel (slash 1-3) and promptly go slice up two zombie workers. One leaves a little pile of stuff at his feet, sure enough, there’s the key. XP

As you unlock the door and begin exploring the other rooms in the mortuary, Morte suggests not ripping up the zombies further so we don’t tip off the Dustmen who run this place. We’ll see about that. Apparently, the Dustmen worship death and think everyone should shuffle off this mortal coil and they’re willing to help people along that path (which begs the question of why they don’t off themselves and get on with the dying already; buncha hypocrites).

At any rate, people can contract with the Dustmen so that when they die, the Dustmen can raise their corpses as zombies to use as a workforce. Cheap labor for as long as the embalming fluid lasts, but no intelligence, no conversational skills, and from examining the workers, they don’t take very good care of these animated corpses. Rifling through more containers finds me 13 coins and a set of Hand irons (bludgeon weapons). I also find a book that logs new corpses brought into the mortuary with the last page cut out; yes that looks suspicious.

While exploring the rooms, I run into a tiefling named Ei-Vene who’s working on corpses with her clawed fingers. She can’t see very well so she mistakes me for a worker and distractedly asks me to get her needle, thread and some embalming fluid. My first quest! Morte suggests I ought to start a new journal to write this stuff down; brilliant! I did that.

Looking through all the containers around eventually gets me some embalming fluid. some bandages, and a locked container I bash open nets me an earring. Examining the earring in my inventory reveals a series of teeth like engravings on it, but no idea what it does yet and it’s closed. Hmm, no needle and thread. Time to start examining the zombie workers.

Each of the zombie workers has a number on them, and some allow for more examination. So, just like looking through every container, I check out all of them. In no particular order I found:

Zombie 985 who is having real trouble walking and looks fragile. I tipped him over and when he fell on the floor his body pretty much came completely apart...all except for his left arm. Apparently that limb was so withered and petrified is had become like a block of wood, so I can use it as a weapon! [1-6 damage club; sadly, the graphic your character displays when you wield this is a spiked mace; showing you swinging around a zombie arm by holding its hand in your hand would have been much cooler…]

Zombie 821 whose lips are sewn shut. What? This one is talking to me? Wait a minute this isn’t a zombie at all, just someone wearing a zombie disguise! What idiot would want to do that? Threatening to expose him gets him to tell me of a way out of here. There is apparently a portal in the NW portion of the mortuary on one of the other levels that will let me into a secret crypt that I can escape through. But I’ll still need a key to open the portal… XP

Moving, on I find Zombie 1201, whose lips are also sewn shut, but has an edge of paper sticking out of his mouth. If only I had a sharp scalpel or something..oh wait. Getting the paper out of his mouth reveals it to be a note. Apparently he changed his mind out wanting to be raised as a zombie and offered a reward if they would have him cremated instead. I guess none of the workers read the note. The note turns out to be magic puzzle that must be folder a certain way, at which point it opens up and reveals a triangle shaped earring; magic and unidentified, that must be the reward. XP

I also found a zombie with a book that had a paper folded inside it which turned out to be the missing page from the log book. In it I read how Pharod brought me in with 13 coins and some hand irons (I already found those) but he also brought in some other corpses. Hmmm.

Finally, I track down Zombie 685 who has a large rip sewn up badly with thread, and the needle still jammed in its head. Cutting out the needle and unwinding the thread gets me the items I need for my first quest. Once done, the zombie’s skin sloughs down revealing another number, 78, on its skull. Two numbers? Either the guy managed to get paid twice for one corpse or that’s gotta mean something else. XP

I bring the items to Ei-Vene and she uses them on the corpse in front of her, watching her claws dip in the corpse triggers a memory flash… (recovering your memories is big part of this game). I see myself sewing something into the chest of a zombie…number 42. I’ll have to find it. When Ei-Vene finishes the corpse she turns and begins working on me! Holding still, she uses the thread and embalming fluid and actually makes my max HP go up. Embalming fluid heals me…just how many times have I died exactly? XP

The only other living being on the first floor is an old sick scribe named Dhall. He calls me the restless one and pretty much tells me he knows me because I keep coming back here as I keep dying, and while my body comes back to life, I keep losing more of my memories each time. He also warns the people around me keep dying as well, but they don’t come back. In fact, there’s a corpse of a female companion of mine somewhere down stairs. He also warns me to stay away from Pharod (whom he calls my seneschal) unless I want to wind up back here, again. Dhall is looking forward to dying to “True Death” finally, and when questioned about it, he reveals truth death is oblivion, true nothingness. But further, that everyone in this place is already dead...this plane is somewhere between true life, and true death…
On to the next floor!

Ascending to the second floor reveals a large area for the crematorium, and several storage rooms. On this floor are several Dustman supervisors, but by telling them I am here to see Dhall, they pretty much leave me alone. Like I was going to tell them I was dead and them “got better”…

More worker zombies up here, and also worker skeletons held together with rivets and leather. I start fooling around with one but Morte talks me out of pulling it apart. Hey, I thought he wanted a body?

At any rate, perusing the area I find a zombie 79 with a curious circular burn mark in his forehead. Examining it closely reveals it to be the same size and shape as the earring I had found downstairs. Very close examination reveals a slightly different spot on the burn mark, and by re-examining the earring I can identify the same spot, press it…viola, the earring opens. This earring has a secret compartment in it, which makes it more valuable, but sadly, nothing was already stored inside. Like a really tiny secret message, or a pocket universe. XP

Continuing to look at everything and everybody, I eventually find Skeleton 42…the one my retrieved memory told me I stored something inside. I am able to get him to open up his ribcage and reaching inside acts a little like a bag of holding. From it I pull a …piece of iron. That’s not very interesting…but as I watch, the iron melts apart revealing a green steel knife, 2 blood charms and some rags. The charms are one time us items which heal a little bit and give buffs for an extended period of time. XP

Further ransacking the storerooms brings me more equipment and charms, plus a mortuary key. I also find a book which talks about skeleton 42. Apparently the Dustmen think it’s defective but one of them supposes it is reacting to commands given by a higher level Dustman. Since I am the one who placed the items inside him, that would seem to imply I was a Dustman at some point in the past….

Using the key, I travel back downstairs, unlock a few more doors, then proceed to the ground floor. While exploring, I come across a zombie carrying a book, which I promptly relieve him of. The Tome of Bone and Ash. It details several necromantic practices dealing with the animated corpses in the mortuary, including information on protective runes. That should come in handy.

No sooner said than done. On this floor are giant skeletons which serve as guards. They are armed and armored, but carefully inspecting their armor allows me to see the mystic runes imbued in it. By studying the runes and using the information from the Tome of Bone and Ash, I am able to figure out how to mar the runes that make them aware, then undo the runes that hold them together. With a crash, the giant skeleton collapses and from this wreckage, I pull their armor which still has magic potential. (The runes on their armor can be used to teach a magic user a spell. The first one I get can teach the spell Armor once I become a mage. Also, you get good XP for being able to do this, but there are 4 skeletons on this level and you can do this to all of them, earning the same 800 XP each time. Bit of a minor exploit in my mind, but it did allow both me and Morte to level up though I’m holding off for now. One of the armors can teach the Shield spell too).

More walking about and I find the viewing area where my female companion had apparently been. There a glowing blue ghost name Deionarra greets me with hate. Apparently she blames me for her death, but by playing dumb and telling her I think her words my trigger memories of our love, she tells me some useful information. She reveals that there is a portal that can be used to escape this place, but the key to the portal could be anything at all: an object like a piece of glass or stone, a tune you hum or sing, even an emotion. There’s no way to know what it is in advance but once I have it, the portal will appear for me and can be used. (actually the guy upstairs told me it was a crooked finger bone, which i already have)

She tells me that being truly dead she can now see more of the future and will reveal some of what she knows is I swear and oath to either free her, or join her. Since I have no memory of this chick, I’m not swearing any such thing, but I do tell her I would try. She gives in (obviously she still is in love with me despite me getting her offed) and tells me I will meet 3 versions of myself, good, evil and neutral and my greatest enemy is myself in my full glory. Futher, I will eventually come a prison of regrets and there to break the cycle of my cursed existence I must sacrifice the very thing which makes me immortal… Woah. Heavy stuff. It’s time to go drinking. Morte oddly enough, couldn’t see nor hear this ghost. He thinks I’m mental.

I find the spot where the portal appears so I must have the key on my person (knew that). Before leaving, I also find the front foyer and am able to actually talk the Dustman guarding it into opening it up (XP). Which way to go, front door or secret portal?
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As an aside, I have enough XP to advanced to level 4 (Morte 3) without having fight anything beyond the two initial zombies in the very first room. I wonder if I should hold off leveling up until finding someone who can make me a mage first. I do recall being able to talk to my companions and switch classes in this game, but Morte is all I’ve got currently. You get increase a stat by 1 point when you level up – just the Nameless One, not other party members.

Not sure how many of the dialogue options i am seeing because i am smart, wise AND charming (for a semi-permanent dead guy) instead of being a dumb brute, but the 15s in all 3 stats seem to be helping.

I also picked some other weapons, charms and bandages just ransacking everything. Since you have no rogue skills in here, you have to bash open locked containers. Use a heavier weapon.

Busy as a Bee: Flitting through the Hive
I decide to take the magical portal “secret route” out of the Mortuary just to see if there is anything of interest in the hidden crypt. Stepping through the portal triggers a small cut scene where a gang of gray ghosts with ugly faces and long flowing hair/limbs? gather around the slab I woke up on. Exiting the portal lands me in a small crypt with a stone tomb. There’s a bag on the floor containing some coins and a note from someone named Penn. He left this for Vaxis, the guy disguised as a zombie inside, who tells him he knew that was an idiot move all along. He also tells him to seek out a dustman named Initiate Emeric in the Gathering Dust Bar who is looking for information on Pharod’s activities. Since I’m looking for Pharod as well, I’ll stop in. Plus, I could use a drink after all the “philosophizing” going on around here.

Exiting the crypt puts me in the bustling neighborhood of Sigil known as the Hive. It’s not the best part of town, old looking, shabby, with lots of thugs and harlots about. Many of the residents do not appear even close to being human. I notice some strange creatures floating around working on building and such. Green skin, white hair and horns, I approach one and Morte tells me they are Dabus, the janitors and repairmen of Sigil. Apparently they speak in symbols and rebus floating above their heads, which drive Morte crazy, but by sticking with it I am able to recover enough memories to understand what they are saying (XP). They’re no very talkative, seemingly having no sense of self, and other than a few warning from Morte about steering clear of the Lady of Pain (the being who “runs” Sigil), I don’t learn much.

Wandering back around to the front of the Mortuary building find several things of note (employ RPG staple process #3 – talk to anyone with a Name). First is a shifty looking character named Pox. He’s a collector of the dead, but apparently I have employed him to get me inside the mortuary before, and he’s willing to do it again should I need to. He seems rather brain damaged, but having an unobtrusive way of getting back inside might prove useful in the future.

Not far from him is a zombie named “Post”; actually, upon examination he’s an animated signpost. Notices and signs have been pinned to him, and he’s been slightly vandalized. There’s a notice from the “office of vermin and disease control” that they are paying a bounty for brain rat tails, a menu for a bar, and a want ad to contact Initiate Norochj for some work at the Gathering dust bar. Asking for directions has the zombie point around. I also notice someone apparently threw a cobblestone at the zombie and it’s still stuck in his head; removed it for some XP and now I have a brain coated stone. Ick.

I also see a rather effeminate but large man wandering about named Baen the Sender. He asks me if my name is Craddock, which for all I know it could be, but I say no. He’s a messenger looking for the “overseer of the hive”, and while I have no clue where he is, I tell him I will deliver his message for him if I see him. The message is “the shipment must be in Curst by the 3rd day…”. Supposedly Craddock will know what it means and if I tell him Baen will reward me.

Moving on, I find an open air building containing a huge black obelisk. This is apparently some sort of monument for the dead. Around it is a dustman named Death-of_Names who can find the dead for me if I give him a name. I ask him to find Deionarra and he says she is buried, and points out her name on the black stone. Also around this stone is a semi-human woman named Sev’Tai who is upset because three of her sisters have been killed. Apparently some members of the Barking Dog gang robbed their wagon and killed the three, so she will pay men blood money to kill 3 of them. They are somewhere to the south.

Hanging about near the mortuary is a red haired tiefling named Annah. She also collects bodies for cash and prompts tells me to piss off when I ask about her tail and she and Morte trade some insults.

After some general sightseeing, we head into the Gathering Dust bar. As the name might imply, it’s a Dustman hang out with zombies serving. There are a bunch of named dustmen in here, so I talk to all of them. Mortai Gravesend comes across like a used cart salesmen and wants me to sign a contract for 50 coins so they can have my body after death. Heh, he doesn’t know me very well. I decline for the moment and ask around.

Old coppereyes, is actually old and has no eyes, just copper pieces in his eye sockets. Apparently he’s not talking, just waiting for something.

Sere the Skeptic trades some good natured insults with me, and gives me the lowdown on some of the other dustmen, but she is obviously troubled. Turns out she has been a dustman for a long time, but recently got sick and nearly died from her illness. Seeing her colleagues hover around her bed like vultures waiting for her to die and saying about how it was for the best put her off her beliefs. She realized she was afraid to die and is now having a crisis of faith. In talking through it with her, I convince her that she really doesn’t believe what the dustmen do about death. XP

I find Emeric who is apparently “in charge” and he not only wants me to investigate where Pharod is getting his corpses from, he wants me to join the dustmen faction. Holding off on that for now, but Emeric is most curious where Pharod is getting the ancient corpses he brings in and will reward me if I find out. He recommends I talk to his competition to locate him.

On the way out, I talk to Mortai again and negotiate him up to 100 for my body, but still hold off. His flaw is being too passionate about making contracts; passion binds one to life and dustmen aren’t supposed to have anything like strong feelings that keep them more interested in living than dying. Weirdos.

I leave the bar and go talk to Annah again; for a quick bribe she points me to search for Pharod in alleys to the SW part of the Hive. (Annah can be a party member later in the game).

I head to the next area to the south, walking around the neighborhood, and a girl runs up to me. She wants me to stop a fight between her brother and her lover who are currently arguing and she doesn’t want it to escalate. I follow her over and talk her brother around so no blood is spilled. XP

No sooner did I do that then 4 thugs decide I must be some sort of touchy feely wuss and attack me. Morte and I show them the error of their ways without too much trouble.

Moving on I chat with some other interesting looking folks like Bariaur the ram centaur from the Plains of Ysgard, Amarysse the harlot, and Kuialraa the warehouse manager. Killed some more thugs looking to roll me, and eventually make my way to another bar, the Smoldering Corpse.

Apparently whoever named it has a gift for the literal, because inside the main entrance is a burning man, floating above the floor. A bruised and sad maiden named Drusilla informs us that the living bonfire was a Wizard named Ignus, her love. Apparently he pissed off the wrong people so as a punishment they opened a portal to the plane of Fire using his body as the portal, and his has been burning ever since. Only his force of will keeps him alive at all. (side bar: I know you can free Ignus and add him as a companion later). Interesting folks in this bar.

Heading towards the bar itself, I find and old looking, thin “man” named Dak’kon. He bears a strange looking blade, so in talking to him, I learn his is a Githzerai from the plane of Limbo. The Gith believe existence to be a manner of “knowing” oneself and the world around them comes into knowledge. Limbo is a plane of chaos where the Gith shape their armor, weapons, cities and tools by holding them with their minds. His Karach blade is made from this chaos matter, and reflects his state of mind and changes as he changes. When revealing that I do not know who I am, this has great significance to Dak’kon, and through conversation I force him to admit he no longer “knows” himself any longer. He claims Sigil is flawed and doesn’t know itself either, because it is full of contradictions. It is at the center of all things, yet tries to be everywhere; its walls are all doors, yet it keeps these doors locked. Engaging in more discussion with Dak I convince him that there may well be an underlying order to Sigil we just cannot understand yet, and further than we know ourselves by the questions we ask, and don’t ask. XP

Dak’kon asks to join me on my journey.
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(second COMPANION Dak’kon is a 3/3 Fighter/Mage, Lawful Neutral. His special Zerth blade changes forms as he levels up. In his possession is the holy book of Zerthimon, the hero who freed the Gith from their slavery. It is a stone circle composed of movable tiles that can be folded and re-arranged to form new patterns. Once I become a mage, I can explore this holy work more. He can also teach me a bit about magic once someone changes my class.)

