In Progress Let's Play: Fallen Gods

[Jaedar]

I vote we beat up the peasants. Rolls boosted by items rarely ever seem to fail, and even if this one does, I'd imagine the worst outcome is we fight some peasants, which should be easy. What is sparing the peasants going to do for us anyways, get souls? I think we need gold more than souls to recruit more badasses to fighter Faener.

This is very practical, so I agree this is what we should do.
A god who listens to yokels is not much of a god!

 

[Hag]

Fights without perils reap victory without problems, let us beat the lower-class sods.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Spoiler

Churls should not bother their lords, and we are about to remind them of it.

*angry grunts grunting in the background*

Grooving!

This gold is very welcome, and so is the hack silver on top of it. Gest is even more unhappy now, but fuck him. This cash will open up possibilities before us.

The only drawback is that the townsfolk now fucking hate us and can be neither recruited nor gossiped with. Oh, and everything's still expensive as fuck.

Still, with the hack silver we can now go sail somewhere for relatively free, and I think we might as well do that.

As you can see we're kind of in the middle of nowhere.

And while we could go to Hornfell and the nearby barrow, our warband is kind of shit, which is why I'd prefer to grab a fighter or two first.

While running to this town on foot will take a whopping 7 days. There's also a hill village along the way, but that's like 5 days, and we're already halfway through the time we have left.

My plan therefore is to sail to Hrosskoping and then do this loop. Lots of content along the way that should be of interest to us.

ALL ABOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD

Sailing makes this cutesy little ship with the god appear on the minimap preview.

Flavour sailing event.

And the ship actually sails the seas (and rivers) from Kolstad to Hrosskoping.

There we are. Oi 'ate wa'er.

This time it's a generic town with nothing to do.

I hire a fighter for 15 gold.

Then gossip sum.

We were bound for Hornfell so this is relevant to our interests.

This, however, is not. Songbridge is another victory objective and it needs a whopping 30 souls. There is no way we are getting that much in the time we have left.

blablablabla

With the gossip spent, I get a churl for a moment to get a discount on food, then buy 20 for 5 gold to avoid hunting delays.

Then I obviously get rid of the churl, and we'll first move to this runestone.

blablabla updated my journal

Moving on.

Something FOUL is afoot. This asshole fake king would dare VIOLATE ORM'S LAW?!

Suspicious.

Let's gossip before we go see the king.

Reassuring. Let's meet this upstart.

I cannot burn them all.

This man should not speak to you so.

You may be right, friend Aerik, but unfortunately shoving him aside is a hard might check, and I'm not attempting that.

It's imperative for us to meet the king, and you'll see later why. Unfortunately we need 5 more gold... which is exactly what I spent for the extra food in Hrosskoping

We could also bribe them with a maiden if we had one, because the king is very naughty. But alas, we left the maiden to be eaten by the wurm

We'll be back, alright.

Fortunately there's a barrow close by. Maybe it'll have the 5 gold we lack.

But along the way we find this.

What Orm made barren should not give life.

From this weed, we can brew a good drink.

No way I'm literally burning 1 of our 2 precious souls on some stupid weed. Meanwhile uprooting it is... a hard god might check, which is pretty hilarious in itself. Almost tempted to see the hardmode CHAD struggle with a flower.

I'm gonna trust Ullin on this.

Grooving!

You see?

This just let us regain the 1HP we lost at the wurm. Not bad. Even Gest isn't bothered by it, though his morale can't drop any further down at this point anyway

Since we've already made this small detour, I also check the hill village to see if there's anything of interest there.

Nope.

Back on course.

Show me your plunder, barrow!

No plunder before we whack these dudes, I guess.

TO BATTLE!

Alpha strike is enough to kill one.

Also get ready for Gest to leg it the moment I hit start.

Yep, obviously. Sigh. A level 2 priest would be pretty good vs these shitty draugs.

Ullin gets whacked once.

The skinny draugs don't look like much, but they can actually pack and withstand a punch. I wager they are a bit weaker than a level 1 fighter.

Nice, a few gold coins to let us see the king, and an arm ring to use in the future - preferably on another fighter.

The moment we step away from the barrow, we get bumrushed by rushing bums.

These dudes are a bit more formidable than the other outlaws we've faced thus far, but alpha strike still bleeds them nicely.

