Let's play Lords of Xulima

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

AND NOW



I am nothing if not thorough (note: this is patently false), so we're back in the Temple of Kersket to clear out the last treasure. And what a treasure it is!



I also take this opportunity to level up (which is a manual process, as you may recall but probably do not by now), so I'd like to point out a few things here:

• It's time to start leveling Mend Bleeding again. Through most of the game, two ranks is plenty, but we've started running into enemies that bleed you like nobody's business, and we need the higher ranks now.
• Rosa has maxed out Divine Healing and Mass Regeneration, so it's onto Ray of the Gods next. It costs a crazy 5 points per rank (6 for the first rank), so she may not get very far before the game ends.
• Rosa got another level while I was putting off using this one. I wasn't 100% sure you could do that.

I wait until I can hit up a trainer before using Rosa's second level up. (The icon next to the portrait doesn't disappear until you're done with the process.) Ray of the Gods is disgustingly expensive, but if we run into any titans or heralds with way too much health but no real offensive presence, this baby's coming out to play.



Despite Ray's skill point cost, Rydia is still the recipient of every spare skill point we come across. I take this opportunity to put Veliacan to rank 30, maxing out that summon and snagging Inferno II. An actual Mage would have learned Inferno V a long time ago, but Veliacan at least boasts the ability to cast it twice, costing the Summoner less PP than the Mage would require. (Thanks to Energy Absorption, though, the Mage doesn't care.)

This is a good time for a sidebar on the two classes. Which is better: Mage or Divine Summoner?

To me, it's an easy win for Mage. Divine Summoner doesn't bring nearly as much to the table. Mage is able to use any type of damage, inflicting any of the basic status effects. Mage gets Energy Absorption, which allows it to use high-cost spells even in random battles without having to rest after each one. Finally, Mage doesn't rely on the questionable AI of the summons.

That said, Divine Summoner is not without its advantages. The Herald of Raznet makes Divine Summoner the only class with access to the sleep status (not that I've ever seen it land) and the only non-Gaulen class with access to poison (which is considerably more useful). Valvet and Taliet's heralds provide a semi-renewable source of flame and freezing, respectively, and the heralds across the board are an extra target and actor, leaving the Divine Summoner free to burn through any useful scrolls you might have. A player who was willing to purchase high-level scrolls could very conceivably get more mileage from Divine Summoner than Mage. To that end, it might be better not to pair Divine Summoner and Bard, since Bard also fills the item-slinger role.

Ultimately, the most disappointing aspect of the Divine Summoner is how much of the skillset you don't get to use. Keeping a Herald up-to-date requires such an incredible skill point investment that you can hardly support three of them, and you're probably better off focusing on two and pumping up the passive boosts. That's five or six heralds that never hit the field. I don't mind the skill point scarcity or the tough decision-making it entails, but I do really think that decision-making is front-loaded. You decide once which heralds you're using, and for the rest of the game, leveling the Divine Summoner is pretty rote.



Anyway, back to business. We're on our way to fight the last of the titans, but we have some unfinished business in Devonia still. These goons are here to make life difficult for us, and the game indicates that they're going to be very successful in that regard.



So... this might legitimately be the hardest fight in the game. In this attempt, I've managed to take out the center beefdemon, exposing the deadly spelldemon. The party is in bad shape, though. Check out Gaulen's 59 bleeds.



As much health as the beefdemons have, the caster demons really don't have that much less. It's kind of ridiculous.

This attempt went predictably poorly, and our crew decides that this probably isn't worth their time.



On the way to Velioronte, this happens.

"Easy"? Really?



Those sweet drops, though.



And then this happens. Scroll up to see how not-different this is from the battle I just gave up on. I was not enthused.

There are some key differences, though.



Notably, red beefdemons have a non-negligible chance to go down to Requiem. They're the least threatening foes in this set, but it's still huge.