Man, these write ups are getting long. I may have to start condensing even more to avoid writing hundreds of pages. Course I think I read somewhere that there are over 800,000 words of dialogue in this game so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

Still in the smoldering corpse bar talking to patrons…
Ebb Creakknees is a old retired Harmonium fighter. He has been around a long time and fought in a ton of wars including one that chills me: the Blood War – a never ending conflict between the demonic Tanar’ri and the equally demonic Baatzeu. He gives me the lowdown on a bunch of patrons, and even steers me to Ragpicker Square to look for Pharod. He cautions me that the Lady of Pain likes to “maze” people who displease her, sending them into a pocket dimension from which there is no escape, and gives me some more info on Sigil, it’s layout and the way time is kept here since there is no sun or moon.

Barkis is the owner of the bar, and he recognizes me. Apparently 15 years ago I came in, got drunk and smashed the place up. When I didn’t have enough money to pay for the damages I plucked out my own eye to give him as collateral until I could get 200 coins. I never came back. Barkis still has the eye, but now he wants 500 for it. He also tells me if I deal with a drinker who trying to sneak out without paying her tab, I get free access to the bar. I speak to this Morochi and decide giving her 100 coins to pay towards her tab is well worth the free bar access, plus she’s clueless. Barkis gives me 1000 XP and we throw down a few free drinks.

I also speak to a “being” named O. While man shaped, his eyes and mouth contain a glowing blue that hints of eternity. It seems he is the incarnation of one of the letters of the divine alphabet and quite frankly, looks down on mortals for acting non sentient. He has seen me live over and over, getting close to truth but then turning away from what I found. Continuing to talk to him eventually allows me a glimpse into the depths of eternity. (+1 WIS boost).
I decide to leave the other patrons alone for now, and resume exploring the Hive.

Nearby is Fell’s tattoo parlor. Fell turns out to be a Dabus, but he’s the first one I’ve seen not floating about working on the city. This one walks. Since I remembered the Dabus “language” I talk to Fell and he too remembers me. I ask about myself and he is not allowed to tell him my story, and he cannot change the nature of a man, a phrase that seems to resonate with me. He admits that he admires me as I explore the infinite paths a life can take and he tells me I must journal to a place where the shadows of my past lives have gone mad. He also tells me not to sign anything. When I ask him how I died, he tells me a pack of shadows consumed me.

I ask him about the tattoos on me, and he says the ones on my back are directions for a mind that forgets itself, and the one of my left shoulder is the mark of torment. My body knows my torment even if my mind can’t remember it, and it draws other tormented souls to me… Fell actually has what appear to be some former skins of mine stretched on racks in the back, but they don’t trigger any memories. He offers many tattoos which would improve my skills and abilities, but I cannot afford them yet
(Tattoos can provider stat upgrades like +1 STR, or +1 To Hit, +AC etc and as you play through the game you can unlock more of them. Since there’s no armor to speak of for the Nameless One, Fell’s becomes an important place).

Leaving the shop, I eventually find a man named Mourns-for-Trees who sure enough, is sad because the trees in sigil are all withered and dying. Talking with him, I renew his confidence and he is convinced the trees will live it just enough people care. I offer my support XP, and get Dak’kon to agree to care as well. Need to get a few more people to care but I fear Morte will just crack jokes so I don’t ask him. Mourns tells me that Fell is shunned by other Dabus because he apparently was on the wrong side of a conflict between the Lady of Pain and an immortal/deity named Aoskar. The Lady apparently destroyed him utterly, so now everyone is waiting for Fell to fall under her shadow and be punished.

I entered an old couple’s house and when the man proves unresponsive, talk to his wife. Apparently, he signed a death contract with the Dustman and made a huge mistake. I offer the woman to see if can get him out of it, and she asks me to promise not to tell her husband she did it if successful. Mortai Gravesend signed him up.

I also encounter a mad woman named Ingress who has been living outside in the Hive neighborhood for 30 years! She accidentally came to Sigil via portal by humming a tune while stepping between some fallen trees, and in trying to get back to her own world, journeyed through a bunch of other portals to horrible places that have changed her and driven her mostly mad. In one, she lost her right hand and only has a melted stump on her arm. Her teeth now move around in her mouth like they have lives of their own. Her traumatic experiences have left her too afraid to pass through anything that has bounded sides like a door, arch, walls standing together, tree limbs, etc as here anything can be a portal in this place. She runs off…

I head back to the Gathering Dust bar, and talk to Narochj, the one who placed the want ad on the zombie Post. He asks me to investigate a nearby mausoleum and see what is disturbing the dead. I also talk to Mortai again, and tell him I want to sign a dead contract, but attempting to sign my name triggers a fearsome vision of a death’s head and ashes, warning me of the consequences XP. Since I was warned not to sign anything, I decline. I also am able to talk Mortai into giving me the old man’s dead contract by telling him the man is so upset he wont be able to achieve true death when he dies. After leaving the bar I return to the old couples house and rip of the contract in front of the man without mentioning his wife’s involvement. XP

Entering the mausoleum, a guardian spirit tries to warn me off, but in talking to him I learn another intruded has gone before me, raised some corpses as undead, and sealed himself in the inner chamber where magic wards prevent the spirit cannot reach him. I offer my services and begin exploring. Several skeleton groups are fought and reduced back to bones, magic traps zap us a few times, and eventually we find a Giant skeleton guarding the way to the inner sanctum. Dak’kon almost dies but we take it down.

Entering the inner chamber brings us face to face with a mage named Strahan Runshadow. It seems he wants my blood as he needs the blood of an immortal and somehow knows I have it. A tough fight ensues with him and his skeletal minions, but eventually we take him down though everyone is about half health. We find several mage spell scrolls, an unidentified knife and bracelet, and his diary. Strahan was trying to become a lich and had cast divination spells which told him he would find the blood of an immortal in this mausoleum. Little did he know it would still be inside the agent of his death. The guardian spirit rewards me for removing him XP, and then Narochj rewards me further XP and 200 coins.

Being wounded, we search for a place to rest, and eventually find a flophouse and pay the owner a few coins to rest and recover…
(Fighting the mage was a little painful, but the different thing about PsT is that even if I had died in that fight, the game would not be over. Instead I would have awaked back in the Mortuary where I had first arisen. This immortality thing can come in handy. Also important is the fact that you cannot rest anywhere; you can only do it in certain locations so you have to use your resources carefully. The nameless one can regenerate health if his CON is high enough (like 12+), and so can other characters if theirs get pushed over 18 I believe. On the other hand, should a companion die, you can bring them back using the Raise Dead power you can learn from conversations with the ghost of Deinorra in the Mortuary.

Also important to note is how many conversation choices impact your alignment. Lying to people, being truthful, threatening people, making fun of them, being nice to them, it all adds up. After all the do-gooding I have done thus far, I have moved my alignment to chaotic good.)

In the flophouse is a crazy man who the owner can’t get to leave. If I can get him out, I can sleep in the flophouse for free. In attempting to talk to this nutcase, as best I can tell, he wont leave until he gets back his fork. Someone, who’s severed ear he has, stole his fork. Guess I’m on the look out for a one eared man.

Exploring this neighborhood find me a shift man named Mar who wants me to deliver a box to Ku’atraa but whatever I do, don’t open it! He run’s of giggling, so I think I’ve been had.

Heading south brings me to the marketplace area of the Hive. Even though I have a ton of junk to sell, none of the people here seem to want to buy it. Crap. Craddock the overseer is here, so I relate Baen’s message and he wants me to go track down one of his missing workers.

Find the most disgusting individual encountered so far named Reekwind. Seems a bit crazy and really stresses how important names are. Apparently he let his true name slop one time, and some one cursed him to this malodorous existence. He’s a bit of storyteller so for a few coppers he tells some tales of people I think I recognize. In turn I tell him my own tale including how I want it to end, and he thinks it is profound. XP
If I can find a way to remove his curse, I shall.

I also locate the Office of Disease and Vermin control that pays for cranium rat tails. In talking to a vendor outside who sells their corpses, cranium rats form a kind of hive intelligence. The more rats that are together, the smarter they become. Enough rats and they even can get to human intelligence and more, spell casting ability! Yikes. With no rat tails on hand, I move on.

I eventually head back over to the smoldering corpse bar area and find the missing worker. He wants me to tell Craddock specifically to pike off, he’s not coming back.
Heading in the bar, I finally spot a half translucent man named Candrian. He’s a planeswalker that has been many many places. His current translucent state is a result of him going to the negative plane and almost being destroyed there. He gives me a a piece of nothing, which can help protect me from shadows.
He also goes over the arrangement and details of the planes; a ton of info on the good, evil, neutral, lawful, chaotic, inner, outer, etc etc planes. (Interesting stuff for a D&D head.). I tell him about Ingress the woman afraid of all portals, and he recognizes how she got her and offers to return her home. I leave to inform ingress of this and later check in with Candrian to see if he was successful. He was, XP, and he gives me her departing gift…her set of teeth.

Examining these teeth triggers one of the more humorous descriptions in the game. The teeth *are* alive in some fashion, and promptly attack Morte ripping out his current teeth and inserting themselves in his mouth. Then they demonstrate their shape changing abilities, then rip themselves back out of his mouth, and climb my shoulder, refusing to come down until Morte apologies to them for calling them old, yellow and cracked. Once Morte finally gives in, the get back in his mouth. (You can interact with the teeth to get them to alter damage type: piercing, blunt, etc, and they have the ability to grow and change as Morte level’s up much like Dak’kon’s sword.).

Stage setting drawing to a close

As you can tell from my other post, there are a LOT of things to do in the hive. My latest efforts have been about winding all that up and finding my mage trainer. I had thought she was somewhere in the Hive, turns out she was just off it in Ragpicker Square, but ill get to that.

While exploring the 4 hive quadrants, I try to complete as many quests as I can.
The evil box has me talk to 3 other people, all of whom wont take it. Apparently, the box is cursed and contains a powerful fiend, plus the curse drains energy from the possessor of the box to power its magic. A mage recommends I try the ruined cathedral in the Alley of Dangerous Angles and find a priest.

I find the one eared thug and promptly kill him to get back the crazy man’s fork. When I give it to Nestor, he throws me the dismembered ear and jumps a portal out. There’s still an earring in the ear, and I can rest in the flophouse for free now.

I check out the Alley and there’s a gang war going on in there between the Razor Angels and the Darkalley Shivs. On the whole the Razor Angels seem the “better” of the two, so I agree to help their leader to get rid of the other gang’s leader. Course, I have to slaughter the entire gang to get to him, but even thugs drop small coin and items.
(Before doing this, I leveled up TNOne as I thought it would make it easier. I had only wanted to level once, but apparently the game auto levels you up how ever much XP you earned, so I went from level 3 to 5 Fighter in one swoop. I also found a small quest in the hive for a guy who can train me in weapon proficencies now too).

While in the alley, I found the ruined catherdral, and inside is the last priest of Aoskar. He says ever time he teaches someone else as a disciple they end up disappearing. Having heard some backstory about Fell and this dead god, I know the Lady is mazing them. Aoskar was the god or doors and portals, so when showing the cursed box to the priest, he puts it in a wire pyramid, puts portals on each of the faces, so when he opens the box parts of the fiend inside get portaled to about 5 different places at the same time, effectively scattering it to the winds. Curse lifted; he keeps the ruby on the box for himself.

Also in the alley is a rather simple mage named Rauk in a small building, He has 5 mage companions in there who are trying to do some magic, but he needs 3 rings before it will work. Searching through nearby tents gets me the gold and silver rings, and apparently any bronze ring will work. Give him those, small cut scene kicks in with the 5 mages chanting and they summon a … lim lim. Which promptly flies around killing all 5 of them. Rauk now has a new pet. Well, looting the mage corpses nets me some scrolls and magic items so that’s a positive.

Once all that is done, I finally head to Ragpicker Square. It’s a slummy area full of collectors looking for corpses, and a midwife named Mebbeth (finally, I remember her). She sells charms and potions (and buys the crap im lugging around), and you can rest there. Most importantly she can train me as a mage. After talking to her about magic, she gives me three tasks to do before she will train me. First she gives me a barbed seed that I need to get to grow. Head to market, talk to people there, then head to Mourns for Trees, who gets me to WILL the thing to grow, which it does…around my arm. Back to Mebbeth, who has me THINK it off. Then will it into a new shape, a frame.
Next she needs some rages; head back to market and get those, which are stiff from starch from the idiot who does rags. Next needs ink, and I need to find a fish it comes from. Back to market again, talk to 2 old ladies, buy a tankard, and return with ink.
Finally Mebbeth trains me after having me explain the purpose behind the tasks, and proving I can read magic. We construct a spell book from the items I fetched, and she gives me 3 spell recipe cards and some earrings. I’m finally a mage.

Before doing this I was a level 5 Fighter; afterwards, I’m a level 3 mage.
Morte is 4, Dak’kon is now 4/4 Ftr/Mage and his sword has improved.
The earrings I get allow me to mem 2 more 1st level spells and +2 AC. First thing I do is learn spells from all the scrolls, items and cards I’ve accumulated so far, then buy a few more from Mebbeth. I memorize a bunch of identify spells and use it on my gear.

I now have a Magus Guard bracelet which gives me AC equal to Scale Mail (about time, my AC had been 10 the whole game until now), +1 Bone dagger, Rule of 3 earring that can summon 33 coppers 3 times, a Clipped Copper luck buff, Ring of protection +1.
I also have enough money I need to go buy some tattoos now.

Spells in this game are an interesting mix of the typical D&D spells, plus some very inventive new ones. Here are the ones I have currently.

1st Level: Magic Missile, Identify, Shield, Armor, Blindness, Friends
Chromatic Orb – missile spell that gets more powerful/changes color based on your level:
Level: 1 White Damage: 1-4 pts. Special Power: 10 sec: -4 Attack, -4 S.T., +4 AC
Level: 2 Red Damage: 1-6 pts. Special Power: 10 sec: -1 Strength, -1 Dexterity
Level: 3 Orange Damage: 1-8 pts. Special Power: Additional 1-4 pts. of fire damage
Level: 4 Yellow Damage: 1-10 pts. Special Power: 10 sec: -4 Attack, -4 S.T., +4 AC
Level: 5 Green Damage: 1-12 pts. Special Power: Stun for 10-25 sec.
Level: 6 Turquoise Damage: 2-8 pts. Special Power: Unconscious for 10-25 sec.
Level: 7 Blue Damage: 2-16 pts. Special Power: Paralyzed for 30-100 sec.
Level: 10 Violet Damage: Paralysis Special Power: Petrification
Level: 12 Black Damage: 4-40 pts. Special Power: Paralysis for 10-40 sec.

Fist of Iron – gives +3 hit +6 dam when attacking with fists, but cannot cast spells until this spell ends

2nd level: Blur, Horror, Knock, Strength
Blood Bridge – give HP from me to another
Ice Knife – 2-8 cold damage, plus 1-4 dam -2 STR AOE; leveling gives more missles
Swarming Curse – 1-4 damage plus target cannot cast spells

Dak’kon also has spells that are unique to him and the mastery of his circle of Zerthimon.
He can learn other spells from scrolls and such like I can.

1: Reign of Anger (basically magic missle)
Scripture of Steel – allies +1 to hit and saves
Submerge the Will – AC 2 and +1 saves for 12 sec per level
Vilquar’s Eye – (basically blindness)

2: Power of One – (basically strength)

Also, if you use the Circle of Zerth in Dak’kon’s inventory, you can gain XP and learn spells as you learn the various lessons of the circles. It does require certain WIS and INT stats to do all of them. I think there are up to 9 circles.

Wait, I thought this WAS the slums…

After becoming a mage via Mebbeth, I spend some time reading the Circle of Zerthimon in Dak’kon’s inventory. He unlocks a circle, you read it, and if you can explain the meaning of that lesson, you gain XP, a spell, and unlock the next circle. I unlocked the first 5 circles before moving on, which was enough to bump me to a level 4 mage too. The spells learned are the Gith specific ones like Scripture of Steel, and Submerge the Will.

I also take the opportunity to go buy my eye back, which involves me ripping out my current eye and replacing it (take damage when you did this). That triggers some recovered memories regarding using weaponry (proficiencies).

While heading back to Ragpicker Square, I let Morte talk to a harlot who calls him a Mimir, a sort of living talking encyclopedia. I’m not sure I buy that because while Morte seems to have a wipe knowledge of insults, that seems to be about all he knows. Still bites the fool out of my enemies so gotta love him.

Back in the Square, I find the home of Sharegrave, who is Pharod’s competition in the collector trade. Rather impolite, but he’ll reward me if I can find out where the extra dead bodies are coming from. He also lets me know that the portal to the Trash Warren need a “key” of a piece of Junk to activate. Luckily, I have some. I also find a small home infested with some cranium rats and kill about 5 of them for their tails. I need to remember to turn them in for some money.

