Let's play King of Dragon Pass, just as our ancestors did

It's a three-way tie right now.

Exciting news: A# is holding a contest to write a new scene for King of Dragon Pass! More info here. Scenes are not allowed to chain into other scenes (like the family feud storyline we have going on currently), but it's okay for the scene to generate a news report (like the one Harvar delivered in this last update). Winning scenes will get illustrated and implemented into an upcoming version of the iOS release. This is awesome.

Anyway, we will coast until we get a tiebreaker. Now that the forum is public again, I'm also going to drop a link to the developer (again). So if you're reading this, hi!

(edit) Also, you probably don't care if you've been following this LP closely, but the Table of Contents has been updated.

If anyone is interested in picking this game up, GoG has it on sale for $3 this weekend. I'm tempted to get the iOS version, myself, is it a good port?

The iOS version is the definitive version. It adds new content, streamlines the interface, and continues to receive updates. If you have an iThing, go for that, by all means!

The developer wrote a blog post on the inside workings of the interactive scenes. This is a little redundant with the breakdown I wrote earlier in the LP, but still informative anyway, and definitely worth a read if you're thinking about entering the contest.

By the way, if you do enter the contest or end up buying KoDP as a result of this LP, I'd love to hear about it!

Anyway, no one is interested in breaking our tie, so if it remains tied until I get a chance to update, I'll resolve the tie myself. Hopefully today or tomorrow.

Update tomorrow.

The deadline for the story contest is tomorrow, I think, so if you were considering entering, consider quickly!

Not sure if it's too late but I vote a four way tie with option one. If they offer something worth missing the harvest for, then go for it.

Yep, too late. Sorry!

Year 1331, part 4



In a COMPLETELY UNPREDICTABLE twist ending, I've broken the tie by deciding to reject their request. Someone else can assassinate your chief; we've got enough politics on our hands.

Earth 2



PREVIOUSLY ON KING OF DRAGON PASS: We built a shrine to Issaries, providing the Market blessing permanently. But what we actually want right now is the Trading blessing: this will give us a better success rate with the trade mission we're about to perform.



We decide to petition the Eagles. They are a bunch of weirdos who have female chieftains (crazy, right?), but they're also allies, and their positive favor makes them more likely to grant us a trade route.

Dark 1



Some old dude reports that the ducks are paying tribute like good waterfowl. You know, just in case you were curious.

I was a dummy and I sent Harvar on the trade mission, which is why he's grayed out. We have a perfectly good backup thane for this kind of thing.



The good news is it doesn't matter. Harvar returns immediately, reporting success. Our goods immediately see a small boost.

Trade missions always reveal some information about the target clan, regardless of success. It's rarely particularly useful, but hey, it's free.



Checking back on things, we find that our clan is actually reasonably happy right now! The farmers are grumbling, but since the overall clan mood is positive, it wouldn't be especially productive to feast at the moment.

There are a few approaches we could take with respect to the farmers' mood. The most immediate way to placate the farmers is to give them gifts. Unfortunately, this costs us Goods that we want to save for sacrifices and such.

The long-term approach, and the one we're going to take, is to address the source of their discontent. In this case, it's that they're overworked. There are several ways to tackle this:

• Sacrifice to Barntar for the Vigor blessing, which allows farmers to do more farming.
• Turn some of our fields back into wildlands, so the farmers have less work to do.
• Recruit more farmers, so we have more hands to cover the work.
• Enslave some thralls, so they can do the work for us.
• Sacrifice to Chalana Arroy to cure our sick farmers, since we have quite a few of them.

We aren't an enthralling clan, and we just barely cleared those wildlands. Our solution will be recruitment and curing.



First, sacrifice to Chalana Arroy for the Curing blessing. Lucky us! Healing would have done us no good.

Dark 2



Next, build a shrine to Chalana Arroy. We could just sacrifice for a one-time Curing, but this will do us some good in the long run even if it's more costly: we won't need to allocate as much clan magic to Health, and we can learn the Healing blessing later and swap between the two as needed.

