A DnD Tale - Waterdeep: Dragon's Heist - Cult of Personality

 

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long years
Stole million man's soul an faith

So the day was finally here. It was the big midsummer festival and the Cassalenters have pulled no stops, hiring our heroes to cater food and drink to the masses. What our heroes didn't know was that the Cassalanters intended to kill 100 people and sacrifice 1 000 000 gold in order to release their children from a contract that would have turned them into monsters. So they show up at the party and make the excuse that they are checking the sound in the rooms for a performance. So they go around and check it all. They don't read the books or such so they don't get the clues, they don't attempt to get through the office of Vittorio so they can't get any keys and even though they find boxes filled with red robes and golden masks they don't know what they will do with them. They find a hidden dress belonging to a noble lady, but don't look for her. They are recognised by a guest whom they don't recall (which they now think is the Black Viper, but is actually a doppelganger from the Yawning Portal). They at least finds the poison Midnight tears and know what they do, they don't connect that the poison is in the lady's chambers and the party has an ending at midnight.

They find the hidden attic, but can't get in since they don't have the keys. So they go back down and through the cellar and finds the hidden vault that leads down to the Temple of Asmodeus. They hear chanting and goes down a staircase and finds the crypt of the Cassalanter. They find the tomb of the former Lord and as they speak with him he gives them a magical armour and mace, which only Parker can carry and use. They also notice the bearded devils standing guard so they go up again and find the balcony overlooking the chamber with 30 praying cultists and a statue of Asmodues carrying the golden skull they are looking for. They get Parker to use Control Water so that the river that runs behind them rises and drowns or sweeps away all the people for 10 minutes so that they can get the skull and then destroy the statue and fire beneath it. They at least left the golden skull replica they fixed in the last session.

And then they goes back to the party not to raise suspicion, says farewell to the hosts, toasts with them and then returns home without a care in the world. They hide the skull in the tower and then goes to sleep. As midnight strikes they awake to horrible pain as the poison course through their veins. In the morning they hear that over 100 people are missing and they suddenly realise that they forgot about the poison and what it was supposed to do. In the evening Vincent Trench arrives and gives them a hint about the whereabouts of the Jade skull. It belongs to Jarleaxle, the drow mercenary leader and the place where they know about drows is in the docks where they stopped the drow assassin. And with that the session ended. 

In my mind I had this great tale where they started investigating the Cassalanter mansion and would find this different clues, like the journal hinting them about the search for the treasure and why, breaking into the study and finding the Black Viper maybe giving them hints about the Asmodeus activities and the real truth behind their recent fortunes... and some clues about Jarlaxle hinting them toward the right place without me using Vincent as a crutch. I was gonna tuck their heartstrings about the transformed children and the desperate pleads from the parents, but alas. At least I had to use all my things to create maps in order to cover the temple and the mansion floors.

TaleSpin

Time for another TaleSpin!

Another Disney Afternoon series, this time based on the Jungle book. By some seen as the pinnacle of Disney afternoon adventure shows and probably the one with most focus on the characters motivation for the plots and not just random things happening and characters that need to be changed in demand for the plot... or so at least the fans says about it. Overall 65 episodes, mostly adventure focused and some slapstick comedies. We had some episodes taped from Filmnet on VHS, the Bermuda Trepaziod one where Baloo thinks he's dying, the parrot treasure, Daring Dan, Molly Cuddled, the Hollywood episode, the flying petrol stations and Baloo back to school to be able to go to a class reunion. Those all in english and then a couple of episodes recorded from the Disney time on Fridays from Swedish Public channels. Those I recall was when Baloo lost his memory, the Vandersnoot kid, the Frankenstein episode and when Baloo starts a Pizza operation. And some doubles like the treasure, Daring Dan and Petrol station. I recall seeing more episodes on TV, but for some reason we hadn't recorded them.

A fine show, rewatching it I probably rank the amnesia episode as one of the best ones for me. Although rewatching any episode with Shere Khan is a delight, both in the ambiguity of the character and the voice acting of Tony Jay. Sadly due to the batch nature of the 65 episodes there isn't a finale that ends it on a definite end, like Gummi Bears or Ducktales. Music great and all that, still prefer Ducktales music and the animation in the first season of Ducktales also outshines this effort. Might be that I prefer the Ducktales mythos of Barks that makes me more inclined toward that show. Good then that two episodes was worked on by Don Rosa himself, the premier Scrooge writer after Barks... or maybe even before Barks. Unfortunately I don't find those episodes as interesting since he shines more in the comic format. 