The Trash Warrens turns out to be a maze of tunnels made of junk and trash, which makes it even more scummy than Ragpicker Square if that can be believed. I talk my way past some thugs, and have to fight a bunch more. I eventually find a place where a portal opens to a cranium rat lair. There are enough rats in here that the can cast spells, but each one is pretty fragile so killing a few puts a stop to that, and soon we exterminate the rest. Had a decent amount of coins in there, plus a Sadistic Mirror (casts “Pain Mirror” than can make opponents take the same damage they inflict on me), and a Prickly Club (Club of Nettles, causes confusion on a hit but only useable by Thieves).

I finally locate the entrance to the Buried Village where Pharod is supposed to reside, and use the Friends spell to talk my way past the guards (about 10 of them) blocking the way.

The Buried Village is yet another slummy looking collection of homes and people, so I wander around looking at everything and talking to everyone one. I find Pharod’s court, so go in talk to him. He’s an old man with a crutch and both his eyes appear to look in slightly different directions. He tells me that while I had him take in into the Mortuary intentionally, he doesn’t know why. He also tells me he can reveal additional information about myself if I will but perform a simple task for him. Apparently, hidden somewhere in the catacombs to the southwest is a “bronze sphere” he wants. I actually have a memory surface as im speaking to him and complete his sentence for him where he describes it. I do find out that he is actually digging up the bodies of people the dustmen have already buried and reselling them to them again. Heh, that’s almost clever. Beyond that he’s not much help and there’s nothing more of interest in his place. He tells me the gate guards to the catacombs will let me through now.

In talking to everyone else around, I learn of the Weeping Catacombs to the southwest where the restless dead roam. A woman named Cheryl’s father is missing in them, and supposedly a witch named Ulthera can tell me of the portal keys needed to access the place he went treasure hunting. I speak to her, and sure enough, she gives me a candlestick for an entry portal, and an empty purse for the exit portal.

I also find a crazy old woman who’s near blind and deaf, knocking out teeth from corpses, pulling thread from them and taking out their internal organs. She does this because she can sell the stuff, and sometimes people hide valuables inside their own bodies. Playing a hunch, I ask her to check inside my body, and tell her to open up my guts. She does some exploratory surgery on me and removes my intestines, and sure enough, a ring drops out of them. Luckily, I can also rest at her house, so I recover and have a +1 ring of protection, plus a pile of my own intestines in my inventory. You never know what those could come in handy. Marta also sells some odds and ends and one item she had that I almost bought was a new set of teeth for Morte. They’re called teeth of the viper, and they poison the target plus give the user immunity to poison. I may pick them up on my way back through.

I resolve a dispute between two people over a name and a tattoo to earn some XP, plus a tattoo that helps protect me from chaotic creatures. (You have 3 tattoo slots on your body rather than armor positions). Find some other random coins and items, will be looking for a man named Gris, a human leg bone, and a lucky dagger while in the catacombs as well. Talk to the gate guards and off we go into the weeping catacombs.

The catacombs are filled with cranium rats, batlike things, zombies, ghouls and ever some wererats. Several named crypts can be entered from here, and in the crypt of dismemberment I find a severed arm with tattoos that looks familiar. I need to identify that and take it to Fell to see about the tattoos. I find some nice magic punch daggers that are thief only and other stuff. Lots of traps in this area.

I also find a stone face on the wall named Glyve that recognizes me as an immortal. He was a man that was lost out to a political opponent who cursed him to this form and pipes sewer water through his nose and mouth eternally. These people play rough. If I can find a flask of magic water, I can lift his curse and he can tell me of someone who can shed more light on my past.

He also tells me there are two fighting factions down here: the Dead Nations and the Many-As-One. The dead nations are populated by the undead of course, looking to exist down here, while the Many-As-One is a cranium rat hive that has gained fearsome intelligence. So that’s my next decision: deal with the dead or head to the warren of thought with the rats….

Brainy Rats or Brain Sucking Zombies?

Which way to go, Dead Nations of the Warrens of Thought…
Well, since I’m carrying around 36 cranium rat tails im planning to turn in for bounty money, probably the smart rat hive mind would not be too fond of me. Plus, I have an affinity for the undead since I keep dying but not going anywhere. I feel about 1 step above lichedom most days. And having Morte along has to help right? He a skeleton after all…ok, part of a skeleton. The dead nations it is.

Entering their area of the catacombs, they promptly tell me to surrender and plan to hold me in there area permenantly. Huh, I must not be as popular with the undead as I thought. While all the zombies, skeletons and ghouls around seem peaceful in they aren’t ripping me to shreds, turns out their leader, the Silent King, doesn’t want any fleshies to leave either. They throw me in a holding area where I find Soego, the dustman who was formerly in the mortuary. He came down here to try and convince the undead to seek True Death. There is also a sarcophagus here, but I can’t pry it open while Soego is around. I can rest here to regain spells and health. There’s also a merchant in here where I can unload a bunch of stuff.

Since I’m free to check out any time I like, but can never leave, I seek out Hargrimm the Bleak, a skeleton priest who is the spokeskeleton for the Silent King. He wont let me see the king, so I ask what I can do to prove myself harmless so they will let me go. He asks me to track down and kill some cranium rat spies in the area. I find them not to far away and kill 5 of them. Hargrimm also wants me to discredit Soego, because he doesn’t want him trying to talk the undead into true death. Apparently there is a treaty between the undead and the dustmen so he can’t just kill him.

Wandering about, I find a strange woman named Stale Mary, who can teach me to talk to the dead. She call this “stories-bones-tell” and I get the feeling this will come in very handy as some of the undead and true dead both don’t communicate very well. There’s a puzzled skeleton who wants an answer to a riddle. Also I find a ghoul carrying the lucky knife im looking for, and he trades it too me for some rat tails. I find a riddling skeleton and promptly hold a riddle contest with him. XP. After finally stumping him on one, he give me the answer to his first riddle. Near the way out is a long haired ghoul named Acaste who seems to hate “fleshies” and is only barely holding back from losing it completely and killing everything she can. In her ranting she lets slip the Soego seems to be both man and rat. Hmm.

I also find a skeleton who is contemplating giving up his undead existence and embracing True Death. Ah ha, an opportunity. I go back to Soego and tell him this and he rushes off to go talk to him. While he is out of the room, I pry open the sarcophagus and read Soego’s journal. Turns out, he’s a wererat in service to the Many-as-One spying on the undead. I rat him out (ha!) to Hargrimm, which triggers a cutscene where he confronts Soego and basically sentences him to life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Soego shifts to rat and attacks, and Hargrimm fries him to ash. With Soego exposed, I am now free to leave.

In the Dead nations is an entrance to another section of the catacombs, the Drowned Nations. I go exploring down there in the hopes of finding the bronze sphere. The area has some undead wandering about, but is also full of the corpse white bat creatures, and some large white lizards. Luckily, the bats and lizards apparently hate each other so I let several groups fight each other then pick off the stragglers. Careful exploring does eventually lead to both the Bronze Sphere, and the Decanter of Endless Water. I also find an entrances to another area, and a recovered memory informs me I should go on alone, so I have Morte and Dak’kon wait while I carry on. Apparently, I built myself a tomb…

There are warnings written on the walls, and dead bodies scattered about. Traps throw spells at me as I try to look around, and embedded in the floor are huge symbols that are like the one on my arm…the sign of torment. Trying to get to the middle portion of the tomb teleports me to another wing. Inside a coffin in this wing is a key, however once I have it, trying to walk out of the area keeps teleporting me back. I eventually try to walk across the symbol on the floor and a blast of magic promptly kills me….
I come back to life, back at the entrance way to the tomb. Now trying to move to the center teleports me to a different wing. Get another key. Die again, and once more around the horn. With 3 keys in my possession, I am able to get into the center room. There are 8 panels with writing on them all about me in some way. One lists the many things I am known by.. Nameless One, Restless One, Misery Bringer, Lost One, One of Many, etc. Another tells of the many lives of both great good and great evil I have lived. Another tells of how I must keep living life over and over until I finally get it RIGHT.

One panel tells that I built this tomb as a trap for my killer. Apparently, something stalks me through existence, and while I have tried hiding from it, laying trails of false corpses, traveling the far reaches of the plains, eventually, it always finds me and kills me. So I built this tomb to be a trap to try and kill my killer.
And lastly, there is a panel on which is written the same information as it written on my back in scars, only there is a small part of the end Morte didn’t tell me. ‘Don’t trust the skull!”.

Each of the panels can be pressed in, and after reading and pressing all 8 of them, it unlocks the sarcophagus in the middle. Inside is another key. One more teleport takes me to a small room that has some items inside, and I can finally portal out of this place. With all my treasures and items in hand, I collect my companions and head back to the Dead Nations…
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I am now level 5, Morte is 5, and Dak 5/4. Some notable items I have gotten recently
Spells: lvl 3 Axe of Torment – giant axe does 1-8 damage plus an additional random effect from more damage, to paralyze.
Lvl 3 Elysium’s Tears – drops meteors down on a target: 1/level of caster that do 1-2 blunt and 1-4 fire damage; aoe splash to 3 feet for fire damage.
Abyssal Pipe – a smoking pipe carved like a demon face that can invoke Cloudkill
Shamanic Rod – claw from some large bird, wand that casts Magic Missle
Tear of Salieru-Dei – stone tear that can grant +1 Con to lawful good characters

More To’ing and Fro’ing

I finish up several minor quests in the Dead Nations, then head back through the catacombs to Glyve, the man trapped in the stone face. Giving him water from the magic decanter (XP) breaks his curse, and before his conciousness fades away, he tells me to seek out a woman named Nemelle in the Clerks Ward in Sigil. I also go back to the crypt where Gris’ body was found, and use my new talk to corpses ability to get his story, including where he hid is charm that Quint was seeking.

I head back to the buried village to talk to Pharod and give him the bronze sphere. He reveals some information about how I killed a bunch of his men, then asked him for the boon of keeping my body safe should he ever find it. I pressure him to giving me back a few items he took from me, and he also reveal that it was his daughter Annah who found me. She appears from the shadows and joins my group. She will take me to the alley where I was found, which is behind the painted door in the section of the Hive where the Smoldering corpse bar is. (Annah is a 4/4 fighter/thief finally, someone to pick locks) I equip her with some of the thief specific weapons and items I’ve been accumulating, some healing items, and we head out.

I walk back to the hive, finishing some other minor quests on the way (Sharegrave, Dustmen bar), and before heading to the alley, check in with Fell, the tattoo guy. Annah is scared to death to be near him as she’s afraid the lady of Pain will maze anyone close to this former Dabus, but I calm her down. I show him the severed arm I found and he confirms that it is mine, and he can transfer the tattoos on it to me if I wish. On the arm is the story on my path shared with four companions:
“one unloved, who loves one who does not love”
“one who does not see what others see, and sees what others do not”
“one is familiar bound by duty”
“one is a slave, and his chains are words”

I think I know who three out of the four of those are just based on my experiences up to this point. In checking what tattoo’s are now available, I buy a +2 CON one for Dak’kon, and two specific ones for me. The tattoo of the Lost Incarnation which can be used one to gain XP from recovered memories, and increases my regeneration rate, and the tattoo of the weeping stones, which can also be used once to increase my XP, plus gives me +10 cold resistance, AC, and -1 CHA. Now I’m about out of cash.
(I’m level 6, Morte is 6, Dak’kon is 5/5, and Annah 4/4).

We head north to the slum house with the painted door. (This triggers a cutscene where we see Shadows attack and kill Pharod in his home in the buried city.) Apparently the door is magiced so if you look at it, it turns into a real painting on a wall, but if you don’t look at it, it’s a door. So we stare at our shoes and head in. It’s a 3 story building with a bug of starving dog thugs in it. A woman named Sybil warns me that the last room im about to enter has about 12 or more thugs in it, but if I can find a key I can try sneaking through another door. She wants to get out, but wants us to do the work. We explore upstairs, kill everything that moves and find the key on the body of a mage. Take the door less traveled, and sprint out to the Alley of Lingering Sighs. XP from Sybil and a magic item.

Annah says she found my body through a gate to the southeast, so we travel the alley looking for the gate. Only thing in this whole alley seems to be a Dabus repairing some stuff, and one small house. We check out the small house and find the corpse of a dabus inside with a hammer. Using my dead-speak, I get a vision that somehow, the Dabus became trapped in this house and eventually starved to death. Weird.

Continuing on, we find the gate and head through it, to a small dead end (ha!) where Annah found my corpse. Approaching the spot, a stone face forms itself out of nearby wall and begins to speak to me using the sounds of the city, yet I can understand him. It seems surprised to see me as it had witnessed me being destroyed by shadows (triggers cutscene showing this event). This being is apparently the embodiment of the local area of the city, and is under great pressure to grow and divide, but the Dabus nearby keeps repairing things which is preventing it from doing so (basically, the alley is pregnant). If I can assist it, it can divide and a new path to the other part of Sigil will open up. The alley trapped on dabus and killed it, but can’t get the other in the building. I go back and find the other Dabus and let it know I found the body of it’s companion in this house, and when he goes to investigate inside, the building seals on him. With him out of the way, I need to take some tools and undo the repairs it had been working on and the alley can grow and divide (cutscene of the growth of a new city neighborhood). This allows me to progress on to a new area: the Lower Ward.

As soon as I enter, a merchant approaches me and while he is talking some wererats jump Morte and kidnap him! Crap, by bony bonnie bud is gone. Exploring the nearby market, I talk to some residents and find out most likely a powerful mage named Lothar the Master of Bones has him, but everyone is afraid on him. I vow to find him, he’s my best tank! (well, you can’t call him a meat shield can you?).

I pick up a new spell (Force Missles) unload some stuff, and explore the area. Notable places/people in the area I learn about are: a Mage named Sebastian who may know more about Lothar and some other people, a Foundry that pollutes the air, and a giant metal siege tower that people can’t seem to enter. Talking to one of the shop helpers leads me to believe that you might only be able to enter the siege tower if you don’t actually WANT to enter it. I also learn that this are is called the Lower Ward because it has so many portals to the Lower Planes in it.

I find Sebastian and he tells me Lothar is in one of the collapsed looking houses in this ward. He also tells me he can help with some of my scars if I can resolve a contract problem he has. He apparently agreed to a contract with an Abishai, a fiend from the lower plans, that he cannot fulfill. He can’t tell me what its about, not can he take direct action to break the contract, but apparently having me kill off this creature will work just fine. These creatures are tough enough that you need magic weapons to hurt them. I think I’ll wait for Morte before trying that.

I locate the run down house where Lothar is rumored to be, and descending to the basement, I find it line with shelves containing hundreds of skulls, including Morte. Morte is not only stuck on the shelve he is scared to death of Lothar and warns me not to cross him. Lothar appears and looks like he could wipe the floor with the lot of us, so I try to talk him into giving me back Morte. He will do so if I can get him a skull of equal value, and recommends I try a hidden tomb buried deep in the catacombs. He’s intrigued by this tomb since it is highly protected with powerful spells, he figures there must be a skull of great value in it. He is rather surprised to learn that the tomb is in fact mine, and I’m obviously still using my skull. A little put out, he still wants a skull of value and I take a route though a sub basement to a portal which connects up to the weeping stone catacombs. On the way through the cave under his place, I talk my way past some nasty looking werats and their leader Manotuk. He’s not thrilled Lothar has us looking for this important skulls, but we get past him.

I head back to the dead nations for a skull I hope will do the trick, and since I’m in the area, I also travel back to the Buried village to check on Pharod’s corpse. While Annah is distressed to see her father dead, from previous conversation with her I’m fairly sure that Pharod’s crutch is a portal key to his stash. I grab the crutch and we find the arch where I can use it to open a portal to what appears to be a ruined library. Multi-level and filled with books, I sweep the place top to bottom and find all his little treasures hidden in various books. Truth be told it didn’t amount to that much.

Back through the catacombs and portal to Lothar’s cave. Encountering his wererat servants again, Manotuk demands the skull I’ve found and I refuse, so we have to fight him and his 10 buddies. I unload my spells, and Dak and Annah slice away and exterminate the rats. One item of note that the leader had was a book that is almost pulsing with evil: the Grimore of Pestilent Thought. After identifying it, I can talk to it if I want but I decide to forgo it’s promises of power for evil deeds done cause I just know it will betray me in the end. (That’s not a recovered memory, that’s not being an idiot. At this point my alignment is Lawful Good).

Returning to lothar’s, I talk to some of the other skulls on the shelves One of them swears it has seen me before in Curst, the gate town to Carceri the prison plane in the outlands. I also talk to a Sensate, who tells me of her factions Festhall in the clerks ward. She tells me of their beliefs in how the universe of sensation must be experienced fully, and how they are the largest faction in Sigil. I’ll have to check them out later.

