Let's Play Betrayal At Krondor (COMPLETED)

[Wyrmlord]

We start out in a strange unfamiliar land.

There is a tent further away.

Magic will not work here - it seems to be the result of a Valheru invasion of this world.

Walking endlessly in no particular direction, there is another tent.

A crystallized creation of magical power is here, and it is the only limited means of using magic here.

And then another odd tent near some blue ruins.

He mentions that the ruins here can communicate to people, and that some Lifestone buried under Sethanon is a means of harnessing some magical power that is denied to the Valheru here. It's very cryptic.

We reach out to these ruins.

Apparently, the lizardmen who inhabit here are called the Panath Tiadn, similar to the Pantathians seen briefly in Midkemia.

Apparently, these ruins contain the spiritual form of the very gods who watched over this place, who feared the Valheru so much, they destroyed this very place, and preserved themselves in rock, rather than live under Valheru.

Some other god explains a few things as well.

Another god speaks to us.

The last priest of Dhatsavan, keeper of the gates, made air elementals to protect his temple; air elementals who can only be destroyed by draining their strength. This Relynn Skarr also made a cup, which has incapacitated the magician Pug.

Somewhere, we see another tent.

On the very far end of this island.

Once they are dead,

Found it. Now to meet Dhatsavan again.

Now this explains things. Macros is the Oracle of Aal himself, the last survivor of Timiriyana's destruction, who like all who inhabited this world, had the power to see the future. Macros was helped by the warlord Tomas, who put the soul from his dying body into Rhuargh the dragon, and was hence put into a hidden place accessed only from the statue of the dragon, just near which at Malac's Cross, there were Pantathians, the exact creatures found in this world along with their Panath Tiadn brethren. He had one magical book with which this world could be accessed again, and he had the foresight to know it would be useful.

Now to Pug.

The big explanation of what has been going on all this time...

Finally, on coming across the Valheru battlefield, we see their graves.

Now we can destroy the air elementals imprisoning Gamina.

We find Dhatsavan's temple in a very obscure part of this isle.

Inside the temple...

Walking, walking, walking, and then in a very large room...

The Strength Drain destroys them.

Last chapter.

We are coming for Makala...

 

[SCO]

Macros is not the Oracle, but Macros saved the Oracle.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Sorry, just forgot the line of events here. This game is a bundle of plotlines.

 

[Erebus]

The spellcasters appearing before James and Locklear two chapters ago turning out to be Pug, Owyn, Gorath and Gamina is a clever twist, since you really expected that they would be enemies.

I liked the pillars of the gods, they're quite fascinating. There are two or three that you haven't shown here, but the gods inhabiting them give little or no response. I had completely forgotten that the Oracle of Aal was from this world.
As SCO mentioned, the Oracle is not Macros. It's more or less an immortal spirit that can possess living mortal bodies. It used to possess human bodies before it got access to the (obviously longer-lasting) body of a dragon whose spirit had been destroyed.

If I remember correctly, the cup can be used to learn all the spells in the game. It just takes time and food.

Pug's first letter to Tomas proves my point about him being a plot-dictated idiot. Katala had zero clue she was supposed to summon Tomas, and even if she had, how was she supposed to get to Elvandar ?

Owyn is apparently trying to get Gamina's attention, but I'm pretty sure she ends up with James in the future.

 

[Wyrmlord]

The cup lets you obtain all spells? I did not know this.

No wonder, however. Makala is immune to most spells in this game, so you would need to sit with that cup to have any chance of beating him, which I did not have the first time I reached the end, causing me to start over.

Knowing this, of course, is disappointing, because I had always trumpeted Betrayal at Krondor as a game where failure as an option, and where it is possible for the boss fight to be completely impossible unless you scour the world for the best spells possible. Now I see that there is a shortcut way of getting those spells at the end anyway.

It is something of a disincentive to get a early headstart on good abilities in a game, if you are going to get all of them at the end anyway and still become a superman. It's what made Torment less fun - knowing that you'll be made an almighty creature before the last five hours of the game, because of ridiculously high XP rewards.

 

[SCO]

All the spell that both you the spellcasters know... sharing them, and stuff, not unknown spells.

 

[Erebus]

Really ? I thought that, if you used it enough times, you would really have all the spells. But it's been a long time since I've played BaK, so I may very well be mistaken.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I was just uploading the last 50 images of this LP, but even that exceeded my account limit.

