Alorael at Large

Yes, the Temple of Brigantes is in the registered only part of Nethergate. It's off to the west/southwest of the bridge, near the Ruined Hall, I think. —Alorael, who doesn't think he's ever put a potion in a blessing pool. Does that work?

It's possible. I definitely remember walking through some stalagmites in the Murder Cave and the Remote Cavern, but I can't remember breaking them. —Alorael, who will blame his lack of memory on skribbane. It occupies the majority of his attention while he plays E3.

I don't remember any green stalagmites that could be Move Mountained in Exile. As far as I know, only the walls can be destroyed. There might be some regular-looking walls that can destroyed, but unless you wander around casting Shatter, they're probably not all that useful. —Alorael, who went through all of E3 without destroying anything less obvious than damaged walls.

No, it's: "If Valorim..." "You want to save..." "Back up your save file... "Burma Shave." —Alorael, who would chalk it up to good advice in an easter egg combined with Jeff's love of Burma Shave. Go figure.

There's another blessing pool in the Temple of Brigantes, but it's only for Celts and it can only be used twice, both times as rewards for quests. —Alorael, who isn't sure how valuable the expensive blessings are. On the one hand, they're one of the only ways to get blessed items. On the other hand, fine items are usually good enough.

If your priest is better at melee fighting than your archers, only he should attack. If your archers are better, only they should attack. Only your very best fighters should be dealing any damage at all, and only while heavily blessed. The rest should stand back to haste and bless the one important character or just act as meat shields for your casters. Since every hit means you have another doomguard to worry about, make sure every hit comes from the best source of damage you have. —Alorael, who highly advises against using archery unless your archers do much more damage than melee fighters. The key is absolutely maximizing damage so you minimize the number of clones who are clawing at you.

If you deleted A3 from your computer and it's a PC, you probably unregistered as well. This won't affect your ability to end the roach plague, but you should email Jeff Vogel the name and address you used to register before along with your new registration number so you get your new code. On a Mac, you may or may not have to re-register. It should be fairly obvious. —Alorael, who can't think of many GIFTR in scenarios. Even the GIFTS are less than popular. And in E3/A3, only the GIFTR are intelligent. The hostile roaches are also stupid roaches.

It's in Reptrakos' hoard. You can nab it without making the dragon angry if you have something (the Nimble Fingers trait, high dexterity, or something like that), and you'll get Sylak's Nourishing Bowl too. —Alorael, who actually likes that item. It's one of the few Sylak items worth having, and it's a literal lifesaver in Annwn.

Spoiler, obviously... and the answer is yes and no, depending on a certain decision you make in E3. —Alorael, who would say that the answer is more yes than no simply because most people choose the lethal option and because Erika's death has become part of the Exile/Avernum unofficial history.

There's an option in the preferences to query for resolution change on startup. Either use the keyboard shortcut (control-P?) or go hunting through the menus for the preferences window. —Alorael, who isn't sure what's wrong with changing resolution. It resolves a lot of problems. Har, har.

There's that, but there are also four signs in a row in E3 somewhere in the north (near Moon, perhaps) that read: "Before they send us..." "To the grave..." "The Alien Beasts use..." "Burma Shave." —Alorael, who never found Burma Shave jingles very clever. Just omnipresent and interestingly delivered.

For example, whenever you have more than 10,000 gold, use the editor to reduce your wealth by 10,000 and put a mark on a handy sticky note, notepad file, or other memo, physical or electronic. When you're strapped for cash again, use the editor to give yourself that money and cross off the mark. You're not cheating, you're just avoiding the need to save loot in large piles for when you need money. —Alorael, who also likes to see how much total wealth he can amass. It's quite satisfying to see row upon row of tallies representing large amounts of money.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to use an editor bank, but I'm the loudest proponent of it. I'd say the biggest expense I ran into was spells. Buying all mage and priest spells for two characters, and sometimes two levels of them, gets very, very expensive. A party with fewer casters is cheaper, since you can find equipment better than you can buy almost from the very beginning. The fewer characters you have, the less you have to spend on them. —Alorael, who doesn't think there are many expenses that are absolutely essential to anything, or even necessary to opening up more areas. But if you're a compulsive spender and buy lots and lots of Blademaster from the drake, for example, you'd better be rolling in cash.

