loren schmidt

things i'd like to play: queen's domain (out in a few days!), banquet for fools, songs of syx.

loren schmidt reposted

18h

i recently learned about the herbal "Amate-cehuatl-xihuitl-pitli", most frequently called in English sources either "Codex Cruz-Badiano" or "Codex Badiano". it is a 1552 Mexica herbal. the Nahuatl original by Martín de la Cruz no longer exists, and only the latin translation by Badiano is available.

my dragon's dogma II playthrough continues. today we're going back to the ice dragon fimbl and making our first attempt with knowledge of enemy weaknesses + attacks. i think we will succeed! it's incredibly misty this morning.

a cave! we'll explore before we return home.

this is pretty great. i like this tumble of boats and dead fish

oh my god, where are we? this doesn't end, it connects to something.

dawn's arrived. looking back up the coast, you can see the fortress where we fought Fimbl. there's no campsite here! we'll have to turn around and go the long way back to the encampment.

there, got it! it wasn't me, i was collapsed and out of stamina. that was Milly's augural flare. i am switching us back to our dual sorcerer configuration. i just got prescient flare and brontide and i want to try them.

i like this little tail of land beyond the griffon plateau, feathering away into boulder piles and broken ice sheet.

i thought the mass silence was the undead mages, but i think it is actually this griffon! that's nasty. i like this, i always wanted griffons to be more relevant later in the game.

i like that they went for realistically long wings in this game! the wings look great and create so many amazing sweeping gestures, and it's wild having them envelop you as you're fighting them... look at Elspeth, left.

oof this was a rough start. everyone died except for me. this skeleton lord really won't let anyone get a word in edgewise. but we whittled them down and killed them with a healing spell.

the griffons are incredible. what a well executed beast.

rabbits in the dark and... some violet luminous griffon? is it a weird variant, or is something fighting it?

it was fighting a skeleton lord. i might retreat, we haven't found a campsite yet after Fimbl.

oh! we discovered the obelisk which teaches brontide. ok so it looks like it's good vs. groups, causes flinch and sometimes unconsciousness? that's neat, there's not any wide AOE crowd control in the base game.

the creature on the obelisks is interesting- is it a different stylization of the one on the archways?

aah we did it! that was a wonderful fight. that's such a testament to very well orchestrated interlocking team abilities and threat / countermeasure pairs being magical when you really land it.

i'll dismiss + rehire her. maybe she's been updated. Felicia is so great, it won't be the same without her.

my god the last bar is really a long haul! this hailstorm is keeping me so busy.

i cannot see what's happening at all haha

me trying to tank an attack with palladium while i cast celestial paean. it's a /very/ long cast so you really need palladium beforehand if you're to have any hope!

aah it worked!

lost Felicia! i was spread thin and should have healed.

almost down to 2?? it's trying to cast and i may be too late to silence.

it looks like it got one spell off but it's offensive, not silence. we can absorb that.

haha you can quickspell solemnity if you mess up and it starts casting. that's so evil and so good.

two bars and change, and we've stunned it! this is going to be an extremely hard punish

this fight is great.

Elspeth is trying to climb Fimbl, which is also useful because it keeps her out of range of the breath attacks.

five bars out of six!

there, solemnity! if this works as planned i can keep the dragon from even silencing us in the first place. i opted for this instead of halidom (which /cures/ silence) and am backing it up with potions which can cure if i fuck up.

and now we use my new spell, fire pact! all party members now have fire attacks.

i'm casting palladium like nobody's businiss. if i can hoover up damage before it's even damage, then i don't need to be physically near people (or call them off their tasks) to heal. and if i can get a moment...

here we are! i'll recast our buffs

the dragon telepathically challenges us. you can /barely/ make out its uplifted wings.

we approach the barbican, which you can't see /at all/. it's at the top of these stairs, but it's completely invisible.

i /think/ this is the way through. at least i can hover down. i'm not sure if there's a ladder. the trees are like ghosts in this mist.

Millie is being actively played by someone, i've seen her gear and spells change. she's our level. and i'll verify, but based on one re-hire, Felicia was in a run through the end of the base game and seems like she is capping at ~79

oh these pavers! i love the displacement mapped pavers which are part of the terrain shader. they are so nice when they're thick and thin in the packed, icy snow like this.

the atmosphere is /so good/ today.

i pre-buff everyone with celestial paen, high celerity, and high palladium. this is actually really sad, because Felicia says it's time for her to go! and it's true- i've been watching her level alongside everyone else's.

on the way out, i notice that there /is/ a non-degraded version of the arch-top sculpture- it's on the protected inside of the arch leading north from the encampment. i wonder what this site used to be? was it a building, once? the creature looks to perhaps be a griffon or cockatrice.

this game has given me so many things to think about. look at the mist over the rocks in the river crossing.