Tentative occult connection between "Blood" and "Cultist Simulator"

(this is a long and rambling article of no interest to anybody but myself).

I grew up with early FPS games – "Doom" and "Heretic" most prominently, but also later "Hexen I" and "Hexen II", "Blood", "Quake", "Duke Nukem", "Shadow Warrior" and a few others, and while I don't remember if I ever played "Chasm" or "Redneck Rampage" it is possible I did as well (I certainly didn't play "Rise of Triad" or "Unreal", though). I rarely reference these games as TTRPGs inspirations because these games are almost entirely about the joy of combat – there is little to none of "Planescape The Torment" role-playing complexity, "World of Darkness: Redemption" worldbuilding, or even suspenseful atmosphere of "Thief". Slower shooters such as "Clive Barker's Undying", and, arguably, "Half- Life 2" came to me much later to build upon that earlier, simpler foundation.

I will always maintain (until proven otherwise) that TTRPG cannot fully compete with video games in combat fluidity. Even if combat procedures are usually the biggest part of the rules manual in most of  TTRPGs, they cannot compare or compete to action-oriented games such as abovementioned FPSs or something like "Devil May Cry". Some TTRPGs employ additional mechanics to emulate the flow of moving/shooting/slashing of video games (to a various degrees of success, or, more often, un-success) but not only computer can calculate an immeasurable amount of data much faster, the decision-per-minute ratios for the player are incredibly bigger in video games comparatively to table-top RPG rounds. Add to it real-time feedback from their actions through real-time controls, environmental awareness which is almost never possible to convey in words, visuals and music enhancing the action, and reliance on player's actual skills instead of interacting with the world largely through the shell of their character and their stats, and it doesn't seem to be applicable to connect those FPS games with table-top RPGs which get their strength from other sources. 

These FPS games do have incredible vistas and often a good atmosphere, but to me it is a different kind of appreciation when you run past by these vistas at approximately 70 km/h instead of carefully moving from a cupboard to a cupboard as in "Thief". These early FPS in particular are mostly unsophisticated in premise – you are a guy (very occasionally a gal), you have lotsa guns/magic guns, you run as fast as a car and there are alien/demons/alien demons/robots/demon-aliens-robots invasion to deal with, so here you go, to un-invade the world.

Yet, the game manual for "Heretic II" ("Journal of Siernan") was, from a certain perspective, the first setting book I actually owned, way before I ever heard of "World of Darkness" or "Planescape". "Dragon Warriors: The Ways of Wizardry" was my first official rulebook but it didn't have much about the setting, being part 2 of the series and mostly conveying the world through two adventures – while "Heretic II" manual spoke, even if briefly, about Ssithra, and Ogles, and Seraphs even before it explained what key shoots which magical gun.

What it is all about?

 

"Team up" by Ardat Lilitu

So I have this weird project of sort: the idea that all these early FPS games* happen to be in the same universe. The setting is nicknamed 'Caleb is lazy', the premise is mostly just "Blood 2: The Chosen", where it goes a little like that:
(*) the ones I've played and liked

~1871: Tchernobog, dark god, 'The Dreaming One', 'The One that Binds', sixteenth of that title, gets a brilliant idea on how to get ultimate power by betraying and murdering his Chosen, and then burying alive one of them (namely, Caleb) to set him on a path of revenge and then kill him as an ultimate sacrifice to Himself once Caleb accumulates enough on said power on a path of said revenge.
(in a weirdest sense it is similar to "Dark Souls" metaphysics: Caleb is a Chosen Undead accumulating souls of those he kills for power, and Tchernobog is god-sort-of-like-inverse-Gwyn hoping to defeat and eat him at Hall of the Epiphany playing the role of the Kiln of the First Flame.)

~ 1928 to about 1940s: Caleb wakes up, gets revenge on Tchernobog and inherits his place as The One that Binds, seventeenth to carry this title and powers.

~ next hundred years or so: Caleb, being lazy and/or ignorant, does nothing to actually bind any kind of anything. 

Tchernobog was many things: a dark god, a power-obsessed psychopath, a really, really bad boss – but to his benefit there was one thing he did really well and responsibly, and it was to Bind, i.e. to repair inter-dimensional barriers that separate the worlds from each other. Caleb, being lazy, did nothing of that and – slowly at first, and faster and faster as the time went by – the barriers between dimensions, initially well-maintained by Tchernobog, started to unravel.
(As a side effect it explains why SCPs started to ramp up in frequency since after 1960s)

So many of these early FPS deal with strange invasions, often literally from other planes or dimensions: Demons of Hell in "Doom", Serpent Riders in "Heretic/Hexen", Eldritch Abominations and then Strogg in "Quake", aliens in "Duke Nukem", evil witch Illwhyrin in "Witchhaven" and so on; even if it isn't directly demons, it is somebody who summons demons like Zilla in "Shadow Warrior" to pretty much the same effect. Heretic/Hexen are happening in fantasyland, unlike modern or futuristic, but it is also possible that this is just the way these words developed and their Serpent Rider invasions happen when it is 2020s on Earth.

So why not to make it official and blame it on a that one gunslinger who – canonically – was very bad at his divine job of making sure that this won't happen?

Hence, 'Caleb is lazy.' 

Now about the tentative occult connection part

"Blood" was always a little distinct to me from other shooters of the age. Not only the protagonist was definitely un-heroic and just barely more human than evils he fought against, not only it didn't have An Invasion (rather, Caleb was confronting Tchernobog on his own) but another thing that was always a bit odd to me about "Blood" was its keys. Instead of red-blue-green keycards, gold-sapphire-emerald seals or somewhat logical castle-swamp-cave keys, "Blood" has Skull, Fire, Eye, Moon, Dagger and Spider keys, and this sequence was strange, just a little too odd as a combination of symbols.

So when I started to think about Key powers for the abovementioned 'Caleb is Lazy' setting (trying to create a kind of powers to counterbalance slower but more powerful Runes and faster but weaker Casts) I happened upon the description of Mansus from "Cultist Simulator" (which is, otherwise, as far a game removed from FPS as it can be without being a pure dating sim). Mansus mentions Doors that the occultists needs to pass on their way to immortality and/or ascension, and these Doors can be tangentially correlated to the keys in "Blood":

White door, called Bone Door and the Gate of Ivory: Skull key, human ivory. 

Peacock's Door: Eye key, as peacock carriers eyes on its tail.

Spider Door: Spider key, obviously.

Tricuspid Gate, is tricky but as it might be shifting between Summit Gate, Savage Door and Kingskin Gate depending on who and how tries to open it, it therefore might be opened with Moon key (as related to House of Moon near Summit Gate), Fire key (as related to the Forge related to Savage Door) and Dagger key (in a role of Flaying key) respectively.

Stag Door (Horn Gate, obviously as reference to Gates of  Horn and Ivory) is a bit more difficult to connect mostly because in this correlation we already run out of keys from Blood (even if "Hexen 2" does have Horn Key), but it might be again Skull key, just used in a some different way.

What is the most intriguing in continued parallels is that 1) "Blood" starts in about 1928, while Caleb travels  through quite a few places, and "Cultist Simulator" also takes place in 1920s all over the world, with both intersecting in Paris 2) Using these keys Caleb, technically, ascends to a status of god, just as occultists in "Cultist Simulator" aim to and 3) In the game most of Caleb's opponents are esoteric cult called Cabal, and even if Caleb doesn't use Secret Histories or forbidden knowledge or Desires to fight them (but dynamite and guns) it is still – very tentatively defined – occult war.

 

Genuinely, it is a bit like this meme; picture from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Initially I thought maybe a unnamed Monolith developer and writer for "Cultist Simulator" went to the same source – some kind of poem or time-obscured knowledge – but it doesn't seem to be a case, but merely a strange coincidence.

The game of Snake

Snake is all about accepting a self-imposed challenge. Once a tiny snake starts going, nothing in the game forces the player to direct it to pick up fruits, and thus grow, and thus become more and more difficult to handle to pick up more fruit. There is no game taking control away from the player in order to get fruits or any timed losing condition as in Alien Invaders / Tetris / Arcanoid where constantly moving rows of invaders, or tetraminos, or bouncy ball cause "Game Over" if one touches your ship or cross a certain line of the screen. Going in pointless circles (or remaining motionless) in such games is not an option while, theoretically at least, the snake can go in small pointless circles in hours without ever growing if the player wishes it to be so – the only growth might happen from unintentionally nabbing a fruit when game randomly spawns it too close, and with slight attention to the screen even this can be avoided.

But because 1) going in circles is boring to the player and 2) the only counter in game is a number of fruits the snake eats, not the time it exists, the default sense of progress would only be obvious from getting more fruit, thus making the game more and more difficult until snake reaches the ultimate length and fills the screen with only its own self. 

