Baldur's Gate 3: Training

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Despite not being on the itinerary the party investigates the temple finding it to now be home to drunk kobolds and magical cats. Underneath it however is a Githyanki training facility which the team end up wiping out, especially when it is revealed they are after an artifact (looks like a D20) Shadowheart has been holding this whole time - and the reason they've not yet undergone ceremorphosis (turn into mindflayers).

The Gith-lich queen, only present via magical hologram, swears vengeance but is unable to really do anything. It occurs to them afterwards that the Gith might have the means to remove the parasites, being sworn enemies of the Illithid and all, but having failed to ask any of them about that Wyll just gambles on one of their devices which nearly makes his head explode. The device breaks, and his tadpole remains.

With a sigh the party returns to the shadow-cursed lands and after beating a shambling mound find their way to a magically shielded inn known as the Last Light, protected by a squad of Harpers led by Catharina's old acquaintance Jaheira! I guess that dragon at Suldanessellar didn't melt her to death after all! Also present is a blacksmith who tunes up Karlach's infernal heart to make her live again and the devil Raphael who loans them his assassin vampire servant Astarion, for the lols. Councillor Florrick is also here briefly, but runs off to try "get reinforcements from Baldur's Gate". Yeah - that's not coming.

BDO: Cheap Adventurers

[Part of my Adventures in Black Desert Online]

Since the excavation team really made a mess of things I was part of the many cheap adventurers (noobs) hired for protection against the literal army of "imps" (which look a lot like kobolds) they displaced during the dig. Not just for the crew either, but also for the nearby village of Velia which is already troubled by surprisingly tall goblins and exiled soldiers in an old castle.

Imps grow big here.

Defeating the imp leader also revealed that the excavation had freed a cutesy black spirit which empowered the creature physically. The little bastard then fled and did the same for the goblin leader and castle lord, both of whom I had to beat while chasing it down before losing its trail.

Alas, since I lost it again I was promptly fired from the protection detail. Awesome.

Insight: Thank god for the "T" auto travel key. I use it a lot!

The Cursed: Copper Coronet

[Part of the Cursed story line]

At the docks district the squad is employed by the Shadow Thief guild to investigate a possible rebellion within their own ranks, and sure enough with the surprising assistance of Edwin, they find the splinter group which Catharina deals with solo. Invisibility lets her get past the guards, then the usual cloud kill and skull traps with an ice storm on top.

"Feel the backhand of Justice!"

Outside, Jaheira runs into an old enemy of hers, who curses her with some wasting disease before fleeing. The team gives chase, looking for clues at the Copper Coronet tavern where Minsc gets into a bar brawl and Raven discovers that the place is run by slavers! They slaughter the scum and free the slaves who take over the establishment. This also involves traipsing through kobold infested sewers to hit the nearby slaver base. Jaheira's curse giver is among them and his death lifts her curse.

Insight: Jaheira's stats drop by the day if you ignore the curse for too long, so don't do that.

The Cursed: Bandit Hunt

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The Firewine Ruins are home to more kobolds who have rigged traps galore. As the party gets separated while wandering through the tunnels, both Safana and Viconia are dragged off into the dark by the little bastards while the rest of the party locates and defeats their ogre mage boss and finds a clue where to find the main bandit camp. It seems all these baddies are working in unison!

Gold is a great unifier!

This also accidentally saves the halfling village of Gullykin, as stairs up lead to a hidden place well behind their town walls. Here they encounter the man hater Shar-Teel once more who was helping to defend against the kobold infiltrators. She joins the group and convinces them there is no time to waste and to abandon the two missing girls in favor of scalping bandits.

There are plenty of victims for her at the bandit camp hidden deep in the woods - a combination of humans, hobgoblins and gnolls making up their number. None of them are a match for the team with Party Girl one shotting most with her heavy crossbow. Their boss seems to be away though, and correspondence indicates something about a mine in the Cloakwood forest.

Insight: Summoning creatures, especially via wand, works well when out numbered against ranged opponents - as I learned in the thief battle of Black Pits. Get a mass of them and send them in as meat shields / distractions for your main party. It's more fun than casting protection spells.

The Cursed: Firewine

[Part of the Cursed story line]

On the return trip from the goblin lands the party goes by Firewine Bridge, a ruin rumored to contain great treasures - and even more kobolds. Outside they find a hapless adventurer with a cursed box, and she explodes when the ogre mage contained within bursts forth.

