A Cold, Dark, And Very Gentle Place

Phew! I have finally finished Dark Souls 3. I probably should have squeezed an intermediate update in there - my first post was at about 20 hours in to the game, with much of the time spent getting acclimated to the setting and gameplay. I've wrapped up the game, including the DLC at just a bit over 70 hours. It's been a long journey! I think part of why I didn't report in during the interim is because of how amazingly opaque the story is. I can't really say "This is what's happening, and what it means, and how I feel about it!" because I don't really understand what is happening or why, and all I feel is a combination of curiosity and dread.

 

I might focus on the mechanics for a bit up top, then gesture vaguely towards the story in spoilertown.

 

 

As I mentioned previously, I fell in love with the Claymore, and I continued to use it for pretty much the entire rest of the game. It isn't necessarily the "best" weapon, but that's a subjective category anyways, and I think people end up being drawn to particular weapons based on how they feel. The Claymore feels just perfect: I always 2-handed it, which gives a great amount of range; I can "poke" an enemy with an R2 attack, with a surprisingly large range, or give a quick slash with an R1, which has a wide arc that can hit multiple enemies.

 

 

I never invested time into learning how to properly block with a shield, and just carrying a shield doesn't do anything, so two-handing the claymore was all upside for me. A really nice benefit of this for greatswords in particular is that when you two-hand them, you gain so-called "hyperarmor" during your attacks. This protects you from getting interrupted if an enemy lands a blow on you while you're in the middle of your swing or thrust. Flipping the same concept around, a fast slash can sometimes stagger an enemy if you can hit them while they're winding up their own swing. After many hours playing the game, I got a great sense of distance and speed, and could time a powerful charged R2 to "poke" an enemy as soon as they got into range, usually before they get close enough to attack me.

 

 

Later in the game I started trying out backstabs. They are really fun! This started becoming viable after I lightly trawled the wiki and learned about the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring, which was a game-changer for me. It silences your footsteps, so enemies only become aware of you when you are in their field of vision, making it possible to sneakily sneak up on them. When in position, a single tap of R1 will initiate the backstab, inflicting massive damage and sending the enemy tumbling to the ground. Best of all, you're completely invincible during the entire maneuver, making it safe even if other enemies are nearby. Second best of all, it takes a couple of seconds for backstabbed enemies to regain their feet. If you feel like cheesing (and I usually do!), you can sprint away and hide behind a wall or something, leaving a perplexed enemy just standing there, and vulnerable to future backstabs. One very minor frustration is that not every enemy is vulnerable to backstabbing, and it isn't always obvious who will or won't be; in general, humanoid enemies can be backstabbed and non-humanoid ones cannot, but unsurprisingly given the unsettling art style of this world there are an awful lot of enemies who look ambiguously humanoid. But if an enemy can't be backstabbed, a fully charged R2 attack is also highly effective.

 

 

While I'm two-handed during combat, I do carry a talisman in my off-hand. I had originally planned to play as a Faith/Priest type but I gave up when I wasn't able to beat the first boss in the game. A "Priest" only starts with a Heal spell and a (non-damaging) Force kinetic blast. From wiki research, I've since learned that you don't get access to damaging "Miracles" until very late in the game, so I think a pure Priest would probably only make sense for a New Game Plus type of run.

 

 

But magic still has great utility as a minor, secondary investment. I eventually got enough Atunement for 2 spell slots. I rotated through a few spells over the course of the game. Homeward is a great get-out-of-jail-free card that will warp you back to a Bonfire, which is terrific for long explorations, since you don't need to preserve your Estus to stay safe. The Homeward Bone item does the same thing as the Homeward spell, and I probably should have just used those instead since I had a bit stockpile, but psychologically I'm more inclined to use the replenishable resource over the limited one. Late in the game you get access to a permanent-use equivalent of the homeward bone, freeing up that spell slot for me.

 

 

Also early in the game I used Regeneration, which gives a slow and steadily ticking healing effect, letting you preserve Estus at the cost of some FP. Here too, later in the game I found a ring that gives a constant small regen effect, although later in the game I ditched the ring as well; standing around and waiting for it to tick up my health pool isn't very fun, and I'd rather explore and progress in the meantime, even if it means more bonfire visits.

 

 

Caressing Tears is a stituationally fantastic spell. It instantly eliminates a bunch of nasty status effects like Poison and Bleed; a single cast of this (cheap) spell can outweigh multiple healing Estus flasks and keep you moving forward without waiting for your debuff gauge to expire.

 

 

At the end of the game, the two spells I usually had loaded were Blessed Weapon and Deep Protection. Blessed Weapon boosts your weapon damage (I think by 10%?), gives a ticking healing regen, and prevents skeletons from resurrecting, although by the time I found this spell I was past all the skeleton-heavy areas. Deep Protection is an all-purpose spell that gives additional attack power, elemental resistance, defense and stamina regeneration. I would typically pop both of those right before stepping through a fog wall, or Blessed Weapon if I found a challenging enemy in the landscape.

 

 

Along the way, I also dipped into some Pyromancy spells. These typically require Intelligence in addition to Faith, but the overall requirement level is much lower than Sorcery, and you can get a lot of bang for your buck for a minimal investment. To support this crossover, the catalyst I carried was usually the White Hair Talisman, which can cast both schools of spells. So I usually two-hand my sword, then if I see a battle coming up I will one-hand it to make the talisman accessible, cast one or both spells, then two-hand again and charge on in.

 

 

Of the pyromancies I used, Flash Sweat gives a major boost to Fire resistance, which helps a ton when facing off against dragons or when in a hellish cavern filled with lava. Profuse Sweat gives a decent boost to a broader range of resistances, and is a good all-purpose buff if you aren't sure what you're facing. Carthus Flame Arc adds fire to your weapon, giving it extra attack power; I found this quite a bit earlier than Blessed Weapon, and the Flame Arc also lasts quite a bit longer.

 

 

I never cast any Sorcery spells in this game, but perusing the shops, I was a bit surprised at just how many utility spells are in there; in my memory from Elden Ring, sorcery was almost entirely focused on dealing damage, where it seems more versatile in this game. Spook is a spell that completely negates fall damage and makes you silent. Chameleon is another spell that transforms you into an object from the environment. A lot of these spells have fairly low requirements, so I think it would be valid to carry a second catalyst in your left hand, at the cost of some extra weight and more competition for atunement slots.

