Game 199: Death Knights of Krynn (1991)

It was just about time for the predictable comfort of a Gold Box game. I have four of them to play in 1991, and I don't want them to get all clumped together at the end of the year.  I've spread them out like oases, knowing that I'll reach one every 8-12 games regardless of how bad or difficult the intervening games are.

I have no doubt that, just like its predecessors, Death Knights of Krynn will end up within the top 10 or 15 percent of games I've played as part of this project. I know that I'll enjoy the experience, particularly when it comes to combat. But what I also know--or at least suspect--is that the game isn't going to "wow" me. Gold Box used up all of its "wow" factor in Pool of Radiance, and since then it's been coasting on incremental improvements. That's fine--they're still great games--but it's too bad that SSI didn't continue to push the envelope the way that, say, Origin did with each new Ultima game (at least through 1992).

This game takes place a year after Champions of Krynn.

      
If you're just joining me, the Gold Box series is a collection of officially-licensed Dungeons & Dragons titles from Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). Although not the first officially-licensed D&D games, they are the first to actually use D&D rules and themes. Starting with Pool of Radiance in 1988, the series spanned 12 titles in 5 settings through 1992, plus a construction set called Unlimited Adventures in 1993. This is my sixth Gold Box game.

Really? That's the helmet you're going with? You look like a droid.

  

Death Knights is a direct sequel to Champions of Krynn (1991; link to my first post), set in the Dragonlance universe. The games take place after a series of novels concerning the "Heroes of the Lance" and their war against the minions of the evil goddess Takhisis. A key plot point in the novels and in the first game involves the creation of "Draconians" out of the corrupted eggs of good dragons. In Champions of Krynn, my party worked for the Knights of Solamnia and foiled a plot to unleash a new horde of Draconians on the unsuspecting continent of Ansalon. Although I defeated the architect of that plan, the Draconian Myrtani, at the conclusion of the game, it was hinted that Myrtani was simply a lieutenant of a more sinister leader, a Death Knight named Soth. (The character appears extensively in Dragonlance literature.)

Sniff. I will try to remember the good times I had with the skeletal dragon.

       
As you may recall, my triumphant party at the end of Champions was:

• Midsummer, a Level 7 lawful good female human knight
• Dutch, a Level 7 lawful good male human knight
• Grave, Level 7/7 chaotic good male Silvanesti Elf cleric/ranger
• Squirrel, a Level 7/9 true neutral female Qualinesti Elf red mage/thief
• Atmos, a Level 7/7 lawful good male Qualinesti Elf cleric/white mage
• Coral, a Level 7/9 neutral good female Kender cleric/thief

I rather like my party. Everyone but Squirrel is capable of casting at least some cleric spells. I have two mages to back each other up and two thieves for backstabbing opportunities. I was happy to see that level caps go all the way to 14 for most classes and 18 for thieves. Oddly, new characters in Death Knights start at Level 8, suggesting that I didn't grind enough in Champions. I've never seen imported characters end up at a lower level than new characters.

As a quick reminder, the Dragonlance games do a few things different from the Forgotten Realms variants. You can't play evil characters, which wouldn't make sense given the nature of the plot. Elves and dwarves are divided into sub-races with special strengths and weaknesses. Mages specialize in white, red, or black (NPCs only) magic and have spells limited accordingly. They get bonus spells at different phases of the moon. Knights--which don't exist as a class in the Forgotten Realms setting--have several "orders" that they can progress through; higher orders mean more spells but also more experience to advance. They can also take command of NPCs in combat. "Kender" are halfling expies and have a special weapon called a hoopak and a special ability to taunt enemies into a mindless rage. All of this makes character choice and development more meaningful in Krynn than in Pool of Radiance and its sequels. 

Importing characters from Champions worked flawlessly, and for the first time in a Gold Box game, all the equipment came with the characters. The Knights of Solamnia had made off with my best stuff at the end of Champions (including a Girdle of Giant Strength and a Dragonlance), but I still have some +3 weapons and armor, which is better than brand new items.

My mage/thief and some of her imported items.

          
The game commences one year after the defeat of Myrtani. (Although imported characters have not actually aged a year.) The party has gone to the Knights of Solamnia outpost at Gargath to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the victory. Gargath was at the center-north of the Champions game map but is at the southeast of the Death Knights map; it seems to be the only repeated location.

This game takes place slightly northwest of its predecessor.

The introductory screens describe how Lady Maya, the beautiful silver dragon in human form, gives a eulogy for Sir Karl, our deceased ally from Champions. Suddenly, a skeletal dragon attacks the proceedings. Riding on the back is none other than Sir Karl, who has been corrupted as a Death Knight. He snatches a Dragonlance and rides off, the enraged Maya in pursuit, leaving skeleton warriors mounted on nightmares to fight the party and our Solamnic Knight allies.

Why does he have to be fat?

To be fair, I guess for him, honor and virtue didn't really "succeed."

