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Completed Arcanum LP [Tech/Evil][Fortified with memes][Finished]

Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
2 attempts to kickstart this LP have crashed and burned due to my incompetence. Inshallah, 3rd time's the charm. Either that, or I will harvest more broken link reactions and rage quit, blaming Arcanum's bugs for transcending the game itself.

ARCANUM: OF STEAMWORKS AND MAGICK OBSCURA
PART I: EXPLOSIVE BEGINNINGS

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We're greeted with wistful music and steampunk aesthetics. Welcome to Arcanum, the most :obviously: among the crpgs of yesterday. We'll be playing as Lord Byron, a human male with a charlatan protege background and impeccable physiognomy. The background gives us a yuge boost to charisma at the expense of strength and constitution.

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Although Arcanum is unsurpassed ( as far as I know ) in the sheer number of skills, crafting schools and spells which can be upgraded, you get a paltry 5 points to start you off, and you are barred from reducing your base stats below the given numbers. I put a point in Dexterity, Throwing, Persuasion, Firearms and Explosive Crafting, giving us access to Molotov cocktails

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Pre-cutscene trading screen lets us spend our wealth to gain an edge from the get go. I restrict myself to a pair of boots and a primitive wooden boomerang. And we're off!

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Quite literally. We're aboard ISF Zephyr, a giant blimp en route to the continent of Arcanum. Taking the screenshot skipped the cutscene so I'll give you a verbal rundown. The blimp is attacked by ogres piloting fighter planes. Machine gun fire tears the blimp to shreds and we go down in flames. People are dying, utter chaos ensues. I like to pretend we're busy hurling the boomerang around atop the deck during the attack.

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We survive the crash and find a dying gnome. He gives us a ring and tells us to 'find the boy', before succumbing to his wounds.

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A hooded figure runs to help us from the wreckage.

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What are you talking about?

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I'm a tad confused

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Your babbling is incomprehensible!

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Virgil..

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his name?

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Did they say anything about a gnome and a ring?

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That's ludicrous!

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Panarii?

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You don't seem well versed in the scripture

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Alright then, let's go find Joachim. But a formidable challenge stands in our way:

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We slaughter them with our boomerang. Scouring the surroundings, we find a lot of trinkets: wine, springs, tubes, coal, iron ore etc. Few things stand out: the dead gnome had a passport belong to Preston Radcliffe and a Roseborough Inn matchbook; there's a camera nearby; a dead woman has a note

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Vermillion station? Updated my journal

To the south is a kite shaman guarding a treasure box. He casts hold in a desperate attempt to safeguard his hoardings. We slaughter the rapacious bastard and confiscate what's rightfully ours.

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To the north is a super-duper secret cave

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Inside is a pack of rats that hobble around like kangaroos. We level up as we kill them and put a point in strength to increase our carrying capacity. At the end of the cave is a dead body and a barrel. The latter is a goldmine: flintlock pistol, ammunition, dynamite, stun grenades, explosive grenades, revolver chamber etc. A spirit rises from the dead body as we're looting

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We get our first quest: kill Arbalah and free the ghost of Brehgo. Before we do that, we explore and discover one of the downed airplanes and it's dead ogre pilot.

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Based

The ogre has a strange amulet bearing a pentagram of sorts:

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Vrgil thinks there's conspiracy afoot and urges us to visit Shrouded Hills, before dropping some sagely advice:

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:mca:

We follow the only exit out of the clearing, a narrow valley to the south. Soon, we find Chris Avellone's tombstone an altar

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And who's the evil one?

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So according to Panarii lore, we're Nasrudin reborn, on our way to slay some unnamed evil. We venture forth but oh oh

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Black robes. Shieet. He means business. The stranger accosts us about the blimp crash, why we're here etc. Virgil intervenes and we let him speak on our behalf. He expertly reframes the questions and starts grilling the stranger:

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Take note of Byron's ingenuity in this conversation. Turning his back, he catches the stranger by surprise, sowing seeds of anxiety and doubt. What's Byron doing with his hands out of view? Who knows.

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Yeah, you better run
:lol:

Virgil is shook by this verbal exchange

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We press onwards and the world map is unlocked. It's a good looking map:

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It functions the same as fallout 1/2, but Arcanum is pretty huge. What's funny is that the world map is not strictly necessary. The whole continent 'exists' in isometric mode: if you wish to spend 30 minutes running from one town to another, you can. I'm a filthy casual though, so I just use the world map. Arbalah's shack is bordering two fresh graves. Hmm.

