#spent a while debating over whether or not to keep the save or reload

[sinsofsinister]

'source of my joy :)' to 'source of my bruises >:'(' speedrun

[ciathyzareposts]

Ragnarok: Temple of Doom

You win some, you lose some.

            Ah, roguelikes. There’s no other sub-genre in which this kind of narrative makes any sense:

            When I walked into the room, I saw a deadly asp on the other side of it. I didn’t want him to get too close, so I killed him with my shurikens. I wanted to eat his corpse to get intrinsic poison resistance, but I didn’t have any artificial resistance, so I knew trying would kill me. I had three unidentified rings, one of which might have been a Ring of Immunity, which would have protected me from poison while I ate him, but I only had one Scroll of Identification, and I was hoping to hold onto until I found a Scroll of Blessing because blesses Scrolls of Identification identify everything in your pack. I tried one of the rings blind, but it turned out to be a Ring of Relocation, and it teleported me to another part of the dungeon. While I was trying to make it back, I stepped in quicksand and started to drown. The only thing I could think to do was drink an unidentified potion, hoping it was a Potion of Phasing, but it turned out to be a Potion of Lycanthropy, and my character dropped all his stuff when he changed into a werewolf, then ran around the dungeon killing everything he encountered for a few minutes. Eventually, he turned back into a man, but I got killed by another deadly asp before I could get back to my equipment. C’est la vie.

                 There’s so much to learn, and enough that works differently from NetHack that I’m not sure if my previous NetHack knowledge is a blessing or a curse–an apropos phrase, as I spent forever trying to figure out how to use Holy Water to remove curses and/or bless things before coming to the conclusion that it simply doesn’t work that way in this game. As far as I can tell, Holy Water just increases your luck. You have to find Scrolls of Dispel Hex and Blessing to do the other things. But if you do find a Scroll of Blessing, a good use for it is to bless your Scroll of Identification, because blessed Scrolls of Identification identify all your items, not just several as in NetHack. To find monsters on the level, I don’t want a Potion of Monster Detection; I want a Potion of Depredation, which sounds like a bad thing. If you do find any “bad” potions, don’t save them to throw at enemies because that doesn’t work here.           

And maybe stay away from mushrooms entirely.

             The worst part is the monsters. While NetHack and Ragnarok have a lot of overlaps in terms of equipment, the bestiary is almost entirely new. It makes good use of Norse mythology, yay, but I��ve got to learn every enemy’s special attacks and weaknesses again. I started keeping a list of enemies to particularly avoid, but it ended up including almost all enemies. Jacchuses give you a disease that prevents you from healing. Kalvins pluck your eyes out. Pale Mosses destroy your brain tissue, which causes you to forget potions, scrolls, and such that you’ve already identified. Ramapiths toss fireballs. Red oozes devour your weapons and can’t even be killed by regular weapons. Ulls disorient you; Predens give you fevers; Retchweed makes you hungry; Gas balls deafen you; Pelgrats suck charges from wand that you carry. I’ve barely gotten started.            

I had lycanthropy for a while. It was worse for the other creatures in the dungeon.

           I’ve spent a lot of time debating whether to try to eat slain enemies or not. Ragnarok doesn’t seem to have as many enemies whose corpses give intrinsic protection, but they’re definitely there. The aforementioned asps will give you poison resistance if you can survive eating them. Fire dragons confer fire resistance. I haven’t found much else. What I can tell you is that troll corpses do not confer regeneration, wight corpses do not give you experience, and giants do not give you strength.

Ragnarok seems to offer more items and monsters that rearrange the physical environment than other roguelikes. In NetHack, you could take a pick-axe to just about every solid part of a level, and you can do that here, too, but there are also traps that fill rooms with water or lava, cause the ceiling to collapse, or replace all the external walls with monsters. There’s a scroll that summons lava, and another that randomly plants trees wherever you are. There’s an artifact called a “disruption horn” that you can use in the doorway of a room to cause the ceiling to cave in, killing whatever monsters are there (you get the experience!). A creature called a “mudman” leaves gobs of mud everywhere. There’s a wand that just blasts the hell out of everything you point it at, including floors, walls, and anything in between.           

