So. Any followers of mine who also follow VGK, which I imagine is most of you (I'm picturing a Venn diagram with my circle of followers being inside the much bigger circle of his followers, like Jupiter's red spot), should have read by now his first blog about Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil. In it, he explains that he and I are currently engaged in a blog duel about this game, set up (with two generously donated virtual copies of ToEE) by fellow CRPG enthusiast ArbitraryWater.

While we might be in direct competition with each other, his seems like it'll be a slower-paced, more expansive look at Troika's perhaps best-received game without vampires in it. Unless there are vampires in this one too. Oh man, and I'm still grappling with all the saving throw rules here. My blogs will of course, be more of a visual abridged version of some of the games highlights. Also the battles where I die a lot. Those were fun, so look out for those. Both will no doubt contain heavy spoilers, so I guess you should also be aware of that. Being aware of things is definitely how to go about your beeswax in this game.

I shall now introduce the Mento Mob Players, as dictated by ArbitraryWater when he gave me the unlock code. You'll recognize a few familiar faces here, I'll bet:

Here's me. Standard fighter and vanguard, intended to be more of a burly meatshield than anything else. I'll be doing all the cleaving and the damage soaking. I have almost no skills because Intelligence is pretty low, so I'll be there to growl at everything that doesn't need whacking.

VGK is our resident spellslinger, a half-elf who is (supposedly) not evil but seems rather prone to random spouts of insanity, such as claiming he's some ancient moon monarch. He's specialized in Conjuration (summoning shit, though not Aeons unfortunately) and his forbidden schools are Transmutation (making shit go all shiny) and Illusion (making shit that ain't there). I figure as long as I got Evocation (fireballs'n shit) and Abjuration (magical shields and defenses that block shit) I'll be all set. Prove me wrong, ToEE! I know you want to!

ahoodedfigure is our party cleric, with the domains of knowledge and healing. Hence the "smartypants cleric". He'll be instrumental in keeping the team alive, which is why I fully expect him to set off every trap and be the first to get eaten by every monster. Because that is what this game seems to be alllll about.

Claude is our wise dwarven friend, a barbarian (later barbarian/rogue) who worships an unpronounceable god "of the road", which I think suits a dude who looks a bit like Willie Nelson. I gave him this super mellow elderly wizard voice so he's always a soothing influence over the party. Sort of makes me feel less mad about losing half my party to another giant spider ambush. Looking forward to hearing his barbarian rage activated with that same voice.

Finally, ArbitraryWater, with whom I was given carte blanche. It sounded like a good idea to have another solid melee fighter presence in the party, but one more engineered towards doing harm than being a big old wall like myself and thus is getting all the weapon focus/specialization feats. I mean, I could've gone that route with another spellcaster, but I am so bad at managing spells in these games. I'm just about okay now, while VGK only has level 1 magic and cantrips, but it'll get hairy before too long especially if I have to keep track of two whole sets of spells. Arbitrary rolled really highly on his stats for whatever reason, so I'm using him as my rearguard because I am totally jelly.

Starting Out

So that's it for my party. Next blog will feature my first few awkward steps in the game as I attempt to overcome the dreaded curse of being first level, where all my characters are apparently made out of tissue paper. This'll involve a bunch of fetch quests in the starting village of Hommlet, which I will discover almost always requires a high Diplomacy skill or some other skillset I neglected to put points into. Then it's off for more fun times in the swamplands moathouse, with all its horrible archer bandits and monsters. See you there!

Oh, and here's a comic about the introductory shop process. I failed at it! Spectacularly!