More than Nothing: Total Party Wipe

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The boss battle ensues and its a long one because the current heroes have a dwindling supply of re-roll coins and gear while their opponents ALSO use plot armor to avoid damage. In the end, its almost plot armoring the whole way to see who runs out of it first! [GM Note: As fun as this was for me, it made the fight really drag out so I'm not doing that again :P]

Plot armor:

Master Miner Mama: remembered her neighbor Chitty Chatty noticed her try to hide the gem she found on her land (while helping her plant crops) and demanded to see it as it should be hers. Mama refused and kept the gem. She also had a knack for digging up things ever since she was little, always carrying an earth worm with her. Her past works in other mines didn't pay too well so she began digging into graves of the dead to fund her addiction of cocaine!

Jerghon the Great: was once a decorated and faithful warrior but was no longer fit for the field after developing blood lust!

Mamita: remembered her child hood friend "a bird" who she could finally be around and got into all sorts of fun and trouble with them, finding a feather of a raven together and apparently getting into trouble for painting "a bird", which "a bird" somehow escaped. This is because Mamita realized that "a bird" was just a figment of her imagination and she was alone the whole time. Later on though she befriended Bob the Blacksmith who had a shared interest in birds.

Ughh: remembered his time as a Partopian police with recruit Joseph the Unfair where the team crashed a fireman's protection racket, let go a perfumer whose crime was fleeing from an arranged marriage with an ill-reputable whore monger, and let Joseph kill a thief who suggested he might have information about Joseph the Unfair he wanted to trade for his freedom. Joseph later admits that he was a horse breeder whose prized stallions were seized by the torturous Aeternan cavalry without payment and he enlisted to get them back, planning to desert with his entire herd at an opportune moment. Despite knowing this treason is punishable by death Ughh helped him.

Ughh then recalled the last party he got absolutely drunk / wasted in, apparently it was in a high tree with plenty of his favorite addiction to partake in: nuts. He also hit it off well with "a bird".

Aah: remembered when she learned a market vendor owed her caretaker Governor Quintus some money, and one day saw said vendor leave a bag of money at the market when packing up. She gave the bag to the vendor but reminded them of the debt owed, it was more than nothing. Later she learned Quintus was regularly stealing from the people and she testified against him to be free of him.

Then during her time as Partopian police she arrested a merchant trying to be "helpful" by sending poisoned food parcels to a plagued village as well as his poison supplier, a doctor trying to cure the plague who was stealing bodies from a graveyard and created the poison as a byproduct of her research.

When she was sent to clear out some "demons" in the sewers that just turned out to be narcotic indulging squatters, she gave them a warning to move on before the next one sent in would come to kill them. One of the squatters was Suri, an eight year old girl who wanted vengeance on a silk merchant she claimed killed her family. Aah tried to dissuade her but later found the silk merchant dead and witnesses reporting that they saw a giant spider transform back into a little girl fleeing from the scene. Aah secretly helped Suri and kept her this whole time (in small spider form in her pack) and unleashed her into battle!

Jerghonson: remembered his sibling rival Jimgon died saving his life against a mighty demon and then during his time as Partopian police investigated a stone mason carving cursed runes into the foundations of a number of villas, causing giant rats to appear within. He let the man go in exchange for being introduced to someone with greater power - a toweringly tall man with rotting skin and a horrifying mask who granted him his magical desire: a golden clarinet of sleep, which he had kept hidden all this time because of his uncontrollable urge to keep playing it if he started.

The End Result...

With things going poorly Jerghonson pulled out the golden clarinet and put everyone to sleep, tying up the four champions of the Empress. Then, he wandered towards the city as did his companions (when they awoke) but thanks to the thick magical fog found themselves each arriving alone...

Mamita found herself on an open plain where she was utterly certain that was where the City would be built, and would grow with the right rulers. She stayed to become a founder.

Aah made it to a city of colored lights, strange machines, and discordant music of the future.

Jerghonson found himself underneath a roaring liquid light (space shuttle / missile about to take off) so he fled to continue playing his golden clarinet. Forever.

Ughh saw the city vanish like a mirage and clearly saw the truth that the City was a lie. Then he put on the cursed crown of headsplosions and killed himself.

Pathfinder: Climbing up the Back Door

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Night falls as the team moves along the ravine to make it beneath some cliff facing caves that Razmus marked on the map, the lower one of which is a wyvern nest that he has a personal grudge against (since they were sent after him before) so the current best climber Valeros goes up to fix some ropes and then tosses one of his flamethrower alchemist fire fuel cans like a grenade to light up a pair of the winged bastards before five foot stepping off the cliff behind him - falling slowly thanks to the feather fall ability of the cape of the eagle (from Vault No. 3).