Snake is becoming the totality of its universe; from youtube video

Remarkable thing in Snake is how clearly the difficulty scales. Within the game itself there is no difficulty slider, and neither the game secretly adjusts things the screen after X many victories or failures; there are no helpful pickups giving special powers. Get one fruit = grow one square longer = have one less space to maneuver with. Each scored point immediately moves difficulty a single step up from 2 to [however big the box X times Y resolution is], with gameplay gradually changing with each new fruit from free-roaming within the box and avoiding its edges to almost a rhythm game of turns and twists which have to be timed just right in order not to intersect snake's own body. One interesting thing is how with growing length snake's body also inherits more and more of the history of its own movement through the world, as its shape becomes more and more defined by where it picked up the earlier fruits. From a certain perspective, latter-game snake navigates the world of its own past successes which now became hurdles; abstractly it might be defined as navigating the world of its own memory and having limited opportunities to make a new one.

As the snake's body grows player also has less and less choice from which direction to approach the new fruit, thus making the skill of ever-vanishing free space more and more important. As the game progresses the space where the fruit might spawn becomes more and more confined – to a single line in later game, right on snake's path, thus making the growth unavoidable; from a certain length there is no longer an option to stall and endlessly go in circles, only to keep growing bigger or fail.

It can be said that snake's world keeps on moving but the space to experience it, to make new twists and turns, becomes less and less – a sort of liquid petrification state until the last fruit is eaten, and the game, and snake's existence both end. 

The snake is like Ouroboros, but, unlike Ouroboros it dies when it finally encircles the world;
from Clipart Library

Yet, it is completely up to the player's skill how to deal with those increasingly difficult circumstances, how to keep navigating the world. There are no impeding debuffs or helping tools to give a temporary respite, and the difficulty keeps consistently ramping up unless intentionally stalled. Players who achieve high results seem to have good reflexes but also a kind of strategy on how to maneuver snake – while there is still space – so its growth and unwieldiness doesn't hinder them too much later, up ignoring some fruits in order to create a better 'body history' trail for future. 

The game ultimately ends where the world of snake becomes the snake, but in no way this ultimate victory is a special moment. (at least in classic old Snake) There is no winning screen, no bursts of fireworks – simply a score, different from any other score by only a bigger number. With current technology there can be external motivation in showing off the ultimate success as a recording and there are probably game variations with leaderboards and such, but when the game was first made, all motivation to win must have been player's own, to see how far they can go. Another interesting thing is that ultimate high score has very little variety: as the snake has limited area to fill, the difference in high score can only be made in earlier stages of the game, but because snake grows so fast, the necessity to navigate its own 'body history' comes rather sooner, and the high score won't be so drastically different as in, say, 'Tetris' or 'Pac-man' where new stages will come as long as player'll keep on managing them. Snake sort of sets the ceiling to its own difficulty, and the victory of the game is simply reaching this ceiling. 

What I am finding interesting that this kind of dynamic (with constantly ramping difficulty directly tied to player's skill in succeeding) is not repeated, to my knowledge, beyond similar Snake-like games. 'God Hand' and a few other games have adaptive difficulty, but this isn't the same, as in those games the difficulty goes up and down with victory and defeat, while in Snake difficulty at best can be stalled but never regressed. It would be interesting to see a more complex game with this kind of design principles.

Pathfinding games

This is the term I am going to use for a narrow band of games just above walking simulators and just below platformers and proper metroivanias.
– first person 3D game (third person 3D games often are straight platformers);
– navigating the environment is the main gameplay but the navigation doesn't rely on skill too much, and more on perception on where the goal is and how to get there;
– navigation of environment is usually made more interesting than just walking; often some additional modes of movement could be unlocked later in a game, even if this is something as simple as ability to run;
– great vista and generally a good sense of discovery;
– often some environmental storytelling or a story told on a way;
– often non-linear environments, parts of which could be unlocked later in game, similar to metroidvania;
– light puzzles are possible;
– combat is possible but is simplistic and unrefined, and most often monsters (if any) are avoided until later part of the game when the game sometimes gives a player character some means to deal with dangers more directly;
– generally more relaxing than a platformer would be but more engaging than straight walking simulator would be and not as complex as metroidvania;

So 'Dear Esther' or 'Everyone's gone to the Rapture' are not pathfinder games because the movement itself doesn't change and environments are pretty linear, but Infernium (minus monsters) is, as you progress to get better Dash and get into new areas with some choice as to where to go.

I count only a handful of pathfinder games:
– NaissainceE (despite having no story);
– Infernium (turn all monsters off – believe me, it is better this way);
– Valley (has most combat of all of them)
– The Wild Eternal (I recall thinking 'this is what walking simulators should be' at some point)

Naissance

Naissance (stylized as "NaissanceE") is a free game on Steam. It isn't long – if you know what you doing it is about two-three hours, if you bumble around like me it is about five.

It is the game about making way through magnificent and strange environments by the means of pathfinding, first-person platforming, some light-based puzzles and occasional running. I'd say it is a walking simulator in sense that you walk around and enjoy the view, but even if it is, it is how such games should be done, in my opinion; 'Infernium' and 'The Wild Eternal' are similarly well-done 'walking simulators' about which I hope to write one day.

If you ever wanted to know how it is to be lost within "Blame!" or generation shaceship, play it just for that. Despite the few problems mentioned below, it gives a wonderful sense of alienness and discovery – I would go as far as recommend not to look at store page official streenshots. The game  also isn't afraid to create an overwhelming sense of scale – there are games with large levels, but they don't often feel that large.

I want to show all of my screenshots, but this is a game I don't wish to spoil

As for the gameplay, the game has a breathing mechanic where you can run for a very long time if you keep clicking for air intake at certain rhythm, and running for a very long time is very useful in this game. Breathing isn't too engaging, but it is better than to just press 'Shift'. Everything else you activate by stepping on or bumping in with your invisible body and 'Use' button does nothing.

More teasers

The game does have some frustrating moments and I think it is better to be aware of them and accept them before playing, otherwise the frustration might prevent you from seeing nice things later. These things prevent me from recommending the game enthusiastically, but I still think the game is very worth to go through.

• despite being a game from 2014 featuring very few textures and mostly uncomplicated objects the game doesn't render 100% smoothly even with best graphic options. I didn't try VSync and this might help, but even as it is the rendering defects are only noticeable and detracts in smaller, more enclosed areas, which is minority for this game;


• turn off mouse smoothing, it is on by default; 


• navigation from bodyless first-person perspective doesn't lend itself well to platforming even if controls are butter-smooth and here the controls, while pretty good, aren't butter-smooth. Thankfully, in most frustrating sections there are better checkpoints, so if you fall to death on certain lightning wind path, you won't have to repeat the whole section from the beginning;


• game occasionally breaks its own expectations beyond anomaly areas. There are invisible walls in a couple of places that otherwise look reachable; and on certain lightning wind path a previously safe falling distance is a 100% kill.


• 'Into the madness' section has two rooms (black and white) which are very disorienting and 'seizuring'. I don't have strobe sensitivity and the section is, mercifully, just one room, so it didn't give me a headache, but if I am to give a first place to the most frustrating segment, it beats lightning wind path. I am not sure if both of them leads to progression but I only went through the black door (into white room) and it worked well enough without a need to go through white door;


• when you come to two light-locked paths near the beginning of the game, do the right one first; it bugged on me and the corridor didn't appear until I quit and reloaded the checkpoint and thus reversed my progress in left path;


• platforming might get frustrating in the second half, but again, the sections are quite brief and checkpoints are usually good; 


• you can fall from certain heights and don't die, the redness goes away after a time; 


• leave breathing indicator on: yes, you can have full immersion, and turn it off, and only maintain breathing by the sound, but some sections are so dark that my monitor wanted to turn off and white reticle prevented that;


• if you keep on being winded to death in certain parts, just keep on running in one take, don't stop for breath or cover until you are on firm ground;


• fall into chasms at least once in every section; it will be a death, but the view is worth it; on an interesting immersion note, the bloody death screen doesn't go away until you click breathing button, literally taking the your last breath;


• go around as much as you can, because there are some interesting things hidden here and there; especially explore a certain sandy and seemingly blank place near the end;


• there is a way out of staircase trap, don't reload the game;


• at one moment you will be going a definitely wrong way; don't continue by that path however big the temptation is and it will save you some frustration;


• I will give spoilers for the ending and I will highly recommend going in blind, because the thoughts in my ignorant head as I was playing were much better than the thoughts in my knowledgeable head after the game ended. Really, stop reading and go play it for the process. You can check the spoiler once you see words 'Meet the Host'. Otherwise:
  Just like 'Antichamber', this game has no story (or it is way too much subtle) and there is no ending – the game just loops to the title screen with the words 'The beginning'. Given that 'naissance' is French word for birth, it might mean something but it still was a huge letdown. It is never explained who Lucy is, where she came from, what is going on, not even in Dark Souls-vague way. Hence, if you don't like chase bosses, just fall in Eternal Dive and see the last chase on youtube.

On procedural generation in videogames.