Catching the party by surprise, this foe manages to do massive damage and in a flash of light both Neera and Baeloth vanish into ash mid combat. That's enough to dissuade the survivors from exploring the underground below and they move on, crossing paths once more with the dark elf Viconia who joins their number.

Only the unworthy would fall to little blue men.

With her they achieve many things, exterminating a Xvart village, culling a gibberling horde, saving a berserking captain from a cursed sword, securing a dig site where Viconia decides to take a cursed Netherese idol for herself, and helping the thief Safana to raid treasure underneath a lighthouse. Safana is impressed at the group and offers her services. They accept, knowing they'll need her skills in the Firewine Ruins.

Insight: The cursed idol makes your party the target of a number of undead each time you sleep. This interrupts spell memorization and healing, but you also get all the extra experience for killing them.

The Cursed: Iron Shortage

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Khalid finally leads Party Girl, Catharina, Minsc, Dynaheir and Branwen to the Nashkel mines. On the way the team encounters yet another assassin group but have the unexpected ally of Dorn the angry orc who wants payback on his ex-crew.

With all the scum cleared Dorn thanks the team and suggests that if they ever need a "real" warrior, he'll be waiting at the Friendly Arms Inn. The team proceed to the still active mine and find (four floors down) that a team of kobolds had been corrupting the ore veins with a strange fluid, causing the iron shortage.

Seems that they also work for money!

They are led by a human though, and based on his correspondence he is just one small cog in a bigger conspiracy. Also found at the base of the mines is the elven mage Xan, once adventurer now prisoner/bitch. They free him and make their way out the "back way" which is a massive shortcut to the bottom floor. That would have been handy to know about on the way in!

Insight: All those "important" letters? Junk them after reading them to save bag space. It's only at near end of the game where you need to hang on to a few of them.

Photo Story: The Magic Bow (Part 2)

[Part of my Photo Story Folder.]

I came across an oddly dressed woman down in the depths.

She was being hunted by kobolds so I... uh... 

I have no idea what I did to them but it sure looks painful!

The kobolds were going to sacrifice the lady in pink

 to some hideous plant thing so I exploded that too.

Got a little too close to the blast though.

I don't recommend setting yourself on fire to keep warm.

Photo Story: The Magic Bow (Part 1)

[Part of my Photo Story Folder.]

One day, I learned from my pet, Azuis, about a magic bow 
he once saw in some frozen caves.

Deciding to check it out, I geared up and went along with my wife to investigate.

There were kobolds camped near the entrance, so I let my wife 

handle the extermination of those while I went deeper.

In no time at all I found a downward slope and was soon being chased by an infinite chain of giant boulders! Fortunately they were mostly made of snow but I evaded them regardless.

Most of them. >.<

Vindictus: Monkeys in the Snow

[This is part of my Vindictus tutorials.]

The monkeys (yetis) in the Hoarfrost Depths also have some lessons they can teach you: Painful ones! Especially against the likes of the Yeti bosses, Big Horn and Rockjaw. You've already started to see bosses with combination attacks, but these guys are quite proficient at chaining them quickly forcing you to be quick with your wit and reflexes or to suffer the heavy damage from failure.

ARE U A DENTIST!?

Practice reading them as it will make reading later bosses easier, especially with their jump and roll attacks - both of which usually happen in numerous succession. Future foes might look different, but the skeleton mesh used for the actions is the same.

As for the kobolds, they are the lesser threat here. I will mention that for the "Friendly Eweroch" who comes with two bear allies - kill the bears first while staying away from his ranged attacks. By the way, this technique of "kill the adds" is used for almost every single boss in Neverwinter Online. If you want to win that game, just kill the adds and you will win. Most of the time anyway. :P

Vindictus: Lessons from Vampires

[This is part of my Vindictus tutorials.]

Once you've managed to get past the two "tutorial" zones and finally find yourself in the perpetually burning town of Ainle (I wonder if the last "e" is silent) you will finally be facing your first fast moving -normal- opponents, the vampires. Yes, I think they run slightly faster than the kobold axe-zerkers you previously met in Hoarfrost Hollow but they still shouldn't pose much a problem.

Two of the boss vampires though have useful mechanics to get used to right away. The first is "The Knight" who is the boss of the mission "Being from the Other World". Sure he has a sword, but in my experience (as a Kai) he certainly enjoys casting fireball with his other hand. This orb tracks you and explodes on impact. Lots of the later bosses have a similar mechanic with the tracking orb, so it's good to practice against him here. The two important points of this are:

Don't dodge too early (or too late, duh), and avoid sloped ground as it will screw up your timing since the orb will explode sooner.