I head upstairs to meet Lothar, and offer him a skull I hope will do the trick: Soego’s. Lothat is intrigued by the Dustman Wererat spy angle and releases Morte back to me. I also ask him about myself and he tells me that I had my mortality stripped from me by the night hag Ravel Puzzlewell. If I want to find out what happened to my soul/mortaility, I need to find her. This extremely powerful, and probably insane, night hag from the gray wastes was long known for solving puzzles and mysteries, but she started to treat Sigil as a giant puzzle and her attempts to “undo” it brought her afoul of the Lady of Pain, who banished her to one of her interdimenional mazes. Great, now how do I find her? Lothar doesn’t much care and promptly kicks me out of his home.

Back in the ward, I head over to deal with the demonic Abishai for Sebastian and a short fight ensues. Once he is dead I return to Sebastian and he can in fact, improve a bunch of my scars (+2 CHA and XP). I talk to a bunch of other folks in the ward and do some minor quests. I stop a preplanned fight between some dumb brutes and an abishai over some noblewoman’s ruined dress; she was setting them up to get slaughtered. I pass a slave market and a woman convinces me to investigate her case. After her husband died, a debt collector demanded repayment of a loan. He husband had already paid it, but someone stole the document proving it so she’s about to be sold to pay the debt. Talking to the involved parties leads to me recovering the stolen contract and getting the schemer thrown in jail. I find an old Gith woman who is deathly ill and have Dak kill her as an act of mercy. You know, minor stuff all heroes do.

One other place of note is the mysterious siege tower. Sure enough, getting near the entrance, I can suppress all desire to enter and a portal pops up. Inside, I find a giant metal being named Coaxmetal who is actually part of the tower. This siege tower is used to break open planes and for conflict and entropy. Coaxmetal was created from the weapons of a thousand battles, and his role is to create the weapons by which the universe will be unmade. He is an agent of Entropy and destruction who is the enemy of the multiverse itself. Talking to him about his role and place and I ask him if he can make a weapon that could kill even me. He takes a drop of my blood and forges the Blade of the Immortal a knife in the shape of the symbol of torment. However, in order to use it, I have to travel to a place beyond the planes of existence, or I will still come back. What can I say, my life is complicated.

Moving on, we head to the clerk’s ward and I locate the woman named Nemelle at an outdoor café. She is extremely beautiful but has an odd way of speaking about herself in the third person like she is telling a story. She is looking for her companion, who agreed to meet her here several days ago. Turns out, her companion is at one of the other outdoor cafes, and not only does she have the same odd way of speaking, it turns out that they can bend reality to match their words. I want to explore this more but she simple says something like “and then the scarred stranger, having lost interest in the discourse, took his leave” and just like that I’m headed on my way, completely unable to talk to her further. Yikes! I return to Nemelle who seems more level headed about the whole “control reality with my voice” thing, and she gives me the command word for the decanter of endless water. Plus she kisses me as she wants this to strengthen me and my max hp increases. Dating a reality bending woman sounds a bit risky, even for me, so I humbly take my leave. Since the only useful thing she was able to do for me related to my identity was give me the information on the decanter, I decide to take that to someone who probably needs it quite badly: the ever burning man, Ignus.

I head to the Hive to visit the Smoldering Corpse Bar again, full intending to deprive them of their naming inspiration. Sure enough, knowing the activation phrase for the decanter of endless water does allow me to break Ignus out of his fiery prison. Except he’s still on fire, and he calls me his master…

I talk to Ignus about his past and he confirms that I was in fact his former master and the one who taught him to harness the magic of fire. Not only that, but apparently I am the one who got him to burn down the Alley of Dangerous Angles. His discussion with me triggers another memory, where I see Ignus as a youth coming to me in a study of some kind. He has dreamt of fire again, and woke with his hands charred. This must be one of my more evil lives because I get enraged that he has dared interrupt my meditations and promptly grab his hands and thrust them into a nearby fireplace, telling him how he must suffer into order to truly learn the ways of fire. I try to apologize to Ignus but his mind is so far round the bend it doesn’t seem to matter to him.

I ask Ignus if he can teach me this time, and in some form of karmic payback, he tells me that now *I* must suffer to learn. First, he burns a finger on my right hand to an ashy digit, then snaps it off. (XP, and max hp -1). When I ask to learn more, he then severs my entire left hand, then burns off all the flesh and muscle leaving a blackened skeletal hand, which he throws back at me. (XP, max hp -3). To continue, he will have to further ravage parts of my body, so I give him my intestines that were removed from me earlier, and when he burns those to charred ropes, I feel the pain in my abdomen. Lastly, he plucks my eye, not the removable one I got back earlier but the other one, and burns that to a cinder. Somehow, I get my eye back and can see again when he is through,
(Each of those events nets me some XP and a body part in my inventory that is now inscribed with a spell I can learn. Ignus is a lvl 7 mage and all of his spells are fire related. His basic attack is a non spell fire dart he can throw over and over, which is really my first reusable ranged attack. He continues to float around as a man constantly burning, which makes it hard to be inconspicuous. He’s also a frigging nutcase I plan to ditch.)

Whew, after all that pain and suffering, I think I need to go relax and unwind. I know; time to visit a brothel! We head back to the clerks ward to enter a rather unique brothel: the Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts. Inside the entrance is a beautiful winged woman named Fall-from-Grace. She is a succubus who runs this establishment as a training ground for sensate wanna be’s. Unlike most of her kind who seek to corrupt mortal with pleasures of the flesh, Grace seeks to know more of others by stimulating their minds and the art of conversation. The girls here are all versed in one form of intellectual stimulation or another. After relating my condition to her, she seems intrigued. I ask is she would be willing to join my merry band which apparently pisses Annah off, as she’s muttering about adding any trollop who will flash me some skin, Morte tells her she’s “as much fun as passing a caltrop through your bowels” which shuts her up for a while. Grace is unsure about joining, so I ask her “you mean you wouldn’t be interested in traveling with an immortal amnesiac who is searching the plans for himself?” I’m mean, what inquiring mind could resist that? She wants me to go talk to her 10 students first before she will confirm her decision to join us.

Thus begins the Olympics of Intellectual lusts…

The first student I find is Dolora, I rather beautiful but cold woman with dark hair and pale eyes. She is versed in the art of debate and strategy games, I ask her to debate and as well point and counterpoint, it triggers a memory where I am in a fancy hall at a party of some kind, debating a small man with a necklace of the sign of one. In concluding my debate, the man says, “but if I accept you logical conclusion, then I don’t actually exist”. I confirm this and he gets this strange look on his face, then vanishes to the applause of the crowd. (XP) Dolora is impressed with my logical rhetoric.

After that, I ask Dolora to play a game of strategy and while I cannot remember any on my own, she has one that sound like the game of Go. While playing with the white and black stones, it triggers another memory of me a horsed on a hill side, directing troops in a battle. I sneer as my opponent falls into the traps I have laid for him, using my cavalry to pincer around him and foot troops to stop his advance (XP). I manage to barely beat Dolora in a drawn out game. After the game, I sense something is bothering her and when questioned, Dolora admits she is in love with a man named Merriman but she cannot leave the brothel to see him. I agree to seek him out in the Sensate hall.

Nearby to Dolora are 3 odd creatures; cube like mechanical constructs with legs and wings. The Modrons are very logical creatures, who are heard to observe Dolora, but they don’t know why; their superior ordered them to. As we leave Morte tells me he can’t stand the Modrons because they are strict believes in law, not GOOD mind you but Law, aka Order. Morte’s a rather chaotic kind of skull.

In going into the rooms of the brothel to look for the other girls (and stealing anything not nailed down), I find a rather talkative armoire named Luis. He is apparently a big perv who thoroughly enjoys watching the ladies undress, smell their perfume, and mostly feeling their silky undergarments as they put them in his drawers. I think he’s a mage who got changed into this piece of furniture, but he won’t say if he can change back and seems rather taken with his lifestyle choice currently. Weirdo.

The next student I find is a beautiful woman named Vivian, who smells heavenly. She is a bit of a connoisseur of scents and smells, but is rather upset that someone has stolen her personal scent. It is something she has worked on very hard and can drive men wild, and she wants me to find it. I’ll see what I can sniff out. Ha!

Moving counter clockwise, I find Juliette in her room. While attractive she seems very bored with life. In talking to her, the main issue is a lack of passion in life. She has a finance that she likes, and everything is going fine, but so smoothly she can’t stand it. In talking over with her, I suggest she get some fake letters describing a passionate affair with another to see if she can shake some life into her relationship. Not being much of a writer, I offer to find some for her. She suggests the print shop in the lower ward might be somewhere to check.

Continuing, I find Nenny Nine Eyes, a bubbly girl with huge eyes who seems as naïve as the day is long. She is fascinated by my scars and tries to trace my tattoos. In talking with her, I ask is she knows anything about Vivian’s missing scent, and while she does she’s so goody too shoes she cant bring herself to saying anything bad about anybody. I have her practice saying mean and angry things to me, and eventually she tells me she saw Marissa sneaking into Vivian’s room.

Next up is Ecco, who apparently cannot speak, write or really communicate in any meaningful way. Hmm.

I find Marissa in a darkened room that you can barely see in, and she is behind some sort of screen. She’s not very friendly, and in talking to her the sound of scales and a hissing noise can be heard. When asked why she hides her face is the dark, she says it is to prevent any …casualties. Apparently she had a crimson veil that she could use to engage in face to face meetings with people safely, but it is missing. I also ask her about Vivian’s scent and while she admits to stealing perfume from her room, she denies having taken her special scent.

Walking the halls is an obviously plane touched woman named Kesai Serris. She is very exotic with ruby like eyes that she tells me glow in the dark, and fangs. Seeing all my scars, including the ones on my eyelids and lips, she asks me if I like to be rough with my lovers, because she does and likes to even bite them. Hmm, what could a few more scars hurt me. While I am intrigues, I think Morte is in love. She does tell me I ought to talk to Dolora as she was seen talking with a former lover of Ecco’s. She also tells me that all the girls are very nice except for…

Kimasxi Addertongue. This goat legged, rough looking “woman” practices the art of Abuse. Verbal apparently. I spar with her a bit and Morte, joins in. I ask is she can teach Morte to be more abuse and the two promptly begin what can only be called an insult contest. At the end of which, Morte has learned some new tricks.

Yves the tale teller is next, but I decide to hold off on telling her any of my tales quite yet. Off to try and resolve some of these situations. First stop, the curiosity shop.

(on vacation for a week; more after that).

(Back, and now up to post 10 i think).

Curiouser and Curiouser

There are several interesting places in the Clerk’s ward, an apothecary, a linguist, the brothel of course, the sensate festhall, and then there’s a museum of the planes and curiosity shop. In order to complete the various quests for the intellectual prostitutes in the brothel, I am going to have to do a lot of running about to these places, and shopping. To try and condense this down I will just relate what I had to do and for whom. I didn’t actually do them in exactly this order. Basically I explored the curiosity shop first, to learn all the various odd items they have in stock and talked to the owner, the fiendish blue skinned Vrischika, then the museum, examining all the pieces and then talking the Yvana the blind curator about them, because I know good and well I’m going to have to use a bunch of them.

Dolora – in the Festhall is a man named Merriman who supposedly has the keys to her heart. Merriman is a bitter old man who literally has a set of keys for Dolora. Turns out she is a construct he created and left in the brothel to see if the interaction there could help build her personality and develop emotions. Now that she has progressed, she needs the keys to unlock the portion of her to allow further development, but the old bastard won’t just give them to me. Nope, I have to do a favor for him first. Being old and bitter, he wants a magical way to forget the past 100+ years of his life. Having been to the museum I know one of the pieces there can help. There is a moving sculpture of the Ice Birds of Ocanthus, and Ocanthus is the destination of the river Styx, the river the makes people forget. Having tried to grab an ice bird with my hand and losing a finger as a result, I purchased a rune engraved mug from the curio shop that is intended to keep any beverage in it frosty cold, and use it to capture an ice bird; the birds are really animated slivers of ice from the river Styx. I give that Merriman, and after he prepares himself with some notes, he drinks from the mug, forgets most of his life, gives me the keys to Dolora’s heart, and heads off to re-experience life as a sensate. Giving them to Dolora allows me to ask her more about herself, and also Ecco the silent prostitute. Ecco is silent because a former lover of hers stole her ability to speak and destroyed it by throwing it in a fire breathing demonic monsters mouth.

Ecco – now that I know what’s wrong with her, back the curio shop. They have an item called a “fiends tongue” which when placed in someone’s mouth will give them the power of speech. I bring that to Ecco and when she puts it in her mouth sure enough she can speak, but she also now has a form of demonic Tourettes syndrome because she will randomly starting yelling horrible things about blood and suffering and other fiendish delights. That won’t do at all, but having fully checked out the curio shop before, I know they have something which should help: the tears of an astral Deva. Got those and sure enough, their inherent goodness counteracts the evil of the tongue and makes Ecco able to speak normally. Ecco tells me of her time spent without a voice and how much better listener that made her. She also tells me that the night hag Ravel I am looking for had children, and one of them is Kersai – Serris right here in the brothel. I ask Dolora more about that and she directs me to talk to …

Juliette – the bored lover. To spice up her love live, I traveled back to the print shop in the lower ward to get some fake love letters I can use to convince her finance he is cheating on her. I go the festhall and track down this Montague and he seems just as boring and vanilla as she does. I tell him Juliette is seeing someone else and show him the letters and he becomes rather sad and ready to call up the engagement. Letting him know it was ruse to try and spur a highly emotional reaction gets him wondering what to do next. On my suggestion, he wants to do the same to her. So I tell Juliette that he has become bored of her and wants to break things off, which gets her fired up. Yea for pointless drama! She also tells me that Kersai-Serris and Kimasxi are half sisters…

Kersai-Serris gets huffy when I ask her about being Ravel’s daughter and says she doesn’t know who her mother was, then promptly stalks off. Can’t get anything out of her now so I suspect ill be revisiting her later.

Kimsaxi admits she and Kersai had the same father, but different mothers. She also admits to having stolen the red veil of Marissa, who had stolen Vivian’s scent, which in turn was stolen from her room. That’s one, two three! Three petty thefts ah ha ha ha! Buncha delinquents.

Nenny Nine Eyes – asking about thefts from Kimsaxi and Nenny remembers seeing a man sneak out of her room, but she watched the main doors and never saw the man leave the brothel. Hmm, sneaky man breaking into girls rooms who is still hanging around somewhere in the brothel? That sounds like our pervert…

Luis the armoire. Our polymorphing mage is quite the panty raider it seems, only in this case he stole the red veil that was stolen from Marrissa with the scent stolen from Vivian. If you are quick enough, or strong enough, you could physically get it out of him, but me being a Mage, I whine and beg long enough that he let’s his guard down in and I snatch it. Heh. Course he still has a ton of women’s undergarments in his drawers so he can’t be but so mad.

Vivian – is very pleased to get her scent back from the veil, which not only gets the old hormones racing, but she is able to use her olfactory power to dramatically lessen the amount of embalming fluid that can be smelled on me (+1 CHA).

Marissa – is also happy to get back her veil so she can better interact with people without killing them. In case you hadn’t guessed it, she is a medusa.

Yves the tale chaser – name still cracks me up. I trade a bunch on my tales with Yves for XP, and even get some of my companions to do the same. Many of her stories seem more like short parables. The reason she pursues tales is someone close to her told her she would find out her life’s truth from stories of others, but she has no idea which one is the one she seeks, so she wants to hear as many as possible. Oddly enough, she looks very much like Yvana from the museum and admits it is her mother, but they don’t speak anymore. She also shares some tales of Ravel.

After all that, I talk to Falls from Grace again and after figuring out that I am in fact the 10th student, she agrees to join my party. (Lvl 7 Lawful Neutral Cleric and hot succubus).

During the course of all this running about for the brothel olympics, I also managed to do the following:

In the museum of the oddities of the planes, there was a painting of a night hag which triggered yet another memory of Ravel for me. In discussing with Yvana, she informs me that the single most important riddle for Ravel was the question of “what can change the nature of a man?” and that she offered to teach some of her powers to anyone who could provider her an answer that satisfied her…or eat them if they could not.

Respond to a sensate woman named Jolmis who wanted to have the experience of killing someone so paid me to let her stab me through the heart. I died, and shortly thereafter got right back up which was rather anticlimactic for her.

Locate Jumble Murdersense, the wizard who cursed Reekwind in the Hive and when trying to get him to remove that curse, got cursed with never ending hiccups. I had to find another arrogant curse throwing mage and trick him into learning a curse of silence so I could curse Murdersense, then get him to agree to remove my curse and Reekwinds curse in exchange for me removing mine. Curses foiled again!

Located the three wandering trainers and convinced them all to resume or take up their posts (so fighters, thieves and mages can training in the hall again. Bought some spells this way too).

Listened to a lecture on the blood war, which is something that is apparently very important in my life.

Intentionally died in front of a class to disprove the charlatan Death’s Advocate.

