Completed Let's play Ravenhood, a Dungeon Master mod

[CryptRat]

Many mods are available for Dungeon Master and I never played any before. What's intriguing about this one is all the available characters each with unique abilities and especially abilities unlocking shortcuts and alternative paths.

All the characters' descriptions for reference :

Spoiler

CHAMPIONS


Amazon Yolanda Novice Earth Magic
Make arrow Create 2x arrow from grass sticks (they can be poisoned for better damage)
Repair bow Bow have limited durability (actual durability value can be check in item info) after it expire bow will broke and need to be repaired.
Alter branch She can make magic staff from branch the same as drudess. She live in forest and have knowledge about craft and magic from wood.

Apprentice Nathan Novice Fire Magic
Medium armor He is young smith and can do few basic items to fight and protection. Can make two items from one iron ore: badly shaped iron shield (this shield after bless is one from best in game) and common iron helm.
Make weapons Axes are simple weapons, easy to make by novice. He make cleaver and hatchet from one iron ore. Always good to have few weapons for throwing (can be poisoned, sharpened for better damage)
Protection He work near fire and learn how protect from hot. Skill increase fire resistance of whole party

Assassin Samuel Novice Witchcraft Magic
Smoke bomb Created in flask, when explode make smoke which can hold monster for while, but dont kill him
New shuriken Make two ninja stars from one iron ore (it can be poisoned for better damage)
Poison star Poison ninja stars: shurikens, using powder mixture from mushrooms and roots, dont need flasks with poison etc so its very fast process.

Bard Randy Novice Spirit Magic
Battle song Restore stamina of whole team (inspire team when they are tired)
Streetwise Stand in front of NPC and use skill to get more informations.
Identify He have large knowledge and can identify rare items. In few places are hidden unknown orbs, they are very dusty so most of peoples dont known what it is, after identify they become magic orbs. Its alternate way to find main quest items.

Blacksmith Frank Novice Fire Magic
Make weapons Make short sword and dagger from one iron ore (they can be poisoned and blessed)
Heavy armor He is experienced smith. From one iron ore can make breastplate (which is very strong at begining and after blessing become one from best plate armor in game) and scale mail.
Protection Increase fire resistance of whole party

Cook Alisha Novice Witchcraft Magic
Frying pan Create item which can be used to fry raw food (meat, fish, steak) First advantage is that she dont need run to fireplace, but improve it everywhere want. Second is that cooked meat is tasty, give more energy and dont require cutlery to avoid disease.
Cup of juice From apple make fruit juice which is very refreshing (give bonus +25 to four primary stats)
Fishing rod Fish can be catched only on shore (near big water) Chances to catch something depend on place, more remote is better and its 20-30% You will always catch something there, just require some patience.

Corsair Roy
Build raft In first stage use skill near small trees to get wood logs. Raft must be finished in deep water (throw it into water) When complete allow team travell to new locations: small islands. (It is possible to find treasures on islands, to do that he must use shovel. Option: search here is process of searching where "here" mean under your feet.)
Disarm trap Treasures are usualy protected by traps, thats why he learned this skill. It make trap jammer, when placed on pad: deactivate it.
Set palisade Easy to made wood barrier, it can be four of them on one square

Courtisane Marion
Seduction Another way to calm down enemies for while, work mostly on humans
Dancing Whirl dance which move and rotate party in random direction (usefull for fast retreat)
Pickpocket She dont care if somebody pay or not, just take everything she want. The same skill as Robber.

Crusader Harry Expert Light Magic
Diplomacy Give some chance that monsters will stop attack team (for while)
Bless weapon Improve weapons (war dagger, short sword, long sword) Similar to sharpening, after use they again become common weapons.
Turn undead Make blessed water in flask, the same as can be found in temples, its very powerfull weapon against ghosts.

Dragon raider David Master Air Magic
Carry more Magic spell in flask, which allow to carry few kg more and it also give some light (dont expire, can be removed in fireplace because its cold spell)
Levitation It work similar to climbing but much longer, party can fly above traps and pit
Thunder bolt Offence spell with similar properties to ice bolt but stronger.

Drow Shirley Expert Mind Magic
Infravision She can see in darkness without using any items
Paralysis Every monsters in sight cant move and attack for while.
Open tunnel She live underground and learn from dwarves how open secret tunnels in mine.

Druidess Rachel Expert Earth Magic
Forest path She can make shortcuts trough forest, stand near strange bushes and use skill to make path there. Allow to save lot of time in outdoor travells.
Alter branch She make magic staff from branch (can be used to summon worm) One from best summoning because each party member can have such staff.
Grass carpet Grass grown in every place where is cast this spell.

Dwarf worker Jeremy
Make lamp When find oil and flask, can make lamp. Its not super bright but never expire and can be used as effective fire bomb (only once, after explode flask will break)
Open tunnel He known where are secret corridors in dwarven mine, stand front to strange wall and use skill to reveal passage. Usualy in secret corridors can be found ore and dwarven weapons.
Sharp weapon He learn how keep in good condition feavourite weapon of dwarves: axe, the same skill as knight.

Faerie Nicole Master Light Magic
Enchantment She use magic dust to make magic items: silver ankh can be used for healing, great sword and great axe as magic weapons will never expire (dont lost their sharpness and blessing) Magic dust can be made from ashes, its weightless and allow to carry more, similar to magic light spell.
Bless armour Improve few armours and thor hammer necklace (blessed can be used to improve swords)
Bless weapon Improve weapons (war dagger, short sword, long sword) Similar to sharpening, after use they again become common weapons.

