My companions don't either, so it's up to me to shoot him down
We get attacked by bunnies on the fur ranch as we're leaving. We just about manage to escape.
The solution to the gods quest can be sussed out from the book and the map that you can find in Tarant's university. You must make an offering to all of the gods in a particular order ( some of the gods have to receive an offering twice ). As you give each god an offering, you get a blessing that improves some of your skills or stats. However, each offering negates the blessing of the previous god. If you're looking to beef up a couple of stats, you can find the pertinent god and simply make one offering and leave it at that. But if you curry the favour of the whole pagan pantheon, you can then get the blessing of the all-father, whose altar we will find in Vendigroth ruins.
First up is Terel, at Falcon's Ache. This is the place that broke our opportunity to meet the Silver Lady. The altar needs a Litani statue. We picked one up at Ashbury's local junk dealer.
Aaawhwaahwhaaa
Next up is Makaal, the god of the Bedokaan lizard people. He wants a heartstone, which are conveniently scattered near their village.
We also use one of the heartstones to craft the dwarf key that we were told by Eric Obsidian at the Wheel Clan
The last time I was in the village, I had to rescue the elf that the lizards threw into a pit. I did rescue him, but I forgot to talk to him as I was leaving. Let's do that now.
Good day to you. ( He doesn't yet know that we are literally Hitler in Qintarra by now )
I'v forgotten where I need to use the dwarf key, so I pop in to the Wheel Clan to ask Eric again.
Well, it seems that I can't really ask him, but we get a clue about the Durin Stone. I think there's a book about that stone over in Caladon, at the house of Misk's widow. Whilst we're in the wheel clan, we can also make an offering to Alberich, which is the next god in the sequence
And since we know that the dark elves banished the BMC clan, we can talk to Loghaire some more
[tell him]
(If you have Z'an in your party, you get a unique conversation here, which is pretty cool )
Z'an intercedes:
Loghaire:
Z'an:
Loghaire:
Z'an
Loghaire:
Z'an:
Loghaire:
Splendid! Will you join me?
Next altar is Geshtianna's at Stillwater. We've reinstated the statue, so it's a quick in-n'-out. I panic when I can't find any passion root in the garden. Thankfully I had a spare in my inventory.
Next up is Halcyon, at Vooriden
He needs an olive branch, which you can pluck from a tree in the wheel clan gardens
And now we've received the blessing from the 'Light' or 'good' Gods, with Halcyon being the eldest of this group.
The dark circle of Gods is up next. Torg, the very first altar you discover in the game, wants a ruby
Then we have Bolo, the halfling God of thieves, who wants a ring
Next up is Kerlin which is all the way over in the Grey Plains. He wants the M'nura coin.
Up next is Shakar, the orc god of war, standing amidst the ruins of Kree
I decide to sail from Caladon to Ashbury and cut down the travel time. Hey! Get off my ship!
Such a cool altar. I'd worship Shakar without second thoughts.
And finally, we descend into the ancient temple to lay a black diamond at the foot of Moorindal's altar.
It's funny how you notice new things even after playing the game for a hundred hours, like the skull corbels on the pillars.
That's the dark circle blessing complete.
So now we need to the third circle. This is where I rage quit.
The third circle involves worshiping some of the gods of both circles for a second time. I did not factor this in when I was collecting the items of worship, so I have no items to give. First up is Alberich, who needs a lava rock. I don't have a lava rock, so I go into the Dredge. It's not there.
So I go into the crystal spider tunnel place and fastidiously turn over all of the crates looking for that damned rock. Nothing.
We then go back to the BMC mine. I eventually stumble upon a few lava rocks on the floor here.
One issue which I've never broached during this playthrough until now is the game's performance. If you recall, the multiverse edition stopped working very early in my playthrough, forcing me to migrate to the vanilla version with the high res patch. My usual procedure for getting the game to work great on my bog standard laptop was appending the -no3d -doublebuffer parameters to the launcher properties. But the high res patch negates these changes by assuming control of the parameters that are being fed to the launcher. Tweaking the appropriate params in the mod's text files does not affect the performance. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if I was playing a tough guy loner who was cutting his way through the enemies by himself, but having 7 or 8 companions in tow in tight nit corridors of the Dredge or the BMC mines simply kills the performance. And I'm not talking about fps 'dips' or 20 fps or anything like that. No. I'm getting a solid 2 fps, sometimes dipping to 0.5 fps, in the BMC mines or Wheel Clan mines when my companions are on the screen.
