God's specialest little weirdo, World's most okayest cleric

🛡️ ⛺ 🎼 please 👀

🛡: favourite build, or party setup?

I was overwhelmed with the mechanics and got into the lazy habit of Casual mode, so not proud of my build skills. In my most recent playthrough I tried to make Siavash a little less useless in melee by giving him higher Str and the azata power Heroic Might, but this is going against my RP instincts – I just don’t picture him coming in swinging? The things that are more in line with my image of him are Skill Focus – Persuasion 😏, Lingering Performance, and Metamagic Heighten with Believe in Yourself. He has Abundant Casting for buffs like haste and blur and Ever Ready for those AOOs.

I stuck with Eldritch Scoundrel for Woljif and gave him all the AOO feats and talents along with two-weapon fighting and improved critical and he’s in there stabbing everything that moves, it’s great. Love that “I didn’t know I had it in me!” moment. I use him for a lot of buff spells so he’s not casting in melee combat.

My party comp is also boring – never go anywhere without Woljif of course, but that’s pretty much true of Seelah, Lann and Daeran too. Mostly the last slot goes to Ember starting in Act V, but before that it varies, with a preference for Regill this time around because he’s hilarious.

⛺️: what’s your favourite camp banter?

People have posted a bunch of my favorites already but here are a few:

Daeran: "If you dressed up a little and scrounged up some saucy impudence, you could be a kept man in some noble's house. Easy work with very little risk. I hear they pay a premium for curls." Woljif: "What's that, sit in a house all day waitin' for the lord or lady to swan in? No way! I may be a cur, but I ain't house-broken!"

(PS in my headcanon his Gran was an anarchist so that spirit runs in the family)

Woljif: "You're just as dumb as you've always been... but I'm not embarrassed to be seen talkin' to you anymore. Actually the opposite, I'm embarrassed I turned my back on you. And now I've got this weird ache inside." Ember: "I'm happy it hurts, that means your heart that froze from loneliness is starting to thaw."

And the infamous cherry roll incident 😡

Woljif: "Looks like it's just you and me, cherry roll, alone at last! I've had to hide you from everybody for so long, but now I can finally enj… hey!" Wenduag: "Such a tasty treat you stashed away for me, runt. Today I'm going to act like you don't exist. You're welcome."

🎼: opinions on the ost?

Superb! There’s obviously a special place in my heart for Starward Gaze / the azata theme (it had me sobbing at Threshold), but some of the other mythic path themes are frankly better – angel, demon, aeon… well, I could go on. As I’ve mentioned before the mythic transformation theme still gives me goosebumps after all those listens on repeat. Some of the ambient dungeon music is just awesome too.

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988)

Summary

Ultima 5 is what you could call Ultima 4′s edgier but “cooler” sibling. The gameplay has gained in complexity, dialogue has been greatly expanded, and the ground-breaking system of virtues and morality from the previous game has been twisted by the tyrannical Lord Blackthorn following the disappearance of Lord British.

Ultima 5 also introduces more of a day/night cycle to the proceedings with the introduction of NPC schedules, enabling a level of world simulation that was very new at the time of release. It goes on to make good use of this system by casting the player in the role of an outlaw fighting against the new government, meeting with members of the resistance in the shadows, and going around the martial law that has been imposed.

Freedom

Just like in Ultima 4, you are dropped into an open world right from the beginning, and your tools to explore the world have been expanded. 

The inclusion of more complex systems also enhance the feeling of being able to interact with the world with less barriers, as there is now furniture you can use, barrels you can search, etc.

Like with Ultima 4, there is only one way to win and a list of absolutely required steps that must be taken to reach that victory, but the order in which these steps can be taken is rather flexible, allowing players to create more of a personal narrative as they follow clues they picked up on wherever their instincts or whims took them first.

It is worth noting that there are actually some optional quests dungeons this time around, which is always nice.

Character Creation/Customization

While it is very nice that you can import your character from Ultima 4 into this game, I would say that this aspect of the game has taken a step back in a sense even as it has made progress in other ways.

The eight classes of the previous games have been reduced to four: The standard Fighter/Mage/Rogue Bard trio plus the Avatar class the main character belongs to, which is an all-rounder. As before, there is not really any customization beyond equipment either.

However, the positive of this is that equipment has been greatly expanded from the previous game. While in Ultima 4 you were limited to merely choosing your character’s weapon and armor set from a very short list, Ultima 5 not only enlarges the list but also allows for equipping multiple armor parts (such as a helm or amulet) while also providing a secondary hand slot.

What this means is that two-handed weapons now also give you a trade-off between their big damage and the option to use a shield in your other hand, or even dual-wield.

This greater variety of equipment allows a greater degree of specialization for your party members, though by modern standards this still isn’t much. The supremacy of ranged weapons also continues here, as magic axes are undoubtedly what you should be equipping everyone with later in the game, and now that class does not restrict equipment every single one of your party members will end up in plate with a magic axe.

Story/Setting

This is, in my opinions, one of the most interesting things about the game. Ultima 5 takes all of the virtues from the former game and turns a corrupted form of them into the law.

The game is pretty explicit about this too. Early in the game, in the town closest to the shack you start in, you can find a man in the stocks together with his son. The man is being punished for failing to donate enough of his income to charity as the Law of Sacrifice demands, while his son (who is barely breathing at this point) is being tortured for not reporting his father to the authorities.

Throughout your travels, you meet many kinds of people. From victims, to resistance fighters, to supporters of the regime and everything in between. Throughout your interactions with these groups you will have to discern who can be trusted (generally easier than it should be since the bad guys tend to be meaner or even cartoonishly evil at times) and learn how to fight Lord Blackthorn and the Shadowlords who corrupted him.

The Shadowlords are, incidentally, the part of the story that I don’t quite enjoy. Fantasy is full of one-dimensional ancient evils and dark overlords. By making the events of the game the result of an unambiguously malevolent supernatural force rather than human failings of the type that are not uncommon in real life, the game makes those events feel more distant and less complex.

This very series already has had plenty of “Defeat this one evil force and everything will be fine” plots. They are generally devoid of the moral complexity that the series is now aiming to explore and I want to know what this game would have looked like without the Shadowlords.

Fortunately, however, this effect is not too pronounced. Blackthorn remains a misguided man with good intentions. He admires you a lot, actually, and seeks avatarhood himself. He has such a positive view of the virtues that he sought to enforce them by law.

