The Ormus Saga II: As Far as I Could Take It

Confronting the "big bad."

          

I've told you before about the encyclopedia that I wrote in college. As I learned back then, there are two major approaches to writing an encyclopedia:

   

• Gather all your sources and start with a specific topic like MAGNA CARTA or MAGNESIUM. Write a full entry on that topic, synthesizing what every source has to say.

• Start with one of your sources rather than a topic. As you read the source, fill in the details of multiple topics at once as it delivers new information.

     

I'm just going to blather for a few paragraphs, so in the meantime, here I am finding the Mystic Helm in a bucket.

           

For instance, if I were writing an encyclopedia on characters in The Lord of the Rings, using the first method, I might start with BAGGINS, FRODO. I would read the entire book, taking notes specifically on Frodo, and summarizing his biography when I was finished. For subsequent characters, I might use an index or CTRL-F with an electronic version to skip between mentions of that character, but otherwise the process would be the same.

 

If I wrote such an encyclopedia using the second method, I'd start on the first page of the text. By the end of the epigram, I'd have entries on ELVES, DWARVES, DARK LORD, MORDOR, and ONE RING, but I wouldn't be able to say much about them. After the first page of Chapter 1, I'd have entries started for HOBBITS, RED BOOK OF WETMARCH, and BILBO. They'd just be skeletons, of course. I'd append new material as I read on, page by page, and when I finished a single reading of the text, I'd have a relatively complete draft of all the characters and places in it. I'd move on to secondary works and scholarly works and flesh out the entries even more.

      

A magic map shows a secret area in the mountains.

     

I wrote my encyclopedia using the second method. The difficulty it posed is that whenever my editor asked for an update, no part of the encyclopedia was ever "finished." Even when it had grown to 500 pages, every entry was still in progress, because I didn't know if my next source would deliver even more information about that topic. 

   

Writing about an open-world with only a main quest (no side quests) is a bit like writing an encyclopedia using the second method. There are no obvious stopping points, no complete stories to tell. Each hour fills in a bit of information here or there, but nothing is done until the entire thing is done. For this reason, I pressed hard this week to get the entire thing done. Even as I missed my target publication deadline on Wednesday, I continued to think that just another few hours would wrap it up.

        

But then you have to listen to a voice growling, "I see you . . . " everywhere you go.

        

In the end, the scope of the game is rather impressive, particularly for a diskmag title. Released on four disks, The Ormus Saga II comprises 65,000 overworld squares and 39 locations, including 20 towns with around 120 NPCs. These numbers are considerably higher than the Ultima games (primarily I-III) that inspired it.  

    

I spent about 10 hours with the game after the last entry. I began by finishing my clockwise loop around the continent, logging cities, services, NPCs, and "to do" items. In the middle of this loop, I had enough money to buy a skiff, and shortly after the end, I had enough to buy a ship. Skiffs and ships work as they did in the first game, or a bit nonsensically. They're inventory items, and when you want to use them, you just board them wherever you happen to be. You don't have to worry about where you left them, as they disappear (and go back into your inventory) once you disembark. They degrade over time, and you have to periodically visit a boat shop to repair them.

       

Someday, I would like to visit (0,0) in real life.

                

With both skiff and ship in my possession, there was nowhere on the overworld that I couldn't go, save the rare high mountaintop inaccessible even with a climbing tool. I thus re-explored the overworld, this time in 9-square strips, ensuring that I found every location. I cleaned up items on my "to do" list as I did so. I learned that the game world is 255 x 255, wrapping.

   

There are multiple purposes of all of this exploration:

   

• To learn more about the game's backstory and, thus, the main mission.

• To level up, primarily so you can cast some of the more advanced spells needed for success. 

• To free each city from the presence of the Brotherhood (and defend the cities from attempts to re-take them).

• To find the locations of the 25 treasures buried in the game world.

        

Finding yet another treasure. The Death Sword is the best weapon in the game. It broke in the next battle.

      

• To find various artifacts needed to win the game.

• To learn the names of the 9 god-servants, each of whom has a task that must be completed to win the game.

• To learn the three words of power and the one "holy word."

     

Busca generously provided a translation of the German manual (which had existed up to this point only in an image format) to assist with the backstory. It concerns the Brotherhood of the White Rose, an organization founded 120 years ago by a good cleric named Sullivan. He intended that the Brotherhood serve altruistic purposes, but he realized too late that it had become too powerful and corrupted. Towards the end of his life, he tried to dissolve it, but seven members led by someone named Gulhaven assassinated him in Arbon Castle before he could accomplish the task. The public was told he died from an illness, and the order lived on. One of the priests present at the assassination wrote the truth in a book called Ulbore, then walled it up in the library of Arbon Castle. The assassins each mysteriously died. 