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With the niceties out of the way, Arbalah calls bullshit on Brehgo's story. Arbalah was attacked by two thieves, Brehgo and Farkus, who slaughtered his family and stole some religious trinket. Arbalah cursed the souls of the two to walk this planes of existence after death. Brehgo's death was simply a squabble between the thieves over the spoils and had nothing to do with the curse. Arbalah wants us to recover the stolen loot, but he does not know where Farkus is currently located. We pay Brehgo another visit, promising that Arbalah will release him (lie) if he spills the beans on Farku's whereabouts

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Farkus doesn't take much to convince

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But since we're evil, we return to Arbalah to kill him, stealing his trinket and his robes

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Panarii niggaz in the hood,
killing papists in cold blood

Ahem. Moving on. Brehgo is ecstatic at our (mis)deeds

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But we already know the full story, you inbred tart

Anyways, we level up and put another point in throwing. Having wrapped up the opening sequence, we leave the crash site and go to find Joachim.

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In the next episode, we'll tackle Shrouded Hills, the Shady Sands of Arcanum.

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Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
PART II: OF GHOSTS AND GANGSTERS

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Arriving in Shrouded Hills, we meet Constable Owens chilling beside a well. The man's a sheriff, of sorts. We ask him about the town and learn about its industry

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And who was Bessie Toone? A strange old lady

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Who owns the mine now?

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And what of that altar in the mountains?

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We tell him of the blimp crash and he promises to send a search party blah blah. How do we get out of this town?

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Why haven't you dealt with them yourself?

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Let's help him, then

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Splendid! And it's our secret that you lack the backbone!

He gets really flustered. We back off and tell him it's just a prank, bro. The price for clearing the bridge of the thieves is 50g. Slim pickings. We go to the inn and meet some riff raff outside.

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Git a job :keepmymoney:

There's a bunch of people inside the inn. The innkeeper offers you a room ( we refuse ). The bartender can be used to raise your proficiency in some social skills. Sogg Mead, a half-ogre, is drinking at the bar and can be recruited if you have the right CHA. He's not one of the voiced followers, however, and acts purely as brawn if you're struggling in combat. Jacob Bens is the fourth man in the room. He calls us over to have a private chat.

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Let's pretend that I do

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What's the catch?

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Got it. 500g, 250 after we split ( although I have a better idea ) The Bowen gang are a bunch of hoodlums who ride into town to rob whatever they can get away with, whilst Doc Roberts turns out to be the 'real' sheriff

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Virgil reminds us that Joachim is staying at the inn. We got to his room and find 2 dead bodies instead.

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They're both wearing the same amulets as the dead ogre pilot. We loot the weapons and the money and find a note left by Joachim

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Telegram Office, Tarant is the next destination for our main quest, but that's still a ways away. Who is this Joachim anyway?

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What do you mean 'down on your luck'?

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Alright then. We go outside and run into a gnome

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Yes, I was. We tell him that there were no survivors in the blimp crash, apart from ourselves.

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Your brother is dead

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We don't mention the ring or the 'boy' talk that Preston was spouting before death. Across from the inn is Ristezze's little shop

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We ask him about the mysterious ring and learn that neither the silver nor the owner are from Shrouded Hills. It's far too expensive and classy for a place like this. But asking of Schuyler & Sons hits onto something

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You've been very helpful!

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We veer the conversation away from Schuyler and try to talk about Ristezze's past. Arcanum does not have a simple stat check for getting a desired outcome in a conversation. There's often a mini puzzle of sorts layered on top. Here, we have to talk the info out of Ristezze with the correct options

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I'm overwhelmed..

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They must know of you in these cities!

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blah blah

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Were they in Caladon?

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Aaand I fuck up. After getting so far, one wrong choice and it's caput.

How far you've fallen, oh great Ristezze!

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Long story short: Ristezze wants the camera from the Zephyr crash site. We already have and trade it in for the info. Schuyler and Sons are in 44, Devonshire Way, Tarant

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We leave the shop and go sightseeing. First stop is the bank

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A bank teller and 1 guard are inside. They're not the most intimidating of security, but they could still do some damage if we go in guns blazing. There's also the solitary exit, which would create a chokepoint when Owens and the town guards reached us. Hmmm. We leave and go north to find a blacksmith. He tells us of Bessie Toone, who's apparently haunting her son's mine and souring the ore. We ask him about his business:

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What ore do you need?

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They're easy to craft if you've put a point in weapon smithing. We haven't. Doc Roberts is inside his house not far off. Since he's the real boss around here, we ask him for a job

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I like danger

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And what is the reward?

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I like tech. He promises an appropriate reward and we agree to help him. He walks away and goes to the bank.

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Eh, might as well get it out of the way. We follow him.