Argh.

This entire LP was just little more than 90 MBs, but even that is more than Photobucket allows.

Damn it! Need to find another image hoster.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Finale


Before we go in to engage Makala, Pug takes a brief moment to caution us.

Pug defends his good friend who kidnapped his daughter by saying that Makala always acts for the greater good, and is merely misguided enough to not know the true dangers of the Lifestone. If that's what's happening, he won't deliberately bring back the Valheru.

In a particular part of the map, we hit a strange magical perimeter

Our first plan here is to engage the Six. This prompts us to go to the lower level where they lie in wait.

Our first encounter...

And then another powerful Spellweaver.

Another comes our way.

The Six are no more soon afterwards.

Their perimeter is down, and it's time to meet Makala. But of course, guess who?

THE END

 

[ghostdog]

Congrats ! Excellent LP for a great game.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Yeah.

Ending of the game was one masterstroke. Finally coming to finish the problem once and for all, and the guy who had to sacrifice and toil the most, and bear a whole life of misery, was the one who gets killed and has his life thrown away so wastefully.

And at that point, even he didn't care.

 

[Erebus]

Thanks for this very good LP !

One of the things I like about BaK is that the villain isn't driven by evil and selfish motives. Protecting the empire is the sacred mission of the Tsurani magicians. It makes perfect sense that they would want to investigate the existence of a magical WMD. Makala simply didn't mind killing a lot of non-Tsuranis to gain access to the Lifestone.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Yeah, and certainly no more than Pug minded about seeing all the Tsurani warriors dead.

Hell, Pug himself doesn't seem any more of a moral creature than Makala.

 

[garren]

Great LP! Though you missed the epilogue?

Here's the whole thing in youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtyykfy8 ... A&index=50

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Awesome work. This was a wall of text well worth reading.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Congrats Wyrmie, that was a huge task well done.

 

[SCO]

The "small house Acoma matter" that Makala says the assembly are preoccupied with is probably the first or second book of the Empire triology (by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts).

 

[SCO]

Yeah, and certainly no more than Pug minded about seeing all the Tsurani warriors dead.

Hell, Pug himself doesn't seem any more of a moral creature than Makala.

Pug is a Great One. He is a Tsurani magician.

 

[Erebus]

The "small house Acoma matter" that Makala says the assembly are preoccupied with is probably the first or second book of the Empire triology (by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts).

More like the third, no ? I don't think the Assembly's really bothered by Mara before.

I knew nothing about the Empire trilogy when I played BaK, so I couldn't understand what these references to the Acoma were about.

For those who don't know, the Empire trilogy is set in the Tsurani world and its main character is Mara of the Acoma, who has just ascended to become the head of her house after the rest of her family has been killed. In my opinion, it's much better than the rest of Feist's work. He co-wrote these three books with Janny Wurts, but I've read a book she wrote on her own and gave up after a hundred pages, so I guess the addition of their talents worked really well.

 

[ShavenApe]

Great LP!

 

[Hekateras]

There's still the epilogue missing, in which Pug and Owyn craft an illusion in which Arutha and the dragon destroy Murmandramus once and for all, thus permanently dissuading the moredhel from trying to attack Sethanon again. And it's implied that Pug takes Owyn as an apprentice.

Still, very solid work. Of course, it's still not fully complete - part of the charm of BaK and the replaybility value is that doing things in a different order may yield different results. So really one should just go and play the game already. The experience will likely be unique.

Your conclusions about Gorath and the moredhel, while rather reasonable for someone apparently lacking knowledge about the books, were somewhat off the mark. As mentioned, Calin knew Gorath was a moredhel because elves can always tell the difference. He's never actually BEEN to Elvandar before that. The "Have you not told the boy?" line refers to Gorath knowing that he's in the process of Returning - at some point Calin says that the Call can be painful for those who try to deny it - and not telling Owyn about it.

(Gorath looking so old was probably just a stylistic design choice to give him a sort of "old cunning wolf" look. It's weird, anyway, since Feist's elves aren't actually supposed to show real signs of age. The only elves who actually appear old are the eldar, who grow about a thousand years old and even then it's more a sort of bleached paleness and transparent skin than outright grey hair. Gorath is supposed to be 359, if memory doesn't fail. Can't remember whether it's mentioned in the book or the game, though. And he and Delekhan and their respective clans were pretty much blood enemies from the very start.)