   

An earthquake recently exposed the book, which scholars spent nearly 40 years translating. It revealed the truth: Sullivan had been the personal protégé of the high god Carion, who was preparing a severe punishment for mankind's treachery. If some hero could not complete 9 tasks set out by Carion's servants within 1 year of the reading of Ulbore, the world would be destroyed.

        

As we'll discuss, Gorab is no longer "living" in Beryland.

      

I'm a little unclear about the relationship between the Brotherhood of the White Rose and the Ormus Cult from the first game. Any player who wins the first game kills Lord Marox, leader of the cult. In this game, Marox's castle, Magmar, is still around, and his successor, Lord Finning, is leading the cult. But Finning also claims to be a member of the Brotherhood. I guess it's kind of like the Fellowship and the followers of the Guardian in Ultima VII, with the cult using the ostensibly benevolent organization for nefarious purposes.

      

As for leveling up, I made it to Level 7 before ending this session. You periodically pray before the altars at the three temples to earn new levels, which come with additional strength, maximum hit points, and maximum spell points. You also get the ability to cast more spells. Having already found magic armor, a magic shield, and a magic axe while on Level 1, I didn't have much reason to try to upgrade to better weapons, but I was forced to regress a few times when my items broke. As I covered before, items break on a set schedule, so if you really want to keep one, you have to notice when it breaks, reload, switch to a different (lesser) item, let it break instead, then switch back to the one you want to keep. I confess I did this a few times.

         

"I'm a what? A 'player'? What does that even mean? What am I playing? Is this all a game to you!?" - my character

          

Monsters got a lot harder as I leveled up. By Level 3, I was already facing balrogs, sea dragons, and giants. I made combat harder for myself because I neglected my endurance statistic, upon which accuracy depends. Every time you rest at an inn (which takes one game day), it resets to 99, and you're healed to maximum hit points. But the latter also happens when you pay a healer, which is cheaper and doesn't cost you a precious day. Until I re-read the manual and realized the importance of endurance, I was suffering through long battles in which I hardly ever hit the enemy.

        

Trading blows with a balrog.

    

Freeing each city means attacking it with enough troops and weapons to defeat the enemy garrisons, then leaving enough troops behind to defend it when the enemy tries to re-take it. You have to periodically replenish troops lost in these battles. Fortunately, every town has a "troop shop" for this purpose. Every week, you get an income based on the number of cities you hold, but you have to pay any troops in your active army. This system keeps the economy relevant deep into the game, but even so, there was a point that I stopped bothering to sell accumulated jewels, nuggets, and other items because I had enough gold.

    

Perhaps the most interesting and fun part of the game is fully exploring each city, temple, dungeon, hut, and castle, talking to each NPC, and searching the city's furniture, trees, and other locations for the eight treasures located in each indoor area. If you can find all the treasures, you get a bonus of 75 experience points. More important, some of the treasures are unique or near so. Some cities are very easily explorable by a starting character, but most of them have some combination of:

   

• Locked or magically-locked doors that you need keys or magic keys to unlock. These are sold in a very small number of "special" stores or looted from furniture and creatures. 

• Rivers or other bodies of water that you need a skiff to cross. 

• Secret doors that you have to search the walls to uncover.

     

Getting to that ladder involved both a skiff and searching for a secret door.

      

• Mountainous squares that you need the climbing tool to cross.

• Squares of fire or lava that you need the Fire Cloak to survive.

     

The eighth treasure in this town, behind a secret door, was crucial to navigating the rest of the game.

     

• Places that are blocked by furniture that you need the AN PULVIS (Level 4) spell to remove.

      

I need to make this bookcase disappear to get to the secret door on the other side.

     

• Doorways blocked by force fields that you need the FOREMIS (Level 5) spell to remove.

   

Even when you have these tools, some of which come late in the game, it can be difficult to figure out the exact path you need to take to find hidden areas. There were also times I ran out of resources (e.g., keys, spell points) in the middle of the exploration and had to start over. As of now, I've only found the eighth treasure in about two-thirds of the locations visited. As we'll discuss, I clearly haven't found every NPC. 

        

Negating a force field.

