Let's play Lords of Xulima

What I would say is more notable is that it also allows everyone 5 extra kg of equipment weight. That's not a big deal for characters already investing heavily in the Armour skill, but it pretty much doubled the equipment weight for my clothies, IIRC.

I didn't realize how important this skill was going to be until too late, and even though I began heavily investing in it from there forward, I don't think I ever made it even half-way to level 30, and it made a couple of the areas that you'll be visiting soon a miserable slog.

Please look forward to my upcoming foodless run.

No, not really, but I bet it's possible on the lowest difficulty.

I have nothing interesting to add, I just want to pop in and say I've been enjoying the LP. It's been a good read so far!

Thanks! It's always appreciated.

Apropos of nothing: All the screenshots in this thread are coming directly from my Steam account, and someone has been following along through those screenshots. Lampros seems to be aware of the LP, though, which is good, because I can't imagine trying to use just the screenshots as a walkthrough. (If you're reading this, Lampros, then hello!)

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED HERALD

AND NOW



Welcome back to Let's Play Lords of Xulima, where our party is about to enter a truly forbidding place. North of Cunavarn -- the town that served as a hub for so long in the early game, but has long since been relegated to irrelevance -- is Geldra, the land of permanent blizzards.

Numantian Games is a Spanish developer. "Frozen" in Spanish is "helado." In Portuguese, its sister language, the word is "gelado" instead. "Gelado" + "tundra" = Geldra? Maybe. ("Tundra" is the same in all three languages.)



Eight hours north of the already frosty Cunavarn, Geldra is a vast, frozen lake. The terrain is very difficult here. We've maxed Gaulen's Knowledge of Terrains, but our food will still drain like we're carrying a pack of rats in our food stores.



Xilionte is here -- sort of. His position is randomized, and to find him, you have to play a game of hot-and-cold with Taliet's Eye. He doesn't appear on the map (even once you've found him), so Taliet's Eye is definitely a requirement here, whereas maybe the game would let you get away with finding Nifonte if you got lucky with the sailing codes. (Probably not, and I'm not willing to try.)



If the food drain weren't bad enough, you also take periodic damage from the weather. This is really a place you don't want to visit until you have to. At least there are no random encounters here, sensibly enough.



There is this big guy, though, guarding some blocks of ice (which, in turn, presumably guard something worthwhile). I try throwing my party at him, but it's pretty one-sided. This guy's tough. Luckily, he's not why we're here.



After a quick reload, our party reads the nearby sign, placed far too deep into Geldra to be of any use.



Xilionte happens to be at nearly the opposite end of the map from the entrance. As I mentioned, Xilionte does not appear on the map for whatever reason.



Ice cold. In its usual fashion, the game dangles plot points on a stick. Gaulen has a bad case of ellipsitis, but that doesn't stop him from squeezing a vital piece of information from the Titan: "The Lord of Souls made us who we are."



Xilionte (motto: "Xilionte: He's a Lot Like Nifonte") is a lot like Nifonte.



I still love this animation.

Actually, Xilionte is a lot like Nifonte, and the only difference I can tell outside of some slightly bigger numbers is that Xilionte has a single-target attack where he throws a ball of energy at a character, dealing some good damage and (more relevantly) dispelling that character. That's why Gaulen, Edge, and Edward are loaded up with a lot of buffs that Cecil no longer has.



Xilionte is still a chump, though. (Who's this Xilonte, and why does Xilionte have his soul?)



This is some real Shadow of the Colossus stuff we got going on here, extincting an ancient race of immortal giants. Don't hold your breath waiting for the game to add any commentary on this.



Gaulen, you dummy, that isn't even the biggest revelation here, and he didn't tell you more because you didn't ask.
It's really cold out here, okay? I'm not exactly on my A-game!
I told you to let me do the talking.



We're not in any hurry. Maybe I'll do the rest of the temples in reverse order.



Like Nifonte's soul before it, Xilonte's soul gives a sizable boost to our party. Enough of a boost, in fact, that I feel like taking another crack at...



...whoops, I completely forgot to get any screenshots of the Ancient Yotum. Well, it was just a bigger, bluer Yotum, and we've seen those. We lost Rydia in the process, but that was really my fault. You'll notice if you scroll up a bit that the Ancient Yotum is on the left, and there's a garden-variety Adult Yotum on the right. I could have saved myself a lot of grief and probably won this fight on my first try if I'd just mirrored my party layout, putting the ladies on the right. But who needs strategy when we've got +4 to all attributes?