Using my horn to collapse the ceiling on a roomful of deadly moss.

            I spent seven hours exploring the dungeon beneath the forest, and I have nothing at all to show for it yet. It’s three levels with nine maps per level–as big as Rogue by itself. Commenters were right: the game got a lot harder once I left the forest. I’ve been trying not to abuse the backup system too much, but thank the gods it’s there. Some of my more amusing deaths include:

I stepped on a mist trap, which confused me. Confused characters in this game sometimes randomly use their items, and in this case, I ate a mushroom that turned the whole world hallucinogenic before killing me.

I ate some creature that turned out to be made of lava.

I stepped on a trap that turned all the surrounding walls into wizards, who quickly surrounded and killed me.

            At least the hill giant probably won’t make it out, either.

          The one below didn’t kill me, but it made life hard enough that I reloaded.

          What kind of potion was that!?

          One of my most heartbreaking deaths came late in this session, when I had just come across a Wand of Wishing. These are as useful here as they are in NetHack except I don’t really know the specific names of the best equipment to wish for. Since I’d already activated the first wish by using it at all, I wished for one of the only high-level items whose name I reliably knew: Mjollnir. For some reason, I got a sword instead. Before I even had a chance to investigate it, a bartok came wandering into the room and killed me with a sonic wail. My previous save was well before this area was seeded with equipment. Lesson learned: save after you find Wands of Wishing.            

In retrospect, the best answer would have been: “I wish I wasn’t so excited about having found a Wand of Washing that I’m failing to notice the dude coming up from the southeast.”

        A lot of my woes are equipment-related. I’m constantly over-encumbered, made worse by the fact that I don’t understand how a lot of stuff works. But there are good things to report. I have a full set of armor, including a “holocaust cloak,” which protects against fire and I think is an homage to The Princess Bride. I have both a Ring of Locus Mastery and a Ring of Relocation. This means that every 12-100 rounds, I get teleported, but I can direct my destination location. It gets me out of a lot of fights and traps, and if I don’t want to move, I can just specific the next square I was going to walk into anyway. It would be nicer to have these powers as intrinsics, but with the ability to equip 8 rings, you don’t feel like you’re wasting a slot as much as you do in NetHack.            

Thankfully, my Ring of Translocation will eventually get me out of here.

          In other good news, a blessed Scroll of Enhancement empowered my silver sword up to +9. In bad news, a red slime then ate the sword. Then I found another blessed Scroll of Enhancement and got a spear up to +15. You have to roll with the punches in roguelikes.

Two Scrolls of Knowledge bestowed my character with the “Terraforming” and “Identification” abilities. I haven’t tried the former yet, but the latter seems to render Scrolls of Identification moot. I wish I’d known to wish for Scrolls of Knowledge back when I had that Wand of Wishing.            

That’s one logistical concern I no longer have to deal with.

            On Level 2, I found an enemy named Scyld, who was so powerful that I assumed he must be some kind of “level boss” and likely in possession of one of the quest items. I reloaded half a dozen times before I finally killed him, but it turns out he didn’t have anything special.             

This seemed like a unique enemy, so I thought there would be more to him.

           The real conclusion of the dungeon came via a hole I found on Level 2, which led to some kind of temple, preceded by a title screen. The game strikes a good balance between random level generation and some fixed level content, as this particular level shows. Its enemies are chiefly “guardians,” who root in place unless you walk next to them, at which point they become hostile and generally kill me in two or three blows. My teleportation abilities plus careful navigating led me to avoid most of them.           

Entering the temple. These special screens help create an atmosphere lacking in a lot of roguelikes.

             I soon encountered a warrior named Hrethel, standing on a stump with a noose around his neck. He pleaded for freedom, but I had options to kick out the stump and do nothing instead of setting him free. (Note that the developers, finding no good way to operate this encounter with the usual game commands, just provided a special options menu. In both this and the graphics, the authors of Ragnarok show more flexibility than a lot of roguelike authors.) Of course, I chose to free him. The grateful Hrethel joined my character, but before I had a chance to figure out what that really meant, the god Vidur attacked and killed me instantly.            

