More than Nothing: Bad Allies

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Outside town the team group up with seasoned tax collector Eagley, who acts as their guide. While he and the rest of the squad guard the treasure box it is up to the four PCs to actually do the collecting - starting with the dirty pig village of Thorsen, where leader Rorke's plan to make them go through some humiliating trial for taking his daughter with them previously is foiled by Ughh who manages to simply threaten payment out of them.

Their next stop is a small "hippie" berry-eating community of Gossett whose sing songy spokesperson Dylmah says all their money went with some of the young folk to pay a hermit deeper in the woods to learn how to hunt. None of them have returned. Ughh forces Dylmah to take them there in a thunderstorm and sure enough in a rickety old shack is Rash the hermit who admits all of the rookies became prey to the many wolves around. Aah convinces him for a more than nothing refund which he obliges to, but on their way out they are surrounded by wolves and Rash himself transforms into a werewolf!

Jerghonson manages to summon Luna again who charges Rash back into and through his hut (no trace of either of them after) while the others fend off the wolves, with the few remaining ones running away. Ughh breaks Dylmah's legs there for leading them into a trap and wishes her luck making it back on her own. 

Returning back to Eagley they find their convoy had repelled an attack, but one of their members (a convicted judge who took bribes) is missing. It doesn't take long to find him being eaten by one of their cannibal allies who they then arrest, but the cannibal claims innocence - he didn't kill the man, he was just hungry. Mamita does note there is a single puncture mark in the victim's neck, which leads to another of their ex-con soldiers who happens to be knitting at the time - a woman who was jailed for poisoning her husband (and many others). She says the ex-judge had it coming since he was the one who found her guilty. They tell Eagley about it and he says he'll deal with it.

After resting up at a road side inn and declining to stay for the evening wrestling match that might earn more gold, they find the poisoner missing and Eagley confirming not to worry about her and that he "dealt with it".

Plot armor was used!

Jerghonson remembers how his brother and biggest rival Jimgon managed to solve a maze puzzle faster than he did by "following the right wall" and how Jimgon could always go past his limits to beat him physically as well.

Ughh remembers that while he looks like a person he isn't one - he replaced the real Ughh in the forest years ago. In reality he's actually a hivemind colony of possums.

[Inspired by Danegeld] 

Werewolf by Night and Legion of Super-Heroes (2023)

Actually both superhero movies?

Werewolf by Night

This very short, one hour movie from Marvel tells a spooky, black and white tale of how a bunch of hunters all got together upon the death of a master hunter to go on a hunt to win his powerful doo-hickey. They really lean into the old style film trope here and while it was certainly done on a budget (count the number of sets) the story is quite entertaining with decent action pieces to boot.

Alas the last act needed to have something more to make this really shine but it just comes and goes with no weight or surprises. Still a decent attempt at doing something different, and I felt its better than Secret Invasion, but that's not a hard bar to clear. :P

Legion of Super-Heroes (2023)

This DC animated movie primarily focuses on Supergirl, who upon having difficulties blending in as a refugee on Earth is taught to be better by her family and friends sent away to a future school by Superman and Batman so that any problems she causes aren't their messes to clean up. Uh... Ok? Anyway said school is for the Legion of Super-Heroes ("the Justice League of the future") and they kind of suck, but that's intentional so that Supergirl can do her thing and save the day when things go wrong. That shouldn't be a spoiler, it's a superhero movie - things always go wrong!

While the main plot is weak, I did enjoy the little character development we got and very much enjoyed the excellent art style on display here. Not enough to get a recommendation from me though, so stay away unless you are a Supergirl fan.

Wildermyth: Suicidal Dragon

[Part of the Cursed story line]

With many lands aflame Trynne recruits rookie Lillo to help douse the fires while Levyel and Jainlof's crew seek out the dragon's new lair. During this process Jainlof accidentally frees a frog god who turns him into a frog face and Raine is "cursed" by a lizard priest to have useless baby wings.

Eventually they locate their target at a volcano and fight their way in, past fireball throwing lizard scum to challenge the dragon and its elite guard at the summit. Luckily the silly beast enjoys triggering the free attacks of the party (everyone had some form of auto-overwatch and envenomed weapon except Jainlof) and basically defeats itself!

After murdering the last of the elite guard the remaining lizards withdraw and the team of dragon slayers return as heroes! Unfortunately for Jainlof, he cannot undo the frog god's magic and soon turns into a bogmoor. His axe guard hesitate too much during the transformation which lets him escape into the woods.