 

 

For stats, here is a snapshot from near the end of the game. As noted earlier, I focused early on in boosting my Vigor and Vitality, with enough Endurance to wear the equipment I wanted. I had enough Atunement for two slots and enough Faith and Intelligence for the spells I wanted to cast. I mostly focused on Strength up to 35 (40 with the Knight Ring), also boosting Dex to be able to wield bows and a few swords, then switched to boosting Dex as well. My plan was to eventually switch from a Heavy Gem to a Refined Gem; I think that above a certain level you get better returns from evenly leveled Strength and Dex on a weapon that scales with both of those compared to maximizing a single stat with a single-scaling weapon. But by the end of the game, my Heavy was still outperforming a Refined, so I eventually used a Pale Tongue with Rosaria to reallocate my stats, putting surplus Dex back into Strength and Vigor. (I actually did this twice - the first time I took my Dex too low and didn't realize for a while that my damage had cratered because I could no longer properly wield my Claymore.) 

 

 

In terms of combat: against weaker enemies, I usually engaged them at a medium distance, attacking before they could get too close. For stronger enemies, I would usually try to get up in their face, roll past them when they try to attack, land a few hits against their backside, and repeat. Of course, each enemy type has their own different style of movement, attack, aggressiveness, danger and so on, so each encounter is a little different. After a few battles, dealing with them would basically become muscle memory.

 

 

Throughout the whole game, I continued to be amazed by the level design. I just low how contiguous everything is: Lothric Castle and environs is this huge, weighty space that you physically move through, without teleporting or warping. It feels really thrilling to pop outside and realize that you're getting a fresh perspective on a site that you've seen many times before.

 

While amazing, the design is also pretty dark and very gross! I felt mesmerized by the game and kept wanting to play it, but it also felt very macabre for many stretches. There's a gross area filled with bugs and slime. A surfeit of poison swamps. All sorts of gross creatures that ooze, suck, evert, rupture and scream. Flightless bird-like enemies that are hostile but sound so pathetic that it's hard not to feel sorry for them.

 

 

I was glad that there aren't quite as many infinitely-respawning skeletons as in Elden Ring. Here they're mostly confined to a single area, and you can pretty easily run through them once you have the map figured out.

Once the game opened up, around the Road of Sacrifice area, I almost never felt stuck on something for too long. If an area felt hard, I had another zone I could work through for a while, leveling up and eventually coming back. I imagine that, like in Elden Ring, the hardness probably comes down to build: some things that were challenging for me as a melee fighting might have been a lot easier for a ranged sorcerer, and vice versa. There were a handful of times where I whipped out a bow and arrows to plink away at bad guys from a safe distance. It takes forever (at least with my DEX) so it isn't something I do often, but it is good to have multiple tools in your box.

MEGA SPOILERS

Like in Elden Ring, I'm amazed at all of the secrets that people were able to find. One of the biggest is the Dragon gesture. If you use it on a cliff near Ithryll Dungeon, you will enter a trance and be teleported to a totally new, huge zone with multiple bosses and significant treasure. I usually find out about these types of secrets via a wiki, but this is also an area where I think the multiplayer aspect of the series works really well, thanks to the messages left between worlds. I'd played Elden Ring entirely offline, which protected me against PC invasions but also hid all messages. (For better and for worse. In Dark Souls 3 there are a few "try finger but hole" missives among the gems.) I came to really appreciate the system of messages. You do need to keep an eye open for trolls, but most of the time they're pointing the way towards something easily missible and letting you play through, instead of needing to come back later after consulting an out-of-game guide.

 

 

Actual invasions were annoying but not terrible. I always died but usually acquitted myself decently, and it wasn't too punishing. I think I had a total of maybe four invasions throughout the game, the first two before I understood how the mechanic worked. After that I was very mindful of being Embered and would zoop back to Firelink Shrine and spend down my big souls after a boss fight, and then usually try to take on another boss or other major thread while I was still Embered instead of my typical deliberate exploration. 

 

Story-wise, I was really bummed by the Pilgrim / Anril plotline. I don't think I would have figured out how to avoid the "spouse" outcome without looking at a wiki, and by the time I did that it was too late to change the path I was on. It is a kind of interesting variation from Elden Ring, where a similarly dark plot line requires you to do a lot of very obscure and easy-to-miss things.

 

 

It is interesting how language seems to get corrupted in this game. When Yoel and Yuria call you "Lord" it sounds like a very positive and good thing, and it isn't until much later that you get a sense for how sinister it is. "Spouse" sounds joyful and loving, while what happens here is anything but. (But still coming with the sense of tying together and committing.) Even "Humanity" seems to have a dark sheen to it. While not 100% reliable, it is striking how many of your allies look haggard, dark and furtive, while many of your greatest foes look beautiful and even angelic.

 

 

Possibly the hardest boss fight for me was Lothric the Two Princes. I died a ton to him, even when bringing along both NPC summons. (Despite not being a sorcerer, I bought all of Orbeck's scrolls just so I could bring him along.) Very soon after that comes the final battle against the Soul of Cinder, and I beat them on my very first try (albeit also with NPC summons). I did kind of like that though, it reminds me of a JRPG where the final boss's third phase is usually weaker than the second.

 

 

I did get the edition with both DLC. I poked my head into Ariendel as soon as it became available from the Chapel, and quickly got mauled by wolves, but I periodically returned as I progressed through the main game and gradually got further into that. After beating that, I was planning to also go through The Ringed City before beating the main game, but I saw some online posts suggesting that story-wise it can work a bit better to beat the base game before the DLC, as the very end of the DLC acts as kind of a capstone to the entire Dark Souls trilogy. I did that, and I think narratively it works decently well, though I could see going either way. With the main game you do get a nice cinematic and rolling credits, and continuing the game (without New Game Plus) does mean that the world state you're experiencing is out of step with what happens in the ending. But it's also true that the ending to The Ringed City puts a nice wrapper around everything, and also provides a hint at some continuation of things, perhaps not in this universe but in one being painted into being.

 

 

I can't claim to have 100% beaten the game. I knew that the Nameless King and Darkeater Midir are notoriously hard fights that even seasoned players can bounce off of, so I never really even tried either one. I was surprised by just how hard Slave Knight Gael proved to be for me. Typically after a few deaths I have a good sense for a boss's movements and can reliably get into the final phase, and with enough Embered attempts I'll eventually be able to squeeze out a win. But that just wasn't true with Gael, I probably died to him a good twenty times or more. I finally gave up and did something I've never done before: asked for help.

 

 

In addition to messages and PVP invasions, Dark Souls also allows for friendly summonings, where some players can offer their services and others can accept them. Gael's boss fight doesn't have any NPC summons available but it does have a bonfire antechamber. I embered up and lingered around for a minute or so until I saw a summon sign glow. I summoned Marcus, we bowed to each other, and jumped in. The fight immediately felt a lot better - we were both sword-wielders and could take turns drawing aggros, attacking from behind, evading and healing. I had some Rotten Pine Resin that I applied to my sword for a bit of bonus damage. We made it to the final phase, where I got a bit too greedy - I'd only lasted a few seconds there in my solo attempts and wasn't familiar enough with the lightning-exploding-ground mechanic. In retrospect I probably should have just hung back and let Marcus handle it; as it was I bled out when Gael had just a sliver left.