I like that the game supports these special options in addition to the usual plethora of roguelike commands.

            In subsequent trials, I learned that Vidur always gets angry and appears if you rescue any of the three captives on the level. If I chug a Potion of Speed, I can act as often as Vidur and can wound him, but he always pounds away my hit points in two or three turns. My Orb of Imprisonment doesn’t work on him. Neither (it seems) do several wands. He has no special attacks (so far), but his physical attacks are devastating. I’m going to roam around the dungeon some more and try to build my resources before giving him another run, as I have several unexplored screens on Level 3.

I’m still enjoying Ragnarok, but I have a feeling it’s going to be way too long. I also forgot how exhausting roguelikes are. You have to watch every step, pay attention to every message, and stop and think before every combat. Life and death can hinge upon whether you take a beat before entering a room, or whether you take a corner using a diagonal movement key or two lateral movement keys. NetHack taught me to stop, pause, and think between moves, which serves me well here, but it also means that it seems to take forever to get through a level and yet you still have to pay rapt attention.

The lack of permadeath helps, of course. I’m quite careful to save every 200 turns and usually glad that I did. It means that I have a reasonable chance of getting through the game without having to look at spoilers, since underestimating an enemy or misdiagnosing a piece of equipment doesn’t meant that I’m starting over from scratch. But 200 turns are more to make up than they sound, and it’s especially jarring when, thanks to the nature of randomization, the same stuff doesn’t happen the second time.

Because of reader comments, I never did switch to the Valhalla version of the game. It’s a more apt name, since far more of my characters will have ended up there than at Ragnarok.

Time so far: 10 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/ragnarok-temple-of-doom/

[shannaraisles]

Set In Darkness

Chapter: 43 Author name: ShannaraIsles Rating: M Warnings: Canon-typical violence and threat Summary: She’s a Modern Girl in Thedas, but it isn’t what she wanted. There’s a scary dose of reality as soon as she arrives. It isn’t her story. People get hurt here; people die here, and there’s no option to reload if you make a bad decision. So what’s stopping her from plunging head first into the Void at the drop of a hat?

Senior Moment

"They arrive daily, from every settlement in the region ..."

The familiar line of dialogue caught Rory's attention. She glanced up from her notes, unable to keep herself from smiling as she saw Cassandra and Kaaras standing nearby, watching the newest arrivals greeting those who milled about in the lower courtyard. Come to think of it, there were more people in evidence all of a sudden. Not that Skyhold didn't have a surprisingly large population already, but usually everyone was busy at some task or other. It was slightly strange to see so many just loitering, but then, why wouldn't they? Today was the day the Inquisitor would be named and invested. Everyone wanted to be the first to know who their new leader would be.

Ever since the news had been spread that an Inquisitor had been chosen, the subject had been on everyone's lips. It was a way to pass the time as they worked, the debate going back and forth as centuries of neglect and disrepair slowly began to clear away under determined hands. They'd taken possession of the fortress two weeks ago, and already the place was beginning to resemble the home base she remembered from the game. Most people were still living in tents, both here and in the city below, the courtyards crowded with canvas walls. There were injured still to care to - mostly soldiers who had taken damage while clearing out the spiders - but far fewer of them than she had expected. Some were dying, and she was hoping for an unexpected cure; others just needed care to rally and recover. And if, as had happened on occasion, she went to a dying man or woman only to find their throat neatly split, it didn't alarm her. She knew Cole was lurking around here, drawn by the pain and his need to help.

"Last chance to place your bet, Ror," the familiar cadence of Rylen's Starkhaven brogue drew her attention. She looked up to find her friend grinning down at her.

"And I maintain it's not gambling when we all know who it's going to be, anyway," she pointed out with a smile, setting her notes aside to stand with him. There was definitely a crowd forming now. She nudged Rylen teasingly. "What I really want is to know is this ... when are you going to ask her?"