Wildermyth: Lizard Wizard

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Emboldened by their new dragon "savior", whom a lizard wizard used magic on to speed up the hatchery and growth process, the lizard folk restart their raids in earnest - this time taking treasure to add to the dragon's hoard. Jainlof and his axe guard of Raine, Les and his brother Even help in keeping them at bay, while Rick and company make their way to the Mythic Canyon where they face the dragon in person!

It is a short scuffle before the dragon takes flight and flees against Rick's cheating ways, leaving the lizard wizard that raised him to cover his escape by collapsing the canyon on top of them all - flattening Tymric and the lizard wizard in the process.

The angry dragon then begins burning the land in fire at which point Rick nopes the hell out of there with his family using his portal gun (game wise they all aged out/retired), but not before leaving the Cocks some venom Beth milked from Jerry's scorpion appendage to give them a fighting chance.

Wildermyth: Circus Freak

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Stuff like this happens all the time.

Having armed his family with inappropriate weapons like futuristic bows, an oversized sword, and a usable scorpion tail that somehow attaches to Jerry's butt, Rick and the Cocks chase the lizard raiders to the borders of the lizard lands where they then use superior numbers to force the Cocks to flee - but not before they learn that the circus freak was some sort of lizard prince who was now being used to unite the lizard tribes.

Knowing war would soon be upon them, Trynne rallied allies in Tymric the Bold (who quickly gets in on with Summer) and Levyel the were-wolf (one of Jaymriel's victims) to assist in fighting back the lizard forces who seem intent on enslaving villagers and making them dig for... something.

It would take some time but the squad faces and defeats prince circus freak twice, with Morty landing the killing blow on the monster on the second outing. Hyped up by the feat, he is encouraged by his grandpa Rick to go live it up with the local ladies as fame is a fleeting thing. The loss of their prince is a painful price to pay but the lizards retreat with an unearthed dragon egg in tow.

Warframe: Voruna

The wolf pack.

Obtained through conjunction missions on Lua, which is basically a fancy survival mission that gives you a chance at a "piece" every 20 minutes, expect to do more than a few runs to not only collect blueprints but also Thrax plasms which are used both in construction of Voruna AND buying the blueprints from Archimedean Yonta on the Zariman if you just had lousy luck grinding. Which I did.

Once built this she-wolf has four passives that can be triggered one at a time: increased parkour, stat resistance, heavy attack efficiency or a bonus life (60 second cool down on that last one). On top of that she also can turn invisible for a short while, go feral with a five strike pounce, gain health through melee attacks or energy via head shots and lastly spread negative statuses on enemies.

Pretty cool, but she seems to very much lean into status application and skill spamming as opposed to my preferred crit builds. I suppose it's just one of those things where, yes - she's pretty cool, but can she fill a purpose better than the others? She's very much a "killing things" frame (over say a sneak, defense or tank frame), but her killing is kinda slow - and there's a lot of competition in the "killing things" category. That probably means my helminth is going to taste wolf.

As an aside, yay! At least until Citrine is released that means I have now "mastered" all the non prime frames! :)

Thea 2: Strength

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Iceland is also home to followers of the light: people, creatures, and tentacles(wtf?) infused by a viral spirit and this faction constantly harasses the team with their "convert or die" methodology to the point that Siegfried tracks down their local base and leads an attack that wipes it out, at the cost of Jaethal who was light tentacled to death. Her daughter, Karina the crazy, also dies giving birth to a son Krisztian - whose father is her half brother Vshesul. The boy really has a thing for incest. Ratslava also gives birth to a daughter Mishka, having slept with King Szuvarek of the Water Demon clan after his rescue.

Anyway, after killing little red riding hood (who in this version is a werewolf), the team find the Ice Demon village and Nyrissa befriends them via an exchange student program: giving them Krisztian to raise as their own while they gain Ice Demon daughter Sniezynki and her pet elemental Icicles.

The Little Red Lie on steam is free to play if you like Little Red Riding Hood.

The team then run into the slaver band that held Romek captive and this time the slavers are killed - with the team gaining a young girl named Anzeka and three young goblins: Jere, Tino and Zosh. As they are overburdened with supplies at this stage, the team trade with the Ice Demons to buy powerful magical weapons and God's Armour? Siegfried decides to test these out at a local arena where the group must face five battles of increasing difficulty in a row and they are victorious! This band of champions are now ready to take on the world.

Pillars of Eternity: Gezzthemin Gutted

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Back at the Caed Nua stronghold, Gezzthemin has hired new guards to aid in its defense and among them are the familiar faces of Mercy, Crazy Lea, Alias and Arzang. Together with Gerrod they forge into the depths underneath the fortress once more and reach level eight and find a crazed, adra addicted fampyr looking to become king of the level by getting Gezzthemin's team to kill the rest of his kin and in exchange he will let them descend further.