The Returning is what happens when a moredhel undergoes a spiritual transformation and feels the "call" to Elvandar. Fellow moredhel instantly sense the transformation and attempt to kill one who is feeling called to Return. Nago's line involving eledhel can be explained as an insult - the most distinguishing feature of the moredhel as opposed to the eledhel is that they seek out and embrace the ancient knowledge and power of the Valheru while the eledhel shun it. Gorath was one of those very wary about the Valheru - indeed fearing them as a source of madness for his people, which is correct enough - so the comparision to eledhel is not inappropriate because he's similar enough to them, and actually joining the humans accentuates the similarity.

The moredhel aren't eledhel who "became" evil. They were and still are, in actuality, one people, with differences only in culture, lifestyle and 'path'. They lived on Midkemia and were enslaved by the Valheru. Some elves served in the field, while others served closer to their masters and were more influenced by them. When the Valheru disappeared, the former rejected all influences of the Valheru and became the eledhel - the "Light Ones", a mocking title bestowed on them by the moredhel - while the latter sought to recapture the lost power of their former masters and became the moredhel, or "Dark Ones". A moredhel would still feel dread in the presence of Valheru power because they were subject to Valheru rule just as the eledhel were, with the appropriate residue instincts of terror, admiration and subservience even aeons later.

Yeah.

Ending of the game was one masterstroke. Finally coming to finish the problem once and for all, and the guy who had to sacrifice and toil the most, and bear a whole life of misery, was the one who gets killed and has his life thrown away so wastefully.

And at that point, even he didn't care.

I was about six or seven at the time of my first experience with the game. I watched my dad play the game, with him translating everything for me (English not being a first language). I went hysterical at the end. I bawled. Even caused my dad to try and smooth things over with a lame "He's just hiding, it was an illusion Owyn cast" explanation, with little success. For all that the novelisation could have been much better written, I still cry and cry at that scene when rereading it (which, admittedly, I haven't done in several years). And it got me into Feist's books, which are actually quite good apart from the odd bad egg (which, unfortunately, seems to include the books based on the games). Suffice to say I have quite the soft spot for it. :')

So it's wonderful to see there are still people who appreciate this little jewel in the history of gaming and dedicate time and attention to it.

 

[Wyrmlord]

There's still the epilogue missing, in which Pug and Owyn craft an illusion in which Arutha and the dragon destroy Murmandramus once and for all, thus permanently dissuading the moredhel from trying to attack Sethanon again. And it's implied that Pug takes Owyn as an apprentice.

Still, very solid work. Of course, it's still not fully complete - part of the charm of BaK and the replaybility value is that doing things in a different order may yield different results. So really one should just go and play the game already. The experience will likely be unique.

Your conclusions about Gorath and the moredhel, while rather reasonable for someone apparently lacking knowledge about the books, were somewhat off the mark. As mentioned, Calin knew Gorath was a moredhel because elves can always tell the difference. He's never actually BEEN to Elvandar before that. The "Have you not told the boy?" line refers to Gorath knowing that he's in the process of Returning - at some point Calin says that the Call can be painful for those who try to deny it - and not telling Owyn about it.

(Gorath looking so old was probably just a stylistic design choice to give him a sort of "old cunning wolf" look. It's weird, anyway, since Feist's elves aren't actually supposed to show real signs of age. The only elves who actually appear old are the eldar, who grow about a thousand years old and even then it's more a sort of bleached paleness and transparent skin than outright grey hair. Gorath is supposed to be 359, if memory doesn't fail. Can't remember whether it's mentioned in the book or the game, though. And he and Delekhan and their respective clans were pretty much blood enemies from the very start.)

The Returning is what happens when a moredhel undergoes a spiritual transformation and feels the "call" to Elvandar. Fellow moredhel instantly sense the transformation and attempt to kill one who is feeling called to Return. Nago's line involving eledhel can be explained as an insult - the most distinguishing feature of the moredhel as opposed to the eledhel is that they seek out and embrace the ancient knowledge and power of the Valheru while the eledhel shun it. Gorath was one of those very wary about the Valheru - indeed fearing them as a source of madness for his people, which is correct enough - so the comparision to eledhel is not inappropriate because he's similar enough to them, and actually joining the humans accentuates the similarity.

