googoogjoob

I'm pretty sure that in Geneforge 1 and 2, Missile Weapons is the only skill affecting the damage you do with missile weapons. In Geneforge 3-5, Dexterity increases both chance to hit and damage with missile weapons, but not in 1 or 2. Strength increases the damage of Creations' ranged attacks, but not the player's. Yes. Parry is extremely powerful in Geneforge 2, and Guardians especially should invest in it heavily. Quick Action gives you a chance to hit a second time in melee. If you're going for a missile weapons build, it is not going to be very useful to you at all, and the points you'd put in it would be better put in Missile Weapons or Parry. Luck remains barely useful. Mechanics and Leadership are both still very useful- though it's easy to fall into the trap of spending too many points on them early in the game. Shaping is overwhelmingly the strongest option in the Geneforge games. As a Guardian, you'll probably have fewer Creations than a Shaper would, but you still absolutely want to have some. Normally a Guardian will be tanking as much damage as their creations, but Parry is so powerful in Geneforge 2 that you don't need Creations to tank for you so much- you'll probably want creations capable of doing different types of damage more than you want tanks. Putting points into magic isn't a great idea for a Guardian, but it might be workable?

It's two weeks later. I've completed all the Avadon games. I've edited the original post into a basically complete state, to the best of my knowledge and ability. If ever the Avadons get remade: watch this space.

I think a problem with this explanation is that the Codex is represented as being reports prepared for internal use by Avadon itself. You do find occasional books that give you Codex entries out in the field, but the majority of them are located within Avadon itself, behind sealed gates that you need increasingly elevated clearance levels to pass; some are explicitly described as being prepared to orient Avadon's servants. Some of the Codex entries in 2 and 3- the reports on Miranda, Dheless, and Protus- are explicitly marked as being classified internal reports, with a threat of punishment should they be shared with anyone outside the fortress. Further, the Codex entries don't take anything like a consistent stance on how a Keeper is appointed or replaced, or what power the Council has over a Keeper, as one would expect from propaganda materials. Even the otherwise overtly pro-Council report on Protus describes the Council's removal of Redbeard as "unprecedented" and unusual. I think one could plausibly argue that a Council-appointed Keeper is the formal rule, and that the former Keeper's assassin becoming Keeper is the custom within Avadon itself. Or- one could argue that the assassin becomes Keeper, lawfully or customarily, only when their identity is apparent, which was not the case with the killers of Telera or Herom. Or that the customary assassination-succession is a rule instituted under Redbeard. But there's no actual direct evidence for these interpretations in the games- they're extra-game supposition to explain the events of the games. Nobody in the games implies that the rule was once one way, and is now another, or that there's a difference between the law and the custom. When the Council attempts to depose Redbeard, and elevate Protus to his place, it's represented as an unprecedented, possibly illegal power-grab on the Council's part; but where characters differ in opinion about it, it's over whether or not this shocking move was justified or not, not whether it's legal or not. I don't think there's a conclusive way to resolve these issues with in-universe information. There are several possible theorizable explanations for the major contradictions, but there's no in-universe information to settle which of several options is correct. The real-world explanation is obviously that Jeff Vogel's conception of aspects of the game world changed between the writing of most of the Codex entries (which I suspect were done early on, to get a bunch of worldbuilding "on paper" up-front), the writing of the first game (where the Council is a distant, poorly-defined entity, where the legality of Redbeard's reign is unquestioned, and where succession to his position only comes up in a deliberately-near-impossible afterthought ending), and the writing of the succeeding games (where a central drama of the second and third games ends up being the relationship of the Council to Avadon, and who gets to be Keeper), and that for whatever reason, the Codex was never revised to reflect these changing conceptions.

There are actually, curiously, some new issues introduced into the Codex in 2 and 3, resulting in the Codex contradicting not just the dialogue of the games, but itself as well. While most of the text is carried over from 1, the entries are updated in places to reflect the events of the games, but inconsistently; none of the issues mentioned above are touched in the revisions, and some of them are made worse. While the "Keepers" entry is edited to reflect the happenings of the games, all the text about the Council appointing Keepers is retained unchanged. The entry on Protus in 3 says he can only be "Acting Keeper" until Redbeard dies, though, implying the "kill the Keeper, become the Keeper" thing is the rule. The entry on Redbeard in 1 says he's been Keeper for "almost fifty years," which agrees with the term of 47 years (as of 1) established elsewhere in the Codex. But then in 2 and 3 it says he is/was Keeper for "over fifty years," though it'd be precisely 50 years according to all the info elsewhere in the Codex; it'd be 58 years if the earlier date Nicodemus gives is the case. All the evidence given in Avadon 1 places the game as taking place in 6312. The Codex entry on the Third Age says 6312, the player character gives 6312 as the date in conversation with Lexrem, the world map says "c. 6312" on it. In 2 and 3, the Codex entry on the Third Age says the Sack of Avadon happened in 6312, agreeing with this. But the Codex entry on the Sack of Avadon claims it happened in 6313. None of this really matters hugely. But it's kind of frustrating, in that the Codex is the only in-universe source for most of the history of Avadon's world.