On the other hand, a lot of episodes seems to copy Ducktales in several ways. We have one episode where a robot pilot is better than the standard pilot, there is the shrinking episode, there is two episodes copied directly by the same writes, jumping a day to get paid and the main character thinks he is gonna die when a doctor calls about a defunct machine (many of course probably standard tropes of series overall). Or that DuckTales and TaleSpin is pretty much the same idea for a name. Other problems is that I find the basic characters of Baloo is someone I dislike, always lazy and prone to lying. Kit is probably one of the better kid actors, but then we have an episode where he is so intent on flying he runs to Thembria and then just pesters everyone that he wants to fly and don't listen to anyone. I actually have more sympathy with the hounded Spigot in this one... then again, that might be my work as a state official shining through. I kinda find the health inspector in the Pizza episode and the inspector in the gasoline one to be very relatable as well. 

But aside from that it is an entertaining series, stories are rather fun with great voices and music. Would like a physical blu-ray release as with everything else. 

Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: Fafnir Knight (3DS)

 

I thought Fafnir was the dragon?

Had to continue the series so I started up the second Untold game. Being not so keen on playing another 86 hours over the course of 8 years I choose the picnic mode and guess what? 45 hours later and I'm done... and I actually recall the whole game! And playing it this close to the ending of the first game I can see that it's pretty much structured the same way. Explore 5 floors, fight a boss, go into this side dungeon (Ginnungagap in this game), explore till stuck, back to labyrinth for another 5 floors, a new boss and so on until you reach floor 20 and the twist is revealed, go to floor 25, defeat boss and back to final stretch in the side dungeon for the true final boss. Cap the level at 65 and you are good to go.

In between floors do some quests and gather materials and money to upgrade your equipment. Another side thing is gathering ingredients for helping your guild restaurant and deciphering the clues for the recipes, a bit like the alchemy clues in Dragon Quest VIII (the PS2 version that is). So that is the basic structure, what is the story? You, the main character and your best friend Flavio have been sent by the Midgar Library (where Simon, Arthur and Raquna came from in the first game) to escort Princess Arianne. She's been tasked with performing a ritual that's needed every 100 year to uphold a seal on the Calamity, another Yggdrasil core. Entering Ginnungagap for the first time you meet Chloe and Bertrand forming the last part of your Guild as you continue the adventure. 

Bertrand is probably the most interesting character. A former fafnir knight that lived over a 100 year when his princess took his place in the ritual to stop the calamity. Cause the twist is that the fafnir knight is doomed to die and that happens to be the main character, chosen by Arianne when you saved her as a kid. Due to having 2 fafnir knights the system breaks down during the final phase so you have to save Bertrand that was taken instead of you and then you have to find another way to stop the Calamity. So you gets hint about the Overlord living in the flying castle. You meet him, turns out to be some sort of computer program, kills him and have now the power to fight the Calamity. Back in Ginnungagap you meet the Calamity and defeats it, but during the celebration it awakes again, putting all your compatriots out of commission except Arianne that intends to spare you from your faith, but you take her place and her love for you (I think at least) awakens the dormant powers that the Overlord gave you after dying so you get a super powered form that destroys the Calamity once and for all.

After that someone is talking with the citizens you meet, explaining that a bright light shone from the labyrinth and a shooting star flew south. The guild left sad as they missed one of their members, pretty much hinting that you died. The final scene is the guild deciding to go south in order to try and find you as they believe you are still alive. The end!

It was a fun little adventure. Don't know if it's due to the easier difficulty or the fact I got the skill system better this time around. Passive skills for the win. Sadly the last Untold story and with it the more story oriented games in the series. I will probably play the Switch versions afterwards, both to compare and play through the third game before continuing with IV and so forth.

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl (3DS)

 

There can be only one!

I got this game back in April 2015 as a portable RPG I could play while not having my own place, but renting a room in someones apartment while traveling to the nearby town for unemployment stuff and then work as I got my current job in august the same year. And now 8 years later (as of September 2023) I finally finished it. 86 hour... what was I doing? I recall that I maybe restarted the game at one point while traveling the ruins since I got stuck, but still. 

The game, the things I remember at least, is that you are the Highlander. No, not the one from the 1986 movie, this Highlander carries a spear. You end up in the town Etria that lies in the outskirt of the Yggdrasil labyrinth. Travelling through the stratums he encounters three other travellers, the Magician Arthur, the Healer Simon and the Knight Raquna. Together you find some ruins and in it the girl Ricky that have slept in suspended animation for a 1 000 years, hence the title. You form a guild and explore the labyrinth and ruins to uncover the secrets.