The wyvern pair fly out in a rage but fail to hit any of the team waiting below and are subsequently arrowed by the Shoanti Squad and back stabbed by Merisiel. A larger wyvern still waiting inside the nest is speared down by Joe Gang and then the team rests up to recover HP and spells before Valeros does a big climb to the next and much higher cave which contains giant undead spiders piloted by little spiders? Since this party is ultra-tuned to face undead the enemies are quickly obliterated by holy magic letting the team proceed through some narrow tunnels through which Razmus has to squeeze, though Valeros gives him the cape of the eagle so that he can just transform into a bird if it gets too tough.

He doesn't end up needing it as the cavern opens up a fair bit and a band of nine Redcaps (evil dwarves) ambush them! Their small size hides their toughness of -10 damage resistance which means taking them down heavily relies on the magics of Ezren and Kyra, Razmus' and Kyra's celestial elephant's brute force, Merisiel's sneak attacks, and Shay's frost bow while Valeros tanks the five in front as the Shoanti Squad nearly perishes doing the same with the four at the back. A suicide bomber kobold with a necklace of fireballs then shows up and pushes the party's HP even further towards zero but is not enough to down anyone yet (thanks to people making reflex saves)! 

Spaceman and the Electric State

Movies with advanced technology?

Spaceman

On an important solo mission to see what's on the other side of Jupiter, cosmonaut Jakub (played by Adam Sandler) disturbingly discovers there's a passenger aboard his vessel - and its here to help him fix his deteriorating relationship with his wife? Yeah, as cool (and wrong) as the space stuff is this is definitely a study about a man who only thinks about himself and is ending up alone thanks to his decisions, conveniently reinforced by him being almost alone on his space ship. While the passenger is my nightmare fuel it certainly makes the movie. I'm not going to be watching this one again though!

The Electric State

In a world where robots gained self awareness then fought a civil war and lost, a teenage orphan (played by Millie Bobby Brown) goes on a quest with one such robot who claims to be her dead brother. While this certainly starts off weak it picks up as more and more action segments kick in (with some decent funny bits thrown in), showcasing a lot of cool CGI for the very goofy robots that really make the show. Does it pick up to the extent of making this visually entertaining flick to be a great movie? No, but decent enough for me not to mind watching it again.

Pathfinder: The Black Arrows

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

It takes a month before Pug completes the flamethrower for Valeros (me) and for Ezren (Juris) to learn his new spells, but soon they along with Kyra (Rose) and Merisiel (mom) are tasked by the governor to check upon the Night Watch Black Arrows, a group based out in the mountains defending against the wildlings(?) beyond. They take the already paid for Ferry where they meet up with Shay once more who is also headed to look for a Black Arrow of personal interest to her.

It's an uneventful trip up river apart from the incessant rain the gods have decided to inundate this area with just to screw over anyone bringing a flamethrower (lol). Soon the party gets to the village of Turtleback Ferry and get some random rumors about ogres and sunken ships they can do nothing about since their ride has already left. So, they decide to start the trek to the Black Arrow base of Fort Rannick on foot (the horses couldn't go on the ferry) and en route come across a big cat stuck in a trap about to become ogre and ogre dog food. The team defends the kitty and slays all the attackers to discover this wasn't an ogre but an ogre-kin (half-human half-ogre) hillbilly.

The freed cat then leads the team to the hillbilly's ramshackle home for some reason and the party just gets to work tearing up all the scum present starting with their home where traps and a surprise attack in the basement causes the most damage, followed by the barn where the fat necromancer matriarch fled to (via dimension door) after being defeated in the house. All foes including the zombie swarm and their pet giant ogre spider are easily handled with Valeros' cleave and flamer (indoors is fine? lol), Merisiel's new backstabby sword, Ezren's +50% spell attribute metamagic fireballs, and Kyra's new slew of holy magics and celestial bear.

Three captives are rescued from the homestead, all Black Arrows and one of whom is the one Shay is looking for - step daddy "Eye Patch" who is the owner of the cat (named "Kibb"). With him are "Baldy" and "Stamp" (not their actual names, Valeros just keeps giving nicknames to people). Stamp is a bit concerning as he has a sihedron tattoo on him, a mark usually left on victims of the previous bad guys (and similar tattoos were spotted on villagers of Turtleback). He claims it was just to get discounts at a now sunken pleasure barge which is good enough for the team but Eye Patch and Baldy also agree to keep an eye on him as their next stop is Fort Rannick, now fallen to real ogres.