Storm 1



Arene brings the numbers, telling us that we'll need 397 carls in total if we're to care for all of our farming needs. I decide to cast a wide net on our search, which should net us the 11 carls we're missing even if we don't bribe them with extra livestock.

"Nearby clans" attempts to recruit farmers from neighboring clans. Taking their workers can make them unhappy. "Any clan" is for non-adjacent clans, which can upset them, too, but it's not as big of an issue to anger distant clans. "Our tribe" is for other clans within our tribe, but we aren't part of a tribe right now.

"Our distant kin in Heortland" are those of us who didn't flee to Dragon Pass, but remained in our old home. This is probably a safe option, but my guess is it has a low rate of success. On the other hand, "Vagabonds and wanderers" is more likely to be successful, but will make existing carls unhappy.

Your carls will also become unhappy if you offer too much to the new guys. Your carls will also become unhappy if you don't recruit enough new guys. Your carls will also become unhappy if they suspect the weaponthanes are happier than they are. Your carls are a bunch of whiners.

We'll have to wait to find out how our job fair went, because it's...

Event time

Kulbrast, a thane of the Orlundi clan, comes to ask you for information about Enerin, chief of the Peluski clan. "We intend to enter into negotiations with Enerin, and hope that you know something about her personality, so that we will be well prepared for our parley with the Peluski. You owe us a favor, and we will consider your obligations discharged if you give us good information."

Yerestia: Kulbrast's clan grows impatient with us. We can't afford to offend him. Recommends #4.
Harvar: Enerin speaks with blunt honesty, and is quick to spot deceit. Recommends #1.
Insterid: Enerin is a bold one; her deeds will surely be celebrated in the chronicles. Recommends #1.
Iskalli: Better to give Kulbrast a gift than information we are unsure of. Recommends #2.
Valensta: Answer his questions; it is good to give him words instead of cows. Recommends #1.
Arene: Answer his questions; it is good to give him words instead of cows. Recommends #1.
Heortarl: Just tell him any old thing. I'll roll the dice to determine our answer. No recommendation.
Mogri: Despite Yerestia and Iskalli's protests, our clan does seem to know Enerin well enough to give information confidently. We owe them a favor, and this is an easy request. I almost didn't put this up for a vote.

Yes, Valensta and Arene said the same thing. First time I've seen it happen.

The correct answer is always to go with Heortarl.

1d5=3.

We don't know anything about Enerin!

I'm surprised your council actually gave you information about the person. Go for one.

I vote for option 6: tell them to piss of and then invade them as retaliation for entering your territory.

Hold on...

Show me this "five-sided die" of yours.

Yeah, that's straightforward, just tell them and have done with.

?

Heortarl's favorite game is called "I Bet You You Can't Roll a Six".

Well, my computer reset again, so I think we lost this event. I'll see if I can get it back (which basically involves a lot of savescumming), but I don't hold much hope.

The good news is that I've been saving religiously since the last time this happened, so that's all we'll lose.

Year 1331, part 5

The bad news is that that last event is non-canon.

Storm 2



The good news is that we now know the only mystery that's required to win the game!



In other good news, we've taken care of our farming situation. On the other hand, that's a lot of new mouths to feed. Yeesh.



The good news just keeps coming as we're presented with an opportunity to battle our hated enemies, the Osgosi.

I decided to sacrifice to Orlanth and use Skirmish tactics. Orlanth plus Skirmish is an extremely safe strategy: Skirmish means it's dangerous for the enemy to enter close combat, and Orlanth strengthens the pre-melee phase of battle.



Harran finds himself in a sticky situation! What do?



Send him in! This is the guy who tried to oust Yerestia, after all -- if he dies, that's one problem we don't have to deal with. It doesn't go down like that, though: he uses his hidden technique Whirlwind Blade and cleans up the enemy.



And how! We not only escape without a single wound, but also strike a blow against the enemy and take some of their horses. They're down 80 footmen and 9 weaponthanes, which should make them a soft target in the coming year.

