Today on worldbuildingfail, NORTH KOREA THE UNSTOPPABLE!
This is our quest giver. Santes points out it’s a dick move to say that in front of him, and Yfus explains that Kir’Sshans are too uneducated to know Human. This one does of course, because as I said previously the game refuses to actually use its fictional languages in ways that make sense. The only way I can fanwank this is by assuming the traditionalist isolationist dictatorship places great importance of having everyone know the lingua franca, which I realize is ridiculous even as I type it.
The guy goes into a coughing fit.
Santes: “You done yet?”
Wow does this game not know how to balance drama and comedy.
Dehl: “T’is quite apparent that food will not grow in this soil. Is there some way to remedy this?”
Yfus: “No, Sikohlon. Very little plantlife survived The Blackening of Kir’Ssha and the area. Even fewer food-producing crops are still cultivated. Only weeds. Thus, the famine.”
And here’s the stupidest part of this storyline. Throughout this, we’ve been told constantly how terrifying Kir’Ssha is and how easily it will overpower Do’Ssha. Their troops (and the conscript city guard here) are strong and well-trained, with expensive-looking equipment. Yet at the same time they have literally or at least very near literally zero food crops. This is even crazier than NORTH KOREA THE UNSTOPPABLE – at least North Korea has food. Claiming that this society lasted longer than a few weeks is simply unbelievable; claiming that their soldiers are unstoppable juggernauts is patently absurd. Just…you can’t sustain a society when you have no food. Food is kind of important. (Also why would they not bother cultivating the few food crops they still have, do they want to starve???)
I think the idea here is supposed to be that they do have arable land, it’s just crappy and/or they have less of it than Do’Ssha, so they can still scrape by, they just need to starve everyone to feed the army. This is not what we see (on the map it’s black to the coast, while Do’Ssha has green bits), but it makes a lot more sense. And it still fits the plot, you just need to say that instead of having them rely on care packages because who in their right mind gives the crazy isolationist dictatorship care packages, a blight or drought hits. Do’Ssha has enough land, stores, and crop variety to survive, but Kir’Ssha goes from having nearly no food to literally no food, thus necessitating action. This would remove the explicit interconnectedness to earlier events, though using the exact same instigator at the beginning and end maintains thematic connectedness, and would be particularly deep here with the high-minded spirituality being brought low by base physical needs. It would also better support Yfus’ claim of instability, as well as having Dehl’s plan make more sense: cure the blight (or even just support them while they work it out themselves) and things might return to normal. That’s still naïve while also being reasonable, as it only requires a single fix instead of having to support a fundamentally broken society forever. Repeating a catalyst the heroes have solved before also provides hope and a clear solution, making it all the more crushing when reality kicks in and it turns out that’s not enough.
But back to the real story. Dehl starts getting desperate and resolves to help this guy even if he can’t help everyone. That’s so obviously pointless, but it’s believable that someone as empathetic and desperate as him would try it. I doubt it’s even a sacrifice; they came here with the intent of feeding people, so surely they brought enough for
Dehl: “Where can we find that much food? We can’t go back to Do’Ssha so soon.”
0______0
Wow. Just wow.
Yes, upon deciding to leave for the food-deprived hellhole with the express purpose of feeding people in the food-deprived hellhole, they did not immediately pack all the food they could carry.
Wow.
Fortunately, the plot covers for Dehl’s incompetence. It turns out the royal gardens have remained intact throughout the centuries since the Blackening and plants still grow there, even though we just learned that growing plants here is nigh impossible.
Okay, maybe I’m being a bit harsh. This seems like obvious plot contrivance, but Yfus did say that some plants can still grow; surely the royalty, with all the resources at their disposal, would provide the garden with the necessary care as a show of tenacity and
Yfus: “It hasn’t been cared for since The Blackening,
…Oh.
Even though it makes no sense plotwise, I do like this quest. There’s a prominent stealth element, with secret passages and side paths that reward careful exploration and help you avoid enemies. It’s actually worthwhile, too; the enemies here are a major step up from the wildlife, and I got quite a few characters knocked out during battles. It also makes sense storywise, since you’re supposed to be keeping on the down-low and seriously why did they think sneaking into the royal gardens was a good idea. I think you can even complete the quest without fighting anyone, though I violate that in my insatiable desire to share thought snippets. (In my defense, I’m pretty sure this is the last time you can encounter most of these enemies.)
I thought Syri said they turned away from the faith? Why are they actually super-devout? They say something similar if you bump into them in the previous quest, too. Admittedly, this does explain why they’re working with kir devout. I guess Syri was wrong about them, or she lied to exploit the guild’s moral imperative to murder crazy people.
Capital Letters Make Everything Better!
These enemies are really dangerous, especially underleveled as I am. Kir devout, in particular, have a nasty area-effect attack that can destroy your party if they all decide to use it at once. Kir savants also keep mind health relevant, which I appreciate. For once Falitza gets to be the tank.
(I make sure to only defeat enemies through mind and soul damage, even though those are their strong areas, because I’m being nice.)
The area is quite pretty if you can ignore how these plants should be long dead with no one actively caring for them. Also if you can ignore its state of disrepair. If the idea is supposed to be they have a wealthy elite like North Korea, why is even royal property such a mess? If even their top dogs don’t have any resources, how in the world am I supposed to take them seriously as a threat? A lavishly pristine garden would also work so much better on an aesthetic level, to contrast with the crumbling slum.