Dragonheir: Season of Darkness

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

A new "season" update has showered gifts on players with something like 100+ hero dice which net me a few more legendary ranked heroes who I immediately take my new superstars to the arena and... still get thrashed because obviously I'm not great at team composition LOL. Now also available to me is the "champion arena" which is more PvP that the other arenas where you just face preset teams of other players but don't really interact with them in any way. In the champion arena mode which opens only every few hours, you are head to head in picking your line up for battle. Again, I got thrashed there too. :P

For the new arena, you start at rank 15K+ but most of the opponents are just
NPC squads until around the 200 mark.

At least I make progress against the orc invasion, basically stopping it in its tracks and then defeating the obviously evil high mage who orchestrated everything and turns into a purple dragon (that's new to me)! He's a son of Tiamat so he's kinda strong and my lev 100 fire main actually has to tank while back row Garius (90) / Ripekas (90) / Zhar'loth (90) / and Voresh (90) clinch the win. With his defeat this boss has also turned into another available weekly challenge pinata.

The adventure then leads to what I suppose is the Underdark, where we find the isolated city of Terminus inhabited by rot stricken deep elves and one of their number offers to accompany us back to the main city (breaking quarantine) via the long route - the first section of which is most exciting as it involves an undying spider that continuously pursues you once you reach its territory. You can beat it up, but it gets up after 10 seconds and the chase is on again! Ironically we ultimately escape by sending the spider falling down a deep chasm, because spiders aren't good at falling or climbing? Erm...

Tandem: A Tale of Shadows and The Evil Within

Scares with janky controls.

Tandem: A Tale of Shadows

In Tandem you control both a little girl in top down view and a teddy bear in platforming view at the same time. I think they intentionally made the bear bad at jumping because most of the time he instead relies on the shadows cast by the little girl's lantern as he can walk on them. This makes for a somewhat painful experience as you need to often switch back and forth to get the shadows the bear needs at the right time so the pair can open doors for each other. To my earlier question I don't like this sort of puzzling so I opted out of this once I hit the spiders (so now you need to switch quickly so the girl can escape the creepy crawlies) but you might still enjoy it, if you enjoy puzzles.

The Evil Within

In this horror survival game, you are a detective attending a murder spree at a mental hospital who soon finds himself trapped in the shared mind space of the crazies there - or something to that extent. I've won it and I'm still not sure what the hell is going on! Besides that, being randomly teleported for what feels like a third of the game and some "sluggish" controls I actually quite enjoyed this one.

While most enemies are deformed human zombie things they are decently tough and enjoy playing dead (unless burned or beheaded). There are also a variety of actual monsters to hide or run away from, as well as traps - so many traps that you'll want to disable to get parts to make into crossbow bolts. Ammo is scarce and while you the player might be a crack shot you'll soon find the detective isn't unless you level up his accuracy. All up if you want a game that makes you feel uncomfortable the entire time then the Evil Within might be for you.

Pathfinder: Black Fang's Lair

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Something's been munching on the local livestock, and after the locals found a black fang left in one of their sheep carcasses hire a (pre-made) party to track down and get rid of this creature before it moves up to killing people. Thus the team formed of a warrior (me), cleric (Rose), thief (mom), and wizard (Juris) heads to a nearby cave under the watchful eye of the dungeon master (DL).  

Two drunk goblins attack the team and die while Juris examines the corroded stone statue outside, and as the team moves in mom collects a healing potion from their refuse pile. Nearby Rose gains a blessing from a magical fountain before arriving at the goblin leader's chamber, where four of his minions squabble over something. Rose convinces the team to try talk to them first (hard for me to play neutral good, I wanted to get the drop on them!), and the leader is pleased that this shut up his minions.

He says he'll grant the team passage deeper in if they first find the toy stolen by his sister-brother (I guess these are very woke goblins) who ran off to the East. The team agree and head off in that direction, finding a room with a tempting altar upon which sits a magic gem. Before Juris can walk in to examine the pillars I step forward and throw a dead lizard looted from the drunk goblins at the altar, setting off a massive inferno trap which harms no one.