The captain actually blushed, glancing away with a secretive smile. "Tonight," he told her quietly. "I called in a few favors. I want it to be perfect."

"You silly sod." She laughed affectionately. "It'll be perfect no matter how you do it. Because it's you, and she loves you, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Aye, but she's a noble, Rory," he countered, nervous and uncertain. "I've no way to offer her the life she's used to."

"The life she's used to is the one she's been living for the last six months," Rory reminded him pointedly, glancing up as a murmur from the crowd around them heralded the arrival of Leliana on the parapet, bearing the sword of the Inquisitor. "A life with you, no matter the hardship."

"I can't give her the luxuries she deserves," he fretted, shaking his head with a frown.

"You're not listening," she chuckled, rolling her eyes at her friend.

"No, I'm not," he agreed, his inked face creasing in a sheepish smile. "But don't stop telling me I'm a silly sod. It helps."

Rory snorted with laughter, any chance to answer lost as first Cassandra, then Kaaras, came into view. A series of cutscenes that lasted about ten minutes on the computer, and had actually taken closer to a month in reality, were about to reach their culmination in the acceptance of a Qunari as the leader of the Inquisition. It was a satisfying moment in the game - at least, she thought it was; it had been a very long time since she'd even seen a computer - but after all this time, all this work; after all the prejudice and violence and plain stupidity he had faced, it was a privilege to watch as Kaaras Adaar accepted the honor and responsibility he was offered. To be one of many who cheered with true enthusiasm to celebrate him as their Inquisitor.

"So," Rylen said as the crowd dispersed around them in the aftermath of the investiture, "d'you really think I've a chance? Truthfully now."

Her face aching from her own smiling cheers, Rory turned to her friend with honest eyes. "I wouldn't be encouraging you if I didn't," she assured him with absolute certainty. "Just be yourself, Ry. That's the man she loves, not some mask you might put on to impress her."

"It's disgusting how you always speak sense when it comes to my relationship," he informed her fondly. "And give up no details about your own."

"It's a gift," she drawled, bending to catch her notes before a gust of wind could scatter them all over the yard. "You'd better scoot before she comes by, or you're going to blurt."

"Aye," he agreed, flashing her a warm grin. "Make a wish for me tonight, Ror. I need all the help I can get."

"Anything for you, captain."

He chucked her cheek gently as he turned away, leaving her smiling to herself as she sat back down in the afternoon sunlight to concentrate on her writing. It was still cold - still winter - but somehow the sun beat down warmer on Skyhold. She had no idea why; it could be a consequence of the altitude, or it could be magic. Whichever it was, she wasn't complaining. A little warmth after too many days spent freezing was more than welcome. Summer might not be so pleasant, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

So Rylen was going to propose to Evy. About time. Rory had done her level best to plant the idea and encourage him; it was rather exciting to know he was going through with it. She was in no doubt as to what Evy's answer would be, and despite the younger woman's sometimes retiring nature, she also knew her friend would fight tooth and nail to make sure no one took Rylen away from her. It was truly lovely to see their relationship progressing ... but it made her wonder a little about her own. She loved Cullen - hell, she'd been halfway there before any of this had happened - and for the first time in her life, she had no doubts about whether the man she loved, loved her. But where did they go from here? She still had no idea if this was really real, and even if it was, should she be making a life with him? She might disappear at any moment. What would that do to him? A loss like that might set him back years, but it would be salvageable if she was only his lover. Wouldn't it? Wherever she might end up, her worry was all for Cullen. But if she had the choice ... This was home now. He was her home. She'd give anything to stay.

The sound of a throat clearing got her attention as a shadow fell across her lap. She lifted her head to find Roderick waiting patiently for her acknowledgement.

"Chancellor," she greeted him politely. "How can I help you?"

"I believe the more appropriate question is, how may I help you?" he countered, taking her invitation to sit with gratitude. The wound he had taken in Haven was almost healed, but he needed time to rebuild his strength and fitness. "I have been granted a position within the Inquisition. The commander believes my talents are best suited to logistics."