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I reiterate my support for the cause and it's here that Arcanum's combat system rears its ugly head. As I rush inside, I realize that I have accidentally left the combat setting in real time. That's real time without pause, mind you. The revolver wielding gangsters should be a push over, but in real time their combined firepower turns into a deadly torrent of lead. I turn heel and flee outside with a third of my health remaining. Doc Roberts and Virgil run inside and mop up the resistance without my help. Phew.

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It's a shitty rusty revolver :| But it's not all in vain: the Bowen gang have slaughtered the bank guard

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I refrain from killing the bank teller and decide to wait till night time. There's an oversight in this quest, since you can rest inside the bank and not be locked out come nightfall. After she goes to sleep, we pickpocket her key and cha-ching the money is ours

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We loot the dead bodies and I put on the outfit of the dead guard. The standard police/guard uniforms in Arcanum are reminiscent of WW1 German officer uniforms

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Anyways, we head outside and pay Doc Roberts a visit.

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Some rummy in the saloon asked me to rob the bank for him :smug:

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No, sir!

And that's that. We won't be getting any more trouble from Bens.

That's it for now. In the next episode, we'll plunder the depths of the Toone mine and scour the locale to wrap up the quests in our short visit to Shrouded Hills.
 
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Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
PART III: BESSIE, JONGLE & LUCAN

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Something was bugging me about Ristezze. Our failure to get him to talk irked me, so I decided to pay him a friendly visit after robbing the bank. We loiter around a window and wait until the patrolling guards are far away, before bashing in the frame and jumping inside. Ristezze sleeps in the back and has locked himself away. One throw of the boomerang against the door enrages him and he charges at us. The fight is easy and soon his body is decorating his shop's facade.

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In the back room is quite a bit of loot: the camera which we traded, over 800 in gold and a couple of notes ( an alternative way of completing the quest would be to sneak inside his house and steal these for info )

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Map for Tarant

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The info on Schuyler

There's also a locked chest, but we don't have a good melee weapon to bash it open. One of the guards hears us kicking the chest and screams at us to stop.

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In the morning, we visit Slim Pickens, the second shop in town, to trade in some of our loot and see what's for sale. We pick up a schematic for crafting fuel.

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Jongle Dunne lives across the street

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Of course...

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Interesting

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What does Owen want with you?

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Aah. Tech vs Magic

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He wants us to destory the steam engine that is housed in the temple sacristy. We'll see what we can do.
To the south, we find the mine and Percival Toone

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Why so nervous?

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Perhaps I can help?

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Time to tackle the first 'dungeon' in the game. The mine is broken up into 3 short paths. The rightmost leads to the ghost of Bessie Toone, the other 2 have some loot at the end protected by a higher level enemy. We go to the ghost first, clearing out ailing wolves and the little black widows that scutter around

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unfettered by the shackles of time..

The 2nd path has a real wolf guarding some loot. Fortunately, we can craft molotovs to make the fight easy

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We find some money, health potions and unidentified large chainmail. It has a spiral engraving, so it must be magical. The 2nd path is booby trapped with poison

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And there's a giant spider at the end of it. We kill em and clean out the containers

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Who's this Sarah, Percival?

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Where's Daernholm?

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What about the bloke who owns the mine?

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We already have Tarant on our map. The last inhabitant of the town is Gaylin. Does she need any help?

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My travels will take me far

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Find N'Tala amulet. Got it. We return to the blacksmith and give him some pure ore we picked up in the mine. Wait and hour and he'll give you a finely crafted dagger.

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And then we're off to the temple

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It has been gutted and is now populated solely by rats

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We level up and hit lvl 5, gaining 2 points to spend. One goes into firearms and another into mechanical crafting, letting us make spike traps

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One gnome is running the steam engine in the converted sacristy

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Attack!

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We bash the control box until it explodes

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Owens is still outside. We approach him. I've heard you've got a bit of a problem with your steam engine? :troll:

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Just the sprocket, eh?

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Anyways, Jongle gives us some potions as payment

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He has invented the philosopher's stone, apparently

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Yeah sure, why not. We head off to our final quest in Shrouded Hills: clearing the bridge of the thieves. On our way we happen upon a wise woman hawking her magical wares. On my first playthrough, a lot of the environmental storytelling went completely over my head, but there's plenty of it. For example: despite magic being very prominent in the world, the only mages we have met so far live on the fringes of society. Arbalah lived in the country, Jongle inhabits the farther-most house from the town centre, the wise woman is confined to a dirtroad. Most conspicuous is the state of the temple: overgrown with moss, it is completely empty, acting as a storage shed for the steam engine powering the town. Even the town's biggest headache is a gang wielding revolvers. Magic and Tech are not on an equal footing in Aracanum. The latter is curb-stomping the former out of existence at an alarming rate. Why is technology spreading like wildfire? All in good time.

