Let's Play Dark Sun: Shattered Lands - completed

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter XII: Redding is teh hard

Like every respectful magician, our last enemy had a lot of books which, according to his last will, belong to us now.

Terror extract. Hmm...

I'm sure Notaku's client [terror bloom buyer], uncle Todd, is a reliable person and our actions won't lead to anyone's harm.

My estimation might have been not the most accurate.

Although the "idiots" part was annoying, we can create an insta-kill weapon. of course enemy has a chance to avoid death if he wins a save against poison

Next one.

It is a description of a ring I found in his treasury. Next one.

And the last two books:

Now we'll be finally able to get to the island with stone monuments.

I marked the first two pairs of teleports on map. Beginning is easy, but when you get to the islands, there are two teleports on every isle and if you don't know what is the right way, the chance of getting out are low. Since we know already, we can go there without fear.

And so on until we find a sword granting the wielder superhuman strength. Nice.

After a short fight we can proceed to the last quest here which will grant us a full regeneration chamber.

Is there a single one NPC in the game who wasn't dreaming about me?

No, he's not. He's dead.

I would never thought about it... if I haven't seen this before.

To be continued.

 

[ghostdog]

I like how evil magicians have evil magician beds... Anyway, keep it up man!

 

[Jim Cojones]

But the evil beds are inferior to the simple ones:

Not that making the bed changes anything except the look of the bed but I was pleasantly surprised finding such little touch.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter XIII: Kiss of The Spider Woman

Welcome to the next chapter of our adventure taking place in the world of Athas. If you remember, some time ago we were asked to help Cedrilte village with their problem with bandits. We decided to do some other things before but finally it's time to bring peace in this regions. And guess what? The cave leading to the bandits castle is fucking amazing!

So what do we have here?

A group of zombie-like creatures and some strange plants. Guessing from the beds, camp-fire etc. zombies seem to be intelligent beings.

North part of the cave is inhabited by gargantuan spiders so we will have to fight our way to the entrance to the castle.

There is a group of zombies near the cave entrance but we'll start by talking to a single one living in the west part. Even if rest of them is aggressive, what I don't believe, he shouldn't attack on sight - his quarters are the most civilised - nice furniture, books... And it isn't put there by an accident but it's an example of Dark Sun devs' attention to details. Which will be proved later.

It seems he isn't zombie but the authors used the same sprites. A little confusing.

So the spiders also won't be hostile.

Items in the game have no weight so it doesn't tell me much but I think I should expect some agility bonus from the armour.

The spiders will have to wait until I check what the other members of not-zombies-but-using-zombie-sprites-grey-skinned-people race want from me.

Strange fact: the Rebels live so close to the non-rebels that I haven't suspected they aren't one group.

I don't feel like killing spiders before even checking why are they attacking. Although I'd probably do it if I hadn't speak to the Outcast first.

Let's check with the non-rebels.

BTW introducing yourself never adds anything so I always skip it.

See it? This is why the Outcast having books and better furniture wasn't just a random item placement.

We're leaving these dirty commies - no private property = working for them (or killing them) won't give us much money or magic items.

Danger! Danger!

But definitely worth risk.

Meh, just a minor damage. But destroying the wall causes the appearance of red slaads.

Hold monster -> two slaads excluded from combat -> every slaad killed in the first turn (new weapons work excellent)

The following part is not read exactly in chronological order but it isn't too complicated so I don't think there is need to change present it otherwise.

Education time:
nagi - medium-sized tree having glossy lanceolate leaves; southern China to Taiwan and southern Japan
Or "nude" in Polish.

Wear the necklaces to avoid being attacked, use the pendant to destroy the entity.

One of the possible reasons: never trust anyone holding corpses in the wardrobe.

Dear mindhome... I mean hivemind. There's a question for you. What would you like me to do? Help the prince and bring peace? Work for the queen? Kill the spiders and collect payment from the rebels? Kill them all?

 

[Erebus]

Let's help the prince. I like the idea of a race of non-evil giant intelligent spiders, it's not something you get to see very often !

Thanks for the very interesting LP !

 

[Brother None]

Not that making the bed changes anything except the look of the bed but I was pleasantly surprised finding such little touch.

Annoyed the heck out of me, 'coz I kept making and unmaking the bed thinking something would happen. BUT IT NEVER DID*

*other than a feeling of satisfaction at a job well done obv

 

[Fafnir]

Help the Prince overthrow the Queen. Kin slaying is always the right way to go.

 

[lightbane]

I vote to help the prince, and then kill everyone.


Also, there's few rpgs that you can interact with non-mindlessly aggressive giant spiders....

 

[RK47]

Queen's richer. Kill the queen imo.

