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Just one Sylak item away from having them all...


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Well, I decided to try to finish Nethergate: Resurrection completely vannila (no help from the Character Editor), and I suceeded. The only problem was that another of my goals was to collect all of the elusive and odd Sylak's items...

I managed to get most of them (I had to drop off the Cloth and Bricks due to inventory spammage), but I couldn't find the Clever Pen. I eventually found out that I would get it from a goblin chief in a outdoor encounter, but only after the whole "Kill Formorian, Get Pen" quest.

To my dismay, it required visiting another goblin village my Celts had already savaged for its steel helmet.

Is there any legit way to find that formorian without the second goblin village, or am I going to have to abandon the pen?

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If you're playing the original game, you're going to have to make do, I'm afraid. It's kind of screwy that the goblin village you need to keep alive is right at the beginning; I often forget to keep them alive.

 

If you're playing N:R (and the pen is still there - no idea why it wouldn't be), you should be able to set a SDF, or change a line or two of code to make the Fomorian appear. I don't have the game files handy to give any more help than that, but I'll try to do it at some point in the next day or so (unless somebody else steps up).

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Well nuts... I was hoping to do a complete run without the aid of the character editor...

This kind of reminds me of when I played Avernum 3, and got every Xian item except the Bottle. Apparently the bottle was in the grove itself, and not a reward given to you via a special encounter. I ended up giving it to myself with the editor, although it was more of a nuisance than a blessing with its tipsy effect.

At least now I know to leave that village alive in future playthroughs.

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Well, I agree with you there. I'm pretty sure every single dungeon/town has either Amazing Bricks or random articles of clothing in them thanks to the Bricks or the Cloth.

Anywho, I was trying to get all of the items to prove I made a completionist run (Heck, I even got almost all of the Nether Arts spells, and didn't use some of them once).

 

Oh, and don't forget thumpin' people over the head with the Thumpin' Shovel (Even though I didn't use that one either...).

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  • 1 year later...

The cheat book for Nethergate Ressurrection states that there are fourteen Sylak items.

I only aquired thirteen: Clever Pen

Pants of Power

Mortar & Pestle

Horn

Nourishing Bowl

Dancing Cloth

Enlightening Amber

Talking Skull

Ethereal Scalpel

Chaotic Dice

Candle

Trash

Thumpin' Shovel

 

Does anyone know what the last one is???

 

Thanks,

 

kGeek

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Yes, need that Rod of Safe Descent.

From the Corescendata2 file, the full list is:

Item 450: Sylak's Pants of Power

Item 451: Sylak's Talking Skull

Item 452: Sylak's Clever Pen

Item 453: Sylak's Chaotic Dice

Item 454: Sylak's Nourishing Bowl

Item 455: Sylak's Efficient Mortar

Item 456: Sylak's Ethereal Scalpel

Item 457: Sylak's Exuberant Trash

Item 458: Sylak's Assisting Horn

Item 459: Sylak's Dancing Cloth

Item 460: Sylak's Wisdom Rock

Item 461: Sylak's Eternal Candle

Item 462: Sylak's Amazing Bricks

Item 463: Sylak's Thumpin' Shovel

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Sorry for the confusion Triumph, Jerakeen, & Ishad.

 

I thought the tread I had posted on was not being watched anymore because the last post before me was over a year ago; so, I started a new thread. Thank you for the redirection & schooling on the forum.

 

I found the bricks! I never noticed that ledge halfway down the drop before.

 

Thank you for the help & the detailed list!!!

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Hey Jerakeen, thanks for the info, you must be on EST also. I was up last night finishing up anything I missed & saying goodbye(sentimental geekness)to the N.R. world before I ventured into the Spire of Ages.

 

I've got two questions for you: near the Ruined Hall lives Peaseblossom who completely covers herself with a cloak because of her fairy curse--can anything be done to help her & Vug the goblin in the Hollow Hills won't let me past his door--did you get past it?

 

Good morning almost afternoon to you

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I was playing a Celt; that explains not getting past the door. I said a prayer for Pearlblossom:)

 

I haven't played the Roman quest yet. Is it worth putting your mindset into the negative/evil side of the game?

I hate playing the bad guy. But, the end game for the Celts was surprising. I thought the boon reward from Sylak for helping open the Nethergate was that my party would go through the Nethergate. Sylak mentioned a curse, & after the gate was closed I got a broken box of wands. Was that the curse; a curse on the Celts? Fleeing from the queen to the north & creating a successful empire was a rewarding ending though. Maybe the point was that even though the Romans are bastards, Sylak can betray others as well.