Every Spiderweb series has some inevitable worldbuilding inconsistencies between entries- most infamously, probably, are the way the dragons' genders change irregularly between the Exile and old Avernum games, the way the earlier Geneforge games mention a second Shaper-settled continent that seemingly gets retconned out of existence in 4/5, and the way the Drayk Isss-Ta manages to age several centuries in the decades between Geneforge 2 and 4. Generally, I think these inconsistencies tend to result from the way that Spiderweb games' lore is developed piecemeal- worldbuilding tends to happen on-the-fly, as-needed, in order to set up the terms of the conflicts presented in a game. How heavy a boulder is too heavy for a Battle Beta to move? Exactly as heavy as the one blocking your way through this passage right now. How long would it take to dig a tunnel around this thing that's obstructing Avernite interests? Exactly too long for it to be a desirable alternative to having the heroes get rid of the obstacle some other way. That sort of thing. This works pretty well, and actually ends up resulting in relatively few conflicts between games, and hardly ever in major plot-relevant contradictions- eg, the genders of the dragons doesn't have any real effect on the plot of the Avernum games, where the real conflict is usually between the Kingdom Avernum and whatever foe it currently faces; and nothing concrete is ever mentioned about the Shapers' ghost continent anyway, and it's irrelevant to the games' themes of the ethics and proper use of Shaping, so... whatever. Avadon is radically different from Avernum or Geneforge or Queen's Wish in that it does a ton of worldbuilding up-front- you learn things about, eg, the Corruption, or Dharam, or the Tawon Empire in Avadon 1, despite not visiting them at all. Perversely, this actually results in a series of games with much graver and more plot-relevant lore inconsistencies than the other series have- and those inconsistencies begin springing up within the very first game, not just between games. Anyway. I'm replaying Avadon and paying close attention for this sort of thing. And I'm gonna document such inconsistencies here. I'll probably edit to add to this if/when I find more cases or more material for the ones I've gotten down here. Note: Many of these inconsistencies stem from contradictions between the in-game Codex of worldbuilding lore, and characters' statements and evidence one finds in the gameworld. Very possibly the Codex represents an earlier "draft" of the games' lore, which was in practice revised during development, resulting in contradictions; but there are also contradictions between characters' statements and the testimony of evidence you find, and the Codex is grandfathered in to Avadon 2 and 3 basically unchanged, so these contradictions and inconsistencies are simply never resolved in canon. Most of these problems could not be resolved without totally rewriting the Codex and a bunch of in-game dialogue. First: How does one become Keeper of Avadon? This is probably the most important inconsistency in the games, as it has major plot implications- killing Redbeard to become Keeper is possible (but just barely so) in 1, and the prospect is much more heavily emphasized as the climactic crux of Avadon 2 and 3. As such, 2/3 establish it as (mostly) unambiguous canon that one kills the sitting Keeper to replace them (with some caveats). The Codex unambiguously states that Hanvar's Council appoints the Keeper. It states that there was a two-year interregnum after the death of the first Keeper before the Council appointed her successor- which can't be possible if the position is automatically filled by the assassin. It also explicitly states that Redbeard was appointed by the Council, who believed he'd be weak and easily manipulated. Redbeard claims to genuinely have forgotten whether or not he was involved in the death of his predecessor- and surely, if it were definitely the rule that the killer takes the place of an assassinated Keeper, he'd know, or at least be able to deduce, that he killed his predecessor. The contradictory evidence to this position is of course everywhere in Avadons 2 and 3- but there's already inconsistency within Avadon 1. The first time you speak to Miranda after meeting Redbeard, she says, matter-of-factly, that whoever kills Redbeard gets to be the next Keeper; and, if you actually manage to slay Redbeard at the end of the game, everyone instantly and automatically recognizes you as the new Keeper once they find you standing over his body. Even in 2 and 3, there's inconsistency between whether Keeper is a lifetime posting, and succession can only happen following the death of the current holder (eg Nicodemus refuses to acknowledge Protus as Keeper as Redbeard is still alive, but he says nothing about Protus having to kill Redbeard to take the position); or if succession happens automatically, with the killer taking the position (cf the endings where the protagonist kills Redbeard); and also whether these issues are matters of codified law, or simply custom (eg when you meet Protus for the first time, the narration says that Avadon "chooses its own leaders (usually with bloodshed)"). Protus mentions that Hanvar's Council is attempting to institute a new system of Keeper selection at the time of 3- Keepers serve ten-year terms, and are selected by Avadon's servants, but the Council has veto power over this decision. Protus says that "the law says" that his killer would become Keeper; and that Keepers are "generally" assassinated and replaced by their killer. Rudow and Callan both mention that Redbeard is still Keeper "by some readings of the law...," implying that this is in dispute even in-universe. I guess one could argue that the "whoever kills the Keeper becomes the Keeper" rule was instituted by Redbeard specifically during his reign, but there's no indication of this anywhere in any of the games, to my knowledge; many dialogues and ending passages indicate that assassination is the typical means of succession to the position. It's not a very good rule. Probably it exists to raise the stakes around the perennial "kill Redbeard, or don't" conflict in the games. Killing Redbeard is nearly impossible in Avadon 1, and IIRC Jeff's said somewhere that it was kind of an afterthought or an easter egg type of thing, rather than intended as being a serious option, so this inconsistency doesn't really rear up so bad until 2 and 3. Anyway it's a very problematic inconsistency, and an awful lot of the games' lore would have to be rewritten to fix it. How many Keepers of Avadon have there been? The Codex says seven, including Redbeard: Telera, Herom, four ephemeral Keepers (which'd presumably include the Diantha and Geert entombed beneath Avadon), and then Redbeard himself. Redbeard implies that there have been many more, though he doesn't give any hard numbers. He says there were a profusion of very short-lived Keepers after Telera and before Herom- during a time the Codex says was a Keeper-less interregnum. He says that having a tomb beneath Avadon is reserved for Keepers who managed to survive at least 40 days in the office, which he wryly says has cut down on the number of tombs needed pretty heavily- but there are six tombs beneath Avadon, which'd actually be consistent with the six pre-Redbeard Keepers the Codex establishes. Two are empty, but that would not be inconsistent with either the Codex or Redbeard's 40-days rule, presuming two of the ineffectual post-Herom Keepers didn't make it to 40 days. (nb: In 3, Protus says that the tombs are for Keepers who "survived the office more than a week, and the ones whose bodies survived their assassinations intact.") What exactly happened to Keepers Telera and Herom? The Codex says that Keeper Telera was assassinated by parties unknown using poisoned wine. It also says that Herom, her successor, mysteriously disappeared after he started showing too much interest in the Council's activities. Redbeard claims that Telera disappeared, and there was a gap of time before her body was found. This is not dissonant with what the Codex says. He also says there were many minor Keepers in the aftermath of her disappearance, before her body was found, which is- the Codex says there was a two-year interregnum after her death before the Council appointed Herom. The Codex also says Herom disappeared mysteriously, with "no trace of him ever found." But his tomb beneath Avadon contains human remains and effects. Disappearance doesn't really make any sense under the scheme where the assassin gets to become Keeper- why would the assassins not claim the position? But it does make sense under the scheme where the Council appoints a new Keeper, especially in the case of Herom being implicitly vanished by the Council or its allies. When did Redbeard become Keeper? The Codex gives an explicit date for Redbeard's ascension of 6265. Redbeard's in-game statements in Avadon 1 agree with this- it's 6312, and he says he's been Keeper for "nearly 50 years." Nicodemus gives an explicit date for Redbeard's ascension of 6257, eight years earlier, which is the year Herom disappeared. Lexrem, the Eternal Prisoner in the dungeons, explicitly says he was imprisoned in 6263 for plotting against Redbeard, necessitating his having achieved the position of Keeper before then. It's not inconceivable that the four minor Keepers the Codex mentions having held the office between Herom and Redbeard could have all held it within one calendar year, but otherwise this conflict is unresolvable within game canon. As a side note- Redbeard also mentions, in 1, having come to Avadon about 60 years prior to the events of Avadon 1, which would be halfway through Herom's reign as Keeper; but in conversation he curiously never mentions Herom, but seemingly has extensive knowledge of the aftermath of Telera's disappearance/death. Maybe he meant to say "70 years" instead? Further complicating matters, in 2, Redbeard explicitly recalls serving under Telera, and says he was presumably involved in Telera's assassination- but in the very same dialogue, he reaffirms that the Keeper's assassin becomes the new Keeper, making this impossible: Redbeard became Keeper either 12 or 20 years after Telera's death, depending on the source, and all sources agree that there were at least five Keepers between Telera and Redbeard. When do the games take place? In Avadon 1, everything indicates a date of 6312 for the events of the game. The Codex says it's 6312, the map is labelled "c. 6312," in dialogue with Lexrem (the eternal prisoner), the protagonist says it's 6312. There's no indication that the year rolls over into 6313 during the course of the game; it doesn't track time, obviously, and you can go back to Lexrem and tell him it's 6312 all the way up to the end of the game. In Avadon 2, there's conflicting evidence as to the dates of both Avadon 1 and Avadon 2. The Codex entry for "The Sack of Avadon" says "Two years ago, in Cycle 6313...," which places 1 in 6313 and 2 in 6315. The Codex entry "The Third Age" says it's 6315. The entry on Dheless says "In Cycle 6312...," at least implying a 6312 date for Avadon 1. The map is labelled "c. 6314," and it can't long predate the game as it has the Wyldrylm Rebellion shown in full swing on it. When you talk to Lexrem, you tell him it's 6314. Commander Odil says of the Wyldrylm Rebellion that it has "grown slowly for three years, starting not long after Avadon was sacked," implying a date of either 6311 or 6312 for the events of Avadon 1. (Note though that the narration in the first area of the game states that the rebellion has only been going on for several months- though it might just be referring to rebel activity in the Contested Lands.) Characters generally say it's been either two or three years since the events of Avadon 1, with somewhat more characters saying two years than three years. This isn't in-game evidence, but the game file containing the Codex entries has a commented-out note in it declaring, "Avadon: Cycle 6313. Avadon 2: Cycle 6315." Avadon 3 unambiguously takes place in 6318. The Codex says "The current year is Cycle 6318." The map is labelled "c. 6318," you say it's 6318 in dialogue with Lexrem. The "Sack of Avadon" entry is updated to say "Five years ago, in Cycle 6313...," The "Age of Chaos" entry says "Three years ago, in Cycle 6315," giving a 6315 date for Avadon 2. The "Wyldrylm Rebellion" entry gives a start date of 6314, consistent with the it starting within a year prior to Avadon 2 (according to the narration), but inconsistent with it starting three years prior to Avadon 2 (according to Commander Odil). The Dheless entry still gives an implicit 6312 for Avadon 1. How old is Avadon? A late-breaking continuity error. The Codex is pretty clear on the basic facts. The Midlands Pact is about 300 years old by the time of the games (formed in 6000; the games take place in the 6310s). Starting approximately a century ago (6203), the Pact more or less fell into abeyance as the Pact states engaged in a series of bloody, indecisive civil wars. This period (6203-6237) is known as the Black Age. The Black Age was ended by the efforts of Telera of Dharam, who gave up her ineffectual Council seat to travel Lynaeus and forge a lasting peace in the Treaty of the Five Powers. The Pact was reinstated, and to preserve it, Avadon was instituted as a paramilitary/counterintelligence agency dedicated to defending and preserving the Pact. Construction of Avadon (the Black Fortress; headquarters of its namesake agency- unless the agency has an unmentioned proper name, and is merely called Avadon via metonymy) began shortly after the Treaty was signed, and was concluded in 6240, with Telera becoming the first Keeper of Avadon. Almost nothing in the first two games contradicts this narrative, and much supports it. The Avadon tombs only contain four burials, consistent with relatively young age for Avadon and a small number of enduring Keepers (given that one must serve 40 days in the office to be deemed worthy of burial there). The obelisk in the Avadon entry hall declares Telera the first Keeper (in 2 and 3, anyway; in 1 it erroneously says Herom- see below). This narrative is crucial to Redbeard's characterization- while for most of Lynaeus, the Black Age, being 75+ years ago, is on the fringes of living memory, Redbeard came of age during the Black Age, and was an early servant of Avadon; he remembers parts of this time vividly. Being witness to the violence and strife of the Black Age is an important part of why Redbeard is such a pro-Pact hardliner, and why he's so adamant Avadon needs to be strong and effective; being witness to the chaotic early years of Avadon, marked by instability and repeated Keeper assassinations, is an important part of why Redbeard is so paranoid and distrustful. There's one fleeting contradiction in 1- when you enter the lower cells, the narration declares, "these chambers have been abandoned for at least a century." (Possibly this is just a misapprehension on the part of the protagonist; the line between "omniscient narrator" and "protagonist commentary" is always blurred in Spiderweb games- though even so, it'd be odd for the protagonist not to know how old Avadon is, given that they're a Pact citizen who's presumably been through a good bit of education and training to qualify as a Hand. More likely it's just a mistake.) More committed errors begin creeping in starting with 2. The intro to Avadon 2 talks about a "peace that has held for centuries"- untrue, as the Pact was riven by widespread civil war only a century ago; and declares that "Avadon has watched over the Pact for three centuries"- also untrue: the Pact is about 300 years old total, but Avadon was only instituted and built less than a century ago, in the aftermath of the aforementioned civil wars. In conversation, Redbeard also claims that Avadon "rose again" after the Black Age, despite not existing before it; really he should say the Pact rose again. But these are isolated errors, and most of the rest of the game is consistent with the Codex narrative, in basic chronology if not always in exact details. 