 

[Turok]

help the prince

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter XIV: In The Lair of The Wyverns

So we shall destroy the source of evil and overthrow the spider queen.

At first I thought they won't attack me thanks to the necklaces but it isn't much of a difference.

Mission completed. Spiders will be happy.

Or maybe not.

Theses are not some ordinary spiders. They are badass wizard spiders who throw fireballs and lightnings. My preserver lies down in the first round. This mean I can have big problems during the fight against the queen and even more of spell-casting spiders.

She goes back to her bodyguards (she's the spider nearest to our team) before she attacks us so we have time to cast a fireball so none of these three. It seems easy because the time is paused when I choose where to should a fireball explode. But I must wait until she's closer to the other two spiders... and I am too late, my party is hit with a fireball and two lightnings, my preserver is dead. Time to reload. Well, in theory I have an access to free and unlimited resurrection in Balcazar's caves but I never use such mechanics - even in Torment, where you are resurrected immediately, I allowed TNO to die only if it was a part of some quest.

I regret I haven't taken the screenshot of what was happening below. There were about ten identical spiders - I had problems to identify friends and foes, I had to keep prince alive and only the spiders loyal to the queen had magi on their side.

Now that I think of it, I didn't remember to take loot from the room next to the throne chamber. I'll be back.

Damn, you idiot! You're blocking my way! Reload. The last save - before fighting the spider queen. Anyway...

OK.

Hurray! I don't have to fight the guards in order to get to the castle. Wait, that would be much easier than killing all the fights needed to avoid this one...

There is a lot of strange signs on the floor.

Fortunately, they don't hurt us.

But hurt them. He died when he tried to escape. If what he was saying was true, we'll meet him again later. Maybe I shouldn't let him go with me before I talked to other inhabitants to check if he isn't mad? Well, he certainly is but I wasn't sure he isn't imagining things because of insanity. But his face was looking like ha was telling the truth. His story will be confirmed in a few seconds.

(note: this is not the same character)

I had to kill him. We'll see later if he has anything to say after we remove the talismans.

(note: this is not the same character)

OK, we can come back to the previous interlocutor.

Our heroes come to the steps to face the dangers of the higher level of the castle. And then... The screen fades to black...

See you in the next chapter!

 

[Turok]

What happen in the final screenshots??

 

[Brother None]

Aye, Jim, you're starting to lean too much to the screenshot-heavy text-lite. Don't be afraid, this is the Codex, not Consolevania.

Did the stablehand sell you out or summat?

 

[ghostdog]

Damn, you even got sponsors.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Aye, Jim, you're starting to lean too much to the screenshot-heavy text-lite. Don't be afraid, this is the Codex, not Consolevania.

Did the stablehand sell you out or summat?

Sorry for that, I'm not feeling great recently so the LP probably looks like I'm not making much effort to the updates. And the second part of the last post is especially horrible because I have posted it without even checking if everything is clear - I guess I should make shorter, but more polished updates and delay them if I'm too tired to verify the content.

Clarification for the part taking place in the castle:

There are a few major places on the first level:
- rooms where the immortals are living in pain - they are surrounded with the red symbols that doesn't allow them to run away,
- hall where the wyverns are prepared here for the flight,
- a cliff - mostly empty (not shown), there's only one wyvern that joins the combat at the end of the chapter,
- a room with guards in north-west - I haven't been there,
- the stairs to the higher level - strongly defended by the guards and close to the wyvern pens which are mostly empty so I have to fight only with three of them.

Yes, after I have hidden in one of the pens, the stable hand calls for guards what was neither described by me nor shown in the pictures. :dumbfuck: In theory it is exactly the first thing he proposed but I think he also fought against me - it is difficult to say when his sprite isn't much different from the guards. I'm not sure if it's possible to avoid combat here because the most charismatic character in my party does have this stat far from maximum. Killing the guards is easy because, like most guards in the game, they aren't powerful and they are attacking from distance instead of charging at my party - two of my men use items that give them complete immunity against ranged weapons. It becomes a little more difficult when wyverns approach but not in that sense it requires some tactic - it simply may force the player to reload after one of character is killed by a single hit because of some poison. Oh, and you can also see a fire on one of the pictures - it's a result of using a magical thrown weapon which deal some minor additional damage to everyone who's stepping into the place it was thrown (but only if it hits an enemy). The reason why there' so much fire is the fact that it was thrown two times.

Again, sorry for posting an unfinished update with some of the content cut. If anybody asks, it is not my fault - the publisher forced me to finish it so fast!

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

It's always the evul publishers, i knew it.

The most important things in this level are Darkflame and the displacer boots btw.
These are the only magical boots in the whole game...iirc.
The wyverns really can be tricky because of their save-or-die poison. It's best to stun them with Egowhip or something like that.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter XV: How many times must this fool die?