Perhaps huger is that I decide to gun straight for the blue spelldemon. We aren't spoiled for options when it comes to damaging the back row: it's basically scrolls, shuriken, Ray of the Gods, and the odd attack from Edward or a summon (not pictured, because Rydia is also not pictured). Even so, shuriken alone can kill the spelldemon faster than Gaulen and Cecil can tag-team the blue meatdemon. Thieves: don't leave Rodinia without one.



I'm pretty sure I've shown this off already, but I mean. It's really good.



And it's at this point that I finally remember to use Kronante's soul. Bask, party members!



Cecil is one level away from learning Mass Divine Armor. It's worth considering, even now, largely because Cecil has nothing of importance competing for the skill points but also because it takes some pressure off of Rosa's limited PP. For parties that for some reason don't have a Cleric, this is a no-brainer. You probably won't be able to max it, though.



FUN LAVA FACTS: Lava is made of molten stone, so while it might be a liquid, it's still incredibly dense. A person would float on lava if lava weren't hot enough that even just coming near it is enough to crispy-fry you.

Our party has a magical artifact that prevents 99% of the crispy-fry effects of lava. How fortunate!

But, like. Imagine you're walking through a pool of chunky mud. It's thick enough that you aren't going to sink, but it's also thick enough that it's going to be really hard to go anywhere. You're going to have the same problem with the lava.

Lords of Xulima is a video game, is what I'm saying.



Flames!
Y'think?



It's not clear why Yul doesn't just claim our party's souls, which are rightfully his property. Maybe he doesn't get to do that? I dunno.

The titan's last sentence here makes it sound like the titans share a soul. I'm pretty sure it's just a typo.



Hold on! I really don't think you've thought this through!



This is Velioronte. He has some HP.

Inferno is one of Velioronte's more dangerous actions, dealing a nice chunk of fire damage as well as a small amount of flame. This attempt was a non-starter; Rydia died so quickly that I didn't even bother.



Par for the titan course, I had to get a shot of this attack. He'll only use it on Gaulen or Cecil, who take somewhere around 200 damage as well as heavy wounds.



Speaking of wounds, though, we get Velioronte into the usual titan pattern of doing very little between casts of Cure Wounds. The lack of stun immunity is a great help in keeping him pinned down.



Like some of the earlier titans, Velioronte also has a zappy attack that dispels the target. He can also spend a turn recovering a very large amount of PP, though I can't imagine why he would really need to, since his spells are no longer threatening once you have Elemental Protection on the party.



Titans dead, everyone happy.



And it's the last key! To the last temple!

Again, we skipped one of the temples, so we'll find out soon which temple the last boss is in.



Oh, he did, didn't he.

Yeah, it's not like the other titans were especially coy about this, but they were so gosh-darned happy that Yul gave them souls that they decided to defect.



And so the penultimate chapter comes to a close. The remaining chapter is The Divine Temples, which has been running since nearly the start of the game, because Lords of Xulima doesn't really get the concept of chapters.



I guess I didn't need to explain the titans plot. Gaulen is text-dumping it for you.



I'm not sure that's true, Gaulen. We didn't even begin to explore alternate avenues. We could have tried stealing the keys, picking the locks on the temple, climbing in through a window, breaking down a wall...
I -- why in Golot's name didn't you suggest any of that before we extincted the titans?
I was going to say something, but I thought it was pretty clear that you had it out for the titans. I mean, you didn't even bother talking to them much.
Am I the only one who thought we needed to kill the titans?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yep.



"I feel sadness for defeating him."
Sure, now you do.



And now, time for some fun with the flaming fountain. This is scenery fire: you can remove it all with End of Flames and have a perfectly normal fountain aside from the orange hue.



As for the rest of the lake of fire, make sure to explore it. The treasure quality on these chests is through the roof.



Not to mention the biggest cauldron collection in all of Xulima.



And with that, we're done with Vilak. Join us next time as we exact our revenge on that group of uberdemons or die trying.

We will definitely do one of those things. If we're lucky, we might just do both.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: LAVA-LY TO SEE YOU

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:

• Time to cleanse the two remaining temples.

I don't disagree that Mage is the better class, but I think you're giving Energy Absorption too much credit. You only get it very late in the game, and it doesn't work on anything that's undead or doesn't have PP, which is quite a lot of things.