The thieves go for god and Aerik.

Ullin will have to take some beating from the fighter.

But ultimately all is well.

Some free shit, never unwelcome.

We return to Hammarfast to seek an audience with the king.

DAS BURG

With Ullin this beaten up, I try to rest in DAS BURG.

Hopefully we don't get shanked in the night or something.

Amazingly enough it worked. Resting in castles is also free, including the king's. Everyone's back to full HP, just the way I like it.

The king's basketball team captain demands his fee.

It's unfortunate to degrade ourselves thus, but it's a necessary evil. Aerik is pissed of course, but we can fix that with the arm ring later.

Now, for the king!

I won't lie, this is a kickass scene, and I love the illustration to this event. It's got this very prominent Franco-Belgian fantasy vibe.

As you can see, this is why it was so important to meet the king while we were in the neighbourhood. It is, in fact, our old buddy Fraener. Though this time he's not a commie rabble-rouser, but a false king. Since we already have info on his weak spot, I figured it would be best to direct ourselves towards the victory condition that has us kill him, but to do that, we first have to meet him in his lair.

Though Fraener must fall, I have no hope of besting him here.

Will the tokens he wants be the same as last time?

Sure enough. Since we've already helped him once, this path is now haram.

While we know of his weak spot, it would be completely stupid to try to strike him here amid his men and magicool wards. We leave... for now.

Yeah, pal, I've heard that before.

Only a jarl might raise men enough to fight such a foe.

That's our cue what to do next on this path. We need to get the jarl on our side to move against Fraener. But there's no need to be too hasty about it, since we still have 33 days left to prepare for the showdown.

Meanwhile I miscalculate like a retard and get our dudes starving and Aerik pissed even more because I thought I could move 1 hex to the forest to hunt without starvation. Otherwise I would have bought 2 token food at the burg.

This should last a while.

We'll want to try to get to Lanhyrr and rest there to bring Aerik back up to medium morale. Resting at shrines is very powerful, but also about as costly. We just have to hope we don't trigger any fights along the way that would make Aerik run away.

FIGHTS YOU SAY?

The alpha strike is enough to kill both the churls, though, giving Aerik no time to run

Remember - you're staying in this warband forever!

The churls also dropped some meagre gold and food that I forgot to photo.

Along the way to Lanhyrr I stop by the hill village and get another fighter with the arm ring, just in case something unexpected happens.

I also gossip

Hello there.

That was all to be learnt here.

Let us inspekt this befouled stone of runes.

WHEN SUDDENLY...

I don't feel like paying for this when we're already comfortable on food, and demanding the food is threats easy, boosted by Bearleather, so it should be a no-brainer.

FEAR ME!

Let him grovel.

Not only is that a ton of free food, it also put our fighters' morale up by 1, which makes the butthurt of Aerik far less of an emergency now.

We bid the churl farewell and continue towards the runestone. We should get there by the next update.

 

[Demo.Graph]

Flavour sailing event.

A woman? On the ship? And it looks like she's on the crew?
Heresy!

"On the right are ... maidens unmade"
Where? All I see is a picture of a woman killing a man from a powerful yoga pose.
Literally unplayable.

 

[MRY]

Not only that, it’s the same maiden!

 

[lightbane]

s you can see, this is why it was so important to meet the king while we were in the neighbourhood. It is, in fact, our old buddy Fraener. Though this time he's not a commie rabble-rouser, but a false king.

Interesting. When is this game coming out again?

While we know of his weak spot, it would be completely stupid to try to strike him here amid his men and magicool wards. We leave... for now.

Can you win if you strike him at his place, or is it literally impossible?

 

[MRY]

s you can see, this is why it was so important to meet the king while we were in the neighbourhood. It is, in fact, our old buddy Fraener. Though this time he's not a commie rabble-rouser, but a false king.

Interesting. When is this game coming out again?

When it's ready. I would expect 2025. Maybe Q2?

While we know of his weak spot, it would be completely stupid to try to strike him here amid his men and magicool wards. We leave... for now.

Can you win if you strike him at his place, or is it literally impossible?