Likewise the second boss I want to talk about is "The Blood Lord" who likes to vanish into a cloud of bats and suddenly appear on top of someone. Again, this move is used with slight graphical difference but pretty much same effect by a few bosses later on.

Just look at those claws.

The lesson to learn here is simply to RUN when the bad guy vanishes, preferably away from your allies, and prepare to dodge if he does choose to pick on you. As a Kai who is constantly shooting from a distance this is really the only move you have to worry about from this otherwise slow and easily readable fellow.

Festival Freelancing

Part of the Tales of Skrmischa in Neverwinter Online!

OBSTACLE COURSE @ Zoma666 (NW-DHWE5IMMC)
Signed up for guard duty for the Summer Festival and my first challenge was a non-combat obstacle course test which I found really cool.

Having passed the test it was on to the grind, which basically entails fighting off hungry trolls and annoying kobolds in addition to harvesting crops, flowers and herding escaped farm animals back to their pens. It's a pretty good change of pace and a very nice locale to boot. I overheard one of the women say that it was better than the Cragsteep Crypts which I had a chuckle about. The competitive spirit is getting the better of some participants though, especially in the Blooming Boughs where many go to harvest fireblossom flowers. Reports of thievery come in daily but there's little we can do about it as the festival rules clearly state only combating trolls and kobolds.

Also the other night I found someone who seemed... unresponsive... harvesting flowers in one spot repeatedly. As I was heading back to ask what can be done about it a familiar figure came charging towards that man with kobolds in tow. My ex-boss! I readied my weapons to assist but he spotted me and signalled to hold back, evading the kobolds attacks which sliced up the unmoving man to pieces. Only after the stranger was dropped did Mister Skyrim eliminate the his pursuers. I asked him what the heck was going on and he pointed out that the "person" was actually a mind frayed minion, hoarding petals for the dark Fey in Sharandar for their twisted magicks.

Those minions look so life like!

After giving me some reward bags that he didn't need, he left with instructions to seek out and inform him of any more of these brain dead minions on the grounds so that he could deal with them, since the proper authorities wouldn't. It's strange but I'm glad to be working for someone that gets things done again, even if it is just on the side.

Deadly Streets: Kaoka Parrej Ruins

Part of the journals from Wizardry Online! You can view the rest here!

With Selenka still practicing her magic at the Caligrase Sewers, Caanon and I headed on to check out the Kaoka Parrej Ruins located atop a sunny hill. The good visibility helps in avoiding the many fire and arrow traps that litter this place too. Far less people here that at the sewers, and not all of them good. This area is best divided by its roads.

Main Street:
The main road has slow moving plants and even more beetles, all of whom are very slow but could catch you if you spend too long talking to the pair of friendly ghosts near the entrance (yes I'm talking about Caanon). Further in are ugly giant flies who are still outrunnable, but to get an item from a nearby carnivorous plant we had to ally with a porkul magician who was hunting them. Once we had enough fly bits, the plant puked out an orb. I let Caanon pick it up since he made me sleep in the stable yesterday.

High Street:
Blocked by an oversized dragonfly and two of its friends, the high street is not that dangerous for the cautious and the quick. One part led to a plaza with a friendly kobold who wanted a toy and the other was an alleyway with more beetles and plants with a chest. There -was- a giant spider that showed up when I unlocked the box though. Ran like hell back to high ground where it did not pursue thankfully.

Also below the plaza was a spellbound/cursed warrior who when we visited was being defeated by the mage aicu. After helping her jump back to the main road proper we setup camp and chatted a little before an evil female knight with a spear (pk) appeared and killed the poor girl. Caanon led the enemy all the way back through the traps to the entrance before luckily escaping.

Rough sketch of the villain?

Low Street:
Right at the tail end of the Main Street, this one is blocked by a group of Visitor Plants. They may be stronger but they're still slow. The true danger is that low street is full of kobolds, ones not afraid of giving chase. In numbers they can easily overwhelm the unprepared.

Side Street:
The last path, only openable after completing the high and low streets, ended with a Kobold Chieftain and his cohorts. Caanon managed to deal with them easily, finding behind them a strange black orb and a beacon to return to Illfalo Port.

Managed to get a lot of coin for some of the artifacts we returned with this time. I think getting a bed at the inn shouldn't be a problem any more.

-Thanam