Frost mage Gloria Master Water Magic
Ice bolt Cast bolt of ice, mostly damage everything which is hot.
Blizzard When explode create raining snow cloud. It can hold enemy for while and kill slowly by freezing.
Wall of Ice Good barrier which can stop monsters for while, unless it melt very fast in fire. Harmless to party.

Gladiator James
First aid heal own injures, but not very much health
Threaten he say random message to scare enemies (from M&M6-8 voices)
Equipment He learn how make primitive equipment often used on arena. Shield and weapon is made from broken barrel. Plank can be modified using long iron nails to make spiked plank (can be poisoned and have largest amount of critical hits)

Gypsy Jessica Expert Claivorance Magic
See future for while can look through walls and closed doors
Cheat fate make coin which is universal, fit to every coin slot etc where coin is need to use (allow to skip few things and make faster progress)
Streetwise Stand in front of NPC and use skill to get more informations.

Highlander Craig
Stone wall He make wall of stone, barrier which block monsters (until they destroy it, monsters can destroy every barriers player place)
Climb over Beside climb up and down there is also possible to climb over pit. With him you can explore few more places, also usefull to "jump" over trap pad.
Open tunnel The same as dwarf skill, he was often in mountain caves and found how enter secret corridors dig by dwarves.

Heretic Ralph Master Dark Magic
Dark ritual He drawn pentagram on floor, when its placed on burning skull, will open pentagram doors nearby.
Summon demon Probably most dangerous creature, when it turn against team, you will have troubles, but can be very helpfull during big battles.
Sacrifice He drawn circle of runes and kill small animal inside.

Huntress Sharon Novice Earth Magic
Forest path The same skill as druidess (she have similar knowledge about forest)
Make Sling Create two slings from one animal fur. Very quick range weapon (bow and crossbow are harder to find, more slow in use, and have limited durability, thats why sling is best at begining)
Summon Wolf Some wolves may be friendly to her and come to help in battle.

Jeweler Helen Novice Light Magic
Silver ankh She make necklaces. Ankh give bonus to mana (can be enchanted by Faerie)
Thor hammer This necklace give bonus to HP (can be blessed by princess)
Magic Stone From magic dust she made silver ore which may be used to create jewelry. Its fastest way to create necklaces if she is in team with faerie.

Knight Charles
Sharp weapon Whetstone, can be used to sharp weapons (cleaver, hatchet, large axe) Sharpening give better damage for weapon, after some time of use they again become dull (faster when stronger hit)
Set palisade Easy to made wood barrier, it can be four of them on one square
Make Armor He make studded leather armor from animal fur. It give good protection as chainmail and bonus to dexterity.

Merchant Aaron Expert Air Magic
Carry more Magic spell in flask, which allow to carry few kg more and it also give some light (dont expire, can be removed in fireplace because its cold spell)
Sew new bag Create leather bag, after update bags can be put to chest. He is best person to carry stuff because other characters will dont find any bags and chests.
Identify The same skill as Bard, he trade items and known how identify rarities.

Necromancer Cynthia Master Necromancy Magic
Resurrection Resurrect dead party member (dont need to search vi altars)
Raise dead The same as Undertaker skill
Back to life She can ressurect dead adventurer using his skull. Many bones of dead adventurers may be found during journey but only not damaged skulls can be used to cast this spell.

Queen Margret Expert Order Magic
Manners She make cuttlery from silver ore, it raise morale when use it for eating.
Audience Dont need to solve puzzles and quests to enter few places (druids temple, dark fortress, witch hut) Just stand near gate and use skill to open it.
Open Door it remove magic barriers and unlock doors from distance

Priestess Amber Master Body Magic
Healing aura Restore 30% health of whole team, but dont heal injures
Battle medic Heal injures of whole party
Bless party Increase magic resistance of whole party

Princess Rebecca Expert Light magic
Diplomacy The same as crusader skill but female voice
Bless armour Improve few armours and thor hammer necklace (blessed can be used to improve swords)
Manners She make cuttlery from silver ore, it raise morale when use it for eating.

Robber Douglass
Pickpocket He can steal items from NPC, stand in front of them and use skill (it work only once on particular person and dont promise always valuables)
Streetwise Use it to get more informations from every NPCs.
New lockpick create lockpick, it can open many doors (dissappear after use)

Royal guard Terry
Fix Crossbow The same as bow it have limited durability after break it must be fixed (current amount of that weapon durability can be check in item info)
Make arrow Create 2x arrow from grass sticks (they can be poisoned for better damage)
Audience The same skill as queen but man voice. As king messanger he have free pass to every castles.

Shaman Michael Expert Witchcraft Magic
Search herbs Its mushrooms, when consume give hallucinations (can see through walls) or can be used to create poison mixture (the same as from poison fountain)
Summon wasp Swarm of wasp, friendly to team which chase enemies
Search roots He can find anywhere edible roots, usefull as food and antidote

Sorceress Valerie Master Fire Magic
Cast inferno Cast spell similar to fireball. She is master of fire magic.
Fire wall Cast fire wall, its good barrier but dont stand too close, it burn everything
Living flame The same as wizard fire element but much better, only she can cast strongest fire spells, she is hot! Living flames have chaotic nature and will attack also party.

Survivalist Carlos
Hunt food He can make traps to catch animals, skill give raw food.
Search water Its drinkable water but but with no healing properties.
Camp fire He is able to find anywhere fire wood to make fire and grill meat.

Tavern wench Paula
Find bottle She can find more flasks in storage cellars. Stand near nonbreakable barrels and use skill.
Cup of wine Create wine in chalice, hold chalice in left hand and use skill to fill it.
Make bota Create bota from animal fur, hold it in hand and use skill.