(Then again, his actual plans for the shrines make this apparent idolization feel dishonest, or at least inconsistent.)

And there is a real type of authoritarianism that functions a lot like this. Even on this site there are many who would be in favor of things like surveillance, police brutality, and harsher punishments. Even on this site there’s a whole lot of people who seek to punish others over stupid things like shipping the wrong fictional characters.

The people I grew up with even went as far as yearning for a dictator who would unleash death squads to execute all the “bad” people. This is a wish that I still see in many people, even those who grew up outside of the circumstances of my country of birth.

This is not an error that humans need supernatural corruption to fall into.

Other than that, I find the dark twist on the existing setting from the previous game to make for a spicier world to explore. 

This is also the section where I should point out that Ultima 5 introduces a rather large and dangerous “Underworld” map that is easy to get lost in. While it is mostly barren, you do have to visit various parts of it as part of the main quest, and I just find the concept of a massive dark world beneath the earth to be a super interesting one (I mean, I have even run D&D campaigns based primarily in the Underdark).

I kinda wish there was more to it other than some items and a companion to collect. Something like a town would have been interesting.

Immersion

This is one area where the jump from Ultima 4 to Ultima 5 was massive thanks to the day/night cycles, NPC schedules, expanded dialogue, and even the addition of words of power to the magic system.

But the best thing I can say about it is really that it calls on you to actually roleplay and engage in the world as if you were actually there, at least to a degree, and it does so through a combination of atmosphere and gameplay.

You will not only want to be careful with your words when talking to certain people to avoid being reported to the regime, but you can also learn the resistance password and use it to get help and information from other members.

While these systems are all still pretty rough here, they still come together well enough to make this a lot more immersive than the average JRPG.

One thing that does feel really off is that the guards are not only superhumanly tough but you also lose karma for attacking them. They also behave strangely in that even though you are a wanted outlaw they don’t actually hunt you on sight, only trying to arrest or kill you if you refuse to pay tribute (as if they didn’t recognize you or your companions at all). This despite wanted posters.

So there’s definitely some rough aspects to the crime system in this game.

Gameplay

Massive improvements have been made in this area, and I don’t just mean the above-mentioned expansion of items and the addition of NPC schedules.

For one, enemies now drop things other than gold, such as food and armor pieces. The magic system has also been improved so that you can now mix multiples of a spell at once instead of having to do it manually every single time.

Additionally, spells are now cast using a consistent language of magic composed of several words of power, which you can chain together to produce effects.

But I would say that the single most significant improvement in the gameplay is the simple fact that most NPCs now have significantly more keywords that they react to in dialogue, including many that do not come up through normal conversation with them. The system is still not perfect, but you can have more of a conversation with characters now and switch from topic to topic relatively easily.

In terms of combat, you can attack diagonally now (only monsters could do that in Ultima 4) and random overworld encounters are much easier to avoid now, cutting down on what eventually starts to feel kind of like padding in the previous game (but see below).

Despite the fact that the material rewards from combat have been increased and items are much cheaper now, Ultima 5 is actually significantly more difficult than Ultima 4. Not only do you have less health, enemies also seem to do more damage.

Dragons and daemons in particular are a nightmare, as they can summon more daemons (who can posses party members) and are extremely durable. A single dragon is a very tough challenge for an unprepared mid-level party, and even after giving most characters magic axes they still prove tough to take down while also being extremely damaging. Trying to fight multiple ones at once without blowing powerful spells or glass swords is costly at best and foolish at worst. Dragons are best thought of as boss-level enemies probably.

I am pleased to report that the dungeon crawling is better in many significant ways. Not only are the graphics more pleasant and immersive but also fully cleared rooms no longer respawn endlessly the moment you step out of them (in fact, they may not respawn at all).

It is not all positive however. The descend and ascend spells seem to be nearly useless this time around and the spell to instantly exit a dungeon is gone entirely. This can make getting out of the underworld such a pain at times that you might even prefer to literally kill yourself in-game and lose some XP instead of doing that. Fortunately you can now dig up and bury moon stones, so you can create moongates down there to quickly escape that way.

There is one problem in terms of balance though. While obtaining gear is significantly less of a problem now due to many enemies dropping tons of torches, gems, and keys, your experience will lag far behind your itemization and your quest progress. This means that to actually reach the 8th level and unlock all of the ultimate spells you will need to either explore all the dungeons thoroughly while focusing XP on one character, or otherwise just grind a lot.

Enemies just don’t give enough XP for a smooth progression otherwise. This would have been solved entirely by making significant main quest events (such as finding the artifacts of Lord British or destroying the Shadowlords) grant experience, but no such luck.

This makes for a strange endgame where you’ll have so much money that you run out of worthwhile things to spend it on while at the same time still feeling forced to grind out enemies, even if you imported your Ultima 4 character for an XP boost.

You do want to have access to these 8th-level spells too, as the final dungeon can be brutal without them or items that replicate their effects.

Adding to the experience issue is the fact that you can’t level up at will in this game. You have to camp and hope that an apparition of Lord British will appear and level you up (if you have enough experience). He does not always show up, and as far as I can tell he does not appear at all if you sleep on a bed or camp inside a dungeon. It has to be out in the wild in the overworld (and possibly also in the underworld).

I wish leveling up was just not tied to him at all.

Aesthetics

As is often the case for this series, the game looks and sounds really good for its age. The jump from Ultima 4 is particularly notable, as the level of detail is on a whole other level, particularly within the dungeons.

As with the previous game, the aesthetic core of the Ultima series (after the first trilogy) lies in the virtues. While there is still a karma system involved, it is much simpler than having to maximize eight different virtues. The karma system determines how much XP you lose on death and how much shops charge you, encouraging players to behave (or at least atone for their misbehavior).

But the biggest impact on the feel of the game is the above-mentioned corruption and tyranny affecting the land. Some of my favorite moments were early on, when I was just starting to get involved with the resistance and investigating what was happening around the overworld.

That said, I think that if the guards did actually recognize you on sight and hounded you more aggressively after spotting you the atmosphere could be even better (assuming they were balanced a bit better).

I think some of the music some versions of the game have is quite good too.

