Next time I'll be clever enough to escape! Let's Play Wizardry IV: Return of Werdna!

Who thought level 6 was a smart idea? You can't do anything there without amulets!

So as it turns out, priestly spellcasters will not ever cast light spells in the Ziggurat. For any reason. Ever.

Back to level 10.

EDIT: Oh, my Black Candle melted in one of my previous runthroughs. Where I died. Ahahaha.

Welcome back to The Return of Werdna! In this installment: excitement! Advancement! A look at the days to come!



First: I will spare you the mind-numbing details of my various trips through level 7. The adventurers here are brutal and the occasional typo on my part often spells doom for Werdna and his monsters. Among the constant annoyances on this level are:

• The level 4 priest spell Litokan, which causes a tower of flame to erupt and strike one monster group for 3 to 24 points of damage.
• The deadly Makanito spell which, contrary to previous experience, targets all monsters, which means that Werdna is dead the moment it is cast.
• Trebor, who has a terrain advantage over Werdna that makes him a credible threat.
• And our old pals Mahalito, Lahalito, and Molito; their icy cousins Dalto and Madalto; and many Longswords +1, Staves +2, and a Dragon Slayer.

I was killed in total once by Mahalito, once by Dalto, once by Madalto, twice by Longswords +1, once by falling off the Ziggurat, and once by Trebor. This sums up my various deaths. Now to summarize the progress I made, and I did make quite a bit throughout these various runthroughs.



First, the Temple of the Dreampainter. This temple is the level's other notable feature. The temple itself can be reached by climbing through the ziggurat from the middle-eastern portion of its face. The path into the temple proper is barred by a secret door, so having Lomilwa active is a requirement to reach the temple itself, which is essentially a two-by-two block with doorways leading to the ziggurat edge to the east and west.



The priest's hole borders the level exit to the west, and the scenic vista borders the level exit to the east.



Werdna is so awestruck by the scenic vista that he lapses into Shadowgate exclamation marks. The fact that a scenic vista exists in a dungeon, and for that matter what was once the same cramped corridors that packed adventurers away into a maze full of Werdna's most vicious minions, shows that there's really something up with this temple, its architects, and definitely the adventurers who helped make the place safe to renovate into Werdna's prison. Still, I suppose if you're going to have to languish in this hellhole just waiting for a once-unstoppable evil wizard to break out, you may as well have a really nice place to take breaks at.



In any case, there is not much to say about the priest's hole and both exits to the east and west lead to Werdna falling off the ziggurat, taking a significant amount of damage. In addition, for reasons unknown even to me, the east and west exits are secret doors, preventing them from being entered without Lomilwa. The temple security is very tight, I suppose.

Before I show off the last space in the room, I elect to ascend and show off the next level. I actually did have a plan in mind with doing this, but a boneheaded play or two combined with some bad luck ruined it, so that when I came back to the Ziggurat, my party was thinned out and Werdna heavily damaged and I managed to kill myself by falling off the ziggurat.

Still, why don't you enjoy the fruits of my labour?

I am welcomed by the ever-friendly graffiti that lets me know I've reached level 6, Realm of the Whirling Dervish. Exitting the room in which the staircase was placed in I find myself in a hallway the ends of which are visually identical. To the north and south both there are four-way intersections, which is already intimidating enough. But the worst is yet to come.

There are, if memory serves, 16 4x4 rooms arranged on a 4x4 grid that loops at all of the intersections' ends seamlessly, so that the entrances to several of the rooms on the southern end of the map are technically placed on the northern end of the map. I did not map the area thoroughly: as a matter of fact I only mapped a bit less than half of it. There's a reason for this, and that reason is...



Spinners. The centres of each intersection (X on my sample map) randomize your facing (north, south, east, or west). As with all event squares, they trigger when you enter the menu or otherwise fiddle around with things. The trick to navigating this level is Dumapic: by stepping off of the spinner you most recently stepped on, then casting Dumapic, you will figure out which direction you are facing. The only issues then are that you have to map out a level full of spinners with only so many castings of Dumapic, which makes it hard to get back to the pentagram or entrance when you run out, that you have to know the level's dimensions (20x20, the Wizardry standard, which is a bit of knowledge only an experienced Wizardry player will know) to avoid being caught off guard by the fact that it loops, that each room only has one entrance (although it appears to have four entrances, three of the doors on each room are fake), and, of course...