Rose manages to read the runes on the wall which is a version of "only the penitent man may pass" and mom crawls low beneath the fire to nab the gem. The team then continue into a heavily webbed corridor where they slay a giant spider feasting on the king's sister-brother and retrieve the toy but instead of backtracking opt to explore further, where Juris touches a pillar that gives him temporary waterbreathing and inspires him to swim across an underground river to reach something shiny on the other side. Instead, upon making it to the opposite bank he encounters a reefclaw (lobster man thing) which rolls a critical and downs him there, away from the others!

Warframe: Hildryn and Protea

Later game female frames.

Hildryn

If you ever felt your warframe doesn't have enough abs, then Hildryn is probably the bodybuilder you are looking for. Her main blueprint is locked behind rank 3 of the Vox Solaris syndicate though which means it might take awhile before you can get at her, and even when you do - you'll need to collect her other components by facing the Exploiter Orb a minimum of six times. Remember too that you can only fight the Exploiter if you've done the Thermia fractures event which isn't on all the time.

Once you get her, you'll quickly find Hildryn's gimmick is shields instead of energy. Yep, she spends the thing protecting her to do more things! These include flying around (slowwwwly), link shield power to boost allies shields or -tickle- damage enemies, powerup her exalted Ironman blaster which you can toggle to use instead of your secondary or pillage enemy shields to recover your own while clearing status effects. Just remember to do that last one while you have shields, because without shields you have no power to steal more shields. She really takes this shield maiden thing seriously huh?

While Corpus seem to be her chosen prey it balances out against the infested who have no shields for her to pillage. Despite that, Hildryn is quite readily usable "out of the box" as long as you have some shield mods (which by the time you get her, you will). It's also funny that energy leech eximus enemies will just look at you and cry.

Protea

While you can potentially meet Protea early on with The Deadlock Protocol quest (which also gives the handy Xoris) getting her parts will take a bit of doing: you'll need to hunt down Corpus treasurers who spawn on Corpus ships, kill them to take their coin of which there are three versions, then use said coin on a golden hand in one of the Corpus ships (can only use one per mission), defeat the specters of Granum void within the time frame (the Xoris helps a lot, and also pick up any little gold pyramids that add 10 seconds to the count down), and if you do well in there and win the original mission too you have a 11.11% chance to get one part of Protea (based on the coin you used).

Phew! Got all that? Great, now you can get this time engineer frame who can toss grenades that either kill enemies or protect allies, deploy short lived but powerful turrets, pull out ammo/energy/life pickups from her shapely bottom, or drop a temporal anchor which gives you a few seconds to deal damage before time rewinds (only for her) which somehow deals the same damage again, but restores anything she might have lost in that period. Including her life.

That last one is particularly amazing visually, but in reality? I hated her kit. As per her lore she is more geared for defense but there are better defender frames out there. The ammo/energy/life poop is her best skill, and since that is subsumable by the Helminth well... she's worm food.

Warframe: Nightwave and the Exploiter Orb

While there are a few syndicate factions available in the game one of the best I feel is that of the space DJ who gives daily and weekly missions to mix up your game with decent rewards to encourage people taking a change of pace (this weeks weeklies are fishing and conservation / tranquilizing wild life for example).

Given Warframe is so many things, this is great as it sends veterans back to "finished" content or gives newbies clues about obfuscated game mechanics. Hand shake emotes or raid the hidden labs anyone?

Speaking of obfuscated mechanics, there's a big spider boss on Venus called the Exploiter Orb and unlike her sister Profit Taker who is locked away behind the Solaris United syndicate, she can "almost" be readily fought with any party that wants to try.

"Almost" because the key component, Diluted Thermia, only drops from a recurring event: Thermia Fractures, so stockpile that while you can. Next, you need to go to an unmarked location on the open world to start the fight. Awesome right?

Warp to the telepad that is closest to the right edge of the map (its middle-up) and from there go South West to the nearest cave at the base of a huge stone arch. Deep enough inside you should find yourself in "Deck 12" and get audio clues to confirm it. Near the very end and up on a small balcony is an unmarked machine you can put diluted thermia in. Doing so summons the Exploiter and begins the fight, which can be messy due to lack of instruction but it's pretty simple.

If its up high, shoot the rocks its standing on or coolant raknoids if they are being summoned to make it fall. Shoot the vents between its legs to hurt it, and if the vents are "immortal", find some respawning canisters to throw (middle mouse) at them to make them vulnerable. Easy peasy for an invis Loki.

Exploiter then flees to the surface for the most annoying phase. The idea is to get it to overheat and it does that all by itself. All you need to do is kill the coolant raknoid army slowing down that gauge which might be hard without a team.