 

I quit, and calmed down, then fired it up again. This time I saw two summon signs, and I greedily plucked both of them. I forget now who they were, one was s sorcerer-looking guy with a shrunken head and a crown, the other an agile knight. We jumped into the fray. This was an exhilarating fight. The difference between three people and two people wasn't as big as the difference between two people and a solo, but it did still help to have more bodies. This time around the fight felt a lot more mobile, and I'm not exactly sure why, but I felt like I spent a lot of time sprinting towards Gael and getting in leaping attacks, unlike my previous dodge-roll-evade-attack loop.

 

 

I was slightly more familiar with the lightning storm phase this time around, and also more cautious, so I was careful to stay out of the AOE and maneuver the long way around. Whenever I started to get dinged too much I switched to evading entirely until I lost aggro and could heal back up - I'm sure that my allies wanted to win the fight as well. After Gael got down to a sliver it took us a good minute or so to actually put him down for good, but we eventually did it! I bowed to my saviors, and jumped for joy, and they faded into the mist. 

 

 

Thinking about it more, I increasingly like the unusual but thoughtful way Dark Souls handles multiplayer. I can imagine someone playing who has beaten the game, possibly multiple times, and is feeling a bit bored, and would love to replay a fun and exciting boss fight, and get a unique and rare item as a reward for doing so. And of course people like me who need an extra hand would be grateful to receive one.

 

 

I'd previously peeked at the wiki so I knew what (little) was left to do: picking up another Titanite Slab, some ashes, and a final bit of cryptic, intriguing dialogue from the painting girl above the Chapel of Ariendel. I'd been wondering for a while what her "cold, dark and very gentle place" referred to. "Cold" immediately makes me think of Ariendel, but it isn't particularly dark, and it definitely isn't gentle. The world as a whole becomes dark, and probably cold, if you let the First Flame extinguish, so maybe she is hoping for that ending to the game; I wouldn't think of it as "gentle" but maybe it is. But I really like the idea that this is an entirely different world that she is painting into existence, possibly some future From Software game.

 

 

And, this just now occurred to me, but it's interesting that the girl is herself inside the Painted World, making this a second-order act of creation. This sort of thing always makes me really interested, evoking Neal Stephenson's Anathem with The Wick, possibly also Expedition 33 and other worlds-within-worlds. Of course, there is zero reason to believe that the "main" Dark Souls game itself is the "prime" reality - in fact, we know it isn't, because it's a work of fiction that we're playing within our own world. Anyways! Fun to think about!

END SPOILERS

So, yeah! A few years ago I wouldn't have imagined I'd even try playing a Dark Souls, and look at me now, I beat one (with a little help from my friends)! Right now I'm feeling like I'll probably stop here, I don't feel super-compelled to dip back into the earlier Dark Souls or other spinoffs like Sekiro or Bloodborne. But who knows, after Elden Ring I also thought I was done, so I still might get the itch at some point.

 

 

All in all, Dark Souls 3 was exactly what I thought it would be: a visually amazing and original world, with incredibly good-feeling and very difficult combat, tied together with one of the most opaque stories I've encountered in a lifetime of reading and playing very opaque stories. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to everyone, but I will also note that as someone who doesn't think of himself as a player of hard action games, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. 

Enkindled

I'm shocked to find myself playing a Dark Souls game. I've thought of them as games for Serious Hard Core Gamers, who love dying a lot and have a masochistic determination to play the hardest games possible. Several years ago I entered into this world through Elden Ring, which is from the same developer and shares many characteristics but isn't technically a Souls game. I ended up really loving it a lot, so much so that I decided to step back in time and try one of the preceding games. From some light online research, it sounded like Dark Souls 3 (stylized as Dark Souls III) is the most accessible of the main series. Amazingly, despite being 10 years old now it still sells at full price and only rarely goes on sale, so I kept it on my Steam Watchlist for nearly a year before a sale finally popped up. And then, after playing Esoteric Ebb, I started it!

 

I'm currently about 20 hours into the game, my sense is that I'm well less than halfway through, perhaps a third or even a quarter. I've defeated a few bosses, including one of the Mega Bosses that seem closely tied to the main storyline of the game. I wanted to write this post to share my impressions so far.

 

 

Coming at it from someone who previously only played Elden Ring, there are a lot more similarities than I expected. The "Souls" mechanic is identical, the attributes are identical, the defenses are identical, the overall loadout (weapons, ammunition, spells, armor, rings, tools) are identical, the combat is basically identical. It even extends to the setting and appearance and monsters. The first time I saw some froggy enemies, I immediately thought "Oh no, those guys are dangerous!" It took a little while for me to remember why - as in Elden Ring, they do Death damage, which can instantly kill your character. Blue-eyed skeletons have the same endless resurrection mechanic. Elevators work the same, and can have the same sorts of secrets. And on and on. I think that if you just saw a brief 1-minute clip of either game, you probably wouldn't be able to tell which was which.

 

 

The biggest difference so far between the two is the open-worldedness of Elden Ring versus the massive but ultimately constrained environment of Dark Souls. I think that I finally understand why the large boss zones of Elden Ring are called "Legacy Dungeons": they are "Legacy" in that they feel like Souls areas. Basically, if you were to take all the Legacy Dungeons in Elden Ring and smush them edge-to-edge, you would end up with something like the Dark Souls 3 map. You lose the big landscape separating those areas, as well as most of the hidden little dungeons and settlements and things. Along with those, you also lose the horse for traversing those large open areas.

 

 

One thing I loved about Elden Ring is its non-linearity. There's very little direction in where to go after the tutorial dungeon. In a lot of games like, say, Divinity: Original Sin, enemy difficulty acts as a soft set of guiderails, urging you to follow a certain progression. In Elden Ring, though, it's very feasible to get on your horse and then just Ride Really Fast past the scary landscape monsters and get to where you want to be. And even most of the game's big bosses are skippable: you need to defeat a certain number of them to beat the game, but if one is giving you trouble, you can just leave and go do something else for a while and come back when you're stronger, or never come back at all.

 

 

Dark Souls 3 is much more linear, although it becomes less so over time. It's particularly striking when you fight your first boss, Iudex. I think I died to him a good 30 or more times. In Elden Ring,  you similarly fight a tutorial boss, but are kind of expected to die to him and just pop out on the other side to continue the story. In Dark Souls 3, though, you must continue to throw yourself at him until you eventually Git Gud. Unlike the rest of the game, there isn't even the option of grinding for Souls and leveling up your skills and equipment: those mechanics aren't unlocked until after you get past that first boss. It's hard! I do respect the developers for doing that; in particular, you'll hit that boss while within the Steam Refund window, and can have a serious talk with yourself about whether you'll actually enjoy playing this type of game before you've sunk too many hours into it.