Our friends, the do-gooders. More portraits means more powerful adventurers, and that Lord wielding a handheld wizard blending device is really not our best friend right now. Especially not after Myriad's Marauders ("You are burgerbits, fellow!"), a good aligned party with five spellcasters including two priests, a bishop, a mage and a samurai, blew through my monsters (shown here). I barely escape the level, but as noted above, manage to stumble off the ziggurat and die like an idiot.

I technically reached the level 6 pentagram before escaping, but I'm going to save its contents for when we explore this level in earnest. There's still one thing left for us to do on level 7, and it will make our exploration to come that much easier.

The Temple of the Dreampainter has probably seen better days. Werdna at least knows the power of the gods, even if he has shown in his death-defying first retrieval of the Amulet that he doesn't really respect them, so he's given the opportunity to make sacrifices here.

Sacrificing gold will simply cause it to vanish uselessly. Sacrificing most items, meanwhile, will cause them to vanish. Werdna unfortunately cannot farm piety like a roguelike character. If he could that would certainly take some out of the bite out of the game. But instead of lamenting what we can't do, how about we try sacrificing one of those stones we've been lugging around?



Oops.



Actually, I am supposed to sacrifice the stones. But first, I have to invoke them. Even after I do that though, there's still a depression without a stone in it. So, let's take stock of what we know: we found the Bloodstone on level 10. We found the Lander's Turquoise on level 9. So, assuming that this pattern has any relevance...



We trudge on up to level 8 with Priestesses in tow and begin combing through the minefield. At 10 damage a pop, which repeats if you have an encounter on that square, the minefield is very dangerous. An insufficiently dedicated mapper may never discover that there's something to be found here. I only know from prior runthroughs of the game. The path to the stone is more reasonable than you'd think: it's located a few squares north of the level exit. You have to walk through five mines to reach it. This is why I stocked up on Potions of Dios and brought Priestesses. An encounter, while still dangerous at level 4, gives them an opportunity to patch us up.



We retrieve the Amber Dragon Stone (key item), last of the three stones. This portion of the level wraps around to the other side of the southern minefield. We still have to walk through three more mines to reach the other side, and then fight any battles on our way back to level 7's pentagram (that or backtrack to the level 6 pentagram, which I do). This is why the Potions of Dios and Priestesses are necessary: without one or the other you will probably not have enough healing power to survive.

We return to level 7, make our way through the Ziggurat to the Temple, invoke the Amber Dragon Stone, and place it...



... Thus restoring the temple. Its grateful deity offers Werdna a boon for his services, just as planned. These weapons are all excellent and will make Werdna as much a warrior as he is a wizard. But each one has a distinctly different function, and his choice is more important to his future than one might think. So, vote well, readers: which of the three swords should Werdna take? Their functions are entirely from memory (and a few peeks at spoilers), but I believe them to be accurate.

The Green Sword (East Wind Sword) is a blade of petrifying power that entombs all things. It deals multiple hits, none of which inflict significant damage, but has a high chance to petrify with each hit.
The Blue Sword (West Wind Sword) is a blade of assassins and thieves that cuts through their targets' necks and coinpurses. It deals multiple hits, all of which inflict quite a bit of damage, and it has a chance to decapitate, instantly killing as a ninja would, on hit.
The Amber Sword (Dragon's Claw) is a jagged blade of patient destruction, one more magical than physical, that lets its wielder remain untouched by the seeds of chaos they sow. It does a decent amount of damage, but only hits once. In exchange it grants Werdna health regeneration: he regains 4 hit points per combat round, and periodically regains 4 hit points outside of combat.

Both Blue and Amber sound good.

Go for Blue, since, like the Bunnies, it lets you knock things heads CLEAN OFF. And thats an invaluable skill in an evil wizard.

Is it just me, or does the green one sound like an obvious trap? I can't imagine that this game is kind enough to make many enemies vulnerable to petrification.

10% regen each round isn't bad, especially if you're relying more on spells anyway. I vote Amber.

Yeah, it sounds suspicious to me, as well.

I say the Amber Sword.

I like traps! Green sword!

No, most enemies are vulnerable to petrification. Actually I can't think of one that isn't. The golem on level 8 would seem like an obvious candidate... but "monster" enemies aren't really common.

EDIT: But there might be some level-based influence on the success rate of petrification, like it is with Makanito and other instant death. Decapitation, meanwhile, is usually a fixed chance (it's the preferred method for killing Werdna himself in Wizardry I).

Green Sword!

I cheated and looked up a website with the game maps on it. My jaw dropped. I'm a man what loves loves loves mapping out dungeon crawls on graph paper, but even I have limits. This game would destroy me.

