#moria's great but not for nothing is there an entire deed for falling down enough different pits

[aurore-parle-de-ses-idees]

oc-tober 2021 day 19, shadow, with @oc-growth-and-development !

glainyn again, vibing in moria and hoping he doesn’t fall off the stairs

===

The noise of the camp at the Dolven-view is dim behind you, a vague rumble in the darkness. The torches are lit, and campfires, and the luminescent crystals salvaged from the old mansions, but even reflected on half-shattered mirrors they can illuminate so little of the Great Delving. You sit high on the stairs above the Chamber of Wisdom and stare into the darkness, down to where the shadows swallow the last steps. Broken? A turn? You may not know until you are already falling. You have already lost dwarves to the pits and deep chasms here.

Not for nothing has this place been named the Black Abyss for so long.

You take one step down the stairs and then another, until you can hardly see the lights of the camp above you, or the next step down. If there is one. You can see nothing below you. There is only darkness, and silence, but- perhaps there is something more, something else. The glints of something from the shadows, the whisper of a whisper.

Sóri had taken you down into the mines once, deep into Narathâk and far from the leveled paths and the tracks. You had brought only one lantern between you, and when you were deep enough, Sóri had taken your hand in his and blown out the light. You stayed for hours in the darkness there, warm hand and cold stone the only thing to feel save for darkness pressed close, until at long last you came out of the mines together as shield-brothers.

There were things you thought you saw there, things you heard among the roots of the Lonely Mountain, but you had not spoken of them, and if Sóri had, he had said nothing either. This is a deeper, older void than the New-lodes, and here you are alone. You thought you might have imagined things, in Narathâk, and it was easier to tell yourself that with a friend beside you, but you have less will or reason to doubt in deep and ancient places full of terrible and wonderful things. Orcs and goblins, creatures grown massive and wild in the deep, the bat-creatures in the upper halls- what else waits for you in the shadows? Durin’s Bane? It is your duty to protect this expedition. You hope you are able to. You hope the lights you think you see below are no greater threat than orc-fires, and not the glint of not-eyes in the faces of nightmare-things that have stalked your dreams since you heard the tale of Frár son of Grár while preparing for this quest in Járnfast. Thus is writ the Rede of Iron. Iron hard and iron cold.

They are shadows. Nothing more. You rejoin the rest of the Iron Garrison.

[garden-ghoul]

fellowship of the bloggening, part 7

“I actually checked this time and it’s totally part 7″

THE BRIDGE OF KHAZAD-DUM

Gandalf finds a bloodstained book by Balin’s tomb, and Tolkien makes it his mission to recreate as accurately as possible the experience of reading a partial text that needs Deciphering. Because he’s a nerd. The book is basically a family diary that recounts how things went for Balin & co since they came to Moria 30 years ago.

'I fear their end was cruel. Listen! We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and second hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there. Then there are four lines smeared so that I can only read went 5 days ago. The last lines run The pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin. We cannot get out. The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep. The last thing written is in a trailing scrawl of elf-letters: they are coming. There is nothing more.'

I’m endeared, because this is exactly the kind of thing I wrote in my journals when I was 12 because I thought it sounded impressive--that semi-poetic repetition of we cannot get out and the “trailing scrawl” at the end where you can see someone was trying to run away while writing. I really want dwarven record-keeping to be a specific poetic form, I want every kind of writing to have a specific poetic form, up to and including sales receipts.

As the company is leaving the records chamber they hear the doom, doom of enormous drums (have always loved that as an onomatopoeia). Legolas and Gimli, the nerds, immediately quote from the ominous text they just read, to express their fear, and at the same time the hypothesis that whatever killed Balin’s guys is coming for them. Very elegant use of echolalia! But it does make them sound, like nerds.