Death Knights thus begins, just like Champions, with a relatively difficult battle. I liked it a lot, but I wouldn't have wanted it to be my first exposure to Gold Box combat. I don't remember encountering nightmares (undead horses) in a CRPG before; they're capable of blinding characters with smoke. The skeleton warriors were particularly difficult, as they're immune to magic, have high armor classes, and start with over 60 hit points. Two of my characters were unconscious before the end of the battle, and I'm sure I wouldn't have won if I hadn't started with half a dozen knight NPCs.

After the battle, I was free to wander around the outpost, which was besieged by the evil forces. There was a shop, a bar, a bank, a temple, and a training hall, and a series of micro-quests, like helping the temple clerics heal the wounded, patrolling the ramparts, and helping to bury fallen knights. In the cemetery, a journal entry revealed that Sir Karl's grave had been torn open and corrupted, and investigating it got me bitten by snakes.

A recounting of the scene from the adventurer's journal. If you're new to the Gold Box series, its games frequently tell you to consult journal entries for longer text passages or images.

 
At one point, I encountered a Dread Wolf, who spoke to me and said that he'd foil all my attempts to interfere with Soth's plans.

Eventually, a small group of warriors, mages, and clerics attacked the outpost. They weren't difficult to defeat (not immune to magic, among other things). When the battle was over, I was summoned to the commandant's chambers, where an old "knight emeritus" told me of a prophetic dream he had. He couldn't remember much, but a magic device called a "sleepstone," tucked under his pillow, had recorded it. He told me to take it to a Dream Merchant in Vingaard to decode it.

The commandant, Sir Bertil, told me that the Dream Merchant is "in Kalaman this time of year," however. Consulting the map, I saw that Kalaman was at the top, so I left the outpost and started in that direction. Within a couple of steps, I was in a random battle with several undead enemies that I don't remember from other games, including zombie mastodons and zombie minotaurs. It's a benefit that so many of my characters have the ability to turn undead.

A frequent message while traversing the wilds.

Rather than slavishly follow the game's instructions to go to Kalaman, I stopped in the city of Dulcimer on the way. The city was populated with the undead. As I entered, a text screen told me that: "Zombies fill a market to the east. A dog lurches past, pursued by an undead child." I was soon greeted by a lich, calling himself the mayor of the city. He asked if I'd ever visited Cerberus. Thinking he wasn't talking about my experiences in Elvira II, I said no, and he told me that I could "explore freely" except for the eastern exit and his private chamber.

Awfully friendly for a lich.

I didn't bother to map the Gargath outpost, and I didn't map Dulcimer, either. I normally like to map, but I wasn't in the mood for some reason. The "Area" command in the game shows you enough of the surrounding area to figure it out, and as long as you pay attention to the coordinates, it's not hard to make sure you step on every square in the 16 x 16 maps.

Naturally, I ignored the mayor and went for his private chambers. Before I entered, a specter appeared and told me that while destroying the lich would allow me to enter "Voice Wood," it was a bigger deal than simply defeating him in combat. I would have to find his phylactery and destroy it.

In the room beyond, the lich attacked me with several specters and wizards. It wasn't a difficult battle--"Fireball" was helpful given how they were arranged--but the specters managed to drain two levels from both Midsummer and Dutch.

Fighting the lich and his allies.

Once I killed the lich, I ran about town until I discovered the phylactery buried in a garden and destroyed it. All the undead collapsed at this point, and the game told me that "a great onus of evil has been lifted from this town." Clearly, I did this area a little bit out of order, but I made a note to return when I need to enter the "Voice Wood" for whatever reason.

Or when I need some undead eggs.

Returning to the road, I made my way to Kalaman, where I got my lead characters restored at a temple and leveled up some of the others. The knight commander, Daine, was eager for my help countering the growing influence of Lord Soth. He introduced me to "the beauteous Ariela, my advisor and consort," who told me that the Dream Merchant had a pavilion in the city's bazaar. She also warned me about Sebas Astmoor, "Soth's favorite and a potent cleric," who "left scenes of incomparable horror" the last time he was in Kalaman.

This is essentially the first time the party has heard of "Soth" in the game, although I guess he was probably pretty famous in the game world from the War of the Lance.

The bazaar occupies more than a quarter of the northwest of Kalaman. It's a maze-like area full of tent walls that you can tear through if you reach a dead-end, although that seems kind of jerkish. Anyway, when I approached the Dream Merchant, a bunch of guards suddenly shapeshifted into Sivak Draconians and attacked.

A true role-playing choice.

To recount, I met 5 types of Draconians in Champions of Krynn. Baaz are melee fighters whose skin is so tough it can capture a character's weapon for the rest of the battle. Kapaks can paralyze with their melee attacks and dissolve into pools of acid when killed. Bozaks explode when slain, damaging everyone around them. Auraks are the most difficult. They cast "Fire Shield" as their first spell, making it damaging to hit them in melee combat. Once you kill them, they immediately come back to life with 20 hit points. Kill them again, and they come back to life a second time, immortal and immobile--for three rounds, at which point they explode in a fireball.

Sivaks have the ability to change their features and impersonate humans--dangerous for plot reasons, but not in combat. I killed them quickly. Unfortunately, others kidnapped the Dream Merchant and got away. Wandering around, I found a note asking me to meet in the center of the bazaar after 16:00. "Since we both seek to stop the Lord Soth from coming to power," it said, "why not bring the sleepstone and the Dream Merchant together under rules of truce?"