Thinking about Shadow Warrior 2 made me recall about how I interacted with its procedurally-generated terrains, and this, in turn, made me think I don't like procedural terrain generation all this much.

It has its uses: if the place is supposed to be in chaotic, confusing, impermanent state (like a dreamland, entrails of a beast, faceless unmapped mass of jungle or islands drifting in a void) it is easier to accept the quirks of procedural generation. It is good in strategies, when the terrain is randomized for each play. In character driven games (RPGs, platformers, shooters) it can provide more of surprise challenge in combat, where people have to think more on their feet than preplan the encounter. Arguably (see below) it makes multiple runs through the same area less monotonous.

Procedural generation is ok in tabletops as live DM can and will always enhance the experience of even the most random layout (such as Gardens of Ynn or Veins of the Earth) and it provides more of a canvas than a finished experience (also you don't mean to run through the same place that many times), but in videogames there is no DM, and the flaws become glaring.

Procedural generation eliminates the sense of genuine discovery: if everything is impermanent, nothing is important. There is no need to get familiar with the lay of the land, to learn its quirks - only the mastery over its smaller building blocks has benefit. The procedural place exists without history to it, without precise time-terrain imprint that might made it more than a sum of its parts. Without designer's specific intent the land has nothing to say about itself.

There is also no genuine surprise or secret to such places either, as even hidden chambers and significant landmarks are drawn from a limited pool and placed by the same algorithms that control anything else, remixed in the same way the wall tiles are. Even the moments of beauty which could be created by such procedures are diminished to me, as I know that those scenes are not specifically created to evoke this particular sense of wonder, but are just a random combination of numbers.

The unpredictability of procedural terrain wears off pretty quickly. Human perception has a good sense of pattern, and even without the knowledge of precise algorithm after a number of runs (smaller or bigger, depending on a quality of procedures) we start to distinguish the building blocks and get the general sense of procedures. And because the video games with procedural generation are so often designed for a multiple run-throughs (rogue-lites/-likes and not-Diablos especially), the monotony sets in sooner or later, negating one of few advantages the procedural generation initially has.

Procedural generation of a land can also be exploited. Bloodborne chalice dungeons have seeds that could be shared for easy farming of this or that resource. Even without a seed, if a layout is not to player's satisfaction, it usually could be easily 're-rolled' until more benevolent one is given, and all challenge of difficulty the procedural generation gives is mostly self-imposed as the player should decide to take whatever is rolled as it is rolled to actually limit/challenge themselves.

I think the main drawback of games with procedural generation is that they are so very often designed to be run through frequently and thus change often. If you take a game where procedural generation is only used once per run (such as the most wonderful Darkwood), there isn't that much dissonance between it and more handcrafted terrain.

In a way procedurally generated world could be how eldritch beings view our cosmos: made of limited building blocks, controlled by understandable algorithms, and devoid of specific history or intend.

Shadow Warrior 1 (the remake) versus Shadow Warrior 2 (the sequel to the remake)

Just a quick comparison between the two games which, to me, are about on the same level. I thought for a long time if they even need to be compared, because they are the same, on average, but after replaying SW1 a little while ago and not regretting it, I realized I am not looking forward to replay SW2 at all, meaning that SW1 did something much better than SW2. Hence the comparison:

• The story is better in SW1 than in SW2: there are plotholes in both but in the second game they are much bigger and often it isn't clear what is going on and why. Cutscenes, despite being mostly 'moving pictures' and comic-like are way better in SW1 than in-engine cutscenes of SW2. Small stories in collectable lore pieces and diaries add greatly to the events in SW2 but gaps in their collection and random nature of their retrieval makes them out of tune with the rest of the story.
   
  
• The demon world is much better in SW1: it has a true sense of mythological place where the rain only falls when a sad demon-princess cries tears and drought happens when she becomes happy; there is no explanation why she is called 'sister' by all major demon-lords and holds almost mystical power over them, veneration and obsessive desire simultaneously; in SW2 most of it is explained and the explanation sounds technical and dry, lessening the world even more. 
  
  
• The companion is better in SW1: Hoji is truly important to the story, which mostly happened thanks for him, his words are better, and when he breaks I do want to help him; while Kamiko is trying to get some sass and empathy with Lo Wang, it mostly doesn't happen. Her involvement in the events, beyond being Important Plot Element to Whom Things Happen Without Her Doing Anything, is minimal – we are told of her achievements, her expertise, her abilities, but we cannot see them or see the consequences of them, and the final decision she makes comes out of nowhere and looks very frivolous and rushed. In addition it is just too much of Kamiko (who is chronologically a child of two but looks twenty, a half-demon who looks fully human, master chi-manipulator, super-genius-scientist, student of ancient arts, apprentice of legendary blacksmith, tea expert and so on), and most of her presence is not well-written; she is even forgotten about in 'Shadow Warrior 2' art book.
  
  
• General setting idea is better in SW2: I do like that developers didn't retconned the demon breach back to status quo but decided to go with it as Conjunction. In this new magic-soaked world we even hear Lo Wang grumble that it took him many years to master chi while younger generation achieves it easier – this and other small details add a good sense of flow of time and of change.
  
  
• Supporting characters and minor antagonists are slightly better in SW2 and this is mostly thanks to weapon dealer demon Larry, because I don't think I recall anybody else. Mamushi Heika is just as not interesting and rashly portrayed as Twins. Zilla is slightly better.Twins return much worse. Master Smith turning into Soul Well was an unexpected turn of events.
  
  
• Demon-lords are way better in SW1: while Xing is funnier in SW2, he is one and the only improvement; SW2 Mezu is boring poser, and while developers tried to give some personality to SW2 Gozu it just didn't work. Maybe developers subtly tried to show how human qualities corrupt demons after Conjunction in parallel how demon taints infect humans, but it makes demon lords much less into figures of legend and much more (Xing excluding) into boring people with strange horns. The major disappointment is Ameonna, whose portrayals in first and second games are so drastically different that it looks as if she had decades to become that vulgar, bitter, snarky, meme-referencing being, and not just two years according to Conjunction timeline. Was she binge-watching youtube the whole two years? In SW2 there is no sincerity in her, no grace, nothing to sympathize with, nothing to remember about her except one really crude 'joke' and how much better she was in SW1 even if she was almost dead the whole time.
  
  
• Monsters are slightly better in SW2: in first game their design is cooler, more influenced by traditional monsters and their aesthetics (while SW2 monsters look more to the side of necromorphs), but in second game their gameplay isn't as frustrating as in first.
  
  
• Environments are about the same: looking through artbooks I am surprised how much environmental variety there actually is because I don't recall many places that inspire wonder from either game – maybe the stormy ship from the first game and Zilla City with its holographic flowers from the second. Level design feels about the same in both, maybe slightly better in SW2.
  

  

  Neon like the cyberpunk but with magic and demons

• Boss battles in SW1 were frustrating. I don't recall boss battles (except the very last one) from SW2 at all, so it is probably an improvement.
  
  
• Weapons, I think, are better in SW2: I often used guns in SW2 along with the blade, while in SW1 it was mostly blade-blade-blade all the time once I got it decently updated and guns went mostly unused. Also in SW2 they did this really neat setting-building detail that old human weapons, even exceptional military ones, are now the mere baseline, inferior to both chi-infused sleektech of Zilla Corps and massive, organic, messy and hungry weapons of demonic origin.
  
  

  

  Gun on the left wants to eat everything it can get it muzzle on

• Lo Wang has both good and terrible moments in both games in about same manner: being the descendant of the original Shadow Warrior (which is nowadays difficult to show without adding a couple paragraphs of various disclaimers) I expected much worse in terms of wang humor and general crudeness, but Lo Wang manages to get some genuinely good moments in both games, and about the equal amount of bad ones too.

I don't want DS3 artbook

Just very recently somebody gifted me the DS2 Design Works but I don't think I will pine over DS3 Design Works book.

To me aesthetics in DS3 are simultaneously very profound and very lazy. When I am trying to recall the world in my memory it is brown and grey, with streaks of rust and occasional red-amber. Intentionally thinking more about it I do recall purple flowers near Cursed Greatwood, gold chalices and cerulean sky over Archdragon Peak, and striking red-maggots-over-grey places in Ariandell. Piece by piece, the DS3 world does have some vividness about it, but to me this vividness is overpainted by grey and brown crags, grey and brown walls, multiple poisonous swamps and even more numerous areas of rot and sludge.

Which goes very well with overall DS3 theme of everything being so worn out, tired and old that it is time for the cycles (and games, at this moment) to end, but it doesn't make it very appealing to look upon in still pictures. All Souls games have a lot of grey and brown, and DS2, in particular, has the rugged, dirty, tattered, frontier-like feel to it, and yet there is more colour to even its poisonous areas where spitting statues in Black Gulch are vividly, almost neon-like green. There are voluminous skies over Heide's Tower of Flame, bleached summer grass over the sea in Majula, Shrine of Amana pale ghost-blue flowers, thundering darkness over Drangleic Castle, and that tiny and surprisingly cozy corner after Executioner's Chariot which hosts the most violent covenant of the game. With its fair share of murky, brown and grey colours (Huntsman's Copse, Harvest Valley, Shaded Woods, Lost Bastille) mixed with occasional lava, DS2 still sticks more firmly in my memory than DS3, and I found DS2 world to be more interesting to think about and remember despite DS3 having more interesting areas gameplay-wise. For an artbook in particular the feel of the gameplay isn't important, which makes DS3 artbook even less desirable.