Hahahahaha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

... Still going to beat the game, though.

Green is my favorite color.

Amber Sword, I think.

Amber sounds like the trap to me. HP regen sounds like a big deal, but your biggest threats are getting one-shot by spells or your monsters getting killed and leaving you defenseless, right? 4 HP per round isn't going to help you when you're staring some asshole wizard down, but decapitation might.

So I vote for Blue.

The Green sword sounds pretty awesome.

If I were playing this, I'd go blue. Normally I'd choose the one that seems worst, but this game is worse than anything I could dream up.

The Green Sword wins! I will note now that the Blue Sword is my preference, but I'd rather have the Green Sword over the Amber Sword, so I suppose it's a wash. Update coming soon!

Hey, is it true that the sword affects your ending? You didn't mention this!

Yes.

Clarification: I didn't mention this directly because this is a Let's Play of the game and I want to show off things naturally. Stating that the swords change the ending would be supremely unhelpful, and stating the resultant endings would just be unnecessary spoilers. So I picked a middle ground of sorts, noting that the sword would change something and giving flavour text the game doesn't provide to hint at the associated endings.

Welcome back to The Return of Werdna! Sorry for the delay, which was brought to you by a one-two punch of Douglas Coupland's really not that good novel JPod, and general sickness and fatigue. Remember, kids: self-inserts are sometimes okay, but obnoxious self-inserts are not!



The East Wind Sword is Werdna's weapon of choice. As noted, it has a fair chance to petrify with each hit. What I forgot to note is that it's not a bad weapon on its own, even if its damage is still quite low: at current, Werdna is scoring up to three hits per round for ~25 damage if all attacks connect, and the East Wind Sword appears to provide a very nice to-hit bonus. Even so, the West Wind Sword has many similar effects. A bit of research also produced a theory that the Dragon's Claw "augments spellcasting" in some unspecified way. That said it still received plenty of votes, and for many of the reasons that a feature like this would: it's Werdna's most casting-focused option for the sword.

But enough about that. All you really need to know is that the East Wind Sword is a pretty damn good weapon, making Werdna much more useful in ambushes where he can't cast spells, and letting him conserve spells more readily against solo or duo do-gooders.



I bring some Jeweled Amulets to the Realm of the Whirling Dervish. I will most certainly need them; nine castings of Dumapic simply isn't enough. Even with that aid in dungeon navigation, and foreknowledge of the pentagram's coordinates -- as a matter of fact, there are two on this level with identical monsters, but only the first you encounter levels you up -- it's still a very challenging level, most of all because of the parties of do-gooders. I was killed by a mage's Lakanito spell this time -- an upgraded version of Makanito, as the name implies.



In my next attempt at navigating the Realm, I find the southeastern pentagram -- even if the level wraps around, it is still possible to know its layout, and even map it, with enough Dumapic. And to plunder this level of all its secrets (although there aren't many), I'm going to have to do just that. The level is nice enough at least to provide you with an excellent level up and a great set of monster choices, but is it enough?



An overview of the level's notable monsters, with some Wizardry history lessons (and information, to a degree, about the equivalent do-gooders):

Master Ninjas are strong frontline monsters with very low AC and great attacks. Like all ninjas, they have a fair chance to decapitate enemies, instantly killing them on hit, and they tend to get the jump on enemies. This early in the series, ninjas do not have spellcasting capabilities: in Wizardry VI and on, they gain slow access to alchemist spells, and in the Japanese spinoffs, they can access very low level mage and priest spells.
Minor Daimyos are upgraded samurai monsters. Their AC isn't amazing, but it is low enough -- Wizardry samurai are somewhat restricted in their equipment relative to Fighters and Lords, and do not gain an innate AC bonus the way ninjas do. On the other hand, they are masters at dealing damage: between special katanas that only they and ninjas can equip, and access to the mage spellbook (which in this case translates to Lahalito and Dalto), they are best pegged as wooden cannons.
Bishops cast both mage and priest spells while wearing priest equipment and having the hit points and to-hit of a mage. Their AC is actually fairly high, but it's impossible to pass up spells like Badi (single-target instant death via causing a heart attack), Mahalito, and Dial (restores 2 to 16 hit points).
Lifestealers do just what their name implies. They have fairly low AC and a lot of hit points, and inflict level drain on hit. Wizardry V adds a life draining spell, but Lifestealers are not from that game (obviously).
Wights also inflict level drain. I believe they're less hardy than Lifestealers, but inflict more damage and drain more levels. I don't recall if their nearest point of comparison is undead or not, but if Lifestealers are not actually undead, then I'd probably be better off going with them.
Werewolves, if my memory of the were-monsters in the early Wizardry titles is correct, inflict either poison or paralysis on hit and deal many hits, possibly with a fair amount of damage as well.
High Corsairs are presumably high-level fighter types. I don't remember very much about them, other than that they're pirates.