The moredhel aren't eledhel who "became" evil. They were and still are, in actuality, one people, with differences only in culture, lifestyle and 'path'. They lived on Midkemia and were enslaved by the Valheru. Some elves served in the field, while others served closer to their masters and were more influenced by them. When the Valheru disappeared, the former rejected all influences of the Valheru and became the eledhel - the "Light Ones", a mocking title bestowed on them by the moredhel - while the latter sought to recapture the lost power of their former masters and became the moredhel, or "Dark Ones". A moredhel would still feel dread in the presence of Valheru power because they were subject to Valheru rule just as the eledhel were, with the appropriate residue instincts of terror, admiration and subservience even aeons later.

Yeah.

Ending of the game was one masterstroke. Finally coming to finish the problem once and for all, and the guy who had to sacrifice and toil the most, and bear a whole life of misery, was the one who gets killed and has his life thrown away so wastefully.

And at that point, even he didn't care.

I was about six or seven at the time of my first experience with the game. I watched my dad play the game, with him translating everything for me (English not being a first language). I went hysterical at the end. I bawled. Even caused my dad to try and smooth things over with a lame "He's just hiding, it was an illusion Owyn cast" explanation, with little success. For all that the novelisation could have been much better written, I still cry and cry at that scene when rereading it (which, admittedly, I haven't done in several years). And it got me into Feist's books, which are actually quite good apart from the odd bad egg (which, unfortunately, seems to include the books based on the games). Suffice to say I have quite the soft spot for it. :')

So it's wonderful to see there are still people who appreciate this little jewel in the history of gaming and dedicate time and attention to it.

Thanks for the response.

If the moredhel still feel terror in using an object of Valheru influence, why would they seek them out?

And when you say, "residue of terror, admiration, and subservience", is it innate and natural of an elf to feel subservient to a Valheru?

 

[Hekateras]

Thanks for the response.

I could hardly help it. :D

If the moredhel still feel terror in using an object of Valheru influence, why would they seek them out?

Presumably because feeling awe and terror at traces of the Valheru presence is a small price to pay for Valheru power.

Remember, it's the power they seek, not the Valheru themselves. They'd be pretty crazy to actually want to bring back the Valheru. No, the only ones who want to do that are the Pantathians, because they were specifically shaped into a sentient people out of snakes by Alma-Lodaka, their Valheru mistress.

And when you say, "residue of terror, admiration, and subservience", is it innate and natural of an elf to feel subservient to a Valheru?

Yes and no. No in the sense that, obviously, there was no feeling of subservience until they were found and made into slaves by the Valheru. Yes , because even centuries later, it's still an instinctive response. I recall that in Magician, at one point Tomas appears before the eledhel in Elvandar at the height of his.. Valheru-ness*... and nearly all the elves can't help but drop to their knees and shake in awe and fear. It wasn't that way originally, but the rule of the Valheru made it into something ingrained and instinctive, so yes, for all practical purposes it's natural. The mechanics of this - whether it was Valheru magic or some sort of breeding programm, both of which would fit them - weren't focused on and it doesn't matter much. I suppose it would make sense from an evolutionary point of view - the subservient ones had a better chance of surviving. XD

*Tomas being a Valheru-Human mix comes from having unwittingly found the armour of one of the ancient Dragon Lords in his youth - the armour happened to have the very spirit of that Valheru, Ashen-Shugar, bound in it. It slowly took him over, resulting in a sort of identity conflict which, fortunately for everyone, worked out well in the end, with Tomas effectively assimilating Ashen-Shugar's powers, memories and identity while keeping his own humanity and identity. It helped that Ashen-Shugar was the one "good" Valheru, meaning he was still violent and bloodthirsty but had a certain desire to protect the world rather than just plunder and dominate that was thoroughly un-Valheru-like.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Thanks for the response.

I could hardly help it. :D

If the moredhel still feel terror in using an object of Valheru influence, why would they seek them out?

Presumably because feeling awe and terror at traces of the Valheru presence is a small price to pay for Valheru power.

Remember, it's the power they seek, not the Valheru themselves. They'd be pretty crazy to actually want to bring back the Valheru. No, the only ones who want to do that are the Pantathians, because they were specifically shaped into a sentient people out of snakes by Alma-Lodaka, their Valheru mistress.

And when you say, "residue of terror, admiration, and subservience", is it innate and natural of an elf to feel subservient to a Valheru?