Heh, I did this too.

Well, true, but for quite a lot of the game, Divine Summoner struggles to get more than two summons out of a full bar of PP. Before Energy Absorption, Mage spells will consume at roughly the same pace as your Cleric runs out of PP. Then, Cleric gets Divine Prayer and upsets that balance, but that's about 10 levels before Energy Absorption comes along and smooths things over.

Divine Summoner, on the other hand, is content not to contribute to 75% of non-boss encounters.

I haven't tried Divine Summoner, but my mage feels like the party MVP in my run so far (Gaulen, Paladin, Thief, Barbarian, Mage, Cleric). That or my Thief. Energy Absorption is great, even if I'm using a mod to make food way more trivial than it is normally (I just don't like the game's food clock, really) so resting is never an issue.

The really awesome thing with Energy Absorption is when you CAN use it against something, it ruins its day almost as much as standard offensive spellcasting would. 0 PP on an enemy caster = they are suddenly very easy EXP pinatas. Obviously that wouldn't work against stuff like these titans, but it made the Earth Guardian in those islands you can get to on the boat a lot simpler, for example.

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

AND NOW



Okay, I lied. There's still some stuff to do in Vilak. Dead south center, two more demon formations wait for us. The one on the left just lets us continue in that direction, and we've been there, so I'm not interested. This one, though? This one interests me.



Even at maximum trap skill, you don't approach automatic success on higher-end traps. Don't get me wrong: save/try/reload is still the way to go, but just be prepared to go through that a few times if needed.

The chest contained nothing of consequence, but the real treasure was the friends we made along the way anyway.



There are a few more formations to clean up here, and the battles are slow, but they drop stat boosters, so might as well. The experience is good anyway, despite these demons being a bit outclassed.

The lower, lefter formation blocks the way to Nabros, where we fought the first of the princes way back when. That it's still there tells you all you need to know about how vital that passage is, although I did take it to get some food and reach a portal.

Anyway, if you'll recall, our next order of business was to sequence-break, taking Valvet's temple instead of leaving it for last.



There it is, see?
Hold on. Isn't that--?
No. Nope. Nope nope nope nope



...nope nope nope nope
Well, I guess we do this.



The loading screen has some timely advice for our party. I honestly think this might be the hardest battle in the game.



And our party performs admirably, at least for a while. You really want to get rid of the casters as quickly as possible. For our band, that basically means shuriken. The red casters are fire-immune, and they have too much health for Veliacan to solo anyway. Outside of Veliacan and Edge, it's just Edward and any spare attack scrolls we have lying around. The shuriken are the only actually good source of damage out of that list.



Gaulen ends up falling. This would have been entirely preventable if I had bothered using more PP-recovery items on Rosa. Edward then hides behind Cecil. At that point, big blue beefdemon can only target Rosa, who spends most of her turns using Divine Prayer for HP/PP recovery anyway. The casters don't care even a little bit about our positioning, and they don't run out of PP. I should have used more shuriken, but I'm running low (around 15 at this point).



The real experience was the stat-boosting items we got along the way.



The demons guarded some decent stuff. Not this, although it could have randomly been a good skill book, but there are about six cauldrons in this area.

More importantly, they guarded Valvet's temple. Are you excited? I'm excited.



Aaaaand now I'm less excited.

For a game that lets you break all of the other sequences, I expected it to handle this one, too. I guess it's kind of understandable that they wanted an actual climax: last dungeon, last boss, and all.



OH WELL. The Temple of Taliet is in Karraga (a.k.a. the snowy area that doesn't slowly kill you), and we get asked a really stupid question when we enter it. There are very obvious teleporters here.

NOT PICTURED: The center of this chamber has this plaque on it. You can see another plaque just above the "r" in "Prayer." It tells us this is the first Hall, and it gives us the first Prayer. To get to the rest, we need to go through a teleporter maze of the "step on the teleporter and hope you go somewhere useful" variety. At least we can save/load at any time. You better believe I leaned on that to get through this temple.