Impossible. I contemplated making it a doomed but successful suicide attack if you know his weak spot, but ultimately it felt like that would call for a custom ending slide rather than the generic "you died" ending slide, and that added resource (along with the various nodes I'd have to write) felt unnecessary at the moment.

 

[Malakal]

Cant it just be several battles in a row, first with his guard then boss battle? Like super hard but possible for a very strong party? Would make sense.

 

[MRY]

I mean, anything is possible, but I think that would on net be less rather than more, since there is already a victory path (versus Amarok) that focuses on combat.

EDIT: Also, I don’t think I have the willpower left to add a new boss sprite, etc. into the game, that would be even more resource-intensive than a skill check with ending slide.

 

[Malakal]

I mean, anything is possible, but I think that would on net be less rather than more, since there is already a victory path (versus Amarok) that focuses on combat.

EDIT: Also, I don’t think I have the willpower left to add a new boss sprite, etc. into the game, that would be even more resource-intensive than a skill check with ending slide.

Yea I understand, just having a "you lose" button is kinda annoying tho. I understand the limitations of indie game dev.

 

[Brancaleone]

I have to say, these playthroughs are by far the most enjoyable thing I've been reading on the Codex for quite a long while.

Of course, that's 99% thanks to MRY + team's work, and 1% thanks to the rat, and I'm being generous

 

[MRY]

Malakal Yeah... I will say, the fact that a third party raised this issue is now leaning me back toward the suicide strike success possibility if you know the weak spot. The choice is there mostly because it felt like something that you had to let the player try, but Fraener is in the heart of his power, guarded by wards and the fear/faith of his followers, and the idea you'd be able to stroll in and kill him is a little dodgy.

Brancaleone That's wonderful to hear, but of course the game itself isn't even 99% thanks to me, it's an amazing team. But even distinguishing between dev team and LP, Roxor's LPs always add a ton (even if they're too edgy for my milquetoast ways). I still remember all the lore checks he passed when playing Primordia so many years ago.

 

[Brancaleone]

Brancaleone That's wonderful to hear, but of course the game itself isn't even 99% thanks to me, it's an amazing team. But even distinguishing between dev team and LP, Roxor's LPs always add a ton (even if they're too edgy for my milquetoast ways). I still remember all the lore checks he passed when playing Primordia so many years ago.

I thought it was a one-man effort, edited accordingly.

By the way, I think the LP's 'edginess' is well-placed, the game's atmosphere is by itself epic/dreary/nightmarish enough to warrant some lightness of treatment (it's a Codex LP after all).

 

[Hag]

Yeah... I will say, the fact that a third party raised this issue is now leaning me back toward the suicide strike success possibility if you know the weak spot. The choice is there mostly because it felt like something that you had to let the player try, but Fraener is in the heart of his power, guarded by wards and the fear/faith of his followers, and the idea you'd be able to stroll in and kill him is a little dodgy.

I for one think that the player should deal with its choices, and a hopeless attack where all the odds are against him should not be able to succeed (and doesn't fit the tone of the game where even mundane events can turn sour). Maybe the real issue is that he can try something that stupid in the first place, maybe change the suicide attack option to another one.

Nonetheless this game looks great and makes for compelling stories. Also I love all those arabesques.

 

[MRY]

Brancaleone The Steam page (and I think the development thread over in General RPG Discussion) has interviews with the currently active team members, and there are also some folks who cycled on and off the project (including the amazing artist who did the two maiden illustrations mentioned above, Constan). It's different from any prior game I've worked on, though, in that I'm funding and paying everyone as contractors, rather than an indie dev partnership/collab (Primordia and SL) or a project where I was a contractor (TTON, DA:O, Kohan II, Axis & Allies, Heroes of Newerth, Infinity, etc.). In addition to swallowing up many years of my life, FG has also consumed substantially all the royalties I got during that time, but so it goes. As long as game dev winds up break even for me when all is said and done (and overall, I'm still up somewhere between $100-200k), I'll feel like it was a remunerative hobby rather than a wasteful vanity.

