So... How do you join the Loyalists?

[15357]

Hmm. It seems that my old account has been deleted or something; last spiderweb game I played was Avernum 3 (the other was Exile II).

 

Anyway, I completed the game, skipping too many side quests, never getting around to removing the geas, buying the company share, completely ignoring the vanahtai altogether (used the side passage which leads to the demon lord of bats... I think), defeating Drakis(sp?) with both of gladwell's curses (Thank you gladwell!) and now I plan on redoing the endeavor a few more times. But as I want to do it differently..... (

 

How do you join the loyalists? Do you have to kill Solberg (which rather seems hard)?

 

 

Also, you'd think that after a few centuries of monsters and evil cavemen, the Empire would see fit to invent gunpowder.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Randomizer]

There are three things that will help you join the Darkside Loyalists when Ruth meets you after the Vahnatai Lands.

 

1) Kill Solberg

2) Steal Solberg's Papers from his research lab in the Northeast Quadrant

3) Not have kill Dervish Tholmen in the Howling Depths (sometimes a bug doesn't give you this option)

[15357]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

There are three things that will help you join the Darkside Loyalists when Ruth meets you after the Vahnatai Lands.

1) Kill Solberg
2) Steal Solberg's Papers from his research lab in the Northeast Quadrant
3) Not have kill Dervish Tholmen in the Howling Depths (sometimes a bug doesn't give you this option)

1) and 2) seem pretty much like suicide missions to me

3).... Ok.


Do I have to do all of them?

[Randomizer]

Any one of the 3 will do. By this point in the game you should be able to do 2. I'm not sure how early in the game you can do 1, but it's actually easier than it sounds.

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: 15357

Also, you'd think that after a few centuries of monsters and evil cavemen, the Empire would see fit to invent gunpowder.

Would you want gunpowder when any half-trained, half-drunk mage can create a little burst of fire exactly where you don't want it? Firearms with cartridge might be safe enough around mages, but leaping past muzzle-loading powder and shot guns would be unlikely.

—Alorael, who can just imagine the soldiers' thoughts about carrying their own personal fireballs around with them. No, magical bows in the hands of Empire archers makes much more sense.

[Barzhal]

Try to join by letting Tholmen go when you meet him in the howling depths. If you respond to him that you want to join the darkside loyalists you should see a message pop up after smacking him around a bit that says something about if you were serious about joining, letting him go would be a good idea. Do so.

 

Save Solberg's papers and give them to Melanchion, not Ruth. The reward is much better.

 

Steal Melanchion's egg and give it to Solberg (reason to let him live) for the robe of the magi.

[Earth]

I totally agree with Red or Bust, drunk Mages and gunpowder are very bad combination.

 

I killed Solberg at near end of game (just before meeting Dorikas) and it wasn't that bad but tough still but doable but he being Archmage and having his pet around its not for fresh-party.

 

Stealing Solberg's papers just reguires well equipped+trained party/singleton and is doable as last thing at Tranquility (if not returning to give Solberg Melanchion's egg ain't counted).

 

Joining on UTC gives some benefit at Highground (and all money you get is needed).

 

Doing all possible quests (outside Gladwell's) help alot and bring money to pockets and better equipments.

[15357]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Any one of the 3 will do. By this point in the game you should be able to do 2. I'm not sure how early in the game you can do 1, but it's actually easier than it sounds.

Ah, thanks.

Originally Posted By: Red or Bust

Originally Posted By: 15357

Also, you'd think that after a few centuries of monsters and evil cavemen, the Empire would see fit to invent gunpowder.

Would you want gunpowder when any half-trained, half-drunk mage can create a little burst of fire exactly where you don't want it? Firearms with cartridge might be safe enough around mages, but leaping past muzzle-loading powder and shot guns would be unlikely.

—Alorael, who can just imagine the soldiers' thoughts about carrying their own personal fireballs around with them. No, magical bows in the hands of Empire archers makes much more sense.

Yeesh, mages would become obsolete as soon as people can be trained to launch explosive steel balls at unsuspecting enemy forces.



Anyway, hmm, this time, I'm going to try and do everything. Except Mr. Gladwell, who can go [CENSORED].

[Alorael at Large]

Just like mages became obsolete when soldiers were trained to hurl spears and fire arrows? Most bullets aren't explosive. All early bullets were just metal pellets launched from a gun. In fact, early guns had an abysmal rate of fire, a high rate of failure, poor accuracy, and unexciting range. The advantage over bows was simply the reduced requirement for training and strength.

 

—Alorael, who maintains that guns would become obsolete as soon as powder horns became a convenient way to use a single bolt of fire to blow up an enemy or three. Extra points for hitting supply wagons carrying powder supplies.

[15357]

Originally Posted By: Majestic and glorious and baffling

Just like mages became obsolete when soldiers were trained to hurl spears and fire arrows? Most bullets aren't explosive. All early bullets were just metal pellets launched from a gun. In fact, early guns had an abysmal rate of fire, a high rate of failure, poor accuracy, and unexciting range. The advantage over bows was simply the reduced requirement for training and strength.