I've been tweaking the files and looking up solutions for a few weeks now, but it seems like vanilla game + high res patch without uap patch is a weird cocktail that nobody else plays. So I have to grit my teeth and bear with it. Rummaging in the Dredge and the BMC just got on my nerves after a while, and I wanted to get this quest out of the way as quickly as possible. It doesn't help when the dwarven layouts often slap walls everywhere for no reason, like so:
(Could they not cut a passage straight through?)
So we to Alberich and we give him the lava rock. Job well done.
Up next is Makaal.
I scour the coast north of the bedokaans to see if I've missed any lagoons or ancient temples or anything of the sort. In a strange coincidence I end up landing in the Secret Village at the end of my journey in the world map.
Kites dancing on a corpse. What cunts.
Now that I think of it, kites are kind of creepy. Packs of deformed, greying humanoids the size of children, stabbing and slashing you with their hunting knives.
No thank you. I prefer fighting rabid wolves.
We pop over to Stillwater to replenish some of ammo stocks
And then I realize that Kerlin is one of the gods in the third circle. I don't have any more Mnura coins, I sold them all to the junk trader in Tarant. Fuck!
I take a meandering way to Tarant, stopping over at the ancient temple to see if there are any mnura coins there. Nope, none. I've cleared them all out. Alright then, let's go to Tarant.
Hey Cal-
Ok, then. Wise lady, do you perchance have a Mnura coin?
No she doesn't. So we go to the abandoned warehouse at the docks
Nothing.
We go to the sewers
Nothing.
We go to the magical shop and guess what? I die. From arrows, no less.
The shopkeeper lands a critical hit and knocks me unconscious. Before my party can get anywhere near him, he unleashed a torrent of arrows that take my health all the way to zero. Fantastic. When did I last save? Before I found the lava rock in the BMC for the alberich altar.
No, I'm not completing this quest. Let's go to Vendigroth. We arrive at the 'gates' to find a halfling camped near the bridge.
Who are you?
A halfling adventurer?
May I ask you some questions?
tell me of your adventures
found anything interesting in your travels?
Did you see any cities in the wastes?
Wanna join me?
Show me where it is
Sure, I'll do it
Before I go, what monsters have you seen over there?
did you speak to it?
We leave the little guy and cross the bridge to the wastes
[steampunk intensifies]
And the wastes aren't a misnomer
We don't need to do this quest, since Perriman has already told us where Tulla is ( which is the town in question ), but let's do it anyway
If you look carefully, the enemies are Bedokaan midgets.
Took me a while to spot it
On our way back, we encounter the half spider half woman critters
I have the part
Here
Join me!
Alright. We then go to the Dark Elf camp. This is the destination assigned to us by Kan Hua.
There's only the one guy here, and he's dead. Has a diary on him.
And the ruins of Vendigroth appear on our wold map.
But let's go to Tulla first. It's an interesting city with a couple of memorable characters
What is this place?
Who?
Ok
BOOM
Let's do that again
I could do this all day.
At first, I thought the hellbeasts were statues, but no, they're real apparently
Virgil, do you have a moment?
Is something wrong?
I'm not the real Nasrudin, eh?
Z'an, tell me of this place
There's an intricate pool in the centre of the town
And here's the 'fortress'
Because Tulla is a mage city, the fortress houses all of the masters for the magick colleges. They're only important if you're an aspiring mage, and they mostly say the same thing when you speak to them, but their rooms are all different and a couple of 'em have some unique dialogue.
What are you master of?
are you scared of tech?
tell me of the force college
From now on, I won't post any text since all of the questions are almost the same. I'll divide the different masters with a '***'
***
***
Nice indoor pool
what does this have to do with me?
what is required of me?
what if he doesn't listen?
what if he becomes violent?
Alright I'll do it
***
I doubt the masses would enjoy being scorched, madam
***
(Best suite in the house)
***
( is he high? )
***
some nice art
***
[appearing shocked]
***
Good for you
Can you cure a werewolf?
Can I acquire some?
No thanks, let's just talk of your magick
***
***
(Necromancer?)
(Bingo)
***
***
***
(why so many midgets?)
Sumner? That can't be your real name! Surely not!
explain summoning to me ( iq < 85 )
***
powerful comment
***
***
***
That's enough of that. We go back to the main hall.
No handrails.
Excuse me? Get out of my way plz.
I am?
I'm NOT doing anything perverted for you
so tell what you want
Are you for real? Why would I do that?
Ok..
What happens if we enter the circle?
Nothing. Here's the mural.
