Student of Trinity

Or, find anyone who will still talk to you, and talk up serviles' rights like crazy. But if you've already done everything, there may be few such people. In which case, if you really just want to see a different ending, and not see how the whole game changes if you are loyal to the Awakened throughout: hit control-D and type 'iloveserviles'. The serviles will then be satisfied with your ideological purity.

What's your difficulty level? What creations do you have?

Could be an issue of difficulty level. On Torment, my high Parry, good armor, and life-stealing sword let me go toe-to-toe with squads of bad guys without getting more hurt than I can handle with the occasional pod. Alwan lacks these advantages, so the massive damages that get dealt out on Torment wear him down really fast. And his own attacks, while decent enough, never take his enemies down before they land a hit or two on him. (And my incarnation of Alwan is pretty much maxed: all abilities maxed out, and he has come all the way to Icy End, mostly with just me for company, so his level is about as high as it can get.) For ordinary little battles, I could either leave him out until the end, or retire him around a corner after the first round, then heal him up. But for major engagements where the enemies kept coming, I couldn't keep healing him fast enough and survive myself, and there was nowhere for him to hide.

Yeah, but I was in denial. I kept hoping Alwan's inadequacy in a ranged game would be less trouble for melee Guardian. And he actually was able to close with the enemy alongside me, and get in a swat or two. He just couldn't take more than a couple of hits, on Torment, despite his hundreds of Health, and generous rations from me of Armor Potions and Augmentations. A ranged attack would make him too hard to distinguish from Greta in behavior, for my taste. But he really needs some better armor.

Geneforge XI: "Destroy all Geneforges" Every type of creation is holed up in its own mountain lab complex, building its own geneforge. Will the Ur-Vlish defeat the Arch-Drakons and emerge to rule the world? Not if you can help it. You begin the game as a spore, but if you succeed in using all nine geneforges, you will earn a slightly longer interview with the Shaper Council.

I have found only two Purified Essences -- one in the Darkstone Core, and one in the Monastery Caves. Several people have posted that they have found three. Where in the Ashen Isles is the third one, people?

That's it, I've had it with this wretched wanna-be Guardian. I've tried really hard to like him. I've carried him on my back through all these zones of havoc, paid for his training and his equipment, and buffed him constantly with magic. He has over four hundred health points. But can he hold on to them? No, he cannot. A strong breeze practically wipes him out. He talks big, and he does hit okay (after all I've done for him); but he simply can't take the heat. He ran off in the middle of battle in Icy End, crying about how badly wounded he was, leaving me to take all those Drayks and Glaahks and Rotghroths all by myself. Which I did. And I am not going all the way back to the reeking Bulwark Inn now, just to have the pleasure of nursing him through the next little tussle. Greta was different. Greta was cool. Greta was worth taking care of, because she could usually take care of herself. Alwan is a toad. Any disagreements?

Alwan and I did surprisingly well, by gradually retreating into the dead end near the locked door. The narrow passage let us avoid being swarmed, and I found Swarm crystals surprisingly effective against those specter things. Alwan did get blown away at the end, but then I was able to take Krya and his sustained shade things solo (by using some speed pods, luring the two shades into one-on-one battles, and by shooting Krya with thorns of some kind and running after each shot). It was a tough fight, all right, but it worked out okay.

You can string along both sides until the end of Dhonal's Isle, when you have to commit yourself in order to leave the island. But then on Gull Island you will be offered a chance to switch sides again, and you can effectively revert back to middle-of-the -road, doing quests for everyone -- for a while. I'm not sure what would happen if you tried to fulfill both sides' final missions on Gull, but there certainly isn't any way to really stay middle of the road: either mission is something unforgivable from the other party's point of view, and you have to do one to get to the next island. So by the time you reach the Isle of Spears, at the latest, you are committed one way or the other. The price you pay for deciding late is that people on either side will be reluctant to train you. So if you want to get the most training possible, pick your side early and stick with it.

I'm on Spears now as a canister-free Loyalist Torment melee doubleton Guardian half-caff Americano latte with no ice ... I mean, a Guardian with decent Missile Weapons (10) (unchanged since Harmony), but mainly relying on melee attacks, with Alwan but no creations, on Torment, has never touched a canister or been shaped in any way. It really hasn't been bad. Some finesse in making contact so as to avoid engaging too many enemy at a time, but I had to do that sort of thing with my Agent and Shaper too. I've never gotten effective creations with any Guardian, so I wouldn't know about Clawbugs versus Thahd Shades. But you can do quite fine without them. I'd be a singleton, except that I want to see what Alwan has to say. Except for a few spots on Harmony. Quite a few, actually. Those were very tough. I don't know now whether the problem was just hangover from my initial over-investment in Parry (which is good, but not so good you should sacrifice everything else to start it at 10), or too much hoarding of my Speed pods and wands (from not realizing that there would be plenty more ahead), or just a tough patch for Guardians no matter what they do. Whatever, nothing since then has been as difficult. So if it's the Harmony Blues that are getting you down, cheer up, life does get easier.