Arzang's suggestion of simply killing this fampyr is outvoted and the squad ends up fighting a handful instead. They turn out to be deadly enemies due to their charms, an effect fully felt when Crazy Lea stabs Gezzthemin in the belly and carves out his insides - killing him. The team eventually slays all the other fampyrs and surprisingly the new "king" keeps his word - offering free passage downwards.

The team instead returns to the surface to rest and resupply, sending a messenger to Dulf's squad with news of their expedition. Upon hearing the news, Symm and Hort return to the stronghold to assist the dive teams while Dulf replenishes his own troop with the paladin Pallegina, werewolf druid Hiravias, and cipher (psychic) known only as the Grieving Mother.

Werewolf form is cool!

Insight: Fampyrs are faster than the other undead. This means if you have enough space to run, you can isolate them from their pawns.

Sang-Froid: A Tale of Werewolves

Werewolves with a twist.

Thanks to some devilry, a pair of brothers who live out in the woods are plagued by werewolves and their kin every night. Luckily, their sister has the gift of sight and shows them how many enemies will spawn from where and what they will do. This gives them the morning to prepare their numerous traps and defenses to survive the pack.

The choice of brother to play also is the choice of difficulty.

This is a very clever little tower defense game, though you end up having many places to defend against the large variety of enemies who have different immunities to your array of traps and gear. Blessed gear works well against demonic types but you'll want silver to face true lycanthropes and so on. I was quite happy with the super handy tutorials too. Highly recommended, I give this 3 wind charms out of 5.

Insight: Upgrade your traps before upgrading yourself, especially the ones that don't require manual activation! Also the final boss has no immunities so save a trap or two for him and make sure you are prepared (enough hints in game).

---

Blaugust Bonus: "What is your greatest fear, and how does it impact the type of content you create or consume?" -Professor Beej

Not being "alive". Blogging leaves proof that I am, yet at the same time proves I'm not. It's a conundrum.

The Cursed: Luremoron

[Part of the Cursed story line]

A secret passage leads from the jelly well down into a massive cave system inhabited by demon summoning wolfweres. Stealthing doesn't work too well on the main floor so Cristiana and Reise summon up a small army of invisible stalkers and aerial servants to help them cleanse the place fully.

Luckily the lycanthropes had been working on a portal to escape the caves, so the team finishes it by collecting the required gems scattered around the lower caves of the area though Marchon almost dies to a dire bear of all things.

To be fair, the thing is massive.

Once the portal is repaired the team step through buffed and invisible - finding themselves right in the Luremaster's throne room. Ironically, the idiot also can't see invisible so with haste and first strike he is destroyed before he can summon any help. He leaves behind a magic ring that transports the party back to Lonelywood.

Insight: Invisibility is still handy when entering the sub-caves as all but one of them opens with an ambush. This way you get to position and strike first, preferably at the enemy casters.

The Cursed: Lich's Apprentice

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having found the douche bag noble who has his son, Cernd and company are quickly forced into battle since the noble is actually apprenticing for a lich!? It is an easy victory, and the lich - who was just watching, is quite pleased by the result as the noble was a lousy apprentice.

The lich then teleports away, leaving the toddler with Cernd. The werewolf druid is at a loss for what to do and finally decides to leave the team to take the kid back to the grove where he will be safe.

Ironically they replace him with Nalia the noble, whose keep they previously saved. This thief/mage isn't that shabby, and even survives a short foray into the sewers to destroy a small illithid hideout.

I imagine they'll explain this plot in Baldur's Gate 3!

Confident with her abilities, Catharina decides to lead the squad back to the Watcher's Keep.

Insight: There are actually a LOT of liches resting underneath the city, but I'm doing my best to avoid them as they are difficult combats.

The Cursed: Druid Duel

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The druid grove is home to spiders, trolls, and druids being turned to the extremist shadow druid way by their new leader, Faldorn! It seems she survived that flamestrike after all. Fortunately, the druids chose leaders based on ritual duels so Cernd steps up.

To everyone's surprise, Cernd is actually a greater werewolf and rips Faldorn to pieces and subsequently staying to redirect the druids back to a more peaceful path.

It's like fighting a random tribesman only for him to turn into this.

More problematic is the rogue rakshasa who is found hiding nearby, as the team has no weapons capable of killing it. They retreat and opt for the other solution instead - killing all the djinn in Trademeet instead. This works out better, though it does leave Raven Skinnybastard petrified.

Since he's pretty safe here in that form (even used as decoration in town), the team take Rasaad to fill his spot.