Accessibility

This game manages to up the complexity from Ultima 4 while not being any harder to play. Chances are that if you’re importing your Ultima 4 character you will need only a little bit of adaptation to do fine in Ultima 5.

As before, you will need to take many notes throughout the game. More so than in Ultima 4 due to the greater size and density of content. However, if you played Ultima 4 and took notes for it, this is somewhat alleviated. The mantras for the shrines remain the same, and the world’s geography should be mostly familiar (though there have been changes there as well).

You will also still need to consult the manuals and map frequently, at least early on.

The difficulty has also increased dramatically. You will likely end the game with about 200-ish HP rather than 800 and every enemy is much more deadly. Both the early game and the final dungeon will challenge the improvident.

For these reasons, the game is not that easy for newcomers to pick up but I would not call it obscure or complex.

Conclusion

I would say that the positives definitely outweigh the negatives on this one. The story and setting are interesting even if I don’t agree with all of the decisions made in crafting it, and the rest of the game is usually tolerable at worst. Nothing nearly as annoying as Ultima 4′s Reaper and Balron sleep spam (in fact, a plot-relevant item you can find renders Reapers pretty much helpless).

My primary complaint about the game is that the balance is poor. You will end the game loaded with all the items you could ever want while struggling to reach level 8 with even a single character even after doing nearly everything you need to do before the final dungeon.

I know there is a remake of this game made using Dungeon Siege, which I have not played. I think this is a good thing and I’d hope that it fixes some of these issues, but even apart from that I wish there were games that set out to achieve the core concept of this game.

What I am talking about is an open world RPG in which you play an outlaw who must hide from the state and meet other rebels in the darkness, but with complex and mechanically-competent systems to enable all the interesting possibilities this should enable.

I do not assign numerical ratings to games with these reviews, but I can definitely say that I liked Ultima 5 better than Ultima 4. I think it is worth trying even today despite the late game grind.

Terra Casts a Spell On You! (Magitek Elite Madame)

Overview: Beautiful, mysterious, kind… all great words to describe Terra Branford. A young half-Esper lady taken from her home by the Gestahlian Empire and raised as a living weapon before a mission in Narshe gone wrong has her wind up in the company of the Returners. Her magical capabilities are incredible, even without factoring in her power-doubling Trance, her incredible Apocalypse sword, and the abilities she gained from Magicite. But be warned, she lacks useful recovery a good amount of the time, and she can be quite frail.

Gimmick: Terra's Trance morphs her body into her Esper form upon maxing out her Gauge, which fills over time. In this state, she's all around much stronger. With doubled speed, power, and defense… that is, until she uses a Special Move, Bomb, or Final Smash… or y'know… gets launched off-screen or loses a her Stamina. Also, when at 100% damage or higher, all Smash attacks gain a 1/16 chance at becoming the powerful Desperation Attack Riot Blade, which has great range and four strikes. Riot Blade will also get rid of your Trance, so please keep that in mind.

Standard Attack: A slash, a stab, and a Fire spell. Quite basic really, but the stab has Terra advance forward.

Her tilts are various slashes.

Her Dash Attack is a jumping slash.

Smash Attacks: Do you know the name Cyan Garamonde? He’s a party member in Final Fantasy VI who is sadly quite outclassed. A real shame too, he has a great design, and his samurai motif is very appealing. Well Cyan, today is the day of your vindication! Terra, who spent quite a long time studying your Bushido skills, is ready to use them to great effect in Smash! They're way cooler than what I initially planned. Keep in mind, the names used here are combinations of their Japanese names and their original English localizations. (To put it better, JP first, Woolsey second!)

-Side Smash: Kiba Dispatch. A quick, ultra-strong stabbing lunge.

-Up Smash: Mai Quadra Slam. Four upward sword strikes that do good damage.

-Down Smash: Sora Retort/Tsuki Stunner. Essentially a counter attack that has a 3 second window of effect. If struck during this window, Terra will retaliate with a slash that has a decent range. If she's not struck, she will rain down blades made of ki, which are very prone to stunning enemies.

Neutral Air: Blizzard. A spin of ice that can freeze enemies.

Forward Air: Fira:

Up Air: Blizzara: An icy somersault that can freeze enemies. Deals much more damage than Blizzard.

Back Air: Thunder. Kicks back a bolt of lightning.

Down Air: Thundara. Does a lightning-charged stomp.

Neutral Special: Active Time Battle Menu. A variant on Hero's Command; this one has all options available at a times. Can move around a lot more, but you don't really have very few options for buffs and such. If you're having trouble with the movement while the menu is up, the Taunts have been disabled in this state so you can use the buttons to help make your selection. Better make it quick, this menu lasts only 2/3 of the time of Hero's!

-Bio: Sends forth a poisonous cloud a few feet in front of Terra. If it hits, it does about 9% and leaves the enemy with fast-acting poison for 5 seconds.

-Flare: Does damage in a very high column that can counter enemies.

-Protect: Halves all damage for 10 seconds.

-Thundaga: Fires off a massive beam of electricity that does great damage. It's very easy to jump over, however.

-Cura: Restores 30%. (50% in Trance)

-Graviga: Slams down every enemy within range of the platform Terra is on. Hurts an awful lot more if they were in the air.

-Quake: Trips and damages all opponents on the ground you're on. Deals 10% to you.

-Banish: A spell that can instantly defeat an opponent. Increases in effectiveness at higher percentages.

-Flood: Sends rushing water that can damage and carry away enemies.

-Meltdown: Deals the most initial damage out of ATB Menu's spells (at a whopping 50-80%) and has the longest burning effect, range, and spread, but at the cost of dealing a flat 30% to Terra herself, which triples in Trance.

-Tornado: Rips up everyone's percentages to 300%. And I do mean everyone. Only use if you're extremely desperate. Considering Terra's pretty light, you'd better be ungodly careful.

Side Special: Holy. Think Robin’s Arcfire, but with no burning damage. To compensate, it'd be a bit stronger.

Up Special: Firaga. Propels Terra upward with a concentrated burst of flame. Deals 20-28% on direct contact and leaves a burning effect.

Down Special: Summon. Using the power of your Magicite, you can summon an Esper's power to devastate opponents with powerful magical attacks! But beware, during this you stand completely still, and are unable to move until the Esper disappears. You're resistant to knockback and damage, but if your opponent can get in enough damage that can break your concentration/launch you, you're a sitting duck. In addition, the Esper Terra summons is entirely random, so you'd better make sure your teammates are covering you or pray for your own safety. And if you get it off, you can't activate this special again for 30 seconds. She has 4 potential summons.

