Part 1: Sex Wizardry: Cuck Rising

Sex Wizardry: Cuck Rising

You all voted on Bertha the old lady sex wizard. The thread was unanimous.



Woman, of course.



I drop her agility as our mandatory Age Penalty because I think "oh, we won't be using guns, we don't need it." This will bite me in the ass...very soon, actually!



The wonderful thing about the Depraved Occultist is that you can just google all the artifacts on the internet as you still get the bonuses/penalties without them being discovered, so it's actually not a meaningful drawback at all!



There was a lot of waffling in the thread about which philosophy to pick, I went with materialism as that is more babbling about cringey sex shit.



Anyway here's Bertha the Dan Brown sex occultist. This is one of those games where you can take a bunch of skills and you have to predict which skills the game wants for which encounter. Medicine and Science can be used for a fair bit, and also lets us craft crack pipes. Really. Occult is set to the max of 2 because we are a mage, and that's our casting skill. Melee is 2 because ammo is super rare in this game, and I forgot how the shield spell my gimmick build was supposed to work around works. Subterfuge lets us pick locks, but it runs off agility and thus...we can't actually use it. A+ game design.



The loading screen has this kind of neat comic book motif where the heroes are getting chased by the game's KKKultists. Enough of that, we have an intro.



Really! It really does this! It's voice acted too! They're trying to do a cool, spooky fade in and some jackass left the subtitles, in addition to the opening title scrawl. Don't worry, it gets worse! "But, TheGreatEvilKing, you handsome devil, how can it get worse?"



Ok, that's the first screen. Keep watching!



HOW DO YOU DO THIS????



They even spelled "loved" correctly in the captions! Why do these subtitles exist?



Now, welcome to the only part of the game that's actually effective.



It's the dismal man!



Alright, let's follow him.



We can't just walk outside, we need to go over and pick up the glowing lantern in the corner.



We go into the Old Eel House proper, and the Dismal Man leads the way. The game is silent aside from the clacking of feet and canes, and it actually works!



Follow the creepy man!



These ghosts show up and start approaching each other as the game plays a waltz.





The music starts wailing as the ghostly couples start murdering the shit out of each other, while the Dismal Man walks into the ruined Miskatonic University. This is the standard Lovecraft institute of higher learning that has your forbidden books of lore that our protagonists find to deal with whatever hellish abomination some idiot conjured up this week. More on Lovecraft and the game later.





Oh, it was only a dream. A dream that lost us 15 sanity. Of course this game has sanity mechanics, why wouldn't it? Sanity also doubles as our mana bar because the game wants to make spellcasting dangerous and scary. It is, for entirely the wrong reasons.



Anyway, here we go! We start with 200 Cigs, our secret society medallion, a doctor's bag for doing medicine stuff, a blank notebook, 3 cans of food, camping supplies, and some water. We are wearing the purple dress we got for being an occultist. We have a ceremonial knife and a laudanum shot, which is the equivalent of a health potion in other, better games.



Welcome to the old Eel House! The couples at the table don't want to talk to us. Let's talk to the bartender, shall we?





YUP! The first line of dialog said by the first NPC is "Good morning, cuck". Really! That's what cornuto means!

: Can you separate dream from reality anymore?

: Oh I see, Cornuto is quite a philosopher...I find my own view simpler and more effective: Whether this is dream or reality or fucking inferno, the question is, can you die?

: If you can kick the bucket, which is definitely still the case my friend, I guess this is real enough. But if you want to give it a shot, I can spare you a pistol.



: This trick is getting old, Marino.



: I pay for your accommodations, however poor they may be.

: Poor? I guess my rather poor services are still much better than being eaten by ghouls in a dark corner of a street, cornuto. They eat you alive, you know.



: You are really a good example of how low a person can go.

: Oh, please spare me your sharp wit. Later cornuto.

Let's talk to Marino to see why we have earned the appellation "cornuto", shall we?



: Why do you call me cornuto, Marino?



: But what is a cornuto?



: This is getting boring.



Oops.



Time to reload! We can't talk to Marino, which means we can't stay here and we can't buy his stuff.



: What does this have to do with me, Marino?

: When I was the bartender of Isola, a small Italian bar in Chicago, a man used to come in there every evening. Every single day.

: He didn't drink, he didn't seem to have any fun, he just kept looking at the patrons silently. Looking for someone.

: Then, after almost a year, I learned his story. He was looking for the man who fucked his wife. He came to that bar every day, staring silently...You're like him.



Interesting. He calls us "my friend" instead of cornuto.

: Someone fucked us all. Don't you see?

: Like I care.



If we ask him for a drink, that opens the shop interface. If we try to rest in the attic he laughs at us because it's occupied.

: What is the story of the Old Eel?

: Do I seem like the fucking chitty-chat kind of bartender, cornuto? They say an old drunk opened the place after a dream or something forty years ago. Satisfied?



: Tell me about this Wax Face.

: Not a smart question at all, cornuto. Just remember he is the king on this side of the Miskatonic. He is the boss of the Mob, the Unseen Imperatore.



: What is the Mob doing in a remote New England town?



: I'll keep my mouth shut. You can trust me.

: I trust only the dead when it comes to these things. Forget it.

We end the conversation.




This guy in the corner is an insane darts playing man. We don't have the skills to beat him. If you have a high agility you can beat him, and then he throws a dart at you dealing health damage and runs off crying. This gets you an achievement and an encounter later where he tries to murder you with poison darts. Whatever.



Welp. Join us next time as we visit the wonderful world of Arkham!