ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Which of us has not encountered the following scenario: you know the build you're going to try, you know the dungeon order you're going to follow. For the first 10-20 levels, everything goes smoothly - and then you die. Maybe you're on adventure mode, and you die a lot. Maybe you lose multiple lives at once through a bug - I've done it several times. In any case, you permadie.

Now you have to go through the exact same dungeons in the exact same order, while putting points into your build in the exact same order. The closer you stick to your original plan, the more bored you will be. On the other hand, having to deviate from it solely because you crave variety is frustrating. All of this is especially true for a) newbies who die a lot and get sick of seeing the same tier 1 dungeons over and over in quick succession and b) veterans who are just trying to get a specific tricky build off the ground, and are fed up of having to overcome the exact same challenges repeatedly instead of experiencing new ones.

But TOME already has the beginnings of a solution to this issue: random events. The friendly cultists and their ritual, the gwelgoroth thunderstorm, the Crypt of the Rat Lich - all of these have their own unique flavour, are very memorable, and offer unusual and unexpected challenges. The trouble is that there are so few of them as yet.

Imagine a Maj'Eyal in which the set dungeons and quests are supplemented by a host of unique dungeons, mini-dungeons and events, fresh with every playthrough and giving back the thrill of discovery even to long-time players. Power creep, meanwhile, can be mitigated by the fact that only a limited number of them will spawn for any given character. Having some of them involve multiple-choice quests (like the "Trapped!" quest) will extend their lifetimes further still.

As a further suggestion, some of these optional events can offer unique rewards, not just artefacts (like the Rat Lich and friendly cultist events) but other things, perhaps even unusual build options (like the Grand Corruptor and Hexes). It would be very interesting, for example, to randomly have a non-wilder character end up with 5 points in just one Summon skill, not enough to unbalance the game or centre a build around, but enough to have that character have a distinctly unique feel compared to any other you personally will play.

Here are some ideas (names can be randomised for that teeny bit more variety):

- Oswald the unlicensed alchemist was fired from the Alchemists' Guild for accidentally spilling a love potion into the punch bowl at the annual alchemists' social, and has turned to experimenting with Blighted Summoning in a local quarry. Save him from an army of reaver-golems gone mad, and destroy their leader, the mercifully incomplete Betamathon. If you are a non-alchemist, Oswald will reward you by using his Imbue Item 5 on any two gem and armour combinations you bring him - two so you can use one nowish and save one for endgame. If you are an alchemist, Oswald will instead give you Betamathon's Power Source, a blight-based artefact gem optimised for inserting into golems.

To make things more interesting, perhaps only Oswald can shut down his golems permanently. You must escort him through the quarry, protecting him from harm while reducing the golems to 0hp with your attacks, effectively turning the player into a golem substitute. To stop things being too unfair, Oswald will activate some kind of powerup that protects him from Betamathon when you reach the boss area.

- Elym the solipsist has fallen asleep somewhere on the current level, and his nightmares keep spawning twisted abominations that try to kill you. Find the four Dream Gongs hidden throughout the level, destroy the thought projections that appear to protect their master's sleep, and ring the gongs. When awakened, Elym will teach you the Dreaming tree (locked) in apology. If you are a solipsist yourself, he will instead improve your mind save so you don't risk sharing the same fate. Or you can choose to attack him for all the trouble he's caused you, and loot a randart off the body.

- A caster-only tenth escort: the smiling wyrmic. He gives you the standard escort spiel, with an added "Something about him feels wrong" (which gives people a chance to back out of this quest). If you refuse to aid him, he attacks you, but he only has the strength of an escort. If you escort him to the recall portal, a different reward dialogue to usual comes up: "Foolish mage, you gave fallen right into my trap! This recall portal will take you straight to the dungeons of the Ziguranth!" The reward options presented are things like "torture", "suffering" and "execution". No matter which you choose, you are transported straight inside a prison cell in the Ziguranth Dungeons. The whole area has a permanent Silence effect. However, each cell has a lever on the outside, and using this releases the prisoner within as an ally. If the player has no silence-proof escape options for leaving the cell, after a number of turns a guard turns up and opens the door to escort him to interrogation, giving the player a chance to use the levers (at which point all guards go hostile).

If the player succeeds in fighting their way through the dungeon, they and their fellow prisoners will reach the warden's office, which contains the Voiceless Orb (interact to remove the permanent Silence effect) and the Warden, an antimagic wyrmic boss who can summon Zuguranth guards. Defeating the Warden unlocks an exit to the world map and allows the player to keep the Voiceless Orb as an artefact tool capable of casting Aura of Silence and offering various bonuses.

Yes!
More ideas!

Here's a thought; Full dungeon events. Have them guaranteed not to happen for your first two dungeons, and after that give them a random chance of happening. Best done dungeon specific.