Use the public sensoriums to experience about 14 small impression memories, 6 extravagant ones, and 3 very important ones in the private area, which I bluffed my way into. (little bit of XP for each of the public stones). You have to pay a little to use the public stones, and each provides you a memory of someone’s life that has a particular flavor to it. For example, one of the sensory impressions was “knowing a terrible secret” which was the memory of a queen who had secretly murdered the rightful queen and usurped her place and her feeling of triumph and power that came from that knowledge. Each of the stones is well written, and the private ones are very intense.

The first of the 3 private ones was called “the messenger” and if was a full on memory of me dying on the floor of Ravel’s hut. My arms are missing, my legs have been hacked off below the knee, and my eyes are punctured, and I think Ravel is has been EATING parts of me. Ravel allows me to see through one injured eye, and she commands me to seek her out, but to do that, I need to find the door, know the key, and unlock the key. The way to the door can be found somewhere in the foundry of the Godsmen, the key is somewhere in the festhall with the knowing ones, and unlocking the key is understanding it. How exactly I am carrying on a conversation with a memory stone is beyond me, but there’s no question this is someone both a memory from my former life, and a message to me now.

The second is named “longing” and it turns out to be a sensory recording of Deionarra as she speaks with me sometime in the past. I get to see and feel what she felt as she spoke with me about accompanying me on a dangerous journey, yet since I am actually both sides of the conversation I know full well that the other me cares nothing for Deionarra, and is simply using her love against her so she can be a useful tool to me. I end up loathing myself as I watch me twist and play Deionarra’s emotions like a toy, knowing full well now I planned all along to sacrifice her without a qualm. Boy, I really was an asshole in my most recent former life. I do learn that she apparently left me a legacy as a token of her affection, and so I would remember her and it is 687KS.

The third private stone is named “Week long hunt across the forest of Arborea” but the name is a lie. It turns out to be a trap, a memory of an apparently insane version of myself in a blank room with no windows, doors or other ways out. He was convinced I was trying to steal his life and designed this to keep my mind here so he would be safe. He’s a total nutter and I get him to release me by reading his tattoos over and over until he banishes me in a fit of paranoia.

I also go to the apartment area of the festhall and the clerk informs me they have been holding my key for a long time. I get the key to my former room, and in there find a bunch of charms, spells, and a stranger dodecahedron. This is apparently a puzzle box of some kind, through with 20 faces and each face being able to rotated, there are over 244,140,625 possible combinations. I start to work it, hoping it will trigger a memory of some kind and sure enough, I recall enough to avoid several traps built into it, and it eventually unfolds into a tablet with strange writing on it. Further manipulations allows me to bring up new faces with other writing; it’s some type of book or journal. Could this be the key Ravel spoke of?

Also in the private sensorium rooms is a man named Quell. He a “powerful mage” but seems slightly off his rocker. Seems he has a bit of a sweet tooth so getting a chocolate quasit from the curio shops gets me in his good graces. Asking him about how I can find Ravel leads to some frothing at the mouth and warning me over and over again not to attempt it, and she must be dead, and I must have a death wish, etc etc. Eventually, he tells me to open the portal to where she was mazed, I would need a piece of her. When asked how that would be possible, since she’s been mazed for hundreds of years, he tells me that’s my problem to figure out. Good thing I already know she has some family around here…

To try and figure out what the journal-hidden-in-a-puzzle-box says, I head to the local linguist. While he recognizes the language, he does not know it but he might could translate it if he could locate his notes. Apparently they were stolen. The only person who did know the language was his father, who is dead. Luckily, rather than being buried by the Dustmen he was cremated and his ashes are on the mantle. I use my “stories-bones-tell” ability to talk to his father and learn that he was murdered…by me. I apparently killed him to keep the knowledge of the dead language of Uyo from falling into anyone’s hands. I apologize and ask for his forgiveness, and working with him I recover my knowledge of the language.

Now that I remember Uyo again, I read the dodecahedron which turns out to be a journal of an insane and paranoid incarnation of mine. They are about 11 entries in the journal, most of which are rantings about beings out to get him(me), and buried in the drivel are parts where I talk about killing the linguist, and killing another person who told me that 3 more deaths and 3 more lives could free me, some hatred and distrust of Ravel, and learn of plan to hide in a sensory stone as a trap for the people trying to steal his(my) life. I also learn there is a legacy on file for me as well, with the number 51-AA.

Since that makes two legacies for me, I head over the local office of an advocate named Innis. He turns out to be Deionarra’s father and is sad over her death. Deionarra became a Sensate due to her gift, a gift of prophecy. I fully expect I knew about her "blood of the oracle" and that is why I used her in my former life. Since I learned she died in the Fortress of Time following my sorry ass around, I ask how he knows she is dead and he learned of it from the Dustman Death of Names near the monument stone near the mortuary. I explain that while I have lost my memories, I have found a sensory stone of her memory in the festhall, and he asks me to see if I can get him permission to visit it. I go to the festhall and convince the doorman Splinter to allow Innis to visit temporarily, which makes him very grateful. When I give him the code for the legacy she left for me, he is surprised as he did not know of it’s existence. It turns out to be a letter, a scroll, a heart charm and a wedding ring. The letter declares her love for me, stating she has glimpsed her future and knows that we shall be connected still even after her death. The scroll is a powerful healing scroll, and the wedding ring is magical (+1 saves, +1 AC), . I allow him to read the letter and he takes some comfort from knowing she loved. I feel like such a heel.

I also ask for the legacy I learned of from the dodecahedron. While this legacy appears to be over 100 years old, he hopes it is still intact as apparently about a year ago, someone tried to burn his records. Yeah, im sure that was me again. He is able to find it undamaged and it proves to be some coins, a receipt for an item at the Godsmen’s foundry, an odd magic stone, and a magic eye. (the magic stone is an artifact named the Stone Gullet of Lphahl the Gross and when I swallow it! It gives me +1 save vs poison and 15% acid resistance, the eye is a Kaleidoscopic Eye which gives me +1 saves vs Spells, 5% magic resistance and can cast the spell Chromatic Orb). Looks like i will be heading over the Foundry soon, which per Ravel’s hints to me, is where the Door can be found.

But before I do, there’s a few other side quests I want to finish up. Two other items that the curiosity shop sells can be used for some side quests: the modron cube figure and the lady of pain ragdoll. Having listened to the stories Yves tells, and several other characters, I know if I attract the Lady of Pain’s attention, she might maze me. Using the ragdoll of her from my inventory, I can pray to her. Do this often enough, and she will notice you and promptly send you to an extra dimensional maze. The maze reminds me of one of those small plastic ball bearing mazes where to tilt it to move the tiny ball through the corridors to the entrance/exit. You (and only you) are teleported to the center of circular area with the symbol of torment on the floor. There are 3 paths leading off from this area that loop around until you reach the outer circle, which has portals all around it. Using a portal teleports you to another portal somewhere on the circles edge. Exploring as fully as possible, I find what appears to be a camp of one of my former incarnations. Hidden in it is a few weapons (brimstone maul – hammer that does fire damage, a skull tipped cursed mace named the devil’s due which does acid damage to your target and you, and a chaos feather of a Vrock that can be used as a dagger but is fragile), and a journal made from flesh and bones…my flesh and bones. Attempting to read it proves useless as apparently the whole thing is nonsense symbols my paranoid former self left to try and confuse anyone following him. Hidden inside a hollow bone in the spine is an actual note, which provides cryptic clues on how to get out of the maze. It involves enter a portal, then walking through the maze back to the same portal and entering it a second time. If you do this at the right portal, you can reach a formerly inaccessible part of the maze and portal out. Picking the wrong one can cause shadows to spawn and attack you. After some trial and error and a few fights, I find my way back out. Oddly, my companions don’t seem to notice I’ve actually been gone.

Speaking of them, the other side quest I want to do is to get a Modron companion Im trying to get everyone the way I want because I know heading to Ravel’s maze is a big step forward in the game. I don’t like Ignus much as a companion b/c having him following me around is a giant flaming sign of my former guilt. Plus he’s nuts. So, I drop him from the group to make room. (Oddly, I really not sure how anyone who didn’t know about Nordom would be able to figure out you can get him purely through in game knowledge. I don’t recall any info about this that would have naturally led to me seeking him out otherwise. Perhaps they expected people to buy everything from the curio shop just to see what they were for but that seems haphazard. Same deal with the lady of pain ragdoll).

Before going after Nordom, I decide its time to finish upgrading my companions. I talk to Grace and in one of her conversation threads she mentions that while Morte may claim to be a mimir, he doesn’t have the silvery skin of one, and he smells of the plane of baator, the plane of Lawful Evil devils. I talk to Morte about this, and while he tries to deny it, eventually when pressed he reveals that it is true. He was in the hells of Baator for a long time, trapped on the pillar of skulls on the part of Baator called Avernus. The pillar was a place of punishment, full of the heads of those who lied in life and through their lies, caused someone’s death. Morte thinks the person who’s death he caused by lying was mine… He cannot remember his life prior to death, so doesn’t any details of our former relationship, he just knows he was trapped in the hells for centuries, and eventually I came to the pillar of skulls. All of these admissions triggers a memory sequence where I recall exactly what happened rather than Morte’s spin. He begged me to pull him from the pillar and swore he could help me. I made him swear an oath to serve me until the end of my days and released him. When I learned he had lied to me again, and did know have the knowledge he claimed, I tormented him furiously.

When I ask Morte why he didn’t tell me this back when I awoke, he says it’s because whenever I come back to life, he never knows who I will be. Sometimes I awake as a madman who thinks he is MY skill and try to kill him. Others I am a staunch lawful person who thinks he needs to be returned to the pillar of skulls. So he keeps quiet until he figures out who I am this time. Apparently we have been doing this for hundreds of years.

When pressed further as to why he stays with me, it is more than just the oath he swore. He still feels guilty for having caused my original death which sent him to the hells to begin with. When he recognizes this about himself, he feels better..and stronger! (upgrades! +4 STR, +2 CON, +2 Dex for Morte).

I also take the opportunity to finish learning the circle of Zerthimon with Dak. With my Int and Wisdom now at 19s, I am able to unlock and read the 6th circle of his holy book, the story of how Zerthimon divided the Gith to stop them from both exterminating the Illithids completely, and prevent the Gith from carrying their war to all other races. Dak actually did not already know this circle of knowledge. Talking to Dak about this, I get him to reveal that he doesn’t actually *know* if he believes this; he is afraid that Zerth was actually under the mind control of the illithids all along, and that is why he betrayed his people. Not to save them, but because he was a puppet. Since he cannot know the heart of Zerth at that time, he will forever have doubt about the hero of his race. This gives both of us a spell. There are two more circles to go...

Further examination of the stone circle allows me to unlock a new circle of knowledge. The seventh circle talks about how the Gith slowly and carefully built up the tools and skills they needed to overthrow the Illithids, and the point is time can be an ally: little changes can build over time, leading to a large result. I explain this to Dak and it unlocks a spell for him and I: the Missile of Patience (an interesting spell in that it starts off doing nothing, but the more you use it, the better it gets…it just takes patience to use it long enough for the payoff).

Finally, I read the stone circle and unlock the hidden 8th circle message. I read this, then offer to let Dak *know* the meaning, that a person must have both focus and discipline, be of one heart and mind and that level of self knowledge can be a great strength. Reviewing this lesson with Dak, I am able to convince him that Zerthimon did in fact make his pronouncements of his own free will, out of his desire to save his people. When Dak accepts that, he draws great strength from having eliminated his doubts about Zerth, and swears to follow me til death. (Dak upgrades +1 STR, +2 DEX +2 CON; with the tattoo I bought him earlier pushing his Con to 20, he now regenerates hit points over time like I can.) We also both get a spell from this.

Now I feel ready to travel to get my last companion. I rest up, and then use the Modron figurine in the proper sequence to trigger a portal and am transported…elsewhere.

Welcome to Rubikon, the Modron mechanical test dungeon.

This entire area is a tongue in cheek nod to a lot of the tried and true steps of fantasy rpgs and serves as clever commentary on some of the rote memes we’ve all seen many times before. It’s also one of the hardest sections of the game in my opinion from the sheer amount of tough fights you have to slog through. I didn’t resort to cheating, but I DID use fairly cheesy safe tactics which I would have preferred not to.

You begin in a room that has several “low threat constructs” in it. When you try to engage these robots in conversation, you notice they have greenish casts to their “skin” and say things like “grrrr” or “death to intruders” or “kill them in the name of the evil wizard” and my personal favorite when you try to reason with them “stick to the plot!” One thing you can learn that the “evil wizard” they serve will only appear when the dungeon is set to Hard mode. No matter what you talk about, you have to fight your way through them. The occasionally drop items, and while some are true useful things like a Portal Lens (teleport stone you can use to leave), they also drop things like “bag of coins” which contains fake coins, or “a magic item” which is just a prettied up gourd. My favorite item they drop is “a clue” which when read simply says “you now have a better understanding about what is going on.” :awesome_for_real:

Fortunately, these guys really are low threat level so kill them isn’t tough for my three fighter types. The rooms are all simple cubes with 4 entrances in the cardinal direction points. Some of the entrances in each room are blocked with walls so you can only go certain directions. I travel basically “south” until I get to the foyer to the dungeon, and from there to the control room. From the Modrons in this section, I learn that the dungeon construct was a project built to try and determine the dynamics of the social and asocial behavior aberrations that appear around dungeons. What attracts people to them? Why to they risk going if they know they are dangerous? Why do these dungeons even exist in the first place?

The Modron engineer tells me the project came to a halt due to an accident. The entire dungeon became unstable and the portal connection to their home plane of Mechanus was lost. I ask he what needs to be done, and he tells me the entire thing needs to be reset, but since the project director was disintegrated, there is no one to give him such instructions.
I offer to serve as the director since I am an experienced adventurer, and he accepts this. The modron’s are almost like cube borg; they aren’t supposed to have concept of self but the ones in the control room are definitely flustered and almost refer to themselves as “I” several times.

I order them to initialize the reset which collapses the dungeon and I can then choose what mode to rebuild it as: easy, normal, or hard. This will repopulate the dungeon with monsters, traps and treasure. Knowing the “evil wizard” only appears on hard mode, I select that and head back to the actual dungeon part. He also warns me not to leave any items or companions in the dungeon, because when it resets again they would be destroyed.

The small square rooms are now each populated with 1 to 3 high threat level constructs, and they are tough fights. Here begins the annoying part of this test dungeon, stumbling your way around and surviving all the battles and traps. As far as I know, this is the ONLY randomly generated content in any of the games that use this engine, and the only random part is which doors are open and closed in each room. You almost have to make a map and I did.) General speaking, I can last about 2 fights before Grace’s healing spells are exhausted, and after about 6 rooms, my healing items in inventory are too. So from that point on, I would clear a few rooms, then walk back to the entrance foyer because you can rest their and regain your spells and health (which is why the map is so important). Rinse and Repeat. It takes a while, and my companions died a few times doing this. Since I have raise dead ability, that wasn’t too bad, but it does get annoying having to pick up everything they we wearing or carrying and re-equip after death. (If you yourself happen to die, you will rez in the foyer with your group but I avoid that).
It’s annoyingly tough because the rooms are small, and the constructs seem to have no trouble hitting even Dak with his -4 AC. On the plus side, each is worth 4000 XP.

Eventually, 32 rooms later, I finally enter a slightly different room that has a Modron in it, and a broken floor. He’s seems different that the other ones in that he has no wings, but two crossbows instead, and he acts oddly. Morte calls him a backward Modron because he has gone rogue, and he seize upon this input and adopts that as his name: Nordom. When I explain that I no longer have a name either, I think he sympathizes with me and agrees to join. Talking with him, I reason with him that it was probably when Rubikon lost it connection to the source that he transitioned from a quiet broader one into the smaller, louder one he is now. This seems to help him in some way (+1 INT and +1 CON). When questioned, he also informs me he thinks he changed his wings because he didn’t like them, and the two crossbows he carries are actually gears spirits from Mechanus, not simply metal and wood. Nordom is a lvl 6 fighter that uses twin crossbows. I have picked up several mechanical eyes during my dungeon romp, and several sets of bolts, so I equip him up and away we go. He does help nicely in fights with his ranged attacks, and since I can rest in his room too, I use that as my new base of operations for seeking out the wizard.
(I am a level 11 Wiz, Dak is 7 Ftr/8 Wiz, Morte 8 Ftr, Grace 8 Clr, Anah 7 Ftr/7 Rog.)