Thief Brenda Novice Order Magic
New lockpick create lockpick, it can open many doors (dissappear after use)
Disarm trap make trap jammer, when placed on pad: deactivate it.
Open Door it remove magic barriers and unlock doors from distance

Undertaker Scott Expert Necromancy Magic
Death claws He can make magic weapon from club (can be found somewhere near tree) It can easy send back to hell every skeletons (if they block player path and dont need them anymore on some map level)
Raise dead Summon skeleton which fight on your side, and is friendly to team.
Dark cloak Make cloak from animal fur, it give bonus to wisdom +30 but person who wear it feel very weak -15vit

Wizard Brandon Master Dark Magic
Fire element Create one magic flame which chase enemies, can be dangerous to party. Similar to Living flame spell but give better controll and its cast faster.
Dark ritual He drawn pentagram on floor, when its placed on burning skull, will open pentagram doors nearby.
Hell dagger Turn dagger into magic weapon which can cast 5 charges of inferno. For while whole team may use offence fire spells. Its not very safety to hold it in hand and dexterity is decreased by -10 points

Valkyria Amanda Novice Viking Magic
Sew boots She make warm boots one from best in game
Threaten The same as gladiator skill but female voice.
Runestone She turn rock into magic runestone, when thrown it create blizard.

Vampiress Rosa Expert Dark Magic
Blood lust Its blood from enemies, delicious and harmless to her but deadly to other champions. Only few dark, tough characters can drink it and survive. It work like strong healing potion, storaged in flask.
Summon bats Summon couple of small bats which fight on your side
Seduction Its difficulty to drink somebody blood if he escape, she learn the same skill as courtisane.

Villain Sean Expert Chaos Magic
Demolition He make scratches on wall (can be usefull to navigate in labirynth)
Pandemonium Relase four rats. He is able to make total plague but skill is limited, require to use dirty raw meat.
Evil growl He make scary noise, many enemy mages fall into panic after hear it. When succes its growl, when failure to scare its whisper.

Voodoo witch Sara Master Voodoo magic
Make dart Create two darts from one piece of iron ore (they must be poisoned to cast curse spell)
Make doll Make doll of monster from rags. When pierce it by dart every monsters in sight are cursed for while and cant move. Similar to drow paralysis, slow in creating process but whole team can use it.
Search herbs Its mushrooms, when consume give hallucinations (can see through walls) or can be used to create poison mixture (the same as from poison fountain)

I'm not sure I understood the magic part, I think it's just that some of the three abilities are spells, but maybe I'm wrong and the characters can cast spells additionnally to the three specified abilities.

I'm still in the beginning of the game, so I can restart with a new team if some people want to join, just tell me which character you want to reincarnate and the new name.

Let's go anyway.

Spoiler

We start in an inn which works as the hall of heroes.

We recruit Donna the thief, who can disarm traps, and supposedly open doors but that's yet to be proved.

and Eneiis, the healer, who won't prevent us from being killed by every enemy we're going to meet.

Many characters travelled from far away and especially from Daggerfall just to give some boring quest.

We recruit Bob the dwarf, because dwarves are cool.

More quests,

and a cryptic tapestry, because it's a Dungeon Master.

We finally recruit Rita the cook, because dying of starvation is a ridiculous death for a respectable adventurer.

We reach the attic of the inn,

where we pick some nails and manage to kill some wasps :

There's also a hornet there, it's strong and we'll have to come back later to fight it again.

We leave the inn,

hit some trees and pick the fallen apples.

???

Some water that we don't seem to be able to drink from. However Rita can create a fishing pole and we catch a fish.

We reach a small dungeon.

Walking on the next tile would trigger a deadly fireball trap, but Donna can disarm traps so we can advance further.

On the second floor there's a statue,

and some ninjas I feel very bad for not remembering which game they're from.

We kill one ninja but we're running out of water. We get back to the inn and pick some beers.
We cook our fish, which is not really useful since when trying to eat it Rita got poisoned.

We manage to pick a door to the basement. Probably not much to do with the skills of the thief,
who has an open door skill which never worked so far, the lockpick was found in the attic.

The game seems cool, we managed to enter the second floor of the small dungeon thanks to the trap disabling skill. We also came across various bushes and high grass than I think we could have passed through with different characters.

 

[CryptRat]

There's a treasure hidden in the inn by the bartender,

Spoiler

with various hints, this one being probably a key one :

Another thing is in the inn underfloor, you can trade six different items for weapons, but with each trade you also get a coin and you need 6 coins to enter an arena here.

Spoiler

In the inn basement we finally found a watersource, the party was seriously dehydrated.
It's important also because unlike our caught fish most food needs to be washed before we can cook it.

Spoiler

We also find some more food there.

We kill some rats using doors because that's what you do in Dungeon Master.

We fill our chalices with wine.

The giant rat we're meant to kill is here.

It turns into fury mode halfway through the fight.

But the area is big enough so we can just turn around it and smash it to death.

We've already got tons of junk.

More rats are waiting outside so at least we won't crave for food for a while.

We trade the rat head for a quiver and a helmet. We could have already traded an apple for a bow if we were any attentive, unfortunately the ones we haven't eaten the cook made juice of them.

Using our lockpick we force our way into the rooms of inn residents.
Forcing the first room was a good idea, some woman has (stolen?) the magic book that as sorceress in the lower floor asked us to find.

She gives us a magnifying glass as a reward.

Forcing the second door is a worse idea,

they're calling for guards and a guard comes to fight us.