We keep Incinerate Air scrolls in our pockets for exactly this sort of situation -- clearing ice blocks, that is -- although the scrolls are only necessary for parties lacking an Arcane Soldier and/or Mage.



Dead fella back here has what I assume is the game's strongest restorative item (it's possible there's a Restoration Potion V, but I've never seen one) as well as the Maltese Falcon.



No, wait, this one's a fake!

But Taliet will probably take it off our hands, so that's where we're headed next.

Taliet's altar is located in the heart of Yotum territory: Karraga. Karraga is mostly notable for having the second prince's castle and the second witch's house. We haven't been here in ages.

Taliet's blessing is +5 Speed, making it far and away the best of the lot. You could theoretically get this blessing as soon as Cunavarn becomes available to you, but the Ancient Yotum is a real limiting factor in that plan.



At level 45, Rosa will gain access to Ray of the Gods (which was also Ray Romano's college nickname). Third and last in the logical series of "kill evil things" spells, Ray of the Gods hurts more than Divine Ray and gets a damage bonus against demigods (read: Titans) in addition to Divine Ray's undead and demons. Light Ray only doubles against undead and is generally not worth picking up. Life Absorption is the odd man out: a drain spell that doesn't fit into this progression.

It's ultimately hard to justify casting these spells, since they're extremely expensive, and Clerics have plenty of expensive healing spells they'd rather be using. Ray of the Gods does have the appeal of being the single most damaging single-target spell against those enemies it specifically targets and the second-best against everyone else. It deals 360-600 damage for 160 PP at max rank, competing with the Mage's spells Lords of Thunder (225-375 to five targets for 200 PP) and Comets Shower (450-750 plus 8-14 seconds of freezing for 320(!!) PP). The latter is unlocked at level 50, and it's entirely reasonable that you'll beat the game before you max it out.

Even though this makes Cleric look attractive as a damage dealer, Mage still wins on utility. Cleric gets a single damage type and weak PP recovery in the form of Divine Prayer (9-15 PP and 36-60 HP). Mage gets three elements plus physical magic and the amazing Energy Absorption, which sucks 68-112 PP from an enemy -- about seven times as effective as Divine Prayer as long as you know which enemies can be used as PP batteries. Energy Absorption makes the Mage's spell costs look downright reasonable, and it's an absolute game-changer when you unlock it at level 32.



Dogs! I'm suddenly reminded that we need to finish this quest. Maybe we'll do that.



But first, let's finish this one. Cunavarn filed a missing persons 80% of the game ago, and I spent ten minutes crawling all over Geldra even though JBear told me that this guy was in Karraga. But look! I found him. This finishes our Cunavarn to-dos.



Here's the group that scared us off in our initial expedition. The Ancient Cursed Hound is way less threatening these days.



The walls in Arraz Gul's lair look like they're made of bone. One wonders where Arraz Gul found so many dinosaur femurs.

Rot, Arraz Gul! You will never see the light of day again. No beast on earth challenges me!

With love,
Darthenos, the Beast-Master

The note said Arraz Gul was locked up in this cave. Arraz Gul is not locked up in this cave.
Darthenos was never the brightest.



This is a real anticlimax of a fight, and if I'd known how little was left here, I think I might've pushed through it in our initial visit. Arraz Gul is just "Cursed Hound, but bigger," meaning he's immune to poison but little else. He's guarded by two Ancient Cursed Hounds and two Adult Cursed Hounds.



And Requiem takes care of three of those four. For the record, while I like how Bard shapes out in the late game, I still think it's too little, too late, but Requiem totally pulls its weight once you get that far.



With the riffraff out of the way, Arraz Gul falls quickly, leaving a nice pile of fangs for us to munch on (or however you administer these things; maybe it's best not to think too hard).



The fight itself is worth over 7000 experience, and then we get another 5000 here and a similar amount for clearing the quest. A pretty nice reward at the cost(?) of never encountering Cursed Hounds in the wild.



Arraz Gul guards a treasure chest with extremely high-end loot. It's not particularly appealing high-end loot in our case, but it'll sell for a lot.