(I play Sorcerer and use bows in DS2 so I am entirely fine with Shrine of Amana)

A spin on "Tokyo Dark", not-really-review

(and I am not sorry for this pun)

"Tokyo Dark" is defined as point-and-click adventure/visual novel mixture, but I don't think it is a very strong game in either category.

It isn't really point-and-click adventure, even if protagonist can move left and right within the scene and click on some items. Traditional point-and-click adventures let me to wander around several available locations with inventory full of strange items (picked by clicking on everything in environment, often with a funny comment), talk to various NPCs even after they start to loop their speech, and think of different (il)logical ways to use collected items to progress, occasionally solving  pretty obtuse puzzles. In "Tokyo Dark" the progression is linear scene-to-scene (with one pseudo-branching investigation 'choice'), the hotspots for interactions are very few, NPCs turn silent once their initial dialogue runs out, and very few collected items are just pegs for the story progress.

As little as I know about visual novels, I don't think the game is particularity strong there either, as there is very little involvement with other characters except Raina, and most of situations have very straightforward, non-conflicting solutions. There are some branching choices, but even in Telltale games there is more tension and involvement with them. There are three not-case-related characters whose fate you can affect, but it is a matter of a couple of lines and one very straightforward advice. I don't think it creates much involvement at the end.

Where this mix works is in the game atmosphere. In a usual visual novel the environment is nothing more than a backdrop for character sprites, but here even protagonist's small freedom to wander left and right within the scene adds greatly to the game and creates the illusion of bigger world. The good design choice is to make hotspots visible and interactable only if the protagonist comes closer, adding some tension and sense of discovery to the whole process even if there isn't that much to discover and nothing actually kills you. The story itself isn't badly written either – nothing to tear up about, just normal; in addition, the walking and clicking segments between dialogues help to space the story pieces. The mystery unfolds in a decent way, the art is not ugly or too saccharine, and the setting-building part is well-done – much done with little – maybe this is why the rather abrupt ending(s), underused mechanics and linear structure(s) of "Tokyo Dark" give, in general, the sense of a letdown.

The launch trailer creates the better impression than the game turned out to be for me: it is frantic, tense, intriguing, fast-paced and dynamic. But 'Explore Tokyo' is a linear sequence of scenes – not bad scenes, but without much to do other than to solve some extremely simplistic 'puzzles' and make one or two ending-influencing choices. "Solve the case" doesn't require any thinking, it just happens. 'Chose your path' is based on few key choices and gives you one of the 10 endings (+ true ending on new game plus), and, unless you intentionally go for nervous wreck state by ignoring multiple options to restore mental stability, 'Enter the Dark' is also going to happen in one way or another. All interesting actions seen in the trailer – such as picking a lock, sitting-in-the-office-seemingly-working-the-case, threatening the sleazy man with bodily harm – happen only once. The game itself is rather short, which might be a benefit because you'd have to replay it at least once if you want to have full scope of the story.

The mask, featured prominently in the trailer, is a major gameplay disappointment. It is certainly a very important part of the story, but from the trailer I imagined that using it would be our choice, that we will be able to influence the story more, to uncover more if we risked using the mask to look at ghosts and events hidden from mundane view, even if for the costs of our sanity. It was not the case in the game, and the mask is just a plot prop.

Speaking of sanity, "Tokyo Dark" has a pseudo-RPG system of four stats: Sanity, Professionalism, Investigation and Neurosis – S.P.I.N. (hence the pun I still don't regret). Such system isn't revolutionary by itself: a lot of interactive fiction and visual novels use some kind of inner stat/flags system to track progress and derive the ending, and some of them make such system visible in one way or another. In this game it is available all the time, shows direct values without any frills, and some NPCs even call direct attention to the system, giving it a sense of importance.

The names for stats fit well: you are playing as a police detective, investigating your missing partner, which very soon turns out to be supernatural affair in the world where paranormal isn't a common state of things. But while every stat supposed to have some effect on either the gameplay or the story, I am finding them underutilized.

Neurosis is, probably, the saddest case. In-game it is gained if you (as a player) repeatedly click on the random items, try to talk to NPCs after the conversation is logically concluded and repeat the same actions; it is a good in-world explanation and deterrence for out-of-world click spamming. The game effects of high Neurosis is less effective restoration of Sanity (and low Sanity, in turn, leads to hallucination, breakdown and terrible endings) so, theoretically, the player has to plan their clicking and dialogue actions carefully to keep Neurosis as low as possible.

Gameplay-wise it isn't that important, though. Conversations are quite brief and bare, with few options, and, past the first chapter, most NPCs become inactive or vanish after their conversation is concluded so there is little opportunity to gain Neurosis this way. Interactable items are few and far between (and they become non-interactive once their purpose in the scene is fulfilled as well), while repeating clicking on plain environment doesn't seem to give any Neurosis. Aside of a couple of optional actions (such as to view a photograph found in sleazy man's hideout) I don't recall ever getting significant Neurosis from anything that isn't a story-mandated situation. More than that, there are several opportunities to restore Sanity that are also restoring Neurosis, so it takes purposeful decision not to heal it for breakdown ending.

Investigation allows you to notice more hotspots and items to interact with, which in turn gives more information about what is going on. You gain Investigation by being curious about things when you encounter them for the first time which means clicking on options available for some of items to look, listen, notice and so on, to gain a bit of Investigation; this gain is small and it is mostly a harmless action. The bulk of Investigation is obtained for the progress of the story (unless character makes too many rash decisions and gets premature ending(s)). Even with pretty average Investigation my progression didn't look to be impeded by the lack of extra details. In another good design choice, half of the options to restore Sanity will also diminish Investigation (as the pills muddle your wits and sedate you), so in this game Investigation is not only a measure of progress but also stands for perception and mental acuteness.

Sanity is sanity: it is pretty much what you expect from the Call of Cthulhu sanity. Low Sanity is supposed to lead to hallucinations, then breakdown, then the bad ending. You unavoidably lose a lot of Sanity in the course of the story, but there are plenty of options to mostly restore it; some of these options don't affect Investigation and also cure Neurosis.

The forth stat, Professionalism, is the most interesting. PC is the police detective and this stat grows when the character acts in a professional manner: orderly, by-the-book, law-abiding, polite, educated, competent, rational, composed and at least slightly emotionally detached. Fast, direct, immediate options, 'Dirty Harry'- or maverick cop-style actions – such as shooting the lock off instead of looking for superintendent with a key, intimidating a man with bodily harm instead of collecting information and using it as a leverage against him, or taking a hostage for immediate gain instead of doing what is expected of you – lowers Professionalism. In-game high value of this stat is supposed to gain you more respect from the others, while low Professionalism is supposed to give you less legal but faster and dirtier options, such as break and entry into forbidden places. As with Neurosis I don't think it significantly affects gameplay or the story progression aside of some dialogue changes and getting different endings after the point of no return.

I am finding it very interesting, this stat and how it played: low Professionalism gives you more blunt, impulsive, fast, underhanded and, eccentrically, more self-reliant, less socially-dependent options, while high Professionalism acts not only as a social skill, not only as a measure of status, but also as a measure of composure and self-control, of the willingness to keep faces, to keep the noise down, to be detached, to be risk-averse, to progress slower, to keep cool head, to be methodical. The whole stat also doubles as Chaos/Law alignment line.

In the fantasy such naming won't work (professional cutpurse is not law-abiding, professional bard is not cool-headed), but in modern setting, especially with limited focus on investigation process, 'professionalism' invokes a certain set of characteristics, that kind of demeanor we get from competent customer services, layers, doctors, bureaucrats, police detectives and so on: proper communication, reliability, competence, calmness, certain set of ethics, composure, emotional detachment, structure, following rules, politeness and so on. I am finding this to be a another good design solution, terse and fitting to the purpose of the game.

All and all, if the game was more complex, if more difficult choices were to be made, more situations present to leverage one risk against another gain, more things to investigate, the S.P.I.N. could have been a good system to use. As of now it looks more like ornament than actual system to the point that one of the endings is completely irrelevant to it.