Last time we've seen our mighty heroes they've made their way to the higher level of the bandits' castle. What do we have there?

The entrance is the darker place close to the centre of the map and the yellow dots in the rooms surrounding the corridor on the right are simple bandits.

The single guy south to it is probably the leader of the bandits - the one who controls the wyverns.

The immortal wizard Tara resides in the north east room.

And here's the druid who tried to stop Tara and the bandits - locked in the north west chamber...

...and we can't go there unless we kill the earth elemental.

Not a problem.

I'm just passing by killing every creature that stands on my way. Good to hear that continuing this by disposing of the elemental proves I'm a nice guy.

The evil witch found some use for a group of thugs. Extremely unusual!

Not a bad idea.

I wonder how is it possible that the only key to the leader's rooms lies here. We should kill the leader first but I want to see how powerful Tara is.

In other words, you're trapped and can't do anything about it.

She's not a difficult opponent - her and her minions are "killed" after only one - two attacks but when we deal the final blow...

And after some time she regenerates, appearing in the same room.

Let's have some fun with the candles and the torches!

Again, it doesn't change anything but the look of the used elements but I find it interesting that you can do this and this chapter is probably the shortest one so I feel putting some filler won't hurt.

Now that we are sure we can't kill Tara, we should work to gain help from druid. Let's meet the leader. He has some hidden treasures but I haven't found a way to open the door. It seems there's only some gold so it's not a big deal - you literally swims in coins in the game.

Nah.

Wow, he's fast. He managed to run to this place before I started the combat. But it didn't have any influence on his combat abilities. Did I mentioned that AI tends to use distance weapon if there's such possibility? Well, I've got two items giving me immunity from ranged attacks. And I'll get third one soon.

It takes one turn to get these lines:

But this time we're prepared.

And we found the gem with the soul of the ghost from the well beneath the first village we encountered (I'm very proud of my writing style btw). Which means that with the other gem from the girl (Tristram was her name) we have a full set.

We can also use the potion to free the immortals locked in the room on the first level, gain the magic shoes and visit a secret treasury...

...guarded by daemons!

Not bad reward.

But we can collect some more for destroying Tara and the bandits: help with fighting Draj forces from the Cedilte villagers...

...and money from the caravan master.

Now is the time to explore the ruins beneath the well.

If you don't remember, Tynan's heart crystal is needed to use the teleport right next to him. We'll do this next time.

 

[hal900x]

How I failed to play this game when it came out is beyond me. I am so going to play it now.

 

[Brother None]

Back on top I see, Jim? Good update.

Is the game as easy as it looks, by the way?

 

[Turok]

yuuuuuupi nice LP :D

I really love how when you complete a quest you get a nice reward and unique, not like the new RPG games that everything is random and you end with 4 chars full of items.

When the RPG games lost this??

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Nice update Jim!

hint: in the room where you encounter the thug leader there is a bed. Behind this bed (hard to see) lies a key on the ground - to open the trezure vault. (iirc that is)

You haz displacer boots? (I wish there had been more magical boots in the gaem)

 

[Jim Cojones]

Is the game as easy as it looks, by the way?

The beginning was difficult and after running out of prison most fights became much easier but still there were a few tough encounters against monsters with some special abilities - e.g. babau in Balkazar cave and Dagolar with all his slimes, some monsters with paralysing attack - or even the even the groups of enemies with many hp, strong and fast attacks like vrocks or the giants that were holding prisoners in the south red sand area. Sometimes it's difficult to protect especially because the combat starts with all my characters grouped together so the preserver isn't protected enough.

The caves and bandits castle were very easy with a small exception for fighting the spider queen (because I had to keep the prince alive) but I think it would become very difficult area if I went there first after going out of the sewers. Wyverns, with their poisoning attack that can insta-kill opponent, would be much more dangerous if I wouldn't become powerful enough to kill one by any of fighters (three of my men dual-class as fighters) in one turn, vrocks (that guarded the room with the magic sword) are pain in the ass - many powerful attacks per turn and very low AC - but now I can just send Tank who will be hit maybe two times (thanks to the armour set given by the ghost in Dagolar's cave) before he manage to kill both daemons.

It's a shame because changing just a few things would make game much more demanding: some penalties for dual wielding, adding wizards and clerics to the guards groups, disallowing playing a half-giant (bonuses to strength and hp are ridiculous), adding some rules to character creation (what were the devs thinking when they allowed to change every stat manually without any restrictions?), giving less xp (because it's hard to maintain any difficulty if the world is open and you must balance most of the areas to be possible to beat just after getting out of sewers), change rules for overpowered spell (hold monster or stone skin). AI is completely moronic but it's not something as simple to change as things mentioned before.