For example, maybe Norgos' Domain has become assaulted by blight. Now "blighted" faction enemies, with some weak blight abilities, war with the normal enemies in the dungeon, and Norgos himself is fighting a Corruptor when you see him. Perhaps siding with one side or the other would give you some nice artifacts or bonuses.

The Scintillating Caverns are being assaulted by the Shalore, which makes the dungeon in general much easier, as you have friendly allies to help you...if you're not Antimagic, at least. But their leader has been ordered to capture the Spellblaze Crystal, and even he doesn't know why! Do you help him? Or do you insist on its destruction, and fight him and the Crystal?

The Heart of the Gloom has been purified! How? That's a good question...perhaps lore will hint. Now only normal animals live there...except, the Withering Thing is now back to its original self, the great White Wolf Verlon, and it isn't any more happy about you being there than Norgos would be...

The Rhaloren Camp isn't always below ground. Sometimes, the Rhaloren feel secure enough to make their encampment above ground, now with more open areas(trees with hallways in them surrounding a large open space with buildings in the middle).

Kor'pul is oddly the same as normal...except that when you break down the wall/door to the Shade, you find a human there! But the relief is short lived-it turns out that, while Kor'pul's form as The Shade was defeated, his trick for "longevity" hasn't been, and he found a perfectly good shell in a foolish Sun Paladin...

Trollmire's troll tribes have unusual-and mostly bash-based-politics at the best of times. However, due to in-fighting, there is now a third troll leader, inhabiting Trollmire 3 and ready to strike at Prox with those that have sided with him. But even more dangerous, Bill is there, and he doesn't feel especially nice to any of the sides. Will you watch them fight and pick off the scragglers? Sneak past the brawl, grab Prox's note, and find Bill's loot without any combat? But be careful, Bill still hasn't left his loot unguarded...

The Old Forest has been known, rarely, to become a home to horrifying horrors. And sometimes they surge out of Kor'pul in greater number. The forest denizens don't mind this, but you might.

On the other hand, sometimes the third floor of the Fortress has its secondary barrier fail. The Weirdling will always stay nice and dry, but the third floor of Nur sometimes is a wash-out. No horrors!

The Maze is full of robbers at the best of times, but when the Assassin Lord sends his right hand man into the midst of it-and he successfully destroys the Minotaur, only to betray his leader and become the new owner of the dungeon-you have trouble.

The Sandworm Lair is known for its trecherous tunnels...but lately, the sand has been churned so much, and so deeply by the tunnelers, that it's half rock and earth-secretions the tunnelers leave make it nearly as solid as stone. Resembling great, dry, sandy caves, they don't collapse anymore, and have many nice tunnels between them...of course, large open spaces aren't the safest place to fight, and you're not the only adventurer to know of this recent development...

Daikara is the home of the Snow Giants...or was, until a mysterious warrior-rumored to be an Orc, how ridiculous!-massacred them all and the great Wyrm that was the owner of the place. Not that it's uninhabited...a crazed cliche of Alchemists, seeing a chance for great living space, have filled the place with aggressive golems, and their leader isn't going to be happy when he's seen that you've destroyed them all...

You can probably see where I'm going with this idea. Sound any good?

These sound like great ideas!

SageAcrin wrote:You can probably see where I'm going with this idea. Sound any good?

Sounds like a lot of work, but it would definitely increase variety without disturbing game balance (although a lot of them sound thematically like they ought to be harder than the default versions - like the assassin powerful enough to take out a minotaur boss). I like the general idea.

I wonder if it might be possible to make sure new players get to see the default form of an area at least once before they have chance of encountering its alternative form.

Sage, I love those ideas! The way most of them reference other in-game events or lore instead of making up whole new events is great too. It would take work, but I would no longer dread the backtracking through easier dungeons...hey. That's a great idea. Since most of these events seem more difficult, they should have a much higher, maybe even guaranteed chance of appearing whenever you enter a dungeon that would be too easy and have you stroll to the boss. Would keep me from falling asleep while looking for tier one artifacts, anyways.

Moar

If implemented, would there be more than one event per dungeon?

I'd assume that would rely purely on how many ideas they get and can implement

It would be great to have semi-optional starting area for rogue, that helps to understand how stealth works. Something like infamous Mouse Dream, but not (as) fatal.

It would be interesting to have sometimes fire mage, instead of Urkis. He sends fire elementals, instead of lightning, to Dearth, and his lair is in Old Forest. Naturally, forest is aflaim, with fire elemental rampaging and areas of burning everywhere. Mage is somewhat coward, though - entrance to his lair is hidden somewhere in Old Forest 4, and help of Angolwen or Zigur needed to find it.