Supernatural in the setting of the game is what I call 'modern esoterica' – the modern mundane world, where the supernatural is not ever, ever fully reachable or explainable, but even the merest indifferent touch of it brings drastic consequences to few so affected. Dark in 'Tokyo Dark" is always remains just out of direct reach or understanding, and mythology of it seems to be something else than traditional mythological underworld. It gives me Void vibe from Dishonored, and Ink vibe from 'Van Helsing's Adventures', and some of creepypasta and SCP Foundation vibes if I am to parallel it to anything. Dark is an interesting thing, as it is not actively malicious and probably doesn't have any of own will or personality at all – not more character and identity than the sea has or the sky has. It doesn't create monsters to stop you, and while several NPCs in the game are clearly somehow connected to it, they aren't acting on its behalf or by its will. By all scarce information it is more the supernatural catastrophe in a making, WH 40K primordial Warp reacting to a congregated mass of turbulent human lives and desires, with some people (?) learning to carefully, delicately use it for their own means, while some are engulfed into it due to trauma. All and all, especially in a way the game unfolds, it is a decent setup which, hopefully, leaves the setting less oversaturated with various magic and monsters than World of Darkness or urban fantasy do, and without overused personality than Eldritch Things CoC world has.

Incoming console re-release, Tokyo Dark: Remembrance, according to statement "completes the mysteries left by the original, bringing a Director’s Cut of this masterpiece", so maybe the game was just rushed for its Steam release. It would be pity if PC version won't be updated.

Dark Souls + Dark Tower mix-mash-bash with some Troika! archetypes.

This was initially G+ report made due to the interest of Max Sellers (from https://oblidisideryptch.blogspot.com/) and subsequently reposted here due to the interest of Saker Tarsos (https://tarsostheorem.blogspot.com/). This is a report of sort of 2018 game where I DM'ed Troika! mechanics in a mix-mash-bash of Dark Souls and Dark Tower setting.

The setup:
There was a rare opportunity for me to DM and I had several hours to come with something playable. I knew beforehand about the opportunity so these hours weren't all consecutive but spread through flight preparations, flight time and arrival. There was only one player, whom I knew well, and I knew they liked to ask a lot of questions about the world; with such limitations I knew I needed a world I could reliably remember myself, so I mostly used DS lore with serial numbers not-quite-filled-off.

The world:
Once upon a time what is now Old Kingdoms was the whole world. At the beginning of the time five powerful Lords found great souls within The First Flame, and set in the motion the Cycle of Fire, where a civilization blossomed from the ashes, reached its peak, and started to burn out; as the flame faded, the undead curse spread, but the destined undead sacrificed themselves to re-ignite the First Flame, letting the new civilization to blossom for another cycle.

Initially in history the Cycle of Fire was a fragile thing, unstable and uncertain, and the dreaded Age of Dark could still have happened in case if the destined undead was to fail their quest. But since then the Cycle repeated without a fail so many times that it became the fate of the whole world, ingrained into its very fabric. Over and over, great kingdoms appeared and faded, without a fail, and a single undead re-ignited a fire to let new golden age arise, without a fail. Like a endlessly reused vellum, the world became a palimpsest with letters of the Cycle etched into its very core so strongly they became grooves in which the world history moved, without a fail. People didn't reincarnate and individual fates differed, the time moved forward and memories of past were no more than distant silent reminiscence so the history had small variations and different names but the world itself was locked in the security of the Cycle. There was always going to be renewal, and the world was safe from the unknown apocalypse of Dark. People enjoyed the golden age of raising fire and patiently lived through fading times, knowing that the world would begin anew, that its future was safe to continue forever, without of fail.

Then, Atra Umao, the Wandering Desert came to the world.

(Heretic 2 intro where fifteen seconds long sequence is still the best other-world-wandering sequence)

The empty jewel of the desert where edges of multiple worlds come together, where they grind against each other, where they passionately touch. Atra Umao, where horizon-far round mountains are meteoric tears of gods, and alien suns eclipse one another under slow melancholic sky. Alta Umao, the End Desert, all roads and rivers stop and begin here.

By her very presence the End Desert broke the unchanging fate of the world. 
And the world has shifted.

It happened about forty years ago, and older generations still remember the world without it, without Goblin Railroads, without crystals that speak with voices of the dead, without people with multicoloured sand in their veins, without unearthly auroras. But the Wandering Desert brought something more than just strange winds, unusual tools and sand-blooded creatures that the world never saw before. The lands around the Desert's edge started to get strange ideas that the world never thought before, desires that the world never desired before, freedoms that the world never longed for before, and uncertainty that the world no longer remembered.

By the time the Atra Umao appeared the undead curse was already spreading in this cycle and the fading of fire now draws near. It is rumoured that the current chosen undead, the Prince Lorian of Lorian Kingdom, doesn't wish to fulfill his destiny.
Some say the End Desert is a wound in the world, leaking poisonous pus, and this is true.
Some say the End Desert is a window, cut into the suffocating prison of destiny to let fresh winds in, and this is also true.
After the future of the world is uncertain again.

Lands:
Old Kingdoms (aesthetically based on DS 3 and DS 1): the majority of the world, where the winds of the desert don't ever reach. Here are knights are noble, kings are regal, betrayals are tragic and magic is born of dragon breath. Highly idealistic, orderly, elegant, stoic, brave, polite, archaic; even their bandits know their place in the Cycle. The Cycle of Fire is so ingrained into the world here that these people to us look like mindwashed or cliche, despite their utter sincerity and various personalities. Here it is impossible for the priest to steal donations, to the knight to break an oath, to the love turn into base lust. Imagine the whole world speaking and thinking as a idealized play.

Of specific interest are kingdom of Lorian where the Shrine of First Flame is located, Ilory where Dragon Academy of magic is, and Yarnell where cathedrals of both White and Blue Ways are located.

Marches (aesthetically based on DS 2): lands around the Mirror Sea to the west of Lorian, places such as Farris, Carua and Red Baronies. It is still mostly Old Kingdoms, they have all the appearance of old kingdoms, with knights, and kings, and the priests, but here is noticeably less idealism and more dubious thought. Betrayals aren't happening only due to love anymore but due to more familiar envy and greed. Oaths can be broken and the oathbreaker might go unpunished. Priests guide flocks without having faith themselves. Few artifacts from the Desert find a way here but from the outskirts of Marches the first Goblin Railroad takes start to run west.

The Frontier (aesthetically DS2 shifting into Bloodborne with more railroads). The land between the old and the new, the turmoil, the boiling cauldron of quickly rising great cities and dangerous wilderness, of changing societies, of sarcastic laughter, of attempts to stop the undead curse without help of predestined hero. It is an anxious land, enterprising, often violent, but also its people would be the most familiar to us, capable of anything we do, be it cruelty or kindness.

The Border/Borderlands (aesthetically Dark Tower shifting into Stalker Zone). The very edge of the world that touches Atra Umao. Only three great cities (Solael, Nox and Meridian) are there, and from the gates of Meridian you can glimpse the alien moons of the desert. Gods of the world don't reach here; instead, witch-gods from the Desert come and answer the prayers. It is rumored that in the middle of the desert there is a tower that is a axle to all of the worlds. Lands in the Border are wastelands, filled with fragments of faraway worlds that crashed into this world when the End Desert appeared, and twisted remnants of Old Kingdoms into which they crashed to. This is a place of changes, both wanted and unwanted, and even time and the distance are not safe to stay the same. The game started close to here, so despite the setting being mostly Dark Souls the story was not about knights, and there was plenty of guns.

Railroads spread from the desert and go through the borderlands and frontier, up to the western reaches of the marches. They called Goblin Railroads because goblins master them and also Dragon Railroads, because each train is shaped like a dragon and roars like one. I think for this setting the idea was that goblins eventually become dragon trains and run through the desert forever.
(I also had mental image of Garl Vinland fighting Caleb on such train)

(I drew this picture almost a year later)

The idea of the world, in retrospect:
Different rules and even types of rules have more power in different lands. Old Kingdoms are more narrative-driven, almost story-game, thematic and strongly focused but narrow and stagnant in their theme; the farther west the more randomness and strangeness takes place, as if chaos overtaking the world, the more dice influences the result; the frontier is strange 'realistic' middle, marches are more like Storyteller, with 'drama goes first but we also have quite a lot of numbers' approach. For example, in Old Kingdoms the armour is always shiny, the love is always noble and knights never ever have diarrhea or slip in the mud – and whatever PC does it cannot result in slip in a mud for a knight – while in Frontier there is enough infections for wounds to fester, bordellos to visit and cons to fool people, and more actions are permitted by reality. 
In Savage World Deluxe Edition, there is a page of the optional rules which can be quickly combined to emulate this or other genre. I never implemented anything like that in this one game, but in retrospect I would use something like if I am to make such world in more details.

Mytho-topologically, the world is all Old Kingdoms but Atra Umao creates giant zone of anomaly and paradox; beyond borderlands the desert opens into infinity and connects to other worlds so much that after some point of travelling through the End Desert, the return by common means is improbable. From the edge of the desert back into the setting world first the borderlands, then frontier and then marches spread like invisible concentric circles until they fade back to immutable Old Kingdoms; these circles are giant enough to be straight lines on some maps. By default for this game Atra Umao borderland was to the west from Lorian (where Firelink Shrine and the First Flame are located) and relatively close enough to fit on the same landscape-oriented map.

