Vampire: the Masquerade - Redemption Part #10

Part 10: Tremere Chantry

Before we head to the Tremere Chantry, I've upgraded the equipment of our party.

Now we're headed to the Golden Lane.

Not Ardan!

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It took me all night to write that line.

I'm glad they decided to include these doors. Otherwise I would have thought the pharmacy front was completely transparent.

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We'll head down the staircase.

Christof: Even the humble fruits of the earth are weapons to the Tremere.
I don't understand what he's talking about. If he means that glowing fruit on the wall, he's wrong because it just statically hangs there, and we can't interact with it.

Serena: Then let us reap a harvest of unliving mages.

The writers really went overboard with these shitty forced puns.

Serena: We have found the roots of the great tree, and perhaps the root of Tremere power

What? The roots on the walls? How are they giving the Tremere power?

Wilhem: What wickedness do they brew here?

This is the last reference to the roots or trees in the chantry, so I don't know what the purpose was of that dialogue.

We're fighting frogs. Plus, they make these comical screeching noises when they get hit. It's like some kind of joke or something.

Here are the main enemies of the dungeon: the Tremere Neonates. They look like kites flying towards us. They like to cast Beckoning and summon more frogs for us to fight.

They also shoot fireballs and cast Awe on our party. As a last resort, they'll engage us in melee combat, but they're not very good at it.

When walking by these summoning circles, most of the time they won't do anything, but sometimes they'll summon random things. Most of the time it's more enemies for us to fight, like this frog. It sucks.

I said earlier that I've never got Feed to work, but now I have. Some of you said that having around 3 dots and around 55+ dexterity pretty much guarantees that Feed is a pretty reliable way to cheese a lot of enemies in the game, so I'm going to try to avoid using it unless I absolutely need blood.

I figure that I should show off some of the spells we've got. Here's Aura Perception.

Why bother with this spell? It might be something I use on bosses in the future, but I don't see the reason to waste time and blood with it.

The Tremere really love their fireballs.

I've neglected talking about the icons on the left of the HUD for too long. For some reason, Serena isn't coming in the room to help with the fight.

So I'll switch to the offensive stance, and she comes in the room to help.

The manual describes the stances and other HUD features I haven't explained better than I can:

quote:

By default, the characters in a player controlled coterie are set to a Neutral stance, meaning that they will follow your lead character and engage in combat as needed and directed by their leader. When you control a character, you can change the stance of the coterie members by clicking on the Offensive/Defensive buttons, which are located in the lower left hand corner of the game interface. A character set to offensive will seek out enemies to fight on his or her own and will be freer in their use of Disciplines and blood. A character set to defensive will conserve his or her resources and avoid combat wherever possible. You can return a character to neutral stance by clicking on the Neutral button at any time. To gain more control over individual coterie members, you can separate them from the group by clicking on the green light next to their character portrait. Once a character is “out of the group” s/he will no longer follow the lead character. Clicking the Regroup button will cause the entire coterie to return to the lead character. If you want the entire party to meet at a specific point, move the cursor to that point and hold down the CTRL key and left click on that location. Note, when a coterie member is separated from your group, s/he will not come to the lead character’s aid if he is damaged nor will this character engage any enemies at all. If you want to focus all of the coterie’s attacks on one enemy, then highlight the enemy with the cursor and hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard as you attack. The entire coterie should then focus their attacks on this enemy as long as you continue to hold down the CTRL key while you attack.

Die you fucking frogs!

The summoning circles can also spawn Blood Stones, which is another source of blood for our party. It's the only item I've ever seen the circles summon.

A more uncommon enemy in the chantry is the Tremere Apprentice. They like to use a spell called Theft of Vitae to steal blood from our party. We'll learn more about blood magic really soon.

I've never been hit by one of these frogs. One more hit and Wilhem dies, but the frog can't do it.

So, I talked shit about bows earlier, but this one is actually pretty good, because enemies have little resistance to aggravated damage. With a good dexterity rating, this is a very good weapon to use.

At this point, I needed to get blood to revive Christof and Serena.

But I also went to the Blacksmith to sell the loot we've collected so far and buy Wilhem an exquisite bastard sword.

There was nothing interesting in that room above the entrance to the 2nd level of the dungeon. Just another mob to fight.

Prisoners!

After killing that mob, we can free them.

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It's possible that nun is the nun from the convent. It's not confirmed, and if it is, she doesn't recognize Christof.

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I'm sure that won't come up again.

This is another side room in the 2nd level...

...which has this in it.

Christof doesn't have the minimum stats to learn Blood Magic, so we'll wait to use the book.

Did I mention that they really went overboard with the dungeon crawling?

Somebody at Nihilistic software had a problem. First an eyeball and now an finger. At least this item is actually useful, as opposed to the eyeball.

So, we've been fighting for a while, and have accumulated a good amount of experience. I figure it's time to increase our stats.

+5 Wits for Christof.

+4 Dexterity, +2 Stamina, one dot in Walk the Abyss and Earth Meld for Wilhem.

+10 Intelligence and +7 Dexterity for Serena.

Now Christof is able to learn Thaumaturgy - Blood Magic

+8 Intelligence, and one dot in both Blood Rage and Blood of Potency

I'm tired of Serena sucking in melee combat, so she's now going to be using this bow. As you can see, we have to keep buying arrows from the blacksmith to have ammunition for the weapon.

And I'm selling this stupid eyeball.

Oh hey, another prisoner.

Uh...

Out of nowhere, a Gargoyle attacks us.

quote:

The Tremere created the Gargoyles from the unliving flesh of captured Tzimisce, Nosferatu and Gangrel. A “base” Kindred is given various potions and is the focus of several rituals, after which a horrific transformation takes place with great black wings sprouting from the victim’s back and the addition of large claws and a demonic visage. Gargoyles are particularly dangerous opponents and easily capable of killing a careless vampire.

Well, it turns out that the Gargoyle is really easy. Now we can interact with that prisoner.

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Great camera work.

Clan Gangrel?

Erik turns out to be an even flatter character than Christof.

I kind of regret saving him, now. His face is pretty scary.

As you can see, he's a melee fighter.

He barely has anything on him...

...but we can equip him with loot from the dungeon. Let's look at his spells.

Feral Whispers? Beckoning?

Erik's two dots in Earth Meld reminds me that I should show it off.

It's useful as a defensive power in combat, but I never think to use it.

What's this?

Check out them diggs.

Nothing will make Erik look better.

Erik's beckoning summoned a wolf.

Uh-oh.

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Oh man, Christof won't be happy about that.

This is getting a little weird...

Keep in mind that Christof told Ardan to get to the point. I guess Christof doesn't feel like enforcing that demand.

Finally.

Wait! Let me obviously stall for more time and have you not care!

Come on, Christof. You said Erik was going to rip his head off a second ago.

Keep up this talk, Ardan. I'm getting all hot and bothered.

Someone has got to explain this one to me. Every spell in the game is accompanied by physical movement of some sort, and Ardan has just been standing here the whole time.

Boss Fight!

That spell he was charging up for didn't even do anything.

Ardan is a really easy boss fight. Just keep attacking him with whatever and he dies really fast. He casts some moderately powerful spells, but because it's four against one, the fight goes by very quick.

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