We kill the hornet.

We trade some nails needed to repair boots for the said boots.

We get back to the ninja tower. Our priest finally gains one level.

Our two first rank guys are starting to make some real damage. On second floor there's one more ninja,

and some useless? books.

I read the manual again and all my in-game notes. Turns out high grass can be cut with a scythe, and that I can trade for a scythe.

It's normal to get poisoned when eating a cooked fish (or a cooked meat), it's just a very short duration poison.

We could pass through water if one of your characters had the ability to build a raft, it's not the case.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Nice! The traversal abilities of different characters seems like a cool idea. Hope you keep this going.
That grammar, though

 

[CryptRat]

Yes overall there are interesting simulation aspects.

 

[CryptRat]

We advanced a bit about the secrets of the inn, although her future advice may be some missing key.

Spoiler

Putting a coin in a slot in the inn gives the party some bread. We won't eat it, bread seems to be linked with the barkeeper's treasure.

We get an important advice while walking, the magnifying glass is meant to be used to decipher messages from tapestries.

This is the message on the tapestry in the inn :

So let's search for needle in haystack, which is exactly one of the possible actions of our fork.
We search in the various haystacks in the attic of the inn,

and find a key in one of them. It's a "Corsair" key and the bartender was supposedly a corsair in the past,
so this may be linked with our current treasure hunt.

We get to the room which the key opens, which contains a cryptic message.

There's a hidden button behind a table, we break the table to access it but it seems it just closes the door from the inside.

That's it for now for this part of our investigation, the two problems may be linked or not, but either way we need either to understand what the message on the tapestry means,
or find some jewels for the girl who's got an hint to trade.

We give back her bag of money to a woman for two anodyne food rations.
What's less anodyne is that she and her friends have hints about a secret path in the forest.

Spoiler

There are some more paths reachable via cutting grass that we didn't follow yet.

We kill many wolves.

However there's another one which is blocking our path and that the party does not seem to be able to hit at all.

We'll need to come back later with a solution but there is one more path we have not explored yet.
We reach a cave whose entrance is just blocked by two already half broken doors than we can smash to smithereens.

There are various monsters summoned here from various games.

Unfortunately we break our bow while fighting against them.

Nobody in the party can repair it so we just throw it out.
We find a bone shaped as a key.

Thanks to our lockpick creation skill, which creates a lockpick better than the one we found, we manage to pick a door to a room with a strong dog monster.

Spoiler

We manage to kill it and find some slime and a strong necklace which raises hps, mps and vigor.

Animal fur can be used to craft a rope, we don't need one now, but it could be useful later (ropes allow to descend into pitfalls without taking damages).

We also found a cleaver,

which our dwarf is able to sharpen. However nobody can open the door currently in front of the party.

 

[CryptRat]

The only coin we missed to enter the arena required burnt wood. By chance making a fire and cooking some meat there give us some ashes, which prove to be what we needed.

Spoiler

Then we enter the arena.

We need to win a couple of succesive fights against some not-exactly-M&M6 characters in a contained area, it's Dungeon Master so this part is just boring busy work.

We're successful and earn a trophy.

It appears that the trophy must be put in an intriguing slot which was accessible from the start. A similar spot appeared in the arena where you put a special boulder so at first we tried to put an average boulder into the hole. Fortunately we also tried to put the trophy into the hole and it worked.
The door leads into a small tower with more "M&M6" knights to fight.

One of them drops a crossbow, that we're going to break not that much later.
Once on the top floor of the tower,

we're surprised by two assassins,

It's a weird fight, they release a fireball if we stay far away and they are also quite quick to attack when we get close but they don't move.

One of them drops a key.

Then we descend into what appears to be the prison part of the tower.

They keep witches confined there,

but we can release and kill them. One of them has a key btw.

We also kill the watchman, which owns a large axe

and the inquisitor, which owns a long sword.

We've got some real weapons now, that we use to kill some ants and giant rats in the storage part of the tower, breaking our crossbow in the process.

As expected there's a lot of food there, and there's also wine.

We found a key opening a door leading to a big area behind the tower,
with ornaments,

a throne room, with a crown lying on the floor that we pick,

cryptic messages,

6 guard rooms contaning guards we just kill and some pieces of equipment,

and several stairways leading to lower floors.

One of the stairway leads to a revigorating fountain and to a closed door.

Another stairway leads to another relatively big area with weird dudes who do not attack but they block the way so we kill them anyway.

Another cryptic note :

We open a door and

 

[CryptRat]

Either the floor is occupied by illusionists who can't really do anything and one magician, or maybe there is only one magician and the other dudes are in fact illusions.

Spoiler

He is or they are studying spells,

or at least he wants or they want the king to believe he is or they are.

There's a sewer in the lower floor, with gorgons which are very weak,

There's a hole,

so we can finally make and use a rope,

Unfortunately after going back one floor the party falls down much lower and everybody dies.

We get back to the unkillable wolf,

throw a bone so it lets the party pass,

Then we descend into a well, finally using a rope.

There are rats,

a grapple, which allows to descend into pits but also to ascend them,

and a poison fountain. We fill a chalice with poison.

By the way the wolf belongs to a witch whose house entrance requires some offering we haven't found or figured out yet. One of the resident of the inns suggets the witch may be greedy and talks about a gold nugget.

Leaving some tracks in the cellar after smashing a barrel and walking into the wine :

The party gets back to the library with the ninjas, because for some reaon we didn't entirely visited it.
Among various documents, one mentions a witch, maybe the witch.

