Game 528: Betrayal at Krondor (1993)

 

I wonder when the actual "betrayal" will happen. I'm going to be full of angst until it does.

     

Betrayal at Krondor

United States

Dynamix, Inc. (developer and publisher); 

Released 1993 for DOS on floppy disk; re-released in 1994, 1996, and 1998 on CD-ROM, each time with different features

Date Started: 23 July 2024

        

My blog was not yet a year old, and I was still going through my first pass (of many) of the early 1980s, when a reader first wrote and said he was looking forward to my coverage of Betrayal at Krondor. Despite it being repeatedly mentioned since then, I have managed to keep myself entirely ignorant of it. Until last month, I didn't know anything about its background, interface, or plot.

   

I was surprised, then, to find that like the recently-covered Circuit's Edge, it is based on a series of books, themselves based on a home-grown tabletop RPG setting created by a group of University of California, San Diego students. The author of the books is Raymond E. Feist (1945-), and the first novel, Magician, came out in 1982. Together with Silverthorn (1985) and A Darkness at Sethanon (1986), the novels make up the "Riftwar Saga," which itself is part of the "Riftwar Cycle," comprising another 27 novels through 2013 (some written by other authors), including Krondor: The Betrayal (1998), a novelization of this game. Feist apparently didn't write the dialogue or descriptions in the game, but he did contribute a plot outline. The game is organized like a novel, in distinct, named chapters--which I believe is an RPG "first."

      

Never mind.

     

Also like Circuit's Edge, Krondor apparently came about when a CRPG designer--in this case, Dynamix's John Cutter--fell in love with a book and approached the author about a CRPG. Cutter had worked for Gamestar and Cinemaware before joining Dynamix in 1991. His history up to this point is mostly racing and sports games. Dynamix hadn't done much with RPGs, either; before now, we've only seen them with Sword of Kadash (1985). More encouraging is the presence of writer Neal Hallford, whose text and manuals were some of the best parts of New World's Tunnels & Trolls (1990) and Planet's Edge (1991).

      

I put plans to post about the game on hold until I could read the three (actually four, as in the U.S., Magician was split in two) novels that precede the game. The books and game are set in the world of Midkemia, a Middle-Earth like world with humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls, and dragons (but no hobbits). The world has several continents and many lands, but most of the action takes place in the Kingdom of the Isles. (It's a bit of a misnomer, as it started within a small group of islands but later spread to encompass most of the northern part of the continent.) The capital, and residence of the king, is far to the east on the island of Rillanon. The territory stretches so far to the west, to the Duchy of Crydee, that a second quasi-capital exists about halfway in between, on the Bitter Sea, in the City of Krondor. It is ruled by a duke who, by tradition, is next in line for the throne of the kingdom.

       

This is a pretty small credits list for a 1993 game.

    

The book series starts from the perspective of Pug, an orphan in Crydee, who becomes an apprentice magician. Even as the books grow in complexity to include more points of view, almost all of the principal characters come from Crydee, including Pug's friend Tomas and the three sons of Duke Borric: Martin, Lyam, and Arutha. 

     

The books begin in kind of a stasis. There's no overwhelming threat like Sauron. Other than occasional goblin raids and skirmishes between the Kingdom of the Isles and the southern Empire of Kesh, the primary threat is posed by the Brotherhood of the Dark Path, or Moredhel, an off-shoot of the elves. In ancient times, the elves were a slave race to the Valheru, the dragon lords. When the Valheru were defeated and cast off, the elves split into multiple factions, the Moredhel intent on claiming the power of their former masters and becoming the rulers of the world.

      

The book that started it all.

      

This stasis is upset when humans from another world start showing up on Midkemia. What starts out as scouting parties soon turns into a full-blown invasion. The aliens, called Tsurani, come from a world called Kelewan, ruled by an empire with a strict social hierarchy (including slaves). Magicians in Kelewan are revered as demi-gods called "Great Ones" and given free license to do whatever they want as long as they pledge to serve the empire. (Feist apparently adopted many of the characteristics of Kelewan from M.A.R. Barker's Tékumel universe as seen in the 1974 tabletop RPG The Empire of the Petal Throne.) These magicians have found a way to open a stable rift to Midkemia, a tempting prize because Kelewan has almost no metals.