3 kind of throws all this out the window, and consistently says Avadon is centuries old in narration and dialogue, despite the Codex remaining unchanged on these points. The intro to Avadon 3 repeats the "Avadon has watched over the Pact for three centuries" error, while a number of characters repeat the error in dialogue- eg Khalida says that "Avadon has had the power to judge and kill the people of the Pact for centuries" and "the Black Fortress watched over the Pact for centuries;" Redbeard says, "For centuries, the law of the Pact was that only my death could remove me from my post;" Deniz says the shamans of the Wyldrylm offered Avadon the Green Refuge "two centuries ago;" Callan makes reference to secret passages and tunnels having been built within and under Avadon over "centuries." The Spiral Library is depicted as having been abandoned about a century ago, and having been an Avadon outpost led by an Eye of Avadon. But the tombs still only hold four burials- hardly consistent with centuries of Keepers, unless the lasting Keepers all unnaturally extended their lifespans like Redbeard; and the obelisk still says Telera was the first Keeper. Nothing in the game resolves these problems- there's no mention of Avadon being "refounded" after the Black Age or the like, or of it having existed as a secret society before the Black Age, or of it having used a different headquarters or different name before the Black Age. It's hard to tell if this is a deliberate retcon or just a weirdly pervasive mistake- but if it were a retcon, I'd expect the Codex to be updated to reflect the new continuity, and for things like the tombs to have been changed to fit it better, so I have to lean towards this being a mistake. Other, simpler discrepancies: There's an obelisk in the entrance hall of Avadon paying tribute to the first Keeper. In Avadon 1, it reads, "IN MEMORY OF HEROM OF THE KVA/FIRST KEEPER OF AVADON/[character name], he died for you." Unfortunately, Herom was not the first Keeper- according to the Codex, he was the second Keeper; according to Redbeard in dialogue, he served following a profusion of ephemeral post-Telera Keepers. All sources agree that Telera was the first Keeper of Avadon. In Avadon 2 and 3, the obelisk has thus been edited to read, "IN MEMORY OF TELERA OF THE KVA/FIRST KEEPER OF AVADON/[character name], she died for you." This... does not fix matters, in that there's no such person as "Telera of the Kva"- Telera was from Dharam The secret records about Miranda describe her husband as trying to kill Redbeard, and being executed for it, approximately 40 years ago. In dialogue with Miranda, she says she's been at Avadon for only 30 years, and the protagonist describes the man as her "betrothed" in dialogue options, rather than as her husband. Miranda must have been serving Avadon before her husband betrayed Redbeard, as the records describe her as an Eye at the time. Very possibly the year thing is just a mixup- the secret records about Leira describe events 30 years ago, despite Leira seemingly being older and having been at Avadon longer (50 years, by her account); if you swapped the 30/40 years between their files, they'd both make more sense Following up on the prior point: in Avadon 1, the secret records and dialogue with Miranda indicate that Miranda's husband's betrayal happened approximately 30 years ago (presuming the 30/40 thing to be a mixup); that Miranda was an Eye of Avadon when it happened; and that Redbeard continued to trust her because she told him about her husband's plot beforehand. In the recreations of her memories Miranda shows you in Avadon 3, however, Miranda is shown to have joined Avadon about 30 years before her death, but to have married her husband several years later, and then to have been married long enough to have children (at least two, as Miranda speaks in the plural), pushing the betrayal forward in time by years; she says she was already a Heart at the time of her husband's assassination attempt; and she says that her husband never told her of his plans- she would've betrayed him to Redbeard if he'd told her, but he didn't. This could, I guess, be Miranda's shade misremembering; but it's internally coherent enough that I think it makes more sense as a retcon that clears up and adds detail to the account from the first game Lundy, the Kellem soldier who leads the team that goes into the Beraza Pits, is erroneously titled "Blade" Lundy. It's established elsewhere that a "Blade" is a unit of 10 soldiers, led by a Watcher- thus Lundy should be Watcher Lundy, not Blade Lundy Incantatrix Questa, in Castle Vebeaux, gives you a quest to retrieve samples of the forbidden magic in the Beraza Pits. If you bring them to her, and let her keep them, she can sell you two useful but expensive trainings, that give your party blanket stat boosts. But the descriptions of both trainings (Ward of the Holklandan and Cunning of the Kellem) claim you got them in Holklanda, with Cunning of the Kellem specifying that you got it from "a Kellem in Holklanda." Castle Vebeaux is pretty definitely in Kellemderiel, and you only venture into unambiguously Holklandan terrain during Shima's companion quest, so this is a weird error The order of the floors in the dungeon is curiously changed from 1 to 2- the small floor with two guardrooms is moved from being the first subdungeon to the second-to-last; the alternate order is preserved in 3 Khalida says, in explaining her odd pauses, that after she was released from the dungeons, Avadon allowed her to be a Hand. However, the records you find in the dungeons, and dialogue with Xenophon, indicates that she was already a Hand when Xenophon framed her. Probably Khalida's dialogue should say Avadon allowed her to continue as a Hand after her wrongful imprisonment Xanthe, a woman working as a guard in Troezen in Avadon 2, says she's actually from Holklanda, but got posted to Dharam. But she seems to have accidentally been given one of the Greek or Greek-ish Dharamite names, rather than an East Asian-ish Holklandan name, as she's in Dharam. Whoops There's a Dharamite at the Antitia Ruins in 3 with the Latin name "Otho;" probably victim of another such oversight For that matter- though this is a quibble- "Miranda" is a Latin-derived name, which in the context of Avadon would indicate a Tawon origin. In 1, Miranda says she's from Dharam; in 3, it's clarified that her parents were Holklandan immigrants to Dharam. But "Miranda" wouldn't be either a Holklandan or Dharamite name, and it'd be odd for immigrants seeking to ingratiate themselves with their new home culture to give their child a name from said culture's ancient rival and oppressor. Obviously the real-world explanation is that Jeff Vogel just likes the name "Miranda" a lot, but this is a post about taking these games overseriously and nitpicking them for all they're worth "Dheless" is a very odd name for a Tawon, too- it might be a pseudonym, but characters sometimes recognize it as a Tawon name without any other context, which is odd given that all the other Tawon have clearly Latin or Latin-ish names The name of the Khemerian settlement in Avadon 3 is inconsistently rendered as either "Vanatok Stead" or "Vanatok's Stead." "Vanatok" seems more likely to be correct, as the settlement is named after a man named Vana, not after a man named Vanatok; maybe "-tok" is an honorific, but nobody ever refers to Vana as "Vanatok" in any other context, and the nearby region of Holklanda you venture to is called "Vana's Reach," not "Vanatok's Reach." If "-tok" is a possessive suffix, then "Vanatok's" is redundant As a side note, Chief Tilla describes Vana's Reach as "a wild land between three Steads," when on the map it's manifestly in Holklanda, and the narration and dialogues explicitly refer to it as being in Holklanda. Very possibly it was meant to be in Khemeria, but they ran out of space on Avadon 3's zoomed-out world map to place it there, and Tilla's dialogue was just never fixed to reflect this Mamora tells you that Pynkkna, the infernal, was summoned by a Tawon mage who had infiltrated Holklanda. Pynkkna itself tells you it was summoned to Kellemderiel. Whoops The timing and circumstances of Redbeard's disappearance between 2 and 3 are hazy. Rudow says he was recruited three years ago, by Protus, after Redbeard had vanished- placing Redbeard's disappearance in 6315, less than a year after 2. Botan says he was recruited by Protus two years ago (6316), implying a date of 6315 or 6316. But other sources (eg Lord Svarl saying he's been in Avadon for seven years, and sat waiting for Redbeard to see him for six; Redbeard saying he hasn't been in Avadon in over a year; other remarks about the improvement to Avadon's budget and resources in the past year) imply a date of 6317. Then, there's also dissonance between whether Redbeard was driven out (eg, the Council reportedly teleported a hundred soldiers into Avadon at once to expel him), or whether he left voluntarily (eg, he says he gave Protus his necklace before leaving voluntarily). (The ending of 2 is unreliable, and doesn't fit canon, so it can't be used as a source for these events- eg it says Callan is made Keeper after Redbeard disappears) Gryfyn is described as being relatively young in Avadon 1. But in Avadon 3, set only five or six years later, he's described a few times as "old" and "aged." Maybe living in fear for his life for so long has left him prematurely aged Probably the most involved and difficult of these errors, though it doesn't really raise lore issues: In Avadon 1, Eye Leira, a Holklandan, is Avadon's librarian, and one of Redbeard's "wives"- one of his most trusted aides. She's been at Avadon for nearly 50 years, and must be at least in her 70s. She is killed in the assault on Avadon at the end of Avadon 1, and dialogue in Avadon 2 reaffirms this. Leira uses the generic mage/cultist sprite, and has a unique portrait Avadon 2 introduces Eye Laria. She's a Dharamite Tinkermage, and is tasked with arranging Avadon's defenses against ground-based assault. She doesn't seem to have been at Avadon for very long; she's clearly not very close to Redbeard- she says she's "heard he said" that all of Avadon's defenses exist, but hasn't apparently had any direct guidance from him. Likely she's one of the post-Sack conscripts that Redbeard has flooded Avadon's ranks with. Laria uses the female tinkermage sprite, and has no portrait In the aftermath of the events of Avadon 2, hardcore Redbeard loyalists are purged from Avadon, sometimes imprisoned in the dungeons. Redbeard tasks you with finding his trusted aide, "Eye Laria," who is depicted as a confused mixture of Eyes Leira and Laria. In dialogue, she's described as having been Avadon's librarian (which Leira was, but Laria absolutely was not), and also as being a Tinkermage (which Laria was, but Leira wasn't at all). She claims that she was head librarian, but was reassigned to minding Avadon's defenses after Miranda's betrayal, as they "didn't need librarians" (untrue- there are librarians serving during Avadon 2 and 3, with Eye Berenger taking over as head librarian immediately after Leira's death). This "Laria" uses the Tinkermage sprite in the dungeons, but the Sorceress sprite when she's at Redbeard's side and in Zhethron's Keep. She doesn't have a dialogue portrait This is a pretty bizarre amalgamation of two unrelated characters from the earlier games, apparently prompted by genuine confusion on Spiderweb's part, possibly resulting from their similar generic fantasy names There's actually already some confusion in Avadon 2- the "Laria's Equipment" quest item has the description, "This valuable set of tinkermage tools belongs to Eye Leira." Confusing matters further- in Avadon 3, the commander of Fort Foresight is named Eye Leora, and reuses Leira's portrait from Avadon 1 There's also a simpler but goofy continuity error regarding Laria in 3: when you relocate from Zhethron's Keep to Fort Foresight, Redbeard leaves Laria behind. She stays in Zhethron's Keep monitoring the Eyes there. But then, when Redbeard (in his chamber beneath Fort Foresight) gives you the final Antitia Ruins quest, the text is written as if Laria is present in the room, comforting the protagonist after Redbeard magically disguises them. She's actually still in Zhethron's Keep, and never does appear in Fort Foresight outside that mention