This could suggest the witch would like the king's crown as a gift to let us enter her lair, but no.
There's another assasin here, that we kill especially poisoning our long sword to deal one heavy damage hit.

They are studying dragons, and a story about four orbs here.

There's a book which allows to cast a door opening spell, unfortunately so far it does not manage to open any of the doors we can't open at the moment.

There are locks to hidden doors we manage to pick :

and ninjas using different weapons.

One lock makes a ladder descend.

Two magicians releasing lightning are annoying to fight because lightning touches the full party and our cook especially is very weak so she dies in one hit.

Some other enemies are waiting in a dragon airport area.

A secret room

reveals a dragon egg.

Smashing the egg would reveal a baby dragon that we can kill to get a bag of gold that we don't manage to do anything with at the moment, the witch does not seem to want it either. All this seems a bit weird, maybe we're meant to do something else than smashing the baby dragon to death.

 

[CryptRat]

We find one spot where we can use our grapple.

Spoiler

It's a tower with wasps and hornets,

and there's some honey, which is cool because someone in the inn requested us to bring some.

Back to the inn we trade the honey for a rapier.

Then we get back to the king's palace and throw 7 royal coins into the fountain,

which gives us a key to the temple.

We kill some weak guards there,

and take a key to the crypt.

Spoiler

It's a trap! Taking the key triggers what has been so far the hardest fight in the adventure. One fighter appears, and he's not particularly strong,

but he's followed by two much more threatening magicians.

When we walk back to the upper floor the statues awaken.

Actually it's not that a bad thing, because each one of them drops a heavy piece of armor.

We descend into the crypt where the door closes behind the party.

There are ghosts here,

and a dragon key hidden among bones.

Ghosts are not strong, but they take a long time to kill, which is why we look at the manual again because it talked about holy water somewhere. It turns out water in temple should be holy, which is good because we just come from a close temple. We fill some containers with holy water,

and bless our long sword.

One holy water flask is enough to kill a ghost.

There are only two closed doors, but we can descend into the floor below.

The floor is not very welcoming,

A flame prevents us from reaching a stairway which is probably the way to get back from the crypt.

In theory holy water should work against it, and if my old memory does not fail me maybe it's also possible to fight it when it materializes to strike (the party can't cast a spell against immaterials), but nothing seems to work so maybe we really have to do what needs to be done before being able to get out of the place. And what needs to be done seems to be

 

[CryptRat]

It turned out that at the foot of one of the pile of skulls lied a marked one.

Spoiler

The mark is clear, we put it into the niche.

It does not open the path to the lich, but it extinguishes the flame. A couple of ghosts take its place and we kill them with holy water.
Now we can get back to the upper floor, with one more key in our inventory.

We use the key and descend

into a dragon's lair.

It's alone, it's just a long fight where we turn around and smash it until it's dead.

On its corpse we find a key which leads out of the lair, which was closed after we entered it.

On a corner there's another key,

which opens a room in the sewers.

There's one more gorgon in the room, which is not stronger than the other ones.

We kill it and find an orb.

Not sure if the ore is meant to directly open the way to the lich.
The orb is sperical just like the hole in front of the witch's house.

It does not work.
We get back to the dragon's lair to ransack it.

There's a visible treasure behind a fire in a corner.
We smash the egg and the baby dragon inside,

then we extinguish the fire with holy water,

and take the treasure,

which must be what the witch truly wants.

No it's a failure again. Which, eureka, reminds us that the guy which gave us some boots in the inn keeps saying they truly belong to a witch. So we search where we left them.

They are witch boots indeed, and ...

it does not work either.

 

[CryptRat]

I wonder if what needs to be done to find the treasure under the inn is linked with liquid tracks.
We can get different colours by pouring on the floor and walking into wine, water then wine,

Spoiler

water,

beer.

This is a mix between beer and wine I think :

We're getting too heavy so we're dropping some stuff in the middle of the inn, piles of gold especially.

The party keeps figuring out new places they can reach.
This weird stick we had for a long time, and it was actually the fitting key for this lock to the druid temple which could be reached from the start.

The druids actually came here from Eye of the beholder 2.

One of them leaves a morning star,

and another one a key.

The room contains 3 stairways going upward and one going downward. We try this one.

It's a dead end for now with 2 hidden doors.

So we get back and choose a stairway leading to the upper floor.

A hint, we need to ring a bell.

There are some more rooms with these enemies, they're weak. Actually, no, the front rank characters of the party are strong now.
Many enemies here, including the druids, casts more or less powerful spells which hit the full party, but they cast them only from a distance, so as long as we stay close to them they're not a problem.

We get back to the first floor than ascend another stairway.

There's water and it's a temple so we can bless our sword again.

We meet some sorcerers which damage the entire party, but they don't kill a character in one hit so we can kill them by running backwards when hit, healing ourselves and coming back to kill them.

After using some more stairways and one ladder,

we finally ring the bell,

which attracts two enemies that we manage to get rid of.

We get back to the first floor. It looks like ringing the bell attracted some new enemies there.

The final stairway leads to a room where we kill some bats. There's a closed door with a slot that a gold coin does not fit.

We descend again, the previously closed doors are opened now, and we must face an echantress who is quite strong.

When dying she leaves a key.

On this floor,

there's another slot, unsurprisingly a gold coin does not fill in either.

A hint.

Fruit Life, maybe an apple? Or maybe water? Actually no.

We're in an area where apprentices live, we likely owns the key to their room but our lockpick works so no reason to use it.

The first room contains a dead body,

and an explanantion of the dead body.

Also a coin.

The other rooms contain a still alive apprentice that we need to kill.