These adds drop coolant canisters you can place in lava fractures that the Exploiter will create, instantly turning them orange. Pick em up again and throw em at the spider to help speed up the heating process by .00000001%. At least that's what it feels like. It takes soooo long!

When the spider faints from the heat, walk into it to trigger a cut scene that opens a weak spot for you to shoot. Repeat three times to kill the thing, grab the loot from its butt (literally) and get out before the self destruct sequence finishes. I face tanked that the first time while looting and lets just say it did not go well for me. :P

Warframe: Solo Thermia Fractures

Here's a decent way to solo the thermia fractures event on Venus. I'm using a firewalking and perma invis Loki but I'm sure any warframe will do as long as you have an archwing launcher and some strong weapons to deal with level 70 Corpus in mid to close quarters.

Step 1: Set your game mode to friends only or solo

Step 2: Head to Orb Vallis with no quest

Step 3: Use the telepad to warp to the top left of the map next to the Temple of Profit

Step 4: Archwing further North up the mountain to find the Exploiter Orb mother. It's a giant invulnerable robot spider that will try to shoot you if it sees you.

Step 5: Little coolant spiders trail the big one, kill four without engaging the Exploiter. Each will drop a coolant pod.

Step 6: Ferry four coolants back to the Fortuna telepad using the warp. You can pick them up while in archwing mode and you can drop them by switching weapons. Just make sure they don't roll off anywhere and don't press middle mouse while holding one as that makes you chuck it and it explodes.

Step 7: From the air, find the closest thermia fracture to Fortuna which looks like a firey lava vent. Enemies in the Orb get stronger the further you are from Fortuna so ideally find the closest one by flying in lazy circles until you spot one. Mark it with "G" to help your navigation.

Step 8: Ferry all four canisters to the fracture without starting it yet, and drop them as close to the thermia start point as possible. Once that's done you can finally start!

Step 9: Plug all four canisters into the fracture in quick succession as soon as you begin and then defend as Corpus start warping in. Do your thing and fight well until you've filled up the timer gauge. Note the fracture itself will occasionally screw with your abilities.

Step 10: If you've won collect the reward canister which should net you one diluted thermia (it won't if you put less than four coolants into the fracture, you'll have to do more with that canister to get it), then go back into Fortuna. Why? So that the Exploiter Orb resets position and that new fractures near Fortuna might spawn.

Update: For all the parts that I suggest teleporting, you can actually just hold down M to bring up the map and select where you want to warp to. You don't need to be standing at a warp pad to warp! Thanks to Juris for letting me know! :)

Thea 2: Iceland

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Since the only elder dwarf on the Slavyan isle is guarded by powerful trolls, the group decides to make a ship and sail to the next island over to continue the search. Ice island, dubbed by Siegfried as "Iceland", is quite inhospitable with the lack of food resources and the constant requirement for faith replenishing rituals. They also save the cursed child Zloslawa from her murderous parents and she too begins learning the way of the witch.

This place is full of witches.

Iceland is also home to the Water Demon clan (russalkas) who are at war with the Water Pirates (orcs). Nyrissa quickly befriend the Water Demons by saving their leader, King Szuvarek, from a Water Pirate base on the lake. Only two of the Water Pirate youths are spared to join the group: Little Pirate and his younger sister Deathlover who is again, witch potential. Valerie quickly gains their trust by having a daughter with Little Pirate they call Zenzimira. Nyrissa then promptly baptizes the girl at the Water Demon lake to turn the child into a Water Demon, deepening the friendship with that group so much that a russalka named Natalia also joins their ranks.

Meanwhile Siegfried encountered the cursed King Kral'Skra, doomed to be forever trapped in his crumbling kingdom by the gods who also stole his face and put it on a lowly demon. Siegfried agrees to find and slay this fiend only to discover it is Kral'Skra's son Romek whose back was infused with his fathers face and is now being towed around by some slavers. After purchasing the child Siegfried makes him face his father and Kral'Skra opts that he instead be killed instead of his son. Siegfried obliges, and Romek joins the group as a zerca.

Thea 2: Red Ridge

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The Red Ridge bandits are an imposing lot, but they agree to let Siegfried's team and the researcher into their territory if the adventurers can first remove from their lands a cave full of demons and a camp full of squatters, who are possibly one and the same. Both are equally easy to massacre, and the child Barbara is taken into the group from the squatter camp as she has the traits of a zerca (a spiritual leader).