 

—Alorael, who maintains that guns would become obsolete as soon as powder horns became a convenient way to use a single bolt of fire to blow up an enemy or three. Extra points for hitting supply wagons carrying powder supplies.

 

Heh. I was thinking more along the lines of giant cannons.

 

Besides, something tells me training mages is way harder than training someone to use a musket.... or a ballista for that matter.

 

edit: On a side note, the Anama are going to kick everyone's behinds when they come up with bolt-action rifles. They're prolly the only hope for non-magical technological advance in Avernum, seeing as they depend so much on it.

[Callie]

Introducing gunpowder into Avernum would drastically reduce my enjoyment of the game, I'd bet.

[Alorael at Large]

The Anama can't invent bolt-action rifles, and nobody can face mages with muskets, before earlier guns are made. Relying on matchlocks and matches is not so good. Carrying explosives when even apprentice mages can set them off is not good. Cannons are big targets for combustion; cannon crews are likely to have unfortunate mortality rates. This whole "gun" thing doesn't mix well with a world that has mages all over.

 

Guns could work with mages around, but the primitive and early ones are much more vulnerable.

 

—Alorael, who thinks a more likely advancement is better and cheaper wands. They already exist, they're accurate, they don't explode, and the Anama, at least, seems to (half-heartedly) support them. Their just like magical guns. Their only problem, of course, is expense, but are guns really that much cheaper?

[Erebus the Black]

What you are over looking is that mortality rates are not an issue (see ginghes(sp?) khan or the 100 year war (or is it the Rose war?)),

and that wands are really nerfed in comparison to a gun,

a fiery wand does 20 damage on average and cannot be reloaded, a bow does about the same with 5 to bow skill,

a gun would do 50 damage and would be a lot harder to parry.

Never actually found a time to use the null wand or the inferno wand because I believe my wizard would do a lot more damage using his own spells, and I never run out of magic without having a way out or a few magic potions.

(all magic is nerfed in comparison to the magic in exile (don't you miss quick-fire even jk roling used it and turned it into wyrd-fire(sp?)), it's as if the gods decided all of a sudden that magic is too powerful and should be reduced in order to increase the general populus life expectancy).

I really don't know why I keep any of the wands (except for the allacrity), I guess I'm just a hoarder.

 

The real question is does gunpowder work in valorim/avernum or is it like in the Amber chronicles that it is innert and just fizzles and so fire arms cannot be developed at all.

 

To whomever wrote about them: Ballistas actually exist in avernum (see highground) and eventually tribuchet's will be developed and so weapons such as cannons can actually be more effective when fired from within a fort where the enemy's mage can't reach them. Note that wizards here cannot make things explode at will from afar, they need to be able to see what they are aiming at, so in combination with some kind of invisibility spell or behind proper cover (see vietnam) firearms can be just as effective as spells and more fatal with less work.

(compare a gatling laser to an arcane blow)

p.s. there's always ressurection spells (especially now that we don't need a resurection balm)

rant rant rant,

happy hunting

 

p.s.

Oh, by the way, wands do miss(wand of distruption against runed skeleton in soultaker's pit used by a warrior, I brought them just so he would have something to do instead of just being a meat sield there and all he did was point and miss) and WHOA do they back-fire just look at the scroll maker in Shanker's tower (and thats just a scroll).

Here's a disadvantage of magic vs. gunpowder: Shades!

Every source of magic automatically causes a large congregation of strong dead mages or extra dimensional beings to appear around it and bath in its glow (the magic's) only plus is they give extra XP for adventurers passing by any source as that.

[15357]

I like how I've started a discussion here.

 

Originally Posted By: Majestic and glorious and baffling

The Anama can't invent bolt-action rifles, and nobody can face mages with muskets, before earlier guns are made. Relying on matchlocks and matches is not so good. Carrying explosives when even apprentice mages can set them off is not good. Cannons are big targets for combustion; cannon crews are likely to have unfortunate mortality rates. This whole "gun" thing doesn't mix well with a world that has mages all over.

 

Guns could work with mages around, but the primitive and early ones are much more vulnerable.

 

Alorael, who thinks a more likely advancement is better and cheaper wands. They already exist, they're accurate, they don't explode, and the Anama, at least, seems to (half-heartedly) support them. Their just like magical guns. Their only problem, of course, is expense, but are guns really that much cheaper?

 

Anama tolerates wands? Didn't know that.

 

Anyway, what you're telling me is that humanity in the Avernum universe will not continue on to acheive their full potential and not be able to fight the common enemies of Man: Disease, Poverty, and demonic monstrosities. A world where only the mages have hope to exploit their full intellectual potential and the massess are left with their own primitive ignorance and the bonds of mass misery never to be broken, all while the mages gloat.

