Part 20: THE DEVIL-GOD!!!!

THE DEVIL-GOD!!!!

Welcome back! Last time, on Black Geyser, we got ambushed by the goddess of GREED who offered to help us stop the curse of GREED. Goons voted to tell her to fuck off.



I was curious to see whether or not the game was going to let us fight Zornilsa here.

: Zornilsa! I am going to end this now!

: Calm yourself. You will end nothing without me.



: Never! Begone, goddess of greed. Nothing you can say will tempt me.

: The foolishness of mortals never ceases to amaze. So brief are your lives, yet so quickly do you rush to die... Very well, go your own way. See what it gets you.

: Later I'll be glad to have the story to tell, but please tell me we won't ever have to see her again.

: I think we came out of that quite well.

: We face the devil-god, yet you turned away a strong ally. The strongest possible ally.

...Alnarius?

: You did well to keep that parley as brief as possible.




I know I said we were going to the Broken Monastery, but does anyone really care? We're past the point of no return, and there is no Christine to sing with us.



Rothgor's realm is both uninspired and boring. Here are some lava elementals. They're the first of 4 bosses we need to kill to unlock the final battle sequence.



You COULD go in there and tank and spank them, but they do annoying amounts of damage and have high resistances.



However, after reloading because I accidentally got Sea Hag killed, I discovered something. You can cast spells onto the platform without pulling aggro on these idiots, so we kill off 2 by spamming acid rain and then go in and kill them all.



Killing the elemental - who drops nothing - lowers the first wall of this staircase of EVIL or whatever.



Of course, the ultimate problem with this whole sequence is that none of this shit actually matters.



The game opened with Aldnar killing our father and then we killed Aldnar a chapter ago and got sucked into some gobbledegook on a crusade to slay "Rothgor the Devil God", who we've never met and who has interacted with us in no way except empowering Aldnar. It's not even clear Aldnar was obeying his orders as opposed to just getting powers from him.



This is Xurzax the Devourer. I don't know who he is or why we're fighting him. He's a giant named demon, but he's really only taking arms against us because we bust into his house and is content to let us wander Rothgor's realm until we wander onto his little claw platform.



It's a huge problem with this denouement. We are here to break the Black Geyser pact. Zornilsa just told us she was breaking the pact. We could have turned around and left the Black Geyser, or buried it under the rubble and let her break the pact to do whatever.



Of course, this wouldn't let us do the Pact Prophecy nonsense about unleashing the Dark Moon or whatever so we get railroaded into entering this boring place.



If anything we're going after the wrong target! Our goal is nominally to stop the curse of GREED or whatever, but instead of fighting the actual goddess of GREED - who, according to the Black Geyser website, approached Rothgor with the idea - we're going to murder the delivery boy.



This is a hidden reward for the Alakai quest.



Seeing the sword helps him realize Rothgor is bad and then he murders all the people awkwardly standing on his platform.



When I say "murders" I mean he becomes allied and we still have to go through with another boring fight.

We have one more of Rothgor's evil guys to deal with.



I'm not sure I understand the point of this. This guy is supposed to be a legendary hero so I'm not sure why Rothgor got his soul, and frankly I don't care.



You get an achievement for doing this and I just don't care because this man is barely mentioned and nothing in this game fits together. The game has never bothered to make a theme of redemption or any of that nonsense, and he helpfully dies instead of helping you go fight Rothgor or anything useful.



The game suddenly remembers this idiot was a character and brings him back because they don't have recurring villains.



You know who should be here instead? Aldnar! You don't even have to offer the choice of allying with him because he despises you personally for stealing his birthright!



Argos has a spell that summons up two copies of himself. They do a fuckton of ice damage because he can cheat and cast spells off the wintermage and necromancer lists. It takes me a ton of reloads to get through this.



The last staircase wall falls.



Then the game remembers that Baldur's Gate 2 had a demilich fight, and like it was cool and stuff.