There are a couple things that could be going on here, I think. I don't know which is more likely. Option 1: There's an invisible scale that affects what the factions in Geneforge think of you- you start at the very middle, and any time you say or do something favorable to the Serviles which is contrary to the teachings or practices of the Shapers, you move towards one end, and any time you say or do something that indicates you follow the Shapers' rules, you move towards the other. You have to be on the pro-Servile side of the spectrum to join the Awakened or Takers, and you have to be on the pro-Shaper side of the spectrum to join the Obeyers. The things you've listed are things that would move you towards the pro-Shaper end- but it's also possible that the things you've said have resulted in you being on the pro-Servile side. If this is the problem, you can rectify this either by finding more opportunities to say/do pro-Shaper things, or (easier) you can talk to Learned Darian in the Peaceful Vale, who can change the Serviles' opinion of you to let you join one of the factions (though only once per game). Option 2: To join the Obeyers, things work like this: Rydell asks you to feed Control Four. Once you complete this quest, or if you've already done this, he asks you to kill Gnorrel, the leader of the Takers. Then he lets you join the Obeyers. If you have enough Leadership, you can skip one or both of these quests and join the Obeyers immediately (I believe there's a higher threshold needed to skip the "kill Gnorrel" quest. I don't know the exact threshold for either off the top of my head). It sounds like you should be at the "get the kill Gnorrel quest" stage of this sequence. Maybe you already have it, but haven't done it? If you don't have it, and you're not getting it (and possibly that Rydell hasn't acknowledged that you've fed Control Four), that might indicate some sort of bug with the game's scripting. If this is the case, I'm not sure that there's anything to be done about this other than to contact Spiderweb via the support email listed on the main site; they ought to be able to help in some way.