Sacred Time

Speaking of which!



Our numbers look pretty good. My only concern is our increased headcount.



And here we see it's going to be a thing. What's with the terrible forecasts?

The good news is that we have a little more magic this year than last (10 versus 8). Let's plan for 1332.

Considerations

Harvar (the jerk) is covering up our food total. It's 484. The previous screenshot indicates a harvest of 984, but that doesn't take the forecast into account. We'll get 50 food from the Ducks, which is unaffected by harvest conditions. Food could easily be a problem still, so we need to keep our eye on it. We'll allocate the usual 2 each to Crops and Herds. We could additionally put a point on Hunting, but I don't know how effective that would be.

War gets 2 as well, for obvious reasons. Yes, we'll be raiding the Osgosi for Fire 1. It will be awesome.

That leaves four points. We don't need Children or Health. We could do Diplomacy or Trade, but I again recommend one or the other. We can handle more trade routes, but we also have a lot of people mad at us (including the Orlundi, who would have been much happier if we hadn't lost that event).

The final two categories are Mysteries and Quests. Putting points into Mysteries is always a good idea early on; we really need to learn more blessings, and eventually we'll need to learn heroquest lore. We could also attempt a quest: we recently learned Making of the Storm Tribe, and we already knew Ernalda's quest. If successful, this would give us considerable advantages.

We should also do some exploration in the coming year, whether inside or out of our tula. We know little of Dragon Pass.

If you have any requests for the coming year, make them known!

I reckon diplomacy, a quest, exploration and mystery then?

Two each into Mysteries and Quests.

If we end up doing a heroquest, should we do Making of the Storm Tribe or Ernalda Feeds the Tribe?

With Ernalda Feeds the Tribe, we get bonuses to cattle fertility, grain yield, and farmer productivity, plus we can choose from one of these benefits:

• Make the quester stronger (raising Animals, Leadership, and Plants)
• Increase food production (potentially helpful)
• Make the carls happier (they're unhappy, so this could be helpful)
• Make the cows healthier (they're not sick)
• Make peace with the elves (we haven't met them)
• Get a treasure (not a great one, but we could trade it)

With Making of the Storm Tribe, we get negotiation bonuses, plus we can choose from the following benefits:

• Gain Orlanth's blessing for making a tribe (necessary to win the game)
• Improve our reputation (our reputation is middling, but it's easy to improve later)
• Improve our political abilities (this is kind of vague)
• Make the quester a strong leader (improves Combat, Leadership, and Custom)

We'll also need to choose a quester. A compatible worshipper is very helpful when trying to succeed at a heroquest. This means that Yerestia or Arene would have to do Ernalda's quest -- unless we've birthed new thanes in the past couple of years, no one else worships Ernalda. For Making of the Storm Tribe, which is associated with Orlanth, we could send Harran (the jerk), but we could also send Insterid, since Vinga worshippers can attempt heroquests as if they were Orlanth worshippers.

Heroquests can end in miserable failure. The quester can be wounded or killed (in fact, Ernalda's quest pretty much requires the quester to be wounded). They're not without risk, but their benefits can last your clan several years. If you succeed, you get a sizable boost to your clan magic in addition to the quest bonus and the specific bonus you chose. On the other hand, it's possible that your quester will be unable to even enter the godrealm to begin with.

Needless to say, if you're the save-scumming type, it is an excellent idea to save before attempting a heroquest.

Making of the Storm Tribe sounds more practical on a number of levels, then, even if it does mean we lose an annoying thane. And that Orlanth blessing sounds good, then.

Let's send Harran on Making of the Storm Tribe. Even if he fails, we win!

Man, you guys are harsh! Sending someone you like is helpful because heroquests can train up their stats. Insterid could get a sizeable Combat boost if we went with that.

My experience is that death is a very unlikely outcome, especially when you've pumped magic into quests and have the Pathfinder blessing.