The Exile games have a huge selection of spells. Some are the workhorses like Fireball, Long Light, Unlock, and the other assorted standard healing, buffing, and damaging spells. But there were also things like Conflagration, which can be better than Flame (the Bolt of Fire equivalent, only pathetic), field spells (including null field), spells to create magic barriers, and the always fun Quickfire. No, not all of the spells are useful, but some niche spells have their moments of glory, and there are a surprising number of overlooked but really great spells. Just having fields and areas of effect (along with a few multiple target spells) gives the Exile spell system more spice. —Alorael, who can't argue that the Avernum spells compare with Exile's. Exile wins hands-down. More variety, more fun, and 100% more gratuitous destruction by Quickfire. You have to love the Ermarian equivalent of the small nuclear weapon.

No one in Vanarium responded to "Pearlblossom, "earrings," or "Aethdoc" (in an interesting way). Well, nobody responded to the first four letters of those keywords... —Alorael, who even tried threatening Manius with crystal wands. No more information, though zapping him was viscerally satisfying.

Talk to Winterhouse, just west of the southern gate into or out of Lorelei. He'll send you on to another person, who will send you to another person, who will send you off to look for Foxfire. She can be found in the towns near Lorelei, and for a small fee she'll give you what you need to get into the Monastery of Madness. —Alorael, who believes the last step is heading to Storm Port and taking the ferry to Gebra. From there it's a simple island hop to the Monastery.

Pearlblossom's story is vaguely reminiscent of a fairy tale (or faerie tale) I may or may not have heard once. Pearlblossom wasn't the name in the story, though, so I can't easily google it and figure it out. —Alorael, who is convinced that the Puzzle Box is some humor tossed in at the player's expense. It would be funnier if it weren't in a weird, easy to miss place.

Nethergate is the overlooked, underrated, and wonderful gem of Spiderweb Software. I suppose it's not popular among septuagenarian eskimoes. —Alorael, who has found fewer stupid and brain-boggling puzzles in Nethergate. There are very few "pure" puzzles. The riddles in the Vale of the Sould and a certain Puzzle Box are the ones that come to mind.

Since almost her entire clan followed her into war with the Empire, including Crystal Souls, it seems obvious that she's considered acceptable. All the other Crystal Souls we see are Boks, not Ihrnos, but I could see Rentar making the transition. This wouldn't happen very soon, though. She's not an old hag yet. Plenty of centuries left before she goes blue and stony. —Alorael, who doesn't think there's any way to become a Crystal Soul if one dies of violence. Spurting blood and/or ichor makes it difficult to perform important rituals.

Off it goes! —Alorael, who bids this topic farewell and hello.

Off it goes! —Alorael, who bids this topic farewell and hello.

The Tower of Zkal is the hardest by far. None of the others come close. This is in large part due to my steadfast refusal to bring any type of energy potion into the Tower. I'm a glutton for punishment. —Alorael, who also found the Monastery of Madness mildly challenging and vastly amusing in a rather stupid way. Yes, he too has experienced the joys of kung fu movies on too little sleep and too much caffeine.

As always, my response is vahnatai. They're the least cookie-cutter of the races Jeff uses. They are, in fact, fairly original. —Alorael, who also happens to really like the fact that they turn into blue rocks (undead blue rocks?) that are filled with amazing power. Never argue with an undead blue rock!

Avernum 2 has the best plot and some more polish, Avernum 1 is the introduction, and Avernum 3 is the largest. A3 also has slightly different systems for equipment and damage calculation, so it plays a bit differently. I'd save up a little bit more money and get the trilogy CD. You save $20 and avoid all the prioritizing worries. But if you need a game now and can't come up with an extra $30, I'd go with... well... decide for yourself! All three demos are large, free, and well worth playing to get a feel for the games. —Alorael, who definitely thinks that A2 has the best demo. A3 has the largest, and just playing the A1 demo will give you a lot of background that helps with the next two games. The A2 demo gives you most of what you need to know about a certain group. So even if you end up buying A3, be sure to play all the demos.

Lost Bahssikava is a slith-filled town and multilevel cave crawl that showed up in Avernum 1 but not Exile 1. It gives some slith history and brings up the real slith civilization that doesn't appear at all in the games. —Alorael, who used that as his example of the only major plot addition in the Avernum games that he could think of.