Troika! mechanics and gameplay (Troika! has free artless version here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/199604/Troika--Free-Artless-Edition, so I will assume I don't need to explain the rules themselves)

Troika fitted surprisingly well into this particular game. It is very dynamic, with barely any rules to keep track on, but it still has them just enough that it doesn't look simplistic. Archetypes are easy to make and it took me just about half an hour to do. On another hand, Troika isn't as highly lethal as many other rules-light systems are, and even in a solo play I didn't have to buff the player character sky high so they'd survive first fight. I'd say it is well balanced in this respect.

The melee is good because however the round goes, somebody almost always gets hurt as the melee is a contested roll and the loser gets a damage which makes 'attack-missed, attack-missed' stalemate exchanges of DnD impossible – in one-player game it was essential not to create that kind of monotony. Ranged combat is good because unless the PC is a highly trained in dodge or similar evasions they have to use an environment and strategic movement to get cover from the shooter, who has an advantage. For the initiative, I saw several people homeruling end-of-the-round token out of the bag, but for one-player game it gave just right amounts of unpredictability and created a very good tension in a duel with a sniper; for bigger groups I will probably take it out as well or homerule more tokens in for players who didn't have a chance to go for more than one round. Luck helped to solve ties, it is a great and renewable, but not overly abundant resource to power up all strange stuff and fates. The inventory system is good because it goes away with weight calculations, and also has a nice rule that simultaneously allows it to be 'I look for this item in hurry' resolution without additional sub-system. We ended up not using magic but default Troika! magic and items are good enough to fit this mix-mashed-bashed world as well, and, even if not used as a magic directly can be easily added to creatures as special abilities; for items it is easy to imagine golden barges coming from the desert and bringing all kinds of strange things.

Leveling was quick, straightforward, easy to keep track on and good for quick paced one-player game, and I especially liked that it didn't end up creating a superhero even if we tried levelup each game day.
Sample creatures are strange enough to use out of box or slightly reskinned: I used Sympathy Serpent to the great effect.

DMing:
The PC starts in the wilderness where they had a camp (The Frontier but near the Border). Mist raises, as it sometimes happens in Frontier, PC blanks out for a bit, and when they come to their senses they are in a sharp moonlight, looking their own corpse, and the heavily scarred man in a black garb of the pardoner offers them a second chance to live if only they do their best to deliver a small silver box to lady in red that flees to the Desert before she vanishes in the otherworlds. The box is a mystery, but the pardoner solemnly swears it is not a danger to the lady or to the PC.

I built the skeleton of adventure using a random row of Agatha Christie's books in a bookshop for ideas; books don't always align like that but this was a good coincidence. I started from 'After the Funeral' and went up, thinking what each line might mean in this kind of world. These lines also enforced Dark Tower-Journey to the West-Western theme which was, by that point, still quite nascent.

Given time constrains, the adventure itself was mostly improvisation otherwise so Troika! as a book had enough prepared things (rules, monsters, magic) which I could quickly utilize. I used Tarot of Ka by Meethos (which I lucked to get in physical form) to spice things up: they aren't precise illustrations (no Weaver of Shadows or Drowned Sailor cards, for example) but are very fitting otherwise and added greatly to the mood. I used them to quickly generate NPCs and events by drawing two-three cards and interpreting the situation. I also had Waite Rider deck in case if the player chooses to play Arcanist archetype.

Deck of Ka by Meethos (https://www.instagram.com/meethos/?hl=en; https://www.meethos.art/)

For the game there was had a printed copy of Troika! artless edition (which was good, because it saves ink), set of dice, two decks of Taro and I also printed 'Into the Odd list' of Arcana for treasures, although didn't use it at the end.

Started to paint a map too, but never finished it. The idea for the map that the eastern side of it (where Old Kingdoms are) would be in traditional colours (brown, grey, greens) but such colours become stranger, more vibrant and neon as we move to the west (reddish in Red Baronies and full magenta, yellow and turquoise around Meridian)

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* I know that in Dark Tower the wording is 'the world has moved on' but this is how I read it first in the translation and this is how I think about it.
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Archetypes I made for Troika!; a lot of them are just slightly changed archetypes from the core book which was great because I had limited time to do so. I gave the player three choices per region.
Because they were made for a solo play, I made each slightly more powerful and versatile than usual Troika! archetypes, and gave each a special ability of sort; player also could chose one additional item.

I tried to pattern archetypes after DS character generator; hence Knight, Sorcerer, Cleric, Thief, and Bandit.

[as these archetypes are remix, please be aware that some of their wording is very probably directly lifted from either DS lore, original Troika! book or Fallen London; do not use descriptions in this form unless it is for personal use in your own game or your have the permission of the original text author (namely, FromSoftware, Daniel Sell and Alex Kennedy)]

= Errant Knight of Old Kingdoms =
Raised in the realms locked into the cycle of re-ignited fire, you moved west to seek either justice for your defiled world, a worthy challenge to your skills or a freedom from the fate that keeps following you like a hungry dog.

Skills
3 Ride
3 Sword Fighting
3 Lance/Spear Fighting
2 Greatsword Fighting
2 Etiquette
1 Languages – High Lorian

Special: You can declare a goal to be your sacred quest. You get +1 benefit to all your Luck tests if you try to overcome any obstacle that prevents you from following your quest; you cannot change your sacred quest until you fulfill it.

Possessions
- Heavy armour of honoured curved design, carefully polished but still showing its age
- A war horse
- Lance with sombre tassel (as spear)
- Sword, well-kept through generations
- Shield painted with the coat-of-arms of Half Prince.
- A never ending quest

= Sorcerer of Ilory Academy =
The venerable Dragon Academy of Ilory saw the decline and rise of kingdoms through ages; it was lost in centuries and even sometimes forgotten but over and over again it resurfaced in each new cycle. Soul Arts might be older than many of Old Kingdoms and gods, but even in this changed world they are still very much feared.

Skills
3 Spell – Soul Arrow
2 Spell – Hush
2 Spell – Fall Control
2 Secret Signs – Sorcery Scrolls
1 Spell – Greater Soul Arrow
1 Spell – Soul Mirrors
1 Second Sight
1 Language – High Lorian

Special: You can test your Luck with Second Sight to see how powerful a soul before you is. You need to directly observe the creature from a medium distance.

Possessions:
- Travelling clothes
- Sorcerer’s catalyst
- A small round shield, polished to mirror shine
- A small bag with inks and journals for your travels.
- A dagger

= Cleric of the Ways =
[There is also Way of Red that is new, cruel teaching of Flame that is started with recent changes in the world but isn't for PCs]
Wandering miracle workers telling stories of gods and their deeds in the world that now barely cares. Baroque training of Way of White or harsh training of the Way of Blue inspired you to move westward to bring these tales to the shores that never knew them.

Skills
3 Spell – Heal
2 Spell – Force
2 Spell – Guidance
2 Spell – Affix
2 Second Sight
2 Language – High Lorian
1 Spell – Cleansing
(if Way of White) 1 Storytelling
(if Way of Blue) 1 Mace Fighting

Special: by the old covenant with gods their direct servants will recognize you and your service to gods providing your have been faithful to your oaths.

Possessions
- A clerical chime. May reroll one die on the Oops! Table if using this chime, however may never sneak up on anyone because of the ringing and clattering it makes
- Voluminous clerical robes of Way of White priest or snug robes and chainmail of the Way of Blue acolyte (both counts as medium armour)
- A small sturdy parma shield, painted with sacred sign of gods
- A seal of the Way of White or the mace of the Way of Blue
- A book of sacred texts
- A flute or a harp

= Bandit Mercenary of Marches =
Down in Marches the life can be tough for people who aren’t swift to catch the changing wind or noble enough to benefit from higher station, so there are people making a living by using all possible tools to separate others from their valuables. You can be heavily drenched in sin or just seeking a new beginning away from harsh rope of law tightening around your neck. For a while you pretend to be mercenary and hope that little wars in Marches are numerous enough nobody notices the difference.

Skills
2 Bow OR Crossbow Fighting
2 Tracking
2 Alcohol Drinking
2 Fist Fighting
1 Axe Fighting
1 Run
1 Stealth
1 Healing

Special: you have some bad fame around here – it helps you to connect with like-minded Fellows of the Road much easier (they do expect to be rewarded for their services), but also makes you the target for the law.

Possessions
- Short Bow or Crossbow and 20 arrows/bolts
- Hand Axe
- Small dented shield
- Ragged clothes just barely not ragged enough for beggar but actually provide an armour similar to sturdy leather in defence.
- A bottle of strong spirits
- A lifegem mugged from a passing sage

= Magistrate of Steel Court =
In Old Kingdoms you’d be called a herald, an ennobled emissary of the higher authority set to seek criminals or negotiate treaties. Here you are a glorified clerk, a travelling judge and arbiter with just enough executive and jurisdictional power to prevent swabbing guilds from cutting each other throats for a moment or some petty lord to listen to your words. In your kind of work you travel through all rungs of societies and for many you are a hope for justice, but for just as many in Marches you are a quite an inconvenience.