   

The bulk of Magician concerns the war between the Kingdom of the Isles and Kelewan. Duke Borric becomes the primary leader of the kingdom's forces while Lyam fights alongside him and Arutha and Martin make an alliance with the elves and dwarves to defend the regions around Crydee. Pug is lost in a raid on the rift and taken to Kelewan as a slave. After several years, his magical powers manifest themselves; he is taken for training as a Great One; and he becomes a powerful member of the empire's Assembly. Tomas finds some magical gear that makes him fuse with the spirit of an ancient Valheru warrior, becomes a great warrior, and marries the queen of the elves. 

      

The game begins with book-style narration.

       

Eventually, Pug loses his cool at a particularly cruel series of gladiator games, nearly destroys the capital of Kelewan with his magic, and flees back through the rift to Midkemia. Both Borric and the mentally-ill king of the Kingdom of the Isles die in combat, leaving Lyam as the heir (although it turns out that Borric's huntsman, Martin, is also his bastard son, causing a brief issue with the succession). An ancient wizard named Macros the Black helps Pug close the rift for good. Arutha becomes the Duke of Krondor and Martin takes over the Duchy of Crydee.

   

Although I read both Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon, I read them somewhat quickly, and I remain confused about the nature of the "big bad" in those novels. I'll go back to them if it becomes important to the plot here. Suffice to say that Silverthorn concerns a series of Moredhel-led attempts to assassinate Arutha in Krondor, one of which leaves his betrothed, Anita, dying of poison created from a plant called Silverthorn. Arutha assembles a classic RPG adventuring party (including a former thief named Jimmy the Hand) to enter Moredhel territory, collect some of the plant, and fashion an antidote before Anita dies. Meanwhile, Pug (mostly) investigates the source of the threat, which takes him back to Kelewan (he's learned how to master rifts in the meantime). It turns out the Moredhel have united under the banner of Murmandamus, and they seek to fulfill a prophecy that they will conquer the world after "The Lord of the West" dies. But there's some connection with an ancient Enemy of the Tsurani that I don't understand. A Darkness at Sethanon, which I basically speed-read in time to finish for this entry, concerns the armies of the Kingdom fighting Murmandamus's forces at the city of Sethanon. It turns out that Murmandamus seeks to bring about the return of the Valheru. After a bunch of fighting, the good guys are victorious, and the Kingdom gets to settle down for a while.

 

Betrayal thus starts a brand new narrative, ten years after the events in Sethanon, so I'm not sure how much of the backstory is necessary to know. I'll introduce more if it seems like the narrative needs it. The manual also recaps the plots of the books and gives a profile of the major characters, each accompanied by portraits so cringe-worthy that if people hadn't told me how great this game is, I might have stopped right there. It looks like the developers just stuck bad wigs and false beards on anyone who happened to be around the office. I don't usually even care about such things, but almost none of them look anything like they're described in the books. The same goofy actors are used for in-game portraits and video. That's going to be distracting.

      

This depiction of Pug is actively offensive.

     

I should say that I found the books serviceable. I would call both the writing and worldbuilding slightly above average for epic fantasy, but I probably won't continue with the rest of the books in the series. I think Feist does a particularly good job narrating battles. The characters, on the other hand, are more archetypes than people. The only aspect of the novels that I thought was truly poor is the descriptions of magic. I guess I've been spoiled by Brandon Sanderson. I want rules with my magic. I want to know how things work. Pug just waves his hands and things happen. 

   

Moving on to the game, the opening text and brief cinematic start the narrative with "Chapter I: Into the Dark Night." (I'm playing the GOG version based on one of the CD-ROM releases, so some of the elements I describe might not have existed in the original 1993 floppy version.) Seigneur Locklear is escorting a Moredhel prisoner named Gorath to Krondor. They've been hounded, attacked, and wounded by other Moredhel, so they stop in the town of Tiburn for magical healing. A mage apprentice named Owyn helps them out. A Moredhel assassin named Haseth attacks the group, but Gorath breaks his bonds and quickly dispatches him.

       

Were the wigs really necessary? I know we're talking about game developers here, but could their own hair have been that bad?

      

With many questions unanswered, the game is then put into the player's hands. Locklear, Owyn, and Gorath make up the party of three characters, which appears to be the maximum. Each character has statistics for health, stamina, speed, and strength. (Gorath outclasses the other two in all but speed.) Each also has values from 0% to 100% in 12 skills: defense, crossbow accuracy, melee accuracy, casting accuracy, assessment, armorcraft, weaponcraft, barding, haggling, lockpicking, scouting, and stealth. (My understanding is that these all increase directly through usage.) The lack of any creation process is also a bit of a black mark here at the beginning.