They bring back Agelas one last fucking time! This man has no character and despite being the Grandmaster of a literal international conspiracy has never been mentioned at all. It's amazing! You can go deep down the wiki rabbit hole logic and link him to the Rauche assassination and Aldnar's rise, but he never mentions that, you can't ask him about it, Aldnar never mentions learning from him, and it's just a fucking joke. If anything I don't understand why Rothgor resurrects him twice seeing as its his fault we got in in the first place. He lays down a generic threat and I have to reload again.



It turns out Argos the Demilich has the same problem as the elementals and we can bomb him to death with spells from outside his aggro radius.



Bjalla and Jade can seriously just unload their entire damage complement and while it takes all their spell slots, he can't actually do anything about it. My guess is that no one playtested a party not using physical attackers and he just waits like a moron for you to enter melee range.



With his death the stairs open and we can go to the final boss.



: How did you come to be trapped here?

Now, this seems completely out of left field, but it was actually foreshadowed when we did the quest to go kill all the necromancers in the mine.


Keep this in mind because none of this shit is going to make sense.



Zoria's voice acting is actually decent. I'm shocked too.

: If you are his enemy, why did Rothgor not simply kill you?



This raises more questions, such as "why did you teach your followers to do blood sacrifice"?

: A goddess in a cage! There must be a story behind this.



I'm sorry.

WHAT?

Look, in any other mythology this kicks off a god war. When Persephone was kidnapped Demeter wandered everywhere and Zeus himself had to intervene. Loki got exiled and eternally tortured for the death of Baldur. We're going to talk about this once we talk about Zoria's story.



: And your sister?



This seems like a choice. It really isn't. Remember how the Pact Prophecy is that the Dark Moon shall rise?

To be fair Zoria could drive me mad anyday.

: I will free you. What must I do?



: I will keep my eyes open for something which might have the power to break your chains, but no guarantees.

: Then make haste! Please hurry!


I'm really sorry, but remember that "Creation Myth" I mentioned at the beginning of the LP? We have to talk about it now.


Alnarius and Tilindia are the most powerful of the gods and they know Rothgor wants to murder them. They then sit back as Rothgor murders one of their daughters and kidnaps the other and drags her off to hell. Now, I think this is trying to emulate the vaguely Christian idea that God doesn't eradicate evil because he wants you to choose good, but - in Catholic teachings at least - if you try to defeat evil God will help you out. Look at the section in Dante's Inferno when Dante and Virgil are confronted by Medusa - who represents evil that reason cannot defeat - and God sends a messenger angel to tell all the devils that if they don't fuck off they're eating lightning bolts to the dick. The creation myth tries to have that by having Alnarius declare that if humans cannot resist darkness they deserve to fall, but Rothgor's sins aren't just about humanity, they're against Alnarius personally. We end up with this weird dualism where instead of a struggle Alnarius just goes "meh whatever" instead of mustering his allies to march the fuck into Rothgor's realm, break Zoria out of prison, and execute Rothgor. Myths are full of great battles waged by the gods and as far as my limited knowledge goes there is no mythic tradition where the gods just kind of awkwardly abandon their families to eternal torment because of free will or whatever.

For that matter, free will means just that, and this raises the question of how anyone in this game has free will if undead spirits of GREED can just kind of mind control you into being a badman. King Velianrick broke free of it, but it wasn't a matter of willpower so much as being confused.

It's also not clear why the gods of Yerengal chose us for this destiny instead of just beating the shit out of Rothgor whenever he pulled this shit. It's certainly not like Rothgor has any friends who will protect him, and his goal is literally to destroy the world where all the mortals live - you know, the mortals who believe in gods to give them power? There's a whole section on the Black Geyser website where they explain that Rothgor and Zornilsa are doing this because no one believes in them and they're literally wasting away.



Once again we're stuck in a land where nothing makes sense.



This is it. The final confrontation.

: Your pact with the goddess of greed is over, Rothgor. Let me stop the Black Geyser and you may stay in your own dimension.