Skills
3 Etiquette
3 Awareness
3 Laws
2 Disguise
2 Weapon Fighting of your choice
2 Run

Special: due to your authority, as long as you don’t commit any questionable acts other people notice, you can use your authority and test your Luck to make people (and some other creatures) to listen to you and take it seriously. You can also use your blood to bind agreements between other parties to have a sacred obligation that punishes the oath-breaker with bad luck.

Possessions
- A weapon of your choice with 2d6 ammunition if it needs any
- Official vestment of your power and official scepter of your stations
- Set of less noticeable clothes
- Inks, parchments, and seals
- A small, travelling library of law books
- A slow but steady mount
- 1d6 lumens

= Thief of Soft Roads =
As a second-story man you often have cause to wander. Enemies come naturally from both sides of the law and it pays to keep ahead of trouble but you feel better in a smelly, decrepit underbellies of the great cities of Marches and you slip like a shadow through a smaller ones, where boiling cauldron of people and their ambitions create many opportunities.

Skills
3 Sneak
3 Sleigh of Hands
2 Locks
2 Awareness
2 Climb
1 Trapping
1 Knife fighting
1 Crossbow fighting

Special: you may test your Luck to find and get in with the local criminal underbelly, if one exists.

Possessions
- Crossbow & 18 bolts
- Roll of lock picks
- A set of unremarkable clothes with one really well hidden pouch
- A dagger
- Grappling hook and rope
- 2d6 lumens OR lifegem hidden well in a hidden pouch

= Occultist of Weeping Sea =
You are the follower of witch gods – those exiled, imprisoned, maimed, rebelled or foreign against Ways that find refuge among people of Frontier. Just as when fleeting presence of witch-gods manifests itself, your branded eyes are capable to see impossible colours of the half-real world and your hands inscribed by runes only you can see to handle them.
[All Colours are nicked almost verbatim from Fallen London]

Skills
3 Second Sight
2 Irrigo, the Colour of Forgetfulness that can be found in the corners of the home.
2 Viric, the Colour of Shallow Sleep, of a land beyond the Mirrors and unwanted connections.
2 Apocyan, the Colour of Memory, of endings and the sands of alien stars.
2 Cosmogone, the Colour of Remembered Suns, the fecund, the foetid, the fantastic, all flourish in a light of a cosmogone.
2 Peligin, the Colour of the deepest sea from which there are no returns.
2 Violant, the Colour of the blood shred in a spired place, the colour employed in the most desperate treaties.
2 Gant, the Colour that remains when all other colours are eaten. It can be found where all other colours are miriard.

Possessions
- Small set of bottles of all your Colours; an empty scroll of skin, brushes and pens
- A blindfold, a wide-brimmed hat or a cloak with a deep hood or that allows you to hide your eyes but doesn’t impede the vision or a movement.
- Sturdy clothes (counted as light armor)
- A walking staff

= Hunter of Frontier =
There are no limits to you travels. A decaying splendour of Old Kingdoms is a dry riverbed to you with nothing to do there, as you grew up in tumultuous lands of Frontier, where the winds of Atra Umao die out but lands are changed enough to be unfamiliar to citizen of calmer lands. You roam and hunt all kind of prey, making your living as many hunters do. Few know these lands better than you.

Skills
3 Tracking
3 Bow Fighting OR 3 Gun Fighting
3 Run
2 Climb
2 Swim
2 Spear Fighting
2 Awareness
1 Healing
1 Sneak

Special: you may know an animal language of your choice; in return you cannot ever willingly harm any such animal or their closest relatives and you lose that ability if you harm them unintentionally but don’t make amends. Animals are not obligated to follow your commands but many of them will at least listen to you for a bit with a test of Luck.

Possessions
- A long bow and a quiver of 40 arrows OR a pistol and 16 bullets
- A spear
- A small hunting knife
- Highly efficient camping gear, good for long journeys away from home
- 2d6 provisions
- A set of traps
- Lack of proper etiquette
- A lantern and flask of lantern oil

= Arcanist of Nowhere in Particular =
[Magic is based upon Tarot cards]
When Atra Umao, the End Desert erupted in the world she changes the cycle of fate and brought many new things. Where there were just Soul Arts, there are now desks of magical cards that are capable to twist and break reality around them and reshape them into new forms. Be you disciple of Swords, seeking a worthy challenge, a bearer of Cups, acutely aware of connections between people, a follower of Staves, keen on exploring new lands and ideas or the seeker of Pentacles and keeper of secrets, you are the new breed of the wonderworker.

Skills
3 Mastery of one chosen (signature) suit
2 Mastery of all other suits
1 Mastery of Major Arcana, if you happen to find any
1 Weapon Fighting of your choice
1 Language of your choice
1 Awareness
1 Run

Special: you can test your Luck in calm environment to understand what artifacts are most likely is capable of doing. You can test your Luck in calm environment with Deck in hand to get glimpses of the events of the next day but by doing so you are bound by fate to encounter that event in one of another form. You test your Luck and quietly whisper to usual cards to persuade them to grant you victory, adding +4 to gambling with cards if you succeed.

Possessions:
- A Deck of Cards (all Minor Arcane Suits, no Major Arcane), that have a strange power in your hands
- A weapon of your choice with 2d6 ammunition if it needs any
- A silver rose, won in recent gamble
- Quite extravagant travelling clothes that you cannot help but to keep stylish
- A bottle of a really good wine
- Small lantern and flask of oil
- 1d6 lumens, hidden in a belt

= Demon Stalker of Solael =
Raised in demon-infested city of Solael you stake your reputation and life on your ability to hunt and kill demonic creatures and those who break bread with them. Iron people in the wilds, or the angel cults of the slums in Red Baronies – all needs to be driven back off the edge of the map and into the shores of chaos.

Skills
5 Languages and Signs – Demonic
3 Spell - Blood Shroud
3 Dodge
2 Second Sight
2 Sword fighting
2 Bow OR Gun fighting
1 Tracking
1 Sneak

Special: you are older than you look and remember things and people that already vanished from the face of the world. Test your luck for old bits of knowledge or unfamiliar places in case if you can recall anything useful about them.

Possessions
- A silver sword
- 18 silver arrows and a bow or 18 silver bullets and a strange revolver.
- Pouch of salt and ashes.
- Set of travelling clothes, modest and well-made enough to be acceptable anywhere (equals to light armour)
- Vial of demon blood
- Thousand-yard stare

= Thinking Engine =
[This is taken almost fully from Troika! itself]
Your eyes are dull ruby spheres, your skin is hard and smooth like ivory but brown and whorled like wood. You are clearly damaged, you have no memory of your creation or purpose, and some days your white internal juices ooze thickly from cracks in your skin.

Skills
3 Golden Barge Pilot
2 Astrology
2 Pistol Fighting
2 Fusil Fighting
2 Arcana Integration
2 Healing
1 Run
1 Strength
1 Cooking or Knitting

Special: you don’t recover Stamina by resting in the usual manner, instead you have to spend an evening with a hot iron melting your skin back together like putty. For each hour of rest with access to the right tools you regain 3 Stamina. May recharge plasmic machines by hooking your fluids to them and spending Stamina. 1 Stamina and 6 minutes per charge.
You always count as being lightly armoured.

Possessions
- Soldering iron
- 1d6 power cores
- A tea set OR a three pocket gods unknown to anybody in the world
- Detachable autonomous hands OR inner storage OR inbuilt particle detector (+4 Second Sight)
OR one random spell at rank 3
- A Pistol with 2d6 bullets
- An artifact of Lost Corda, being either an enormous blue star map offering +1 astrology when studied for 12 minutes OR a contraption for telling the weather (5 in 6 accuracy) OR a ruby lorgnette offering +1 Second Sight while worn.
- Unclear sense of purpose. 

= Sandblooded =
[This one, I think, also nicked from the original Troika!, almost unchanged except the name]
Those desert born, spawned in the hump backed sky lit only by great black anti-suns and false light. Your parent was sailing on the golden barges or caught in some more abstract fate when they left you, far from the protective malaise of the singing sands of Atra Umao, The End Desert, to the lands beyond a million spheres.

Skills
2 Fusil Fighting
2 Astrology
2 Second Sight
2 Spell - Random (Table 5)
2 Spell - Random (Table 5)
2 Golden Barge Pilot
1 Spell - Random (Table 5)
1 Weapon Fighting of your choice

Special: you understand all languages spoken by the creatures of the End Desert and are considered to be one of them, for all good and bad it brings.

Possessions
- Fusil
- 2d6 plasmic cores
- A comfortable long cloak with a hood obscuring your face or sunglasses to hide your eyes
- Mix-mash-bashed clothes, partially made of otherworldly fabrics.
- Quite mundane sword
- A memento of your parent
- A key from a gold barge you have no more any access to
- Velare

[DS] Lore presentation and lore layers.