Insight: Cernd's greater werewolf form is awesome, but he can't equip/use/cast anything while in that form.

The Cursed: Alphas

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The alpha wolfwere's fast regeneration is very problematic for the three remaining heroes so Catharina has to get creative with her spells, and is thankful she spent all that time at the Baldur's Gate library earlier. The solution is... Skull Trap.

These floating skulls explode like a fireball but do magic damage (magic missile) instead of fire. Also, they only detonate when something walks within range and most importantly, they persist for a long time if untriggered. Catharina stacks six of them which nukes the alpha as soon as Party Girl lures it into range. Somehow the baby it was carrying is fine though?

Not making this up.

Turns out the villagers are also lycanthropes, but of the opposite type: werewolves. Despite the party helping them out tremendously the scum still decide to kill them so they are eliminated instead as none of them are as powerful as the alpha wolfwere (which makes sense or they wouldn't have had a problem in the first place).

They also lied about not having a boat as one is found ready in a secret cove, they just didn't have the sea charts to navigate. Using this vessel, the trio returns to Ulgoth's Beard and discover the knowledge seeker is actually the alpha werewolf. He's nowhere near as trouble some though as he doesn't regenerate. A simple hold spell is enough to do him in.

Insight: Skull trap is the bomb, literally. Never pick to memorize fireball or lightning bolt over it as there are wands a plenty for those. Also while many enemies have elemental resistance not many have pure magic resistance. If you can hurt something with magic missile, you can hurt it with skull trap.

The Cursed: Den of Wolves

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The huge boat is home to packs of wolves and wolfweres, and the team does their best to lure out the hordes to the larger spaces outside. This works a few times before a number too large to handle pursues them. Khalid leads half the herd away into the forest while the others fight, killing the rest despite Alora having her jugular ripped out.

Bad dog!

When they finally get to Khalid all that is left is his gear, and a good number of enemies left to slay. Catharina, Party Girl and Yeslick finish them off but still have the upper levels of the ship to clear. It is now that Catharina learns the value of invisibility as it lets her do more than scout - it lets her have first attack, provided she is out of view when casting.

Lightning bolt, fireball, and summoning wands deal with the next floor up and on the highest floor a single chaos spell leads most of the monsters to kill each other, except for the ultra dangerous, regenerating boss wolfwere. Party Girl ends up luring him away too, but she escapes using the boots of speed.

Insight: This invisible mage strategy is amazing. Use it when you get into difficult spots.

The Cursed: Shipwrecked

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The team returns to Ulgoth's Beard to turn it what few quests they can from their last foray to Durlag's tower, as well as hand in the stolen sea maps to a curious knowledge seeker who then asks the party to sail on his already prepared vessel in hopes to find a special shipwreck. Sure, why not?

We can swim in plate mail, surely!

One storm later and it is the team that is shipwrecked on a distant island, with the only other surviving crew member, Alora the halfling thief, joining them. They find a stand-offish community who also seek to leave the island but are stuck due to the man wolves that guard the forest / timber supply.

Their leader tasks the party with clearing out the monsters who turn out to be shape shifting wolfweres that have a penchant for lure traps. While they are easy enough to slay, they always seem to do damage due to their fast and accurate attacks. Soon the party finds their lair... a large shipwreck of the vessel they had set out to find in the first place!

Insight: There are no vendors on this island so make sure to bring supplies.

TESO: Unfriendly Terrain

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Malabal Tor is perhaps my least favorite zone in the game so far. The cliffs and forest make the zone bloody annoying to navigate, exacerbated with the amount of back and forth travel required by the local quests. While there was a Redguard incursion, the main foes along the shore consist of pirates, some of whom are in talks of alliance with the Worm Cult and the Imperial Empire.

Which also includes bad breath Daedroths.

More troublesome are the orcs already in league with the Worm Cult, who are trying to summon Malacath to Nirn - a plan I obviously put to an end with some assistance from Malacath's nemesis, Boethiah. The overall bad dude here is "the hound", and his houndsmen of Hircine.

If you thought "werewolves" then you are right. Lots of them. Of course it is more difficult chasing the scum down than it actually is killing him, but I am elated regardless afterwards because it means I can finally leave this annoyingly designed zone. Side note: How is it that giant wasps make zero noise despite constantly flying? Stealth magic?

TESO: The Secret Fire

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

It wasn't long till I met King Casimir of Daggerfall thanks to a Bloodthorn plot to assassinate him. After personally saving him, he then tasked me with securing the rest of his region from more Bloodthorn corruption in the forests, their bandit allies in the countryside, and most predominantly from werewolves who had taken over the Northern cities led by a supposedly unkillable, undead werewolf named Falchou. There's a pretty lengthy process where the Mage guild learns (through time travel no less) that Falchou's weakness is fire.