 

 

Once you're past that first boss, the game progresses mostly linearly for a while, but it doesn't feel like it's on rails. There's a lot to explore in each area, some side quests, some stuff that you need to come back to later after you've found a key or talked to an NPC. This also opens up the possibility of grinding out more Souls to make your character stronger. As in Elden Ring, any time you rest at a Bonfire all non-boss enemies respawn, so if you want you can keep plowing through them again and again. I never specifically did this to grind, but I did periodically revisit earlier areas to look for more hidden items and stuff, which ends up having the same effect.

 

Going forward, it seems like some but not all bosses are skippable. In particular, you can progress past the end of the second major zone without defeating the boss there; as far as I can tell, you do need to kill the major boss at the end of the third zone to progress into the fourth. But once you're in the third zone, multiple progression paths open up. I think that at least one of these is from a DLC I bought with the game, but the others feel like part of the base game. I'm enjoying reaching this part of the game, as it cuts down on the "stuck" feelings. If I'm bouncing off something too many times, I can put more effort into chatting with friendlies back at Firelink Shrine, or poke my head into another area for a while. The early part of a later zone can well be easier than the later part of an earlier zone. And of course all this depends on what build you're running.

 

 

Speaking of which: that's another major change for me in this game. In Elden Ring I played as a Sorcerer: I relied heavily on magic from my staff. I'm taking a very different approach in this game. I originally wanted to do a Faith build and started as a Cleric; this was fine for the tutorial area, but after enough deaths against the first boss I decided it wasn't for me. Based on some later online reading, it sounds like Faith-focused builds can be fun in New Game Plus, but the key weapons and spells for Faith builds don't become available until closer to the end of the game. I started again from scratch and this time rolled a Knight, which is a fairly balanced class but leans more towards Strength and Vitality, and also has a really nice set of starting armor (which I'm still rocking all these hours later). The boss was still really hard, but I was eventually able to beat him with my sword.

 

 

When leveling up, I prioritized Vigor early to increase my maximum HP, enough Vitality to carry my load (wearing a few rings) at 70% or less, and pushed a lot into Endurance to increase Stamina. As in Elden Ring, I find Stamina incredibly powerful: if you can just keep mashing Attack enough and are staggering your opponent with each hit, you can stun-lock and kill them provided your Stamina outlasts their Health. I've been adding just enough Strength to wield the equipment I want: in particular, a Claymore that I found relatively early on and have since fallen in love with. I put a Raw Infused Gem on the Claymore since my stats are still fairly low, and instead am upgrading that Claymore as much as I can.

 

 

Once I reached a comfortable level around my stats, I started dipping a bit into Faith. I don't know how much I'd invest in that area, but I'd been jealous of the Miracles in Elden Ring and have long wanted to experience them for myself. So far it's been very useful. In particular, one Miracle will clear any status afflictions, which is incredibly useful in an area where you need to navigate a poison swamp. I'm looking forward to future Miracles to augment my weapon strength and/or defenses. Overall I have a vague idea of becoming a sort of Paladin, primarily a martial warrior but also with divine magic to buff myself.

 

 

I've just recently started to put a few points into Dexterity as well. From what I can read online, this is usually called a "Quality" build in the community: basically, a warrior who equally distributes between Strength and Dexterity rather than fully committing to one. This opens up the widest variety of weapons to use, which in turn increases the likelihood that you'll be able to exploit an enemy's weakness against a particular damage type. Several weapons also scale their damage against both Strength and Dexterity, so for everyday weapons you continue to increase in damage when leveling up either stat.

 

 

Luck and Intelligence will likely be my dump stats, though I might put a handful into Intelligence since there are a few spells that use that along with Faith. I haven't yet put anything into Attunement, I probably will eventually but I'm not sure yet how much I'll need. I'm kind of imagining that I'll just buff myself outside of fog gates, and I think most beneficial spells last around a minute, so I'm unlikely to need to repeatedly cast between bonfires if I'm mostly relying on my sword for damage.

 

 

While the game systems are mostly identical to Elden Ring, my gameplay experience is significantly different. As a Sorcerer, I felt like the game was mostly about resource management. I had a certain amount of FP, which I could replenish a certain number of times with my flasks before beating the next boss or reaching the next bonfire; that FP translates into magical damage against enemies, making it a numbers game of having enough FP and Stamina to nuke them down before they can whack me to death. Playing as a melee martial build now is totally different. I don't really need to worry about resources at all; or, rather, the one resource I have is Health, which again I can refill with Flasks. The game is much more active now, with me focusing on dodging enemy attacks, looking for openings, striking and withdrawing or driving in for the kill. I'm getting to learn most monsters' attack patterns pretty well now, whereas for my Sorcerer build that mostly only applied for bosses. I'm glad that I had some grounding in this game series before playing as a melee character, this would have been much more challenging as my first experience but as it is I'm having a blast.

 

 

This is where I would typically drop in some notes about the story and my progress so far, but... as usual for the series, the plot is extremely opaque. Which is part of what I love about it: it's very subdued, ambiguous, taciturn, with rare fragments of dialogue that take on extra weight because of how rare they are. The game also assumes that your character already knows everything and so never bothers to define, like, what Unkindled means or who the Hollows are or any of the other terms thrown around. As with Elden Ring, I'm mostly avoiding any walkthroughs or guides; I think there has been one or two times when I've looked something up when I haven't been able to progress. I've started keeping a slight eye on the Side Quests part of the wiki; it looks like I've already accidentally failed a couple of them, which is fine.

 

 

That's it for now! I feel like I have a good amount of momentum on this game and will probably continue cruising along for some time. I'll probably have one more post here when I'm all wrapped up, but might do something in the interim if the journey is looking longer than I currently expect. 

Tax Planning

I recently picked up a new personal finance book through a new-to-me channel: a recommendation from a coworker. In a company meeting there were some announcements about changes to our 401(k) plan, and afterwards we got to chatting about our own strategies around retirement savings. I was delighted to hear that she is familiar with the Bogleheads - I think this is the first time I've met someone in real life who is also familiar with that community! Though, to be fair, I don't ever initiate conversations about Bogleheads in particular or finance in general, so there could very well be More Of Us around.

 

She described a book she was making her way through, Tax Planning To and Through Early Retirement. I've been aware of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) for some time; when I first heard about it, the movement was strongly associated with "Mr. Money Mustache" and an ethos of extreme frugality. Early retirement isn't really compelling to me; I'm lucky enough to have a job in software development that pays pretty well and that I enjoy doing; if I were to retire, I'd probably keep on developing software just for fun, so as long as I can keep getting paid for it I'll probably keep doing that. But the FI part of FIRE is attractive to me. I associate financial independence with security, confidence, opportunity and flexibility. Moving closer to that goal has been beneficial to my overall well-being and happiness.

