#they were never less respected than during the age of arcanum and still they were just chilling

[nellasbookplanet]

The fandom god discussion is interesting, but I feel it’s sometimes hindered by an unwillingness to separate gods from mortal society, or even a sort of over-eagerness to project our own reality onto them, which simply doesn’t work. I've seen the gods referred to as rulers or tyrants demanding worship (which I kinda understand because it’s something Ludinus says in-game, though it’s funny to see fandom corners confidently repeat the inaccurate talking points of the antagonist) but more interestingly I've also seen them referred to as a higher/the highest social class, as colonizers imposing themselves on mortals, the raven queen specifically as new money. Overall these comparisons tend to talk about the gods and their actions regarding Aeor in the past and predathos/the Vanguard in the present less as if they're about saving their own lives and more as if they want to preserve their powerful position.

The gods, by their very nature, are above mortals. They cannot be compared to any mortal ruling class because they didn’t choose or strive for that power and cannot feasibly get rid of it/step down/redistribute it (nor do they actually in any sense rule; killing the raven queen, unlike killing an actual queen, will not end the 'tyranny' of death), they simply have it by virtue of being gods. Saying that’s unfair or unequal and that the gods should be killed because of it is akin to saying it’s unfair a mountain is bigger than you and demanding it be levelled, except the gods, unlike mountains, are living, feeling beings who shouldn’t have to die because some people can’t stand the idea of not always being top dog. Thing is, the gods themselves ultimately understood this power imballance and that they can't help but hurt Exandria the way humans can't help but step on bugs, and thus removed themselves from the equation by creating the divine gate. Saying this isn’t enough and that they're clinging to power is just demanding they line themselves up to be killed.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Impressions from TTM

Spoilers, spoilers everywhere. Just a big bulleted list of thoughts as I read through the graphic novel. Not a lot of detail included, so it’ll make a lot more sense if you’ve already read it yourself!

looks like Moonshadow elves cross the arms of the dead... when they have a body to bury

it’s nice to see that Rayla imagines Runaan with all his shirts, the way she last saw him

kinda looks like Rayla changed into her jammies right on her bed and dumped her clothes on that little table. maybe she’s afraid of letting the few things she actually possesses out of her sight

listen we get one little panel of Opeli in here and it’s great

Soren’s cape smacking Callum in the face, 10/10

Lujanne’s appearance out of nowhere, along with Allen’s is just adorable, she’s so sparkly. And also she can apparently just turn totally invisible with an illusion spell? Even at a new moon? Probably because of the Nexus I guess

Lujanne’s “Big strong man with big strong feelings.” She and Runaan have exactly the same type and I support them

Allen’s face when Lujanne says it aches to miss Phoe-Phoe

Callum eating off Rayla’s plate and wondering how Lujanne suspected they were a couple, hmmm

Soren and Allen bonding

Rayla warning Lujanne about hand disguises, as if that was something Runaan made very sure she knew

Rayla’s cute chaos grin when Callum’s Aspiro spell goes off is my favorite pic of her in this whole graphic novel

Lujanne’s “Oh.” afterward is my fave pic of her, too, she does not seem to handle reality well!

Bait’s tongue will never get old

Lujanne’s whole speech during Phoe-Phoe’s rebirth ritual is so touching and beautiful, my heart

Lujanne putting the newborn Moon Phoenix into Ezran’s hands, like she knows he’ll have the best connection with her

Callum’s tears as he reminds Rayla that Runaan killed Harrow, he’s trying to move on, but it hurts

Rayla’s self-soothing behavior when she has her second nightmare in the book--she must have these most every night :((((

the big symbol on the Moon Temple doors looks like a stylized Moon staff, like it’s a building for mages

Lujanne saying Rayla might not want or need the truth right after Callum mentions Runaan’s name to her, he sassily asks about her husbands and she turns it into a compliment

Callum’s big reaction to the moon opals is adorable. The only other one he’s seen was part of a pair of treasured gifts between long-time spouses, so it kinda looks like he’s all “uhh we just started dating”

also Ethari must’ve made cute metal swirly covers for the pair he and Runaan wore, since these two are undecorated--maybe he got his from Lujanne?

listen Lujanne is a hoot and all but she’s both an ally and an antagonist. Her actions are trustworthy but her advice is generally terrible. It’s an interesting parallel to how Runaan says a lot with his actions too, but he talks a lot less than Lujanne

Rayla yeeting herself into a fight just to ask Soren for a talk is 10/10 Moonshadow assassin goals

but her hood is up when she’s lurking in the trees--she might not have known where she’d find Soren and was anticipating something less fun on the feels-o-meter