They are attacked by orcs, bla bla, the hobbits are surprisingly courageous and good at fighting! Well, Frodo and Sam are. We hear nothing of valiant deeds performed by Merry and Pippin. They flee out the other door of the records chamber; Gandalf stays behind to do something--I thought he was sealing the door with magic, but he says he was nearly defeated by something up there? It did a magic battle with Gandalf over the lock of the door, which is terribly exciting but left our wizard exhausted. When the door exploded, something “dark as a cloud” was obscuring the room. One point for my firesmoke balrogs. Anyway, we reach another hall, one level below the west gate (I love how Gandalf is carefully narrating exactly where they are). This hall has familiar pillars carved into the shapes of enormous trees. I assume it’s one of Tolkien’s imagery obsessions, but still I’m adding it to the Menegroth-Angband-Mandos trifecta of places to face one’s doom. Doom, doom, say the drums in the deep. The company moves on to the narrow bridge over a Hella Pit, designed to be difficult and unsafe for enemies to cross.

Also there’s this really neat balrog description:

What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater. It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as if a cloud had bent over it. Then with a rush it leaped across the fissure. The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed about it; and a black smoke swirled in the air. Its streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it.

So basically balrogs look like a cloud of black smoke concealing an enormous humanoid form, but their dash attack is rocket powered. Also later it says that it has wings that span the entire hall. Very cool, but not as cool as walking tripod jellyfish things that whip out tendrils of fire to sting people.

Gandalf faces the balrog on the bridge, cuts its flaming sword to pieces (hell yeah). And he makes a stopping-spell so powerful that his staff shatters as the spell takes effect, cutting the bridge in two. But as we know he gets dragged into the pit. The company flees into daylight, scattering terrified orcs before them, and then once they’re out of bowshot of the walls they all stand there weeping.

Will our heroes make it to

LOTHLORIEN?

Tune in right now to find out! Or, in a little while. Aragorn says, enough crying we have lots to do. Gimli takes a brief detour to see Dimrill Dale’s biggest tourist spot, the location where Durin first looked into the Mirrormere and saw a prophetic vision of himself becoming an eternal king. You can actually see the jewels in his crown down there “till he wakes.” Um. What? What are those? Ah also Gimli really really wants Frodo, specifically, to see this with him. He knows Frodo is a history nerd. I love him.

Anyway they hike until they get to Lorien; it being winter, the leaves on the trees are gold. Thanks Galadriel for acknowledging that seasons exist, kinda. Legolas notes that a “secret power” protects the wood, although apparently nobody knows what it is (Nenya). Boromir is less happy to be here, because in Gondor the rumor is that nobody who walks into the Golden Wood ever walks out. Probably because y’all aren’t exactly elf-friends.

'Perilous indeed,' said Aragorn, 'fair and perilous; but only evil need fear it, or those who bring some evil with them.’

Stares at Aragorn. Stares at the Ring, the most evil artifact left in the world. Stares at Aragorn again. Anyway they walk until they find the river Nimrodel, which Legolas says brings healing to the weary. So he paddles in it for a bit. When they make camp he sings about Nimrodel and her beau, but breaks off, saying that he forgot the rest. When did elves become able to forget things? This new?

Then there’s a long passage that I forgot to blog because it was really engagingly written, but basically our heroes meet some Lorien elves and hang out in treehouses for a while, Legolas and Gimli argue about why the Lorien elves distrust dwarves so much, and the party takes a stroll. Everyone gets un-blindfolded and Frodo and Sam talk a bunch about how dreamlike and unchanging Lorien is. Sounds like a terrifying place. There’s also an element of “echoes of the past” here; Frodo hears the sea and calls of extinct seabirds from on top of Amroth’s Hill. The implication is that Lorien has been unchanged for thousands of years, and Frodo feels it will remain that way forever.