It's time... for even more books. Star of the North, by D B John. A disappointingly unthrilling thriller about North Korea. This is another remaindered dollar store book. Broadly-researched, but also kind of propagandistic against NK; I have no difficulties believing that the government of North Korea is evil, or that it regularly violates the human rights of its citizens- the trouble comes in when someone (or some book) tries to convince me that North Korea is uniquely evil. Which this book doesn't really manage, falling back as it does on Cold War-era stereotypes of Soviet politics and politicians to get by. Kim Jong Il is depicted as basically a cackling supervillain in the climax. Doesn't really work as a turn-your-brain-off thriller, either: it's ambitious enough to have three protagonists, but none of them gets enough screen time, and there's not enough action to be exciting. See You Again in Pyongyang, by Travis Jeppesen. A nonfiction novel/travelogue based on the author's several sojourns in North Korea, most especially a month spent studying Korean at a university in Pyongyang (the first American to study there ever). Read in deliberate contrast to the above. This is about as balanced and informative as any book on North Korea can be, probably. But it kind of falls short in that there's no reason for it to be framed as a narrative- what happens is the author will go somewhere or see something and then digress for several pages in dry nonfictional exposition; he also doesn't exploit the novel form to create any sense of insight or empathy for the North Koreans he meets. So it's pretty good as a book about North Korea, but pretty weak as a book in toto. Classic Mystery Stories, Douglas G Greene, ed. "Classic" is maybe going a bit far for most of the stories in this anthology. It's kind of more interested in depicting the development of the detective story via samples from popular contemporary literature than it is in quality per se- so there are some stories that aren't really detective/mystery stories at all, and also a bunch of gimmicky Holmes knockoffs (eg ASTROGEN KIRBY, who is a detective but also a phony psychic/mind-reader; LADY MOLLY OF SCOTLAND YARD, who mostly solves domestic-related crimes; UNCLE ABNER, who solves crimes with his folksy wisdom and knowledge of the Bible; A V R E "AVERAGE" JONES, who solves advertising-related crimes and/or uses advertising to solve crimes). The gimmicky "character" detective stories are maybe not technically "good" stories (they're mostly loosely plotted, or revolve around a single contrived puzzle), but it was at least enjoyable to get to know them, at least for a little bit. Great Short Short Stories: Quick Reads by Great Writers, Paul Negri, ed. 30 brief short stories. Some are excellent (The Egg by Sherwood Anderson, The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, Squire Petrick's Lady by Thomas Hardy, Sanctuary by Nella Larsen), some are mediocre, obscure space-filling works by big names, and some are only of historical interest. But that's kinda what I expected going into this, so it was okay.