And the non-combat part of the game can be difficult for players who're used to games produced nowadays. Not only it doesn't have a quest compass , it doesn't even have journal or world map and most of the questions can be asked only once so you must pay attention to every piece of information. But I don't think it should be a problem for anyone on the Codex.

You haz displacer boots? (I wish there had been more magical boots in the gaem)

If I didn't have them, I wouldn't be able to get to the room with the magic sword.

I really love how when you complete a quest you get a nice reward and unique, not like the new RPG games that everything is random and you end with 4 chars full of items.

Oh, the +2 sword wasn't anything exceptional (although I don't know what kind of magic power does it have - I'll check it in a while). I already have got more magic weapons I can use and magic wands are common too but finding a magic armour, belt, shoes or jewellery is very rare and satisfying. And the way items are identify makes it even more special - I remember I've posted an example but it's a good occasion to show that again:

What? I guess this means I still don't know what can it do. It becomes even more interesting. I can as well ask about other swords to show how it works.

I like it much more than the descriptions in BG or NWN because it is something simple yet interesting and not a wall of text and, most importantly, it's an integral part of identification process.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

What? I guess this means I still don't know what can it do.

It does additional fire damage. Pretty good actually.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter XVI: Just Wandering, Killing Things on The Desert

Welcome back after the break and I hope you'll be happy to know the LP isn't dead and I'm still planning to finish it. The tile of the update may not suggest there will be much interesting stuff this time and... basically it's true. But there is a nice (I think so) surprise somewhere in the middle of the chapter and the next one should be better.

Previously, we've came to the ghost of Tynan to bring him his and his beloved Tristram's heart crystals so we'll be able to teleport from the circle in north east corner to the centre of the map to see what's more to find in the destroyed school of magic.

But the dark brown on the map means the ground has collapsed and the road is blocked. The only way to go farther is to use the crystals on the altar. Or so Tynan claimed.

One used.

?? It seams that when Tynan told

he meant I have to use the crystal on him. Well, I'm making him a favour so he could be more precise. Especially when I hadn't to do anything similar when obtaining the other crystal so even if it wasn't anything difficult, it took me a while to find out what should I do (no, not the whole week tkat passed between the updates ).

For the fat loot!

Oh, come on. I'm attacked by a single 2-level ghost? What could he possibly do to me?

This one at least is in a mood to have a chat:

"Why is there so little to plunder" looks like an interesting option just after I've told him I'm not interested in plunder but I see no reason to provoke him.

So even if it looks I could go south, there is no such possibility. Is there anything more?

Meet the monster I was sure I'll remember his name so I didn't note it and of course I don't. He looks tough. But he isn't. At least not at this point of the game.

There are some zombies that all die after using turn undead.

And a magic ring!

The only thing I have to do and I remember now is to deliver a cure to the village north west to the first town we've visited. It will require a short walk through two locations not not showed before.

You can't see that on the image of such quality but there is quite a lot of people around the green lake.

And here's the surprise: even if gameplay- or storywise these two locations won't be too interseting, the music played there, although very simple, is rather nice. Download it to check: http://www.filefront.com/14021515/dsun_001.wav

I think these are some crystal formations...

...or giant crayons.

Even though they have two of them, they don't want to share any one! Fine, let's kill them!

OK, that's what really happened:

In theory this combat might be interesting. It's quite unusual for the game because there are a lot of archers around the whole lake so they can use the fact that it takes time to get to them. Unfortunately, the fact that most of my men can't be harmed with ranged weapons makes it tedious and boring.

When matters here are settled we can go farther north to encounter...

Another group of Draj's weak men.

At least there are some nice graphical elements too.

How come I can only say that I'm alone? What about the both villages? And the magera tribe? And the group of warriors whose friends I rescued at the red sands? And the mercenaries that wanted to work for Draj until I proved it is better to side with me? Anyway, I can't tell the old man I am the only one fighting a good fight. Even if I know it would be no problem 'cause I don't need any help to save the world from t(y)ranny.

Again, an easy fight. A good thing is there were a couple of shovels lying around so I can come back to the place with a huge dragon drawn by alien spaceship to dig in his eye.

Oh my, it would be nice if I found shovel before I gave the crystals to Tynan so I could check what this one does too (A'poss was the wizard who betrayed Tynan IIRC). But now I rather deliver the cure first. But not in this chapter.

 

[Elwro]

BTW, these two encounters can be dealt with differently.

As for the oasis: if you manage to intimidate the guards, you can talk to the templar himself. If a psionicist does the talking, he can dominate the templar during the conversation so that he gives his men orders to disband.

As for the mining expedition: you can agree to become slaves. Then you can approach the leader and tell him you can prove there's no gold here with your wand of metal detection (if you have it of course). When you do so, he agrees to leave if you give him the wand.