THE MIRROR OF GALADRIEL

We enter the one and only city in Lothlorien, Caras Galadhon. This city is unique not only in that all the buildings are trees, but also in the fact that our heroes can’t see anyone there. They hear people moving around, talking, and singing, but they don’t see anyone. This implies some kind of very interesting culture, I’m sure. Well, when they get to the throne room or whatever, Celeborn greets each of the travellers by name, as if to impress upon them that he already knows everrrrythingggg. Galadriel is silent and scary until it’s time to correct her husband on the reason Gandalf isn’t here. The tale of Gandalf’s fall is told; Celeborn is so ready to blame dwarves for this, because he is as racist as ever, but Galadriel chides him for it like she always does. She speaks of Khazad-dum and environs in dwarvish, possibly for the purpose of flirting with Gimli, and they smile at each other.

He rose clumsily and bowed in dwarf-fashion, saying: 'Yet more fair is the living land of Lórien, and the Lady Galadriel is above all the jewels that lie beneath the earth!’ 

Did you have to put in ‘clumsily.’ We get it, he’s not an elf. Whatever. Gimli and Galadriel are cute, she’s trying very hard to show everyone that she’s less racist than her husband. I also want to appreciate how people keep using “before the fall of Gondolin and Nargothrond” as a very specific time measure. I’m guessing that that’s what people say when they mean “in the First Age” but don’t want to, uh, ruin immersion by being specific.

Our heroes get some much-needed rest. They sleep a lot and go for constitutionals among the trees. Legolas goes out to a lot of elf-ragers or something, and gradually starts bringing Gimli with him. Oh, you finally noticed he’s a real stand-up guy, huh? Well, it’s nice that they’re both making friends.

Later Galadriel fetches Frodo and Sam to look into her magic mirror. They see various things. Frodo last sees the Eye of Sauron, and Galadriel does a little speech about how she uses Nenya to defend Lothlorian from his eye and his mind.

‘Do you not see now wherefore your coming is to us as the footstep of Doom? For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away.’

Oho! So the Three do draw a good portion of their power from the One, even though Celebrimbor tried his best to make them independent. That must have taken some doing, forging a magic that would subjugate all free rings. I like to think that he had to put a constraint of rings only on it, in order for it to be strong enough to stand against Celebrimbor’s work. Also:

‘We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.'

Mmm perfect memory as maybe a First Age thing specifically; perfect memory that depends on the state of the world and maybe even the blessing of the Valar and their presence on the same planet. I friggin dig it. Frodo also offers Galadriel the Ring--one passing that I have to assume the Ring is actually encouraging, rather than its normal unwillingness to leave any one owner. Galadriel does her speech about what will happen if she gets the Ring. I read it as kind of a warning/intimidation tactic honestly. In the movie they portrayed it as a power trip and her being tempted, but I think she already finished tempting herself long ago and decided not to take it. The test she speaks of here isn’t a test of wisdom, it’s a test of willpower in sticking to the decision she already made.

[ciathyzareposts]

The Years in Review: 1974-1978

I’ve given up on Daniel Lawrence’s DND, so it’s time to take a look back at the years leading up to 1978.  It’s been a long time getting here: I’ve been at this blog for about five years, and while I have covered about five years worth of games it feels like I’m making slow progress. Nevertheless, this is a good time to look back, take stock, and consider where the blog is heading in the future.

When looking back at this era and determining the highlights, it’s important to remember that there’s a huge technological gulf between the mainframes that the earliest games were developed on, and the home computers that games were being created on starting in 1978. Because of that I’m going to split them up by technology, as well as by genre.

THE MAINFRAME CRPGs It’s pretty safe to say that the bulk of the time I’ve spent on this blog has been taken up by mainframe CRPGs, particularly those on the PLATO system: DND and Moria took me a year each to complete.  By the standards of the time, these are staggeringly large games, complex in a way that home computers wouldn’t be able to match until the late 1980s at the earliest. Of all the surprising things I’ve learned during the course of this blog, I think the most surprising has been that the earliest CRPGs were far from primitive compared to things like Ultima and Wizardry. And yes, I’m aware that these games were developed over many years, but for the most part the ones that I played were fully formed by the late 1970s.