Apparently the world is a post-apocalyptic Earth where for example Raquna is a noble from the kingdom of Ontario. In the middle of the labyrinth is the Yggdrasil core which threatens the world and the ancient world sent Ricky into the future to stop it from destroying the Earth together with the computer AI M.I.K.E. It gets a bit hazy here, I recall fighting Gungnir, the machine that was plan A, which would have destroyed all life as well. Final stretch was the fifth stratum which was the ruins of a modern city... I guess in Japan due to the name Shinjuken or something like that. That was where I ended the last time until now where I was able to get through the floors and fight the final bosses. I pushed through when the recommended level was 50 and I was at 63. It was 4 damn boss battles (lucky with rest between some of them). I was clearly suboptimal leveled with my skill points, too diverse, should have a focussed on some skills and should have gone for the passive skills. 

But the ending battle was epic. So, even if it took me 8 years I found it rather fun. Probably should have read a guide on the skill levels to avoid spreading the skills too thin. I got Untold 2, 4, 5 and Nexus on the 3DS and the HD collection on Switch so I have a lot to catch up with. The gameplay is actually rather fun, you map out the map yourself and put in hints here and there so that you can get through it. Some problems though is that certain icons are supposed to represent certain things, but if you don't see them until the final floors you might use it for something else. And there's also a limit on how many you can have so suddenly, when I'm mapping out all poison flowers on a certain floor I hit the limit so I have to use another colour to indicate danger which irritates me a bit. Same goes for teleportation markers, I assume that was what the numbers where for, but the one floor that has them have more teleportation points than numbers so I improvised the symbols to fill the map. Small nitpicks.

The rest is fight monsters, gather items, solve quests and so on. Only a couple of weeks before finishing it I learned that you could auto-battle making traversing older areas a bit better. Might even have speed up my game if I knew that. The items you gather you sell and unlocks more weapons, armours and items. Love the idea, but since that is coupled with "use fire on this monster to get this item" or "use a slash attack to get this item" instead of just pure RNG I need to recall all this... and that is hard when you play a game across 8 years. 

Look back on the Mysterious Cities of Gold

So now it has ended, a series that started 40 years ago finally finished. Still open for continuation if someone picks it up, but we finally have seen the seven cities of gold. I wrote about my first memories of the series back in 2012 when they announced the continuation series. Saw them on cable TV back in the early 90's, but only had memory of one episode as the kids climbed the golden condor in the episode that introduced it, and then in the early 2000's dad found the VHS we had recorded the last episode on. I watched it several times and it had Eldorado, the solar reactor and the tale of Mu and Atlantis destroying each other in war, pretty much a commentary on the cold war and the threat of world war 3. The images of that particular scene was haunting. And at university I could watch the whole series on Youtube back in 2006-2007 and then in 2007 they released the DVD collection which I still got.

And in 2014 me and dad discovered that they would show the second season on Nickelodeon that we watched after work or in my case the day at the assigned unemployment centre. Being poisoned by black mould, having no job, having a depression and being forced to move back into my parents house was a pretty downer feeling. That sense of childlike nostalgia and wonder helped me through that dark period. Season 3 and 4 obviously don't have that emotional connection (although, I've watched season 4 at a tumultuous time at my job so it might be after the fact). 

They might have sparked my interest in pre-colonisation civilisations of South America, it talked to my interest of history and the ideas of Eldorado and Atlantis have always have interested me, just look at my enjoyment of The Journeyman Project 3. It has it flaws and it's clear the first season is a completely different thing than the others and the retcons is not the best (If you needed artefacts from all the cities... what was the purpose of the first city? It had the reactor, but I don't think they got that from the tunnel, maybe should have used it as the engine for Ambrosius ship if they had thought it through and bring it from there giving a reason to bring back Mayuka), but with the emotional connection I have with series and the ending being decent enough (it's no Rise of Skywalker at least) I feel it's worth the watch. 

The Mysterious Cities of Gold - S4E26 - End of the Adventure?

 

Yeah, they must have messed up the colouring of one of the yellows, but we know that King in Yellow, Queen in Red.

So, Esteban, Zia and Tao discuss the place they found with the cities, but Tao makes them promise that they won't go there until after the meteorite has been dealt with... which I feel is strange since if there is some people who would now anything about the meteor and the solar cannon it would the sages of the cities that seems to exist in this almost other dimension? Anyway, one night Nostradamus and Kokapetl observes the arrival of the meteorite in the sky... which is like Tintin and the mysterious star... it's even in the title!

