A man who looks like his about to thrust his groin in the direction of the viewer, and a woman in dubious garb, I feel Heroic already.
Intro Cinematic!
"Ah, Microprose. Quite the gem of a city. So many boyhood memori-
Hey kid, I'm a gargoyle. "What grave sin did I commit to deserve death at the hands of such a creature!? I repent Father, I repent!"
"Matins already? I'm outta here see you later, mortal."
Microprose, Germany, 1974. The nights are odd, the ale cold, and the maidens Russian...
"No time to waste, CHAFHALAT is presenting today!"
"Hey you, yeah you, watch this!"
"BEHOLD MY POWER MORTALS"
"...I believe that will be my last ale for the evening."
"This is always the best part."
"Hi, I'm a tailor from
Graf and I'll be teaching you basic witchcraft, the liberal dark arts, and Incubi husbandry."
Shiiiiiiii-
Wow, that was strange. What was Gutenburg doing there? What was the Emperor of the HRE doing there? Let's just Create a New World before more terrors approach.
The game is Darklands, developed by MPS Labs, published by Microprose, and released in 1992. It is also a "Heroic Role-Playing Adventure in Medieval Germany." Yes, it's a fantasy game set in Medieval Germany with all that entails: witchcraft, alchemy, miracles, great beasts, and demonic entities.
The main way you interact with the game is through a choose your own adventure style interface with still background images. Whether it be city, village, mine, or crypt, it is the interface you use to interact with it.
Combat is real-time with pause, very similar to the (significantly more popular) Baldur's Gate except more, well, rustic. Almost all combat is the result of a text-based scene with some rare exceptions, as such the isometric view is used only in combat and you don't explore with it outside of the (rather annoying) dungeons the game has to offer.
Game can be acquired legally
here and
here. The Steam version has poor quality sound by default and the GOG version has general sound problems. Steam's problem can be fixed by changing the default config settings around and GOG's by renaming some files so it probably doesn't matter which one you choose to use.
With that, let's begin character creation. It is something unique to say the least.
Like every '90s RPG with the ability to create parties, there are a bunch of terrible pre-made characters; it's safe to say we lose nothing from me killing them.
Clicking create character we're greeted by this gaudy screen.
Names should be vaguely Medieval, but don't have to be Germanic. Abu Hassan Ibn Hadad al-Sarabi is fine, but XxxxBloodaxekillerxxxxX is not. Nicknames follow the same rules.
Male and female characters have some minor stat differences, but they aren't enough to matter so pick what you want.
Stats:
- Endurance, (amount of minor damage you can take, affects equip load.)
- Strength, (amount of major damage you can take, modifier stat for melee weapons, affects equip load.)
- Agility, (climbing, stealth, and dodging ranged attacks.)
- Perception, (detecting traps, and avoiding ambushes.)
- Intelligence, (alchemy and talking to scholars.)
- Charisma, (talking skills like Speak Common and Speak Latin.)
- Divine Favor, (what you expend to call saints, starts at 99 but skills are required to efficiently call saints)
Skills:
- Edged Weapons, (swords, daggers, and axes.)
- Impact Weapons, (clubs, hammers, mauls, and maces.
- Flail Weapons, (flails, flails, and flails.)
- Polearm Weapons, (spears, pikes, halberds, and staffs.)
- Thrown Weapons, (axes, javelins, darts, and knives.)
- Bow Weapons, (short-bow, longbows, and Asiatic composite bows.)
- Missile Device Weapons, (crossbows and hand-guns.)
- Alchemy, (crafting potions, bombs, and elixirs.)
- Religious Training, (knowledge of the Church, its institutions, organization and procedures; affects the success chance of saints.)
- Virtue, (moral character according to the Church; affects the success chance of saints.)
- Speak Common, (fast-talking and diplomatic wording.)
- Speak Latin, (speaking the tongue of priests and scholars.)
- Read and Write, (literacy)
- Healing, (treating and dressing wounds.)
- Artifice, (usage of delicate items; disarming traps and picking locks.)
- Stealth, (moving quickly without being detected)
- Streetwise, (general knowledge of city life.)
- Riding, (riding mounts, usually horses.)
- Woodwise, (knowledge of herbs, animals, and general forestry.)
Not all of these are useful as the others but your character is probably going to die anyway, so I wouldn't be too worried. The main thing to remember is that you need high strength and endurance (30+) A weak character in this game is just asking to be killed. Perception is good for an artifice character. Agility seems pretty worthless due to the fact that it decreases with heavy armor, and ideally everyone will be wearing plate by the end of this. Intelligence is only really worth it for alchemists and Charisma only worth it for talkers.
- Religion and Virtue are two of the most useful skills due to saint calling being able to heal both endurance and strength mid-battle while also having loads of non-combat applications.