There are two distinct lines of influence in this era. First was the line of top down, iconographic games started with The Dungeon (aka pedit5), and continuing through The Game of Dungeons and Orthanc. The second was the line of first-person 3D games that started with Moria, and continued by Oubliette.  The top-down line continues on into 1980s with things like Telengard, but eventually it peters out. I suppose that Ultima could be considered as part of that line, but Richard Garriott has always said that he developed his games on his own, and any resemblances are purely superficial.  Similarly, Rogue has some similarities, but that game’s creators have also denied being influenced.  The third-person 3D line is far more influential, directly influencing the Wizardry series, which in turn influenced such varied games as Bard’s Tale, Dungeon Master, and pretty much the entire Japanese RPG industry through Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

It’s pretty obvious that all of these games were an attempt to recreate the seminal tabletop RPG, Dungeons & Dragons. As if the number of these games with the DND filename wasn’t proof enough, the mechanics are often drawn directly from that game.  But while the mechanics are drawn from D&D, the ability to craft an emergent narrative that’s inherent to that game was still beyond the technology of the 1970s. The PLATO CRPGs are all very much lacking when it comes to plot, setting, and characters, and it will be a very long time before any games can mimic any of D&D’s elements beyond exploration and combat.

I’m slightly torn when it comes to picking a Mainframe CRPG of 1974-1978. The Game of Dungeons v5.4, with a rating of 54, would be the obvious choice. It’s certainly the PLATO CRPG that I enjoyed playing the most, and by far the best of the top-down line. And yet, Moria and Oubliette are much more influential games. I can rule out Moria pretty safely, for being far too empty.  But Oubliette is a different story, with a sizable yet manageable dungeon that’s full of tricks and traps. Where Oubliette falls down is the lack of a modern community: it lives and dies on its multiplayer capabilities. If I were to go back and play in the 1970s, I’ve little doubt that Oubliette would be the game of the era. But from a modern perspective, The Game of Dungeons v5.4 is the superior game, and I have to reluctantly go with it.

Mainframe CRPG of 1974-1978: The Game of Dungeons v5.4 THE MAINFRAME ADVENTURE GAMES When it comes to adventure gaming in this era, there’s no escaping the influence of Colossal Cave Adventure. Every game that comes after it bears its influence in one form or another, to the point where “adventure” is the name of the whole genre.

There aren’t obvious lines of influence with adventure games as there are with CRPGs (although that could be my relative lack of knowledge when it comes to those two genres).  But there are many games here that feature the main elements of Colossal Cave Adventure: exploring an area, and earning points by collecting treasures. Acheton, Zork, and The Cottage all follow this format, as does the multiplayer MUD1. The main outliers to this format were Castle (which apparently predates Colossal Cave) and Aldebaran-III, both of which were created using the Wander programming language.  Aldebaran-III in particular is strong on setting and narrative, or at least it appears that way at the beginning. While the games that sprung out of Colossal Cave were the most influential in the short term, Aldebaran-III provides a glimpse into a future of adventure games more narratively sophisticated than simple treasure hunts.

It would be remiss of me not to mention MUD1 here, because it’s the progenitor of a whole line of multiplayer games, and is influential in ways that go far beyond my meager knowledge of MUDs. As with Oubliette, it would be a real contender if there was still a community playing it today. It’s still an enjoyable single-player experience, but obviously that’s not its greatest strength.

It’s quite a bit easier to pick the Mainframe Adventure Game of 1974-1978. While Colossal Cave Adventure is all-pervading in its influence, and Acheton is the largest and most challenging, there’s no denying the sheer quality of Zork. It has the highest score on the blog by a large margin (70), and holds up pretty well even today. A case could be made for it being the greatest adventure game of all time, and I wouldn’t argue too much with anyone who had that opinion.