-Maduin: Chaos Wave. Unleashes a tide of raw anger upon all opponents within Terra's range. Functions similarly to Mario Finale or Marisa's Master Spark.

-Valigarmanda: Tri-Disaster. Fires off a series of screen crossing beams with wide-ish range in many directions. Can burn or freeze opponents.

-Midgarsormr: Abyssal Maw. A far more powerful version of Quake that can even hit enemies in the air in a wide radius around Terra.

-Bismarck: Breach Blast. A far more powerful version of Flood that significantly increases spread and damage.

Bomb: Meteor. Summons down a series of meteors that strike enemies. It's basically a slightly less good PK Starstorm.

Final Smash: Trance Ultima. Terra goes into Trance and rushes across the stage. Like Joker, if she misses her target, she can turn the opposite direction and attempt to strike again. Once her targets have been struck, a cinematic plays where she charges up, then casts Ultima. Once it finishes, they are launched quite far.

And I know I don’t usually talk about Shields and such but eh… this time I'll make an exception.

Shield: There's a second long window where Terra will Reflect all projectiles. It’s quite easy to miss, but if you can hit you'll be rewarded.

Stage Entrance:

-Rides in on a Chocobo, and jumps off as it rides away.

Taunts:

-Imitates that piece of her Yoshitaka Amano artwork at the bottom.

-Turns to the screen and looks down.

-Briefly takes on an aura colored after her Esper form.

Victory Screen: Like Cloud, she uses the Victory Fanfare from her game.

-Celebrates in earnest with FF6's victory animation, often giggling.

-Hopes back onto the Chocobo, and rides toward the screen, saying “Apologies…” or “You won't be forgotten.”

-Downs an Elixir, and smiles at the camera.

Alts:

-She also has palettes based on her fellow Returners’ sprites from the same game. Specifically, Locke, Edgar, Shadow, Gau, and Strago. No Celes? How come? Well… that's currently a trade secret. It will be revealed in due time, dear readers.

-One of her alts is based on her sprites from Final Fantasy VI, as done by Kasuko Shibuya. Essentially, her Second Form from Dissidia.

-Her last palette is based on the battle sprite of one Kefka Palazzo. He's a very iconic villain among western fans, thanks to, in no small part, his dark but humor-filled dialogue and his Joker-like mannerisms. He just might be worthy of his own character slot.

Special thanks to @spooner-the-trinity for the suggestion. ...and apologies for taking so long oof.

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 4

Skipper Thistlespring and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

We pick back up at The Swan’s Little Parade where rich people shenanigans are taking place. Gorgug breaks from the group to try and call Zelda. When she doesn’t answer, he leaves the saddest, sweetest apology voicemail ever. Lou breaks. Siobhan breaks. I break. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the group gameplans. Adaine pushes back against the idea that they have to talk to Aelwyn. Her parents are also an option and Aelwyn is not a good person, no matter how hot Fabian is for her. They also check out the guest book from the hotel and see that Bill Seacaster has stayed there several times, always right after a Garthy O’Brien (they see that it happened a bunch while they were in jail and it was probably in conjunction with when Bill was supplying palimpsests). Fabian recognizes the name as a pirate and Cathilda knows they run the Gold Gardens which is a floating pirate casino/brothel.

Kristen tries to release Gorthalax but just confirms that, because of the curse, doing it without messing up Gorthalax is gonna be tough. 

Sandra-Lynn goes to get Gorgug while Fig decides to careen the campaign into Crazytown and make herself Empress for Life of the same. She disguises herself as an old lady and tries to drop off a note giving her phone number as the new number of the cop she impersonated last episode (Detective Decker) so she can send a fully grown cop texts that would def get him Chris Hansen’d irl. Brennan decides that if she’s gonna keep making beds, she should probably lie in one of them for once and comes for her entire life in the funniest scene of the episode. No recap I could give can do it justice(links to clips here: x, x). Just know it ends with Fig running away and ditching her phone in a lake, which could very possibly have plot consequences if she forgets to replace her phone before she’s in a tight spot where it would be helpful and the absolute dumbest/funniest reason for a character death (I want to note that she did replace her phone technically, but with a huge, old, brick phone from Adaine’s jacket that can’t be as useful as an actual cell). 

ANYWAY

Tracker creates a Moon Haven in the van which is basically like a dope pillow fort with the Sanctuary spell cast on it and TARDIS bigger-on-the-inside spatial mechanics. Once they’re inside the Moon Haven, Ragh finally feels safe to tell them what he knows--which he does telepathically via Adaine and the message spell to make everything extra safe. Here’s a rundown of what he tells them:

He saw Kalina on the night of prom after the big fight. She was talking to Jace (the sorcery “teacher”) and an elven woman who looked like Adaine in black robes--Adaine confirmed with a picture that it was her mother. 

After being healed by Porter, Ragh started walking home and was stopped by Kalina who said she would kill his mom if he told anyone what he saw. 

Ragh’s mom Lydia is also a half-orc barbarian. She was on a mission in the Red Waste (where the 7 Maidens have their Sophomore Year quest) and they found a soul gem that was leaking something bad. She put it in her chest to contain the evil but at the cost of her health. She’s now extremely sick and in a permanent, medically-induced rage to keep her alive. She refuses medical treatment because no one can ensure the evil won’t be released if they remove the gem. 

His mom fucking slaps.

So that’s all deeply worrying. Adaine invites Ragh and his mom to live with them in the Haunted House and Fig offers to give them Dr. Asha’s number. Gorgug discovers the Van can become a boat which is convenient for the pirate-y things they have to do (the Golden Gardens is on the way to Falinel so they decide to stop there first). Fig has a heart to heart with Gilear while Adaine and Sandra-Lynn take first watch outside since the Moon Haven can only hold nine people. Adaine has to roll a wisdom save because she’s outside of the Haven’s protection and, even on a 16, the music goes all scary and she feels that something is in the tent with her outside. Something humanoid and her size with its knees to its chest. She senses that if she sees its face, something will happen to her and, instead of looking at it, she calls for Sandra-Lynn. By the time she shows up, the thing is gone. Fig assures Adaine that she’s not crazy or seeing things and, based on Adaine’s description, they’re able to deduce that it wasn’t Baron or Kalina. 

