First task in Hommlet is to find the bro that will let us skip Hommlet. That is this blacksmith fellow.
What is it?
Hello. I am Chzr.
Well met, Chzr. I am Brother Smyth, the village Blacksmith.
Perhaps you will allow me a few more questions?
What would you like to know?
I'm looking for something different.
What might that be?
No offense, but this seems like a boring town. Would you know of anywhere else I can find some real action?
(mod-added dialog starts here)
[Brother Smyth Sizes you up critically]. Action? What do you mean by that?
I mean something more exciting then simply meddling in everyone's personal affairs here.
I see. And what do you mean by exciting? Are you looking for whores or something like that? If so, you'll have to look elsewhere. I don't arrange that kind of thing.
I'm not looking for whores particularly, no. To be frank, I'm anxious for an opportunity to test my skills in battle. Isn't there anything going on around here that's more of a problem than the typical day to day trivialties of a small village?
[Brother Smyth laughs.] So... the restless adventurer wants to sally forth into something perhaps beyond her understanding. What makes you think you can handle anything more serious than running local errands.
I'm no newcomer when it comes to exploration of dangerous places. I wouldn't be here if I were no more capable than what you suggest.
Perhaps. [Brother Smyth considers.] Do you think you really understand death, daughter?
What's that supposed to mean?
Death. Surely you've heard of it. Among other things, it's what happens after some creature tears your entrails out and feasts on them while you're still breathing. Do you think you understand that?
Yes, I do. You underestimate me.
[Brother Smyth waves a hand dismissively] I don't think you're serious. The death you should seek is that of old age.
Listen, Brother. If you know something, tell me. Or am I just wasting my time with a would-be village druid who spends his days hammering on an empty anvil?
Ha! Bold to the end. Very well. But I wonder... would you change your mind if you were forced to consider UN-death? [He pauses and shakes his head.] No matter. Perhaps Captain Renton can explain that concept to you in greater detail. I'll leave it to him, though I make no guarantees that he'll be any more impressed with you than I am. He lives on the southwest of town.
That's a fairly crytpic message, Brother.
Cryptic? And you the 'worldly' adventurer. Go see the Captain. He just may provide you with what it is you think you're looking for.
You have been most kind.
We go straight to the home in that area of town to talk with the Captain.
Yes? What can I do for you?
Hello, sir. I am Chzr.
Well met, Chzr. My name is Hroth Renton, and I am captain of the local militia.
I had an interesting discussion with your town blacksmith, Brother Smyth. He indicated to me that you might have knowledge of a situation in this area that may require some forceful intervention.
[Captain Renton looks at you flatly.] Did he now. I wonder whatever he might have been talking about.
Captain Renton, I have no desire for a patronizing back and forth with you like I had with Smyth. Simply tell me where the trouble lies and I'll seek to eliminate it for you. Is that such a terrible thing?
[Renton looks at you with sudden exasperation that melts disconcertingly away to resignation.] Fine. I'll spare any further niceties between us then and tell you. Indeed! No more games! Let's have it out in the open, shall we?
Yes, Why don't we?
Very Well. Sit down, lass. This is going to be a long story.
[skip story]
So there you have it. That is the unfortunate situation we find ourselves in. I think you can understand why we wouldn't care to publicize this tale around town. The villagers might not be particularly overjoyed to know that a zombie is cavorting in the surrounding wilderness.
I don't suppose they would. Would you like me to destroy this creature and his minions for you?
I don't ask such a thing, and let me warn you: the village can pay very little.
As long as I can collect what I recover from the scene, I'll be satisfied.
You might feel differently if I told you I never expect to see you alive again.
It matters little, Captain. I shall return with good news, I assure you.
Very well. I shall mark the location of Welkwood Bog on your map for you. And I wish you the best of luck with this awful business.
You are most generous.
Before we set off, we need to rest up at the local inn.
There we see a mage with shiny shit around him. Since I could use another arcane caster I ask him to join.
Hello, I am Chzr.
So you are an adventurer?
Yes. And you?
My name is Spugnoir, and I work for a sage in Stalmaer. He has directed me to locate any and all wizard scrolls in the area.
Have you had any luck?
No, but I just recently arrived with a merchant wagon. I plan to check a nearby ruined moathouse, which I understand once housed a powerful warlock. This was before the Battle of Emridy Meadows, after which the moathouse was sacked.
Where is the moathouse?
Here, I will show you where the moathouse is located on your map.
Would you like to come along?
Really? I would love to accompany you. I don't want any share of money or items other than to ask for all of the wizard scrolls we find.
Sure, come along.
A word about Co8 changes: Apparently, NPC looting was royally fucked in the retail version so its basically disabled. NPCs take no loot and basically act like PCs except that you can't see their attributes, you can't remove their starting equipped items, and they have dialog. Presumably having free extra characters makes the game significantly easier.
We don't care about the moathouse presently. That will be our task after we clean up Welkwood Bog. Nice of him to put it on our map though, we won't need to fuck around in Hommlet more then we need to.