Rayla in the mud again. Soren keeps making people fall in the mud

Allen’s grumpy squiggle

Callum, I love you, but you have no respect for moon opals. It’s like they wronged you in a previous life or something

that dancing elf has very long hair and shoulder pauldrons, and they start off dancing with six kneeling, watching, hooded elves around them--Moon Druids wore hoods even before they were assassins. Considering what Lujanne said about why the portal was sometimes opened, maybe those six kneeling elves are waiting under their emotion-hiding hoods to farewell a loved one who’s recently died?

can’t tell for sure but maybe the elf is dancing along the lines in the stone like they mark patterns for ritual dances, which would be the bomb

Soren and Rayla’s conversation is pretty wrenching. Seeing Soren have to struggle with what he did because it’s tangled up with Viren is rough because as a Crownguard it should just have been his duty to defend his king and he’d have nothing to feel weird about

Rayla dissociating herself from the term “assassins” and Soren dissociating from calling Viren “my father” in the same conversation is 10/10 excellent growth

Soren must know what happens to prisoners his dad gets a hold of, even if he doesn’t know the details :(((

“we captured him” and “Viren took him” seem to be talking about the Crownguard and Viren, not the brodigies and Viren

Rayla having a wooden sword at the end of the day bc she played swordfighting with Allen and Soren all day long

the panel where Rayla doesn’t say anything at all after telling Callum that she asked Soren about Runaan actually says so much, you can hear it

every time Lujanne’s white lies idea gets repeated, things get worse

Allen’s reading glasses, there must be one optician in the human village and he caters to soft kindly gentlemen of a certain age

in the moon phase montage, baby Phoe-Phoe is flying next to Ezran after one week at the Nexus. Maybe he’s paying her back by helping her learn to fly after she helped him teach Zym how to fly! Did they bond as tightly as Ezran did with Zym? I support Ezran just bonding with the most powerful flying creatures in all the land.

the irony of Callum using Lujanne’s tactics against her is amazing, but really the white lies thing is a giant ball of chaos in this story and it does not play favorites

Bait on the stone pillar during rebuilding

all the noises the Moonhenge makes are 10/10

Rayla dancing with Callum even though there’s almost no chance she’s ever done that dance before

Lujanne’s pupils going white, that is a cool effect, what’s it mean?

the black moon in the pink sky is so spooky! Is it just me or does the color scheme here kinda vibe like the space outside Aaravos’s library?

the smoky assassin squad, 10/10 creep factor, I love it

the lightning being a literal crack of doom with “CRAK-DOOM” as Katolis Castle appears, “echoes of thunder” indeed, very nice

Lujanne being mad but she can’t decide if it’s at Callum or herself

when she says pulling Rayla out now will leave her soul on one side and her body a husk. After the Insta live stream last night where we learned that soulfang serpents are Moon primal creatures, that’s... super interesting

smoky assassins go tssh in the rain like they’re still hot from being cremated, thanks I hate it

Andromeda finds Rayla first and seems closest/most aggressive so I wonder why she might hate Rayla more than the others

the assassins’ wrist bindings have gone red but they’re still attached and seem to trap the souls where they are. But all they need to be free is to perceive that Rayla completed their task, even though we know otherwise. So... would that work for killing any target? If you’re certain that you did it, does your binding fall off even if you’re wrong? eyes Pip

this must not be the actual afterlife since the spirits kind of mist up toward the moon and vanish, it’s more like a lobby, no one stays here unless they get stuck

portaling around just by shouting at villains, excellent

Rayla literally dropping a sword at the sight of the pod Viren’s in, yeah, it’s that creepy, I agree

Viren’s eyes are so black I think they’re Aaravos’s. I got a whole headcanon on Good Viren and Evil Viren for S4 now, wow

Phoe-Phoe pulling out a feather for Callum, awww my heart! This is why Ezran had to come, to bond with her so together they could save Callum and Rayla, it’s so sweet

so these humans are from the Storm Spire battle, bc that’s the Storm Spire behind Rayla and Callum on p108, with the rune-written arch. Did they die hating Rayla and Callum from the battle? Did they even know Rayla was up there? Or is pod Viren/Aaravos actually making them attack out of hatred for Viren’s death? One of these is definitely creepier and more awesome

Rayla’s confidence that Callum can and will boost her at the right moment with his magic, my heart, I love battle couples

that one panel that mirrors the Ghost Feather key art, hhhhhh

Rayla being the better swimmer, such precious irony, thanks Runaan

them holding hands and swimming upward together on the full-page panel is blessed

Lujanne pulling Rayla out of the lake with both arms gives me feels bc my grandma saved my life once

Lujanne being super soft over Rayllum, she is indeed a hopeless romantic

Rayla says “gone” about her parents and Runaan, and that’s the word Ethari used too, and I’m suddenly wondering if Ethari reached right into that pool and has always known that the lotus is half-submerged and if the sword he’s been making is for himself

I’m so glad Rayla told Callum what she saw of Viren

Rayla deceiving Callum and heading into danger alone because his life is more valuable to her than her own is exactly what Runaan did for her the night of the full moon in Katolis. I’m leaning toward her having thought this over and doing it on purpose bc she believes it’s a sign of deepest love--that Runaan’s actions and Lujanne’s words match up in her head, so she thinks it’s the right thing to do bc the mage and the assassin agree. Alas, Callum doesn’t understand the Moon arcanum yet, so he will have a different opinion. That mage and that assassin do not agree!