While I'm here, I guess I'll cash in the Dabruz horns to complete the other quest. That leaves us with just the Emerald Wyvern eggs quest, and since that's a stat-boosting item, forget about it. Completionist Lords of Xulima play also sucks.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: UNDER THE SUN AND STONE

OLOXPS COUNT: 18 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests, demon drops, Xabraluz)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• Velaskar's quests still want us to collect the loot, find the dead person, and collect the other loot.
• The Titans await: the third is Kronante, under the sun and stone; and finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.

Psst! Psst!

CLOXPAS?

Oh, good call. And I actually completed the Cursed Hound fang quest off-camera, so we can call it quits for Rasmura as well.

Fortunately, there aren't so many of these as to make it its own thing. Anything else that falls under this category would also be an OLOXPS.

HEY LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA FANS

Are you ready for more Let's Play Lords of Xulima?

TOO BAD

We are in the process of packing up our house and moving out of the state. Unfortunately, this means no updates for a few weeks.

SORRY ABOUT THAT

Please stay tuned for the exciting conclusion!

This game is half price on Steam right now, so I decided to buy it! I will probably not run a party that similar to the one that's been going through here, but I still want a semi-balanced party. I'm mainly thinking of Barbarian, Paladin, Gaulen up front, and then Mage, Cleric, ??? in back. Mage is not 100% set in stone or anything, so I'm just kinda spitballing ideas for a ranged character that isn't a summoner.

I guess it depends how important a Thief is outside of combat, and if I can make a good ranged Thief that isn't just throwing shuriken constantly.

If you choose Thief as your 6th, then you'd be running the same party that I used, which I was very happy with. You can absolutely make a ranged Thief; in fact, I want to say that the default party you can opt to use gives you a back-row Thief with a crossbow?

That being said, I put my Thief on the front row, because I wanted to use Daggers (don't), and I wanted to spread enemy damage over 4 front-row targets instead of 3*. Essentially it's a trade-off between that and the improved reach and full Paladin aura coverage that you'd get on the back. Shurikens are still aces either way though, so you'll want to level them up some and use them for difficult encounters, even if you're skilled with Bows.

Oh, and I'd say that Thieves are super important outside of combat. Gaulen can technically do all of the same things, but it's so much more difficult for him to do so that I can't imagine playing the game without one.

* - Also it really bothered me that a 2x3 formation has to position itself to one side or the other of the 2x4 grid, whereas 2 in the front and 4 in the back can centre themselves properly. That's presumably not a consideration for most sane, rational people.

You can't have 2 in the front and 4 in the back. Anyone in the back automatically advances when the guy in front dies.

I meant the reverse; brain fart. My front row was Gaulen - Paladin - Barbarian - Thief, while my back row was x - Cleric - Mage - x.

Yeah, so I'm rolling with a Paladin (maces), Barbarian (axes), Thief (bows), Mage (pole weapons), and Cleric (pole weapons) in the party. Still pretty early, and also on the lowest difficulty, yet... man, this game starts out hard. And not particularly fun, when you have to rest up and heal to full after a single encounter with a pack of goblins.

I'm still sticking with it, because it's fun enough that I can see it becoming a lot better when I get my characters leveled up enough that my melee fighters actually hit somewhat close to their current hit ratings indicate (70% usually, but it feels more like 10%) and my casters actually have something powerful to spend their PP on.

edit: Yeah, like the LP says early on. I got past Sporia and cleared out the random encounters in the first few areas (rat cave, beach, sporia forest) and now I'm enjoying it a lot more. Should be better when I get better weapons, too.

I'm probably doing things wrong with my Mage, but since I'm playing on Normal, I've got Icy Touch to go with Spark, and then the rest of my skill points have gone into pole weapons and (now that I opened it up) Object Identification. Or something like that. I just want to call it Item Lore or Identify.

My Paladin is going pretty heavy on the melee/tank stuff, though I am going to boost up the Aura of Protection spell as she continues to level up. But yeah, every level so far's just been Maces and Armor for skill training. Barbarian's pretty much the same, just dumping points into Axes and Rage, with Armor when possible. Gaulen is similar, though I decided to make him learn Mercantilism to go with Axes and Knowledge of Herbs. Thief's just learning Bows, Shuriken, and Lockpick/Perception.

Was there anything earlier in the LP about the crazy overpowered cheat menu that is the Deluxe edition's DLC amulet thing? I bought that version and got the amulet more or less forced on me (can't swap out Gaulen's amulet slot at all) so I figure I'll just use it for skill points.