(Disclaimer that I'm writing all this as a Windows user, and I don't know how much of this applies to the Mac or Linux versions of Avadon.) 1. Avadon's saves shouldn't take up all that much space- with every slot occupied, my saves take up about 300MB of space. I doubt that's the problem here, if it's saving to C. 2. Probably not- on Windows, at least, the game defaults to saving to a subfolder in the Documents folder, which should be on the Windows install drive, regardless of where the game's installed. On Mac or Linux, I don't know. 3. I believe the game wants "Save0" "Save1" "Save2" etc subfolders (up to "Save19") in its saves folder, even if those folders are empty. It definitely creates these empty folders before actually saving anything into them. Deleting those folders may well have confused the game, and recreating them might let you restore the saves that are still there. If that doesn't work, you should probably email the Spiderweb support address and see if they can do anything for you.

More books. Great Horror Stores: Tales by Stoker, Poe, Lovecraft and Others, John Grafton, ed. A Dover Thrift anthology; very very well-selected, actually. Has some genuinely great stories in it (Algernon Blackwood's The Willows; H P Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space; M R James's 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad,' Shirley Jackson's The Lottery), some merely pretty good stories, and only one real clunker (Arthur Machen's The White People, which has dated terribly; it's horror for the sort of Victorian/Edwardian reader who would've been scandalized by The Golden Bough). Very good. Hotel Scarface: Where Cocaine Cowboys Partied and Plotted to Control Miami, by Roben Farzad. A colorful, anecdotal, journalistic account of the cocaine economy of 70s-90s Miami. Heavy on stories and characters, pretty light on historical analysis (the author is a journalist, after all); undergirded by a genuinely impressive array of interviews with people on both sides of the law. Enjoyable but also honestly kinda inconsequential. Unbury Carol, by Josh Malerman. An initially promising Weird West thriller kind of a story ends up being a bloated airplane novel type of thing, light on characterization and themes. Oh well.

Update: The Volunteer, by Salvatore Scibona. Intermittently beautifully written, but ultimately kinda aimless both in plot and themes. I found out after reading it that it was expanded from a short story, which comprises the first 20 or so pages of this 400-page novel, and that unfortunately makes sense. Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures, by Nick Pyenson. A pretty good overview of current whale science, written by a working scientist (a paleontologist, to be exact). Kinda incoherently organized but a decent read. Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis. Unsubtle but effective. Slow-paced until the last quarter or so. Very good.

It does. The tooltip showing how much damage an ability causes shows the base range of the ability's damage, which is determined by the Creation's level, and then it shows a percent modifier (eg, "+15%") based on the relevant stat. The percent modifier is not factored in to the numbers the tooltip shows, just shown after the base range, which is what's confusing here. Increasing any stat will raise the Creation's level, and thus increase the damage its skills do, but only increasing the relevant stat (Strength, Dexterity, or Magical Skill, depending on the attack type) increases that percent multiplier.

Time for another one of these. In order of completion: A Wizard a True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio, by Paul Myers. What it says on the tin. Remarkably thorough and detailed on what he chooses to cover- Rundgren's and Utopia's albums, plus major Rundgren production jobs- with lots of new interview material and anecdotes and the like. That said, Todd Rundgren remains sort of elusive and difficult as an artist; this book is mainly about his craft and influence on other artists more than about his own art. Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters. It was, in fact, pretty good. Unfortunately I struggle to say much more about it. The poems were pretty good. First Person, by Richard Flanagan. Turned out to be a b, basically. Slippery and tricky. Weird metatextual stuff going on with Flanagan's real life. I'm not sure it ultimately achieves any great artistic statements, but it was worth reading. The World's Greatest Short Stories, James Daley, ed. Maybe not quite, but it certainly did have some Great Short Stories in it (Bartleby the Scrivener, The Death of Ivan Ilych, The Yellow Wallpaper, The Lady with the Toy Dog, A Hunger Artist, A&P). Also had some less-great stories, but what can you do. The Civil War: Great Speeches and Documents, Bob Blaisdell, ed. I read through a Dover Thrift volume of Civil War primary documents. That's all there is to say about that. Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson. Pretty great. Has been described as "Spoon River Anthology translated into prose" which I can see, and which is why I read this soon after Spoon River, but I think Winesburg is more impressive both technically and artistically; it feels like an American Dubliners. The Ditch, by Herman Koch. Underwhelming. Another dollar store find. Plain, conversational, easily-read prose, but not gripping at all. Essentially plotless. Repeatedly avoids climaxes in favor of... nothing, really. The resolution of the book is so understated as to be nonexistent. It just kinda stops. Next: Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis, to round out the trilogy of early 20th century literature about the Midwest.