Fine, fine, send Insterid.

We do want to be a powerful clan, after all.

Magic goes into Quests and Exploration!

Then do the Making of the Storm Tribe quest because we should do all of our work early.

Year 1332, part 1



Here's our magic allocation for the year. There is no category for exploration, though there's a possibility that's covered by quests.

Sea 1



I decided to start things off by sacrificing to Orlanth. I have no idea if that improves our success in undertaking his heroquest, but it's worth a try. We learn the Woad blessing, which reduces the rate of injury and death among our farmers (presumably as a result of battle, though the blessing text doesn't specify).

Sea 2



Next, we'll send Insterid on a heroquest. Iskalli mentions that heroquests are easier when you've got seven different gods on the ring. This is the principal reason for arranging your ring this way.



We have the option of asking allies or clans who owe a favor for aid in sending our representative to the godrealm. It's really disappointing to prep for a heroquest and then get rejected because you couldn't even enter to begin with.



In a heroquest, the quester attempts to recreate the deeds of one of the gods. You can read about what the gods actually did from the Lore screen. The text of Making of the Storm Tribe is also available here.



While you are trying to recreate their accomplishments, you don't have to do everything exactly as they did. Other options can net success as well, and the canonical answer may not work because the results are dependent on the skills of your quester.



That said, the canonical answer is almost always the best one. Insterid is terrible at poetry and yet this works.



While they're fantastic from a flavor perspective, I can't help but think that heroquests are the weak spot of King of Dragon Pass, mechanically speaking. You can play two 20-hour games without seeing the same story scene twice (a couple of game-critical events are guaranteed, but you don't have to form a tribe if you're not interested in the actual win condition), but you will often perform the same heroquest multiple times in one game, and they don't vary at all.



Like this one. We'll be doing it again later, because I chose to "make the quester a great leader" instead of gaining Orlanth's blessing to form a tribe.



I missed a screenshot here, unfortunately. The gist is that the Night Tribe came and attacked. I'll make sure to grab it next time around.



Anyway, that concludes this heroquest. Insterid was successful.

But then



A group of farming-types wants to join our clan. Why couldn't we have gotten this event last year?

I'd like to point out that we suddenly have 7 magic. Heroquests are very profitable!

A family of travelers petitions you, seeking membership in your clan. The father, Ortossi, speaks on behalf of the others. His family made the dangerous trek from Esrolia, in search of freedom and prosperity. So far, they have found only misery. Ortossi promises hard work and loyalty in return for your generosity.

Yerestia: Back in the Darkness, the ragged remnants of the Nalda Bin came to our ancestors, who adopted them into the clan. Recommends #1, #2, or #3.
Harvar: We are not obligated to accept them, but we must treat them with justice while they are here. Recommends #1, #2, #3, #5, or #6.
Insterid: We don't need more mouths to feed. We need more fists, to smite our enemies. Recommends #6.
Iskalli: If we wish to help them without offending our long-suffering carls, we can make them cottars. Recommends #1.
Valensta: Good things come to those who are merciful. Recommends #1, #3, or #5.
Arene: I'll go along with the ring's decision. No recommendation.
Heortarl: They are at our mercy. Take them as thralls, and force them to serve us. Recommends #4.
Mogri: It's not a particularly large family, so even though we'll have a rough time with food this year, it doesn't really matter whether they stay or go. The Karandoli might appreciate the gesture if we send them along. Glossary note: carls are high-ranking farmers and cottars are peasants.

Insterid: great thane or best thane ever?

I agree. Smite these beggars.

As much as I want to go along with Heortarl, I think he's just being contrary here. We can't afford to make our ancestors mad. Send them along to the Karandoli.

Yeah, send 'em along. If it's a favour to our friends...

Year 1332, part 2

Not an especially exciting decision this time, so let's move it along.



We decided to pass the buck to the Karandoli. These guys don't look too pleased, but whatever.