Nope.

There's a 'monastery key' that you find in a Gazer's blue box in the Monastery of Tears. Does it actually do anything? All the doors and boxes in the place seem just as hard to open after you have it, which is a drag because my Guardian is mighty low on living tools. He feels he's earned his loot, but this accursed key doesn't work: AAARGGG!

The Oozing Blade is quite a bit better than the Claymore against golems and Drakons, and it seems to be fine against Gazers, Drayks and Glaahks. It is awful against Rotghroths. The Frozen Blade doesn't seem to be that great for damage, though it has a nice slowing effect and a cool sound effect. I gave up on it quickly, though. The Puresteel Soulblade is pretty good, but my tests weren't that extensive because by the time I got it there wasn't much left to fight. The Oozing Blade is most definitely worth keeping for a melee Guardian. Pack it along with the Claymore -- it's worth switching back and forth. I doubt any of the other weapons in the game are important competitors for those two.

I don't think there is a stunning enhancement, alas.

True, but I went in there my first run on the principle of exploring everything and applying the ingenuity Lord Rahul so wisely praises. This game has rebel Shapers, traitor Shapers, deluded Shapers, corrupted Shapers, heretical Shapers, and mind-controlled Shapers. Who knows what dark secrets might be hidden in Lord Rahul's private rooms, which it would be your duty as an unwavering loyalist to expose?

Not if you only just got the quest to find it. You can't get into its cave otherwise.

Clawbug Canyon -- pretty far East for Barzite lands, but I guess technically so.

Losing War Blessing and Protection will hurt a lot, I predict. In the dicey early Guardian game, they so often make the difference between a kill and a wounding. Losing Mental Barrier will also be very bad in some places. One thing that may help a fair bit is bringing lots of Shaper contraband in to be burnt -- you can get a good weapon as a reward. Just remember, though: while you're out fighting for your life against the hordes of rogues, Lord Rahul's Puresteel Plate and Guardian's Claymore will be gathering dust in his closet -- and not helping the Shaper cause at all! (If this were G3, that last argument would only have been available because my Leadership was above six, and it would make you concede and turn robber.)

You really have to watch what you say about Vlish around here, people. Brain-eating tentacled monstrosities have feelings, too.

Hey, do Ornks really count as battle creations? I wondered about that, but I didn't think any shaping skills would boost their level. I'm not sure Porky is as mad as the Vlish Lord, since he's only doing this crazy stuff for one zone. Maybe just temporarily incapacitated from eating spawned luncheon meat in the refectory of the Monastery of Tears.

Pretty much everything is fair play until you actually enter Monastery Caves. At that point, you should not do exitzone, because surviving the spawned rogues on the long way back to the essence pools outside is part of the challenge. (Plus it'd be an extreme drag working your way back from the school to the Monastery Caves.) You could certainly try just leaving your pc at the entrance, though, and sending out waves of ornks.

Thanks very much for the official line. It would be nice if all the enhancements worked both offensively and defensively. What does a Steel Spur do on a sword?

Well, I'd be impressed if anyone can do it even with Daze, but I guess I'd also call that a 'lite' version, because my original idea was that the only offense of any kind should be ornk tusks and shaper fists.

In truth the rocks are there because I felt that 'rocks, ornks, and incredible tactical sophistication' had a nicer ring than the same line without the rocks. It serves to emphasize the ridiculous nature of the task, that the only item you can carry is completely useless. In case anyone wonders, this challenge is meant half as a joke and half seriously. I sat down to invent a ridiculous task as a parody of iron man challenges, then realized that it might just conceivably be doable, if you were really cunning and persistent. I have no intentions of trying it myself unless someone else reports victory first. If anyone really manages it, they will be totally frosty. Does a bare hands attack do any damage at all? When I composed this I thought it did. Using only rocks and ornks was meant to imply that you couldn't use any spells, or at least not any offensive spells, but for some reason I had in mind that bare hands attacks would be okay. The goal is to do the actual Monastery Caves without cheating, but it doesn't matter how you get your character and your ornks up to that point. I would consider it kosher to use exitzone or dbugkill all the way to Khor's Deep to get the ornk canister, then go back and fight around Greenwood with your ornks in order to evolve them up. There are no serviles in the Monastery Caves. You don't have to clear the Monastery of Tears the hard way to do the spiced ham challenge.

Allowing sticks can be the 'lite' version.