The rank badge system seems to have... entirely wiped out the custom ranks. They don't seem to be displayed anywhere, at all. Everyone just has the generic Geneforge ranks now. Depressing.

The pattern for the past decade or so (since Spiderweb started launching games on Steam at the same time as elsewhere) has been that Spiderweb games normally launch at $20, and then after some undefined period of time drop to $10 (except, perversely, if you buy them directly from Spiderweb- I guess nobody's thought to adjust the prices offered in the Humble widgets). Presently, the games running from Avadon 1 (2011) to Avadon 2 (2013) are $10, while the games from Avernum 2: Crystal Souls (2015) onward are still $20. (AFAIK, all prices are consistent between Steam and GOG.) So, if this pattern holds, Avernum 3: Ruined World will drop in price maybe three or four years from now, then Queen's Wish a year or so after that, and Geneforge 1: Mutagen about two years after that. That said, Spiderweb games start regularly going on sale for 50% off a year or so after release, and sometimes for 60% or 70% off a year or so after that. It isn't. Mutagen just happens to be on sale on Steam at the moment.

From the store page:

A month later: more books. A Column of Fire, by Ken Follett. Pretty much as described in the last post; it doesn't improve markedly in the last stretch. Historical research on par with World Without End, but storytelling inferior to either Pillars or World, resulting in a book that is curiously both very eventful and very lifeless. Oh well. His Master's Voice, by Stanisław Lem. Probably the densest and driest Lem novel I've read- which is saying something- but also, par for the course for Lem, absolutely packed with ideas. Intellectually very rewarding, but as a "first contact" novel overall, second to Fiasco in Lem's oeuvre. The Laughing Monsters, by Denis Johnson. The first of four books I have acquired in the past month from Dollar Trees, which are a good place to find a) absolute garbage books, and also b) misunderstood literature which has fallen through the cracks and gotten remaindered; sometimes c) both. This fits firmly under c. Apparently the last novel of a late major author who I have no prior familiarity with, and a weird mess of a book; a tensionless espionage thriller which uncomfortably rides (and honestly really sometimes just crosses) the line of "Darkest Africa" tropes, with zero feeling of authenticity. Not even enough character development to make it interesting in that way. At least some of the prose is pretty good. And it was only a buck. The Civil War: A History, by Harry Hansen. A 1961 single-volume history, it avoids being dated by the simple expedient of avoiding any in-depth interpretive work in its rush to get play-by-plays of every campaign and major battle into a single (albeit fat) volume. Very very dense with military history, with hardly any political/diplomatic analysis, or coverage of the home fronts or culture, or economic issues. (I'll give Hansen credit, though, for not remotely bothering to pretend that the war was over anything but slavery, which is more than can be said for certain Civil War histories.) Taken on its own ground, it's solid, but very dry. Overall: it was fine, and I certainly understand the military side of the war better now, but deep down I know I should just like see if I can get Battle Cry of Freedom out of the library at some point. Currently: inching my way through Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters; I am not big on poetry, but it's pretty good. Also: First Person, by Richard Flanagan, another Dollar Tree acquisition by a major novelist which seems to have fallen through the cracks. Very good prose, but time will tell whether this is a b or a c.

Khyryk is by some distance the most interesting character in Geneforge 3, and more or less fits this description. (He turns out not to be quite so loyal in 4, but you can't know that at the time; within the confines of Geneforge 3, he is indeed loyal to the death- you cannot progress the game as a rebel without killing him.) I'm pretty sure I recall such Serviles in Stonespire, as well. But- these bright spots in the writing of the game come in pretty late, after you've been brutalized and desensitized by the atrocities of the first three islands, and exposed to dozens of blander, less-interesting, more-confident characters of both sides. And then, of course- you are, for example, forced to murder Khyryk if you're playing as a rebel, as I said above, which just rubs in the mindless, brutalizing nature of the conflict. While Geneforge 3 is the starkest and most extreme of the games in its depiction of the Rebellion and the Shaper-Creation conflict, it's also, curiously, easily the least ideological. The character writing in 1-3 is middling to subpar in comparison to the writing in 4/5, but even when the characters in 1 or 2 aren't especially interesting as individuals, they're interesting in the way that they serve as avatars of their ideologies, and argue for their ideas and seek to put them into practice. In 3, 90% or more of the characters are just exhausted, unhappy people who desperately want to murder their enemies, with ideological concerns mostly thrown under the bus in favor of less-cerebral war/action stuff. Even Greta and Alwan are dull and underdeveloped, despite their screentime, as it's very clear, from the very start of the game, which side of the war each of them will end up on. Fingers crossed for the remake.

If you follow the same link you got from Humble in February, it'll take you to a download page where you can download an updated version of the game. The installer that Humble has is on-par, version-wise, with the version on Steam.