Anyways, this book is primarily aimed at the RE part of FIRE, so I'm personally not exactly in the target audience, but I still found it very useful. Even early retirees eventually become regular retirees, so we all end up at the same place eventually. And it's helpful to have a unique focus to a finance book: in this case, it's almost entirely about taxes, and doesn't waste time on other topics like budgeting, investments and so on. 

Like most personal finance books I read these days, I didn't get a whole lot of brand-new information from this book, but I did get a lot of reinforcement about best practices, as well as a deeper understanding of why things work. And I did learn a few things that were actually brand-new to me. One specific topic that I was researching just a couple of years ago is how RMDs work when you have multiple retirement accounts. The authors explain it very clearly in this book. RMD rules are actually different depending on the type of the account. For traditional IRAs, all IRAs are pooled across all accounts (even from multiple custodians) when determining how much RMD is required and how it is taken. So, if you have three IRAs, you can satisfy your RMD by withdrawing from all three accounts, or withdrawing the total required amount from a single IRA. But the rules are different for defined contribution plans like 401ks and 403bs. For those, each account has its own separate RMD requirement. So if you have three 401ks, you need to take a separate RMD from each one of them; if you take a larger amount from a single 401k, it doesn't satisfy the need to withdraw from others. This situation is further reinforcement for the general recommendation that on retirement workers should generally consolidate all of their 401ks and 403bs into an IRA.

One of the central points of this book is what they call The Compelling Three: ideally, employees should generally try to maximize their traditional deductible 401k (or 403b, etc.) contributions, and also build up a Roth IRA and a taxable brokerage account, prior to retirement. That's what I've ended up doing, and reading this was very validating and reassuring. They get into the details of why and how this is helpful. The upshot is that it lets you shape your taxable income in retirement. In some years, you might want more taxable income, to fill up the lowest income tax brackets or avoid Medicaid eligibility. To achieve that income, you want to withdraw from a tax-deferred account. In other years, you might want to get more income for life expenses but want to keep taxable income low to retain eligibility for ACA credits or other benefits. In those cases, drawing from a Roth would be good. And if your income is low, you can sell appreciated stocks in a taxable brokerage and pay 0% long-term capital gains, which in turn could be used to fund a Roth.

Years ago, my 401k started offering a Roth option. I was undecided on whether to do it, so for a while I was splitting contributions 50-50 between the Roth 401k and the regular pre-tax deductible 401k. After about a year or so I switched back to having it all be pre-tax traditional contributions. The authors of this book strongly agree, and I really like the simplicity of their message: "Pay tax when you pay less tax." Essentially, during our working years, we're usually in higher tax brackets, and every dollar we can deduct is deducted from the highest marginal tax bracket (like 24%). In retirement, though, we're starting from an income of $0, and every dollar we withdraw from our tax-deferred accounts goes against the lowest marginal tax brackets (like 10%, 12%, etc.). Saving 24% on tax today is far better than saving 12% on tax decades from now.

They directly address a lot of the concerns other people have. One common question is what will happen to tax rates in the future, and a widespread assumption that they will go up as the US struggles with an increasing federal debt. They have a very data-focused way of looking at this. First they describe the unlikelihood that future tax increases would fall on seniors, given what a politically powerful bloc they are, and they show how seniors have received increasingly favorable treatment over the last 30+ years even as our debt has continued to climb. But they also say, "Well, what would happen if tax rates did go up 50%?" They create hypothetical scenarios as a sort of pressure-tested extreme outcome, and show that even in these extremely unlikely cases the person who made traditional contributions during their working years would come out ahead over someone who contributed to the Roth 401k.

Another concern is the so-called "Widow's Tax Trap." This is the scenario where one spouse dies; the surviving spouse's expenses will likely drop somewhat but not by half, but they will start to file as a single instead of married and thus may be elevated to a higher tax bracket. Here too, they run the numbers and show that while it is a disadvantage, it isn't nearly as bad as people fear. Even with this "penalty" the widow is still almost always better off than she would have been contributing to a Roth 401k; and, they point out, that isn't even considering the larger context, which is that this couple likely already had decades of highly advantageous tax rates, and the surviving spouse will often only have a few years of single filing. They eventually land on a scenario where the widow does end up in a worse position: but, they emphasize, this scenario required the 80-year-old widow to have $20 million in wealth. As they say, she is rich! Her lived experience doesn't suffer from needing to pay 32% tax instead of 24% tax on the last $10,000 of her income.

As the authors say from the start, they wanted to avoid any kind of fear-mongering in this book. Many books and articles about retirement seek to alarm people and make them feel like they'll fail if they don't do specific things. The authors do have recommendations, but they continually show how even sub-optimal strategies still have decent outcomes. As they keep pointing out, this is because our progressive tax system is actually very generous to retirees, and has become even more so over the years.

As I read more about finance, I start to recognize that sometimes two authors are describing the same concept or phenomenon through opposite perspectives: they seem like two different things, but are really two sides of the same coin. One of the first times I recognized this was reading William Bernstein after Thomas Piketty. Essentially, Piketty writes "Increasing the rate of return on capital results in further concentration of wealth among current owners of capital [derogatory]", while Bernstein writes "Increasing the rate of return on capital results in further concentration of wealth among current owners of capital [complimentary]". In this new book, the authors repeatedly state that they prefer to hold US equities in a taxable brokerage account, primarily due to the current low dividend yield of stocks. Which makes sense, but... the current low dividend yield of stocks is basically the same phenomenon as a historically elevated P/E ratio. Most of my reading has focused on this as a negative: eventually, there will need to be a return to the long-term historic mean, which predicts a significant fall from today's high asset prices. But these authors see the current situation as a positive: you can hold a large store of wealth without being forced to accept a large amount of taxable ordinary income.

All in all, I would probably place this book solidly in the second tier of recommended reading for personal finance. It's most helpful for someone who already has clear goals in mind and a basic grasp of the fundamentals. It's nicely focused on a particular topic, taxation, that is important but not the end-all-be-all of a retirement journey. The knowledge it shares isn't esoteric: at the heart, it's just urging most people to save as much as they can in their employer's 401k or similar plan, and supplement that with a Roth IRA and a taxable brokerage. But their focus lets them dive into the details, showing with numbers and tables why and how things work the way that they do. This is the sort of book that would help someone transform that goal into an actionable game plan. All in all, a valuable option to have!

Low Ebb, High Tide

After wrapping my Belgium campaign in Victoria 3, I'd planned to jump into Dark Souls 3, but ended up deciding to play Esoteric Ebb instead. It's pretty rare for me to actually buy a game in the year it releases, especially one that isn't a sequel to a franchise I already like. I'd been hearing a lot of good things about EE through a variety of sources, and since it sounded like a narrative-heavy RPG I thought it could be good to play through it before getting exposed to spoilers.