We identify the armour as magical for 100g. The woman has the sword of sickness in stock. It does look pretty sick tbf

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Taking our leave, we finally reach the bridge

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Who are you?

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:lol: This guy is great

Oh yes! Now I see.. please forgive the disrespect

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I want to cross the bridge

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Can we circumvent the fee?

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How about persuasion instead?

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I'm a thief as well

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I'm posing as an outlander

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Word gets around

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Yep. Thieves Underground. They sent me.

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Tarant, of course

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Believe me, your TERRORIZING here hasn't gone unnoticed

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That's why I'm here..

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I'm not so sure..

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:lol: Okay, I believe you, but we have a situation here

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Sure, reparations wouldn't go amiss

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200g

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This will clear your name

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Take your time, but do not return. God speed, Lucan :salute:

We cross the turbid waters and run into a familiar manlet on the other side

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Why do you need it?

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We tell him to fuck off. He attacks, we kill him. Whaddayaknow, he's with those amulet assassins. There's a note on him

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And with that, we enter Arcanum proper. Two towns are on our map: Tarant to the north, Daernholm to the south. I decide to visit Daernholm and sort out the Sarah business first and foremost

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Capital of Cumbria ;) Isn't that Carlisle? Off we go!


Cumbria rooaaaads, Da-ern-hoooooooolm
Take me toooo, your capitooool
West Morbihaaa, mountain manaaaa
Take me h-


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:gangster:

Say what you want, but Sawyer doesn't throw four high level enemies your way in your first encounter. Balance is important.

:balance:
 
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Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
PART IV: MAN IS A POLITICAL ANIMAL

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We take a slighty longer route to Dernholm, weaving our way through the forest and hoping that the god of chance is kind

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On our way, we discover our first secret location - Wolf Cave. We're short on supplies so we maintain course, taking out a smaller pack of wolves on our way

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And finally, we arrive at Dernholm

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One of the hovels is home to Jayna
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What do you do here?

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Your parents? Where are they?

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What did you decide?

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We ask about the technological breakthroughs in medicine

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What happened to Dernholm?

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Why doesn't she just leave?

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When we offer her the chance to join the party, she happily agrees. She has the ability to craft healing salves, which might be useful. Before we set off, we loot all of her money

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:keepmymoney: Them's the rules


I also notice that the magical armour I've been dragging around with me is not large, but medium, meaning that it's suitable for humans. We give it to Virgil.

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In the town square lies a discarded newspaper

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Is Tarant in the right, or do they have a neocon contingent pushing for war for the sake of war? We'll come back to that question later on. First, we visit Dolan's General Store

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Dolan must be a retired bard

To the north we find a woman whose cleavage is visible even when she's a 40px sprite.

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We ask her about Dernholm

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I didn't take all of the screenshots, so the conversation is a bit of a mess. We ask about Praetor and find out that he's the illegitimate ruler of the kingdom

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War with Tarant?

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What happened?

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This passage completely contradicts the game's balancing. If you are wearing good armour and put a few points in melee, you will easily destroy 5 gunslingers. Anyways, we ask her about her father

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Where is he?

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Who were the Dragon Knights?

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And that's all for that lorefest. Lianna is carrying a unique sword, Sword of Baltar, but we can't nick it.

Not far away lives Sarah Toone, the daughter of Bessie Toone whose mine is the centerpiece of Shrouded Hills

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Your brother is upset at you

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He fears for his life

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Why so hostile?

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How did he convince her?

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She's crying out your name

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Why did you leave Shrouded Hills?

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Where is the owner of the mine located?

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You know, if I get the mine back I'll probably give it to your brother

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Oh alright alright I'll give it to you

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At the town centre stands a tavern

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:keepmymoney:

And we accidentally initiate dialogue through the door with some stranger

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I'm not giving you half a grand lol

At the bar is a gnome (halfling?) who's in a bad mood

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[tell him the story]

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Yes

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Why do you want to help me?

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Virgil intervenes and warns us about the gnome. He doesn't like him and doesn't want him in our party. Our level is too low to recruit him anyways, so we leave him to his drink.

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Some juicy gossip from a stranger seems to confirm the rumours surrounding Praetor's illegitimacy

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By the sea lives Archibald, a grumpy boomer

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At least the guards are polite

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:salute:

On the other side of town lives a lonely widow

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Her son had the heirloom when he passed away from the plague 20 years ago. Archibald knew him, apparently.

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I'd back track to Archie, but it's such a nothing-quest that I think I'll leave it for now.

Garrick Stout is the captain of the Dernholm guard

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So we go and pay Praetor a visit

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How did you know?

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How do Cumbrians look?