In the end, I go with Master Ninjas, Minor Daimyos and bishops - an all-humanoid party. Werdna reaches level 5 as a result of the pentagram, which I believe gives him at least some chance to resist Makanito (which is said to hit targets of "level 8 or lower", but success is not always guaranteed even against those targets). It grants him 50 HP, 13s in all attributes, and the spells Madalto (a fierce ice storm that inflicts 8-64 points of damage), Makanito (which means Werdna can now inflict instant death via two methods), and Mamorlis (which causes terror in the enemy group, increasing AC and possibly causing other effects).

But will it be enough?

We find out that no, it will not, as we meet the bishop Tiltowait, whose first and last action in this battle is to cast the spell that is his namesake.

Everyone dies.



After that, we met the good-aligned party Myriad's Marauders ("You are burgerbits, fellow!") previously, and they're just as dangerous now as they were then. With four spellcasters in their ranks, any party of allies could still be killed quite quickly, leaving Werdna open to attacks from their front -- or, they could simply end the game with Makanito or Lakanito.



The battle eventually comes down to a wizardly duel between Werdna and Zodac, in which he narrowly triumphs via judicious (read: constant) use of Madalto. What ensues is a rather unpleasant experience, for the player, yes, but most definitely for Werdna.

By this point, Trebor catches up to us, and once Trebor has said a line indicating his closeness (such as "I... come... for... you..."), he will not repeat lines earlier in the sequence which indicate he is farther away. I spent quite a bit of time running around solo, casting Dumapic after stepping off spinners, and when Trebor started getting really noisy, holding down the up arrow and just letting the spinners take me around the level away from him. I wasn't expecting to survive, but eventually I found my way back to the pentagram.



The second adventuring party on the level, Gomez's Gorillas ("Ugga bugga! Ugga bugga!") is not quite as strong as Myriad's Marauders, but can still pack quite the wallop if you're unlucky. One particular point of note is that do-gooders, in my experience, never use consumables in their packs, for whatever reason. I note this now because...



The St. Rimbo Digit (Holy Reliquary) is a spellcasting item with all of the normal features of a spellcasting item. It breaks when used too much or just at random; notably, it has no special functions outside of its use for spellcasting... But there is one thing notable about it: it casts Tiltowait.

As long as Werdna has this, adventurer encounters will be, while not easy, much more manageable. Werdna can still die if he does not use the Digit before the enemies kill him, which is entirely possible, and if the item breaks our only source of it is this floor, which is wholly unpleasant to navigate.

The party also drops a Jeweled Amulet.



While navigating the dungeon, we enter a room at the centre of which is A Sentinel. This fight is obviously not very hard -- it's against a lone fighter, we have the East Wind Sword, and even before we did we were killing enemies of far greater strength than this one. So there is really no sweat to killing the Sentinel.



Save, of course, that doing so teleports you elsewhere -- to a pentagram, to be exact. This is actually useful in a backhanded way: it certainly curtails your mapping progress, but it lets you refresh spells and monsters, and in the case of this Let's Play, it lets me come back here and save much more readily in spite of the spinners. Werdna might even be able to solo the Sentinel at this stage of the game, although it's really all up to chance with Werdna's AC at 4 against a fairly high-level fighter: Werdna can hit him with some consistency, but the Sentinel can hit Werdna with a lot of consistency.

That wasn't an issue this time, though, and if I know when to cast Tiltowait, it probably never will be.

Death count: ~47 (~12x longsword, 1x staff, 1x Dragon Slayer, 1x dagger, ~4x molito, 2x makanito, 1x lakanito, 1x lahalito, 1x dalto, ~7x mahalito, ~3x halito, 1x tiltowait, 2x entrapment, 3x mines, 4x Trebor, 1x theft, 1x falling damage, 1x unknown).
Next time: More of level 6!

Sweet mother of God. This game just doesn't fuck around, does it?

Have you not been paying attention!? From the very beginning this game hasn't been fucking around!

If anything the game should be commended, at least it isn't yanking you along by this point.

Precisely. The game largely eschews fucking around, instead fucking with the player at every opportunity. Still, getting through level 7 and getting the sword is one of the major turning points of the game; if nothing else, both the East Wind and West Wind swords make lone do-gooders much less of a threat. They also mean that, for the first time in this game, having Werdna casting spells every single turn isn't necessarily the best tactic to use in combat.