 

It is a really great game. I just beat it, and at the very end the creator thanks the makers of Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment and The Secret of Monkey Island. If you can picture a Venn diagram of those three games, Esoteric Ebb would be smack dab in the middle. It has Disco's delightfully broken protagonist, a cacophony of interior voices chiming in on your situation, skill-check-centric gameplay, wide array of stat-modifying equipment, and steely-eyed view of political ideologies. It has Planescape's D&D rules, fantasy races, sense of longing, metaphysical and philosophical interests. And it has Monkey Island's zany humor, lovably inept hero, forgiving gameplay, colorful setting and outrageous characters.

 

 

MINI SPOILERS

While built on D&D rules, this game has a completely original setting, which I think is called "The Esoteric Coast" or something similar. I don't know if I 100% follow it, but in the history of this world, there have been various ages with different regimes, including a period when powerful magicians named Arcanists controlled everything. The world itself was created by a being named Jor, himself a powerful wizard, and everything that happens in there is ultimately attributable to him; there are occasional references to "Jor's Strings", essentially fate.

 

 

After the Arcanists were overthrown, human beings were hunted nearly to extinction. This game takes place in the coastal city-state of Norvik, one of the few places that still have a significant human population. The city was founded long ago by the god Urth, who brought the surviving humans and a large contingent of laboring dwarves together.

 

 

Fast-forward many generations, and Norvik is on the precipice of a new age: its first-ever election. This has been primarily instigated by a group known as the Freestriders, a coalition of democratic mercantilist states from a nearby area known as Reeds. The dawn of democracy heralds a transition from the aristrocratic and hereditary rule of Norvik; but it's also complicates, as the Freestriders are full-throated free-trade capitalists, and they stand to significantly dominate business and ultimately daily life in Norvik.

 

 

The election is a major side-plot to the game; you can ask pretty much anyone you meet (including enemies and animals) what party they are planning to vote for, and can also announce your own intention. There are three major parties contending. The Nationalist Party is the traditional party, upholding the religion of Urth, and aligned with the aristocrats and with humans; they are widely favored to win a majority of votes, with the real competition for second place. The Freestriders are a classical-liberal-democratic free-trade party, with its power base in the business owners, merchants and traders in the city, also appealing to people from cosmopolitan backgrounds. And the Azgalist Worker's Party is aligned with the Dwarven guilds, and are concerned with basic economic issues such as rent prices, as well as generally supporting the workers. Smaller parties include an Agriculturalist farmer's party and a rump Arcanist party. You as the player character can announce what faction you support, or can declare that you will be voting for yourself as the supreme leader, or can annoyingly say that you are far too intelligent to support any political party: you see, you are apolitical.

 

 

It takes some time for you to get a handle on your character; like Disco and Planescape, you have a very specific story background, but you can also go through a regular character creation process to customize your stats. You are canonically a Cleric, which in D&D tends to be a high-Wisdom character; but you are specifically an Arcane Cleric, who has a spellbook and can memorize mage spells. You can take your character in any direction you want: you could be high Strength and Constitution and very low Wisdom if you wanted a beefy brawler. And, in addition to the mechanics of your stat allocation, you can also declare your class to people you meet, and it doesn't have to make sense: you could insist that you are a Rogue despite having very low Dexterity, or say you are a Barbarian while only having 6 STR. (Which, again, feels very Disco.)

 

 

There is combat in this game, but even combat happens entirely through the dialogue interface and skill checks, not traditional attack rolls. It feels a lot like a pen-and-paper D&D table experience: the narrator will describe what you are facing, you may roll to notice certain things, then you are asked what to do. You might, say, roll WIS to try and understand what your opponent is doing; or roll DEX to rush towards them; or roll CON to weather their blows. You take HP damage in combat rounds, but defeating an enemy happens through the story: typically you will advance through rounds, then need to succeed in a roll (typically one of several choices) to defeat them or otherwise end the fight. All that being said, there isn't a strong mechanical necessity to either follow or avoid any particular stat allocation.

 

 

Like Disco, your character's stats also have a profound impact on the experience of the game: each of the six classic D&D stats has an associated persona that you'll hear from frequently. When facing a choice, they'll weigh in on which you should choose; when learning information, they'll react and process. The character creator does a good job at explaining them, but I'll go ahead and summarize as well:

 

 

STRENGTH is very masculine, dominating, commanding, self-controlling. Strongly associated with the Nationalist party and the Fascist ideology.

 

 

DEXTERITY is humorous, greedy, interested in money whether it comes from thieving or business, pleasure-seeking. Associated with the Freestrider party and free-trade ideology.

 

 

CONSTITUTION is quiet, stolid, reserved, blunt, self-aware. Slight association with the Agrarian party.

 

 

WISDOM is feminine, empathetic, insightful, self-effacing. Strongly associated with the Azgalist party and a de-facto socialist ideology.

 

 

INTELLIGENCE is arrogant, opinionated, self-promoting. Associated with magic and the Arcanist party.

 

 

CHARISMA is manipulative, perceptive, scheming, sensual.

 

 

My Cleric was very high WIS and high CHA, and dumped CON.

 

 

If you were to munchkin the game, a few things to consider: DEX is used for pickpocketing ("trifling"). I avoided it early on, but if you can get away with it (including save-scumming if you aren't averse), it doesn't have any downsides: there is no "karma" or hidden consequences. Pickpocketing is especially useful because quite a few characters have potions that will permanently boost a main attribute by 1 point, which in turn will help all dice rolls associated with that stat. Characters also have equipment that you can pickpocket; most pieces will lower one stat and boost one or two other stats, and you can freely swap equipment outside of dialogue, so, say, stealing some DEX-boosting gear will let you swap into a pickpocketing outfit that will help you steal even more stuff.

 

The other thing to be aware of: equipment slots are a bit different in this game. There are just a handful of designated slots: one helmet, one weapon, one book. Then there are multiple "trinket" slots. A "trinket" is anything else, which might be a shield, an ioun stone, boots, a Bag of Holding, etc. Trinkets have the biggest overall effect on your stat modifications. You gain one additional ability point each time you level up. Whenever a main stat hits 20 without any modifications (no equipment, no potions), you can an additional equipment slot. I was... hm, I think maybe level 6 at the end of the game. All that being said, if you want to munchkin your build, you might want to push one or two stats high during chargen, and focus on boosting your highest stat to 20 while leveling up, as adding a new equipment slot is much more powerful and flexible than a static point allocation.

 

 

You can pick different backgrounds for your character during chargen that come with their own stat boosts (like +1 STR and +2 WIS); as you eventually learn over the course of the game, all of the background descriptions canonically apply to your character, so this choice is more about what you focused on and what is most meaningful to you.