Fire 1



Here's the new and improved Insterid. Her Combat skill has moved up a rank from Excellent to Renowned. Her other skills are still terrible, though at least Leadership is Very Good. Heroquests are by far the fastest way to improve thanes' skills, though they're not entirely practical in that regard. You'll need to savescum if you want the quester to survive multiple quests, and you'll probably also need to savescum to have any chance at winning most of the quests. A failed heroquest seems to cost two time periods.

The different gods can raise different attributes:

• Chalana Arroy's quest can raise the quester's Bargaining, Leadership, Magic, and Custom.
• Elmal's quest can raise the quester's Animals, Combat, and Magic.
• Ernalda's quest can raise the quester's Animals, Leadership, and Plants.
• Humakt's quest can raise the quester's Combat, Leadership, and Magic.
• Issaries's quest can raise the quester's Bargaining, Leadership, and Magic.
• Lhankor Mhy's quest can raise the quester's Bargaining, Custom, and Magic.
• Making of the Storm Tribe just raised our quester's Combat, Leadership, and Custom.
• Orlanth's other quest can raise the quester's Combat, Leadership, and Magic.
• Uralda's quest can raise the quester's Animals, Leadership, and Magic.

If you're interested in making a superthane, you should know that men can't attempt Ernalda's or Uralda's quests, and non-Vingan women can't attempt Orlanth's quests. Since Ernalda's is the only quest that raises Plants, a perfect thane will essentially have to be female. You can raise skills outside of quests, but it's unreliable and slow.

If a thane ever achieves Heroic -- the top rank, just above Renowned -- in any skill, you'll get a special report on it.

Anyway, we still don't have Orlanth's blessing to form a tribe, so we'll be repeating that heroquest soon. In the meantime, our combat prowess has increased, and we have a nice surplus of clan magic.



Let's test that combat prowess, shall we?



Our armies go unnoticed. We have a large advantage.



We get a combat event that looks like bad news for Farad...



...but the guy's surprisingly spry for his age.



We made off with a good number of cattle and wounded a large number of Osgosi weaponthanes. If we'd managed to kill all of those, this would be a crippling blow. As it stands, it's a decisive victory.

Fire 2



I decide (and Insterid agrees) that it's time to reinforce our army. I recruit four additional weaponthanes, which is as much as the game allows at the moment. You can keep doing this repeatedly, but be aware that weaponthanes require their own horse plus extra food and goods as upkeep.

Unexpectedly



It's feud time again.

Brodasart, son of the prosperous carl Glendara, has been slain in an ambush. Friends, who were with him when he was attacked, report that the assailants were relatives of Rangarda Dark-Eyes of the Oak Tree clan. According to his friends, the killers said to them, "Stand aside, for our quarrel is only with the family that killed our kinsman, not with others of the Destine clan." Everyone remembers the incident in which Rangarda stole Glendara's prize stallion, and Glendara's children slew one of Rangarda's sons while retrieving it.

Yerestia: Although it would be good to maintain strong relations with the Oak Trees, it would be bad to injure the feelings of our own people. Recommends #1.
Harvar: It is at times like this that our thoughts must turn to the gods, who were the first to experience the pangs of loss, and thus laid the way for the rest of us. Recommends #4.
Insterid: We are stronger than the Oak Trees. Recommends #3.
Iskalli: Glendara is within her rights to pursue vengeance. The people will be unhappy if we try to convince her to forswear these rights. Recommends #5.
Valensta: The carls were once worried that Glendara would start a feud, but Brodasart was a popular fellow, and now they are hungry for vengeance. Recommends #3.
Arene: It is good when bulls fight, for it makes strong bulls stronger. But it is bad when this fighting endangers the cows. Recommends #1.
Heortarl: The theft of the Rain Cauldron brought great misery to King Oskul's people. They begged him to pick up his sword again, the one he had used to slay Bad King Urgrain. No recommendation.
Mogri: Whatever. We haven't heard the last of this.

Compose a poem. Heortarl's already started.

I think this poem thing is a good idea. We just had our fight for the year anyway.