That did make sense. For years before the Conclave, Roderick Asignon's life had revolved around calm and order, the organizing of the Divine's day-to-day. They had a quartermaster to procure equipment and supplies, but what happened to all that when it was delivered to the Inquisition, especially if it was not specifically military? Putting a man who clearly excelled at keeping things moving smoothly in charge of such things seemed like a very good idea. Rory felt a swell of pride in Cullen for thinking of it.

"I'm pleased you've changed your mind about us," she said discreetly. "About Kaaras."

"I was wrong," the cleric said simply in reply. "I will apologize to the Her - the Inquisitor, when I can. But for now, I am gathering information on the needs of the fortress and the city. As you have been named officially as the senior healer, it is to be assumed that you know what you are lacking."

"Just about everything, to be honest," Rory told him with candid resignation, ignoring the comment on her promotion. She hadn't wanted it, but no one would let her argue about it. "Our limited resources are running low already. I can make you a list, if you'd like."

"That would be most useful." Roderick nodded as he spoke, evidently approving of her suggestion. "I understand that you and a small staff will be remaining in the fortress. Do you keep contact with the healers in the city?"

She snorted wryly. "I don't have much choice - they send me daily reports," she admitted in a rueful tone. "Whatever I put on the list is needed down there, as well."

"Then you are able to put together an order that will cover the needs of both the fortress and the city?" he queried, impressed when she nodded confidently. "You are more organized than I had given you credit for, healer."

Uncertain whether that was a veiled insult or not, she ignored it. "Even if we had all the resources, what we desperately need are apothecaries and alchemists," she confessed worriedly. "We're capable of making the potions ourselves, of course, but it takes us away from our patients."

"I see." The chancellor frowned, his expression pensive. "I did not realize we were lacking such a vital asset."

"In Haven, we only had Adan and his assistant," Rory said, her eyes clouding as she remembered the alchemist's terrible death - a death he had suffered because his instinct had been to save her. "They ... they didn't make it."

"Let mine be the last sacrifice," he intoned softly, giving her a moment to compose herself before he spoke again. "We shall honor their loss with lives well-lived, healer. I will speak with Lady Montilyet about extending an invitation to the guilds. If you could put together a list of the supplies you need, I will liaise with the new quartermaster on your behalf."

"You could always buy direct from a reputable businessman."

Rory frowned as she looked at the source of that uninvited interjection. Seggrit had come out of Haven without a scratch on him, despite having been rescued from a burning building. And despite owing his life to Kaaras, he was still calling her friend an oxman behind his back, a man very much at home with racial slurs and the ways he could use them to best effect. Not only that, but she could have sworn he was following her around as they settled into Skyhold, always within earshot of her as she worked, always at the edge of her eye-line. The only time she didn't see him was when she curled up in her bedroll at night, and she had a sneaking suspicion that was because Cullen was invariably at her side.

Roderick gave him a cold look. "Such as you, I suppose?" he asked archly. "A man who listens blatantly to words not meant for him is hardly reputable. And you are no longer a recognized supplier to the Inquisition. We now have access to honest traders."

Seggrit flushed angrily, but held his tongue, casting an ugly glare at Rory as he stalked away. She shifted uncomfortably. She couldn't have said exactly why, but that man's presence was distinctly unwelcome to her. She didn't feel safe when he was around. At her side, the chancellor snorted at the merchant's retreat.

"What an odious toad of a man," he muttered, rising carefully to his feet. "I will return tomorrow for that list, healer. I trust that gives you enough time?"

"Plenty, chancellor, thank you."

"Well, then ..." he nodded to her animated in his pursuit of order. "Walk in the Maker's light."

Well, that was ... interesting. Rory glanced down at her notes, and groaned suddenly at the sheer amount of paperwork she had to do. Leliana wanted the names of the entire complement of healers and nurses; Cullen wanted a full accounting of the injured and their expected recovery times; Josephine was eager to know when they would be able to hold clinic for their visitors again; these notes needed to be written up and filed; and now she had a stock-list to compile as well. Good gods ... I'm not just sleeping with Cullen.

 I'm turning into him.