I think he mentioned it at some point, because I explicitly didn't buy the DLC because I didn't want that.

That being said, I thought that he mentioned that you only get the amulet when the Titans storyline starts and Gaulen has a vision in front of the temple north of Cunavarn?

I think that's a different amulet. What happened for me is, when I first got control of my party, my first step was immediately interrupted by Gaulen finding the amulet on the ground, and then it fuses to his neck.

Actually, it could be the exact same item. At least this thing also serves as a "What was I doing last time I played?" tool in addition to its cheat menu. And you can just ignore the cheat things it offers. Or do what I'm doing and spend 100 power (the max capacity, and a bit of a grind to unlock) on 1 skill point for the party. A lot of the other powers it grants feel like they're cheating harder, to me. Like being able to give stat bonuses to party members, or just straight up trading amulet power for gold/food/other stuff.

Yeah, I don't have that DLC. It's in the OLOXPS list, though.

I was likely wrong about when you get the amulet. The Steam description indicated it was unlocked when the Titans chapter opens, or at least that's how I'd read it.

Yeah, I think the lamest thing of this is that you can't opt out of it, apparently. I wish I had researched exactly what the DLC entailed before buying the Deluxe edition, but oh well.

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED DOG

AND NOW



We rejoin our party in the vast desert of Pernitia. Xulima's geography is pretty mysterious: how does a small island have an enormous frozen wasteland just northeast of a scorching desert wasteland? Pernitia only adds to the mystery when you realize that the desert stretches infinitely in three directions (although the game will stop you from exploring too far).



We've come here for the third titan. Kronante is due south of us, which means we're really close to him. That's good: I didn't bother stocking up on food.

Pernitia is an encounter-free region, but your food drains even faster here than in Geldra. You don't take residual damage from the environment here, but that damage adds up to nothing, whereas you will starve really quickly here.



Sure enough, our party makes a straight shot to the titan. With unfailing optimism, Gaulen opts for the diplomatic approach.



It works about as well as you'd expect. Kronante here hints pretty heavily as to the titans' motivation: he's helping out Yul because none of the eight can give him what he wants. There's a very short list of things Yul has that the others don't.



Rosa singlehandedly trivializes this fight. Since Kronante has no elemental magic, Mass Divine Armor plus Mass Regeneration obviate the need for any other clerical intervention outside the occasional Cure Wounds (since the one thing Kronante does, he does well).



While he lacks any offensive presence, Kronante still boasts 8000 HP, loads of defense, and organic (read: poison) immunity. He's also really resistant to other elements, and he doesn't bleed easy.



Because he's relatively unprotected from wounds and stunning, though, we can get him into near-lock with just Cecil, Edward, and Gaulen: Cecil applies as much stun as possible, and the other two rack up wounds so that when he does get a turn, he's either casting Cure Wounds or whiffing. Meanwhile, Edge slowly racks up the bleed damage (with very little help from Batan), which is the real killer despite Kronante's resistance to the status.



Down he goes, probably the easiest of the titans for this party. The only tricks Kronante showed me that we hadn't seen in earlier titans were some high-level earth spells and a move that restored his PP.



I just realized that I never used Kronante's soul.

The experience reward for this battle is uninspiring and yet too much for the difficulty of the fight.



We get Kersket's key for our troubles.



What could this mystery gift be?
Please tell me he's joking.
He's not joking.



Gaulen feels real bad about slaying the titans.



We could leave Pernitia at this point, but the desert has great treasures for those willing to brave it. You can do this as soon as you have access to Varaskel, really -- your ability to traverse the desert ultimately depends less on your Terrains skill or food stores than it does on your Cleric's ability to keep herself alive.

I would later realize that you can just buy these Elixir Vs, but they cost nearly 2k (9% of a training session) even after the Edward discount.



It's mostly skeletons in the desert, but dedicated searchers will find a chest or two. This one has a pair of midrinium necklaces, one protecting from fire and one pictured above. This is really high-end as chests go, although I can't promise I'll use either of the necklaces.



Not all treasure is created equal. This would have been junk even if we had beelined for Pernitia.



Oh, and here's the last of Varaskel's quests that we'll do. (I suspect I may have done the loot quests offscreen anyway.) The rewards are meaningless to our party, which is another good case for exploring Pernitia earlier than you need to.

Our desert wandering was a bit haphazard, but I'm going to call it good enough for now. We crack a travel crystal and get out of here.