Rayla’s cloak has that Moon Temple symbol on its back. Is it Lujanne’s cloak? Any Moonshadow who sees it will probably know where she got it and who helped her. That could be fun!

[thelivingone]

Part 0 - Meet Clara Tremaine

As in every video game, character creation is one of the most vital parts. This is where the player decides not only who they want to be within the game but also how they want to play it. Like a lot of games, Arcanum offers three basic approaches:

               A Diplomatic Playthrough with a heavy focus on talking your way out of situations.

               A Melee Playthrough which is based on hitting and destroying your enemies.

               A Mixture of Both which mean we can talk our way out of situations but we don’t have to.

In this very playthrough we will play a character I have already welcomed into my heart: Clara Tremaine, a half-orc debutante with a gift for magic. How is a character in Arcanum created? Well, by four simple choices: A portrait, a gender, a race and an optional background.

Let’s start with the race which will have the most influence for our gaming experience. Races in Arcanum each come with their own benefits and flaws, giving the game a nice re-playability factor. The playable races include humans, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, elves, half-elves, half-ogres and half-orcs. Each of these raises influence the player character’s stats, the reaction of the people around them and even our dialogue options. As we will encounter NPCs and companions coming from each of these races, I will offer a bit more background information to them in separate parts – because, yep, we have that.

Arcanum comes with a wonderful manual that offers ‘in-game’ literature, such as how certain races developed and why they are liked or disliked.

The last time I played Arcanum as the wonderful Jeanne Walker, I was a super boring human. Humans are great when you want to get to know a game because they are usually in a comparable position to real-life and a great variety when it comes to builds. I did not want to be this socially accepted in this playthrough so I choose the most unpopular race in-game: the half-orcs.

You have probably read it by now, but yep, apparently, our Clara is ugly, bad-tempered and a child of rape. We get to hit things a lot better than other people though. People will not like Clara at first sight. People will not trust her, even be hostile. Half-orcs are usually found in criminal parts of cities, they are in the underground and it is very hard for them to be treated with respect by others, especially humans and elves.

Personally, this background is a bit risky for me. Rape is nothing to joke about. Nor is a whole race that is going to be discriminated against. However, I have heard we can call other characters out for their behaviour which I am looking forward to. In tumblr terms – the half-orc race is problematic in gaming. I am not sure if it would be kept like this, if Arcanum would ever get a reboot. It is one of the questions I want to find an answer to in this Let’s Play as I have never played this race before.

This puts her reaction modifier at -18, something I corrected up at -7 due to my choice of background. “Spoiler”: People still hate her.

Can I be a girl in this game? Is one of the first questions I ask myself when I want to buy something new. I am a woman and I am very happy when the game lets me be just that, a woman.

Gender, just like races, bring different stat-changes. In Clara’s case this means less strength but more constitution, giving us a slightly better healing rate. I’m not really a fan of gender-based stat changes, however, the races and backgrounds help us to even this out a little.

Well…there is a small problem with that, though.

Arcanum allows me to choose from eight races when I want to be a man. Which I don’t, so it cuts my choices down to four – humans, elves, half-elves and half-orcs. The manual gives us a few lore-related excuses for it, which gets Arcanum a gold star from me.

I was a bit disappointed when I found out I could not be a female dwarf. If the game ever gets a remake, I’d love this to be different. Some character you encounter, simple NPCs, no companions or anything, even are female dwarves and gnomes. There are, therefore, character models of the races already – just portraits and probably some armour animations are missing. Maybe, with a bit more time, Troika would have been able to create playable female dwarves, too… sadly, due to their bankruptcy, we’ll never know.

So far, we had a very pro-melee built buut…well…well, okay, I am sorry but I love being diplomatic and I don’t like the violent stereotype surrounding half-orcs at all. Therefore, I choose the debutante background which brings us a much more basic start – we get rid of our melee and dodging advantages by the debutants disadvantages, but also get a bonus in Charisma, my favourite stat.

Also, I am a fan of playing against type – a daughter of a very influential family in the continent? Does this mean Clara will get to wear fancy dresses? Will people be forced to be nice to me despite my race? I can’t wait for people recognizing me and forcing themselves to be polite.

