Darth Rabbitt wrote:Was looking for the wise woman in the beginning the best choice?
You should definitely look for her before you try to track the wolves, because if you do the latter first they lead you to her cottage anyway....and there's a chance that you may arrive too late (you find the woves attacking the cottage, and if you don't kill them fast enough, the werewolf kills Grandmother Zekova.
However, staying to look for belladonna doesn't affect either of the other two options. It's a LUCK test, and if you're Lucky to find one, it reduces your CHANGE by 1.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:What are the other wolf powers (the ones like Call of the Wild and Unnatural Vigor, that we get by rolling a d6?)
Red in Tooth and Claw - this removes penalty for fighting unarmed. Not really useful since I can't recall any important fights where you have to fight unarmed.
Quickening - improved reflexes, boosts your SKILL by a further 1. Obviously useful if you have a low-Skilled character.
Night Creature - night vision, can enter dark places without lantern.
Cursed Bloodline - no real use in itself. In the section itself where you gain it, you actually lose some STAMINA. However, there's a little twist during the vampire-slaying side-quest in Maun: if you don't have a Silver Cross (real or makeshift) but have a Silver Dagger, you have to fight the Countess hand-to-hand, and she may bite you. Obviously, since we're already a lycanthrope, her bite can't infect us like most victims of vampire bites (we're already 'claimed' as she will realize), but if have
Cursed Bloodline the poison in our tainted blood actually
hurts her, and she loses extra STAMINA!
Darth Rabbitt wrote:What happened if we joined the hunters in Vargenhof?
It's a pretty lengthy side-quest. They're hunting for a Were-creature (not us, and not Varcolac either), and we can join them, or try to hunt it down on our own. I will go into more details in my final sum-up of the book (which will be either tomorrow or the day after).
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Do either the book or brass key do anything helpful in the castle, or are they strictly trap options?
To my knowledge, no, they're just trap items.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Is bowing to the Arch-Lycanthrope a game over? If not, what happens if you do so?
Not an instant Game Over, we just need to pass a CHANGE test, so we were never really in danger with regards to that option (with our CHANGE at 1). Failing the CHANGE test is a Game Over (as you can imagine, we can transformed into wolf form and become his servant).
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Where can you find the Bloodstone and Moonstone Amulets? Do they do anything other than the latter affecting the last CHANGE roll in the boss fight?
Neither of them are really useful anywhere else that I know of besides bribing the she-wolves. The Bloodstone Amulet is found in the same place where we found the Wulfen Sword (we would have found a few other treasure if we stayed to search, although we do have to go through another fight....a fairly easy one). There's actually a bit of back story to why those treasure are found in that ruin, which I will cover.
The Moonstone Amulet is a bit of a random encounter in one of the many alternate paths to Vargenhof early in the book. We encounter a gypsy camp and spend the night with them. When we wake up, we roll the dice and have a 1/3 chance of being robbed of our gold, 1/3 chance of finding out that we've been given extra food, and 1/3 chance of finding this Amulet. The gypsies are a fickle bunch.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Anything else cool in Castle Wolfenstein?
I think we went through almost everything there. The one place we bypassed (before going to the double doors) simply led to a fight with a Werewarg, with no reward. It's pretty linear there (more so than any of the mini-quest zones, in fact).
Darth Rabbitt wrote:You said there was something that was bad news in the Carnivale and getting rid of it would get us a plot coupon (which I assume is one of the silver daggers). What was said bad thing (and if the plot coupon was something other than a silver dagger, what was it)?
Yes, it was the first of the Silver Daggers we could have found. The person holding it was Serpensa the Snakewoman. I will cover more on the Silver Daggers quest later.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:What was on Floor 7 of The Tower of Maun?
Nothing good. We get exposed to the moon and gain a CHANGE point....and fight a flock of bats.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:How do you get the Retsis
A very minor side-quest. At the inn where we defeated the Headless Highwayman, there was a young man we could have spoken to. He was trying to track down the creepy Carnival to find his sister, who had run off with them. That codeword gives the PC extra incentive to want to explore the Carnival.
You can't fulfil that quest by sneaking in at night, though. You have to visit it during the day. As we found out, the Carnival people were mostly harmless folk who keep to themselves, and not really malicious. The girl wasn't abducted or anything, she just joined them to have fun. She was in fact the assistant that we saw at the Archer's Arrow competition. If we had the codeword, we just have to talk to her, and when she finds out how distressed and heartbroken her brother is, she's quite eager to go back to him. So it was an easy quest...if we know where to look (if not it's easy to miss too).
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Nethcir
I mentioned that it was a companion check. There's apparently a secret society of evil-slaying vigilantes in the book, and somehow we missed every single one of them. This particular companion is actually related to a character we met in Night of the Necromancer. Again, will go into more details in the final sum-up.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Aytak
Another companion. Sadly neither her nor the previous guy can overcome the classic FF companion curse (meaning they don't last too long). We meet this one if we joined the hunt in Vargenhof.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Deliugeb
I mentioned before that being
beguiled by the Countess of Maun is a VERY delayed game over. Basically, The Countess also wants Varcolac dead, and gives us her Silver Dagger so we can do it for her. After we kill the Count, she shows up and takes over....Game Over. Yes, it's literally delayed till the endgame.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:I assume Degnahc is gotten if you fail a CHANGE roll.
Not just any CHANGE roll....the one right at the end, while we were fighting the Count. If we fail the roll, we get transformed. However, in this case, we still retain enough sense to see him as an enemy, and will continue the fight. After we kill him, the demon abandons his body and possesses us, the stronger Werewolf. Game Over.