Like how the very first werewolf I encountered here is weak to fire? You don't say!

You'd think in a fantasy realm such as this one where some people can shoot fire from their hands that might actually not be such a secret but anyway... As per normal I opt for the better safe than sorry route of killing any and all infected people and then slay Falchou and Angoff, his Bloodthorn master in unmemorable combats. Ironically in a side quest, I also have to help the now struggling Daggers (a branch of the Covenant military) gain finances to continue to exist.

With King Casimir's thanks, my work here is done - and despite rumors of darker tidings further in land I convince Kaleen to sail me to Khenarthi's Roost instead to start working on a peace treaty with the Dominion.

Skyrim: Secret Agent

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

After collecting the requested items for the Temple of Stendarr I am asked if I want to join their order. Given I've joined all the other groups so far I accept and am tasked with hunting an ex-member who turned into a werewolf as my "trial". We find him easy enough, and though he seems to be the amiable, loner sort I opt to kill the abomination anyway. For the greater good! The Stendarrites are pleased with this, and task me next with infiltrating the "Remnants of the Mythic Dawn" cult. Yep, the same ones that opened the Oblivion Gates.

Too bad he didn't beg for his miserable life. 

I would have killed him regardless.

To do this I'd need to leave all my gear, dress up like a warlock and make friends with a captive cultist they have in custody. Sure why not. Sofia also wants to do this, and cannot be talked out of it. Since being "imprisoned" with two bodyguards would probably be too much to believe, Bo leaves the party at this point and wishes us luck. She decides to head back to Elswyr to have adventures with Skullcat. I'm a little jealous.

Instead we get to crawl through this.

So, Sofia and I end up in prison with some random cultist guy. As planned we help him escape (through the shitter, literally) and since he is probably a moron, he decides to invite us to join his order. We accept! He then leads us on what appears to be a marathon across at least a fourth of the country and obviously we have to keep him alive in the process.

Iron knifing trolls. Ahh that takes me back.

There is a small benefit in that his path takes us near Riverwood, so I make a quick detour to recruit Bandit (Bo's battle sister) which seems natural to the cultist since she's basically just hired muscle.

Skyrim: You aren't finished!

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

After finishing up some loose ends at Raven Rock, such as finding a new steward for Neloth and executing an thieves' guild member in his sleep (because you can't outrun justice), I thought I was done with the little island of Solstheim. Turns out I was very wrong as Neloth still had a laundry list of ingredients for me to fetch and sent his bumbling apprentice Talvas with me to do so.

Not enough of these in the base game.

Unfortunately for Talvas, we stumbled upon a polite group of loners who I figured to be werewolves. Freaking abominations. I beheaded the first one to prevent her turning but the other three opened with their shape shifting and tore Talvas apart, his bits showering down on the mountainside. Needless to say, I then did the same to them. Curious actually, Sero and I had previously also eradicated a small enclave of werebears (impressive transformation), yet there are no wolves or bears on the island. :P

Since the ingredients were going to be easier to find on mainland Skyrim, I checked in with Frea first to see if she wanted to come along since she wasn't so subtle about not wanting to be like shaman dad and instead be an adventurer, barring any unfortunate arrows finding her knees. She was easily persuaded to leave her people and come with me. Too bad she'd never see her home again.

Thea: Kupala Night

[Part of the Darklands of Arkania Story.]

At Memorial Ground the next group of warriors come of age: Elio, Elfi, Vidyala, War Tome and Gnome Spy. These are supplemented by more travelers hearing the tales of Talarian: Bec Jinx, Kamalia and the strangest member yet: "Tough Bat"! Yes, it's a giant bat... who busily goes about helping craft arms and armor at the forge... Ooookay, sure why not.

As Chief Talarian expected, the orcs have begun their offensive - starting by trying to spread a plague in the village. Thanks to their high supplies and in-town herbalist hut, this has absolutely no effect so they instead lure another pack of dragon spiders to attack, all of which are slain. Their allies the werewolves then have their moment, managing to slay the defenseless Dina Farmer. This time the wolves aren't allowed to escape, all being executed due to their arrogance.

This is followed by a wave of undead and finally a small contingent of orcs who manage to end Natalie Patalie with an arrow to the knee. Still, all these enemies fall before the mighty defenses of the Memorial Ground. In celebration and defiance of the evil still around them, the village celebrates Kupala Night which involves nakedness and fire jumping apparently.

Toplessness is mandatory.