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Could I be of service?

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What's the nature of the problem?

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Could you have been betrayed?

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What do I get for my troubles?

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It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together to realize that Blackroot has gone over to Tarant. Before we go, we gossip some more with the inhabitants and learn of the ancient maze

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Zig zagging works best for discovering secret locations
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On the way to Blackroot we stop over by the Wolf Cave

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The west side is full of putrid rodents that do damage to your armour and poison you with every attack

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The east side has the loot, but it's well guarded

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Need more molotovs. WAY more molotovs.

I make a mental note to return there at some point and leave for Blackroot. We arrive by nightfall.

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Before I wrap up this part, I'd like to indulge in some autism and get a quick word in on the matter of war between Tarant and Caladon. For a fantasy game, Arcanum has a fairly realistic portrayal of a nascent maritime superpower making some moves to protect its interests.

Here's the map ( full of spoilers ): https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net...nummap.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20130713214043
Tarant is slap bang in the middle, Dernholm and Blackroot are in the south west, Caladon at the southernmost point of the mainland. All 4 are coastal.

At first glance, Tarant's location is both a blessing and a curse. One the one hand, it stands on a river that literally splits the continent in half, making Tarant the most important commercial hub in the world and giving it the upper hand against land armies due to increased logistical efficiency. On the other, it is surrounded by potential enemies who can mollify it's biggest strength if they manage to blockade the gulf. From here, it's quite easy to rationalize Tarant's bellicosity.

Blackroot's port is the geostrategic lynchpin of a hypothetical invasion of Tarant. Hold that port and you have the Unified Kingdom by the balls, so subjugating Cumbria and prising away Blackroot was destined to be Tarant's highest priority. With Dernholm out of the way, the unified kingdom's navy automatically makes the transition from green-water to blue water status and gains the freedom to operate unopposed anywhere other than the south, which is tied up by Caladon. Being the last thorn in Tarant's side makes another war a very likely outcome.
 
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Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
PART V: THE FIASCO AT BLACKROOT

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We arrive at Blackroot. Our first stop is the Drop Yer Anchor inn:

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What's on offer?

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What's there to do in town?

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Any gossip?

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Clarissa Shalmo is at the bar

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What are you doing here?

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And you've mastered ALL of the throwing weapons?

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Azram's Star?

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You mean like a boomerang? :lol:

She wants us to retrieve said star, but it's far away in the glimmering forest

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Yeah, sure

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There's a dwarf who will attack you if you speak to him. I don't want to do it, so I've save-scummed this part. He does drop an important bit of lore as he attacks you, though
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Kietzel Pierce is beside the bartender. He's a master of the bow and arrow and gives you a quest to find Dudley, a student of his that has gone missing somewhere to the north

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The Steadfast Anvil is the local blacksmith

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The blacksmith himself is a half orc, which is unusual

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You've had a hard life

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And just like that we get ours hands on the dwarven gauntlets

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We upgrade Virgil's gear as well..

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..and I realize for the first time that the large pipe can be wielded as a weapon

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We pick up a shotgun to ease the combat pain, but we're 1 point shy of the minimum strength requirement

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Grunwalde, an alchemist specializing in poisons, lives to the south

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Some might say that it's a curse

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The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.

There's a locked mansion nearby, so we conduct ourselves in the manner most befitting the monocled era of Victorian Engand: blowing the windows out with the shotgun and jumping inside to ransack the place

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It's a big place, but you can't take any of the firearms from the wall hanging. Not even the bad ass sabre. All we get is some mithril armour from the chest

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The mansion's neighbour is a Mrs. Cameron

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She updates our map and we leave her to her sorrows

To the north is our destination: the home of Blackroot's mayor

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As expected

We question him about the new Tarantian guard that has been posted around Blackroot and find them lacking

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These vague directions are a 'mare. They're to the north west, past the train station, but you wouldn't know from looking at the map. On our way there we stop at the barracks and loot them dry. Oggdoddler is nearby to provide you with melee training if needs be

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He gives us a little clue that will come in handy in a future quest

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The Sour Barnacle has a disenfranchised mage from Dernholm who has been banished from his homeland

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Why aren't you still the head of the church?

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It's safe to assume you're not fond of Praetor?

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He won't join our party because we're tooo evull

Anyways we run past the train station and into the thieves' lair

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We ask him for the ceremonial dagger and are forced to make a choice: buy it back, work for him, kill him. We decide to work for him and pick the 'merchant' quest from the two that are offered

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The job is to acquire some strong poison. I know just the man. You got some poison, Grunwalde?

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I have an infestation problem

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err, rats?

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Uh, they're as big as orcs. Look like them, too!