Oddly, when you're completely out, it's quite a bit cheaper to buy a day's worth of food and rest for 24 hours than it is to take a 24-hour inn stay, even if you're staying at Velegarn. Pro Xulima strats, right here.



There's a good case to be made that I shouldn't have bothered (see also: OLOXPS), but Edge finally capped his Lockpicking and Trap Disarming skills. For practical purposes, this means I reload slightly less often, as my strategy on both minigames has long been to click "Auto" until it succeeds. The remainder of Edge's skill points going forward will go to skills like Fast Reflexes that offer unexciting, passive bonuses.



It takes me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that Kersket's temple is located on the Varaskel map in the one corner of desert we didn't explore. Remember, we're doing the temples out of order, so instead of going Taliet-Kersket-Valvet, we're saving Taliet for last.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: ROCK SOLID

OLOXPS COUNT: 18 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests, demon drops, Xabraluz)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• The Titans await: finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.

I've gotten back into this, but I'm also stuck (more or less) at the Hall of Heroes.

I love the game, except when its puzzles get too complicated/esoteric or dump a lot of text on you like this one does. I think I'm also doing things in a different order than the LP's been doing them, because I missed/skipped a few areas but am still mostly the same level. Like I haven't fought Khornil at all yet, I suppose because I want to power through his guards that will vanish when I beat him. And I know I missed witch #1.

I'm doing a total OLOXPS with the herbs/mushrooms though. Well OK, not total - the resistance ones and the HP/PP ones get picked now, but the other stat-up ones, and the skill ones, are being saved for when I max knowledge of herbs.

yeah, I finally got past it following that guide. stupid part of the game but now i can go explore other stuff and catch up on missions I haven't cleared yet.

If it weren't for the random encounters, I could put up with that puzzle. It seems neat in theory. In practice, there's a good reason it's the only puzzle with a dedicated walkthrough.

I'm catching up to the LP!

I'm also playing on the lowest difficulty, so fights aren't that hard. Especially since my group basically stacks wounds on everything. But, damn. Every single party member feels valuable in and out of combat. The mage is so versatile, but also really powerful, just like in most good RPGs. If I need a debuff, she can do it. And if I need to get around some annoying dungeon obstacles, she can do part of it. Since I just learned the PP stealing spell, she's able to deal lots more damage in regular fights and helped me destroy an Earth Guardian just a few minutes ago.

My Barbarian only does one thing (crush skulls and stack Wounds) but she's so good at it that it's a good thing she's just a killbot.

My thief is obviously super valuable outside of combat, but in combat she's also really good. Another source of Wounds comes from her bows, and now that I've got like 150+ shuriken and keep getting more from all these thief random encounters, she makes bosses a joke if they can be bled.

Paladin provides the still-valuable Prayer of Protection thing that gives my whole party a good defense boost (especially combined with stacking wounds on enemies) and is a really good stunner with her flail. Once I max out her M&F skill and armor, I think I'm going to look into maxing Wounding Strike just so I can possibly double-dip, or add more wounds if something's immune to stun.

Then there's the Cleric, who does all the usual party healing stuff, and buffs, and spends his not-healing, not-buffing turns casting Divine Prayer to restore his PP.

Gaulen's actually pretty much last in my party, yet still really good just due to axes and stacking wounds. Since he and my Barbarian are on the sides of the front line, they generally soften up each side if we can't gang up on a single target.

PREVIOUSLY ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: KILLED TITAN

AND NOW



The temple of Kersket is Secret Door Central. "Aha!" you say. "Finally, a chance for the Perception stat to shine." Well, about that...



What Great Hall?
I'd tell you to keep your eyes peeled, but I'm literally the only one of us who can notice this stuff.
I could have leveled Perception, you know! I just decided to go with actually useful skills.
Hmm...



Look, there is a secret door over there!
Great work! How do we open it?
Uh... let me get back to you on that.

Perception does let you know when a secret door is nearby, but in this case, that's always. It's your own Perception stat -- you, the player -- that will be exercised here as you hunt for switches. Perception is still worth leveling just to see traps, although you can save obsessively like me to avoid running over those.



There are totally doors. Ignore this sign.



The outer hall forms a complete loop, but a vigilant player will notice that the sconce on this torch is red, which is your only indication that it's the switch to the door Gaulen found on the complete opposite side.