- Alchemy is good for the same reasons and also because potions are only limited by your coin purse, not divine favor.
- Healing increases the amount you heal while resting, which helps a lot early on when you lack good saints and potion ingredients.
- Artifice allows you to disarm traps and pick locks, which is a big deal if your into raiding dungeons.
- Speak Common is used quite a bit to avoid combat and allows you to talk your way out of paying money occasionally.
- Speak Latin is vital for priests since it allows you to talk to monks which are the primary source of new saints.
- Read\Write allows you to read notice boards (which can help find things like dragons) and also is used to learn saints from monks.
- Woodwise can be used to avoid the wild hunt and other beasts like giant spiders. Very nice, but not necessary.
- Stealth is fairly mediocre as there are usually more common skills that can usually be used instead, but it isn't horrid.
- I don't think I ever found a use for Streetwise that Speak Common didn't already do, so if you want a fast-talking rogue go for Speak Common instead.
- Riding is used to out-run things on horses and joust with knights (if you have high polearm.) Horses themselves don't require it and horses in this game a pretty worthless, so unless you want to be a Arthurian knight I don't see the point.
That should be sufficient information about the skills. Weapons skills aren't listed because they should be raised during gameplay, not character creation. Suffice it to say that edged weapons are the best, but we won't be doing the main-story so you can pick whatever you want.
While I'm not going to even try transcribing all of the information these backgrounds and occupations have, but I do have a
convenient link that will (mostly anyway.) Additional notes: EPs are used to raise skills and stats. The weird numbers that look like 3:06 or such are how much a background or occupation raises a skill, and how high that skill can be raised with the use of EP. Automatic skill being the former, EP skill the latter.
Since I didn't show off all the backgrounds, here is a list shamelessly stolen from the corpse of Euchrejack's Darklands LP. If you want to know more specific skills or stats, then ask me.
Military Occupations:
Recruit
Soldier
Veteran
Captain
Aristocratic Occupations:
Courtier
Noble Heir
Knights
Manorial Lord
Clerical Occupations:
Novice Monk/Nun
Monk/Nun
Priest
Abbot/Abbess
Bishop
Friars
Hermit
Oblate
Merchant Occupations:
Peddlers
Local Traders
Travelling Merchants
Merchant-Proprietors
Craftsmen Occupations:
Apprentice Craftsman
Journeyman Craftsman
Master Craftsman
Intelligentsia Occupations:
Student
Clerk
Physician
Alchemist
Master Alchemist
Commoners:
Laborer
Peasant
Hunter
Underworld and the Underclass:
Thieves
Swindlers
Bandits
Vagabond
The main thing to remember is that every time you take a occupation your get 5 years older, and at the age of 35 you start getting penalties to your attributes. You can also take backgrounds multiple times.
Characters should be submitted in this format:
Gender:
Name "Nickname" Name: (Needs to be vaguely medieval, but doesn't need to be much more than that.)
General Build: (try to provide weapon type here also)
Childhood:
Occupation(s): (Each occupation equals 5 years. Aging penalties start at 30 with a small penalty to strength, endurance, and agility, gradually getting worse as you get older. At 45 you get penalties to perception and charisma, and at 55 you get a penalty to intelligence.)
Heraldry: (these and the character sprites can be found at the end of the character creation video)
Character Sprites:
Colors:
Backstory: (If you don't want to bother filling out the childhood and occupations then just a backstory and name should be fine.)
If you have a good victory condition for the party, (that isn't slogging through the main-story dungeons) then provide it roughly around here. Same applies for possible party names.
Current Character Submissions:
Pseudo-Knights:
Frans "Francoise" van der Vos (Harry Baldman)
Hanse "Hanse" Lowborn (moghopper)
Battle-Priests:
El Vocalo de Deos "The Frank" (BFEL) Eaten by a Cathar.
Alchemist Warlords:
Jack of Euchre (EuchreJack)
Current Party:
Francoise
Hanse
Jack of Euchre
I won't roll numbers for every category when rolling for new characters, just in the categories that could conceivably be useful for the current party. This is to prevent asinine setups like 4 alchemists just because the numbers say so. We'll see how it works, this LP is probably going to go on for a while.
While I've tried to explain as much as I can, there's still some minor stuff I didn't explain so if you need information quickly you can read the manual
hereEdit: added in Euchrejack's better formatted background list from his (long dead) LP and also added in a bit describing the usefulness of the various stats and skills.
Edit-2: fixed intro audio because apparently the default settings were bad. Might explain why the music was making my ears bleed before. That, and I never knew I was WELCOMED TO DARKLANDS!
Edit-3: added link to manual.
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Topic: Let's Eventually Play Darklands Part 2: Catholic-Consuming, Cranky, Cathars (Read 23653 times)