Yes and no. No in the sense that, obviously, there was no feeling of subservience until they were found and made into slaves by the Valheru. Yes , because even centuries later, it's still an instinctive response. I recall that in Magician, at one point Tomas appears before the eledhel in Elvandar at the height of his.. Valheru-ness*... and nearly all the elves can't help but drop to their knees and shake in awe and fear. It wasn't that way originally, but the rule of the Valheru made it into something ingrained and instinctive, so yes, for all practical purposes it's natural. The mechanics of this - whether it was Valheru magic or some sort of breeding programm, both of which would fit them - weren't focused on and it doesn't matter much. I suppose it would make sense from an evolutionary point of view - the subservient ones had a better chance of surviving. XD

*Tomas being a Valheru-Human mix comes from having unwittingly found the armour of one of the ancient Dragon Lords in his youth - the armour happened to have the very spirit of that Valheru, Ashen-Shugar, bound in it. It slowly took him over, resulting in a sort of identity conflict which, fortunately for everyone, worked out well in the end, with Tomas effectively assimilating Ashen-Shugar's powers, memories and identity while keeping his own humanity and identity. It helped that Ashen-Shugar was the one "good" Valheru, meaning he was still violent and bloodthirsty but had a certain desire to protect the world rather than just plunder and dominate that was thoroughly un-Valheru-like.

So since the eledhel were people once ingrained and bred to be subservient to the Valheru, was it the "Call" of Elvandar which helped them reject the influence of Valheru?

 

[denizsi]

Work of a true patriot, this LP :honorblade:

Beautiful simplicity of play with mind-boggling plot intrigues.

Writing is pretty banal, though and dialogues aren't that much convincing other than being brief and to the point so you don't spend time in dialogue trees. I don't see how some of you can call it good to excellent. The occasional tongue-in-cheek dialogue is very cringesome and some of it pretty pretentious, like the Oracle's or Timirianyan gods' speech. The usual high-brow Clevian attitude that can be found anywhere. Also, the way the story has been presented in this LP, the finale makes all this intrigue and trouble spanning several chapters looks trite and inane to me.

I remember playing Betrayal In Antara demo back then. IIRC, there was yet another "chosen one" angle with a young magician which I didn't like, but I'd still wanted to play more. Sadly, I couldn't afford to buy (a pirated copy of) the game and then forgot about it.

Fallout's cartoony graphics

Seriously now, pictures of live actors with ridiculous wigs look better to you? I don't think it's bad but it's not something that can be compared to Fallout. The two are very different.

It's been said that Betrayal at Krondor has more writing than Torment, but the way it is handled, it always feels important and worthy to read. I think maybe because most of the writing is in the form of conversation with characters speaking in the now, telling you what is currently happening at the moment, as opposed to Torment where characters tend to speak at you, as if they are spewing a speech describing the world or themselves. Which is great, but it doesn't really make you feel like you are there in the moment, it takes away that sense of urgency to pay attention, and doesn't really move the story along.

That's a good point which I think must be remembered when thinking about dialogue in RPGs. Even though I can't say I liked the writing in the game as observed in this LP, it always felt relevant and revealing.

Why does it seem like Betrayal at Krondor is the only game with an extremely well developed mature story? While I enjoyed The Hobbit, it just comes across as fairy tale ish. I throw Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings in the same basket. They both seem very simplistic in their storytelling and characters.

Daggerfall seemed to be going in the right direction. Plot-wise, it was just right. The intrigue, the politics and a certain level of maturity was always hinted at but never explored. If only they hired guys like the ones involved in this game instead of next-gen-drooling apes after Daggerfall.

They didn't Gorath some sort of anti-social anti-hero with a secret heart of gold ruptured by years of mistreatment. Gorath was just a moredhel who got ruined because of years of moredhel subservience. He doesn't go into angsty withdrawals and then tearful confessions a la alot such emo characters. He in fact comes off as frank and practical.

The villain of this game is a deeply evil man, and none of that good-guy-turned-bad-because-of-grey-moral-ambiguity nonsense that you see in KotOR 1/2 or other such BioWare/Obsidian games. He is however very logical about why he wanted to do what he wanted to do,

I don't think that either villain psyche is superior to the other. Would you be as much jaded about how the villainous motives are handled in BAK if every other game since BAK's release went this same route instead of the usual we've been getting? I think I'd be.