In the morning, Gorgug is pretty bummed and asks everyone to call him Skipper. Kristen is very down and Fabian is very not. They discuss whether they should tell all of the information from Ragh to the 7 Maidens (no) and whether Gorgug should call Zelda (yes). They drive into the sea. Gorgug finally talks to Zelda who is not happy with him for the ghosting and unintentional thoughtlessness. She’s even less happy with him when she realizes he forgot to get the generator they needed to stay in touch long distance. They’re breaking up. Do I mean relationship-wise or phone-wise? You don’t know? Well that makes two of us (Thanks, I Hate It).

They’re at sea for two days and then make it to the floating pirate shipwreck city of Leviathan. Pirate adventures next week, y’all! 

Detention

Fig for Trying to Seduce ANOTHER Middle-Aged Man

Listen, I’ll stop putting her here for this when she stops doing this. Not to mention, she invented a whole ass person (HILDA HILDA?????) when she’s just been told that nightmare monsters are being generated from lies. Fig, my girl. Ms. Faeth. Please. I’m begging you. Please. 

Honor Roll

All of the Adults for Stepping Up

Every single adult in this episode was on fire. Fig confided in Gilear and he stepped up to the plate with a This-Is-So-Serious-I’m-Going-To-Use-Your-Actual-Full-Name, speech. Sandra-Lynn showed Adaine how to do some ranger stuff and jumped in to save her when she cried out. Cathilda was ready with warm milk and cookies she somehow was able to make in the van as soon as Adaine needed them. Sandra-Lynn also had a heart to heart with Fig and even Gorthalax, who’s still trapped in the ruby, gave Fig a spell slot back. And, of course, Ragh’s mom slaps. 

Random Thoughts

Adaine and Fabian both being uber rich but being on the opposite ends of the rich people spectrum is hilarious. Adaine is a “Sleeping in a van? I’ve heard of that but I’ve never gotten to do it. This will be fun!” Rich Kid  and Fabian is a “No turn down service? Hard pass,” Rich Kid. 

I was happy that they brought Ragh along for comedy reasons but who knew he was gonna be so chock full of backstory and important story beats? Like, every good GM has a way of making whatever story path that was chosen seem like the only way the story could have gone and I’m sure that whoever was picked, Brennan would have made that seem like the obvious and essential choices but I’m very happy they picked Ragh. Him talking about how much he loves his mom was so adorable! I love that he’s a big, good, dumb boy now and I’m happy they invited him to live at the Haunted House. That’s def gonna be good for some shenanigans (also love that Adaine’s only stipulation was that he had to be nice to Zayn and he was so eager to agree).  

Insane Ally Move of the Game: Deciding that Kristen genuinely doesn’t know Gilear used to be lunch lad at their school. Is Kristen even on the same plane of existence as everyone else. And then, later, “I worry about Gilear.” Do you really???

I totally forgot that Gilear was not only an elven diplomat but also a full on actual counselor. Makes it even wilder that he lost the job to Jawbone. Also, while we’re talking about him, I said we were gonna inevitably gonna get some more color on Gilear this season and we saw some of that in this ep when Adaine uses detect thoughts on him (which, btw, seems like a horribly invasive thing that people do very casually in this world) and we see that he gave up his career for Sandra-Lynn and then was wrecked when she cheated on him. Really puts a melancholy shade over his hilarious ineptness. 

Another thing I figured we’d see soon and that we’re starting to see is Adaine speaking up on Aelwyn. Two times this ep she tried to steer the group away from Aelwyn and seemed more serious than her usual trash talk. As excited as I am for pirate adventures, I want to get to Falinel ASAP to see how this shakes out. 

Also, on the mom front, wild that we found out that Ragh has a super dope mom in the same scene Adaine took another L and found out that her mom is also involved in this shadiness. Black robes are never a good sign. But I will say, just based on the story beats we’ve gotten, I’m not totally sold on the idea that she’s 100% bad--or at least that she doesn’t care for Adaine at all. I’m wondering if she wasn’t at school trying to find Adaine (possibly among other things). 

“Every time you have sex it’s a gamble. You could lose your heart.”/”What happened to you on tour?”

Gorgug trying to let a full sized griffon land on his arm is hilarious. I love that. He’s so wholesome and dumb.

I love that when Emily was doing her Hilda-Hilda nonsense , turned into Detective Decker, and ran past the police house precinct, Lou was the only person who was on her wavelength and understood what she was trying to do while everyone else was like????

We find out in this ep that Van can control all the auxiliary functions of the van but not the actual driving, which is important to know before a sticky situation. On a more personal note, we find out that he was originally a planetar (second most powerful D&D angel) of Elysium, specializing in harmony, relaxation, and chill vibes and he got dumped and kicked out of heaven for sleeping through a call to battle.

We also get the cursed image of a van with hands which I knew was gonna be the shirt and lo and behold. 

“Fuck Me.”/”When.” Y’all are the worst. 

I love that Brennan mentioned Porter in Ragh’s flashback, fully knowing it was gonna trigger Emily. 

Fig’s new plan is to get all of her parents in a throuple and I don’t even know where to begin with that tbh so I won’t.

@voxfantasma made a comment last week that Sandra-Lynn very well could have seen Kalina which is why she can she her in the photo--which is an offhand comment I made when I was talking about the rules of the photo last week--and Ragh’s reaction to the photo is making me move this theory back up to the top spot. I still wish they would show the photo to more people so we’d have more data for this. 

I loved Fig tossing Fabian a bardic inspiration for a compliment even though he didn’t really need it. I also love that she has a rider in her rockstar contract necessitating gogurt be at all her shows for Gilear. 

Adaine paranoidly casting water breathing on everyone at the slightest hint that they may have to go near water. Our girl is learning from the mistakes of the last oracle. 

With the gang facing off against the Nightmare King and Brennan’s description of the thing in Adaine’s tent as being humanoid, about her side, and sitting in a sort of defensive way, I’m wondering it what it was was a manifestation of her own anxiety or something along those lines. Of course, it could just be a normal ass monster. Sometimes the scariest thing is your inner turmoil and sometimes it’s just a monster trying to bite your head off. 