First thing to do with him is to relieve him of his gold burden
He's a level 2 Wizard and has the Precise Shot feat, which means he doesn't suffer a -4 on his attack roll whenever an enemy is close to one of our characters. This makes him significantly better with a ranged weapon than anyone else in the party, so Yeesh hands over his crossbow for the time being.
Finally, we talk to the innkeeper and inquire about a room for the night. He offers us a permanent room if we catch some gambler in the inn cheating.
We don't care.
Next day we leave for Welkwood Bog. A bunch of goblins Hobgoblins and a Bugbear ambush them.
Serious gets a hit in for respectable damage, but the star of the show is our mage power. Strangelove puts 3 Hobgoblins to sleep, cutting their numbers right in half. A significant change from the IWDs and BGs that I am familiar with is that sleep can affect party members, making it a bit less of an I-Win spell for the early levels. It's still an I-Win button though.
The Bugbear gets his turn immediately after and uses it to knock Chzr down to 0/7 health. In ToEE (in compliance with 3ed D&D rules) 0 HP is not death. At 0 HP you can move but any other action will cause you to lose health and falter. At >-10 health you are not dead, lieing helplessly on the floor slowly losing health over time, but ready to be healed right back up by any normal source of healing instead of requiring an expensive resurrection spell. -10 health or less is dead dead.
Yeesh casts a quick heal to get Chzr out of the danger zone. Spugnoir has had enough of this Bugbear and charms him.
All that's left is a single weak Hobgoblin that Dolores cleans up.
At this point we have to get rid of our Bugbear friend. We would be happy to leave him in peace, but he has XP and he won't give it to us unless we kill him. Dolores trips him and does some damage.
At this point I learn to be careful where I click to open the command menu. Apparently because I clicked somewhere near Dolores when ordering Chzr to manually attack the Bugbear (which you need to do since its still friendly), ToEE decided I wanted to shoot Dolores. SORRY!~
As the bugbear tries to get up, it is mercilessly smashed by both Dolores and Serious. Sucks to be him.
Another random complaint about the ToEE engine: I have no idea how to effectively use the Coup de Grace (kill an enemy that is knocked out on the ground instantly). Since you need a full turn to use the Coup de Grace you have to manually move your character right up next to them in real time, activate combat mode, and then use it and leave combat mode. You can't just right click on an enemy in real time to automatically kill them, or use your entire party to kill them during 1 turn of combat mode. All you can do is use 1 character in combat mode to kill 1 enemy per turn, because combat auto ends whenever no hostiles are present.
In spite of this, we clean up the goblins and take their shinies, which are unfortunately not very shiny.
Here we are at Welkwood Bog. Nice place.
The first area is empty except for a patrol group that tells us the Bog is empty, and forcefully asks us to follow them out. We decline. Multiple times. They vanish into thin air.
Next area.
Some Goblins.
Goblins are weak. Serious takes a minor scratch but the group is cleaned up. There is one higher level goblin but he gets tripped and thats the end of him.
We snatch a shield and short spear for Yeesh, who was going barehanded after he passed a crossbow off to Spugnoir.
Some more scattered goblins are in the area. Nothing worth speaking of, really.
Next area appears to be some kind of camp.
Why, it appears we walked into a trap.
The battle isn't going too bad but we are clearly outnumbered and our frontliner's are starting to get flanked. That gives +2 to the enemy attack roll and increases their overall chance to hit nearly 50%. I decide to check out Spugnoir's Burning Hands. This spell kicked ass in IE games, but apparently the attack shape is significantly different and harder to use since it is a 180 degree spray instead of a focused cone.
So Strangelove uses sleep again, with excellent results.
Yeesh takes some ugly damage, so he's moved to the back of the group
A Goblin leader appears and gets behind Serious.
The leader then decides to run straight into the back of the group, dodging multiple AoO's, and takes off 7 of Spugnoir's 8 health. How the fuck he scored a sneak attack I don't know.
Serious takes a bit of damage, leaving him at 1/15 himself.
With a bunch of tripping, lots of dancing, and a bit of luck we manage to win the fight regardless.
At this point we have a bit of a conundrum. We are certainly too weak to go further. If we retreat to Hommlet to rest we might be ambushed and raped. If we try to rest here we might also be ambushed and raped. I decide to rest here, since if worst comes to worst I can throw a sleep spell on any goblin ambushers. I have no idea if what we fight on the return trip to Hommlet will be at all possible for our group.
I have some potions, but they are unidentified. Do I just need to cast identify on each and every one of them? That would entail a lot of rest spamming. IE games had the sense to have a skill that was used to identify cheap stuff like this, but as far as I can tell there is nothing like that in ToEE.
Thankfully our rest is uneventful.
We heal up and continue, dispatching a few straggler goblins.
We find a Goblin that appears non-hostile.
So we are up against a lich. Or something that might just be fooling us into thinking its a lich. Proud Codexians gather together to take down this evil.
