Student of Trinity

It turns out Ghaldring the ultimate Drakon is just a frontman for the real power behind the rebellion: the mighty Ur-Ornk Lord!

This should maybe be a poll. I play at Torment all the time. I'm not sure why, since it really only makes a difference for a few tough fights, and on them I end up save-loading enough that all claim to machismo must be lost. Oh, yeah: it's because I'm so cool. That's why!

Can anyone remind me where the Deep Crystal and the Deep Focus Orb (not the one in Tears-R-Uss) are? I'm pretty sure I found them fairly early in my last game, but now I've just opened the Darkstone anvil and I still don't have them, so I think I may have missed them somewhere. Please don't say one of them is in the Purification Plant. I dragged my poor Vlish all through that place, got to the western doors and discovered I didn't have the key. Anyone know where that key is? EDIT: Found the Deep Focus Orb. Where is Deep Crystal?

Actually, if you look closely, you are amazed to realize that Vlish have only two tentacles. It's eating too many calamari that makes them seem more.

The Ornk spawner. I keep flinching whenever I see the dreaded message that the Spawner has made a new creation, and I have to remind myself each time that it's okay, they're just Ornks. It's in the Monastery of Tears [AKA 'Outer Tears-R-Uss'].

I want to see some luxury Shaper accommodation. A place where there are comfy chairs, attentive servile waiters, and spawners that make fine wines and espresso. Some little corner of the map that says 'We Shapers don't just know how to shape life; we know how to live.'

Shopkeeper: Can I help you? Gazer: The eye is just looking. Shopkeeper: [Can't shovel the stuff over fast enough.]

HA! I did not anticipate that effect. The tentacle is quicker than the eye!

Maybe all the GF games have had this feature, but I just noticed it, and it's strange. You can pick up any items to which any of your party is close. So you can dump a pile of things by the dock, leave a vlish there to guard them, and saunter off to the north edge of the map. Then hit 'g', and just by clicking on all the stuff that appears, transfer it instantly across the map. I just picture that eager vlish, running back and forth with all your things as fast as its little tentacles can carry it ...

Quite a few people in the game indicate that there are more rogues around than just the ones you meet (and usually kill). Many others are lurking in between the tiles, it seems. So Lankan still has grounds for being worried about rogues even after you have trashed every available one. I agree, though, that this could be spelled out more, and that Lankan ought to at least react a bit to the fact that you have taken out the spawners and minds.

You find out what was behind that mystery door in Geneforge 3. Shantih's necklace really does seem to be just a necklace, as she says. You can't get it. Barzahl is no big deal, certainly not after Inner Gazak-Uss. Kill Eyebeasts the same way a hopped-up Agent can kill anything: pop round a corner, flash a couple Kills or Auras of Flames, then pop back out of sight, making sure to save at least on AP. Exit combat mode, then re-enter immediately. Repeat until whatever it is becomes whatever it was. Minor variation if no convenient corner is at hand: finish up with Strong Daze. Worst case, attack only once per round, and use the remaining 10 AP to get back and forth from behind cover.

I'm on my second run through G3, this time as a rabid rebel Shaper, with Greta, Alwan, and a squad of vlish. (Alwan is pretty shocked, but I tell myself I'll make it up to him when I reincarnate as a die-hard Shaper loyalist Guardian.) Nearing the end of Harmony Isle, I haven't really noticed much difference from my first game as a lukewarm loyalist; but I expect this to change soon. I want to be maximally rebel, so of course I'll be giving Mr Lankan his medicine; but I also want to squeeze as much experience out of the island as I can. I don't really have much time to spare for Geneforge, so I don't want to have to redo anything. So, a question: How much difference will it make to my career in the rebellion if I kill all the rogues and spawners before handing Lankan his little jar?

It seems clear that the arts of the Shapers mostly consist of skills never acquired by the PC: growing living tools, mines, and turrets; growing long-lived creatures in vats; researching new creatures, items, or improvements; controlling large numbers of creations at immense distances; making potions; making living boats; shaping items; and so on. The PC evidently turns out to be a prodigy in the narrow range of arts most useful for doing what the PC does -- making a handful of creations from personal essence, slaying rogues, disarming traps. These talents wouldn't necessarily make one stand out so extremely in a Shaper school that was mostly dedicated to longer term endeavors.

I kept Dazing the worms so I could continue lobbing Searers onto the Creator. It took a while, but the outcome was never in doubt.

The Puresteel Soulblade is in the Monastery Caves. If you can get it, you don't need it. But it's sort of nice to be able to get hold of one of those things without having to give any of, uh, your soul -- as you did in G2.