Another 16 rooms or so and i eventually locate the wizard's lair. Sure enough, another constructs who's metalic body is shaped like robes but this one is willing to talk at least. He basically says that over time, he became self aware enough to recognize he no longer wanted to be trapped in this test dungeon and while he asked the Modron to free him, they denied him. Because of that, he attacked them, casuing the portal to Mechanus to be severed and disintegrating the creative director. However, this kicked in a fail safe of some kind which reset the dungeon into easy mode, thereby placing him in stasis. When I reset the dungeon again into hard mode, he was released and will now round up all the high threat constructs and march on the control room, either killing the Modrons or forcing them to serve, then use the power of this cube to leave Limbo and go do who know's what. On the whole, i dont have too much of a beef with his actions given his circumstances, but unfortunately, since i told the Modrons i would serve as Director of the project it now means he has to get rid of me too.
Cue the fight scene.

This is actually a pretty tough battle with him and about 6 other constructs, and due to the small cutscene that happens when you enter this room, I'm actually several paces out in front of the rest of my party...not the place you want the mage hanging out. During the fight, the wizard cats a spell the "cannon of Mechanus" which actually triggers it's own cutscene: shot of this huge mechanical cannon that lurches into action and fires, right into a portal, and the exit portal is right in front of the wizard so it practically incinerates my party. Time to use the rest of my healing items. It's a tough battle and i unload with ever spell in my disposal, and eventually with take out his guards, then him. Nordom and Anah are dead and everyone else is near death. Some raises and a bunch of rest periods later, were heathly again. A few items on this wizard but the best is a spell scroll for that cannon spell.

Having finally killed the evil wizard at the end of the dungeon, we use a portal lense to jump back to Sigil.

To the foundry of the Godsmen.

Back in Sigil, I use the receipt from my legacy to get the guards to open up the gate to the foundry, and head inside. Wandering about, I find a clerk whom I give my receipt and he gives me the item made so long ago, a strange metal portal. I have the portal to Ravel, and I know what the key is, but I need to get a drop of her line’s blood before opening it. I also decide to see what else is in the foundry as everyone is busy working on some secret project. I talk to a bunch of people, and decide to go ahead and join the Godsmen faction to find out about this secret project. My three tasks to be accepted are to forge an item, solve a murder, and convince one of the factors not to kill him self. Pretty straightforward stuff, and when done, the leader Keldor lets me select from 3 weapons. I choose the dagger “Enlightenment” with is +2 and gives me +1 CHA and +1 AC. Also after joining one of the other godsmen named Sarossa agrees to teach me her which grants me a +1 WIS. By the way, the secret project is a massive flame cannon that can harm those even protected against normal fire. The engineer of this project is a Gith woman named Kel’lera and she wont reveal who ordered this built while any fiends (i.e. Grace) are around. Using some deductive reasoning, it seems likely that the lawful evil devils of Baatezu commissioned this device to be used in the blood war but Kel cannot confirm that.

Further exploration eventually finds an artisan named Nihl Xander and he recognizes me.
He tells me he completed construction of my dreambuilder that was started long ago, and has been holding it in readiness. I ask how he recognizes me and apparently their was a stone face carving of me on it, so the builders would know it was me when I eventually returned. I ask to see this carving but he tells me a shadow stole it about a year ago, but he had memorized it before then. The machine will trigger a dream state for me, and since in my “condition” I no longer dream, this might prove useful. In order to activate the dreambuilder he needs a blue green bottle that contains some of my skin and blood.

I head out to visit the local apothecary in the clerk’s ward to see if he can assist me, but something is dreadfully wrong with him. His name is Pestle Kilnn and his skins flows and moves almost like liquid, and it sounds like he has multiple personality disorder or something. It appears some potion there in the shop affecting him in this way and I offer to try and find something to help him. I head to the curio shop and find an elixir of horrific Separation, which can separate a person from their dark side, and bring it to the shopkeeper. When I explain it to him, he does believe it can help and after modifying it slightly he use the elixir which is able to separate him back into two being, Pestle and Kilnn. Now back on their own, they can each function again so I have Pestle put some of my skin and blood in an appropriate bottle.

After getting that, Nihl tells me he needs a razor birdcage from the Siege tower that represents the mind trapped in it’s conscious state. I head to the tower and get Coaxmetal to give me such a cage. He seems to be looking forward to doing this as it was prophesied that when this cage was used his time of being stuck in Sigil would draw to and end and he would be free to bring chaos to the planes again. Hmm.

Lastly, Nihl needs a coffin pillow for me to lay on, so I head to the coffin shop and deal with the shopkeeper who talks endlessly about trivial matters no one cares about. I try patience, and getting a word in edgewise but he just keeps nattering on. Now I see why Sebastian stuck the zombie Dimtree in here to keep this guy from wandering the neighborhood and annoying the crap out of everyone. I finally have to threaten him to get him to pay attention, and he tells me there should be some pillows stored in the warehouse. So I go there and retrieve one and head back to the foundry. Nihl gives me the key to the room with the dreambuilder… a black feather.

Entering the dreambulder triggers several cutscenes of my dream state, beginning with me appearing before a hangman’s noose. Then it shifts to a wild maze of black razor vines where fearsome creatures spring forth from the ground and attack me. Next I see a huge pillar of skulls in a blasted hellish landscape, and fiends rush to tear me apart, and finally back to the black vine maze again, only this time surrounded by pile of human corpses that somehow I know I killed. Through the dream I hear a voice that seems surprised that I have entered a dream again after so long; sounds like Ravel to me. After that the dream ends and I awaken back in the foundry. With dreams like this, I think I’m glad I don’t dream anymore.

The final thing I need before traveling to Ravel is a “piece” of her, so I return to the brothel and talk to Kimasxi about Kesai. She reveals that Kesai’s father is a cambion, and she could summon him herself to learn the truth about her mother. I confront Kesai and she begins to do just that, and finally confronts the awful truth that she is truly Ravel’s daughter. Oddly, after relating a large amount of Ravel’s awful history, power and legend, she becomes wistful and actually seems sad that now that she knows the truth, her mother is lost and she never had the chance to know her. When I explain how I am seeking her out and need a drop of her blood to help me, she is willing and gives me some on a handkerchief. I now have my key to Ravel’s portal.

Un-Ravelling the Mysteries

Having rested up (made 2 save games :awesome_for_real:), sold a bunch of crap and arranging my party the way I want, it’s finally time to visit the powerful and mysterious night hag Ravel. I activate the portal using the blood stained hanky and fine myself in the black vine maze from my dream state. We cautiously explore and are attacked by withered creatures that appear to be made from vines but they don’t prove too tough attacking in 1s and 2s. Eventually, near the center of the maze we find a dumpy old looking woman tending some of the vines like a gardener. This then, is Ravel.

Up close, her looks are quite disturbing, and… flexible. This is the powerful night hag that stripped away my mortality and challenged the lady of pain herself. She may be annoyingly cryptic when she speaks, and has cruel streak a mile wide, but I am going to be on my best behavior. As such when she asks me where I have been and if I have forgotten her, I choose a reply like “how could I forget you, beautiful Ravel” and I let her touch me and trace my scars while I touch her face (this triggers a memory). I ask her tell the tale of my scars, and she talks of me being balance imbalanced when my mortaility was peeled away, of the trials of war, of how I suffered in the battle of fiendish elements, and am a creature that feeds on others from afar. She also tells me that my sign is that or Torment, and I draw tormented souls to me like metal to a lodestone. She takes the opportunity to make a taunting analysis of each of my companions but soon stops saying she has lost her taste for the cruel (yeah, right). Before allow me to ask her anything, she says I must answer her questions.

Her first is wanting to know why my companions came her with me. I take the opportunity to flatter her again, telling her that having her tales of her beauty and power, why wouldn’t they want to come? She focus on asking if I am saying they came by *choice* and I say they did. She then returns to her biting analysis of each of my companions, proclaiming that none of them had such a choice. Dak’kon is tied to me over the matter of the two skies, the division of his race. Morte is my slave who is oath bound to be with me. Annah is bound by her feelings for me instead of thinking. Nordom mush obey his accepted superiors, and Grace is forced into experiencing this by her sensate beliefs and must therefore seek out all experiences.

Ravel’s second question is even more pointed: do my companions matter to me, or are they just tools of my will. I know from my memories that in the past I often treated them as tools, but this time I claim each and every one is a friend individually (there are choices about liking them, hating them, loving them, not trusting them, lies and truth, for each companion).

Her third question is asking why I took so long to return to her. She calls me her beautiful, broken man so I flatter her again, telling her how the way was longer and difficult, but could not stop me forever from reaching her again.

As she gets ready to ask her last question, I KNOW I have heard it before, and I say it together with her: “What can change the nature of man?” There are many possible answers to this question: love, hate, power, greed, betrayal, death, regret, age, suffering, success, the planes, Ravel herself, nothing, claiming I don’t know, or attempting to lie. Based on my experiences to this point, I choose Regret. When she tells me that is not the answer, I tell her “it may not be THE answer, but it is MY answer”. And she says that is all she really wanted to know from anyone she every asked that question of; a simple answer that so many failed to figure out because the answer only has meaning to oneself. She devoured countless others who were trying to tell her what she wanted to hear in an attempt to gain power from her.

Having a good feel for Ravel now, I confront her in that she never cared about anyone else’s answer to that question other than mine. She admits that this is true, because I posed her the impossibility that brought us all to this point.

Now I get an opportunity to ask my questions and my first is why she stripped away my mortality, and the simple answer is I asked her to but she cannot remember why. I approached her with enough flattery, guile, and a challenge she could not pass up, but the reason of me seeking to escape death has faded over time. She tells me how she made me immortal, but there were flaws in the ritual. I now father shadows that hate me; every time I die, a shadow rises that pursues me and seeks to end my existence. With the violent death of the mind, even more than my scarred body, each death lessens my memory and puts me further in torment. And the ultimate flaw; Ravel now knows that life is but a preparation for the ultimate goal: death. We live our lives to learn how to die, but once that is forgotten…torment.

I ask if my mortality is still intact and she says that it is: so long as I exist, my mortality has to also exist. However, she doesn’t have it. She could not hold it, or me, in her garden. In a shocking revelation, my female companions figure out the reason she couldn’t do that is because she *loves me*. Ravel seems a little defensive about it, but admits that is true. Great, one of the most powerful, cruel and hideous beings I have run into yet in the multiverse says she loves me in her blackened cold heart. /Facepalm.
While she no longer knows where my mortality has gone, but believes another also in a cage might. There is an angel, a deva that is imprisoned elsewhere that I must seek out to learn where my mortality is.

I ask Ravel about herself about being a night hag of power, and along this line of questioning she turns herself into the form of Falls-from-Grace. In this form she asks to kiss me, and I reluctantly agree and of course, she bites me enough to draw blood while doing it. Knowing she can change her form, I ask about that and she reveals in her rambling speech that SHE was actually Mebbeth my mage teacher, Ei-Vene the fiend in the mortuary who stitched me up, and Marta, the crazy woman in the buried village that removed my guys. I ask about each person, and it’s like she channels that other form and personality. I thank her as Mebbeth and I echo some of my conversation when I asked her to teach me, and she grants me more knowledge (+1 INT, +1 WIS, XP). I thank her for helping me as Ei-Vene and she starts working on my body yet again. I stand still and she is able to improve me (+3 MAX HP). I thank her for helping me as Marta and stand still as once again she opens me up and removes my intestines, though this time is doesn’t hurt. Something she does dries them out and she gives them back to me.
Lastly, I ask Ravel to teach me as herself, and she shares some powerful knowledge about how the planes work that man wasn’t mean to know, my mind can’t cope with all of it, but I learn some none the less and she gives me some black barbed seeds, a length of her hair as a necklace.

I ask her about why she was sent to this prison, and she tells me that she was trying to HELP the lady of pain, and the lady didn’t appreciate it. She feels that this powerful being was trapped in Sigil, which is also known as “the cage” and she was trying to set her free. Ravel hates for powerful beings to be imprisoned, and I ask if that what the reason she agreed to help me: because I was trapped by my mortality. She agrees this may have been the case, and gives me some of her hair that she ripped out absently while we were talking.

After all of this information, I thank Ravel but she states I have forgotten to ask her the most important question of all. I realize she means I need to ask her how I can leave this place. She tells me how to activate a portal out, and I realize she could have left this place at any time. She chose to stay here in large part because she knew I would eventually seek her out here again. She offers me a boon, and I hesitantly agree to accept it…so she plucks out my good eye! She takes my eye, and shoves an black barbed seed into it, then forces the eye back into my head. OUCH. I ask her what she did and she says I know carry a pieces of Ravel in my eye to help me understand more of what I see (+1 WIS).

For all her “help”, I also come to realize that Ravel has no intention of letting me leave. She wants me to stay and love her as I promised to do so long ago. Since she “loves” me, and is also cruel, vicious and insane, I should have seen this coming. No matter how I try to talk her out of it, she works herself up to a rage and ends our conversation with how “you have forgotten your place!”. She summons in 3 of the vine creatures … and somehow I do the same, and the battle is on.

When we defeat Ravel, a small cutscene plays that shows several different types of shadows and vine creatures entering the maze. Time to go! From Ravels body, I take a magical eye (not mine), a large fingernail, a scroll of Blacksphere, and some more black barbed seeds. My companions and eye start a running battle with shadows and Trigits (vince things) looking for the portal out, and after some exploring we find one that allows me to use the knowledge Ravel gave me to leave this awful place. After I go, another cutscene plays showing a glowing, floating green being approach Ravel’s body. He orders her to rise and she eventually gets up and they begin arguing over me. Eventually, they start fighting and Ravel is laid low by this “transcendent one”.

As for me and my team, we are now in the gate town of Curst….

The downward spiral of Curst

We portal in to the Outlands at the gate town of Curst. This town sits very close to one of the outer planes, in this case the red prison demonic plane of Carceri, and has a permanent gate to that plane. Gate towns are precariously balances by their inhabitants’ alignments: if too many people act chaotic and evil, the whole town may slide into the plane itself. If the town acts too good and lawful, it may slide away from the plane and lose its gate. Why anyone would want to live in this hell hole is beyond me.

I’m looking for the Deva that has knowledge about where my mortality lies, and in asking around, it seems there is a Deva held below the town in a prison. The mayor of this burg won’t see me, so I will have to find another way in. There is also a plague in town and a bunch of lying backstabbing residents: makes for a nice vacation spot I suppose.

In the local watering hole, the bar tender Tainted Barse tells me I can get the “key” to the prison, but it’s not a physical key but a password of sorts. It is broken into 5 pieces and each is magically sealed to a person, so I couldn’t torture it out of them even if I wanted to. To get the first part of the key, he wants me to help save his daughter from some slavers. To get more info, I need to talk to a former Harmonium officer named Marquez here in the bar. He tells me where to look, so we travel to an alley where some soldiers are attempting to enslave this girl, and have to kill them off to save her. Marquez reveals he was glad I killed them because they were Harmonium troops who betrayed what their faction is all about. He tells him to next seek out Kitla for part 2, and gives me the first part of the key: “Such place eternal justice had prepared for those rebellious…”

Kitla seems to be a moneylender of some type who needs me to settle an argument over an inheritance between two brothers, so they will get off their butts and pay her. The two brothers are the local Smith and Distillers, and while the smith seems blunt, simple and straightforward, the distiller is more of an oily sort who tries to convince me to side with him. I review the document and their father really didn’t specify as to the exact split of the inheritance, so I give the documents to Kitla instead. Kitla’s part of the key is “…here their prison ordained in utter darkness.”

Next is Nabat, an agel faced man. He says the town dump is run by a man named Kyse and a local gang has heard that there is treasure buried in the dump and want to rob him. He wants me to stop them. I talk to the dump owner, who seems remarkably clean, vital and vibrant for this town. He asks me to try and talk the gang out of their plan as there really isn’t anything buried under his junk, so I try it but the gang leader will have none of it. I get back the dump and fight off the gang. When I report my success to Nabat, he is pleased because the gang was his former gang who kicked him out. He planted the rumor of the gold buried in the dump to kick off this whole sequence of events. His part of the key is “their prison set”.

Dallan asks me to investigate a political problem a Gith named An’izius is having. I find him in the north part of town, and he wants to frame his rival Siabha for plotting to have him attacked so she can be arrested. I go talk to Siabha, and she offers to double my fee if I instead tell the guards just the opposite: that An’izius paid me to attempt to kill her. I talk to him again, and he again offers to double my fee, and then again so does she. Finally, I track down a guard captain and turn them both in for plotting to kill the other. He agrees to arrest them both only because eliminating them increases his political control in the town. I return to Dallan and he is pleased because both of them were political rivals (and allies) that he has now removed. His key is: “as far removed from the gods and light of heaven”.

