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(click for Intro Video)

Darklands was released back in 1992 by Microprose, and remains the leading sandbox RPG to this day to a certain variety of nerd. I count myself among their number, and want to share this with the people who haven't heard about it remind a bunch of people that this game exists and make them want to play it again. For those of you who don't have this game (tsk tsk), you can buy it at GOG.com or on Steam (pretty sure you should get the GOG version from what I've heard, though).

Darklands bills itself as a realistic, historical RPG, insofar as one can be realistic when you throw witches that actually cast spells and fly on brooms, alchemy that actually works in ways that the mundane, bullshit alchemy of the day did not, priests who can actually call upon the power of God for immediate, convenient results and all sorts of supernatural beasts into the mix. When you don't know what you're doing, the game can be pretty damn harsh. Healing is a slow process that can take weeks, death is permanent and a loss in battle can leave you stranded naked in the wilderness without a pfenning to your name. However, the game provides you many tools to avoid even having to put yourself in danger. A good use of alchemy, saints and skills can drastically decrease the number of battles you have to face.

To start off, I'm going to use the pregenerated characters from Quickstart to avoid having a massive Character generation effort post as the OP. However, we will get plenty of opportunities to create our unique party as I kill them all off in all sorts of stupid ways the rigors of travel take their toll on the bunch. Once Hans dies we have a party vacancy, I'll go into detail about how characters are created. At that time, feel free to throw out suggestions as to how I should create the charaters, or which should get kicked off the team.
Additionally, I'll throw out a decision as to what the next course of action should be at the end of each post.

------End OP------

Chapter 1: Quickstart characters and getting jobs



Choosing Quickstart will start you off with the party of Gretch, Gunther, Hans and Ebhard. This is a pretty well balanced team in terms of skills and abilities, though neither Hans nor Ebhard are really suited to a long-term life of adventuring. Note the Blue and Green bars in the character information: they represent Endurance and Strength respectively. If a character runs out of endurance in a battle, they are knocked out and are no longer be able to fight. If the character runs out of strength, they die. Forever. There is no resurrection magic in Darklands.

On top of that, the total of a character's CURRENT strength and endurance determines how much equipment a character can hold before suffering penalties. Of course, the most damaging weapons and protective armor are heavy as fuck, so you get a tailspin of Low Strength and Endurance -> Equipment Penalties -> Damage taken -> Lower Strength and Endurance. Starting off weak just makes it so you reach that point faster.
That said, alchemy and prayer can make up for physical weakness, so the two aren't totally out of luck. While they probably won't be around for long, they have some guaranteed formulas and saints that a player created character would have.





Gretchen "Gretch" Wilburg is pretty solid. She starts off with the best equipment possible for a starting character, has juuust enough stamina and strength that she's a decent enough fighter (though a little on the low side), and pretty even stats for other matters. While she doesn't have any skill in it, she could be a reasonably effective alchemist with training. Her Virtue's good, so she could use some saints right off the bat (though you'd actually need to teach them to her first). Her actual role is the Charasmatic Leader, however, so more often than not we'll have her try to talk things through before anything else.





Gunther's really only good for one thing- fighting. But he does damn well at that right out the gate. He'll probably be around the longest just because of that strength stat. Woodwise and stealth are difficult to train skills, so starting off with them being even halfway decent is good.







Hans is a utility character first, and a fighter third. Second is probably having him run away from enemies until the other, stronger characters can deal with it. Still, he starts with the all important Essence of Grace, which restores Strength and Endurance. Once you've attained any decent level of wealth it's a good idea to mass produce these. Especially if you plan on getting rid of Hans later. Hans starts with one of each potion that he has the formula to, which can be a good source of early income. Note however that he doesn't start with a melee weapon, so you should probably get him one before getting too far.







I'd rank Ebhard slightly more valuable than Hans, but I'm pretty sure that's a bias from when I was much younger and used his saints to get me out of fighting wolves. A virtue of 52 will let him cast many if not most saints, and he has enough skill in healing for it to actually matter (anything below 30 is pointless). Despite being too weak to really use it properly, he also has the best possible starting armor.

I'll go into more detail about the various skills once we replace one of these guys.



Much of Darklands is menu based, where you are given several options as to which actions you can take. To spite Ebhard, we immediately hit the road.



The overworld allows free movement- click on the map and the character representing your party will move in that direction. Each terrain type has different possible encounters. You will want to try to avoind entering swamps (like in the upper right) and forests when your first start out- those areas can contain situations that you might not be ready for.

I happen to know a place that is very near to Soest that is just a short distance to the east. I take a couple of steps in that direction...



And hit our first random encounter! This one is perfectly safe: you'll encounter pilgrims pretty regularly. We'll be nice people and escort them to the town.





Note- we were at most an hour's walk from the city. Still, Gunther became a slighty better person! Virtue is the "alignment" system of Darklands. If you do good things, you will get a higher virtue which will allow the character to use more saints. Doing evil things will lower your virtue and there is no benefit from being evil in this game, so it's better to try not to be a dick.



Just one screen away from where we started, and we reach our destination:



Padderborn is one of the more important cities in Darklands. The statement that the city is known for its swordsmiths isn't just flavor text.