Harvesting food takes time, because the developer has the mistaken impression that people care about the time limits. And yes, the food they’re collecting are berries. I’m sure that’ll fix the family’s horrible malnourishment.
Some sa’ansharu are huddling here. Fortunately,
I don’t have to cut through them to get scraps of food. Stealth! (This does beg the question of why they haven’t eaten it themselves already, but eh, videogame.)
There’s a more wilderness-y area to the east where some burrowstings discover their default sprite does not hide them very well in differently-colored sand. I ignore them.
At the end the narration says I’ve collected enough to feed a dozen for a long time and I don’t care how much I got they are berries you cannot feed people with just berries! No wonder they’re starving if this is their idea of food. What about burrowsting and dunestalker meat, is that edible?
Alito: “With the passing of Rank 29, there is but one Rank left to achieve under the RGRF… Let us make it a momentous moment when it comes, my friends!”
Alito then immediately undercuts the tension by discovering I’ve achieved a double rank up.
“R-r-r-rank 30! I was sure I’d never see the day, and yet, now that it has come… The RGRF has come to us with a most magnificent ceremony of celebration! Come, come! Bring your friends! Bring those strangers! Bring everyone!”
This is absolutely hilarious considering their current location. Turns out all we needed was a rank up and the RGRF would feed the whole city! Famine over! I get a massive exp boost, enough to get almost everyone up to their final skill ranks. This pleases me; on my first playthrough I could never quite make it to the final skill tier, but now it looks like I’m on track to max out by the end of the game, as it should be.
Back to plot. They try to get information out of the guy in exchange for the food, but he just gives them the standard spiel about the Silver Army being unstoppable. I’m not sure what they expected. He does finally convince Dehl that the religious motive for attacking Do’Ssha is too strong to be discounted and their only option is to have a “reasonable debate” with Zaka. This strikes me as way too convenient for the heroes; while it’s entirely possible for a starving slum dweller to be completely unshaken by good Samaritans, it’s rather suspect that the story chooses the single most unsympathetic portrayal for its sole representative of the opposing side. Now the heroes are totally justified in going to war – see, they put forth the bare minimum of effort and it didn’t work in this one instance, therefore their opponents all irrational crazies and it’s okay to crush them beneath our boot. The story only pays lip service to the idea that these people are suffering too and could have legitimate problems. Nope, everything is conveniently black and white and a battle to the death is the only solution, as RPG custom dictates.
And that’s it. They leave.
So, to recap: They decided this was their only hope for stopping the imminent invasion, and risked everyone’s lives to come here. They make no concrete plans for what they will do once they get there, pack no supplies, and give up after their single lazy attempt at charity falls flat. They waste all the effort it took to get here (and Syri’s life), as well as time that could have been spent actually preparing for the invasion. Heroes!
What was the point of this? Well, we saw Kir’Ssha. That really seems to be the important point. As I said, it seems the developer knew he wanted to show off his pretty set pieces but didn’t much care for what plot excuse he used to get there. This should be the climactic moment of the chapter, and instead it just sort of shrugs its shoulders and turns back around, unsure of what exactly it’s supposed to do.
This would be so much better if Dehl had an actual plan. I know there has to be gameplay, so – instead of infiltrating a high-security area like a moron, he sneaks around the slums with the pile of food he, not being a moron, brought from Do’Ssha. Instead of there being a single token poor person to represent the entire slum, starving people are everywhere and he tries to feed as many as possible, learning more about their way of life in the process and maybe convincing a few to tone down the fervor. The guards are obviously not pleased about this so he has to avoid them, maintaining the stealth element. Maybe some of the citizens sound the alarm if he tries to talk to them, too. There wouldn’t be enough to feed all of them so you’d have to decide who gets the food, creating those nail-biting decisions and narrative sacrifices I so love in video games.
In the original draft, there was a second quest here, albeit a fillery one – but that’s a good idea, the more time and narrative weight spent here the better. Let’s take it further: Dehl is still dismayed by the citizens’ hateful zeal after his attempts at philanthropy, but instead of giving up he adapts and tries to attack on that front, working the other fih’jik to create an anti-war speech or protest or something. Alternatively, continue the stealth elements with a propaganda campaign, maybe through finding some rebels on the inside. This obviously goes pear-shaped and the guild is chased into hiding, forming the basis for a second quest. Only at this point, where the guild is under direct and immediate threat, do I think it would be justified for them to run.
But what if they didn’t? What if the story actually walked the walk regarding the idea that Dehl was becoming unhealthily obsessed? What if the story stayed in Kir’Ssha right up to the climax?
(Highlight below to see the spoiler-filled paragraph!)
Syri explains the Unstoppable Night when they first formulate the plan, and though they make sure to arrive well before that, their time has run out by now. But Dehl is desperate; he won’t flee with his tail between his legs without any meaningful achievement to justify the journey. (Perhaps he also uses Syri’s sacrifice as justification, because in this version he is not a horrible person who ignores the cost of his actions.) Against everyone’s protests, he stays as the Night descends, deciding to go after Zaka personally – because obviously he can’t just wait until the invasion begins and singlehandedly stop the entire army, that would be stupid. He uses the chaos of the Night to infiltrate the palace (meaning more stealth sequences!!!) and has the climactic final battle there. This could also be used to actually show Kir’Ssha’s traditions surrounding the Night instead of just being told about them occasionally. Maybe they save Syri – maybe Ques even bails to save her, increasing tension for Dehl’s group by removing their best asset. The events of the next quest happen afterward as a post-climax thing, which would make the happenings more surprising and give them the focus they deserve.