The next day they begin firing up the cannon, but before they can fire it malfunctions, the cracks in the stone seems to divert the power so that it can't create the energy beam. Tao has only one option... going to Ambrosius in the dungeon... or maybe speak to sages? I mean, they built every city, wouldn't they know how to fix it? NO, we go to the bad guy, but of course he won't do it to save the world, he needs to be payed. We don't see what it is, but when the kids tells Mendoza he's furious of the demand and walks away from it. He's released for a short while and creates another black sun that Tao uses in the cannon that seems to fix the stone, but now there is a storm so Esteban, for the final time, uses his powers to summon the sun, powering the cannon. The cannon fires and obliterates the meteorite...

Wait, that's it? Where's the doom and gloom? The screaming public, both Thundersub and the Belvision Tintin captured the sense of dread from people at flying meteorites. Well, the king announces his decision to seize all the artefacts to protect it from Spain and England. The children protests until the adults go away and then they set their plan into action. Gaspard, Sancho and Pedro (that have awakened from his coma thanks to the Chinese alchemist Esteban's father brought) takes the artefacts to Zimbabwe while Leguerra and Mendoza frees Ambrosius and take him to the Olmecian Flying Machine while the kids deconstruct the 7th city and turn Chambord back into it's original and current form. They say good-bye to Ambrosius and then runs trough the gate of the elders and back in Zimbabwe they take out the medallions and lock the gate for the soldiers of Francis I.

So, at this moment our friends separate. Esteban and Zia decide to explore this other world which only they can enter with the medallions so they say good-bye to the others. Tao is given the golden condor and together with Mendoza, Leguerra and Gaspard are to travel to India to set out the Order of the Condor to protect the artefacts from Mu. Mendoza releases Sancho and Pedro from his service, Pedro now have the princess and Sancho... gets to hook up with the nurse that nursed him back after his coma... feels like time went short here. Sancho is a bit thrown under the bus here I feel, since my perception from the first season he was more important and loyal than Pedro and here is just given a girl with no name actually. Esteban and Zia unite their medallions, leaves the city and meets the other sages and as they walk down the stairs, Esteban and Zia runs after them, hand in hand... The End!

The documentary was a bit of summation of what they have been about from season 2-4. And that's it. Hopefully we get an official release on DVD/Blu Ray with actual translated subtitles or an english dub. I'm a bit miffed about the ending, the Chinese alchemist only purpose was curing Leguerra and Sancho and I expected a call to arms from all people we had seen. I don't think Ambrosius earned that ending either, he has killed people and almost doomed the world for his own greed and ambitions, yeah, he's right that you can't trust the kings, but he's no different. And probably more panic before they destroy the meteorite would have been advised. But overall, it's a workable ending and it's bitter sweet to see it after... well 30 years for me, but 40 years for the whole series. I might have two more posts after this, one personal reflection on the series overall and an unknown date of the video game based on the second season.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold - S4E25 - The 7th City of Gold

 

Apparently a solar cannon.

Great, yet another episode that actually manually translated by a human. Well, Mendoza has a concussion, and Leguerra is poisoned so they go back to Zimbabwe to get to Chambard in order to heal them, but Ambrosius beat them to it, take the orichalcium maxtrix, blows it all up and runs trough the portals, grabs the medallions and lock it. In the attack Sancho ends in a coma. Esteban and Zia arrives too late to prevent it, but Leguerra tells them that Ambrosius medallions lie where they fought and Mendoza tells them where it is, but can't follow due to his injuries. At the ravine they fall in and grab the medallions, but are attacked by snakes. They put in the medallions and are transported to... I don't know but it seems to be place where the cities of gold exists beside each other. They end up in a room with several gates and find the one that take them too Chambard and as they leave one of the sages appear in the flesh.

Meanwhile Ambrosius have overheard Francis I talking to Esteban's dad about taking over all the artefacts, renegading on his promise to Leonardo da Vinci in that the Order would be independent. Ambrosius catches Nostradamus that take him to Tao, he injures Kokapetl, steals all the treasure and uses Tao as hostage. Esteban arrives and opens the gate to Zimbabwe and looks for his father, but sees the hostage situation instead. He uses an experimental crown to grab the stone from Ambrosius. He hunts down Esteban that drops the stone and a crack appears on it, but Mendoza intervenes and gets slapped around until they end up outside where a trap was laid by Pedro and Gaspard who dropped several bars of Orichalcium over him.

The documentary was about snakes and the serum from their venom.