   

I should note that of the three characters, only Locklear appears in the books so far. He is introduced in Silverthorn as the youngest son of the Baron of Land's End and a companion of Jimmy the Hand as the latter transitions from thief to nobility. He is described as an above-average swordsman. He has a much bigger role in Sethanon, as one of the squires who goes with Arutha to confront Murmandamus. He falls in love with a local girl named Bronwynn, but she is tragically killed by a troll, which he kills in return. He spends most of the rest of the book in a funk. During the final battle, he saves another girl from a troll and is last seen protecting her and a group of children. In the intervening years, he's apparently become a knight.

   

In theater, this is known as "hamming it up."

           

The interface is dominated by a large exploration window, stretching all the way across the top third. The bottom third has a compass, portraits for the three characters, and six buttons: follow the road, cast a spell, encamp, show the game map, quick save, and game options. I was happy to discover that each of these options can also be summoned with a single key, and that the game options offer not only the ability to turn off music but separate options for turning off regular music, CD music, and combat music.

     

Clicking on the character portraits (or hitting the 1-3 keys) brings up the inventory screen, while right-clicking (or SHIFT-1, 2, or 3) brings up the character sheets. Even better, the inventory items all have detailed descriptions (as well as damage conditions). On the negative side, it appears that the only items you can equip are weapons, missile weapons, and "suits" of armor--no separate helms, gauntlets, rings, belts, boots, necklaces, and so forth. There are a lot of usable items, though, and the party shares a key ring.

      

I always like item descriptions. I'm not sure I've ever had them so personalized before.

      

Locklear and Gorath start with a broadsword, "standard kingdom armor," 6 rations, and 10 "restoratives" (basically healing potions). Owyn has a wooden staff, no armor, 11 rations, a torch, and 3 herbal packs. The descriptions of these items are told as if narrated in a book, from their points of view.

     

Right-clicking the character portraits while the character sheet is already active brings up a biography of the characters. In short:

     

• Locklear, in addition to what I already related, has become "one of the  most honored nobles at the court of Krondor." He has lately been in the service "of a northern Kingdom garrison to investigate reports of a conflict raging in the Northlands." He apparently saved Gorath from another Moredhel.

     

Part of Locklear's biography.

    

• Gorath is a Moredhel of the Ardanien Clan. During the Riftwar, he gathered with the other Moredhel in the north and became renowned for his generalship against the invading Tsurani forces (that the Moredhel fought their own war against the Tsurani is alluded to in the books but not really explored). His story doesn't say what he did during Murmandamus's campaign, but after Murmandamus died, Gorath became critical of the general, Delekhan, who replaced Murmandamus as leader of the Moredhel. This probably explains why Gorath was fleeing Moredhel attackers at the beginning.

• Owyn Beleforte is the son of the Count of Tiburn, an embarrassment to his family because of his desire to learn magic. He even embezzled money from his father to hire a tutor. He is described as clever and perceptive.

    

The characters don't have defined "classes," but there must be some underlying class at work because Owyn has a flat "N/A" for "Crossbow" and Locklear and Gorath have the same for "Casting."

       

Owyn's statistics.

      

Movement is interesting. The game options let you set both the "step size" and "turn size." When set to "large," each turn takes you 1/16 of the way around the compass, and forward and backward movements are large enough that you're almost playing a tiled game. When set to "small," both turning and movement feel essentially continuous. You can move with the arrow keys, numberpad, or mouse (by clicking on the arrows around the compass; if this is how you prefer to move in this game, you may show yourself out). I've read online that the engine was modified from the one that Dynamix used for Aces of the Pacific (1992) and Aces Over Europe (1993), a pair of flight simulators, which might explain why there's no strafing.

      

Moving through the forest.

     

The graphics are about what you'd expect from a quasi-continuous movement game of the early 1990s, with blocky, angled hills and rocks, although the trees are surprisingly well-detailed. There are background sounds like chirping birds, for perhaps the first time in an American RPG. I otherwise need to experience more of it to have a strong opinion about graphics or sound.

     

As the game begins, the body of the slain Haseth is lying on the ground in front of the party. Clicking on it brings up some text that "he" has reservations about stealing from the dead, but decides to do so if it will help the mission. I'm not sure whose perspective this is supposed to be. When I reload later and do it again, this time the message is explicitly from Owyn's perspective. I'm not sure how the game decides. Anyway, the body has 4 rations and 2 lockpicks.

     

It appears you get this kind of angst every time you loot a body.