Lastly, I talk to Dona who seems to be a bitter old woman. It seems she attempted to summon a fiend and was prevented. She wants me to complete the summons and free the fiend. I head to a grain silo and at the top find an arcane symbol on the floor. I complete the summons and in pops a fifteen foot tall demon with 4 arms, 2 that end in huge pincers (don’t have my monster manual handy so I can’t remember what it’s called). Before I free him, I ask his intentions and he refused to promise not to harm anyone. He does offer me a magic weapon for his freedom (axe Heartgrinder +2, 3-10 plus 1-6 electric). I let him go and return to Dona. She is pleased as she can now use this fiend to get back at her enemies and gives me the last part of the key: “as from the center thrice to the utmost pole.”

So the whole thing reads: ”Such place eternal justice had prepared for those rebellious; here their prison ordained in utter darkness; their prison set as far removed from the gods and light of heaven as from the center thrice to the utmost pole.”

Now that’s a key!
Rest up, level up, and Barse will transport me to the underground part of Curst.
(Me 13, Morte 9, Dak 8/9, Anah 8/10, Nordom 9, Grace 9).

There’s a bunch of fiends under the earth to battle through, and oddly enough, I find what appears to be vats for brewing up more minor fiends. An Abashi leader tells me this town is on the brink of sliding into Carceri itself and I think they are preparing down here. Past the fiends is a mine area which has many prison guards. I hew through a bunch of them and eventually find the Deva Trias chained in a circle of power. The town is using his power to run the prison itself, and he doesn’t seem real fond of either Morte or Grace. This angel’s wings are charred and broken, yet he still radiates peace and love. He tells me his mind his also chained so much as his body is, but that if I can return to him his celestial weapon, his sword, he could break the chains and help me. He gives me the magic words to pass beyond a rune door to reach the prison itself.

Onward to the prison proper, which is arranged in 3 circles. Fighting my way through a ton of guards, I eventually reach the center room and find the sword embedded in it’s own magic circle. It is protected by a demon named Cassius, a grossly fat being, but looks can be deceiving. He tells me that he is a living weapon, able to take the form of any creatures doom and has served the abyssal lords for eons. I ask if he could slay even one such as I, and after examining me, he thinks that he could but it would be a dread fight. In order to take the sword, I can either challenge him with my wits, speed, or strength, so being the super genius that I am, I choose wits. He asks me three riddles, and I answer them correctly and he vanishes and I take the sword. Removing the sword triggers what can only be described as a prison riot. Guards and prisoners are fighting everywhere, so I take the opportunity to drop some fun AOE spells on groups and we kill everything in our path on the way out. I love the spell effects in this game.

I return to Trias and free him, and he offers me a boon. I choose knowledge and ask about my mortality. While Trias says he doesn’t know where it is, he says I should seek out a fiend named Fhjull Forked Tongue as he does, and he is currently under a magical obligation to do charity. He tells me of a portal to the north and the key is a broken link of chain, then he bursts through the ceiling and departs.

On to the further reaches of the outlands in our magical mystery tour of the multiverse.

We are treated to a cut scene of a giant skeleton lying on the sandy ground of the Outlands, and fine ourselves in a harsh desert. We have to battle our way through various fiendish creatures, some of whom are quite tough and have high spell resistances, and require +2 or better magic weapons to hit. Having just fought through the entire Curst prison guard ranks, we’re running a little low on spells but managed to work our way to the head of the giant skeleton. A door there leads into the earth, and we find the home of Fhjull Forked Tongue.

This being is none to pleased to see anyone, but is especially upset to see Falls from Grace since she is one of the chaotic evil Tanaari, immortal enemies of the lawful evil Baatezu. They argue about the nature of what is more evil. He holds that the chaotic evil is not real evil but simple bestial instinct, where Grace maintains that planned evil without passion is worthless. So which is superior, highly efficient evil or wild and passionate evil? Um, focus people!

Fhjull was apparently a hotshot lawyer in the lower planes, an advocate infernus, but he tried to entice Trias into signing an infernal contract only to find that the Deva had lied to him, tricked him and he was now bound by his own contract to give aid and do good deeds. Furious at this his demonic brothers charred his wings and drove him from his home plane, and now he hides here under this skeleton of Ul-Goris, a massively powerful being who’s bones still hold enough power to shield him from magical scrying eyes. Knowing that Trias sent me to him he asks if I killed the betrayer, because if I did, he would be free of his contract with him.

I ask him about my mortality and he knows of the Fortress of Regrets but his is delighted to be able to truthfully say he doesn’t know where it is and therefore can’t help me. Instead I ask if he knows someone who does know where it is, which he angrily answers that he does; the pillar of skull sin Baator. I can reach this place by taking a portal under the hand of this giant skeleton. He keeps hoping I will make a mistake that will lead to my death, but I remember to ask him more importantly, how can I leave Baator once I get there, and he tells me I need knowledge and to take a piece of obsidian to cut my tongue in a certain place I also make him give me a bunch of high level spells (Stygian ice storm, acid storm, blade storm) and rest in his place. Boy is he glad to see me go.

Leaving his “house” and taking the portal under the giant skeletal hand, we have a cut scene of Baator and land in this awful place. This plane is chock full of fiends and battling through them is tough (see above Spell Resistance and needing magic weapons). After a few fights, I just leave my group and run to the area transition (which is totally cheeseball but I wasn’t enjoying those fights anyway). Knowing that I had “rescued” Morte from this pillar before, I decide to leave him well away from it before I go talk to it. The pillar is composed of hundreds of rotting heads, each babbling away in their own languages. The group speaks to me as a chorus and lets me know that for any question I ask it, a price must be paid. I ask where the Fortress of Regrets is, and it wants to know the location of Fhjull Fork Tongue in exchange. I lie to it and tell it he lives in a small artificial constructed demi-plane that occasionally appears in Sigil and they believe me.
The skulls tell me that the key to the portal is Regret, and I must write on of a piece of my flesh with my blood. But, they don’t know where the portal is; only three knew where the portal is, myself, someone already beyond the portal, and someone I have already met. They know of me and my condition but cannot help me more than that, and say I must do battle with the third, the liar: Trias the Betrayer. That so called angel was lying his wings off to me!

Leaving the pillar area, I cheesball run through the sands of baator until I find the portal I use to get back to Fhjull’s house in the outlands. He informs me that the portal back to Curst is located under the arse end of the skeleton, and after resting up, I depart. Arriving back where Curst was is a bit of a shock; the town is gone. All that is left standing is some foundation stones, and the demon from the cursed box that I dismembered back in Sigil! Uh oh. One big fight later, I talk to the heads impaled on the gate to Carceri chant “gone gone, lost to the betrayer, lost to the light, lost to it’s own hatred, slid into the red prison”. Apparently freeing Trias caused all kinds of havoc to break loose and the whole town slid over into the plane of Carceri.

Through the portal we go and I find the town of Curst in much worse shape than I left it in. Dozens of fiends wander the streets attacking anyone they find. I locate the dump caretaker who tells me how Trias dragged them all to their doom, and I must smite him down plus get the town to recant it’s treachery to save it. He tells me that the more people I can convince to believe in forgiveness and helping each other, the weaker the Deva will become. So off I go to inspire these jerks to do good deeds.

I find two men trapped under a huge wagon which is slowly crushing them to death. Tovus the former mayor, a haughty arrogant son of a Gith, and Berrog, a common man. Berrog tells me to save the mayor, and the mayor tells me yes, save his ass because he is important! I save Berrog as the mayor selfishly led the town to this state, and I need good people to save it.

While battling through the town, I also save convince a mob to spare an official who used to sign execution orders. I talk a man out of using this opportunity to take slaves and using himself and his guards to help fight the demons. I talk a local guard commander out or organizing the looting of a warehouse to help with the defense of the town. Find a bunch of anarchists in the warehouse led by Ebb Creakknees from Sigil, who want to use this chaos to overthrow the government structure and talk them into helping him fight the frigging demons that are killing the people first. Save Jasilya from thugs, again. Save the guy in the distillery. And kill a metric ton of demons (who are worth a good chunk of XP).

Eventually, I make my way into the city hall, and fight my way up several levels to the top floor, to confront the deva Trias.

Trias asks me what do I hope to accomplish. I ask him why did he lie, and he says he was but giving me directions I could understand, and what right did I have to truth anyway. I ask why he did this to the city, and he tells me that betraying this city of betrayers seals his compact with the lower planes. His whole goal is he wants to raise an army to attack his home plane of Celestia, and hiring a demonic one was the easiest path. As far why he wants to attack a plane of goodness and light, he thinks the only way to end the Blood War is to take that war to the gates of paradise itself. I incredulously ask if he thinks he will accomplish good by betraying his homeland, and he tells me that the real betrayal is cowardice. By refusing to lead the host of light to stop the blood war, his father and the others of Celestia betrayed their purpose. When his father uncovered what he set out to do, his cast him from Mount Celestia, burning his wings in the process. Trias maintains that he truly believes in good, which is why he must betray it to force its hand. And now, we battle.

Trias summons in some helpers, and we have at it in a battle royale. Eventually, I make him yield (one death in the process but I can raise my guys). He asks me to vow to spare his life, and I do. He tells me that the portal to the Fortress in the Mortuary! And that the key is regret written on my skin in my own blood using my left index finger.

I ask what he will do, and he says he will continue his efforts, so I ask if he has forgotten the face of his father and tell him that the upper planes are the home of justice, beauty, goodness…and forgiveness. I suggest that if he admits his error and begs for forgiveness he can be redeemed. Even though his is an arrogant son of a Demigod, he decides there is truth in my words and will do it. He departs and leaves me the spell ‘Celestial Host’.

With his departure, and the good deeds done by the town folk, we get a cut scene of the entire town of Curst being enveloped in a magic bubble and traveling back to the outlands.

As for me and my companions, we head back to Sigil.

Signing Off from Sigil.

Having come back from my tour of the Outlands, I take the opportunity to visit the old town a bit. Selling loot, buying spells, lots of healing items, and tattoo’s and resting up.. I also go see what’s become of Old Mebbeth since I know now she was also Ravel. She is there, but looks quite ill. I ask her if she knew she was Ravel and she thinks she dreamed that, but she was content with Mebbeth’s life as a local healer and midwife. There were three kind things she wished to do: free the Lady of Pain, she wanted me to live, and she wanted her daughter to have a good life. She asks if I will give her one of the black barbed seeds I obtained in her thorny maze, to preserve the unity of the rings. I do, she winds it into her hair, then dies peacefully.

Next we travel the mortuary and I fake my way inside. Here we are, back where this all started for me. Just slightly north of where I first game to in this incarnation, the portal exists. I peel off the skin of my forearm, and go to inscribe a regret on it. I decide to write that I regret that my companions had to suffer for me and the portal opens. I ask each of my companions if they are ready to go, and this triggers Morte and Dak’kon to share some information with me they had kept to themselves until now: we have done this before.

Morte tells me that I, him, Dak’kon, Deionarra, and a blind archer went through the portal before but it did not go well. We all ended up separated from each other and fighting for our lives. Since we were obviously defeated by whatever is in there, he is afraid to do it again. He remembers that it is huge maze like plane full of shadows.

Dak relates how the five walked the path to the fortress and each died their own death. Dak died the death of faith. Morte died the death of courage. Deionarra died the death of grief, the blind archer died the most merciful way, the death of the body, and I died the death of memory. He says the shadows in this place suffer, and they know how to torture you with what has wounded your heart too. I ask him about both this former trip and myself, and he tells me that Dieonarra could not be saved because it was not my will that she be saved; I apparently wanted her to die there. He also tells me that my former self was not like I am now; he didn’t care about anyone and both he Morte are glad they had the chance to know this version of me.

I ask everyone if they are ready, and they are all willing to follow me into this dark place, and through the portal we go. Cutscene. The Fortress of Regrets is located on the Negative Material Plane, on a huge span of dark rock floating in the ether.

I arrive…alone. I have no idea where my companions are and can only hope that we can find each other again. I am out side the fortress proper, and in exploring around, I find the ghost of Dieonarra waiting for me. She implores me to leave or I will die, and not just the simple death of memory, but may truly die as this place is cut off from the reset of the planes by the shell that surrounds it. I learn from her that when I die in the planes, another life is claimed in my place and the soul of that victim comes to this fortress as a shadow, seeking vengeance. Since I cannot leave this place, I tell her I have to enter the fortress and seek my mortality. She blesses my wedding ring and lets me know that inside the fortress are some great clocks, and they were my key to escaping last time I was here.

There is a cutscene showing the opening of the great door to the fortress, and also a scene showing where the transcendent one (my immortality) summons Ignus and sends him forth to kill us.

Inside the fortress is a variety of odd looking machines and items, and it’s full of greater shadows which attack me as soon as they sense me. (Getting through here as a mage is not easy b/c if you don’t try and take them one at a time, they close on you and keep interrupting your spell casting; plus, there’s a LOT of them and they hit hard. I tried several strategies and after killing off like 2/3rd of them, had basically run low on spells and healing potions so for about the last 1/3 I ran around them since by then I knew what I was looking for).

I find a huge clock that looks partially melted. I know I have seen one like this before, but not this specific one. In other places, I find war relics that catch my attention. They are surrounded by dust but it looks like there is a set of footprints where some visited it within a few years. Each has many controls but I find 1 level that has an “X” scratched on the metal surface beneath it, and I have strong feeling that it will help me leave. I pull the lever it the machine disintegrates and then I too begin to fade…

I see a scene before me where the Transcendent one confronts Anah. He derides her and claims that she thinks of love for me, but I do not feel the same way about her. If she will but give me up, she can leave. Anah tells him that I matter more to her than life, “then die!” he responds and promptly kills her.

I return to myself in a different part of the fortress, still among the shadows. I fight and run my way to another war relic, and pull the marked lever. This time I see Dak’kon refuse to leave and he battles 7 greater shadows until he falls.

Return, repeat and now I see Falls from Grace face the transcendent one. He offers to let her leave because when I am slain I will only lose my memory, and she respond there are things she does not want me to forget… So he kills her too.

Once more to the relics and I see Nordom face my immortality. Since I freed him and gave him identity and purpose, he is dedicated to defending my and will not let me die while he lives. He takes on the transcendent one and falls.

After that relic, I eventually a clock whose hands point in a certain direction that I feel will help me, and fighting and running that way, eventually reach a portal. This portal takes me to a room with three statues of me, and pool with a glowing crystal in the middle. Ignus appears to try and stop me, but since I know I was his former teacher I quickly snuff his flames. Touching the crystal in the center of the pool, I pass out.

I come to in a room that has three more versions of me in it, arguing over what should be done with me. They are named the Good incarnation, the Paranoid, and the Practical.

The practical version of me says I must surrender my will to him so he can possess my body as it is the only way we can leave this place. He claims he alone has the knowledge necessary to win free of here, but I tell him that cannot be true as he attempted to do this before and was defeated. In questioning him, I learn that he is the version which lead Deionarra to her death. He brought her here intentionally so she would die because he needed a set of eye in the negative material plane and only the dead can survive here long. After all, that worked didn’t it? He is also the version which picked Morte off the pillar of skulls and convinced Pharod to get the bronze sphere because he told Pharod it would save him from being consigned to the pillar of skulls himself: a lie. I tell him that I have the sphere and ask him what it is. He says it is a dead sensory stone that holds the last memories of the first of us. With it, he hopes to answer the question all of us want to know, why has this all happened? I leave him for now.

The paranoid version of me says I stole his body and I must give it back. This version of me is the one that attempted to set fire to the legacies, was mazed by the Lady of Pain, killed the linguist and stole the face of the dream maker. I use the dead language of Uyo to calm him and convince him that we are one (since only he knows the language) and if he merges with me he will finally have peace, and he does so. (+1 STR +1 CON).

The good version of me lives a long life as a cartographer walking the planes until eventually shadows killed him. I ask why these three are here and he says that when we die, traces of us are left in the mind and that these three must have been the strongest traces. Knowing this, it is possible that the first of us may still be buried in my mind, and following this line of thought, I eventually come to realize that HE was the first.

I ask him WHY he did this; why did we try to strip our mortality and live forever? He admits that when alive, he knew that when he died we would not being going to a paradise. He lived a live of evil so dark that the evil done by all the other incarnations of us is but a drop in the ocean compared to evil of the first. The torment of the lower planes is what awaited us at death’s door. He seems calm as he relates all this. Eventually, he learned that what could change the nature of man was regret. He came to regret the great evil he had done, and to try and make up for it, but it was too late. He was running out of time to undo the damage he had done, so that is what prompted his effort to seek out Ravel and try and split off his mortality. His goal was try to live long enough to make amends for the evil he had done, but when the ritual was complete and Ravel tested his immortality for the first time…he forgot everything! And thus began our cycle of endless torment.

He tells me that once he merges with me, I will recover all of these memories over time. He asks me did I LIVE during my brief life? Was it worth it? I tell him it seemed short, but I enjoyed it and don’t wish it to end and he merges with me (+1 WIS). I know it will take a long time to sort through the memories now within me.