Yeah, keep your hands where I can see them.
We go inside.
Are those lizard cherubs on the globes? You have a thing for lizards, old man?
Nasrudin sent me. He wants to send me to hell with a glorified pump that will suck the life out his son. What are your thoughts on the matter, oh wise one?
Your perspicacity amazes me. How did you know? Was it my giant goggles?
Yes. Nasrudin isn't a magickfag, unlike you.
Who can help me then
Are you surprised that I've spoken to Nasrudin?
Oh I'm sure he does. I'm sure you see him splayed across the starry night sky after your daily fix of kedura stem. But, as a matter of fact, he's alive and well living on Thanatos.
Yes. Yes it is.
[tell him your story]
So where do I find this P-Lotion guy
Oh I see. Let me rephrase my original question then.
Ahem.
So HOW do I find this P-Lotion guy
Happy now?
How do I proceed?
So mind sharing his history then? ffs
Tell me of his art
The perv that hangs outside your door wanted me to state at his mural before I came in here.
Who is he anyway?
So I have to ask him for more info then?
What does that shitty painting in the hall represent?
What of P-Lotion's poetry?
So the answers could be in his poetry?
So where do I look?
He was a clairvoyant as well, you said
What did he foresee?
Wow that's impressive
He founded Tulla
What was he looking for?
So what do I do now?
I think I've determined that this whole place is just a waste of my time. Enjoy worshiping PLotion's dead ghost!
What are you looking at?
Perriman, tell me where we are right now.
Yep.
Time to leave.
Uh, not exactly
why do you want to go back inside?
but what of your armour?
you'd 'corrupt' their little establishment
Ecke told me you volunteered
yet you still believed in them enough to listen to them
They have no honour. They sent you out to die.
They were the ones that insulted you when they shunned you. I mean, have you seen the guy who hangs outside Tor's room? Or those underage lizard statues on the globes in Tor's room? The place is a hive of scum and villainy that should be nuked from orbit.
It's night time, you stupid prick.
And what's Ecke gonna say if he sees you? 'Gimme the gem and get out' is what. So gimme the gem and go.
I'm tired of babysitting you. If you could sling two brain cells together, you'd turn around and go to the bridge right now. Another 5 days of travel and you'd be in Ashbury. But I guess screaming at a wall in a desert like a lunatic is a lot more fulfilling. Good luck with that.
Phew. We finally leave Tulla and head straight for the Vendigroth ruins
Do we dare? We dare
The remnants of the lost civilization are well preserved.
There are ancient newspapers here
Insectress infestation
To get around, we'll have to take the vents
There's some unique firearms here, as well
Yep, it's a long journey
Arronax
Schematics
We go through another vent and ermagerd, robots!
Seems like Vendigroth put up a security system that survived the war
More schematics
This lot run after Z'an and start slapping her all over. MeToo'd by automatons. How embarrassing!
It's a shame I've burned down Tarant, innit, Z'an? You could have written a book about it. Fifty Shades of 'groth, coming out in serial installments in the Tarantian this summer! An unforgettable story, full of high-t alphabots! The gnomes' trophy wives would have loved it.
We find an unknown chemical compound here
That's not what we're looking for. Onward!
What's this?
I didn't know we were looking for a neutron bomb all this time.
We go back out, to see the fortress itself
And here is the great altar of the all-father, Velorien
Standing before it fills me with a great jealousy of the Vendigroth ubermensch that must have once received their blessings here. I'm not letting your game bully me, Timnard. I'm getting the blessing.
I retrace my steps with blessing at Wheel Clan and the Bedokaan village. We need a mnura coin. Where could it be? Not in the ancient temple.
Not in the elf city. Not in the Tarantian shops. Not in elf burial site. Not in K-
It was in Kree all along, sitting in the very first crate.
Hope you choke on it, Kerlin
We discover the strange ceremony as we're travelling to Bolo's altar
We toss 'em all into the bonfire and throw some fuel on top
At Bolo's altar
Now we get the blessing from the third circle's patriarch, Kaitan, which stands at Gorgoth's pass. Troika placed a geode 2 metres away from the altar. how nice of them.
So we have done the third circle, the circle of neutrality
Looking good
After an arduous journey across the whole continent, we reach Vendgroth once more.
I just want to point out that in-game, our journey so far has takes us a little over 6 years. That's pretty incredible ( and kind of sad ).
The moment of truth is here. To get the blessing, we have to give up our life. Will it work?
Yes it does.