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We bring back the poison and take a huge dent in our karma

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We haul back the dagger and I fuck up once again

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Here it is

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Just pay the taxes

He refuses. We insist, but the perfidious wanker openly mocks us

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I didn't factor in the c&c when I started this playthrough :negative:

To top it all off, Jayna has gone and left the party! Giving the poison to the thieves has apparently shattered her trust in Byron so she self ejects and stays where we last spoke to the thieves. She is carrying some important items ( like the camera and a decent sword ), so we go back to finish her off

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Things couldn't get any worse, surely? They do. I save the game BEFORE I kill her. When I leave my laptop and reload the game some time later, she's gone. I don't know is she's back at Dernholm with our camera, but she's definitely not in Blackroot any more

:negative::argh::argh::argh::negative:



To the north are a couple of hovels. One has a hedgewizard midget who is quite useless as of yet, whilst the second is abandoned with a hastily written note left on the floor

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There's an interesting little sight which is easy to miss here ( and which doesn't seem to be well known ): if you go the abandoned mansion where we picked up the mithril armour and head south ( ie. down ), you will run into a high level enemy patrolling the woods

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This time it's the Baleful Hound, but I've encountered the Grave Lurkers here as well. A poster on another site says that this is not a glitch, but part of the Liam's Workshop quest, and that there are more monsters in the woods that stand between the workshop and Blackroot. That is probable, but it's interesting that the monster here is unique from the mob of lizards and jellyfish that occupy Liam's workspace. We're underpowered to tackle it right now, so we leave Blackroot, mortified and humbled, and head to Tarant. We take a short detour to Shrouded Hills and speak to Sogg

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You want to join us and bash some skulls?

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Who needs Jayna when you can have Sogg?

We discover Torg's Altar on our way to Tarant.

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But we don't know anything of the ancient Gods as of yet, so... here's Tarant!

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We start off near the boil, a crime ridden slum that is divided in half by a road. To the north are orc gangsters

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To the south are half-ogre gangsters

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Pick your poison

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We thank him for his advice and leave the boil to cross the bridge and enter Tarant proper. The place is huge, with lots to see and hear. It even has a subway system

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I didn't consciously pick up on the surfeit of canals that criss cross through Tarant on my first playthrough. Gondolas would be more appropriate than a subway, but that's just nitpicking. Unlike Fallout, Arcanumites have the right to bear arms and open carry wherever they go and whenever they please

The finely dressed lady overhears us talking to the guards and has a job to offer us

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But it's a secret job, so we'll have to visit her house later to progress
There's a street vendor selling some newspapers nearby. It's a bit tldr but do have a read if you have the time. All of the lore within will bubble up sooner or later

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commie half-orc stirring shit up as per

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mage derails train in self defence

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piracy is back, right at Tarant's doorstep

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we can sell the inside info to make some decent $


We pick up a top hat to appear more civilized than we really are
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And meet some poor bugger who's lost his ring down the sewer
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I'll be back

The telegraph office is down the street and we finally get our hands on Joachim's telegram

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Stillwater? Hmm

Virgil prevaricates some more on Joachim and the nature of their relationship. Even with high charisma, pressing him for info doesn't get any results. Up at the park is a little foul mouthed gnome

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Talk enough shit back at him and eventually he'll give up on the charade

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He doesn't tell us who he is or what he's up to, but he does tell us about the Hall of Records

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Not far away is Thom Grak, a jovial half orc who asks us whether we've seen a gentleman by the name of Matt de Cesare. We say yes [lie], but he's not buying it

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This trivial task will culminate in a quest to uncover a conspiracy that is so evil, so heinous and vile, that it will fill your heart with immense hatred and a burning desire to dispense justice. We must be prepared when the day of reckoning comes. Using our single fate point, we appropriate Sammie White's handcannon.

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over-compensating much, Sammie?

Who said that the wicked prosper?
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Erebus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
4,763
The social and political aspects of Arcanum are largely okay, but it somewhat annoys me that the game uses the super-old "an illegitimate king can't be a good king" cliché. Having the rightful heir be a total ass would be more satisfying.
 

Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
The social and political aspects of Arcanum are largely okay, but it somewhat annoys me that the game uses the super-old "an illegitimate king can't be a good king" cliché. Having the rightful heir be a total ass would be more satisfying.
Yeah, that would have made the decision a lot trickier: keep with the traditions ( which are currently failing ), or break the succession and install a good, but illegitimate, ruler. Having the illegitimate ruler not be kin to the royalty who have been even better.