Books I have read since the last post I made in this thread: Highcastle: A Remembrance, by Stanisław Lem. Atypical for Lem, as it's a memoir of his childhood in interwar Lwów- it very pointedly ends before he reaches adulthood; he turned 18 in September 1939. Perceptive and unsentimental, as one would expect from Lem; surprisingly moving in places. The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire, by William Dalrymple. A very good history of the East India Company and its interactions with the Mughals and other South Asian powers, up till about 1800, by which time the EIC was the dominant power in the subcontinent. Dalrymple is an excellent writer and historian in command of his material; and he does a good job at conveying how disgusting and criminal the EIC conquest of India was, although it's clear there are figures he likes and dislikes among both the Indian political scene and the Company. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, by Mary Roach. If you've read one Mary Roach book, you kinda know what you're in for with all the others. She's never anything less than an excellent writer, but sometimes she writes about material that ends up being not-so-engaging. This book is about military science, so it's only intermittently interesting, and on top of that, she only writes about the science-and-technology side of things, so what exactly all this science and technology is for is a constant, uncomfortable, unexamined presence- there's lots of talk about how soldiers will need to be able to stay cool or survive IEDs in "the Middle East," but no examination of why they might be in the "Middle East," or what exactly they're doing there. Not great. She has another book coming out later this year, in any case, about animals and the law. Hope it's fun. The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. Super-popular, and generally regarded as a classic, but: actually pretty bad. Flat characters (the women in particular; Follett struggles to find anything for his women characters to do beyond get raped), weak historical research (the feudalism presented in this novel bears about as much resemblance to the actual Anglo-Norman political system as do the systems in Dune or ASOIAF), curiously old-fashioned, episodic plotting (crises are usually solved tidily, and while the stakes rise over the course of the novel, it never feels very tied-together), and an odd, late-emerging sheen of Whig history (presenting the Becket crisis as a step towards modern liberal democracy). I must assume that it's mainly popular among people unfamiliar with the actual history of the time period in question, and who haven't read very many good historical novels- this isn't just far from being the best historical novel I've ever read, it's actually not even the best historical novel about the Anarchy I've read (that'd be When Christ and His Saints Slept, by Sharon Kay Penman). The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857, by William Dalrymple. Sort of a followup to the prior book by Dalrymple (published earlier, but covering a later period of history), this is a close-focus account of the Great Mutiny in and around Delhi, and especially in and around the Mughal court. Excellent and evenhanded. World Without End, by Ken Follett. Perhaps unwisely, I ended up getting the two sequels to Pillars of the Earth. This is the first sequel, set about 150 years after Pillars. Surprisingly, it's also much, much better; Follett clearly improved greatly as a writer in the 18 years between writing Pillars and this book. Much better historical research, much better characters (nobody's too perfect; everyone's believable; the women have much more depth and agency), more-integrated plotting (though it speeds up a bit too much near the end, and nearly glosses over some major developments). Not a masterpiece, but a really solid historical novel. My computer's motherboard burnt out a month ago, so I've been reading a bunch in that time (though only the last two books listed above; they're pretty long). I'm currently something like two-thirds of the way through the second Pillars sequel, A Column of Fire. It's not great. He tries to pack too much real history in, so it's super-eventful, but the writing is sometimes almost telegraphic, and none of the characters have much room to breathe or develop. Ah well.

I agree with this. A lower Control Level being better might make sense from one design perspective (since there's no theoretical maximum, it's not really possible to set a certain value as the default, and have the Control Level decrease to represent weaker control), but on the other hand, its being higher being worse is just counterintuitive (naming it "rogue proclivity" or something might make more sense). It's also frustrating that nowhere in the game can you see, explicitly, how the Control Level is calculated (the information in my post above is largely derived from Mechalibur's testing-deduced stats, here), and you can't actually see what it means (AFAIK, no one has yet figured out the formula that determines a Creation's chance to go rogue- a higher Control Level clearly makes it more likely, but it's not clear exactly how likely). The game also tells you to raise your Shaping skills to increase your control over your Creations, which is sort of misleading, in that, as in the example I gave in the post above, it's actually possible, especially at low levels, for raising a Shaping skill to actually weaken your control over a Creation by a level. I disagree with this. One of the risks of a Creation going rogue has to be the chance that said Creation will attack its Shaper or teammates. The game happens to implement this via the "Charm" effect, presumably as a result of Jeff Vogel's traditional parsimony (why create a new effect that does exactly what an existing effect does, but with a different name?). Calling it "Charm" is maybe misleading, in that it implies active hostile action in a way that words like "fear" or "confusion" don't. But you get used to it.

This is very deliberate. It is happening because your Control Levels over your Creations (visible on each Creation's stats page, and varies by Creation) are too high. Somewhat confusingly, a higher Control Level represents weaker control over a Creation: the higher a Creation's Control Level, the more likely it is to go rogue when it has low HP, so you want it as low as possible. Things that raise a Creation's Control Level include said Creation's level (if it's greater than your Player Character's; a Creation's level is itself determined by your relevant Shaping skill and how many upgrades you've bought for the Creation), the number of Creations you currently control (each additional Creation makes all of them harder to control), and your difficulty level (minor; but on Veteran there's a flat +1 to each Creation's Control Level). The only thing that reduces Control Level is your total Shaping skills- that is, the sum of each of your Fire + Magic + Battle Shaping skills past the first point. So: to stop this happening again, or at least make it less common: Run fewer Creations at once. You probably won't be able to effectively run more than 2-3 Creations at once until a good ways into the game; Run lower-levelled Creations. The way combat works in Mutagen, you don't want to have Creations that are too low-levelled; but while higher-levelled Creations are more effective, each level they have above your PC's means an additional +2 Control Level. Generally you want to keep your Creations at about the same level as your protagonist until a ways into the game; Raise your Shaping skills, even if you don't use each of them. The sum of your Shaping skills reduces a Creation's Control level. Raising a given Shaping skill increases the level of all Creations of the relevant type, which can actually more-than-offset the Control Level gain you get from the additional point- for example, if you're level 5 and have two level 5 Fyoras, and raise your Fire Shaping by 1, you'll gain 1 more Control Level over each of your Fyoras, but lose 2 because you've also increased the Fyoras' level above your own, for a net loss of 1 Control Level. As such, while it's effective to focus on one type of Shaping (Fire/Magic/Battle), you can't afford to minmax these skills, and need to put at least a few points into even the ones you don't use so much.

Queen's Wish (2019) is the first Spiderweb game to introduce this feature. No prior games have it. I forget exactly when this feature was introduced- Avadon 2? 3? In any case, it's another thing that wasn't standard in Spiderweb games until very recently. It's not really something that's moddable, unfortunately.

There not being such an ending doesn't really make sense from a player-choice perspective, but I think it makes sense from a thematic perspective. Sucia is deliberately set up as sort of a microcosm representing the injustices and latent, potential problems of Shaper society, and the endings are ultimately about the effect on Shaper society of what happens on Sucia. None of the factions on Sucia are content with indefinite isolation, and the thrust of the story is towards re-establishing contact with the Shapers on the mainland. If you don't return to the mainland, it'll probably be a long, long time before the mainland Shapers even realize anything is amiss on Sucia, as they don't seem to even keep an eye on it- nobody's been there legally in a century or more. (And illegally- the young Shapers you can meet in the southeastern docks are an addition to the remake, rather than part of the original conception of the game.) Geneforge 1 was originally conceived of as a standalone game. The original version has no sequel hooks at all, and wasn't designed to be easily followed up. The vial of red goo is an addition to the remake. Thus, the reasons for requiring the player to return to the mainland must, I think, be thematic, rather than to tie into future planned games.

There's a single smart Ornk in 5, which IIRC is capable of some speech. Not even as an Easter egg- it's canonical, and part of a sidequest.