We also learn that Cathilda has a super wild adventurer’s life before she settled down to be a maid--so she knows what she’s missing and she’s fine with it--and also that she is paid ridiculously well, which makes me feel better about what’s going on with her. Also, her moment with Adaine and the cookies was so sweet. My notes for that scene say, “Adaine loves Cathilda and so do I.”

I loved Murph and Riz going equally Pepe Silvia trying to anagram out Garthy O’Brien (which is also what I was doing, especially since Brennan specifically spelled out the name). Cheers to Murph/Riz and Siobhan/Adaine trying to single handedly keep the story on track--both in and out of character.

There’s a part in this ep where Adaine Ray of Frosts Fig who immediately Hellish Rebukes her and that’s truly the kind of step-sister shenanigans I want to see from them as much as possible please and thank you. Also, like I said before, it was very sweet of Fig to reassure Adaine that she wasn’t just seeing things in the tent. Her catfishing middle aged men aside, she can be very empathetic when she wants to be.  

Adaine cast (or tried to cast Friends) on the thing in her tent. And I think it’s very telling about her character that that’s the spell she would cast and not an offensive one. Not that messing w/ someone’s brain is a super chill thing to do or anything, but I think, “Maybe I can calm whoever this is and talk to them and we can get some information,” is a much more measured reaction than maybe, “Let’s blast this thing to kingdom come and ask questions later.”

“Man van is a boat, my boat is a van.”

Brennan lets Adaine roll w/ advantage to convince the Hangman to come with them on the Van (which he still hates) because she said, “Please” really cute which is the kind of arbitrary DM fiat that I love. 

Adaine: We should tell them unless we’re being graded on a curve. (Savage.)

“Fig, she’s a maid. She’s not allowed to lie.”

All the skipper talk this ep got the Gilligan’s Island theme stuck in my head (never seen an ep but my mom watches it sometimes) so the next day I was getting dressed going “With Fabian, and the skipper too, the oracle, the PI,” to the GI theme song. Also, did not know skipper and captain were the same title until Fabian got all upset and I looked it up. Yet another piece of information I know because of some game (along with what a panacea is (Dragon Quest 9) and where the CDC is (Pandemic)).

Gorgug, being offered a virgin daiquiri: No thanks, I’m driving. (I’ve said this before: Zac low key has the best comic timing of anyone.)

When Riz is angraming, one of the things he ends up with is something about a “night yorb” which Brennan decided is a real thing that both the Hangman and the Van are very wary about. Having the Hangman constantly being like, “SPEAK NOT OF THE NIGHT YORB!” and the Van being like, “Seriously, don’t fuck with the night york,” was so funny and such nonsense. I can’t wait for the night yorb mini boss fight that has to happen now because of the rule of funny.

Gorgug comes down from his call with Zelda and everyone except for Fabian (and probably Ragh who cannon-balls off the boat w/ Fabian and they both have to be rescued by Sandra-Lynn) knows exactly what happened immediately. Aw, buddy. One of my favorite things about media where you have kids saving the world is you have relationship drama and also the world is ending and it all feels equally high stakes. I find that so funny but also it feels very representative of what high school was like, or at least what it felt like (minus the literal apocalypse, obv. Or maybe not. Idk what was going on at your high school). 

Adaine continues lending out Boggy to anyone who needs him.

Also, Gorgug tries to build a cell tower with driftwood and parts from Adaine’s jacket. It’s not going super hot. 

Both Adaine and Riz are podcast nerds and listen to This Solesian Life. All checks out. Their friendship is underrated.  

“I’m feeling really bad and my van is a boat.”

“I was gonna be straight edge except for drugs,” gives me “Sober salad” energy. 

The whole discussion about Kristen getting tracker silly putty for her birthday. 

The Van was serving some serious Ned Flanders energy along with the Owen Wilson energy this episode. 

Brennan does pretty good whale noises. 

Only crit this episode is Fig with a nat 20 insight to know Gorgug’s conversation with Zelda did not go well. Which is something she’d crit on.

DnD: Chaos Campaign-S2

Okay, so here is where things get interesting. As a brief recap, Naztae was a body guard for a bard in the mountains. The village was cursed by an evil committed in the past, and clay men were put to blame. It really was an old man’s fault, so Naztae had to dig up a corpse and the curse was lifted. To celebrate, everyone got toasted.

The next day, things go downhill very fast. Like I said a thousand times before in my previous post, alcohol and charlatan sorcerer of wild magic are a bad mix. Thankfully I am still by myself during this session, but the things that happened drove me to seek out a party because everything is impossible to do by myself. 

So, after a night of partying, we start off with a Naztae hangover:

Woke up tied to a strange bed (not naked) and is extremely hung over. The room is very fancy and plush. There is a person another room, and when they come in, it is a teifling in a loin cloth. 

Apparently Naztae woke up in a brothel as the teifling, known as “The Monk”, is a prostitute. 

In Naztae’s drunken stupor, he was walking around town asking for “a monk”. The people decided to take him to the brothel and into Monk’s care. Monk ended up giving Naztae his money back as he threw up all over Monk’s bed before they got their clothes off. 

Naztae is embarrassed and flustered as this situation is usually the other way around. Monk found his reaction to be charming. 

After more talking, Naztae realized he’s not in Pika anymore. He’s actually in a another country called “Sowa” several miles away (I still don’t know how the hell he managed to do that in one night.)

Naztae tried to remember a little better. He remembered a female monk in his drunken state. 

Thanking Monk, Naztae left the brothel and immidiately gets his ass beat by two orcs (I call them chuckle fucks) who serve a mob boss by the name of Grimm. Apparently Naztae did something to piss him off.

Grimm is a piece of work by the way. He’s a halfling with an Irish accent and is literally the HARDEST person to kill. He kept demanding to give him his money back and then he had Naztae hang out a window.

Despite giving him some money (which was a REALLY hard thing to do), he is given a choice to drop three stories or to make him laugh. Naztae, with very low health, chose laugh. All of his clothes get ripped off and he’s tossed into the streets for everyone to see. 

Feeling extremely pissed and embarrassed, Naztae goes invisible and plots ways to kill Grimm.

Disguise kit: Naztae turns into a newsies Spock. 

Naztae goes to a fancy bar to cheat at a dice game. The fancy bar sucked, so he went to Pattie’s (a rowdy bar) instead. I spot a gnome playing a game of dice in the corner and he has a large pile of money on his side. Jackpot. 

