#agarth

[vivifriend]

Started playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning yesterday. I'd gotten it in a Humble Bundle a while back but never bothered installing it. I'd never heard of it but I'm already 4.5 hours in and can feel myself on the precipice of getting obsessed.

Nothing like starting a game by climbing off a pile of corpses!

Just wish I could figure out if there was a hotkey to toggle the UI off so I don't have to keep popping into the menu. (But very glad there is an option to turn it off).

Bonus: I laughed my ass off at Agarth's response to my choosing the "You're terrible at this." dialogue choice.

[bed-wed-behead-your-fave]

Agarth

Kingdoms Of Amalur Reckoning

[zatauzul]

Trying to draw agarth again

Maybe I should draw dead kel

[luceirosdegolados]

"I never met a dokklafar who'd give me a straight answer, even with a sword at their throat..."

Before Agarth can finish his thought, the Sparrow pulls up her dagger, and pushes the blade against her throat, oh so very gently.

Agarth's eyes widen; there's fear in them, worry.

"Woah there, I didn't..."

"I promise you I am way more confused about all this than you," she says, and sheathes the blade again. Her neck is unscathed, still covered in tuatha blood, but undamaged.

"Good gods, Sparrow... point taken, I suppose. My apologies."

"Thank you."

"I've tossed you around a fair bit, trying to understand what you are, as if you weren't trying to do the very same. I would say I'm sorry, but I'm alive, so I don't know..."

He lowers his eyes, takes a step back and spenda a few seconds contemplating the stone that once contained the Codex of Fate.

Sparrow leaves him be for a minute, as she knows well the vertigo of being born again. Las t time they spoke, Agarth had been harsh, but he had been on the verge of death and after burials, and he had apologised for this in the caves of Dellach.

The old warrior coughs to get her attention, and the expression he bears is now different. There is no longer mistrust, interest, mild annoyance. There is something else in his eyes, something new; reverence, awe, and a lick of sympathy.

"I want to help you, Sparrow. Wherever you go next, I want to be of use."

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[deathbirby]

Something I noticed between Byleth and Nemesis, specifically after they wake up from their slumber. When Byleth wakes up, the first thing they do is ask where are they and where is everyone and goes to search for them. In contrast, the first thing Nemesis does upon waking up is burn entire villages and towns to the ground, killing people there in the process. Jeez, it's almost like Nemesis is a bloodthirsty genocidal maniac who shouldn't be honored and glorified as this great hero trying to fight "oppression" or some nonsense.

Fr. Nemesis woke and chose to go scorched earth on his path to the monastery. Like, that was his first fucking idea to do. He didn't have to, but he just really wanted to destroy everything in his way.

Byleth? They wake up and start worrying for their students, going to the monastery without destroying everything in their path for.. reasons.

But yeah, Nemesis is so cool and epic. Those villages? They clearly deserved it! They must be colonizers and invasive species to him. He was just doing some revolution!

[cringefailwritherage]

[corvusium]

YORYCK W. TARLON -- [SEED OF YGGDRASIL]

Despite coming from a wealthy family, he is an extremely diligent operator over at Novusitus Initiative. He believes that burying his head into the work of the Initiative may allow him to forget his neverending guilty conscience. Apprehensive and aloof, he does not like pointless conversations. He spent the majority of his life situated in Agarth, therefore he has little to no life experiences.

[openworldadventurer]

hey! if i recall correctly, you were a writer on kingdoms of amalur? after playing the demo over 10 years ago, i finally got around to playing the entire thing thanks to humble choice and re-reckoning. just wrapped up the main an hour ago and just wanted to hear where you were at with the game these days. what was your favourite part to write? what did you think turned out best? were there any darlings you had to kill as per the saying? and anything else you want to share about it

Aw, I’m so glad to hear you got a chance to play it! It did kind of disappear into the void for a while, so I’m glad that you got a chance to return to it! There are so many good games out there, and only so much time to play them, so thanks for spending your time on one of my babies!

So, I was responsible for building the main questline (along the broad story outlines of the higher-up folks, of course), and I still have fond memories of working on it. My favorite was writing for Agarth, which makes sense when you realize the character’s broad personality was basically just me. Originally, he was supposed to die early in the story, but people liked the character so much we kept him alive and made his inexplicable survival part of the story!

As for darlings that ended up on the cutting room floor, there were lots (as there always are for big games like this), but the one that hurt was the original plan for the final boss fight. Originally, you were supposed to slowly learn how to summon those alternate versions of yourself, and you beat the boss by summoning every infinite alternate version of yourself to team up and defeat them — literally using the freedom from fate as your weapon. But the realities of production meant that fight scene had to be scaled back and those “alternate selves” became enemies you fought. Not as narratively satisfying, I felt, but that’s how games go.

That said, my real regret is how the studio closed, terribly and painfully for everyone involved (look up Big Huge Games and 38 Studios to read that tale of woe, I won’t repeat my teary story here). It also meant we never got to work on the sequel, and I had a really exciting alternate take on the classic “orc” trope that I was sad never got to see light. My write-up for their culture and gameplay is still sitting in my design portfolio, waiting for the right project to take root…

[leighsartworks216]

Agarth is my Gale stand in and it's SHOCKING how almost 1:1 it is

[the--days]

i must know what Matt Daemon AU is

This is the working title of my never-to-be-finished fanfiction Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Daemon AU (which are my faves because I get to employ the power of Animal Facts). I know no one on earth played that game, but the basic premise is your character has died & come back to life (losing all their memories in the process), so they unlike everyone else in the world have no set destiny, and can therefore Change The Course Of Fate.