PS: LP will be late by 3-4 days. Multiverse edition has shat itself and stopped working altogether. I'm replaying vanilla with hi-res patch. We'll be picking up where we left off, with the same character, more or less
 

Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
INTERMEZZO

Yesterday, I sat down to tackle Tarant and complete the next entry of this glorious LP. The multiverse edition, however, had conspired to bring our journey to a screeching halt and decided to spit out an error and auto-close after flashing Troika's logo. Tinkering with the config file, the launcher settings or the file properties did not solve the problem. Salvaging the save files seemed a no-go as well, since they don't carry over to the vanilla version. Fortunately, unlike Lord Byron, I am blessed with high Willpower and resolved to complete the lp with the vanilla version. After spending 40 minutes trying to install the high-res patch, I finally got it working after realizing that Windows has some serious beef with editing files that are in a Program Files subfolder. Well played, Micro$hit, well played.

Anyways, below is a very small aperitif comprised of little changes in c&c, dialogue or points of interest I've encountered in my second playthrough.


If you call Brehgo, the spirit of the dead thief in the secret cave, a liar, then your dialogue will be different when you release him. He won't mock you for being ignorant.

If you give give Arbalah his religious trinket, then kill him and then return to release Brehgo, you will still have a positive karma of +4. If you kill Arbalah without returning the trinket and then release Brehgo, you end up at something like -6.

I realized that the kite bowmen don't have the strength to properly wield their own bows. Is their intellect even lower than their strength?
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Delivering Jongle Donne's package to the shop at Dernholm. Completely forgot about this quest when I was there the first time.
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The great Pits of Dernholm adorn the castle's lands. You can keep talking to the guard until his reaction falls to 0 and he will eventually boot you down.

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If you speak to the gnome in Shrouded Hills ( the one who attacks you at the bridge later ) before you go to Joachim's room at the inn, then Virgil will acknowledge that and warn you that he looks very suspicious.


The Archibald quest in Dernholm:

Archibald refuses to speak with us, but his son Bernard tells us the full story

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What do you mean?

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Then why does she say it was stolen?

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Have you tried talking sense into then?

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Your son told me everything, Archie!

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I know what's going on between you two

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Gladys likes you

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She confided in me she was interested in you.

Long story short, it has a happy ending and we get our xp.

We go to Blackroot and visit the southern edge of town to see the Grave Lurker enemy where the baleful hound used to be.

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We withhold the dagger from the mayor of Blackroot. He seems to be a man of principle and doesn't have his guard just slaughter us. Instead, he gives us the chest of gold in exchange for the ceremonial dagger.

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We'll have to find a buyer to pawn the gold. No way in hell are we giving it to Praetor. There's 300lb of gold in the suitcase, but it won't bring us too much money since Arcanum operates along a strict gold standard - it's money is minted out of the stuff.

There are lemon trees all over Arcanum. They function like 'unlocked' containers that contain lemons :D

The wolf cave is cleared. There's about 400 gold in one of the chests at the end. I expected more.

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We bring back the package to Jongle in Shrouded Hills

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Could you share your secret?

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And we arrive where we left off, almost the same character ( albeit our karma is more positive ). There's another newspaper which we didn't see on our last visit

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Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
PART VI: AT THE CATACOMBS OF MADNESS

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Our first task is to do some shopping and see what's on sale. It's slim pickings, but we manage to nab a schematic for crafting the goggled helmet.​

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Ronald Langley greets the visitors to the Bridesdale Inn

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You recommend this place?

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No conflict of interest here. Just an impartial recommendation

How do we travel in Tarant?

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We can call it .. Underrail :smug:

Where can I go sightseeing?

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Little south of that is the Wellington Gentleman's club. The doorman lets us inside

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Inside is a newspaper on a high profile heist

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A dwarf by the name of Mr. Rockharrow is a pro gambler

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And in the corner is a dark elf who can give you a simple quest

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I'd appreciate the work

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We get the note. We'll have a quick peek at it later. At the counter is Matt de Cesare, apparently drunk

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A message from Thom Grak

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Good day

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It's quite hard to see, but what happens is that as soon as your conversation ends, a half orc ( probably Grak himself ) attempts to assassinate Cesare. Cesare shoots him and then initiates the conversation with you.

What are you talking about?

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I just met him on the street

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What's all this about?

He takes us outside to speak in private

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How do I do that?

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They're in a warehouse somewhere in the city. We'll find them.

The residential district houses a bunch of bigwig gnomes. The head of the Industrial Council, the 'democratically' elected gov. of Tarant, Edward Willoughsby, is currently away

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You can still go down to the basement of his house, but it's infested with mechanized arachnids which will tear you apart

We find the woman who needed to speak with us in private at the bridge

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You want me to steal it?

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She wants us to steal an ancient elven burial .. rock, or something of that sort. We update our map and move on for now.