 

 

Once the game itself starts, it plays very much like Disco, with almost everything happening through the dialogue interface. You can walk around and explore as much as you like; time only advances during conversations. You have a time limit in the game, as the election is coming up in five days and you are supposed to wrap up your main quest by then. I think this is mostly for narrative urgency; I followed a very completionist path, doing nearly every side-quest and exhausting every dialogue tree I could find, and still had most of a day left by the end of the game. The main constraint is resting. A Long Rest lasts 8 hours and completely heals your character, removes all Exhaustion, and refills all your spell slots. A Short Rest lasts 1 hour and returns 1 random spell slot; I think it also removes 1 Exhaustion and gives a good chunk of health. I eventually found myself very grateful for the consumable items you come across. For health in particular, there are tons of food items and potions that can heal you up between encounters. A little more rare, but still widely available, are consumables that refresh spell slots. In terms of time management, I think it's best to use consumables to keep your character going as long as they can; after they've been awake for too long, they start getting massive Exhaustion, and that's the cue to take a Long Rest.

 

 

Exhaustion seems to be a new mechanic for this game (though I'm not super-familiar with current D&D rules). Any time your Health drops to 0, you start rolling dice to save against Death. I think that a 10+ succeeds and 9- fails. If you fail three times, you die and the game ends. If you succeed three times, you get back 1 HP and also 1 point of Exhaustion. Each point of Exhaustion lowers your Max HP by 1, and more troublingly, adds a -1 malus to every single die roll you take. Even a single point is painful, and it can get crippling once you get too high. Unlike HP and spells, there don't seem to be any consumables to remove Exhaustion, so you'll need to do a Long Rest; it's very much worthwhile to stay topped up on HP at all times to avoid getting any Exhaustion.

 

 

Damage can come from a variety of sources: combat and traps, but also failed skill checks (falling from a tree, stubbing your toe) and, especially in the early points in the game, psychic damage from embarrassing situations, admissions and confronting painful memories. You can literally die of embarrassment in this game, which again feels very Disco.  

 

 

In my playthough I mostly avoided skill checks that seemed challenging, either opting for alternate checks or skipping those branches altogether. In retrospect I should have done more of these. I think that in many cases you can "fail forward": failing a check might cause some minor damage, but will still allow you to progress a plotline. In other cases, the check will lock after you fail; but you can retry these checks after leveling up, and you can also spend a consumable "Shard of Jor" item to retry any check. These shards turn out to be plentiful, I had dozens by the end of the game. I was somewhat chagrined to realize that, by avoiding a Challenging Strength dialogue choice early on, I missed out on recruiting an optional companion who could have helped quite a deal during some combat-oriented parts of the game.

 

 

One other mechanics note: there are so-called "Feats" in this game, which work very differently from the D&D flavor. They aren't tied to your level progression: instead, whenever you finish a major quest, you can allow that quest to "Take Root" in your mind. This will kick off an interior dialogue between the various attribute-personas in your mind, as they debate the implications of what you learned from the quest and your choices in it. This will conclude with the option to pick one of several mutually-exclusive feats. For example, you could choose between one that gives a +50% bonus to any coins you pick up, and one that automatically regenerates some HP every hour. Or you could choose between gaining Advantage in skill checks with dialogue with male characters, or Advantage in skill checks with dialogue with female characters. These choices sound like they make strong judgments about your character, but as far as I can tell they are strictly mechanical, and your choice won't affect the story or other characters' reactions at all.

 

 

You have a maximum of 4 Feats. The first 4 times you let an idea Take Root you will automatically pick up the corresponding Feat; starting with your fifth, you would need to unselect one Feat before you can pick the next. You can re-select a feat again, though the interface says you can only do so after sleeping. You cannot switch your choice between feat options once one has Taken Root (that is, if you opted for Advantage with Male Characters, you can't later swap that for Advantage with Female Characters).

 

 

The economy is actually pretty good in the game. Coins feel precious early on, you'll want to spend some for advancing quests but may need to be cautious in buying items. I think all shops can be found relatively soon, so once you know what all is available it becomes easier to make purchasing decisions. Again, I would personally prioritize buying stat-boosting Potions before pretty much anything else. Also note that some (not all) merchants can be pickpocketed from, with no in-game negative repercussions from successful thefts.  Later in the game there are some possibilities to get large amounts of money, which would free you up to buy everything if you wanted.

 

 

Oh, some more on spells: I think all the spells in this game are D&D spells, and work like you'd expect. You start with very few and can pick up a ton over the course of the game. You instantly memorize any scrolls you find without needing to roll or take time. You are limited to Level 3 spells; this is tied in to the setting of the game, as magic has become less potent and common in the world since the passing of the Arcanists (the "Esoteric Ebb" of the title). You can change your memorized spells pretty easily by visiting an Altar. You cast Sorcerer-style, so if you have, say, 3 Level 1 spell slots and have memorized Charm and Heal Wounds, you could cast either spell three times or one spell once and the other one twice. There's no limit to the number of spells you can learn, but the number you can prepare is determined by your level and your Intelligence.

 

 

Spells can be very effective in this game so they are a great resource. I tended to avoid healing spells, as you can easily heal out of combat. Grease is shockingly effective: it can shut down opponents in a fight, and could also help you get past an iron door. Some spells like Comprehend Language and Speak with Animals unlock huge chunks of content, granting access to large dialogue trees you wouldn't otherwise get to see. There are quite a few Concentration spells, and personally I think the best one is Enhance Abilities, which lasts for hours and gives a bonus to every single die roll you take regardless of the stat.

 

  

You can also learn some Cantrips over the course of the game. While D&D cantrips include one-shot abilities, all of the Esoteric Ebb cantrips are essentially toggleable modes for exploration. "Dancing Lights" will illuminate the area around you; in dungeons, this might cause your character to notice some things that would otherwise be hidden. "Druidcraft" reveals some minor earth spirits who usually have consumable items to offer. "Thaumaturgy" shows secret information points that explain the history or magical influence of an area, and give you buffs (healing, spell slots, curing exhaustion) when clicking on them.

A few technical notes before dipping into the story:

The UI is very well designed and feels very personal. I especially loved the notes from the game designer that appear when continuing a saved game, summarizing your progress thus far in an authorial voice. It's one of many touches that makes this feel like a D&D campaign played at a table.

 

 

The in-game artwork feels amateurish; not offputting or ugly, but like it was drawn by a talented child. It's visually creative and interesting. I was a bit nonplussed at first but warmed to it over the course of the game.

 

 

The music is really nice, with a few simple character-driven themes that repeat over the course of the game. It's a bit soft and pleasant, a nice accompaniment that adds texture to your adventures without distracting from them. 

 

 

Okay, finally on to some story: 

 

You are Ragn, a Cleric of Urth employed by the city of Norvik. You are an only child, a man of twenty-seven years old; as you will eventually learn, you still live with your mom (and admitting this deals 2D4 of psychic damage). You have been tasked by the city with investigating a tea shop that exploded a day before the game starts. As it is Election Week, the city leaders want to make sure there are no threats that would interfere with the process.