Sadly, our background is just there to change our stats. People will not comment on it, there are just a few exceptions – those that put our intelligence below 4, resulting in our speech options to be grammatically less correct.

It’s kind of sad, because I would have loved at least a few dialogue options using the knowledge our character would have acquired before the game. Pillars Of Eternity, for example, manages to do just that- your character will be able to use a bit of their background knowledge in conversations with their companions.

However, Arcanum is a fairly old game and Troika has always been a financially challenged studio. I like the variety of backgrounds to choose from – some give you new stats, some give you new equipment and all of them are great to read.  Not choosing a background is also a nice option, I did that with my first character and the game still was a very nice experience for me.

Clicking through the portraits, I am superficial and choose the prettiest one. Each race has different portraits to choose from and I love the very realistic art style and tend to use Arcanum Portraits in other games as well.

One of my main critic points of this game is, however, already right here.

Almost everyone is dark-haired and white. The picture above shows us companions - it does not get better. Sure, some people are green...ish. No one is black or brown, everyone is literally a white person. There are no other people in Arcanum – elves are white, humans are white, okay we have some green orcs, but that doesn’t count at all.

We can add custom portraits to Arcanum. Since I am white as well and have chosen an already highly problematic background, I will not do it for this Let’s Play. Not with a half-orc character, not knowing what kind of things I will do and most of all, not knowing what else I do not know.

However, it is not hard to find non-white developers nowadays. So, if Arcanum ever gets a reboot, my biggest wish would be a more diverse cast. I love the characters just like they are, I love them dearly, but please…add more diversity. I cannot imagine there would be a whole continent filled with just white people.

Getting back to business, we have successfully created the base for our character and are advancing forth to the skill screen.

Here, we get to see how many skill points we have, how close to the next level we are and that half-orc is considered as an adult at 15 years. They are mentally adults, but I was very squicked when I saw that age for the first time.

Trivia: The other starting ages are the following

               Human (20) which makes every action of drinking we can do in this game underage-drinking in America.

               Dwarf (100) which makes their tendency to hold grudges a lot scarier.

               Elves (200) which makes their tendency to hold grudges even MORE scarier.

               Half-Elves (35) which must suck for all those half-elves growing up in elven society because by the time they are considered adults, other elves probably join pre-school.

               Gnomes (90) making them the true ‘nineties bitches’.

               Halfling (50), but not really a surprise, aye, Mister Baggins?

               Half-Orge (20), meaning Half-Orge/Human couples get to grow old together. Awww.

The small clock we are witnessing on the side is our alignment meter. Certain companions we are going to meet on the way are only following us if our alignment is either good or evil. Clara will be a good character, but very snarky as well. It’s gonna be fun.

Before the game starts, we have the option to place 5 skill points anywhere we want: We can either raise our physical ( strength, constitution, dexterity, beauty) or mental (intelligence, willpower, perception, charisma) stats. Raising one of these over 20 gives us an additional bonus, for example strength above 20 means double damage. They also have on influence on the technological, basic or magical disciplines we can learn. Alternatively, we can also get more health points or more mana.

The Disciplines are were the overall story-game conflict begins to become real within gaming terms.

Arcanum is the story of magic vs technology and their in-ability to function together (something, that is actually questioned within the game, but we’ll get to that during the playthrough). The stronger the magic, the weaker the technology and vice versa. As the game is set during the Industrial Revolution, technology is reaching its highest peak while magic, prior strong and honoured, begins to fade.

In gaming terms, a character with high technological skills cannot use magic and magic cannot be used on them – no magic healing spells, no resurrection but later also no strong poison or curses. Character with high magical skills cannot use technological objects like guns, grenades or, sadly, public transport. While the game states you could even play a character with a mixed build, I do not advice that. You get a lot more bonus points for going one way.

We will go magic. Whoever has doubted Claras ability to be patient and focus will be disappointed – this woman knows magic and how to use it.

The basic skills have a wide range from combat (melee, dodging, archery ect.) over thievery to social skills. We will try to max Persuasion before raising any other stat and have our followers do the beating for us. As I said – I love playing against types.

We will put one point into a magical discipline however. A lady needs to be able to defend herself after all. Welcome to the school of black necromancy – the simple spell called ‘harm’ does enough damage for the start of the game. We will be able to defend us without being influenced by our negative combat skills and still be able to use all of the technological devices.

The Magi-Tech Meter at the right side of the screen helps us to keep track of where we stand. The higher our magic, the stronger our spells. Easy to follow, kids.

After spending our last points, we get the chance to purchase some items before officially starting the game. It’s the cheapest one in-game but I was stupid and remembered this only when it was too late. Still, Clara is ready for departure!

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