Hag Thanks! That event (in its various permutations) in general has something I couldn't avoid, which is a recursive option (ask about what tokens he likes); worse yet, it has an entirely uninteractive node (the one between getting past whoever the door-guard is and getting to meet Fraener). The combo of those things bothers me, but we couldn't figure out how to avoid it (too much info to do all in one node). As a practical matter, whatever option replaced "doomed strike" would need to be something non-recursive. But anyway, I like having the option there -- if the player can get within striking distance of the Ormfolk's foremost foe, then even a doomed attack has to be something you can try, I'd think.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Spoiler

Last time we left off the Hardmode CHAD, he was on his way to a DEFILED RUNESTONE.

'Kilroy wuz here'

We can either identify the scribbling with the skinbound book, or SMASH DA STONE. Smashing will take a medium god might check and 0-1 days, so it sounds like a shitty deal, while the book hasn't had any good use yet.

Therefore I cast "identify".

Well, neato. As I said before, you may never know when you'll need an evil book of wicked lore!

'Wizard lore' is a buff that will now increase all our rolls vs wizard-related shit. That includes combat and events. If we ever run into another wizard, this will serve us well.

Seeing as there's a barrow close by, I take a detour there. Sometimes the stuff hidden in barrows is so good that such a detour can be really worth it.

Well, not amazing, but not a waste either. The arm ring will let us fix Aerik's morale, and gold is always welcome.

Back on our former bearing.

Also, the god's curse that we picked up all the way back at the Nithing pole has just fizzled out on its own.

While passing by the mountains, we spot a guy tied to a pole on the other side. This is because we have sight beyond sight.

Destination reached.

Nothing special to be had in Lanhyrr. We also don't need to rest here anymore since we got the morale crisis under control. Gonna spam the tidings button.

We've seen this event before, I think as Norse Jesus. The singing troll at the bottom of a cave.

This... we've also seen before Although Norse Jesus couldn't bring himself to lie to the good ghost of the troll-slayer, so we only went in and out.

The barrow is very close, which is great. It will be very relevant to our interests.

Karringar! Dearest of all my friends!

That wasn't too bad. Quite a bit of good info we got here.

I finally give Aerik the arm ring. He's back at steady morale.

After that, we go to Hornfell. Why not the troll-slayer's barrow, you ask? Because there's a troll in Hornfell. If we kill it, we won't have to lie to him.

But along the way, of course we run into some turdwights.

These assholes are so annoying and in such annoyingly large numbers that I try to scare them away. Medium threats + Bearleather might just cut it.

OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!!

this is all so tiresome

The wights called another stronk one to the scene, but our alpha strike was enough to delete it.

Best clear out the weaklings first.

Then it's over.

Zeal is its own excuse.

Before going into the cave, I rest for a day, because everyone took some hits from the million wights.

In we go!

FORWAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD

Hmmm. More turdwights dead ahead.

We still have a pathetic soul count so I don't wanna burn them. But I also don't really wanna fight them. Attempting diplomagix is a medium god wits check, so maaaaaaaaybe this shouldn't be too bad?

We come in peace!

cant believe that worked

cheers, fellas

So it was, once, with woodwights and men.

ONWARD!

None shall pass.

Tossing the rocks is a medium god might check. I don't like the looks of that, but it's the only way forward.

plz dont roll over me

fat chance, guv

AAAaaaaaaAAAAAaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Cripple is way too annoying of a fucking status to just keep on ourselves if we can zap it away with Healing Hands. Especially since we're going to need all our might and HP in a moment.

If the troll were quickened, the sword would slide free.

Well. If we pull the sword out, do we get to become king in Fraener's stead?

No reason to leave, so there are two options on the table. Heal the troll for 1 soul to get the blade (sounds like a pretty bad idea), or try to grab it with a medium might check.

I'm... feeling lucky today.

PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULL!!!!

INSTEAD OF GAZING AT THE PRETTY FLAMEZ, MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE RUN AWAY, DUMBFUCK GOD?

This is going to be rough, but it should be doable.

I skip Ullin's turn and decide to tank with the god. His 9 HP and defence bonus might just keep him alive long enough. Also, as you can see, Firebrand is a dedicated anti-troll weapon that gives us a whopping +3 attack against this beast.

Soon the rest of our BROS join the fray.

Unfortunately the troll hits like a fucking truck.

And it takes down roughly 2.5 HP blips off the god in one attack. He's not gonna come out of this fight in one piece, but all the other dudes might survive it, and that's what interests me the most here.