There's a thief loitering around the district who knows Lucan the Witless

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He gives us an address if you want to throw in your lot with the Thieves. I doubt we'll be too successful with that.

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The lady who had her painting stolen is nearby

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I'm Lord Byron, a pleasure

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Is there anything I can do?

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First mention of Kerghan

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We agree to help her. It's funny that despite having an extensive art collection, the Garrinsburgs live in a tiny studio apartment.

Oh yeah, here's the newspaper clipping that Pettibone showed us

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And here's the note that we got from the dark elf

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Interesting

More elitist gnomes populate the west side of Tarant

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And we find our first fortune teller..

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Could you read my future?

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Could I help you with the acquisition of another crystal ball?

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Of course

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Toussade? You know her?

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The HQ of the Tarantian are nearby

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I survived the ISF Zephyr

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500? You've got yourself a story!

We tell him it was shot down by never seen before aircraft
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At the train station is Wilhemina's boyfriend

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He is crestfallen and asks us to go to the stonecutters for a funeral tombstone

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There's a dark magic shop near the canals, but it's locked. We break down two sets of doors and .. nothing. Maybe we have to be more evil before the shopkeeper materializes?

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Next up is Parnell's, an interesting exhibition of oddities gathered from across the continent

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First, we ask about the Stillwater Giant ( the big guy in the glass casing )

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How did you acquire the pelt?

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Franklin Payne? Updated my journal.

What about the Brahmin?

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What about that tiny head?

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There's also Gar, a pretty smart orc

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Tell me about the politics

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What can you tell me of tea?

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I prefer green myself. That's heresy to Gar's ears, though.

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We leave Parnell's little exhibit and finally stumble upon 44, Devonshire way. Magnus, a dwarf, is loitering outside.

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Vergil is having none of it

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We diffuse the situation and ask him why he's so secretive about his name

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What can you tell me of the Schuylers?

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Yet there's something strange about them?

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Anything else?

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Why would they kill their customers?

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He's here to investigate a bracelet he acquired a while back. They bear the same symbol as the dwarf clan that had bequethed his dwarven gauntlets to him.

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Have you spoken to the Schuylers, then?

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Wanna join us?

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That surprises me so I glance at my karma meter. It's still +1:|

The shopkeer is not very helpful

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We convince him that we're with the Tarantian authorities

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You're in no position to demand anything

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What's going on down there?

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Alright, we'll take care of it

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Zombies. Zombies everywhere.

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And at the end are a whole bunch of undead gnomes, who appear to act like the zombies of Planescape Torment: mindless slave labour

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Those dwarves look Strange, Magnus

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Let's see what's going on then. In the very next room are the Schuylers.

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This is a house of horrors

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I need the name of one of your clients

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I have seen a lot..

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I need info pertaining to a ring

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See for yourself

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And the identity of the owner?

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But what is it have I seen?

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Darker arts?

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Was this always the family business?

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Interesting..

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Kerghan's name dropped once again. Bane of Kree, as well.

How did you go into business?

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And so?

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And the eyeless five?

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Arand gem dealer?

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So you built the store over the tomb?

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I see why they might be leery

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Where to go from here?

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The dwarves won't accept this

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Maybe we can reach an agreement?

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Magnus isn't happy

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Magnus, plz..

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I'm sorry Magnus. Go right ahead, though. I'll watch.

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I don't really want to speak to a corpse

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Of course

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I don't believe we've met

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Sounds like you might already know that

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I'm seeking the owner of a ring

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What are you talking about?

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Speak plainly

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Thank you, Pelonius

We take our leave of the necromancers and go back up. A quick trip to the dockside, we find a trader who's willing to take the gold off our hands for 2k in gold
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Stocked up on gold and info, we will wrap up a few more quests in the next part, before paying a visit to Bates himself

Merry Christmas everyone:salute:
 
Last edited:

Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
arguing with Gar about tea was hilarious

Byron even had a box of Earl Grey with him when arguing :D
You can recruit Gar, but I don't know the exact stats that you need. Probably higher persuasion skill. He's voiced so I'll see if I can pry him away from Parnell's in the next episode.
 

Major_Blackhart

Codexia Lord Sodom
Patron
Joined
Dec 5, 2002
Messages
18,300
Location
Jersey for now
You need a Charisma of 9 and I think 1 rank in persuasion. Maybe 2. Either way, he's a great character. But he's also very good.
Still, putting him in some sort of plate and giving him an axe and a shield is badass.
 

Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
You need a Charisma of 9 and I think 1 rank in persuasion. Maybe 2.
I have charisma of 14 and 1 rank in persuasion, so it's probably the latter. I'm playing vanilla now though, so I'll have to watch that level 50 limit.
 

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