Oh hey, it's a second copy of the Nightmare that gave JBear nightmares. This one has a Lich pal that will summon things to make life more fun.



Reward not commensurate with challenge. This was an optional battle to boot, although we'd have to take the long way around, and the area has random encounters with moderately-challenging undead. (In this case, moderately-challenging means they won't kill anyone, but they'll take some time to beat.)



The next secret door is one of the only freebies in this temple. Can you spot the switch in this picture???



You did it!

Yul is the Lord of Stone now? Rock on!
Speaking of rocks, that bread has to be beyond stale.



Score. Elixir V is the second-best recovery item in the game, but we'll probably never see Potion of Recovery V (or whatever the name is -- it has the same effect but also cures some wounds and bleeding) in the wild. Stores have started stocking them, though, if we don't mind dropping 2k on a consumable. Arguably a better deal than training at this point.



Gee, Yul. You shouldn't have.



At this point, the path starts to splinter. We're headed off into a side area.

The little dimple-switch near Gaulen's head in this picture is hard to spot, but it's still pretty generous as far as this temple's concerned.



That's clearly untrue. Look at how cracked the walls are.
Look, there is a secret door over there!
Okay, Gaulen. We get the picture.



Although many of these switches are located near the door they open, that's increasingly not the case as we get deeper into the temple. Some backtracking is necessary later on.



Case in point: the lever opened the door on the far left. We'll need to head through there and come back for this one.



This place was probably gloomy before Yul got to it.



Some great stuff in this temple. Enchantments have a quality multiplier; a given chest generates loot at a certain quality level, so while we're getting top-tier equipment with other enchantments, Absolute Protection has one of the highest multipliers, and so we'll still only find it at Diamond level. It's a good ring nonetheless.



The temple starts getting dastardly at this point. The switch here is the candle at the bottom of the statue.



Oh, great. A switch puzzle.
No worries. We've got this. With six switches, there are only 63 possible combinations.

63 COMBINATIONS LATER

Hey, Cecil. I think you're doing a great job and all, but I think we should try pressing the little switch on the bottom right corner of the room now.
You have got to be kidding me.



If you look at the map, you'll notice that we've cleared almost all of the temple interior. If memory serves, we have to do some backtracking to open the way to the altar. See the dark spot in the left center?



When you're done with the temple, you should have no dark rectangles left. (And I just noticed I missed one. Whoops.)

He's totally ignoring you.



I'm not sure he's all there, frankly.



You know, we could probably have just purified the Well without him noticing. But no...
What, and miss out on all that exposition?



OW.

This is a good time to remember that we're doing a slight sequence break. We should have done Kersket's temple after Taliet's.



But even if we had, I don't think this guy would feel easier than the titans we've been steamrolling. Fortunately, while he's resistant to everything, he's immune to nothing, and that means I can sneak in a stun every now and then.



This herald has a full complement of unpleasant attacks. His standard mace attack hits three front-row characters (which we're used to by now) and inflicts around 200 damage and 25 bleed (which we're really not). He can also zap one character to remove about 80 HP and PP, which is merciful on, say, Edge, but it really does a number on Rosa. He can also summon high-level mummies, which I learned in this fight actually time out after forever, like your own summons do. They're big bags of HP and not worth attacking while the Herald lives.

I don't think the Herald does anything else, but I don't think it needs to.



Reward commensurate with challenge. Alas, Cecil didn't make it to the end, so his reward will be partial this time.



Ooh, mysteries! Alnaet is the Lord of Life, in the likely event that you've forgotten. He's responsible for creating humans, though Yul is responsible for their souls.

All right! Gaulen, purify the well!
I'm on it.



Anyway, the game does a good job of foreshadowing: it trickle-feeds enough information that a clever reader might figure out the later twists, but they'll still come as a surprise to most players. It's clear that there's more going on behind the curtains than we're privy to.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: RUBICANTE

OLOXPS COUNT: 18 (mushrooms, locks and traps, cereal plants, encounter clearing, herald of Golot, bard songs, Golot's blessing, mausoleum keys, the arena, minions before bosses, riddle imps, Odendro drops, DLC, well of souls, Cursed Hounds, treasure chests, demon drops, Xabraluz)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES:

• The Titans await: finally Velioronte, over the lake of fire.

This took me forever to find. Possibly longer than any other switch hunt in the game. :-/

Hmm... Has anyone made an "attack on titan" joke in this thread? I don't remember seeing one.