I'm pretty sure this is meaningless, but here are the seven Prayers:

The First Hall: Whisper. Listen to the sweet voice of the Lady of Wind.
The Second Hall: Wind. Let the sacred wind free you of your bonds.
The Third Hall: Breath. Breathe deeply and take in the power that surrounds you.
The Fourth Hall: Destiny. Fly to the heavens with the Lady of Wind and look upon the destiny of mortals.
The Fifth Hall: Harmony. Achieve harmony with the air and the clouds; immerse yourself in the song of Taliet.
The Sixth Hall: Laughter. There is no laugh more beautiful than that of the Lady of Winds. Listen to the wind, and hear it in your soul.
The Seventh Hall: Perception. Let it be this that helps you continue your journey to the sweet breath of Taliet. Do not stop walking until you find your path.

This all seems like a leadup to some sort of puzzle, but only the last one is a clue as far as I can tell.



See, the seventh chamber is the one just below Gaulen here. You need to walk through the wall. I timed this screenshot poorly, because I accidentally got into a fight with the guy on the other side of the wall. Since I beat them, you can't see them, so just pretend that this is there:



Two summoners in one battle is everyone's idea of a good time.



The regular encounters here are underwhelming, but then we should have done this dungeon about three updates ago. A single summoner wouldn't have been a problem then, either, but it would have been more annoying. Because the game gives me the option, I'm absolutely letting these guys go.



The temple tells us to circle the entire world on a chocobo and come back.



The lightning dispensers make one last return. It's just the two of them, but you're pretty much guaranteed to get hit as you walk through this door for the first time. Smooth, Lords of Xulima. Real nice move.



On the far side of the ring is JBear's best friend. This is really just another "kill the enemy, unlock the magic gate" deal. After getting rid of this guy, you could backtrack clockwise through the ring to show Taliet who's boss, but it's faster just to complete the circle.



The Nightmare isn't tough at this point, but sticking him in front of a summoner is a special brand of fun.



That done, we can access the Herald.

"No greater gifts"? The Guardian has given us about 5 HP each. The Lords can already top that with the blessings they've permanently bestowed on us.



This drip of the slow plot trickle is a little past due, and it wouldn't have really told us much at the time, either. Oh well!



This edition of Yul's Herald is the most interesting. It doesn't hit hard, and it doesn't have impressive magic, but man, is it fast. Check out how badly we're outsped here.



But it also doesn't have much health (the Nightmare even had more!), so as long as you can keep up with damage, it's an easy fight. Mass Regeneration is an instant win button here.

We get 44,000 experience, which is nearly double what we got from the hardest battle in the game.



"In the highest tower" suggests a little more dimensionality to this temple than I would have guessed from the map.



Rydia's unquenchable thirst for skill points finally starts to abate now that Veliacan and Batman have both reached max rank. Our healing herald is just one rank behind. Future skill points will go towards increasing PP, both for the summons and Rydia.



Seven temples down, one to go. Join us next time for a very special Let's Play Lords of Xulima.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: THE END

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:

• Is Gaulen really a race traitor?

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

AND NOW



For all the leadup, the final dungeon of Lords of Xulima doesn't feel that final. Structurally, it's a lot like any of the other temples.



They even kept the wildly uneven difficulty! Don't worry: this is not indicative of the challenge here.



This is more like it. "Summoners behind vampires" is an encounter that will see a few permutations in this temple. (Let's agree to ignore the broken label text.)

I think I've made clear my feelings on summoners. The one nice thing about enemy summoners is that the summons do eventually time out -- but unlike Rydia, enemy summoners don't take their spawn with them when they go.

After clearing this fight, I put a toe in the lava and had to start over again. No, the Orb of Valvet doesn't do anything here. I wish Gaulen were a little more reluctant to jump into the stuff.



The random encounters in the temple are all variations on the same theme. I don't want anything to do with them. They take too long, and I'm plenty strong by now.



Of course, not all of my run attempts succeeded. This is what it looks like when you fail to escape an endgame encounter. It's definitely not out of the question for someone to die before anyone gets a turn.