This could maybe be fixed just by modifying Lankan's lines a bit, to something about how even though the present outburst of rogues has now been suppressed, the incident has made him realize that the Shapers cannot be trusted to uphold their part of the social contract, and that he therefore cannot now go back to the status quo ante rebellum -- or words to that effect. Maybe not quite as big a payoff in plot effect as one would hope for, in return for playing it preux, but if written well it might be satisfying enough in a bittersweet way.

Benedict XVI is unlikely to rescind the ruling that Catholics are forbidden to augment themselves with glowing jars of empathy-reducing magical goo. So, no effect.

I've always been able to bury my qualms about the moral status of my own creations under the ambiguity of their physical status. My theory is that my own creations are different from the rogues I meet, and are really just mindless robots made of essence. Here is my reasoning. It is clear that in the GF world there are creations of a wide range of durabilities. There are the 'fading creations' you meet on Harmony Isle in G3, and the fading Drakons that spring out of the crystals Barzahl gives you to assassinate Zakary in G2. There are the spawned creations, which form every few seconds while you are around the Spawner, but which must apparently dissolve spontaneously in your absence, because if you leave a Spawner and return, you don't find that it has filled the region with creations while you were gone. And there are the creations you make yourself, in a crackle and a flash, out of thin air. On the other extreme, there are Drayks that live for ages and beget new generations of Drayks, and Serviles that acquire wisdom and knowledge greater than those of most Shapers. Here is my theory for why there is this range of durabilities. There are a lot of vats in the Shaper world. Any kind of creation can apparently be grown in a vat. Why bother, if Spawners and shapers can make creations out of essence alone? I conjecture that vat-grown creations are permanent, potentially independent beings, but spawned creations are really just essence robots, which will fade away within hours or days if separated from their creator. Thus, I can let my own creations die, or reabsorb them, without guilt; and yet the moral issues of the games, concerning the treatment of permanent creations like Serviles, remain undiminished. Hooray!

The disruptive pattern Thahds are pretty odd, all right. Meeting them is like getting attacked by scarecrows. The old Thahd skin was pretty lame too, but if Jeff is trying to buff his Thahds, he needs to keep trying. The new Guardians look like umpires; I prefer the old bucketheads. And the new Spawners look tougher, which is fine, but they don't look as bizarre and alien as the old fringey ones, which is too bad.

I think the G3 start screen is there to make things easier for people who want to cheat at the game. Anyone who just really enjoys blasting all the GF creatures can do it without the trouble of playing at all.

The Shaper economy is entirely online.

Sounds like the CMF recipe is wrong. Does the game ever tell you the recipe? Rotghroth fang sounds strange for mental focus, after all. They have speed and brawn, but are not noted for brains. Eyebeast eye does seem more logical. Anyway, it's worth trying to make extra Charms of Mental Focus. The more the merrier, I say.

I always just tried to collect a complete suit of puresteel and lay it out in a suitably imposing trophy hall. In G2 the Pit of the Bound served well. I thought about putting it all on a strong Guardian and seeing whether it made him invincible, but never tried.

Ya know, it's just as well. Sell things, take the cash, and forget about them. The only things you really don't want to sell are priceless, and you can't sell them anyway. I wound up spending lots of effort shuttling extra gear between islands, just so that it could sit in a heap somewhere, waiting for the possibility of a Power Core type area where I would want to wear all possible energy resisting gear, or something like that. With 8 major artifacts now, and the possibility of enhancing all kinds of items, there is very little reason for stockpiling stuff that you don't want to equip by default, on the off chance that at some point you might need it. A couple of Tinker's and Infiltrator's items, and maybe a Shining Shield, are the only exceptions I can see to this rule. Hardly any of the body parts seemed worth keeping to me. Maybe a Guardian would want wands more, but my Agent had no use for them. Do you even make a profit by crafting wands and crystals for sale? Is it worth picking up Flawed Crystals? My singleton Agent didn't need to spend cash upgrading companions, or learning Shaping, so she had money to burn well before the end of the game. If you sell gemstones and body parts, I think you would be fine without bothering with any of the heavier loot.

Half an AP doesn't show up, but it does seem to exist. The 'quantum of action', the cost of moving one hex, actually seems to be 1/2 an AP. If you have 9AP base and haste, it shows 13 AP, but you can always take one step and stay at 13. Whereas if you have 8 AP and haste to 12, you do the same tiny movement and immediately drop to 11.