Sometimes your folks just have to wait it out. There's only one quest that's particularly time specific, so this isn't a huge deal most of the time.



Even as fledgeling adventurers, we can afford the paltry sum that the guards are demanding from us. However, we will always try to talk them out of it. Every single time.



And if we fail, we go ahead and just pay it, having lost nothing for the attempt.







Navigation through a city is strictly menu based outside of combat situations. Three clicks and I get to my destination:


Weapons and armor operate on a few metrics. One of those is quality (the number preceding the "q"). Padderborn is the place to buy weapons if you can afford it.

Which is why it's too bad we can't afford it. Welp, time to get a job. We head back to main street...



Go to the market place...



Check out the various vendors...











And proceed to get turned down by every single prospective employer. I also entered the shops (each of which is an identical menu to the swordsmith), but with no luck.



Gretch is so distraught that she even leaves the party for a moment!



Chatting with the clerks has never accomplished anything as far as I know. Please feel free to prove this or any other statement I make wrong. I've spent more time playing this game than pretty much any other non-MMO game, but I'm sure that there are things that I've missed over the years.



We slip off into the side street and find that night has fallen. Being on the side streets at night will very likely cause an encounter.



Like this one. You didn't miss anything- just BAM! Bandits.



Hans gets a quick shot with his crossbow while the others advance on the enemy.



Some violence later and the others have made quick work of their foes. Hans is having a tough time since he doesn't actually have a melee weapon.



Once the last bandit dies, we get our randomized skill increases. Note that a character without a melee weapon is treated as being equipped with a Small Knife- a shitty edged weapon with poor damage and penetration capabilities. Ebhard's skill with the Flail also increased from 34 to 36. Even these weak encounters can provide good skill increases, so it turns out that Hans was correct in saying that it's worth sticking around and fighting the street scum like Medieval Batman.



We are not done yet however. We go back to the side streets to repeat the process...



Just to come across an entirely different encounter. Not wanting to pay the fine, I straight up chuck that Noxious Aroma potion that Hans is carrying...



Only to have Ebhard trip over his own feet. We continue to try to run away...



Dammit Ebhard! We give up and pay the fine.

Somehow doing all of this didn't lower our reputation in the city, Repeated encounters with the night watch will start to wear you down eventually, and murdering a bunch of city officials goes over about as well as you would expect. Still, they almost never bother you if you stick to the side streets so this was just bad luck.



We go back to mete more vigilante justice, and this time actually get some options. I almost always try to talk things out if given the option.



The negotiation ended poorly, however.



For the bandits, anyway.





Hans is learning to suck slightly less. I probably should give him an actual weapon at some point.





Feeling accomplished, we sleep in an actual bed for a change. In the morning, we take a trip to the market.



Murdering all of those bandits netted us a nice amount of junk equipment. I sell all of it except for one Falchion that I gave to Hans. It's garbage, but still less garbage than the small knife.



Just doing this has gotten us a fair amount of fame and cash. It's enough to buy that Long Sword for Gretch. I also sell the Stone Tar potion to get enough to buy a Maul for Gunther. Now that we have some good weapons, we can move forward with pride. We're ready for the big time!







Unfortunately, the big time is not ready for us.



All of that good will, gone in an instant.



You know what, screw Padderborn. They can keep their high quality but somewhat disappointing selection of weapons.



We go right past Soest, because they also suck.





Gretch manages to sucessfully schmooze her way past the Duisberg guards. After some VIP service we get into the town.

We still don't get any work though. I repeat that sequence in the Padderborn market place.











I break the streak in Kempen, and someone is willing to give us a chance. Mind you, it's for 4 florins, and it involves breaking and entering into a banker's office, which will probably not end well. I hit the road again...









Slaughter more bandits...



And hit the best city to be at, as far as I'm concerned.



I get a luck increase to Speak Common on top of it. Trying to talk your way in is one of the best ways to increase the skill.

In any case, Koln has a lot of things going for it: a university, usually a large number of alchemical ingredients...



And massive rewards to quests.



Going after a Robber Knight at our level is a bit risky. However, we can probably manage it with a little luck and a good plan.



Note- the Robber Knight quest always gives you two directions- one relative to the town that you're currently in, and one relative to the town closest to the destination. In this case the town that we're in is the closest town to the Robber Knight, so it gave us the direction twice.



So to put things in perspective, to get the 4 florin reward, I will need to travel here. Note that I'm much less sure that I'll be able to complete this quest than the Robber Knight quest with what we're currently packing, so it's not like it's going to be an easy in-out.





On the other hand, this is how far I need to travel for the Robber Knight. Yes, that's Koln in the bottom right.





-And now we're faced with a decision. Do we camp outside and pick off their guys?
-Try to taunt Folmar and see if he's stupid enough to come out?
-Try to force our way in by bombing the door with alchemy? Talk our way in and assassinate the guy in his sleep?
-Give up and try to find something more reasonable?
-Or irrationally go after the quest with a significantly higher odds of failure that will probably end with us being run out of Fulda forever?

Feel free to suggest the next course of action that I take. Otherwise, I'll take the easy way through the castle. Note that the easy way does not guarantee success.