The coins fill the slot but it seems we need more of them to open the door.

We can go up,

then down to a similar area after passing near a closed door.

There are apprentices in the corridor,

and more rooms.
An apprentice made a Vi potion, that's actually more than the party can do playing this mod.

Another one, well ...

and another one made a poison potion,

and didn't even die from drinking in, although we killed him so the result is not that different.

Interesting.

We get back to the slot and put the four medaillons we found into it.

The door opens.

Well, he was proud but he's dead anyway.

An interesting message,

and a key,

which opens a way to the garden.

Some weak guardians are there.

We cut some high grass with our scythe,

and descend,

The way ahead is suspicious but there's nothing we can do with the grapple, like trying to descend what looks like a trap where we're going to fall. We go forward and, actually, nothing special happens.

We reach a remote part of the garden guarded by an echantress.

We kill her. There are four trees with apples at their foot.

However it turns out that one of the apples is actually a fruit of life, likely the one we need to open the door behind the related message.

So we get ba... No we try to get back and this time we fall down the suspicious floor.

One character is dead, and there's a resurrection niche, but since it's a close death it's more fun to load our savegame, make our two losers gain two levels in fighter by willingly hit a wall and strike in the void.

Then we fall down again and everybody survives. There's a door that perhaps we could pick,

another door with no lock and a corridor.
We follow the corridor and need to fight some monsters,

Finally we reach the room again by the closed door without a lock. The door with a lock is open now.

We reach a stairway leading back to the garden and we get back to where the fruit of life was requested.

The door opens.

And we reach an area with a tree,

and some more enemies.

There are three niches protected by magic doors, which our door opening spell manages to dispell.

We find the special coin the message we found before was talking about,

and several empty flasks.

Taking the coin attracted a stronger enchantress, but we can turn around her so we manage to kill her.

There are a few more rooms, we use the doors to kill the enemies there because it's been too much time we didn't use a door to kill any enemy and it's one of the few fun things about the combat in these games.

We fill the slot in the upper floor with the special coin.

When we open the door several bats come from both sides. We kill them. Then we kill an enchantress.

Finally we find a second magic orb. It looks like that we will have to find the four of them which were mentioned in the library.

I'll keep detailed impressions for the end. However it's interesting that I often think I am stuck, but many things can be done in different order and so far I enventually keep advancing in some part, these points suggest a well-crafted open world.

 

[CryptRat]

I did not not understand how the "Climb over" pit command works. I wondered if it worked at all because pressing the command seemed to do nothing but I realized later that it simply allows you to walk over pitfalls for a little while. So now we can climb over the pit on the top of the tower with the wasps.

Spoiler

There are three piles of rock.

But after trying to smash them one of them proves to be a rock monster.

We take his heart,

and what's cool about being constantly stuck and spending a lot of time coming back and forth from yet to solve puzzles is that a stone heart reminds us of

Things become clear, we need to put the stone heart in the water fountain in the wine cellar, or not, we will try later.
For now in a niche behind it there's a key, likely the key to advance further in the basement below. The door does open.

There are two rooms each reachable by smashing a door.

The first one is guarded by some rats,

In the dead hearth we find an unknown orb.

The second room is guarded too.

A guy in the inn asked us to bring back a proof that his mansion was cleared from monsters so we take a goblin's head.

A pile of rock is blocking our way back.

Unsurprisingly it's a rock monster, nobody just built a pile a rocks behind us.

We bring back the goblin's head to the inn and are rewarded with jewels.

Jewels that, by the way, the witch does not want,

and the girl collecting pearls does not want either.

We just add them to our pile of junk for now, these treasures are heavy.

Let's search for the bartender's treasure. Trying to put the stone heart into the water fountain in the wine cellar ...

reveals a entrance under our feets. By using the grapple we are able not to fall, then we safely climb down.

Some ants were waiting there. We smash them to death.

One way leads to some warehouse.

You were not joking. Only rags are piled up here.

There's another path, with a message,

and three doors. Two doors are already opened,

and we manage to pick the third one.

However in all three of them there's nothing but a couple of ants,

and some food.

Now I wonder if the message is linked with the door we just picked and there's something hidden there, or if it's linked with another door.

There's especially one door in the inn we can't manage to pick. Worse, if we try to pick it we jam the lock.

The door to the witch's house has also yet to be opened, but trying to fill whatever junk we found in the warehouse in the hole does nothing. She does not want the unknown orb either.

 

[CryptRat]

Let's search for the hidden path behind an old tree near the ruins people in the inn are talking about. One tree near the ruins can be damaged,

and cutting it reveals a path with wild beasts.

Spoiler

Following the path we reach an entrance to a dwarven mine,

and some paths blocked by grass we can cut,

one of them revealing a small building guarded by orcs.

The building contains four slots, which accept the magic orbs,

two computers,

and a closed door.

We get back and enter the dwaren mine.

The first monsters to welcome the party are bats,

then come ugly Might & Magic dwarves.

We pass through a "Keep out" sign and reach a tunnel.

Bob can finally use his tunnel opening skills to progress further in some parts of the mine.

Digging tunnels we find many iron and silver ores.

Different characters can make different use of ores, and as far as our party is concerned Rita the cook can create a frying pan.

We find some oil,

that Bob uses to create a lamp, whose light is unfortunately not really bright.

We find a second exit from the mine,

which simply leads to the witch's house.

We descend further into the mine,

and fight more ugly dwarves.

Some of them use magic.

In the end of a tunnel we find another unknown orb,

while another one contains a golden nugget,

which allows us to finally enter the witch's house.