I slept for a while, restored my spells, and went back to the bazaar. At 16:00, I was greeted by a red dragon leading a pack of blue dragons and carrying the Dream Merchant. The Merchant begged me to give them the stone, saying that "its message will not benefit these creatures." But I refused and found myself in battle with three blue dragons.

I'm not a fan of blue dragons because there's no "Protection from Lightning" spell. Sure enough, they slaughtered me in the first battle; none of my characters was able to withstand more than 2 breath attacks, and I just couldn't kill them fast enough. Fortunately, I learned that after 3 breath attacks in a row, the dragons stop using them. When I reloaded, I cast "Mirror Image" on my two spellcasters and had them loiter around the dragons while everyone else ran behind a wall to safety. The dragons' breath attacks affected only the mirror images for the first two rounds, after which I felt I was safe. I brought everyone else back on the battlefield and killed the dragons.

Immediately afterwards, the Dream Merchant croaked out "Crook! Vin..." and vanished. (This turned out to be instructions to visit him on Crook Street in Vingaard.) The Dread Wolf appeared and ordered his allies to attack, and I faced another battle with clerics, mages and evil warriors.

I love it so when they line up like this.

It appears that the next stop is in Vingaard.

I should have said "No," just to see if the game immediately ended.

Now that I've had a few hours of exposure to the game, I can report several changes in the mechanics from its predecessor:

• The game remembers what spells you've cast, so you don't have to re-memorize the same ones over and over. You can memorize new ones if you want, but otherwise you just have to rest to re-memorize the old ones. This is a very welcome addition.

• "Next" and "Previous" no longer target allies when aiming in combat. Yay! I've been complaining about this since the first combat in Pool of Radiance.

• In combat, the game remembers who you last aimed at. If he's still alive in the next round, he's automatically targeted. Another very welcome feature.

• SPACE has stopped working to center spells. Instead, there's a new "center" command--but it only works if you're cycling through enemies with "Next" or "Previous," not if you manually aim. This is a bit of a regression, but since the SPACE trick wasn't documented, it might be a benefit for some.

• We're back to having to hit "Move" at the beginning of combat to start walking, instead of just being able to go right to the movement keys. Boo.

• You now have the option to end the battle immediately when the last enemy dies, instead of having to deplete everyone's turn first. This is a good addition.

In total, the good changes outweigh the bad ones. Coupled with the "Fix" command introduced in Curse of the Azure Bonds, they address almost everything that was wrong with the original interface.

Other notes on gameplay.

• As I said about the last few Gold Box games, they feature a pleasing redundancy in keyboard, mouse, and joystick commands. If you're using the keyboard, you just hit the first letter of the command. To use the mouse, you click on it. And if using a joystick, you move it until the right command is highlighted and hit the button. It's refreshing to meet a game that accommodates every player's style. I'm naturally using the keyboard almost exclusively.

• I was surprised that the game doesn't support VGA graphics. I guess this is the last one that didn't, which means that I'm probably playing it in the right order for 1991.

• I keep hoping that the Gold Box games will start showing more in the environment than just wall textures, and I keep suffering disappointment. 

Would it be so hard to show a mound?

• It's been a running joke throughout the Gold Box series that the economies are horribly, horribly broken, loading up the player with so much money that the characters quite literally can't move. This is the case here from the first minute. In the first combat, I noticed that no one was capable of moving more than 3 spaces because they were carrying thousands of steel pieces from Champions. I dropped them all for mobility's sake. Even so, I left the outpost--the very first map of the game--with 12,000 steel pieces in the bank, mostly from selling enemy bracers. There has been nothing interesting to buy so far.

Why are bracers so damned valuable?

• Have we ever had a discussion about how turned undead provide no experience? Why is that fair?

• I love that the series has used the same full-party death screen since the beginning. I'm picturing a bunch of dragons and skeleton warriors breaking out the booze and dancing the night away.

• The "adventurer's journal" concept is starting to feel very dated. Surely, there's no longer any space reasons that they couldn't have put the text on the screen. I think it's more of a copy protection issue than anything else at this point.

Nothing about Death Knights of Krynn so far has felt familiar, so I'm guessing I never played this one, even in the 1990s. On the other hand, the plot hasn't exactly been gripping so far (I'm running around trying to get a dream out of a stone?), and the nature of the storytelling has been a little clumsy. 

But man, am I happy to be back in Gold Box combat again. It's been since Moria, which I stopped playing back in February, that I've rated anything higher than a 4 in this category. I never get sick of the tactics and challenge that this combat system provides.

And I never get sick of this.

Time so far: 3 hours

Reload count: 2

*****

In list news, I tried to get Return of the Ring working, but I couldn't get it running stably with a Dragon 32 emulator (the only platform it was released for). It was a tape game, and it kept wanting me to rewind, play, and advance the tape, and the emulator controls didn't seem to do the job or I didn't understand them. I think it's more of an adventure game anyway, despite being a sequel to an RPG.