 

 

Immediately before the game starts, you die: you are pushed into the river, then are fished out and sent to the morgue, where the mortician is able to revive you. You've lost some short-term memories, and I think this caesura helps justify why you the player need to have so many in-world basic concepts explained to you (again, much like Disco).

 

 

Pretty early on, you meet your first and main companion, the goblin Snell. He somewhat plays the role of Kim in Disco, although they have different personalities. Snell is opinionated but reserved, very loyal to his goblin clan and a realist about how power works in the city. In fights, Snell attacks with a sling, and has pretty good aim.

 

 

There's a slight tension in your loyalties. Your superior for this operation is Coinlord Darrow, one of the Magistrates who administers the city. But authority is being shared with the Halfway Bridge (Goblin) Tribe, who own the tea shop property. Lady Sageleaf is also very interested in this case, and wants to make sure that no blow-back impacts her concerns.

 

 

Much like Disco, you can proceed with investigating the main mystery, but there is also a ton of other stuff to do, and you can easily spend multiple in-game days exploring the city, chatting with people, learning about history and having political discussions, dungeon-crawling and so on. As noted above, the main other part of the plot is the incipient election, and probably more than half of the quests are in some way related to that: various factions vying for influence or agents of the factions trying to promote their own agendas.

 

You can very roughly divide the game map into half, with the town above and the dungeon below. Again, there is a lot of content, so you could spend days in the town without ever dipping your toe into the dungeon. The dungeon is more dangerous, as there are traps and monsters down there; but there are also some really great rewards. In general, most of the early items you find tend to be nearly net-zero: maybe +1 or +2 to one stat and -1 to another stat. Later in the game you can find more items that are more like a straight +3 or a +1/+2 to multiple stats. I'm not sure what the best overall progression is, but I think if I had done some dungeon-diving on the earlier side the gear I found could have helped with city stuff.

 

 

There isn't a ton of actual choice-and-consequences roleplay in the game. You do get a good variety of options in reacting to people, a lot of which are very funny. For example, your character is canonically unsuccessful with the ladies. When someone inquires about your lovelife, you might have choices between changing the subject, stammering awkwardly, making up an outrageous lie, or staying silent and breathing heavily. There won't be any option to be a cool person (though your STR and CHA will encourage you to be cool!). There are a few places where you can make impactful decisions, such as deciding whether to let a witness leave town or force them to stay. The biggest ongoing opportunity for roleplaying comes with the repeated opportunities to align with one of the major political parties, or announce that You Are Apolitical. This strongly reminded me of the Disco ideological alignment storylines.

MEGA SPOILERS

Ultimately, the two main plotlines do converge. Near the very end of the game you learn that the tea shop blew up due to the machinations of Lord Gorm, a Paladin of Urth. He became aware of a plot among the aristocrats to hobble the current leader of the city, casting a Feebleminded spell on him, once they learned that he intended to hold an election in Norvik, overseen by representatives from the clerics and from the Azgal trade unions. However, Gorm was unable to prove this, and despaired of being able to prevent it.

 

 

He hatched on an ambitious, terrible scheme: apparently a ritual exists that could resurrect the dead god Urth. The price: twenty-seven innocent lives. To accomplish this, he arranged to purchase a Necklace of Fireballs: a fairly commonplace item in, say, the Forgotten Realms, but almost unheard of in the relatively low-magic world of Esoteric Ebb. His scheme was to detonate it under the Temple of Urth on Election Day to claim the required lives, resurrect his god and restore the city.

 

 

The scheme went awry when his agent, an elf, arranged to meet early in the tea shop with a former friend of hers, a hagling. I forget the exact details of what went wrong: the necklace of fireballs exploded, but I don't recall now if it was just an accident or if something else provoked the explosion. In any case, the explosion killed the elf and destroyed the tea shop, though fortunately no other lives were claimed.

 

 

All of this is laid out when you meet up with Lord Gorm himself in the Beyond, a sort of afterlife that is also reachable by entering Jor's Pillar. He's surprisingly sympathetic in his description of his motives; following the example of all my favorite games, I talked him down and he offed himself rather than pursue his bloody path. After that, you get to chat with Urth himself, which is really cool: meet the man who became a god. He's really humble and wise and self-effacing; the game does a great job at challenging him, though, in particular letting Snell call him out on his genocide of the goblins and the near-erasure of their culture.

 

 

The game ends like how I want it to, with you getting to chat with most people you've met during the course of the game, get some closure or progression to their personal stories, and a few final words from the DM before the closing credits. In this he acknowledges the major decisions you made and the impact you created.

 

 

I completed virtually all of the quests. I deliberately didn't do the Freestrider pamphleting quest because I didn't want to give them an advantage in the election; the election results aren't part of the endgame, though, so I'm guessing this wouldn't make a difference. I never finished the quest related to the Halflings and their incipient slaughter at the hands of the Celestials; there are a few dialogue items related to this, but I must have missed some plot point to advance it.

 

 

As mentioned before, I resolutely advanced the Azgalist cause whenever possible, and talked them up whenever the opportunity arose. I had them publish the expose on Freestrider/Magistrate corruption, but also spread it to multiple papers to increase the impact for the election. I also had Modissa temper her message; I felt kind of bad doing that, as in real life I feel like the left is far too obsequious towards the supposed political center, but given the historical situation in Norvik I thought this approach would be more effective than vanguardism. 

 

 

I was resolutely The Cleric. I do love that you can call yourself whatever you want, regardless of your actual stats, which again feels like a pen-and-paper quirk for A Certain Kind Of Player. 

 

 

I became a demi-lich, mostly so I could stop needing sleep.

 

 

I was pretty friendly with the unspeakable nameless ancient horror at the bottom of the city, but rejected the opportunity to become a warlock with he/it as my patron. Oh! There is another interesting plot thread here - it turns out that creature is behind the plot to murder me, apparently due to some prophecy that I will play a part in returning higher-level magic to the world. Nothing in this game seems to directly address that, which makes this feel like a possible hook for a potential sequel.

 

 

I turned in the teenage assassin to her dad and didn't cut her any slack.

 

 

I was really friendly with Snell through the whole game, and we had some good interactions at the end.

 

 

I was able to get a sort-of date with Moongore, and also a potential date with Ettir. Way to go, Ragn!

 

 

I made the tea shop owner bird stay in town, and gave his papers to Lady Sageleaf. Overall I was much more aligned with Sageleaf than with Darrow. It was cool to learn that she's secretly a dragon; it might have landed even more emphatically if the HWBT had been kobolds instead of goblins.

END SPOILERS

I had a blast with this game. According to Steam my total playtime, on an almost-completionist playthrough, was a bit over 25 hours, which is a pretty sweet spot for RPGs. I think this game is a must-play for anyone who enjoyed Disco Elysium, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't played Disco but enjoys being in the Venn diagram of games that are narrative-driven, humorous, and use D&D rules. It's also really exciting to see that Disco wasn't just a one-off but has opened up a door for other games to come through.