This many-worded, long-suffering post is finished thanks to Saker Tarsos (https://tarsostheorem.blogspot.com/) who said he'd be interested to read it.

Lore presentation:

It is a good rule of thumb that if DM wants some information to reach the players but doesn't want to dump exposition, such information should be introduced three times* – not necessary entirely the same information, not necessary in the same way, but enough of it for players to start noticing and connecting its various bits; in a way such triple introduction is redundancy for the sake of making sure that at least something is getting noticed. For example, one piece is of information is a marketplace rumour about a black knight wandering around, the second is people finding a brigand's body, nailed to the tree with a black lance with a such force it takes three men to pull the blade out, third is travelling monk mentioning that he noticed fresh roses on forsaken grave of False Saint Anri as he was passing by. If players miss the marketplace rumour, they still might have a strange lance to inspect and the tomb of False Saint Anri-now-with-roses to visit to start in the mystery of black knight.

But for tabletop game such information is easy to create: jot some notes, think of some connections, white some evocative lines. Big video games, in contrast, require a lot more effort by a lot more people. In many videogames, therefore, there is 'fear' of designers that players are going to miss much-laboured content, which is why in so many games we have cutscenes, unavoidable exposition, handholding UI, quest checkpoints (one cannot progress if they don't speak to Wise Sage), railroading and signposting world design – sometimes so much that 'secrets' are impossible to miss.  

By the contrast, in the original Dark Souls game it is quite possible to miss almost all of lore and all of secret areas. Sadly, the item description pops up on the loading screen, but aside of it, (skippable) initial cutscene and (probably non-mandatory) talk to Frampt/Kaathe, while being in-game itself it is entirely possible to go through the whole game fully blind to the whole underlay of what is going on. Refreshingly, the player doesn't have to talk or even rescue people, or read item description, or watch few cutscenes in order to progress. Even a firekeeper is not required for leveling, unlike in all other games.

But although DS developers intentionally made the lore fragmented, obscured and missable, they also know their players and their game. They knew what kind of players DS-like gameplay will attract and, most importantly, retain.

Look at DS gameplay: aggressive enemies, high vulnerability for PC, highly maze-like and often vertical environments with precarious footing, absence of save-at-will, slow combat where each movement is uncancelleable and thus requires a precision, difficult combat against crowds, rarity of safe bonfires, exploration that rewards resources for later survival in oppressive environment. Even if Demon Souls didn't already exist, and people absolutely didn't know what to expect from Dark Souls, all of that still ensures that, at least for the first time, the player will go through the game slowly and carefully, often looking around, and this encourages methodical, inquisitive, observant mindset.**

I will even say that such design solutions filter off people who are not predisposed to such mindset – many people just cannot 'get' Dark Souls or progress far into it. As a consequence, the players who 'get' DS and are able to progress, are more probable to be inquisitive with what games give them, and it spreads to the lore as well: such players will read items descriptions, will look at architecture, will talk to people – not because they made to do so by the game design bludgeoning them into submission, but because this is the part of the game that also appeals to the same mindset as DS combat and exploration.

I'd say that the items of DS is part of exploration by themselves. The game nudges this slightly by giving most of the items strange names: what exactly is 'lighting resin' (why resin)? what is 'Lloyd's talisman' (who is Lloyd and what his talisman is about)? If these items were named '+lighting damage to weapons' and  'no-estus-recovery bomb' it would be a sign of the same fear of player-missing-content that plagues so many other games. Another point for the exploration is that some items also have additional, entirely undocumented uses (such as Lloyd's talisman putting mimics into sleep) which means that first time somebody discovers this use, this is somebody making a genuine discovery.

If to translate this approach back to tabletops, I'd say the about half of the lore should only be mentioned once and the rest just twice. Let players piece it all together if they are so inclined. Let them create headcanons. Don't create lore redundancies. As a DM or a setting creator go with a mindset that absolutely everything might be missed, and players should be able to interact with items in 'unscripted' ways.
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*established by The Alexandrian, here.
**although with experience and practice it is very possible to run through Dark Souls like it is DmC or Supermario game, I highly doubt that the first people who ever played Demon Souls were doing this. Now, when we know of 'FromSoftware style', and people have so much experience with DS and other such games, I think that the veterans will be able to speedrun/DmC their way even in brand-new FromSoftware game thanks to the all previous experience.

Lore layers:

I think there are about four layers of lore for Dark Souls: two in-game and two out-of game.

The most obvious and the major source of in-game lore is item descriptions (and by extension character presets in character generator). Although such descriptions are sometimes vague and almost always very concise, they are abundant, never lie and the only in-game lore that is given to players directly, along with the item, and made available at any time by the press of the button.*** Out of all of the lore layers this one is least missable because it features on the loading screens, although what descriptions are featured on the loading screens expands only after the player got the item or unlocked a higher area. I also place game cutscenes here because even skippable, they are so brief and so few that most people won't skip them, and also because cutscenes truthfully portray the actual state of events. 

The second lore layer to me is the environmental design. How buildings are built, what is engraved on the enemy armour, enemy placement, enemy movements, item placement and appearance, and so on. Some of such lore is obvious but most of it is missable unless the player really, really gets into this inquisitive mindset and runs around with figurative or even literal magnifying glass, looking and thinking about everything. How many people did notice at the first time playthrough that there are shards of Lordvessel in DS2 basement? I know I didn't, and I played DS2 the last of the three in the series, thinking myself lore-hunting veteran by that point.

Because this lore is always silent and visual, it is mostly here to fill – at least in the mind of the viewer – the missing details from the item descriptions. We might know of three Sealers from item description or dialogue but it is Crimson Armour set placement which tells the story of where one of them ended up dying. 

Both of these layers aren't easy to translate to the tabletops straight. Item descriptions could be done through manuals and game books (and I occasionally see this approach, often to the great effect), but what if the player gets a new item that isn't in the manual? Do they get a small paper with the text along with it? If such brief concise description is the result of lore, how can DM prepare to the multitude of questions the player character might be curious about? The environmental design in video games is very visual, but in tabletop it would be a bad form to create paragraph-long read-alongs, describing each nook of Grand Cathedral of Ulm so players might connect it with similar architecture from description of Pits of Ith. It is still possible to do but more, I think, through brief evocative language that conveys similar themes, feelings or impressions that through meticulous details. Another interesting way would be to change the method of description for related items or places (flowery purple prose for everything that connected to remains of baroque Sard Empire, laconic 'beige' prose for nomads of Ferlang, everything that is related to Kingdom of Dareth always references colour in some way, and so on) so players might get the connection through how the prose itself sounds and structured. It won't be easy, though, and in written books this can create a sense of lacking focus, while in an actual game it will a demanding task from DM to have a good improvisational skills or to do a lot of preparation.

Somewhere between first and second layer of in-game lore are NPC monologues and quests. I place them here because like the environment lore they are mostly missable, and also because, unlike item description, NPC can lie or mislead, and their stories might come or not come to fruition. But they are also source of more items (merchants especially), their quests add to the world, and they are so full of other details (look at Lautrec's armour alone) that, as soon as the player interacts with them, in any way, the player gets a wealth of information, as if from the item.

First out-of-game layer of lore are interviews, artbooks and datamining data. It is scarce but might provide some additional details, such as that Oswald used to be Black Knight Commander before becoming a pardoner. It is also vague, of dubious truthfulness, and sometimes creates more questions than it answers (why Oswald isn't burnt out like the rest of the Black Knights? Was he a Silver Knight Commander instead, before they became Black Knights, and the artbook is misleading? Or he survived the Demon War miraculously unburnt? Or he deserted straight from the battle?). I also place on this layer the meta-lore of Dark Souls as a series, such as the fact that Cycle of Fire is ending despite all efforts (which can be deduced by looking at the size of the flame in DS1 and DS3 fire endings), or Filianore's possible connection to Angel's Egg. It is a good place to get headcanon(s) and wild theories.

Second and the deepest out-of-game layer is not available to the player. This is what FromSoftware knows but, wisely, doesn't talk about. I don't know if they have a DS Bible Where Everything Is Explained, or the lore is actually very shallow, with the decisions are driven mostly by real-life mistakes, design limits and occurrences*~, or both. Was Gertrude's lore in Dark Souls 3 so vague because the royal family was suppressing this knowledge, or because the developers didn't have time to add it properly? We get glimpses of this layer in first out-of-game layer but, I think, if we are to see it in full it would be more of disappointment than of catharsis.

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***It is still difficult to explain in-world how Chosen Undead knows all of it. In my headcanon they either have some kind of psychometry, knowledge of absorbed souls or, in Bloodborne, reading the blood 'echo' of the blood-splattered item, which is basically the same thing.

*~Such as Gwyndolin being raised as a girl which happened because one of the game modellers mistakenly made his head a bit too large, and FromSoftware rolled with it.