Finally granted access, the researcher finds an old tablet in the Red Ridge mines but is unable to read them - now requiring an elder dwarf or elf for the task. Siegfried promises to help and Red Ridge bandit Captain Bear joins them. Also Miloslava has another daughter, Sveibora, this time with her son Vshesul (that motherf*cker) while Valerie helps wandering King "Arathor" to pull a sword from a stone. The thankful King sends Valerie across a bridge (which holds a battle of wisdom) to a nearby lake where the local lady of the lake hands her a less powerful but still magical weapon.

Only movie knowledge can save your characters from certain death...

Meanwhile Nyrissa aids Suri, a little girl found on the road, to get revenge on the rich silk trading merchants that killed her family. Suri turns out to be a spider queen in disguise but Nyrissa keeps her word and slays the merchants which is enough to convince Suri to join the team (and wow, spider queens are strong). Suri then promptly begins teaching Sveibora the ways of witch craft, because spider queens know everything apparently.

Thea 2: Retinue

[Part of the Cursed story line]

After a long and prolific reign, Siegfried Baranor gave up his crown to travel to new rumbling lands with his nymph queen Nyrissa, lover Jaethal, muse Valerie, obese fan girls Miloslava and Ratslava (sisters), and Siegfried's children Karel the fighter (with Nyrissa), Karina the crazy (with Jaethal) and Vshesul the warrior (with Miloslava) after a friendly imp suggested their old enemy, the Lantern King, was hatching a new plot here.

Quarreling with the local scavenger Slavyans wasn't helping matters any so the group instead opted for friendship - clearing some vermin, convincing goblins to move away, and doing odd jobs to gain their friendship while living off the land, harvesting resources as they went, and dodging the multitudes of unliving that clustered around old ruins. 

Including striga.

Miloslava also saves a vodnik prince turned into a frog by kissing him... a lot apparently, as she soon has a daughter Lethiamira. Nyrissa also befriends the local spider folk (who are simply intelligent giant spiders) while Valerie retrieves two half russalka daughters for their dwarf father. Doing all this leads them to a researcher investigating the rumbling (Eren is that you?) but his work has stopped since the location he needs to study is occupied by the territorial Red Ridge bandits.

Pathfinder Kingmaker - Trolling the Baron

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The troll threat is interesting in two ways: firstly they are allied with kobolds and secondly unlike regular trolls these ones seem to be fire resistant! An arrogant gnome alchemist Jubilost who is saved from one of their raiding parties suggests this ability comes from some sort of magical brand which is probably of dwarven make so the team immediately hunts down any dwarven ruins in the area and sure enough find their stronghold "kingdom" in the Southern end of the forest. Troll hating foreign ranger Ekun is also met here and joins the team for the purge. Like most fantasy games rangers get stronger through racism!

It takes awhile before the king kobold and troll queen are discovered at the branding forge (because of bad camera angles, if you get stuck here go to the largest room to the North West in the downstairs section and follow the wall left) and the pair prove to be a difficult fight with Regongar being pulverized by the troll queen's club before Seigfried can defeat it and Octavia counter spells the king kobold. The few remaining kobolds and trolls scatter back to the forest, ending this threat and on the way back to the capital (which was previously the Stag Lord's fortress) the team save a lizardman village from a possessed kid and help an alien spider return home.

I wonder if it can tell the time?

Bad news awaits upon arrival though - Jaethal went and killed some elves she thought murdered her previously, Tristian is spotted colluding with anti-Seigfried cultists, Valerie got into a duel with one of her exes and lost, suffering a terrible scar on her face, and Linzi was caught pilfering the treasury to try fund her dream printing press. Since she now has the face of a loser, Valerie is stripped from her regent position which goes to Lander and Linzi is giving a stern talking to (because there was no option to execute her - weak designers) with Siegfried promising that due to her actions there will NEVER be ANY printing press ANYWHERE ON HIS LAND. FOREVER.

No action is taken against Tristian who has earned the benefit of the doubt through excellent work ethic and Jaethal whom Siegfried is crushing hard on. On the plus side Jubilost's keen intellect makes him an excellent treasurer, easily replacing Shelumu from that position.

Steam Discovery Queue - Crusade of the Free

As I've been enjoying a number of free stuff each week from Epic, I figured I'd check on the games in Steam which surely has lots of free stuff too, just not as advertised. I'm mainly using the Discovery Queue for this, but with a few filters: I'm not interested in anything PvP, anything about Sports, anything requiring VR, anything without English translation/subtitles, etc.