One intereting thing about the enemies is that, as has been pointed out earlier, most of them were taken from disks that players sent to Sir-Tech for data recovery. Some of the characters that appear in the game are not, strictly speaking, legal Wizardry characters; this isn't terribly surprising, since there were a bunch of character editors available for the first three games in the series, back in the day. Likely offenders who have appeared in this LP so far include Thorin on level 7, a bishop with mid-level spellcasting abilities and a whopping 300 HP, and Tiltowait, the bishop with the most damaging mage spell in the game, but a comparatively paltry 52 HP. This was kind of an interesting design decision, since while both characters are capable of wrecking Werdna during their first encounter, they also provide unique challenges that you wouldn't expect from a standard Wizardry character.

(Fun fact: once you can petrify or decapitate enemies, Thorin becomes a lot less scary.)

Welcome back to The Return of Werdna! Iced cappucino is the best.



Navigating the spinners is really quite difficult. It takes some mapping to remember where everything on this level is, but I eventually manage it. The encounters have sort of lost their bite now that I have 50 HP, good monsters, and the Digit -- at least, while wandering the dungeon they have.



Navigating the maze takes some doing, even with the level mostly mapped. One spinner placed me facing west when I did not want to be three times in a row. The amount of Dumapic castings and broken Jeweled Amulets rapidly increases as I navigate this level. Our first destination is here, in one of several nondescript rooms, the site of the game's first riddle.



The answer is obvious this time, at least. Werdna is a man of simple tastes; to him, ultimate power is like a fine wine.



For such an easy puzzle, the reward is massive: like the East Wind Sword for our weapon slot, the Good Hope Cape is, if memory serves, the ultimate piece of equipment for Werdna's cloak slot. It reduces his AC by a further 2 relative to the Shadow Cloak, provides him with a bonus to-hit, grants him an additional hit per round, and like the Dragon's Claw supposedly "augments spellcasting" -- although I'm not sure how. Equipment identification is easily the weakest part of the Wizardry series early on, which is less a problem in the other titles where uncursing is very easy and most of the items have straightforward attributes and are obviously better or worse relative to one another, and I'll freely admit that I've been using guides for most pieces of equipment.



Point is, the cape is awesome, and the Oracle is still really bad at dispensing sage advice -- it's unfortunate he's the only source of sage advice we have. His other recent hint was "Hop high to enter.", which is actually relatively helpful.



Here is the worst part of the level: you will note that I currently have Lomilwa active and am facing a wall. The issue here is that this is a second type of secret door, one you can enter through without seeing and, indeed, cannot ever see. The only hint you have that there is a door here is that it is placed in a room with a layout identical to that of the room containing the Good Hope Cape.

Normally, as you head further into this room, you will encounter one or two parties of adventurers and several lone adventurers; at least, that is my experience. They will soften you up for the battle at the centre of the room, through this door: inside is Jesse the Smith, a unique magician. He spams highly powerful spells including Lakanito. He only has 82 HP, so the Digit will ensure victory if he does not kill you first, but the odds are good that he will kill at least one monster group, if not you, before you can do much.



In addition to a rather useless piece of headgear, Jesse drops the Arabic Diary (key item). Those of you who have been paying attention to previous key items and locations may be able to see where the game is going with them and this item. You will also note that the resultant puzzle is still quite obtuse without experience with it or its source material.



Killing Jesse warps you to the stairs up. I believe they are flanked by teleporters as there was an area I was not able to reach near Jesse's room. It's inconvenient that Werdna is without any monsters -- they were killed by Gomez's Gorillas and Jesse. So, I'll go upstairs once to show you what the next level looks like...



Then do something silly.



I don't know who Karl Maudlin is, but he's being a bit of a jerk. Werdna will be leaving home though, just you wait.

Death count: ~49 (~12x longsword, 1x staff, 1x Dragon Slayer, 1x dagger, ~4x molito, 2x makanito, 1x lakanito, 1x lahalito, 1x dalto, ~7x mahalito, ~3x halito, 1x tiltowait, 2x entrapment, 3x mines, 4x Trebor, 1x theft, 1x falling damage, 1x Karl Maudlin, 2x unknown)
Next time: We play Chess!

Karl Maudlin here, for Wizardry Express.

I'm beginning to suspect the entire game is Werdna's hallucinatory fever dream. The ubiquitous game over screen is for when he briefly wakes.