Charlatans have a special trade when it comes to things that are crooked, and Naztae’s specialty is dice. He goes over to the table, and he starts winning. The gnome isn’t happy and said, “It’s time to get serious.”

Naztae decided this is a good time to switch his dice to the loaded ones. Since he is surrounded by people and all eyes are on him, he decides to start some noise in the bar to draw the attention away.

NAZTAE CASTS SHATTER 

Several people die.

A brawl starts

The military police arrive

The DM congratulates me as Naztae successfully distracted the bar patrons and switched out his dice. 

Naztae escapes through the bar and nearly lost as hand as he pick pocketed along the way, and ran out onto the streets. He turns invisible to hide from the police. The police can see through invisibility. 

Naztae runs deeper into the slums and runs into a man with a mask. Seeing as a guard was chasing Naztae, he casts crown of madness and tells him to attack the stranger in the mask instead.

The stranger in the mask was Monk, 

In a panic, Naztae looks for an innocent civilian instead. He picks a beefy looking butcher at a shop and directs the guard to attack him instead. The butcher is pissed and the guard is getting his ass beat

Monk: Why did that guard attack me?

Naztae: *crocodile tears* I don’t know. He just came after me and then he saw you. I don’t understand, I never did anything wrong in my life. The justice system is so corrupt. Please Monk, you gotta help me!

I take a rest in the brothel. Monk takes Naztae onto the roof and says Grimm is an investor of the mafia in the slums. The slums is literally under ground beneath the steampunk city. He also says the only way out is up as he looks up to the rich buildings on the upper level.

Naztae asks if he can escape, but Monk said he uses the money he makes to improve the home he had in the brothel. Naztae makes a special note to help him out when he can. 

Something is going on in the streets. Monk quickly tells Naztae to hide. There is a hole in the wall. He fails athletics and fell into someone else’s bathroom. He has the option to go back down the hole, but he hears noises coming from the other room. 

Naztae peeks in and sees a green butt on the bed. It was one of the orcs that beat the hell out of him and he was busy with one of the prostitutes. An opportunity to loot is always a good opportunity. 

Naztae rolls for stealth to use mage hand to pick up the orc’s coin purse.

CRITICAL FAILURE! SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 60!

The shelf is knocked over and the orc and his prostitute see Naztae crouching by the door. At least he got his lowest spell slots back.

Naztae closed the door and tried to run back into the hole in the wall. The orc bursts in after him. Naztae makes an athletics check to see if he made it into the hole.

CRITICAL FAILURE! SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 2!!!!

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS WE’RE GOING ON A RIDE

A 2 meant you surge for whole minute. That means we gotta do these surges 10 more times. YAAAAAY!!!!

Naztae tripped and fell while the orc burst into the room after him

1ST SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 100!

Naztae’s sorcery points come back even though he never used them in the first place. 

2ND SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 76!

The orc takes a swing. Naztae panicked and started to glow. Both he and the orc go blind (The DM thought it would be better if we both went blind this time). The orc missed and Naztae can’t see shit. 

He attempts to regain his sight and tried to run for the hole again. He makes it into the hole.

3RD SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 94!

Naztae goes from a size medium to large. His butt is stuck in the hole. 

The orc regains his sight and is SUPER pissed. Naztae wiggles in panic as he tried to escape from the hole. The elvish woman is screaming. Someone is pounding on the door. 

4TH SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 44!

For the next 10 rounds, Naztae can teleport up to 20ft in distance. 

The elvish woman goes for the door. 

Naztae cast crown of madness on the orc so he wouldn’t curb stomp him into the hole. He teleports out of the hole and into the bedroom. 

Fun fact about crown of madness, your target needs someone to attack or else it’ll go back to their usual behavior. 

Naztae chucks the prostitute at the orc before she can open the door. 

5TH SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 15!

For 10 rounds, Naztae regains 5 hit points at the beginning of each turn. 

Since the orc is busy and the prostitute is out of the way, Naztae decided to loot the room. He uses teleportation to make it faster. 

The door busts down and the other orc, still putting on his pants, rushed into the room. Crown of madness fades as well. Naztae teleports down into the hole

6TH SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 74! 

The orc with madness suddenly doubles over from poison. 

Naztae teleports down to the ground level. He had a choice to teleport inside or teleport outside. Naztae teleports inside, but he turns invisible first. Good choice, as he was in another room with a prostitute. 

A married couple and a prostitute were starting to flirt with each other, so nothing too bad. Naztae decided to sneak by and let them do their thing. 

7TH SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 7!

Naztae cast a 3rd level fireball on himself. He survived. 

The married couple and the prostitute are caught in the blast. All three of them are roasted to a crisp, but the prostitute didn’t quite die yet. 

With a grimace, Naztae loots their corpses. 

Once he hears voices on the ground floor, he teleports into the building next door. It is an abandoned dress shop.

Naztae sits down and does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING 

8TH SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 46!

Naztae levitates. 

9TH SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 26!

An eye appears on Naztae’s forehead. He has advantage on wisdom and sight checks. 

FINAL SURGE TABLE ROLL IS 66!

Three innocent civilians on the street are struck by lightning. One of them was a child. 

Knowing that the surge is finally over, Naztae decided to sit until things calm down, then plans his next course of action (He needs to get out of the slums, and he needs to get out soon) 

Okay, so that’s all I’m going to fit into this one. This session was a LONG one, so the next post will be 2.5. Yeah, a lot more happens than this, and it continues to go downhill from here.

As a result of everything that happened, security in the city is increased, and Naztae is pretty much an accidental terrorist. Why? Because he needed those coins. Again, feel free reply or reblog with your own DnD stories. 

I don’t know how soon I’ll post the next one, but we’ll see. 

Hack Summoners War

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two druids and a bard almost ruin dm’s fanfiction, dm responds by being a weenie

I went to play dnd at the shop a while ago, again my friend who usually plays the unicorn in my game came with- this time there was room a the table so she joined the game. there were a lot of people missing but also one new guy? or at east one guy I’ve never seen before. he and I helped her build a character. he did most of the work since they were both playing druids anyway.

the dm this time was the guy who plays the one handed girl in edwardian/victorian england (90lbs FineCoal) campaign, and the tabaxi in the official event campaign. 