Oh geez, the fireball statues again. This time, I bumped everyone's fire resistance as high as possible and mostly ignored the damage.



Our reward for clearing the gauntlet is a fight with a unique summoner (this is the only battle in the game where it shows up) standing in back of a JBear Special. Nightmares aren't so scary at this point, but the summoner can spew out area-appropriate enemies instead of the chaff that regular summoners spawn.

Now, as you can see by the circles, I could simply bypass this fight. Actually, this entire wing was optional -- not that I realized it at the time -- and the treasure chest guarded by this fight is the only real reason to be here.



As intimidating as this fight has the potential to be, the Lich King goes down to two shots of Ray of the Gods. That depletes Rosa's entire PP reserve, but it's worth it. The reward for this fight is a pathetic 12,500 experience.



Well, that and the treasure. Ulnalum gear doesn't show up outside of the final dungeon. The gauntlets also raise evasion, and I really wanted to stick both on Rosa, but they're too heavy. Oh well. I settled for just the shield.



Here, we run into a pair of Cursed Earth Guardians. We've encountered them singly before; the first time we saw one was all the way back in Febret's temple, when it was an impossible fight. This time around, it's anything but, and it wouldn't really be worth mentioning except for an odd feature of this battle. As with many major enemies, the Cursed Earth Guardians will cast Cure Wounds when you stack enough wounds on them, but they aren't smart about it, and they'll often target the wrong Guardian with the spell.

They're guarding a chest that has a [url=http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/262717915353652181/1FA03250F924B9C28A6F3C98293FDEC192564865/]Midrinium Igneous Protection Plate Armor[/img], which goes straight on Cecil.



The final pair of Yul statues is here. We get 2 HP from each of them. If you got every statue in the game, you'll get an achievement at this point. I already have the achievement, so I can't guarantee I got every statue, but it seems likely that if I got it the first time around, I did it this time, too. With that in mind, how's the balance between praying and destroying the statues?

Ehh. I don't think the choice is going to sway the game. At this point, the experience from breaking the statues might equate to a single extra level for the party. We got more HP/PP from praying than we would have from gaining an extra level, but the extra level is four more skill points. It does seem like breaking them is a bit better, but experience comes at you fast and loose in the endgame.



Oh, and I finally remember at this point that I still have Rubicante's soul sitting in my backpack. +6 to everything is real nice.



I'm all out of scrolls of Extinguish Flames, but with nearly maximum fire resistance on everyone, I can just walk through this area. These chests mostly just have gold, and I'm not leaving to buy anything, but the skeletons in the middle of the room have some high-level loot, too.



Let's talk about the temple for a bit now that we've cleared out nearly all of it. The layout of the central region is a sort of teleporter maze. When you step on the teleporters, they'll send you a short distance in the direction you were facing. You can hop from one island to the next this way. It's not terribly hard to navigate, but it's an interesting way to get around.

Right in the middle of all of this is a chest tauntingly labeled "The Impossible Treasure." Sure enough, the teleporters are laid out such that you can't hop onto that island. How do you get The Impossible Treasure?



In the top right corner of the main chamber is a secret door. While the cauldrons provide a reason to head up in that direction, you aren't guaranteed to notice the secret door in a single pass even at maximum Perception. To make matters worse, the switch for the door isn't exactly right next to it: it's a skull just off the bottom of the screen. Opening the secret door reveals a teleporter that takes you directly to the chest.



The contents of the chest are no better than any other chest in this dungeon, which is to say they're still top-tier. I'm not drooling over the helmet, but I have Edward still wearing an experience-boosting amulet, and this is an easy switch.

After this, the only thing between us and the last boss is a pair of easily-dispatched Nightmares.



One dog and his five friends, you mean!



He really doesn't like you, Gaulen.
He has some legitimate grievances.



This was your idea, Gaulen.
It was Golot's, if that helps.
It really doesn't.

Yul's Final Herald (hereafter Spider Pope) has an array of spells that befits a last boss. Because magic damage doesn't scale with level, though, these spells are just as effective as when your Mage casts them. Spider Pope's real threat mostly comes from its physical attacks, which can hit a column or three adjacent heroes to stun, bleed, or poison.