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I know a lot of people seem to feel the Romans are the badguys...personally, I never felt that way. You're not required to do anything exceptionally evil (you can choose to, but you do the same evil things as Celts). You're trying to do you duty, protect your people, and prevent the strange and monstrous forces of Shadowvale from running amok. Or maybe this is all a subtle clue that I'm actually a Neo-Roman Imperialist? Wait, what?

 

[spoileralt=Sylak's Curse]The curse is that Roman Empire will halt its expansion and go into decline. Basically, in the story, Sylak is the real reason for the "decline and fall of the Roman Empire."[/spoileralt]

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IIRC, the curse was on the Romans, that they would never conquer any farther than they already had. I could be wrong about that. For the Celts, it's a bittersweet victory at best, since their magic is doomed to fade.

 

ETA: While you're not strictly required to do anything overtly evil, most of your side quests leave a bad taste. Your allies are unsavory, and pretty much everyone else hates you. You go through the game feeling like you're contributing to the destruction of something rare and special. I didn't enjoy playing as Romans.

Edited by Jerakeen
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after the gate was closed I got a broken box of wands.

 

Once you play the game from the other side, you'll see why the wands are smashed. :p

 

Re: Pearlblossom. Part of me is sad that she wasn't given a quest in the remake (and, in fact, I even wrote a quest for her, without ever publishing it), but I think a bigger part of me is alright with it. Not everything can be fixed, or set right, even in a kingdom of fairies and magic. Just as the ending is bittersweet, some of the interactions you have with people must be too.

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Pearlblossom actually got shortchanged by the remake. In the original she's a full conversation. In N:R she's just an encounter without much interactive dialogue.

 

—Alorael, who thinks she's fine as she is. Like the wish-fish and some other oddities of Shadowvale, she's there for flavor and to give you an early teaser of what Castle Aethdoc is like

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Okay, actually...

 

Nethergate and N:R use the same engine, I believe. Nethergate was the first game to use it, whilst N:R was the last, after Avernum 1-3 and BoA. Of course, there were many improvements to said engine along the way, which is why the game feels and looks different.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure that outdoor dialogue is possible in BoA - I never tried it myself, but I'm sure somebody (TM?) did.

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Basically, N:R uses the BoA engine, a handful of calls are different.

Original Nethergate had no scripts, it was like BoE, in fact it used most of the BoE special nodes.

 

Outdoor dialog would require the calling of specific dialog states...

You can call a talk node from a scenario script, that is how my Identify 'spell' worked.

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Okay, to be clear:

 

Nethergate used the original version of the Avernum engine, which had the isometric graphics engine of Nethergate, Avernum 1-3, and N:R, but not the scripts of Geneforge/BoA/Avernum 4-6/Avadon/N:R. Nethergate used nodes much like BoE's nodes. So it was a transitional engine. As far as dialogue, I believe it was closer to BoE: there were still keywords and such, rather than selections as in Avernum, right? (I say from a maybe decade-old memory.)

 

I'm not sure how one would accomplish outdoor dialogue in BoA. You need a dialogue script loaded, and the game doesn't load one for an outdoor section. The call begin_talk_mode() works, but it gives an error for lack of dialogue script. Has this actually been done successfully by someone? If so, where?

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Not by me.

To have Pearlblossom dialog in N:R/BoA you would need to give Pearlblossom her own little town.

"Also, I'm pretty sure that outdoor dialogue is possible in BoA - I never tried it myself, but I'm sure somebody (TM?) did."

That is something you could research, look at all TM's BoA scenarios and see if any show signs of outdoor dialog scripts.

 

If all else fails just take a leaf from N:R and use dialog calls, like add_dialog_str and message_dialog, to simulate dialog that way.

Edited by Ishad Nha
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Nethergate did indeed use keywords rather than dialogue options. You could make a fake outdoor dialogue in BoA by putting one together from a string of linked non-dialogue messages, but it would be laborious.

 

—Alorael, who still doesn't think Pearlblossom needs a resolution. Thieving, lying fairies get left out in huts.

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Let me rephrase my joking signature. The fact that you can't right every wrong or understand every mystery is part of Nethergate's charm to me. You're just one little band in a larger world. Sometimes you can be part of great undertakings, but sometimes the denizens of Shadowvale just do their own thing. And that puzzle is well beyond your puny minds.

 

—Alorael, who can only imagine that the Puzzle Box was gifted to some sidhe who took it through the portal. It may show up yet in a later Spiderweb game, perhaps even as convincing proof of Averforgate.

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