This guys campaign was, I was told, a High Seas themed 5e. I had made a character for this when I was first told about it i dunno a month or two ago? 1/2 orc bard, Bassun (like a bassoon) Drun. 

it turns out this campaign is coming to an end though so it doesnt matter. I had kept missing weeks this game was going on because of work and it seems like a WHOLE LOT of stuff went on between when I made my character and yesterday. heres a few few things, and getting even this ,uch was like pulling teeth to be honest. a lot of these details lead me to believe this is some kind of kingdom hearts fanfiction? but it was never explicitly escribed as such.

-characters all have keyblades? some more than one. each having a special ability of some kind though it doesnt seen to always correspond with the theme of the keyblade? like- mine is basically just a magical electric-keyboard-guitar? thing? but is special ability is to turn into a really big gun??? unless I misunderstood?? I thought it was weird though so I never used it.

-there are Nobodies- both monsterous and humaniod I think? But the humanoid ones might be called Shamans? (but the could be a different faction?)  which cannot be hurt by any magic or attacks not done with the keyblades. and several spells that probably we shouldnt have needed to make any rolls for we had  to roll to see if they effected them or something? I think someone said it was because they can become incorporeal nearly at will? and/or because they can shift into a pocket plain as a means of travel through the material plain?

-non magic using classes get 2 first level spells or 1 second level spell with dm approval they can cast through the keyblade only, these spells are attached to it permanently and cant be changed. these spells can be used 1/long rest. spells are taken from a class list that either fits the keyblade theme or some arbitrary choice by the dm im not sure

-magic user classes can cast either all of their spells through the keyblade or the same unchangeable 2 first level or 1 second level I’m not sure. but at the very least I  know I can cast shatter with it? 

-there are things called orbs? which are collected from defeated nobodies (I think?) and theycan be used to do stuff like- get new keyblades or to do something that sounded like buying spell slots but not quite? I’m not sure.

-there are god like entities in physical form that are just?? around?? but also somethat are not in physical form?? some of them have avatars that are around doing stuff?? both god like beings and their avatars are kill able? 

Theres something called the cursed lands which seems to be some kind of separate plain seeping into and corrupting the material plain? it seems to have some natural mind effecting abilities? and is where the main antagonists are hiding out? I get the feeling its based off of some end game locations in some kh game or another.

I’m thinking maybe if I was more familiar with kingdom hearts maybe I’d have some idea about whats going on? I’ve only played 1, 2, and chain of memories so....  I dunno if any of the weird stuff here is from the other KH content or what. I suspect the ‘Sea’ is actually SPACE/multiverse and the ‘islands’ are actually distinct worlds/universes.

Also, its not really very 5e? the way the game goes is very like how the 90lbs FineCoal is played but combat sort of resembles 5e where the other doesnt.

the game was very chaotic and confusing but this time it was basically no fun, like at all. my self, my friend, and the new guy were unfamiliar with the setting and its rules and no one felt the need to explain. nearly everything we tried to do ended up being not allowed either by setting rules or just because it was too far removed from the dms expectations and thus would ruin his narrative, I assume based on what things did work.

Which brings me to how the dm was being a weenie. Instead of just explaining to us you cant use this or do that and you don’t have such and such ability because game rules, even if it wasn’t true we wouldn’t have known or just honestly saying: I cant let you do that because it ruins the story I’m trying to tell, that would have been one thing, but what he chose to do was punish characters/players for doing stuff didn’t want us to do whether or not we knew what we were trying to do was allowed, with no explanation. this ranged from giving damage or curses to characters or destroying character equipment, and even going so far as to allow players to roll for actions or saves with crazy high difficulty but disregarding the roll entirely even if it was a natural 20 ift he result didn’t work with what he wanted to happen. this was a literal exchange between a player and the dm:

-can I roll to stop that?

-you can try hehehe

-natural 20!

-...I dont care... you still fail. (no, he wasnt kidding)

here are some things that were not allowed or deemed really annoying for... reasons? (even if what we were doing should have been allowed based on what we understood of the rules we were told, like- magic cast through the keyblade effects Nobodies... except when the dm doesnt want it to because it ruins the plot)

casting identify, casting locate object, casting warding wind, casting pass without a trace, casting wind wall, casting glyph of warding, casting lesser restoration, casting remove curse, leaving an npc behind for in character plot reasons also they were a distracting attempt at slapstick comedy (this npcs weapon of choice was a frying pan) which no one wanted to bring into the end game, having in character conversation while the rest of the party participated in the plot that only they understood, wanting to start changing character alignment for the better because plot, asking how big a space was, asking how far away things were, inspiring the party (my bards equipment was broken for this). asking for explicit approval before trying to take an action. 

one guy, whos been playing this campaign since it was started got so fed up with the dm being a weenie he nearly left. It seems this kind of behavior- punishing with out explanation or obvious reason, was common throughout and it really fits with what I’ve come to learn about this guy and how he plays these games. I can only hope he learns and grows out of it.

if youre going to run a railroading style campaign or adventure, thats fine and a perfectly valid way to run a game, but please be clear with the players- ALL of them that’s whats going on and such are your expectations for the game, also if there are weird homebrew rules you REALLY need to make sure ALL of your players have some grasp on what they are.

if my friend and I, I assume also the new guy, had known more about the setting and the dms expectations we would have chosen and built our characters, or at least played them, differently. Maybe we could have been a constructive part of the group instead of three annoying piles of dead weight everyone was frustrated with by the end of the session.

or I dunno, maybe don’t have three new people jump into the tail end of an unnecessarily complicated homebrew campaign with no real context.

we could have done something else, I could have run a little one shot  at another table or helped people make characters for the murder hobo game. if I’m there the next time this game is going I might do that, because i really didn’t enjoy this. The whole thing hardly even felt like a game? It felt more like we were just being lead through the dms fanfiction. He intends to start another campaign once this is done, to stay in the rotation, I’m not sure if I’m gonna do that one either.

 I might at least give it a try once, mostly to confirm my suspicion that even though he owns a copy of the PHB and possibly the DMG I’m not sure he actually read them. I mean, look, I understand being a dm is hard especially if youre still new and learning, I’m still learning too, but that’s no excuse to be a weenie to your players. You know? You have to communicate and yeah sometimes you gotta compromise sometimes you gotta improvise, thats like, a pretty big part of games like this isnt it?