Aze

Thank you! Thats an interesting idea. There might be a way to cheat the system by dropping items or putting it in a container or some other unexpected area. I'll have to try it if I do a Celtic playthrough.

When you pickup the loot from the chests in Goagh-Nar, all of them get magick'd away/stolen. Is it possible to retain these items somehow? Thanks!

At least in OG1, yes. Especially if you utilize the learned darien. You can join all 3 factions in G1 no problem.

Hope you don't mind the necro, but killing Clois in the Quiet Marshes drops a Shaper Robe (+1 to all shaping skills) quite early in the game. Can't remember if it was the same in OG1.

Ah, you must mean Shaper Alexie in Fort Vengeance? She's basically described a giggling schoolgirl, despite the fact that she gives you two quests to destroy unauthorized access to Shaper papers. Certainly a very colourful character. Quite the dichotomy between a shaper who who is a stickler to the rules and someone who is brazen enough to teach you how to make barred creations. I do believe that she tells you that you would have to absorb the drayk at the end of the war, which seems to suggest that shapers in general have accepted that their laws must be bent to beat the supremely difficult rebel factions. Indeed, the trainer in Stormhold (Marzan) will teach you how to make Rotghroths if you join Alwan's faction, which is insane, as I can't imagine that a creation as disturbing as a Rotghroth would be permitted to exist in a more stable time.

Its definitely interesting, but G5 is by far the hardest of the series. I've beat G1-G4 on torment, and only G4 was moderately difficult (I do a bit of powergaming and read the FAQs, so it does reduce the difficulty somewhat). G5 constantly throws lethal situations at you, and theres a lot of content that generally needs skipping until you're stronger, or severe abuse of the combat system to power through. I'm stymied by the number of regular enemies (rats, worms!) that have 10-12 AP and can punch a hole through your team. Acid is far more lethal on G5 than previous games, and aura effects just feel incredibly unfair on torment (unbound for example). G5 Torment truly feels like the game is imbalanced, and it is expected that you are both an experienced Geneforge player and also powergaming or consulting a guide to relatively maximize your character power. My shaper is level 40, just about to enter Dera and yet I constantly need to be pre-buffed before fights if I want to survive. However, I do think that the leadership and mechanics of G5 is way more forgiving and the checks are easier to pass than prior games. There is also a tremendous amount of exp on the map, which opens up possibilities for long term creations that you roll throughout endgame. That being said, it could be a hassle to try to get a cryoa to level 50 due to the lack of resistances.

There are way too many humorous inconsistencies. In G1, you ride a modified drayk at sea, but drayks were already barred at that point. How could this be?

Geneforge series generally don't have these kind of collateral damage scripted in place. I noticed that when I played it on Torment, I ignored one of the rogue squads (since I was waiting for Regen aura to heal my creations), and the guards managed to kill the rogues with great difficulty (only the mage survived).