Spider Pope has a silly amount of health. At that point, it could be twice as much without seriously affecting how this battle goes down, because most of that 10k will be dealt via bleeding. Edge has 15 shuriken left, and Spider Pope is going to eat all of those by the end of this battle. (Well, it's going to block a few of them, but you get the point.)



To my disappointment, Spider Pope is not undead, demonic, or demigodly, so Rosa's light of destruction deals regular damage. I mean, it's still the most powerful attack our party can bring to bear, but at 160 PP a shot, it's not something she can bust out on the regular. The best magic potion restores 200 PP, and you can't use potions on other party members.



This is how Spider Pope looks at half health. In real-time terms, this is well over half the battle. We stack up poison/bleed and the rest takes care of itself. Like any late boss, Spider Pope casts Cure Wounds when they start to stack up, and like any single-target enemy, wounds are still really effective. Any turn spent healing those wounds is not spent attacking the party.



And so, Spider Pope goes down. Losing 500 health a turn will do that to you.



The last battle of the game gives enough experience for everyone to level up twice. Because the game isn't automatically over, this could be nice: if you were planning on doing a full clear, it's a handy boost, maybe a concession to how much optimal Lords of Xulima play sucks. For most players, though, it's just an amusingly large number.



Gaulen has no idea what just happened. It's cool, Gaulen. You'll get a nice, fat plot dump in just a minute here.



Using Nalaet's Tear on this well triggers the ending. If you had any unfinished business in Xulima, you can take care of it and return at your leisure.



Gaulen still has no idea what happened. He breaks into narration at this point.



GAULEN, the Explorer
Level 56

For a character that's forced on you, they went out of their way to make Gaulen useful. You can build him to fill any role aside from mage or healer. Since we were lucky enough to have both a Bard and a Thief, Gaulen only picked up Perception, leaving him with free skill points to devote to becoming a front-line fighter. It takes a little time, but Gaulen eventually thrives in the front line. He was the team's best direct damage dealer.

No longer able to tolerate the suffocating atmosphere, I left the temple. My sacred mission was at last complete, but nothing was happening. It had been some time since Golot had last spoken to me in my dreams. What was going on? I made my way to the highlands of Nagira, and from there I watched the skies, hoping to receive some sign from the Lords of Xulima.



When at last I was able to open my eyes, I could see them in the distance...



I was summoned to stand before them, in the highest tower of the palace of Alnaet, the Lord of Light and Life. And I, a simple mortal, marveled to behold the all-powerful Xulnari. As they, in turn, observed me, Golot began to speak...

He now lies imprisoned in the Twilight of Numbria. Receive now the gifts of the Xulnari, and by our glory, you shall be immortal. But your destiny is tied to Xulima, and your place is here with us. Rest now, my herald, while we liberate Rodinia from its ruin. You are free to go where you wish, but you must not journey to the Twilight of Numbria, where the vile Yul will pay for his acts for all eternity.

At last I was able to rest, comforted that I no longer needed to worry about the fate of Rodinia. For a time, I lived side by side with those powerful Lords, and in their glory, my own strength increased, until I had obtained the power of a Demigod. Then, my heart slowly began to burn with a building desire for vengeance. I longed to face the Guardian of Souls, though it was the one thing the Xulnari had prohibited. And so I went to Numbria, to Yul's palace, the Twilight. And there, in its darkest depths, I found the great enemy of the world, chained and humiliated.



CECIL, the Paladin
Level 54

Paladin combines the features of Soldier and Cleric, and it ends up not as good as either. It's not functional as a healer except at the very start of the game, and its skills all cost more than they do for Soldier or Cleric. For our team in particular, Cecil's role would have been better filled by a Soldier. The two major advantages of the Paladin are its much larger PP pool and access to Divine Prayer, letting Cecil use Stunning Strike almost every turn. In general, though, I'd recommend taking a Soldier and buying a few magic potions to make up the difference.