Fuck, the troll finishes off the god with a MEGASLAM that damages everyone in the party.

This can still be won without casualties.

Unfortunately the troll survives with just a sliver of health.

and then it slams Aerik dead into the dirt

Ullin delivers the killing blow.

Not entirely bad, but I really, really wanted to keep both the fighters alive in hopes of having them both level up.

3 souls as reward for this dungeon isn't a whole lot. I also spent one to get the god back to shape with Healing Hands.

HH is the true MVP ability of this game.

We can now tell the troll-slayer of our EPIC EXPLOITS.

Whaddup, buddy. Hand over yer stuff.

Go dig while I dialogue at you for an hour.

We get a free item and troll lore on top. Troll lore is like the wizard lore we got earlier at the runestone - bonus to all rolls in matters troll-related.

We bid the stone kold killa farewell and inspect our booty.

CURSE YOU, FRAENER

The Fording Stone is a very neat utility item. It doesn't give any specific bonuses, but it lets your party move through rivers. Tons of travel time can be saved by it.

Meanwhile Firebrand is the epic sword of this world, and there's little wonder Fraener is looking for it. Apart from all the deep lore blabla, it gives you a bonus of +2 to attack, with even more vs trolls.

And here is the practical application of Fording Stone. If we wanted to say hi to our friend Greedy McGreedgreed, we'd get one helluva shortcut.

Well then men. As you can see, the sun's setting over the world to signal the looming twilight of the god.

We have 20 days left to do anything more before we go tell the jarl of Fraener.

It will take 4 days to reach Sverdgate. That leaves us ample time to still achieve some shit and prepare ourselves better.

But we've actually lawnmowed quite a bit of the world. There are more or less only 3 places of interest left on the map.

In Narholme hides the bog-witch. We've seen (and killed) her during the saga of Norse Jesus. Swamps are incredibly annoying, but Ullin is going to be of great help there.

In Landsbreach is the singing troll with the Lur. We've also met it during the saga of Norse Jesus, but all we accomplished there was get our fighter killed. I think now with troll-lore on top of Firebrand, and a level 2 fighter, we should be able to kill the troll without losses if we get there.

There's also a barrow near the cave, but it's the last unexplored barrow on the map, which means it has to be the Ormson, and that is completely useless to us and not worth the bother.

From Landsbreach we can also go to the unknown hill village of Skard, or press on to Narholme, but the latter is extremely unlikely, because Landsbreach is a big, scary cave that is sure to leave us battered.

There's also Flarcrag far in the north. We know nothing about it or the town of Aithkoping close to it. Perhaps it's worth trying to go there and see if either of the two locations has something that would benefit us. Furthermore, if we manage to clear this place out fast enough, we may *still* have enough time to go to Narholme.

Keep in mind that we haven't seen too many settlements with special happenings in this playthrough, so the odds of some event going on in Aithkoping are very high.

Walking to any of the places listed above is going to take 6-8 days, and since we're extremely strapped for time, we're going to take a soul taxi from Southgate to Eastgate. That's three further days down the drain, conceivably plus another one to hunt. Though to get to Landsbreach I'll take a ship from Kolstad to Eastdock.

Wot do? Choose wisely:

- Bogwitch in Narholme.
- Singing troll in Landsbreach.
- Unknown in Flarcrag and Aithkoping.

 

[Demo.Graph]

3 then 2

 

[Damned Registrations]

The Singing troll cave says it has a wizard there, and we've got both troll lore and wizard lore. And wasn't the singing an HP check and we've got a massive amount? Definitely seems like the place to go.

I'm curious about the witch's other possible outcomes, but settlements are more likely to give us extra people to recruit, which seem like the higher priority between those two, unless we pick up people at Eastdock.

 

[Brancaleone]

I say

 

[Jaedar]

Gotta kill nasty trorrs. But if there's time visit the cities first for some backup.

 

[lightbane]

Troll time!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Singing troll is wrong, those guys can't even carry a death metal tune

 

[Darth Roxor]

unless we pick up people at Eastdock.

Nope, docks are only I/O points for sailing. They are not actual settlements with other interactions.

 

[Hag]

Sounds like a waste to have both the troll-killing sword and troll-lore and not go for the troll. Let's kill it.

 

[Malakal]

Ye troll-be-gone