This confrontation means literally nothing. We have no history with Rothgor, hell, the malicious player character combat bark is "To Rothgor with you!" which he can say to Rothgor when ordered to fight him. We've never met Rothgor or fought any of his agents who declared themselves to be working in his name (until we stormed the tower). Rothgor doesn't have anything we want, and we're not here to destroy the Black Geyser because of anything it's done to us, but because a time waifu who may or may not be a Zoria cultist told us to do it.

I can't even think of what Rothgor represents. He's not a tempter because that's Zornilsa. The game refers to him as a "trickster" in one of its achievements, but he doesn't do anything sneaky as far as I can tell.



: I am starting to reconsider the decisions which led me here. I think I'll head back now.

It's kind of amazing how few options we have to interact with Rothgor. We can't tell him Zornilsa betrayed him. We can't tell him the Prophecy says he's fucked. We can't even ask him to let Zoria go - sure, it probably wouldn't work, but he could mock us for trying.

: Hahahaha! No. For the next few minutes, you will be my guest. I insist.

: You came to challenge a god, and now the doom you have so doggedly pursued is at hand.

: Do you suppose simple oblivion awaits you, or that I will devour your souls? No, no I will not, no matter how much you wish it. I have a certain piece of sorcery I reserve for especially aggravating wretches like you.

: After you have been slain, I will bring you back to life as my servant, your will broken but your soul very much intact.

: You will be my herald as I stride across Yerengal, my unquestioning slave. You will speak for the devil-god. You will fight for me wherever my will is resisted, and suffer, and die and rise anew, again and again. And everywhere you appear on my errands, your rotten, eyeless face will be the sigil of your failure.

You know, that sounds a lot more interesting than the main "plot" of this game. Fuck it, let's join Rothgor. Reload!



: I wish to serve you, Rothgor. I want to witness your reign of destruction over Yerengal!



I admit the first time I saw this line I couldn't stop laughing. See, the problem is that the game needs to enact the Pact Prophecy to set up as obvious sequel bait. However, the game developers couldn't come up with an evil option - even though Zoria is right there and you could swear to be her evil lieutenant spreading madness across the land or whatever the fuck - but they remembered that other games had one. Thus we get this half-assed option that honestly should have just not been in the game.

: Then I intend to stop the Black Geyser. Step aside and you may remain in your own dimension.



: Yes. *I* am telling *you* to step aside. It never occurred to me a god could be deaf.



Then he goes back to his rant about challenging the devil god and turning you into an undead or whatever. Naturally none of your party members have anything to say when confronted by K-Mart Satan.




Rothgor opens with this bullshit magic spell which knocks everyone down, even if they're wearing the Dwarven Gar boots of knockdown immunity.



He then summons a bunch of duplicates of the party while we try to pull him toward the chains.



There are two ways to win this fight. The first is to get him to cast the fireballs at the chains, and when all four are broken you win.



The second is simply to beat the shit out of him.



This is extremely difficult. See that portal with the wraith? Rothgor is going to keep fucking dumping adds on you this entire fight. There's a big shadowfury demon down at the bottom there.



Rothgor himself is going to wail on you with his greatsword and only occasionally cast magic. I suspect he's the reason they rebalanced resistances - someone must have sent them a youtube of Helgenhar tanking him with 200% physical resistance or something stupid and they got really offended and instead of making the Rothgor fight more interesting they did this. It is actually an interesting fight, but the fact they had to resort to infinite adds and undodgeable status effects doesn't speak well to their encounter design.

I then realize that we're actually hurting Rothgor and that if people die it's literally the last fight in the game.



Rothgor will use his bullshit AoE stun again when you beat him up enough. Of course, this means that all the adds can get free hits on your ass and there's a very real chance that you're going to lose party members as they wail on your incapacitated players. Did I mention resistance doesn't apply because Fuck You?



I just don't have enough healing up to keep everyone alive.



Sea Hag dies because I tasked her with holding off the adds. In retrospect Helgenhar probably should have stayed in the party.



Hamlin is tasked with holding off Add Zone while everyone tries to burst down Rothgor. Of course, because this game is shit it's nearly impossible to tell where Rothgor is (he's behind the big demon) and he still has a ton of resistances and hit points because FUCK deciding fights quickly!