We already found all the ingredients she requests,

We throw everything in the cauldron,

and she gives us a third magic orb.

So,

Makes sense. The noble guy was not mistaken when he said she's greedy.

We need to find the last magic orb, which may be the bartender's treasure.

 

[CryptRat]

Ok we're stuck for now, there's a room with what may be the remaining part of one of the 5 suits in the cellar, maybe it's a track to follow, or not I don't know.

Spoiler

There's another way, but before that it's a good time to try other characters with interesting abilities.
We'll also mention what other characters could do, after playing a good part of the game we have a good idea of the scope of their abilities.
We recruit a merchant. He is actually our other way, he can identify unknown orbs so they can be used as normal magic orbs. He also has another useful skill which allows not to always be overburdened.

We recruit Dude the robber,

and start pickpocketing everybody. He can also ask for one advice from each NPC.

The first item we steal is a poisoned dart, not bad, it can kill one enemy in one hit, then loses its poison ability, but very likely we can poison it again in the poison fountain.

We actually don't recruit an heretic, but he's worth mentioning because he could perform a ritual which would open the access to the lich that we didn't manage to reach.

We recruit a druidess, because she can open paths through bushes, and I think she opens either many shortcuts or ways to some optional clearings or both.

We also recruit a gypsy, her streetwise skill is redundant with the robber's but she has a "skeleton key" coin and I'd like to see if the coin slot in the inn offers more than the 3 pieces of food that we get with the 3 golden coins we can find there.

Well we get our answer, nothing more. Still worth noticing she can very likely bypass the entire druid temple given her coin can replace the special medallion.

Most advices are useless, also a few like these ones may have been useful :

Some items to steal are not that bad : there's the same spell book to open doors you can find later in the library,

a cool necklace, which one of the characters of the roster can even enhance from what I remember of the manual,

a grabber, which allows to pick items through grates, and that explains why we previously never found anything just by clicking on grates,

a sling, which is an ok weapon because contrary to bows it does not break so if you don't have a character who can repair bows then bows are a bit useless,

and an emerald ring, but I'm not sure what it's for.

Pïcking through grates can give rubbish, but not only, a dagger and a shuriken can be found,

as well as a mushroom, which can be used to poison a weapon for example.

The gypsy's coin can be used to directly open the arena, bypassing the part about bringing the 6 specific items. It's important because the prize for winning the tournament is the key item to enter the big fortress with knights, the dragon, ghosts ...
Talking about the fortress, we can mention here that the queen, and the other kingship characters, can just ask for the fortress to open, and they can do the same with the druid's temple, and the witch's house. Gaining access to the witch's house means you can skip the dwarven mine.

Something cool happens when we reach the second floor of the inn, where there are a lot of closed doors. It turns out that the door where we keep jamming the lock is in fact the merchant's room, when we pass through it it opens an contains some basic equipment.

The first bush that our druidess can pass through

reveals a big clearing with five apple trees and many wild beasts.

The second one is even more interesting.

It reveals the entrance of the tower with the ninja which is directly in front of the stairway.

The other entrances can't be accessed without disarming the fireball trap, or at least that's how we got there when one of our characters could disarm traps, which is not the case anymore ; I guess there is another way, maybe you can climb over the trap with the grapple for example, that's not something I had the opportunity to try.

We kill an assassin with our poison dart.

We'll stop there, one of our character is wounded and the party is slowed and will possibly not be able to exit the tower anyway.

No biggie, it was mostly to see how some skills work in practice. we'll, restart, make a dream team which should be able to efficiently find 4 orbs and see how it goes, still leaving our 5-dude-puzzle for later.
We recruit a merchant again, and we also recruit the prietress again. I may have not talking about her a lot, but her HP healing and wound healing skills are both very powerful.
We also recruit a corsair, because I'm intruiging by his raft building skill, and he can disarm traps so he will help us enter the library.

We recruit a drow. She has the same tunnel opening skill as the dwarf, which is required to get the unknown orb we found in the dwarven mine. She has an infravison skill, so we don't need any other light source, and a paralysation skill that we'll need to try before knowing how strong it is.

One major change compared with our previous parties is that we can use the bad lockpick for a few doors, which may not even have a corresponding key, but for the rest we'll need to find the keys, many doors can't be picked at all but many others could be picked with the lockpick made by the thief and robber.

Paralysis is strong, we manage to kill the hornet more easily than before.

We use our raft building skill one first time to cut some small trees. The pieces of tree are very heavy but we know where to use them.

We build a raft. We can't freely navigate on water, which is a bit disappointing, in fact each water entrance leads to a small island where you can dig for treasures.
At least some treasures are strong, we found a good shield and a long sword.

We even found an unknown orb.

Now that's very interesting. Our merchant identifies it, and it's a magic orb as intended, which means that with the one in the dwarven mine, the one in the fireplace in the ruins and the one in the druid's temple we'll have four. We don't need the orb from the fortress nor the one from the witch so we can completely skip the fortress, which also means we don't have to fight in the arena, and we don't need to reach the top of the library, we just need the spell book from there, to open the magic door of the druid's temple.

We take the orb from the ruins,

the one from the dwarven mine,

disarm the traps to the library to get the spellbook.

We also search for the branch which opens the druid's temple, after cutting some trees we eventually find it, it's from the tree in the middle of the stone circle.

We enter the druid's temple, bless our long sword,

and force our way to the orb here.

I think the voodoo witch can resurrect the apprentice who killed himself by drinking a poison bottle, since his bones look like the kind of bones you would resurrect.