More then one idea presents no complication, you just only get one random version. And the more optional versions there are, the less static and repetitve the game gets, I vote win/win for as many 'reasonable' versions as we can come up with. For that matter, perhaps we could toss in a further revamp for backup guardians in the dungeons that have 'changed' as a result of the things which get added.

I definitely like the horror-themed old forest, since I've MET horrors there before already. Along with an orc cryomancer and his twin orc pyromancer. (Neither occurence was in vaults. 3 radiant horrors (with one a rare) on Old forest 2, and the orc 'mancer twins on old forest 1. The 'mancers were level 25-30, IIRC. Basically instagibbed me. Perhaps we could draw this into play? Maybe tie the naga invasion portal being destroyed into drawing orcs over to the west, and give us an orcish variety dungeon? (Levels might be a concern here, as might story, but if a destroyed portal warps people...)

For that matter, a yeek invasion into certain dungeons might not be bad either. (Yeeks raiding the fortress, perhaps?) If the yeeks are sending there people to inspect the land of Eyal, perhaps they discover this ancient fortress, and recognize how it's power could aid them in protecting the way. This provides them with a goal to take it, and could spread a variety of yeek-type enemies (which we need more of!) through fortress 2/3. Maybe even a dead weirdling and a powerful yeek guarding fortress 4 instead. (Waymaster perhaps, a nexus of deadly psionic force?)

Moarrr

Alternate Fortress idea: A recent drought has left the Lake of Nur dry. Now, horrors roam both of the inner floors. Because being entirely nice with these feels wrong.

Abashed Expanse: Well, the good news is, there's no worms or elementals. The bad news; It's because a Fearscape Orbital Platform has crashed into the area. Now you get to fix spatial disturbances while fighting low end demons instead, with a much higher amount of land spawning(due to the crash).

Ancient Elven Ruins: Mummies? There's not a lot of mummies here. There's the Necromancer Koratel that's taken advantage of their "immortality", and learned to use them. There's Mummified Bone Giants, terrifying masses of rotting cloth and bone. And there's certainly a lot of...leftover pieces around, which, like any good mummy pieces, are going to cause you problems. But not a lot of mummies. How well do you think he'll take to you invading his sanctuary? Probably as well as the mummies did; There's a reason they're mostly in pieces...

Ardhungol: A dangerous area when it's just full of spiders. A bit too much rain, though, and the local molds and plants start producing their unique sludge. Expect more molds and slimes, a gelatinous final floor, with an Ungole that's able to use it's more...earthy tricks, thanks to the invasive slime.

Blighted Ruins: Same as the normal start, really, except the Necromancer's randomly dead and there's a (Ghoul/Skeleton/etc) over his corpse, which has a note detailing the effects of the Cloak(and the Cloak, of course). Guess someone else got to him first. He wasn't very competent, was he?

Briagh's Lair: Normally, Briagh keeps a big lair...but, sometimes big caves collapse. Sometimes you get the huge Briagh's Lair...and sometimes it's a quarter of the size, with more small tunnels on the edges. Still packed with Sandworms though!

Charred Scar: The place the ritual is to take place is always the same, but sometimes the fires have cooled a bit. Sure, there's still a lake of lava in the center...but no lava on the way up. On the other hand, this means the local life is more varied; Don't expect just fire resistance to get you through, in this case.

Crypt of Kryl-Feijan: The good news: The ritual isn't happening yet! No screams, no horrible cries on the way in, and walking down the stairs leads you to Melinda in her cell. The bad news: Well, it's a pretty well guarded cell, and they're more than willing to summon other demons to protect the Seed. Expect a large open-area brawl with nasty mages and demons(Perhaps with a lesser boss demon than Kryl being summoned?) before you can reach the switches to open her cell up. Nothing you couldn't handle if you're in here, though...right?

Deep Bellow: Hard to think of anything complex here. Perhaps an alternate layout set, with a different final floor, would suffice-it's fairly interesting as it is. Maybe a less corrupted version, with stone walls and a smaller chamber for The Mouth, but with normal passages leading up to it?

Dreadfell: The Master is a formidable necromancer with a lot of resources. But not always the same ones. Undead Dragons or Giants, with a note about how he couldn't quite get enough good material in humanoid form, so these will suffice. (Should be a simple enough thing to do a reskin for these types, ala Heart of the Gloom. Of course, graphics might be another issue.)

Eruan: The Orcs, at the order of their masters, have set up camp here. Now, there's buildings, various low level types of Orc of all kinds...and they're having to fight off the local wildlife, which isn't taking kindly to a lot of Orcs in their home. Ritches vs Orcs all over the place.