In horror I realize that I must have sold the life drain sword, as I'm using every bullshit trick I have to keep Inta alive.



Hamlin somehow died offscreen. I kinda wish I'd figured out Mystic Bulwark earlier as it would have let us tank more things - but then again, I'd have to play more Black Geyser and the game sucks.



Rothgor naturally cutscene knocks out all the player characters, and it's the one part of this that has thematic resonance, as the player characters have accomplished nothing all game.



We resume here with the surviving party members. Rothgor is obviously diabolically plotting to make them play jump rope until they die of exhaustion.



He uses his patented Cutscene Powers to shoot us again, but I guess all the adds took a union mandated break.



Even if you don't agree to free Zoria, this happens anyway. This sequence is incredibly stupid, because Rothgor has a big fireball attack and a sword, and he could have just used those and put the chains at no risk whatsoever. He's used that attack at least three times and it did nothing to Zoria's chains.





Zoria uses her cutscene powers because of the power of drama or whatever.



: Leave me be, Night Queen! I am the devil-god!

This is what happens when you try to write myth but you only had your parents read to you from the fantasy section of the bookstore.

: Zornilsa, come to my aid! Our pact demands it. Where is she?!

I keep bringing up that in actual myth, oaths have meaning because they're sworn on something. Even Zeus dared not break an oath made on the river Styx. Rothgor is supposed to be a trickster and would presumably know the value of leverage. However, I guess he just trusted Zornilsa because... he was in lust with her? I don't know.



: You are nothing now, Rothgor. Nothing.



How? Why? You personally murdered a moon goddess. You know better than anyone.



But Rothgor wants to destroy the world and return it to the Void because that would make him supreme god. Why is the Void in any way a punishment?



: And now my reign begins.



Apparently banishing Rothgor to the Void involves shooting him with lightning.



Oh, he's... he's dead? Well, we can't go through the geyser, can you help us out? You're the moon goddess and you traveled through the skies.

: I won't forget what you did for me, here. Now go.

The actress switches demeanors, so I don't know if Zoria is supposed to have multiple personalities because she's the goddess of madness or whatever the fuck. The game certainly doesn't explain it, and I don't care.




The developers wasted a bunch of time having Rothgor's pillars and shit collapse as you ran by. They seriously could have just faded out and ended the game with you all running.



I grabbed all Hamlin and Sea Hag's equipment so they could be resurrected. It's kind of rude of Zoria not to hit them with a Twisted Revival, but whatever!



Escaping through the Black Geyser yields this - oh, no.



This is all voice acted as well. Yes, this is what we are ending the game on - the game's worst two exposition dumpy characters expositing at each other in a dull attempt to drum up interest for the sequel.



: Change comes. Death, and rebirth.

Wait, I thought you were supposed to "cease to swing" or whatever. Are you in a monogamous relationship with Isla now?

: And you? Will you be reborn?

: I have reached equilibrium. My time is over.



I'm sure the developers thought they were leaving some kind of intriguing mystery over whether Isla is an angel or something, and I don't care.

: They will find their way. Or they will die in the darkness.

: Have you no further guidance?

I want to point out that in the plot as laid out by this game, we never needed the Pendulum for anything. He gave us exposition about the Pact Prophecy before we busted into the temple and found the original text of the Pact Prophecy. He was briefly referenced as ceasing to swing when the Dark Moon rises. He's a guardian spirit who hasn't done jack shit either to ameliorate the not-curse or stop the war.



I suppose that we could be generous and question whether we would have figured out about the Pact Prophecy if Isla hadn't made us do it, but you could easily restructure the plot to remove her entirely. Have Aldnar talk about what he learned from the Rothgor cult, maybe gloat over how despite us killing him the Black Geyser will avenge him and destroy the world or whatever.

: Farewell.

: Farewell, spirit. I will remember.



Isla wanders off to look at the view from Yerengal's tiniest mountain.




