The abbey calls to the faithful.Ī little hope, however desperate, is never without worth. The cobwebs have been dusted, the pews set straight. Great heroes can be found even here, in the mud and rain. More arrive foolishly seeking fortune and glory in this domain. All will find their way to us now that the road is clear. Women and men, soldiers and outlaws, fools and corpses. Graveyard – Most will end up here, covered in the poisoned earth, awaiting merciful Oblivion. They are yours now, and you are bound to them. This squalid hamlet, these corrupted lands. There is much to be found in forgotten places.Īn ambush! Send these vermin a message: The rightful owner has returned, and their kind is no longer welcome!Īrriving at the Hamlet – Welcome home, such as it is. Keep to the side paths, the hamlet is just ahead.ĭispatch this thug in brutal fashion, that all may hear of your arrival! The Old Road will take you to Hell, but in that gaping abyss, we will find our redemption.īrigands have run of these lands. So, steel yourself, and remember, there can be no bravery without madness. There is a sickness in the ancient, pitted cobbles of the Old Road, and on its writhing path, you will face viciousness, violence, and, perhaps, other damnably transcendent terrors. It winds with a troubling, serpent-like, suggestion through the corrupted countryside, leading only, I fear, to evermore tenebrous places. You remember our venerable house, opulent and imperial? It is a festering abomination! I beg you, return home, claim your birthright, and deliver our family from the ravenous, clutching shadows. We drew what strength we could from our companionship, but we were in the realm of death and madness! In the end, I alone, fled, laughing and wailing, through those blackened arcades of antiquity, until consciousness failed me. Hideous, rotten aggressors assailed us from the shadows. Our every step unsettled the ancient earth. At last, in the salt-soaked cracks beneath the lowest foundation, we unearthed that damnable portal of antediluvian evil. With relic and ritual I meant every effort towards the excavation and recovery of those long buried secrets, exhausting what remained of our family fortune on swarthy workmen and sturdy shovels. Singular, unsettling tales suggested the mansion itself was a gateway to some fabulous, unnamable power. I lived all my years in that ancient, rumor-shadowed manor, fattened by decadence and luxury, and yet I began to tire of conventional extravagance. "Success so clearly in view.You remember our venerable house, opulent and imperial, gazing proudly from its stoic perch above the moor? But then, before you have a chance to really consider his words, you're plunged once more into a dungeon, racing against the dying light of your torches to complete your mission. Is there a hint of smugness towards these creatures' ill-fate? A certain disregard, perhaps, for the mistakes he's made. It's just what he says, but the way he says it. These tales make you feel like a real hero, going into these deep dark places to be the light amongst all the evil.īut as the quests go on, you can detect that something isn't right about these stories. During the loading screens for quests to kill the game's big bad eldritch bosses, the Ancestor will regale you how these beasts wormed their way into his estate. While the one-offs are all great, there's something special about the storytelling, too. I can't count the number of times I've clicked on a unlit torch, only for the Ancestor to get over-excited and start spouting nonsense about "trinkets and baubles", when in reality the loot I got from that was, well, a torch. Though, often the best quotes are the ones that don't make an awful lot of sense for the action you're doing to prompt it. Sometimes it's simple quips and one-offs each night you arrive at the Hamlet, others it's thundering interjections in the heat of battle. The gothic roguelike has some of my favourite ever voice acting, all done by this Ancestor, who acts as the narrator for almost every move you make. I suppose it's quite fitting for a roguelike RPG based on lovecraftian horror to still hear voices after you turn it off. "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer."Īll it takes is seeing one a single quote from the Ancestor in Darkest Dungeon, and I've instantly got his voice booming in the back of my mind. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time. Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives.
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