Poor Onget 
Sometimes I forget that Dwarf Fortress adventure mode allows for legends, but only in the Greek sense. Hercules dies horribly in the end, and Urist McAdventurer may have bisected a bronze colossus with their bare hands, that doesn't mean they can't be eaten by wolves. The greatest of heroes are felled by the smallest of nicks and cuts. Playing a Drunk wanderer offers a very different experience, in my thinking process I imagined Cog setting out with a merry band of adventurers to explore the world like a Marco Polo or something Tolkein-esque/Odyssean, barring the travel hazards that result in everyone dying. Asen, killed in an ambush by a Blind Cave Ogre. Quarathi, presumed dead after a cougar attack. Onget, dead after a black bear attack.
When you're used to wiping the floor with bandit camps, necromancer towers and megabeasts with one man army heroes, it feels so different to just have Cog sitting by a campfire with a few companions throughout cold, heat, wind, sleet and snow, trying to get to the next town over, sell some wares and spread some tales. Every time Cog has gotten into a serious fight, someone has died or he ran away. The world is dangerous, it's best to leave bandit slaying to the professionals - Cog is a humble traveler. It seems however despite how much he tries to keep his companions safe, the wilderness claims them one by one, and he's barely scraped past death's door multiple times already!
That was too close. Cog mustn't die before proving his greatness to the dwarves.
The word I would use to describe my mood is
jubilant. Finding the bear was like chasing after spectres in the dark, desperately trying to save Onget from the fury of this bear. Whilst the bear was busy savaging Onget I could have snuck away with the supplies, potentially having enough supplies to make it to elven civilization. I was considering the chances of evading bogeymen through the night, it would be possible to travel as far south as possible until the bogeymen attacked at which point I would have to drop my supplies. I figured if I fought this bear there was a high chance of Cog dying and an almost certain chance of Onget dying, so decided that all things considered and after all Cog and Onget had been through, their adventure couldn't end there or like that. If it was to end, it would end with a fight,
kicking and screaming to death's door. Noises to the East showed that was where the battle took place, when the bear charged Cog and knocked him over, I saw Onget was still alive and well... He wasn't in good shape, but he wasn't dead yet. The bear stood atop Cog biting, shaking, tearing, gouging and Cog was losing blood - I figured I just had to push through it and bring the bear down before the bear nicked a major artery. Every round of attack, this bear standing atop Cog not letting him go, Cog kept trying to grab its throat with his left hand and smash it with his hammer. Misses, nearly every attack missed, but when Cog resorted to desperate biting, scratching and wrestling, Cog was getting somewhere. The bear spent more time trying to break Cog's hold on its throat or dislodge Cog teeth-deep in its tail or arms, flailing the hammer blindly everywhere.
Then the combat flashed, Cog had passed out from the pain.
When you pass out unconscious, no more announcements or combat logs are relayed until you are conscious again - or dead. I had seen it all before so many times, adventurers knocked out unconscious only for the screen to go grey. I would then see a handful of lines detailing how the enemy crushed my adventurer's skull or they bled to death or suffocated, and 'you are now deceased.' When you're deceased the screen goes grey, but with Cog's blindness, everything is always grey. Thus I felt grim resignation that this was it, Cog is done for like all the rest.
Then he woke up.
Incredulous, I looked and found the mangled bear corpse on top of Cog.
I had never before seen any one of my adventurers, or any adventurers, manage to pull of such a feat. To fight a black bear to a
stalemate the exact moment he passed out. I had never seen such a triumph against impossible odds before. It made me feel so thankful for all the companions who made the impossible task of survival and adventure possible for Cog, it really couldn't have been done without them. I've pulled off some unlikely odds in gaming, but I actually think that was the most intense struggle I've ever had the joy of gaming.
Two drunk Dwarves and a black bear. What more?
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Topic: Cog the blind Drunk (Read 91472 times)