That's it! That's the ending! The civil war literally does not matter, because Zoria is going to bring the Dark Moon upon Yerengal and her parents are stupid and lazy. You cannot complete the game without fulfilling the Pact Prophecy, but it never feels like an inevitable tragic doom. I wouldn't even compare it to a lazy author contriving circumstances to fulfill the prophecy, the game's way of ensuring the prophecy gets fulfilled is to have Isla tell you to do it and then railroad you into being unable to refuse. Sure, we formed a "new alliance" of... the kingdom that previously existed, but we also unleashed an evil dark moon that's literally in the sky that somehow no one is able to see that will destroy everything anyway.



The only one of you who was in any way competent at your job is the composer Igaz. The music in this game isn't bad. I wouldn't consider it memorable, but it's not as awful as the sheer garbage that dripped from the metaphorical pen of Padraig C. Nolan.

He put the stupid time travel quest in his portfolio to show to employers with the caption "Look upon my works, ye mighty". I do despair, just not for the reasons he had in mind. I can't believe this.

Then again the selection of poetry opens with a horny wizard and a succubus ripping out his soul with a kiss followed by an ode to Urf the Manatee, so what do I know? His resume claims he wrote the entire plot of Black Geyser, and I think that's more damning than anything I could write. He apparently directed all the voice acting as well. I note that he lists no actual literary experience - or interests - besides "storytelling" on his resume, and while the selection of poetry almost indicates that he's branched out, most of it is dull fantasy nonsense. I don't want to turn this into a witch hunt against one man, but reading his writing makes it very clear he's approaching this from the perspective of someone who has been exposed mostly to the fantasy-industrial complex. Black Geyser would have benefitted immensely from taking a look at real mythology instead of regurgitated pap nonsense.



I'm also shocked they sprung for this many voice actors on a project that by all accounts needed a strict budget. Serpent in the Staglands is made by a husband and wife team, has no voice acting at all, and the story kind of falls apart at the end, but it's entirely possible to play it just reading the text and you're never left scratching your head as to why the characters are suddenly possessed by a devil who wants them to do something else until you get the bad ending, but you can at least see what the writers were TRYING to do.


Source here. I want to reiterate that I don't have anything personal against these people, but judging from what they've put forth they just don't have the talents to make a story-driven game like this. Mr. Zakal here is talking about greed motivating people to do ruthless things to hang onto power, and that's something that's a huge problem in the world today! It's not hard to come up with something people can relate to, but we immediately veer hard into dark gods and curses and Dungeons and Dragons inspired nonsense that goes up its own ass. Baldur's Gate 2 isn't a success because of all the blather about Bhaalspawn and elven souls and whatever else, but because the story stands in spite of that. Irenicus is a powerful and amoral enemy who targets the player character to deprive them of their inheritance. He further messes with your family by kidnapping your adopted sister. Yes, the story is told in the Forgotten Realms, but many of the elements could be easily adapted into another format and they resonate not because Irenicus is a level 20 sorcerer with a +2 sword but because you can relate to what's going on (and also the considerable talents of the late David Warner). I'm not going to claim Baldur's Gate 2 is super deep and should be studied in English classes, but it is about something.

Black Geyser is about nothing. It has 300,000 words of "hand-crafted narrative" and has nothing to say. It is certainly not fantastical, as mighty gods strut into the picture to offer sad bargains and go away meekly when denied. Compare the Zornilsa scene to Paris being told to gift the golden apple! It is not a game about greed, as the game portrays greed as an external force that can be removed with the precise application of swords and arrows. It is not a game about war or politics, though they happen in this game. It is not a tragedy of a cruel fate because said fate could be knowingly avoided merely by staying home and teaching people to overcome the curse of greed. It is not even a coherent chronical of fictional events, because the events are so disconnected from what came before or after while the game maintains a realist tone. Members of the thread described it as a mechanical evocation of tropes and setpieces desperately strung together to emulate better games and I don't think there's much I can add to that.

There will be a bonus update taking a look at the kickstarter promises and then this LP will be over.