Anyway, I've found quite a lot so expect some short and sweet review batches of 10 as I make my way through them... starting right now! The one in bold is the best of this set.

Big Klondike: Solitaire. For vision impaired? Bleh.

Bridge of Dawn: Poor loading. Fox chasing rainbows in a valley for "points". Bleh.

Deep Night Detective: Pixel platformer where you play as spirit detective Spooky. Awesome music. Lots of reading. Dying (to gazillion other ghosts and monsters) means you need to do corpse run to get clothes, otherwise people you need to talk to can't see you. Lol :P

Destined to Die: One of those WTF games where you play as someone who "needs" to waste time on the computer (literally run the clock), over and over until you... don't kill yourself? What?

Eternal Cave Escape: Pixel platformer - miner with pickaxe that can assist in climbing against dirt walls. Lousy controls. Bleh.

Fights in Tight Spaces Prologue: Turn based, deck builder. Nice art. Interesting idea but, odd combo since you expect it to be fast and fluid. Also baddies get much less moves than you do.

Flower Girl: Nice tunes in this flower grid popper to "attack" cute female fairy demons? OH. It's one of THOSE H-games! Only one girl available in this freebie. Need to get the DLCs for more fairy demons "popping".

Goblin Stone Demo: Made by a friend of mine, control a band of cute goblins to build a base and survive against the oppressive humans. I quite liked it even if not all the features are there yet. Try it out. :)

Slightly Darkest Dungeon combat wise too.

Recursive Hate: Single player shooter with two small maps where you must survive waves of giant spiders. Crawlers abound but as long as you can sprint and reload you might be fine. The tiny spider swarms are the worst/best. Very shallow but I kinda liked it.

Samurai Shampoo: Pixel roguelike dungeon crawler of repetitiveness. Bleh.

Tales of the Blight II: Sera

[Part of my Dragon Age: Inquisition play through. Spoilers ahead!]

Didn't think I'd like her, but she ended up being my favorite companion.

I told them I'm not an elfy elf but I get sent to the stupid forest anyway! Should have been Dorian who'd be all Tevinter about this ancient bullshit. Or Cassandra, but she's got a thing for the Inquisitor, busy with her thing and his thing... doing things.

Trees are stupid. Just like people fighting their other people about some other rubbish god as if Corypenis isn't bad enough. And what's with all the bloody spiders!? Ugh, water everywhere. Everything is dank and chafy. I need to find a place to pee. Well, this is rubbish. Let's do whatever and get out.

Shrines are bad. Who doesn't know that? Another nutter trying to become a god. Right, I can see why everyone fights over this. No I can't. You're smart, but you're sort of stupid. Stupid magic ruins everything. You're not even very good at it. Don't care. Stupid gets arrows. Hey! Look at this! I've got something for you! It's my butt! That's a surprise, innit arseholes? Arrows. Arrows come next.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. I even made a bear friend! Maybe I can teach it knitting. Knitting is brilliant! It's stabby sewing!

Insight: Frostback Basin is another DLC area, which means it will match your level when it loads up (minimum level 20). The dragon here is the hardest available in the game and has all the tricks too. Use cover when it flies, and frost resist potions are especially handy for his adds, who you need to clear out as soon as they show up.

Resident Evil, 0 and Infinite Darkness

Two games, one TV series.

Resident Evil 0

As Bravo Team's Rebecca Chambers, your job is to investigate a series of cannibalistic murders with your useless team who pretty much are eliminated by horrible creatures right near the start. Yes, there are zombies but somehow whatever reanimates them also can reanimate dogs and force other creatures to become way bigger than normal. Luckily, you do get a partner to help you because there are multiple puzzles that need two people but more importantly because you get six more inventory slots.

While the monsters are jump-scare level scary and the puzzles are fricking obscure at times, your main enemy will be your inventory space and the fixed camera angles. At least you can drop items but each room has an "item limit" which is laughable. Fortunately the map is very well designed once you get used to it, and shortcuts open back up to the starting areas meaning you'll always be able to go back. Worth a play if you like the series, but prepare to scratch your head a fair bit, especially at the start. I give it two herbs out of five.

Resident Evil

Since Bravo team went dark (due to the events of Resident Evil 0), Alpha team is sent in to find them and immediately gets attacked by zombie dogs who chase the survivors into a mansion filled with more locked doors, puzzles, and monsters. Playing as either Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield you need to do a full sweep of the place, and your old enemies of fixed camera angles and lack of inventory space will be back. This time, you can't just drop things anywhere either. You need to put them in a chest at the safe rooms.