I'm faster and healthier; a new man, an overman
Without really investing any points in constitution of combat oriented skills, the journey to get the blessing of the all father has bumped our hp 218, our DX to 17 and granted us non-trivial skill in both melee and dodge.
I guess I can smash skulls with an axe from now on
Well, with another lengthy journey we get back to Roseborough
Nasrudin has taken care of Kan Hua at the rings of Brogdar
What happened here?
Not quite
I have my reasons.
We travel north west, beside the coast, to discover the mannox cave
Click on the door and your protagonist will say the password ( if he's discovered the blood writing in the crypt under the panarii temple )
We get the full story of Mannox
Well, that's that.
Before we go to the rings of Brogdar, we have one other place to visit. Blackroot.
Remember the big house where I smashed the windows to get in? The empty one? Well, it hasn't been empty since we've visited Caladon. I should have returned here sooner, but better late than never
Excuse me?
Sir, are you sure of your assessment of me?
Well met, Franklin!
What are you doing here in Blackroot?
why?
And so?
What are the supplies you're seeking?
(this guy is awesome)
Tell me of your adventures
still..
Teach told me of the fire giants
tell me your version!
Ha! Tell me about the most valuable thing you ever recovered?
what sort of work?
Tell me of your greatest battle
What's the most dangerous place you've ever visited?
[Lie] I'm going there myself, actually
You know, I could use a man like you on Thanatos
So you'll join me?
Perriman, it's been a .. pleasure, but ever since I discovered just how depraved Tulla really is, I've been meaning to part ways
Payne, we're one man shy of full house
Let's go then. Here, have the blue armour.
Payne can craft a few rudimentary items. We won't be needing any of them.
Before we go there, do you know anything about the Ring, Payne?
And tell me of Blackroot
Alright, let's go people.
Where have we not been in this playthrough? Probably the biggest quest I've missed has been the Iron Clan quest. The key which we crafted opens the great iron casket in the tarantian zoological society, which would then lead you down a long journey to find the long lost iron clan of the dwarves. I could have done it, but since I have neither Magnus ( who died at Schuyler's place ), nor Loghaire ( who doesn't like me ), in my party, we can't really trigger any unique conversations or change the ending in any way. It's a shame, but I've made my peace with it.
The other place is the Snel F'na castle that Black mistook for the Ashbury castle. I admit that I've never been there in my 3 or 4 playthroughs of Arcanum. I've walked past that place at least 8 times in this lp alone, yet it never appeared on my world map even with a high perception. I don't feel like looking for the place with a guide. It feels like cheating. We didn't spot it, so it remains a mystery.
Another place is the Thief Cave near Roseborough. That place has just the one quest attached; framing some guy on behalf of the thieves in Roseborough, or handing the thieves over to the guard. I'd have done it if I had the scroll of shrinking on me, but alas.
What else? I can't think of anything substantial. Tarantian sewers? Who cares about them anyways.
Looking over the map of Arcanum, we've uncovered most of the important landmarks. The places which we've missed are: The Bog, Lair of Gyr Dolours, Ruins of Szabo, Vollinger's Meeting Place, The Bog, Razors Pointe and a couple of places on Thanatos island. Out of all that, maybe the lair of gyr dolours would be worth doing, but it's tied in with the master of melee/dodge quests. If you're not a fighter, it's not worth it. The other places might embellish the lore and flesh out a couple of the characters, but they're a minor side dish at most.
One of my biggest regrets was forgetting about Franklin Payne for so long. He returned to Blackroot around the time I first visited Caladon. Having him in the party would have triggered a few unique conversations along our journey. It is what it is.
Nasrudin..
Yes. We've been honing our skill for 6 years, we have crossed the continent countless times, we've fought everything from robots to hellbeasts. We're ready to take down Arronax.
The game is not clear on this point, but Nasrudin passes away during our banishment. The goodbye is very real.
A great thunder shakes the ring and golden sparks blur our vision. We open our eyes and find ourselves in the hellish desolation that is the void.
Hordes of great lizards scutter across the dirt plains, looking for easy prey. Something tells me that lizards are far from the worst we'll encounter here.
Somewhere here, Arronax gathers his strength, and sometime soon we will come face to face.
Join me next time as we fight the final battle; a battle that might well be the last not just for this playthrough, but for Arcanum itself.
but I think it looks worse than the original Fallouts in many aspects. I know Troika was borderline an indie studio at the time and I don't fault them, but go look at the sprite animations of Fallout and compare to Arcanum's, even if Arcanum is obviously technically superior.