 

 

A thousand years later, the Anama will purge the land with thermonuclear fire.

[Alorael at Large]

I'm not saying that only mages get to advance technology. I'm saying that some technologies make no sense as viable fields of study with mages around. We can't compare damage on magic, bows, and guns because guns have no Exile/Avernum stats. We can't really decide if mages are or aren't capable of blowing things up from afar (in Exile they can easily do it with Fireball, and in Avernum there is no area fire spell for mages, but is Flame/Firebolt might do the job). All we can do is speculate wildly.

 

My speculation is that primitive guns, the ones that have to come before the firearms we know and love now, are too vulnerable to magic to become popular. Someone might invent them, but limited desire means a limited market, and a limited market means not much incentive to keep developing them. Obviously cures for disease (note: priests seem to have this covered), poverty (actually not a huge problem in Avernum or the Empire, somehow), and monstrosities (adventurers!) are more fruitful areas of endeavor.

 

Wands have one major advantage over guns: they don't miss. Guns do, and early guns did it quite often. They also failed to fire or misfired. Wands seem utterly reliable.

 

—Alorael, whose final moment of thought is that the Empire has a degree of complete control that means it can probably support or stifle technologies more or less at will. Guns seem worthy of stifling: anything that requires less skill to use gives the advantage to untrained rabble and takes it away from the Empire's own armies. They'd be heavily in favor of swords and bows as the tools of conflict. With more libertarian Avernum in the picture more things might get invented just because they can.

[15357]

Hmm.. Yeah. I think you're right. But I still think it sad that noone will invent non-magical technology because you could just magic it instead, like the automobile, for example. And yes, the Empire will try and retain its rightful hegemony over most of mankind, thus stifling awesome tech that enables you to blow things up 30kms away.

[Alorael at Large]

Why wouldn't someone invent the automobile? Magic doesn't work all that well for travel, as portals seem to be expensive, difficult to maintain, and thus only able to link limited destinations. Horses are still popular in Avernum, and if you have a use for horses (and if you have roads), you have a good reason to make cars.

 

—Alorael, who isn't arguing that no one will invent non-magical technology. He's arguing that no one will pursue technology with enormous flaws that render it basically unusable. In the case of gunpowder, that flaw is the existence of magic and the ubiquity accurate and long-distance flames.

[fractalnavel]

When the Avernites mine, what do they find ? Not carbon, sulfur & potassium nitrate; they find metal (ores?) and magic crystals. The "guns" of Avernum are wands, magic bows, and other enchanted items.

 

Progress: arbitrary value judgement. Assume the Avernites created a game, one that emulated our world: who would be feeling sorry for who ?

 

Transport: there was a "return" spell, or something, in E1-3, I think. E1-2, anyway.

 

So, this is how to join the loyalists ? Who'd'a figured them for existentialists ;-)

[Earth]

orb of return i think and it was at avernum too but it returned you to starting point.

[Alorael at Large]

Exile had Word of Recall, which worked in exactly the same way.

 

—Alorael, who never bothered to use it. E3 gives you the Amulet of Return, which is just as good. He never registered E1 or E2, but neither one of them give you compelling reasons to return to start, either.

[Randomizer]

In E3, Word of Recall worked almost everywhere in the game map, whereas the Amulet of Recall didn't work north of the parallel line above Gale.

 

In E2 I think I used Word of Recall to get out of the Empire Fort containing the Crystal Soul beyond Fort Remote. I can't remember the name right now.

[Callie]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

I can't remember the name right now.

The Ziggurat, if I remember correctly.

[Randomizer]

No, the other one up near Sulfras' cave.

[The Mystic]

That would be Akhronath.

[Harehunter]

All this talk of projectile weapons has me wondering about 'X' and his anvil experiments.

[Sleeping Dragon]

All will be answered in Avernum VI.

[fractalnavel]

Does the concept of "projectile" require some lateral motion ? Just curious.

 

Anvils, X, and A6: when arcane dud becomes arcane thud.

[Earth]

Originally Posted By: fractalnavel

Does the concept of "projectile" require some lateral motion ? Just curious.

Anvils, X, and A6: when arcane dud becomes arcane thud.

1. depends what kinda projectile is used.

2. or flat head X.

[SacredPath_82]

Mages are powerful lobbyists, surpressing any unwanted technological advancement. The royalty/leaders actually support this attitude, since technology could upset the balance of power in unforeseen ways (see the banning of crossbows from Europe by the Vatican in the Middle Ages).

 

 

 

Top that, you crazy conspiracy theorists.

[Lucheiah]

I always got the impression that Starrus would be pro-advancement; anything for the good of Avernum. Imagine how the battle against the pylons beyond Fort Remote in A4 would have gone if the grunts had been equipped with even black powder weapons. Quite possibly would have turned the tables of the battle... if we're equating the power generated by a musket to be roughly equivalent to the power generated by a Bolt of Fire...