My main character's name was Matt, former kind of fucked-up spy who had IIRC been severed from her daemon pre-death. Something fucked up had happened to her anyway, my notes say:

"the like. Brainwashing that they underwent to become spies made Sparrow [Matt's Daemon] basically just An Animal. She could play pretend alright but if you spend too much time w/ her it's very... unsettling... bcos there doesn't seem to be much going on in her head. She NEVER speaks. Matt and her were rarely affectionate to one another; sort of saw their connection as an inconvenience. Which is DEEPLY unnerving to see play out. They're v good at hiding it, but in private Sparrow would attack Matt, sometimes badly, fairly often (extremely scary to witness). Some sign of how distressed and broken a state she'd been put into, and Matt would never show affection or even rlly seem to notice sparrow was there (this is maybe like-- something in Sparrow instinctively knew Matt SHOULD love her & even tho that feeling was gone she felt it's absence and attacked Matt to make her pay attn / out of the horrible fear & loneliness & violence that had been instilled in them)"

On Matt's rebirth, their connection was restored, but they had to essentially get to know one another all over again. It was fun to write, still very fond of it! Matt's this character with this silly grimdark backstory who, yk, forgot all of it (though retained the instincts & skills of her old life, she is kind of a jason bourne alike hence the WIP title lmao), & she approached life with a lot of kind of. Curiosity and joy as her character progressed, just. Genuinely enjoyed the process of re-learning about the world and herself, and getting to choose who she wanted to be. Snippet under the cut!

The door to Allestar Tower bursts open-- bursts apart, really, in a flash of noise and shower of splinters, and Agarth turns, belatedly, slow and thick and miserable with hangover, to see a woman stumble out, followed by an eagle, followed by--

Sweet gods, a troll.

Jaska is struggling upright now too, hackles bristling, and Agarth puts a hand on his daemon's back; she turns to look up at him sideways, and a flash of comfort, understanding, companionship, flows between them, easy and natural as breathing.

Agarth draws his sword. Jaska matches his pace, teeth flashing, and they charge.

The strange woman has a sword but no boots, and she weaves between the troll's attacks with an easy, obvious practice. A warrior then, of some kind, the sword an extension of her arm-- but bouncing harmlessly off the troll's stoney hide.

"Ho stranger!" Agarth calls, speeding up, cursing his night's drinking-- every step rings unpleasantly up through his skull.

The stranger doesn't turn at his call, but her daemon, just for a moment, does.

And the troll, with a sort of contemptuous ease, lifts one massive fist, and swats her down. Like a man swatting at a fly.

The stranger cries out alarm and fear and pain, red-raw, like this is the first her daemon's ever been hurt-- maybe not a soldier after all, with a reaction like that, and the troll takes ruthless advantage of her distraction.

The immense cudgel of his fist closes around her head, and he mashes her face into the ground with a wet and awful sound, and the stranger folds, just crumples up like a wet rag.

Her daemon shrieks out- rage or fear or pain- a harsh, eagle cry that shifts, somehow, warps, and then she is roaring, full voiced, and charging across the clearing in the shape of a bear, two tonnes of teeth and claws and fury, and she leaps at the troll's head, bellowing.

Agarth stops, struck dumb.  Jaska makes a growling, uncertain sound in her throat.

The troll reels away, bloody rents torn through its face, one ear hanging in limp tatters. The bear daemon falls back to the ground, shaken loose, and the stranger struggles upright, her face a mask of blood.

She pauses, just for a moment, and looks down at her daemon as though surprised.

The great shaggy bear-daemon looks back, impassive.

Above the stranger's ear, a flap of her scalp hangs loose, peeled away from the skull, and pours blood down her neck-- but she looks away from her daemon, and picks up her sword as cool as anything, no hint of the hurt, the shock, she'd shown when her daemon was struck down, and the two charge again, in step, while the troll is still reeling.

Agarth remembers himself, and belatedly sets after them again, but he's too late to be much use.

The stranger throws out her hand, and her daemon growls low and vicious, and the troll--

It undoes. Just falls apart, unspooling like a dropped skein, and the air goes thick as taffy, a bizarre golden haze falling over all like a filter on a photogram, like richest summer sunset--

And then, abruptly, it is over. And the troll is simply-- gone.

The stranger just stands there, for a moment, and then with brisk, economical movements, she sets out  cutting a strip of fabric from her shirt, and tying up the hanging rent in her scalp.

And her daemon just-- stands there. The two had fought viciously enough to defend one another, but now that the fight is over its like they're two separate people-- it's like they don't even see each other.

"Hail," Agarth says, and the stranger turns to look at him still tying up her head, no sign of surprise on her face-- no sign of anything. A cold, blank, impassive expression beneath the mask of blood.

Her nose is broken, and beside the wound in her scalp the entire left side of her face has been scraped like a hide for tanning, where the troll had ground her into the stone.

Shock, maybe, Agarth thinks. Or she's some kind of berserker.

Jaska makes a low, uncertain noise in her throat, her hackles still bristling.

Agarth, growing more uncertain by the moment, steps forward, and offers his hand. "You're injured, I see! allow me to--"

And the stranger's daemon growls, and changes shape into a monkey quick as lightning, scrambling up the stranger's shoulder to fix the bandage herself.

The stranger looks at her daemon, obviously surprised, and then shrugs, and looks to Agarth. "Matt," she says, gesturing to herself. "Where are we?"

[aces-to-apples]

Agarth and Cydan were gay. Boyfriends, even

[luceirosdegolados]

He said, he said... "Because of you I can't pay my tab! I wasn't supposed to come back here in the first place!" DUDE!!! The threadbare coping!!!! This man cannot cope with recent events!

I am dying over here the fucking reward is called "Unity band", sir, what are You Trying to Say

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[zatauzul]

I tried sketching agarth lol I love the drunk bastard

[cringefailwritherage]