We walks towards the orcs' lair, our paralysing skill is good to take cool screenshots.

There's one more island to reach where we dig and find a breastplate.

We fight the orcs guarding the place where to put the orbs.

Spoiler

Placing the four orbs into the slots opens a door in front of us and closes the one behind us.

We advances

towards a console with two switches.

We kill an alien monster, which can deal heavy damages,

and leaves a nuage of acid when killed.

The we find a pulse rifle. Intriguing.

Each switch controls a door, where we fight more alien monsters.

Using the gun actually upgrades the wizard's skill.

We find two keys which activate the computer,

and ...

The end.

The game concludes with tons of stats.

That's it, I didn't want to let the adventure unfinished if possible and it's finished. I think the last magic orb is either guarded by the lich or part of a treasure in the inn, or the stone circle could hide a secret, either way if I ever find it I'll make an update. For now I'm going to make a post with my impressions about the game later.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Sci-fi shoved into a fantasy setting against all rhyme and reason? Always
Nice work! Looking forward to the final verdict.

 

[CryptRat]

Sci-fi shoved into a fantasy setting against all rhyme and reason? Always

So,

the game takes place in an open world. The main change to the system compared with the official Dungeon Master games is that the normal magic system is unavailable but each character has 3 specific skills he or she can use. Some skills are shared between two characters but anyway there are a lot of characters to choose from and there are a lot of skills. Unfortunately there's no "plates + levers + teleporters + throw thing in the right direction at the right timing" kinds of puzzles, I like those, and there are one of the very specificities of the series. The engine is still a good choice for the game the person wanted to make, gameplay is grid-based, party-building is important and most of all, there's a focus on interactions with the environment.

The open world is well crafted. I can't say the game is easy, since I got stuck by a riddle at the end and basically restarted in easy mode to win, but for the rest it's not that hard either, for good reasons. The world opens up as you solve puzzles, but the game is very non-linear, which is very important with that kind of structure. Areas are almost self-contained, managing to enter them is often the big deal and you can more or less enter them in any order, which is even more true thanks to many characters' skills unlocking various shortcuts. You can think about one puzzle while doing something elsewhere, and you're never really stuck without nothing do. The best example of additional non-linearity due to skills is that you need to find the 4 magic orbs to finish the game, which means completing about every part of the game, but the merchant and the bard have the ability to use different hidden orbs instead, which made me eventually skip half of the game when knowing what's where. The queen can open dungeons without the necessary key items, the thief can do without many keys, and all the keys remaining in my inventory can certify that, the huntress can open her own path through bushes, the dragon raider can ride over pits and there's a demolition skill I didn't test. There's a lich's lair I didn't manage to reach, I can't be sure there's a normal way although I guess there's one, but two characters have a special ritual performance to easily get there. That's possibly the most cool part but overall it's clear that the person who made the mod like simulationist aspects and it's very cool to build a party among characters with various skills.

There are like 5 ways just to make light, many skills related to food which are there just because why not. You're going to use a shovel, a grapple, a scythe (to cut grass). Pickpocketing gave me a grapper which allows to search through grapes, and with 40 avaliable characters there are still many skills I have not tested, for example one character can resurrect dead adventurers in the dungeon, like in Eye Of the Beholder I guess. If you want to get the best from food like meat or fish you need to wash it, then cook it (in a fire) and then eat it with cutlery. You can fill containers with water, wine, beer, poison or oil, with various usages. Bows will break and only the amazon can repair them. What you will do during the game substantially depends on the party you'll assemble. More generally I like the abundance of little things to do, I needed some time to apprehend all of them. There's no overbalancing between characters, a cook is basically useless while a thief can be useful and a priestress is very strong.

For better or worth the overall world is compact, with small areas, you'll never get lost.

Character development is the base game one, so not unfun but very simple. Regarding combat it's is not that fun but it does not waste a lot of your time, and it's mostly there so you can see your character grow. you're going to encounter a lot of magicians with low HPs and high damages to the full party, these are the best kind of enemies. Again the characters you choose from the roster have a big impact on how you're going to apprehend fights. I can't remember how many of the combat skills are directly taken from Dungeon Masteand how many are new, one character can cast base game fireballs, I used a priestress with very useful healing skills and there are some summon, paralysis and other skills. Some characters also have weapon enhancement or creation skills, you'll find strong weapons and you can kill enemies in one hit with poison. No monster respawns but you should have more than enough food.

Regarding technical aspects I mostly played without sound. I had the impression the game uses cool music, not sure from which game. The game uses sprites from various old games which is fun for this kind of project, but the mix between super cool sprites from Dungeon Master, Eye of the beholder, and Daggerfall even if it's a different style on one hand, and many enemies created from player's characters from Might and magic 6 and/or 7 sure is weird, the game is actually very not atmopheric despites being about exploring a dwarven mine, a library and reading notes, that's a bit of a shame. Also you've probably seen in the screenshots but the guy can't into English, and with my level I would not dare saying that if it was not that much true, I don't care but if you care then you should forget about playing the game.

I think the game is about 15 hour long. Overall I would recommend the game to persons who like compact open worlds where to solve puzzles and are specifically interested in the big roster of characters with skills specific to each one, it's what's fun about the game, you choose 4 character among 40 and play the game unlike you would play with others.

It makes me want to try more mods for Dungeon Master. Despite a lack of one room puzzles there's zero doubt this one was made by a fan of Dungeon Master who likes the game for the good reasons. He, specifically, made more dungeons, but whenever I play another mod it'll probably be one by someone else, maybe one of those intriguingly big ones like Tower Of Champions or Conflux.