     

Some notes on encounters and gameplay elements:

   

• Most NPCs just offer a few paragraphs of dialogue for which you have no input. There is one chain of about six NPCs who feed you keywords to tell the next person in the chain. (The last one gives coordinates to a treasure.) This and the occasional use of the YELL action are the only uses of the keyboard in the game.

      

The game features NPC names like "Vincent," "Larry," and other inventions from the realm of high fantasy.

       

• Several NPCs talk about the Black Dragon, the last survivor of the Dragon Wars, one of the most ancient creatures in Beryland. I encountered it while exploring the world and killed it in combat. The only thing I got was experience and gold. I don't know if killing it is required to win the game. 

      

"You are the Black Dragon . . . You possess the power of the glow."

      

• Several NPCs talk about Lord Thorn, a wizard who I guess died during the first game. Exploring his old hut, I found his ring, which turns me invisible. I never found a use for that.

      

Imagine how hard it must have been to find it in a tree.

      

• Each of the three temples has a brazier (behind the types of obstacles described above) containing an amulet. Together, these amulets are supposed to form the Trigonom, which allows entry to the Land of the Dead. I found all three amulets but not the spell necessary to enter the Land of the Dead.

        

 

The most important treasure in this temple was also the final one.

     

• To enter Castle Magmar, I had to show an Ormus Badge. The only way I could get one was to kill an NPC named Gorab, a member of the cult. Killing NPCs has a price: When the next week's payday rolls around, you lose 3 days (in jail) for every NPC you've killed in the meantime, plus some gold, plus a few hundred experience points. It's a rare game of this era that has a criminal justice system. 

   

A weird message to get while I'm at sea, fighting a serpent.

       

• Actually visiting the castle was freaky, just like visiting Blackthorn's Castle in Ultima V (which is the clear inspiration for the sequence). Some of the guards are demons. 

       

Do you think I'd have to go to jail for three days for killing him?

      

• I have found several Masks of Baal, and I have no idea what they are.

       

Finding a treasure deep in a dungeon.

      

• With most games like this, some kind of fast travel system eventually emerges. Not here. Getting from place to place is a real annoyance late in the game. 

• The "Board" command is right next to the "Attack" command when scrolling through the commands with the joystick. Once selected, there's no way to back out of it. I was constantly boarding my skiff in the middle of battle. 

   

In the middle of battle, I decide to go for a little river ride. But there's no river in sight.

         

Once you have the names of the god-servants, you just YELL them from any location to summon them and get their quests. This is what six of them want:

 

• FERMON: To find three Black Jewels. I found two.

• LIVIUS: To find all 25 treasures. I only ever found the locations to 21, and three are in the Land of the Dead.

• MARCIUM: Wants the holy word. I tried giving it to him (RUNOGAR), and he said I was wrong, so I'm not sure what I did wrong there.

• NIKODEMUS. Wants five Mandor Roots. I've found four.

• URUK. Wanted me to complete a sequence of letters. Commenter Ken Brubaker was correct about the answer. 

    

Solving Uruk's rune puzzle.

      

• YKARUR. Wants 11 Stone Keys. I've found 9 nine. 

     

After at least giving the entire land a cursory exploration, here's what I do not know/have.

   

• The sixth, seventh, or eighth treasures in a bunch of cities, some of which might be Black Jewels, Mandor Roots, and Stone Keys. I swear I've searched every tree and piece of furniture. On one map, I found a treasure in the middle of a lake, and on another, at the end of a path, so I suppose literally any square is free game. I don't really want to take the time to search every square. 

• How to combine the amulets to make the Trigonom. 

• Where to get the DOL GANDUR spell to enter the World of the Dead. I do not believe any of the magic shops have sold it.

• How to get the city pass necessary to enter Elvenstone, the only city I was unable to visit, where I suspect some of these other items might be cleared up.

• The names of the final three god-servants. (This problem can be solved on a spoiler site.)

• The locations of the final four treasures. (This problem can be solved on a spoiler site.)

• The "real" location of the treasure whose clue tells me to look at 54N, 173W, as we discussed last time. I did try searching 173N, 54 W to no avail. 

          

This is where the endgame will take place once I accomplish all the other quests.

       

That final item strikes me as a mistake by the author, and thus not something that is likely to be overcome with extra effort. The treasure could be literally anywhere. That, in turn, makes me question how much sense it makes to spend the effort on the other items. I'll let it sit for a couple of days, see if anyone has any ideas, maybe take a crack at some hacks, and then decide what to do.

    

Time so far: 19 hours