I examine the gold sphere in my inventory and use it. My view of it changes; I know it to be the repository of my last memories before I met Ravel. I clasp the sensory stone and feel regret and it peels apart into drops of tears. Each one that touches me stirs a new memory: of lost love, of forgotten pain, of the ache of loss, until I feel I am being crushed by the mountains of regret I feel. So much regret, so much damage done to others, so much and entire fortress may be built from such. Through the pressure of the regret I feel the presence of the first incarnation, steadying me and suddenly, I remember my NAME!
Such a simple thing, nothing dramatic or inspiring and not what I thought it would be. Knowing my true name I have gained back perhaps the most important part of me. The mark of torment on my arm has become disconnected from me now, so I peel it from my skins and now know I can use it powers against my foes if needed.

I return to the practical incarnation and inform him I will not surrender my body to him, but he will surrender his will to me! He laughs and seeks to engage me in a battle of wills, but with everything I know and have been through, he is subsumed by my will and merges with me. Turns out he was lying again; he did not know how to leave this place. (+1 INT +1 WIS)

After the three incarnations are gone, Deionarra appears to me again. She asks me what I want, and I tell her I am ready to face my mortality. I also tell her the truth of what I did to her and why I let her die, and I am sorry. She asks if I love her, and I tell her I have come to love her as I have known her now in this life. She forgives me, and opens the way.

I am what appears to be the top of the fortress and the bodies of my companions are spread about. The transcendent one appears. I ask what he did to my friends, and he says that all of them were given a choice, and they chose to die for me. I tell him that we were not meant to be separated and that all the planes have suffered because of it. I ask him why he has tried so hard to prevent me from reaching him, and I claim that he fears me. I ask him why he stays here in this fortress. He claims it is by choice and his power maintains this place, but I say it is nothing but a prison. I think he has to stay because this fortress is what sustains him, not the other way around. I tell him that we are linked still and if I ever were to truly be destroyed, so would he. I tell him I finally have a weapon that will accomplish this task and show him the blade of the immortal, made with a drop of my blood by the agent of Chaos. Since here we stand outside the planes, if I use it to end my life, it will finally end. I tell him plainly that if he does not merge back with me, I will use it and destroy us both, and finally, after centuries of existence, regret and loss, my mortality merges with me and I am whole once again.

I return to my companions to raise them from the dead. Morte pops up before I do so; he’s already dead so faking it is part of him. I tell him I must finally go and pay my price and he cannot come with me. I raise Anah and those she wants me to stay she knows I cannot. Dak’kon says he followed me to settle his great debt and now it is done. Falls from Grace marks me and promises that she will eventually seek me out wherever I end up, and Nordom asks where I am going, as he wants to follow and protect me since I helped him find his identity. I tell him where I am going he cannot follow and send my companions back to Sigil.

Once alone, a flaming portal opens upon me and I am consumed. I awake in a desolate landscape to the sounds of battle. I take up a bladed mace from the ground, impale my journal on a sharp rock, and go down to finally take my place where I should… the place I deserved…eternally battling fiends and devils in the endless conflict of the Blood War.

Post Morte-m

Having exorcised the ghost of RPG’s past, I wanted to throw up some of my thoughts as to why PS:T was enjoyable to me. Even for it’s day, it was a very different style game and it’s a shame more people didn’t get a chance to try it.

Number one reason I liked it was the story itself. Most RPG plots are pretty uninteresting when you get right down to it; they almost always boil down to you, the righteous hero, being the only one you can stop the grand evil foozle from carrying out his dastardly plan. You fight your way through increasingly difficult challenges (which of course power you up with levels, stats, and gear) until you get to face the big bad in the final showdown. Often times, to attempt to give the narrative some emotional punch, you have to rescue/avenge your love/family as part of the reason you begin your quest. And if you die along the way, game over – reload your last save. Sometimes the big bad is a dragon, or a king, or a wizard, or a demon, etc but generally there’s not much doubt who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy. Been there, done that, hundreds of times.
The Nameless One’s story is interesting because it’s different. He’s lived hundreds of lives and done tons of stuff most can only dream of…and he can’t remember most of it. The way the story is slowly revealed works b/c you want to know more about this guy. And one of the reasons they can pull this off is by NOT letting you choose your race, gender and class like a typical RPG. You’re locked in to being a specific character and that lack of choice of who you are makes the story work better.

PS:T’s story stands a lot of traditional RPG trappings on it’s head. First off is the setting. You’re dead when the game opens, and when you “come to”, you are already beyond the “real world” in the outer planes. D&D’s take on Alignment choices, and what happens after you die on the Prime Material Plane gets a full workout in this game in a way I don’t think I have seen before or since. Other than another old game, Escape from Hell, this isn’t material you usually see as the backdrop for an rpg, but it is something that I think allowed the writer a lot of creativity. The outer planes can be a place of powerful beings, dread artifacts, bizarre politics, fantastic landscapes, etc that just don’t fit well even in D&D’s version of the “real world”. The idea of traveling between widely diverse planes is something that I think would make great fodder in a MMORPG because of their scope. In my imaginary design doc for the one game to rule them all, being able to travel to other planes/dimensions that have actually different in game rules I think would be a lot of fun and again, allow for a lot of creativity.

PS:T also takes the standard beginning rpg trope of “you have amnesia” and makes it work in the overall context of the story. The whole point to the game is figuring out who you are, and why you are stuck in this cursed existence. And yes, it’s all completely your own fault. You aren’t the hero in this story; you’re the bad guy who’s caused all the problems. No matter how “good” you try to be, in the end, you know there’s only one way out: to finally face up and accept your well earned punishment. No saving the princess (your one true love is already dead, thanks to you, and the two other females who care about you can’t ever be with you), no town celebrations (no one other than you and your friends has any clue what is going on and probably never will), no riding off into the sunset to relax before you are called forth again, no great power or treasure. In short, no happy ending, but rather an appropriate one. If they had somehow caved in to try and make a happy ending work in this game, where you can bring Deionarra back, or get to go to one of the upper planes for the good deeds had done, it would have been a real letdown to me and rang hollow.

Immortality is a subject that sometimes is over used as a plot device in rpg’s; after all, how many games have had evil wizards or mad kings doing great evil to try and gain immortality, and you have to stop them. Or have an evil immortal (vampire, lich, mummy, demon) that has to be defeated, but usually those immortals are very two dimensional. But in this game, immortality seems more of a curse than a blessing. The question is, if you had known the costs of becoming an immortal, would you have gone through with it? Based on the how the first incarnation acted, you know he would not have; the whole reason he was trying to become immortal was to do good and redress the wrongs he had caused. Road to hell – good intentions. You sometimes see immortality and it’s potential downsides dealt with in sci-fi and fantasy books, but not to many games. While I’m not a big Torchwood fan, I did watch the mini-series Children of Earth a few months ago and they at least touched on some of the negatives of being an immortal with Capt Jack. Not only did he have to reveal some of the horrible things he had done in the past to people who care about him now, he ended up having to betray his daughter and kill his own grandson as the only way to save the world. I’d say regret informed a big part of his character by the end, and of course being immortal, he cannot escape it.

On a purely RPG game stance, PS:T still did a lot differently. Only 3 classes, and in truth, the class you play is really not that important. There’s no real reason you couldn’t have the same experience playing as a fighter vs mage, and you could change your class at any time just by talking to other characters. I chose mage because I liked the spells and because I knew how important INT was in this game. But the very first time I played it, I was a fighter all the way through.

The lack of typical equipment helps add that difference too. There’s really no armor for you or your companions other than what they start with; tattoo’s and magic items can add AC but “plate mail +5” is no where to be found Same for shields and ranged weapons. I think not having this kind of equipment changes the focus of a lot of the game. How often in an RPG is the story really incidental to seeking out more powerful gear so you can kill stuff easier, so you can level up, so you can find better gear, repeat; heck, that’s almost the entirety of games like Diablo and most MMORPG’s like WoW. Often times you might get a specific piece of gear that’s really good, and then you try to figure out how to plan your character so you can best use it. So in that way, the equipment drives a lot of the game along. Not so here. Heck, most of your companions come with their own unique weapons that level up with them so other than giving them healing items and secondary stuff, gear just isn’t that critical.

But, they also took the time to but the same kind of story telling into the items that do exist as they did in the main story. Does writing a few paragraphs on the background “stone gullet of X”, a minor artifact, make it functionally different than having a ring of poison immunity? No, but it feels very different and supports the theme. Yes, there are a few normal “Dagger +1” type items, but many more interesting ones. Here’s one of my favorites;
AXE OF THE JESTER
Damage: 1-2 Slashing
Enchanted: ? [+3]
Special: ?
THAC0: ? [+3]
Speed: 3
Weight: 2
Proficiency: Axes
Usably only by Fighters

The person who created this axe must have been mad or a genius. Only the most
skilled of smiths could have forged a weapon using Chaos Matter, the most
unstable and unpredictable element in all the planes.

Stories of this particular axe have been told and retold across the planar
universe. Heroic deeds of men defeating creatures of immense power simply by
touching the axe to the creature and of these same men dying horrible deaths
while doing simple every day tasks.

Zaknar the Simple - Defeated a devourer with a single swipe of this axe.
Crushed to death by a falling boulder in the vast plains of Tabor.

Garkon the Righteous - Struck by a mysterious discharge of energy while
fighting a cranium rat.

Kannas - Tradesman by profession. Buried alive as the stone wall the axe was
mounted on collapsed on him.

Kvry Matterson - A child of only nine seasons, was not only able to ward off a
group of marauding fire bats, he even managed to kill 2 of them!

The list of tragedies and deeds goes on and on.

---------------------------------
And an Item:
FANGED MIRROR OF YEHCIR-EYA
(Minor Artifact)
Invokes "Soul Exodus"
Weight: 1

The Fanged Mirrors of Yehcir-Eya were the hope of an empire.

The last Great Matriarch of the Sea of Black Sand, Yehcir-Eya, found herself
slowly dying. Surrounded by rival nations that wished to claim her lands for
her own, Yehcir-Eya sought to choose one of the Lesser Matriarchs from the
surrounding nations and enter into an alliance, preserving her nation against
invasion. Yet she knew not which of the Lesser Matriarchs to trust.

Consulting her oracles, she asked them for a means of testing the hearts of the
Lesser Matriarchs. They told her to travel to the edges of the Sea of Black
Sand - there, where the shifting black sand gave way to slate, she would find
what she sought.

The Great Matriarch journeyed many leagues, travelling on foot until she
reached the edges of the Great Sea. There, her feet fell upon a great plate of
silvered glass the size of a courtyard embedded in the floor of the desert.

Her oracles instructed her to cut the great glass and fashion thirty-three
mirrors. These mirrors were sent to the Lesser Matriarchs of the surrounding
nations as gifts. The mirrors would test their hearts, the oracles predicted.

No one is certain what happened on that final night, but with every mirror that
was delivered, a Lesser Matriarch fell dead. There were wild tales of spectral
forms that crawled from the bodies of the Lesser Matriarchs as they gazed upon
the mirrors, and the howling cries as they strangled their owners.

In response to the assassination of their leaders, the surrounding nations
attacked the nation of Yehcir-Eya and razed it to the ground. The Fanged
Mirrors of Yehcir-Eya were scattered and lost.

According to several planar scholars, the Fanged Mirrors had the ability to
cause a soul to slip from its owner and take on physical form. Whether it was
because the Lesser Matriarchs were consumed by greed and a desire for conquest
or whether the great plate of silvered glass found on the edges of the Sea of
Black Sand was evil in itself, the mirrors created a vicious reflection of
their owners. Their souls took on substance and killed their owners.

The fanged mirror can be used against an opponent - when used, it will reflect
a spectral version of the target that will appear and attempt to kill him.
--------------------------------------------
In the same way, probably about half the spells are non standard D&D ones, and almost all the high level ones have their own mini cutscene graphics. Casting meteor shower and watching as it pulls asteroids down from space through a portal to crush your foes makes it feel much powerful than simply lofting a fireball across a room at stuff. Or summoning a celestial host, firing the mechanus cannon, etc. Here’s two descriptions of level 9 spells to show you what I mean:

Abyssal Fury
Range: 50 feet
Duration: Instant
Speed: 9
Area of Effect: 1 creature
Saving Throw: see below

When compared to the Tanar'ri, at least the Baatezu are more civilized. There
is, perhaps, nothing more horrific than the unbounded fury of the Abyss. By use
of this spell, the ground shall split open and the victim dragged into
Baatorian madness. Welcome to Hell.

This spell opens a planar portal beneath a specified victim and drags them down
into the Abyss. The portal remains open even after the victim is swallowed in.
The only sound bystanders hear is the incessant screaming of the victim as
he/she is torn apart by the ruthless Tanar'ri. After what seems like only
a few seconds (which is more than an eternity for the victim in the Abyss),
the victim (or what's left of him) gets spit back out of the portal.
(1) If the victim makes a successful saving throw, he will get spit out of the
portal in 'one piece,' but while the victim sensed nothing at first, after a
split-second, all the Wrath of the Tanar'ri will surface. The victim will
suffer 5d10 pts. of damage as he suffers multiple 'delayed' attacks and slashes
from all angles.
(2) If the victim fails the saving throw, it is instant death.
All that is left are body parts.

-------------------------------------
Celestial Host
Range: 100 feet
Duration: Instant
Speed: 9
Area of Effect: 50 ft. x 50 ft. area
Saving Throw: None

While the various proxies and beings of the Celestial Planes are seen as the
embodiment of kindness, compassion, and benevolence, their might easily rivals
those of Baator or the Abyss. Woe to those who underestimate the power of the
Upper Planes!

When cast, a group of powerful phantasms are called to help eradicate all
enemies in a 50 ft. x 50 ft. area, as their combined attacks inflict 40 - 120
hit points of damage, with no saving throw possible. The phantasms represent
the some of the most powerful celestial beings from the Upper Planes: Astral
Deva (Mace of Disruption), Phoenix (Fire Storm), Solar Aasimon (Celestial Bow),
and a Gold Dragon (Energy Wave).

-----------------------------------

In all honest, while the items and spells are cool, most of the game is not spend in combat so you don’t use them nearly as much as you do in typical RPGs. The few places in PS:T where you have to fight are some of my least favorite parts of the game. But, the Modron cube dungeon is an excellent tongue in cheek commentary on typical RPG dungeons, so I enjoyed that for it alone.
It’s also worth noting that at the end of the game, you don’t have to fight the end boss (which again, is you). You can, but you can also avoid it like I did. When’s the last time that happened in an RPG?

Just some other quick ones since this is getting long:

Love the idea of the rats that get smarter as there are more of them.

The vast majority of XP is given though conversations, not combat, so you tend to level whether you are trying to or not. Very few place to try and “grind” XP.

Your companion NPC’s all have significant backstories and many can be improved via your relationship with them. They are well written characters very different from most RPGs. They do banter with each other through out the game too.

Loved being able to die creatively as a plot mechanic. I killed myself several times to solve certain quests. Also like the fact that even if some in your party die, it’s not game over. If you die in combat, you come back to life somewhere. If your companions die, you can raise them. In most rpg’s a character death or party wipe is annoying because you have to load and redo stuff. No so here.

Liked the fact that they don’t do the big reveal at the end; you don’t ever find out what your name actually is, just that you know it. In the same way, they leave the evil deeds you did during your first life to the imagination, which seems more effective.

Liked the fact that the most evil person you deal with (other than yourself) is an angel who got fed up with the celestial plane b/c they wouldn’t help out like he wanted them too. Betrayal, hubris, arrogance, redemption. Do the ends justify the means?

Also liked that the most evil of your incarnations is not a raving psychopath; it’s the “practical” one who is willing to do anything, no matter how “wrong”, to accomplish whatever goal he has. He’s the one who intentionally manipulated Dieonarra’s love, for purely personal, but to his mind logical, reasons. I forgot who said it, but some writer said that the best definition of evil was nothing more than absolute selfishness: viewing others as no more than tools to be of benefit to you, and caring not what consequences your actions have for others so long as you get what you want. To throw in another example from that Torchwood mini-series, the British PM who would gladly lie to his own people so he could sacrifice 10% of his nation’s kids so he himself would survive and remain in power, and once the crisis was averted, sought to immediately blame others.

At any rate, I truly enjoyed playing through this game again. Thanks to WUA for the inspiration. To me it was more like a good book that had interaction rather than a typical computer game; others might see that as a knock but as long as the story is good, I like it. There aren’t too many games I can think of that stand conventions on their head they way this one did, but when that is done well, it can be a rewarding and memorable experience.

Hope you all enjoyed reading.

f13.net

f13.net General Forums => The f13 Radicalthon => Topic started by: Xilren's Twin on July 09, 2009, 07:13:37 AM