Traitor to Brothers! Executioner of Humanity!

How dare you!

Open your eyes, Dog of the Gods! The end of your race is spelled out in the New Order that the Lords you love so much have established in the world! Only one of the Xulnari fought against the New Order... I, the Guardian of Souls! He who entrusted a soul to each one of you. I made you, more than any of the other Creators.

You lie! The Lords will restore Rodinia, and mankind will be free of your darkness.

It will be restored for their new children, those who now lie sleeping beneath the Gardens of Nameria. They will be the new inheritors of the Earth.

Do you expect me to believe this? May you rot for all eternity here in your palace of the dead!

HAHAHA! I dare you to visit the Garden below Alnaet's palace. There, gaze upon their new children... Namerians, they are called... the Lords are so proud of them, their greatest work... so wise and beautiful, their faces glow with the very light of Alnaet.

I left the Twilight, but his words echoed in my mind. Could it be true? I had to see with my own eyes.



ROSA, the Cleric
Level 54

Technically, you don't need a Cleric. You could get by with potions, scrolls, and resting between battles. You really do want one, though. Sticking Rosa in the front left turned out to be a great decision: the extreme sides of your formation aren't open to many attacks, and the left position is generally safer than the right due to how enemy formations tend to be balanced. Because Rosa used Divine Prayer every turn she wasn't casting a spell, she had plenty of survival power. Front row Cleric is a great choice if you need to save space on the back row.

I went to the Garden. There, the Heralds of Alnaet attempted to bar entrance. Fearing nothing, I confronted them and they fell before my wrath. I entered the Garden and...



They were tall and beautiful, their faces full of wisdom and light. They looked like us, but with finer features. Who were they? As if he had heard my thoughts, Golot manifested before me:

We have created many races since the birth of the world. And we chose yours to inherit Rodinia. It was entrusted to you for many years, but in the end... you failed. Too easily can mankind be blinded by ambition, too capable are they of the most terrible acts. You plunged the world into war... killing each other for land, for gold, and for simple hate... It was Yul who gave humans the free will that damned you. The Namerians are the ultimate creations of the Xulnari, the final inheritors of the world. As soon as we have liberated Rodinia from the human plague, they will be awoken, and a new era of light and wisdom will begin.

I wanted to die that very moment. Yul was right: I was a traitor to my brothers. I had condemned humanity. But maybe there was still a way I could help the people of Rodinia. I needed to warn them about what was happening. The great war must be brought to an end, and the people must unite against them. I escaped from the Garden and returned to Velegarn. Once more I took command of my ship, Velemor, and set sail. I managed to make it through the treacherous currents and leave Xulima behind. But then the sky darkened, and the waves grew and swelled above the masts. I knew this was the work of Nalaet, the Lady of the Oceans. I would not be allowed to escape from Xulima.



EDGE, the Thief
Level 55

Edge was MVP in too many battles to count, but especially against Spider Pope. As the only member of our party with access to bleeding, he alone stacked up 350 bleed damage in that fight. Some people will suggest taking a Bard instead of a Thief, but those people are not your friends. In another party, we could have built Edge as a back-row archer or even as a shuriken-only fighter who doesn't contribute in less serious battles. Front-row Thief is a great Thief, though, as long as he's not taking the brunt of the damage.



(Immortal he may be, and Demigod he may be, but Gaulen still fears drowning.)

However, this did not mean she would let me continue on my journey...



I carried on, alive, yes, but condemned to wander the oceans, never reaching my destination, knowing that my people on Rodinia would suffer the wrath of the Xulnari. But I will try again and again, with all my will. I will not stop until I reach Rodinia... and I swear... I SHALL FREE THE WORLD FROM THE LORDS OF XULIMA!



RYDIA, the Divine Summoner
Level 54

I invested a lot into Rydia, and what I got was decent but not fantastic. Really, the only change Divine Summoner needs to make it a solid class is to reduce the skill point cost of all of the Heralds. This page alone shows the allocation of 268 skill points, and Rydia naturally generated 212 skill points by leveling. Cutting the cost of the heralds would have allowed Rydia to invest in two more Heralds, allowing her to really pick the right Herald for the situation. Alternatively, it could have just let me use those skill points on someone else.