Mainframe Adventure Game of 1974-1978: Zork THE HOME COMPUTER CRPGs With 1978, home computing finally became accessible with the advent of three computers: the TRS-80, the Apple II, and the Commodore PET. These machines were woefully under-powered compared to the mainframes I talked about above, and were quite incapable of recreating the types of games that could be found on PLATO. As such, there’s a certain disunity of theme and style in the games of 1978.

In fact, there are just five games to consider here. Beneath Apple Manor has a lot of Rogue-like elements, with its randomised top-down dungeons containing monsters represented with ASCII characters. Space is very much based on the tabletop RPG Traveller.  It has a claim on being the first sci-fi CRPG, but it plays much more like a collection of mini-games than a traditional RPG. The third game is Dungeon Campaign, a fun but somewhat slight attempt to emulate the party-based play that’s inherent to D&D. Devil’s Dungeon is potentially endless, but the version I played was bugged and broken. Finally, there’s Richard Garriott’s DND1, or at least the recreations of it that were made as part of a competition from a few years ago. It’s not really a home computer game, but in terms of gameplay and  complexity it belongs with these games.

Obviously we’re in the earliest days here, with the creators of these games still trying to figure out how to bring the tabletop RPG to home computers. There’s very little sign here of influence from the mainframe games; that won’t come for a while yet. It’s interesting to see these early efforts, and the gaming lineages that might have been, but ultimately, with the exception of DND1, these games would have little influence on the genre as a whole.

The Home CRPG of 1978 is pretty obvious. Space, Devil’s Dungeon and Dungeon Campaign hold little interest beyond an hour or so. DND1 is of great historical importance, but it’s very difficult to detect any of Ultima’s DNA in this primitive game. Instead, I have to give it to Beneath Apple Manor, which I enjoyed playing and could quite happily go back to right now.

Home CRPG of 1978: Beneath Apple Manor

THE HOME COMPUTER ADVENTURE GAMES The home computer market for adventure games was largely dominated by the work of two men. Or rather, one man and one boy: Scott Adams and Greg Hassett.

Before Infocom arrives on the scene, Scott Adams and his company Adventure International are the leaders in the adventure game field. In 1978, he produced two games: Adventureland and Pirate Adventure. The first is an obvious attempt to recreated the experience of Colossal Cave Adventure on a home computer, albeit in a highly truncated form. Pirate Adventure stretches a bit in terms of genre, but still presents a treasure hunt as the man focus (but what else do you want from a pirate game?). Both are solid, enjoyable games.

By contrast, Greg Hassett was a thirteen year old kid, who was prolific in his output (probably because all he had to worry about was teenage kid stuff). He released three games in 1978: Journey to the Centre of the Earth, King Tut’s Tomb, and The House of Seven Gables. These games were of varying quality, with House of Seven Gables obviously being the best. I have to give Hassett some credit for avoiding the fantasy genre that every else was seemingly obsessed with, but his games are somewhat lacking in polish. I mean, all the games of this era are lacking in polish, but Hassett’s efforts don’t measure up to those of Adams, at least at this point. Of the games that remain, Lords of Karma is the best, a polished effort that tries to provide some extra interest with a focus on doing good deeds. In reality it’s just another treasure hunt, but the idea was there. Treasure Hunt is an expansion of Hunt the Wumpus with some adventure game elements added in, and Quest might be the simplest adventure game I’ve ever played, with nothing more to do than choose cardinal directions to move in. I’m tossing up between Adventureland and Lords of Karma for Home Adventure Game of 1978. Karma blends in some CRPG elements, which is the sort of thing I like, but I think that Adventureland is a bit stronger as an adventure game.

Home Adventure Game of 1978: Adventureland. So that’s it for 1978, wrapped up, done, dusted and disposed of. I’m not sure where I’m going next.  I’ll probably create a page in the sidebar giving my schedule for the games of 1979, but I have to figure out what that schedule will be. I’ll probably start with either Akalabeth or Temple of Apshai, but I’m still undecided.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-years-in-review-1974-1978/