Flooded Cave/Temple of Creation: Naga? What Naga? Sure, the turtle told you there'd be Naga, but he did say he hadn't seen them in a little while. The Temple's utterly abandoned, left to sea creatures, and only a portal in the center-guarded by Talvanika, the Electric Sea Serpent-tells you where they went. It turns out the Naga found a way to revert themselves to their former elven forms, and now are peacefully(maybe) on a mysterious island, connected to their former home by the portal. Of course, no one can trust even former naga. Right? Kill them all for their leader's mysterious Pearl, and Ukllmswwik's praise. Or not.

Golem Graveyard: Peaceful golems? Seems like it. None of them want to attack you. One in the center will happily tell you of the greatest of the Golems, Atamathon, and how they guard him. Of course, they'll just attack you if you revive him and start hitting him anyways...

Gorbat, Grushnak, Rak'shor, Vor: Alternate layouts. Gorbat makes for a perfect cave dwelling, with normal buildings set in large open caves! Grushnak is occasionally an above ground fortress, with switches to the next area guarded in a massive central complex with the usual guard contingent surrounding them! Vor's sometimes a giant glacier encampment, with uneven walls due to having to be carved out of the ice! Rak'shor...well, I think Pure had some ideas there.

Halfling Ruins: Subject Y's come back. And Subject Z doesn't appreciate it. Which one do you root for? Good question-neither one likes you. Fortunately, the Yeek heard the sounds of the fighting and was being cautious-he's over by the stairs to Nur.

High Peak: Seems like it's interesting and changing enough as it is.

Last Hope Graveyard: Huh. How about that. Celia did revive her husband. Of course, he's now an insane necromantic vampire that's ripped out her throat and now is the lord of the Graveyard. It's okay, though, he still has her heart, well preserved for any uses you might need it for. How sweet.

Mark of the Spellblaze: The elementals are a bit too much for the corruptors, sometimes, to just engage in open warfare. A walled encampment around the lava lake the center is all that keeps the elementals away from the corruptors, and vice-versa. Of course, that means more elementals to fight, since they're not killing each other.

Ring of Blood: Open insurrection among the slaves! Two slave factions, constantly fighting, with fleeing spectators running out of the ring! Of course, it's not that they managed a successful rebellion...it's that the Blood Master was taking too much of the profits for his second in command, the Human Driver, to be satisfied with his cut anymore. The winner will, of course, let you play in the ring as usual-at a discount, even, if you help him out. If there's a winner.

Ritch Tunnels: Ritches, left to their own devices, will dig a little bigger than you'd expect. And will dig out problems for themselves. Sandworms have muscled out the Ritches in many areas-not in active combat, but just by taking up their space. Less Ritches, less problems, but now you have different enemies to fight too.

Shadow Crypt: Sometimes, literally engulfed in shadows. Very small, open room floors, with a decent amount of enemies, and with magical darkness covering much of it. Of course, the final level's still lit-a corruptor just sitting around in the darkness would be silly.

Tannen's Tower: Maybe he's researching things with those floors. Maybe sometimes, the floors are different. Sand floor filled with Ritches? Null gravity room filled with Abashed Expanse enemies?

Tempest Peak: Urkis? Oh, no, Urkis isn't the problem. His newest creation-the Greater Ultimate Telugoroth-is. Creating thunderstorms for fun is definitely its speed. Urkis isn't really in a state to be causing problems anymore, anyways.

Vor Armory: Vor Armory? Didn't you get the memo? The orcs abandoned that, when their experimental sealed-room-full-of-dragons-as-a-last-ditch-defense strategy blew up in their face. Oh, the loot's still there, but there's no Orcs. Now there's just dragons. Overpowered Wyrms? Those aren't going to hang around, they went home. Normal wyrms, though, those are still around. Lots of them. As is a new problem; Melianor the Black, a vicious and ancient Venom Wyrm with Negative magical abilities, that's taken this as their new home.

This is a good list for now, I think. Took a while to come up with that.

Oh yes, Rak'Shor will be getting an overhaul once I have a bit more free time.

The Maze: a large earthquake has collapsed much of the top level of the maze. However it has also torn the tunnels much deeper into the earth, releasing a horde of "Things" from their long slumber the likes of which man was never meant to see. This version of the maze has smaller uneven levels, but has more levels(4-5) and is filled with horrors(and a new boss at the end).

Trollmire: Every year near the end of spring Trollmire floods and becomes a deadly mire filled with mud,water and even quicksand. During this period the trolls and many animals migrate eastward, but the bogs become a breeding ground for insects of all sorts and sometimes the mud itself will give rise to an elemental.

Norgos's lair: When you arrive to check on the rumors of a disturbance in Norgos's woods all you find is a barren waste littered with dead or dying tree and not a living creature in sight. But even in death the inhabitants here have no peace. Now as twisted undead monstrosities they roam what was once their home and attack all life they see. Perhaps if you can make it to the heart of the woods you can find the cause of this calamity and punish who or whatever is responsible.