      

The map of Midkemia shows us northwest of Krondor, so I start us moving to the southeast. I've only gone a few steps when some text pops up indicating that Gorath is a bit broody and keeps looking back at his slain kin. Owyn offers to help bury him, but Gorath says that's not the problem; the problem is that Moredhel aren't supposed to attack each other. He's concerned about other assassins showing up. Locklear agrees to take off Gorath's shackles so he can better defend himself if that happens. Locklear also insists that Owyn accompany them, lest he spread word of the Moredhel to the wrong ears. "For the time being, you're my squire." 

      

The game stops for some narration.

      

We come to a road and start following it south. Before long, I spot what looks like a chest on the right side of the road. I click on it and the game indicates that it's a "Moredhel box" and it has something called a "wordlock" that must be solved before it can be opened. The manual mentions these; locals think that they're "fairy boxes," but they're actually used by "traveling Moredhel to pass messages back and forth." To open them, you have to give a three-letter answer to a question posed by a riddle. [Ed., This one only had three letters, but apparently others have more.] In this case, the riddle is: "Prince Arutha, from his lofty perch / Will find our troops without a search / His men will fail, his castle too / And then what will Prince Arutha do?"

     

There are three cylinders with which to give answer; the first cycles through DAFS, the second through OREI, and the third through CEWN. You have to figure out a three-letter word that makes sense with the riddle. SOW? ARC? The manual actually gives you this one: DIE. I guess next time, we'll see how long it takes me to get it on my own. I suppose in the worst case, it wouldn't take too long to cycle through all 64 possibilities.

       

I somehow didn't get a shot of the dials. I'll try next time.

       

The chest has a broadsword and another set of standard kingdom armor. I give both to Owyn, who is able to equip the armor despite his mage status. It doesn't look like I could swap out his staff for the broadsword.

    

A little further down the road, another squire known to Owyn, Phillip, approaches the party. Owyn says he met Phillip in a nearby city. Locklear tells Owyn to get rid of the boy. They exchange pleasantries, and Phillip is suspicious that Owyn, who's supposed to be from Tiburn, is traveling south. Owyn makes up a story. Phillip says that he came to this area to try again to open a chest he saw previously--probably the one that we just opened.

      

The map shows our current position and Krondor to the southeast.

     

After the scripted dialogue, there's an option to feed Phillip some chosen keywords--in this case, just "Nearest Town" and "Inn." In response to the first, Phillip says that the town of LaMut is coming up, and he recommends the Blue Wheel for a good meal. For the latter, he recommends the Blue Wheel or the Dusty Dwarf in Hawk's Hollow. He mentions we could just break into one of the many abandoned houses in the countryside; apparently, many people have fled a contagion south of Loriel. The conversation leads to additional dialogue options for "Empty Houses" and "Lost Items," but I don't learn much from those.

       

The next time I complain about anime, remind me that it could be worse.

     

We come to a signpost where we could go west to LaMut or south to Zon. The southern road is the most direct one to Krondor. I should mention that the manual encourages you to make use of the open-world nature of the game and poke your head into places that aren't strictly on your quest route, but I figure that in the spirit of role-playing, we should try our best to make it to the capital while pursued by assassins. 

    

Ironically, we are almost immediately attacked by a Moredhel assassin, which gives me a sense of the combat system. It is turn-based and on a tactical grid, although you view the grid from an oblique angle rather than from the top down. You can toggle the grid on and off with the "G" key.

        

The battle begins.

     

Each round, a character can move a number of grid cells equal to his "Speed" statistic. If adjacent to an enemy, you can thrust or swing--the weapon statistics tell you the accuracy and damage from both types of attack. Generally speaking, thrusting is less accurate and more damaging. You can fire a missile weapon if you have one, cast a spell, defend, assess opponents, spend a round resting, or retreat (which isn't always successful). Finally, there's an auto-combat option if you want the game to fight for you.

        

I wanted to try spells immediately, I'm not sure how you're supposed to know what they do. Owyn comes with five of them: "Despair Thy Eyes," "Invitation," "Gift of Sung," "Candle Glow," and "Scent of Sarig." Clicking or right-clicking on them tells you nothing about them; neither does the manual. [Ed., It turns out that it does if you have the proper manual.] So I just had the characters surround the Moredhel and beat at him until he died. On his body, he had another broadsword and suit of regular armor and a few silver royals.

     

Surrounding and pummeling the foe.

     

I think I'll wrap up there for the first entry and give a chance for the tips and opinions to come in. Please try to avoid explicit spoilers, but let me know if I'm already making a mistake of any kind. I have to say--I don't know if I'm going to like the book-style narration of this one, especially if it turns out to be excessively linear or cuts down on role-playing. "Chapters" usually make me a little wary in an RPG. But I'll keep an open mind.

   

Time so far: 1 hour