Shaper Rawal[G5]

[Barkis]

Shaper Rawal is very annoying. If I kill him, does that mean I am forced to join Ghaldring's side?

[Lilith]

Pretty much. Sorry! The Shaper Council may think he's a jerk, but he's their jerk, and letting you get away with killing him would set a bad precedent.

 

At least it's possible to prevent him from becoming head of the Council in the ending if you play your cards right.

[Barkis]

I was afraid of that. Thanks anyway.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

One can at least taunt him to entertaining effect:

Click to reveal..

get someone to remove your control tool, then tell him you've joined one of the five factions. He tries to kill you with the control tool, realizes he can't, and is filled with hilariously impotent rage.

[Trenton.]

What does he do afterwards? does he still try and kill you?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile.

What does he do afterwards? does he still try and kill you?

nope! he's all "welp, you're no use to me now. get the hell outta here."

[Trenton.]

So his area wont sell you supplies spells or creations anymore?

[A less presumptuous name.]

I think the main city will still deal with you, but people in his particular zone probably won't.

[Trenton.]

It becomes hostile? well that sucks

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile.

It becomes hostile? well that sucks

Originally Posted By: Lilith

nope! he's all "welp, you're no use to me now. get the hell outta here."

Not selling you stuff is not the same as wanting you dead, and it certainly isn't the same as trying to make you dead.

[Trenton.]

If he wants me dead then why not make me dead? for that is the question!

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Because killing a major underling of a council member would get him in a great deal of trouble. Might even lead to an investigation, and that's not something that Mr. 'I have so many skeletons in my closet I've had to start storing my robes elsewhere' wants.

[Alex]

The only thing that happened to me was that Rawal himself refused to speak with me. All other NPCs I talked to continued to offer services.

[tristram]

Ok, I can't find this online. Someone mentioned that if we play our cards right, we can stop Rawal from becoming leader. How?

[A less presumptuous name.]

Kill him. There is one ending that allows for that. Certain Shaper endings should also leave Rawal out of power.

[Yuna Corne]

I don't believe any of the Shaper endings left him out of power, actually.

[Trenton.]

Unless you do his ending, where he dies anyway. However, that is a neutral ending. You can be as shaper or rebel as you want. As long as you don't kill a shaper, he will die in the end by drakons.

[Triumph]

As I recall, in one ending (Astoria's?), if you kill Greta in the final battle, then Rawal does not come to power.

 

If you join Ghaldring, then of course you kill Rawal.

 

Not sure about the other three factions.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

@Triumph: Killing Greta in either rebel scenario (Astoria or Litalia's factions) will result in Rawal not leading the Shaper council. I can't offhand recall what happens in the loyalist endings.

[tristram]

B-but why killing Greta? She is so awesome (well, she was awesome in G4. Here...). And Rawal is such a s******* (to what extent are we allowed to curse on this forum? I think Rawal deserves it). How on earth does killing a rebel leader give Rawal less power?

 

Crap... if I have to choose between Greta and Rawal... ugh...

[A less presumptuous name.]

Rawal has spent years manipulating the corruption of the Shaper government. Any sort of destabilization would allow him to take control. Therefore, you must be either very cautious in your ending, or get rid of him.

 

I get that no one really likes Rawal. Unfortunately, he's quite good at what he does.

[Yuna Corne]

I like him because he's quite good at being manipulative; I dislike him because he's a coward.

 

That dislike ends up outweighing my admiration for him.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: Yuna Corne

I like him because he's quite good at being manipulative; I dislike him because he's a coward.

That dislike ends up outweighing my admiration for him.

You prefer courageous manipulators???

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

You prefer courageous manipulators???

There's a meaningful distinction between cautious and cowardly.

Quote:

Crap... if I have to choose between Greta and Rawal... ugh...

Yeah, there's no real explanation for why things happen that way. Narratively speaking, it seems like a conservation of goodness type thing: You get a nice leader of new Sucia (Greta, pretty much the most genuinely good-hearted character with any real power in the later series) and a cruel and obnoxious Shaper leader, or you get a nicer Shaper leader, and a less good rebel (Akhari Blaze: not nearly as bad as Ghaldring or Salassar, but still pretty angry and racist).

[Yuna Corne]

I prefer someone who actually does something rather than sits back and lets the rest of the world do their work for them, yes.

[tristram]

Yes, but my main concern is that (of the two) Rawal definitely deserves to die. Still, the point is moot since I'm currently playing the Ghaldring faction so he'll be gone soon.

 

Um... what's the deal with Akhari Blaze again? I played G4 but didn't get past isle 3 in G3 so all I know is that he's the guy in the lab that you either kill or help.

[Waladil]

I think that it'd probably be worth letting Rawal get power in order to keep Greta around.

 

Rawal's so hated, someone's going to kill him off eventually, and I'm betting nobody's even going to bother burying the body. Just let the vultures take care of it... if vultures are willing to touch the corpse, that is.