 

Arachnophobia triggered!

While the contents of the chests are global (any chest, same contents) this still leads to a lot of back tracking, and this time that is more dangerous as the zombies don't just randomly come back - they WILL get back up if you don't randomly head shot them, or set them alight with limited fuel. Worse, if you down them only, there's a chance they come back as "crimsons" which can sprint. This really encourages just "dodging" them in the first place and seems like pretty good game design to me. Two and a half surprise spiders out of five.

Infinite Darkness

This four episode series has Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield investigating zombie outbreaks in some unexcpected locations (as usual). While the CGI is decent enough the script is a bit weak, or at best rushed but at least there are many decent action segments. Not really missing out if you skip this one, but fans of the franchise might still enjoy it. I only give it one and a half rats out of five and wouldn't watch it again. The plot armor on the heroes is just too thick at times.

Surviving Armageddon: The Midnight Sky of Metro Exodus

Because there has to be something after...

The Midnight Sky

It's the end of the world.

Left alone on an Arctic science base while the rest of the planet dies, a terminally ill man (played by George Clooney, who also directs this film) makes it his mission to try contact any space mission in range to warn them of the danger of returning to the irradiated surface.

A nice cup of depression.

This sci-fi flick has some gorgeous cinematography, nice effects, decent acting, and a decent plot and for something we randomly picked on Netflix to watch, it was rather good. Not amazing, but certainly better than George Clooney's other space flick, Gravity. I give The Midnight Sky three peas out of five. A decent watch if you have no expectations.

Metro Exodus

Everything is a lie.

This third Metro game sees Artyom finally leave the mutant filled tunnels in search of the truth on the mutant filled surface! Apparently there are lots of crazies out here too and you get to meet many of them on this journey which can be as blood filled or bloodless as you decide - the latter heavily relying on stealth.

All the spider levels are great nightmare fuel!

Though dangerous, the large open air maps certainly encourage exploration which goes well with the new crafting component to the game that lets you modify base weapons into a variety of firearms. Indeed, the only thing I miss from the previous games are the dark ones (who really ran off at the end of Last Light anyway) and the absurd bullets as cash mechanic which was fantastic.

Definitely worth a play and one I highly recommend. I give it four spiders out of five.

Insight: Load games early as the checkpoint mechanic will easily over take you.

The Cursed: Graveyard Visit

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The team is invited to the graveyard by a mysterious woman, so they go during the day but still find the tombs teeming with undead and giant spiders. The spiders in particular have built a massive hive that connects a number of the deeper tombs in such a way that triggers my arachnophobia. Good thing the party has no such problems, since gassing them with cloud kill is pretty effective.

They do take a bit of damage down there so are forced to surface to regroup - finding that night has now fallen. A vampiress named Bodhi appears and tries to get the team to side with her against the Shadow Thieves and in return she will help find Imoen, all for the low price of 15,000 gold! This offer is turned down because vampires suck, and Bodhi leaves disappointed.

Bonus points for trying to charm the party.

On the way back to an inn the party comes across a man almost beaten to death in an alley way. At his request they carry him all the way to the docks where he is delivered to a large building which turns out to be the local Harper base. The necromancer Xzar, who was once believed dead but is better now, then appears and tasks the group with infiltrating the base to find out what they did with his buddy Montaron. Jaheira is unhappy that the group agrees to do this.

Insight: The tombs in the graveyard are painful. Lots of strong, draining undead and the lower levels are riddled with traps.

Today I Smiled: Scattershot Links

Been awhile since I did one of these, but I found these links to be entertaining if not informative. First up, is a story from the realm of r/MaliciousCompliance which is quickly becoming one of my favorite haunts.

As I've also been trying (and failing) to do some world building, here's a nice clip about creating fictional geography. When you are good enough at that, you might be able to make amazing D&D posters like this fellow too!

Speaking of D&D, here's a method to "win" as a sharpshooter and if that's not enough, how about a list of ways to defeat the Tarrasque, one of the most powerful creatures in the game?

Overcoming impossibility is not just in the realms of fiction though as proved by tarantulas that keep pet frogs, or Count Felix von Luckner who used an out dated three masted sailing ship to capture 16 enemy vessels in World War 1.

Usually I end these with a music clip but this time, here's the trailer for Death Stranding which looks both amazing and WTF at the same time.