Aw, shucks! Thank you for making this game.



EDWARD, the Bard
Level 55

Edward was in a weird spot for pretty much the entire game. For the first 30 levels, he didn't contribute much, and for the rest of the game... well, he contributed situationally. I ended up moving him towards a somewhat more physical build at the end, letting him serve as backup damage. It's not a role he thrived in, and his two big songs (Requiem and Victory) didn't exactly steal the show. Requiem has a very narrow window where it's useful: you learn it late, and not long after, everything starts resisting it hard. Song of Victory, meanwhile, contributed almost imperceptibly. Or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention.




I would have liked to see the game thus far chopped in half and the fight against the Lords in the second half, but I can understand why they did things this way: it doesn't make sense for you to have the Lords' blessing or a Divine Summoner fighting against them.

Thanks for reading along, and special thanks to those of you who played along. It's been fun. Here's hoping for a sequel.

Fuggin' elves, always ruining everything.

My score was 8600, and my rank was Lich. Get on my level, scrub.

Thanks for the LP! It was a really fun read. I too am looking forward to a sequel, and they're currently soliciting feedback to help inform its design.

clearly you guys need to submit all the OLOXPS bullet points to that as Things To Avoid

Great job on the LP, Mogri!

I think a full clear of the last dungeon would have done exactly that, but heck if I'm willing to put in that kind of effort. I hate liches in this game anyway.

Going for max rank is its own special OLOXPS. I don't know what variables influence it beyond difficulty (and if you really want to get a top score, you need to do hardcore ironman, so ha ha good luck), but you can bet that whatever they are, optimizing for them sucks.

Hooray Mogri! Great job on the LP! I doubt I'll ever play the game but I enjoyed reading about it nonetheless.

Thanks for the LP! I still need to finish my run on a lower difficulty, but I can't help but feel like all the little things you run into, and how you approach fights, is way more difficult than what I face, purely from party composition.

Oh, for sure. It's nice that the game has mod support now. If I had to go back in time and redo this LP, I'd make a few balancing changes.

I'm not sure I see myself running through the game a third time, but if I do, then it will be with a very different team. Ditch Bard, Paladin, and Summoner; add Mage, Soldier, and Barbarian. Mage is less useful in most fights, but where it shines, it really shines. Then again, you can reproduce the entirety of a Mage's utility with scrolls -- so jury's still out on that, really.

Remind me, what's your team?

Did you even use scrolls in battle all that often in this LPthrough?

Mine is Barbarian, Paladin, Mage, Cleric, Thief. Aside from throwing shuriken, my Thief uses bows and my party's mostly about stacking wounds.

Mage kinda varied between amazing and crappy until I got that energy draining spell, and started fighting demons with enough PP that my mage can just refill in 2-3 rounds. Really versatile, though, because she can damage and support either wounds-stacking, stunning, or add on more damage from burning.

Paladin I'm not really down on at all: She's front and center and that armor aura from like, her first level, continues to be really powerful where I am now (Vilak).

Barbarian's been simple but devastating, because she hits hard and stacks tons of wounds with her axe, and has high defenses to go with her powerful melee.

Thief is the usual MVP, with all the useful thief skills, and I made her a back row fighter with bows to keep stacking wounds when I don't need to throw shuriken at stuff.

Cleric's simple enough. Mostly he cures my bleeds/wounds/etc. and doesn't do that much healing, though I did still max out his party heal spell and keep learning new single target healing spells as they become available.

In tougher fights, I had Rydia and Edward use them when they had nothing else to do (which was often). In a more optimized team, you have less downtime, so there's that to be said for the lower-tier classes. There are enough scrolls just lying around to supply these guys if they use them sparingly, although you don't exactly get your pick.

Scrolls are also the best way to heal another character if you're not a healer yourself. Scrolls for stopping bleeding are particularly nice.

Interesting and informative. Thanks, Mogri!