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: Yuna Corne

I prefer someone who actually does something rather than sits back and lets the rest of the world do their work for them, yes.

It sounds like you dislike every single faction leader, then. All of them either do nothing, or spend most of the game doing nothing.

I admire Rawal. Jeff is always adept at portraying power relations and realpolitik, and Rawal is just an example of that. Moreover, I think everyone in the Foundry admires Rawal, as he keeps them safe and relatively prosperous. The rest of the Shaper government doesn't seem to truly care for him, but it seems like the populace as a whole is indifferent.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

It sounds like you dislike every single faction leader, then. All of them either do nothing, or spend most of the game doing nothing.

Well, except Astoria, whom you meet as she kills a dangerous assassin, and who accompanies you to kill Ghaldring in four of the five endings. Still arguably "most of the game," but she acts when it counts, and that's more than one can say for any of the others.

On the subject of realpolitik: yes, Rawal is a fairly skilled politician, but I don't think that's why players hate him. That has more to do with being sadistic, petty, and caring for nothing but his own advancement. Any respect I had for him caught the last train for the coast when I saw his reaction to the PC ditching the control tool.

[Yuna Corne]

Greta is out doing things. Alwan was, as well, until he was grievously injured in his service. So, I do have great respect for them.

 

Not only does Rawal do nothing himself, he offers no support and spends none of his power and supplies on fixing the problem - merely upon staying in power. He is a politician to the core.

 

Alwan gets things done. Astoria gets things done, even if she's doing it from the comfort of her throne room - she's using her power and her connections to get things done. Rawal does none of that.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Actually, now that I think about it, the thing that most proved to me that Rawal was pathetic and entirely unworthy of respect was his "ending." Would lending his full support to the council's forces have made enough difference to beat back Ghaldring's forces? Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know, but it's hard not to see his death as earned.

[Yuna Corne]

He kept resources from other Shapers - he was a Shaper unto himself, and had several Shapers (the female Guardian, the PC, and I believe another Shaper) serving under him, so those four shapers could indeed make a huge difference. A Shaper is an army, no?

[MrRoivas]

Rawal looks distinctly shabby when you realize his plan amounts to "hide under a rock with my toys and wait for the explosions to end."

[Trenton.]

Actually, if the agent that you meet outside about the rouge hasn't left yet, there is she to. then the guardian, the councilor, you, the shaper that teaches you shaping, and the sage that teaches you magic.

 

However, you are forgetting, a drakon is also a shaper and an army themselves. Even more powerful for their use of canisters, geneforges, and them being, well, drakons.

 

 

Probably why he died in his own ending.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

@Trenton and Yuna: Well, this is all presuming that what we see on screen is all there is. In which case the entire continent of Terrestia has a few hundred people in it, and the "war" is more what most people would call a "skirmish" or "riot." In all likelihood, Rawal held back dozens, if not hundreds of Shapers, but there's not enough information to come up with any explicit count.

[Yuna Corne]

Rawal wasn't above making canisters, and he had probably had some of his own he had taken. He certainly showed signs of it (power madness and no compassion).

 

And if that's true, Tryg (which is certainly could be), then it only plays into what I'm saying.

[Waladil]

I don't think (individual, unexceptional) drakons can be considered an army: Unbound Ones, the most powerful on average, can still be hunted and defeated by a few dozen well-trained soldiers. Also, the text if you piss off Gazaki-Uss says that you manage to slay many drakons before sheer number wear you down.

(I was going to get an exact quote here, but apparently if you piss off Gazaki-Uss after the initial encounters, they just try to kill you rather than the text-based special instakill.)

So I think we can rule out that all drakons are Shaper-level powerful.

I think the one agent would end up leaving. She doesn't work for Rawal, after all, and I doubt her boss would leave a valuable asset in a useless location in a crisis.

Rawal definitely used canisters, and I'd bet he used them. Why do you think he always conceals his face in that hood? The rage, the pettyness, the arrogance... all scream of canister-madness.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

@Waladil: yeah, it depends on the drakon. Normal drakons are very powerful, much stronger than a normal human soldier, but they still don't seem to be on the level as a trained and equipped battle Shaper*. On the other hand, many drakons can shape; it's never specified exactly how many, but probably a substantial minority. There are enough of them that you fight them as nameless (though pretty powerful) mooks in the final two areas for the non-Ghaldring endings, or as allies in Ghaldring's path.

 

As for the relative strength of those drakons: we don't have good evidence that their shaping skills are stronger or weaker than those of a human Shaper, and certainly neither is out of the other's league in shaping abilities. That said, one is a 5-6' tall ape with no particular special attributes aside from the aforementioned shaping, while the other is a 10+' tall reptilian humanoid that can breathe fire. If each Shaper is an army, each drakon is a somewhat stronger army.

 

*I make this distinction since many Shapers seem to be bureaucrats and functionaries who don't have nearly the power of the more combat-oriented members of their sect.