Session 23

We need to talk about Hofstedt.

At 45, this unassuming official for a crumbling and ineffectual government was sent on a space ship destined to spend years on a desert planet firing capsules of minerals back to the poor old planet earth which - despite being a wreck and no-longer the only option - is still the home of the human race (or so we thought!)

As a man in his middle years, the prospect of dedicating 3 or 4 more of them to sitting in an (admittedly impressive) automatic planet eating transformer with nothing much to do except read books and go slowly insane must've been pretty crummy. Still, at least he had his chum Snoopy Beagle to keep him company.

At least he did until Snoopy made the foolish error of using the space-phone while they were in space-faster-than-light mode! This was a mistake that cost his buddy his life (or at least, that's what Hofstedt still believes - we know he was probably assassinated instead, but that plot thread hasn't come back round again yet).

Still - Hoff kept a brave face on it and was even quite excited to take the space podule down to the new planet as part of a forward scouting team!

ALAS! On the way down to the planet, the controls go mental (sabotage? No-one's suggested that yet...) and Hoff and the pilot (Tom) crash.

Hoff was probably convinced he was going to die as the shuttle zipped merrily out of the sky and towards the ground miles below. And quite how he survived is anyone's guess. But there he was - given an amazing second chance at life! And this time it was to be an INTERESTING life! No more shuffling around mega-cities on the choking earth for him - he found himself living it up with naked cat people on a beautiful lush jungle planet!

In a slightly manic rush of elation - Hoff abandoned his clothes and since then has been getting used to a weird cycle of wandering into alien towns, swanning about chatting to everyone in sight, performing tasks for dignitaries and moving on. Always with this thought in the back of his head of finding his way back to the Toronto (the space mining vessel he set out on board - already over a year ago).

But to be honest - this long term goal of finding his way back has sort of faded out of focus in his mind. He's become some kind of action explorer - using this long-term-goal as a motivation to adventure across an un-known world! Being the first earthling to meet the strange and magical people of this planet (with the exception of the druids who seem to have got here a couple of thousand years ago). He's gone from a pencil pushing civil servant to a naked Gulliver! Solver of foreign problems - noble passer-through of amazing cities with no time to stop - amazing slayer of fantastical beasts!

Although actually this last part's not as true as he'd like. After his last scrape in a demon filled cavern he came to understand that being a naked scientist (even a level 11 naked scientist) is no use to a band of monster slayers.

Hoff started to question exactly how much more useful he was now than when he was a puppet for impotent governing body. Previously he was paid to tell people off while they had all the fun. Now he just got in the way while his team-mates carved names for themselves in the face of history with the stanley-knives of decisive action.

Finally - here in the city of Belovino - Hoff resolves to buck his ideas up. The first step was to get dressed and now the time has come for the second.

The team are floundering a little directionlessly - they've arrived at a new city, spoken to the Council of the Just and are now not sure what to do next. Do they ditch this town already to follow up the hint of a quest somewhere at a shrine in the mountains, or do they look around and find something to do here first?

Straightening his cap, Hoff coughs

"AHEM"

to get everyone's attention. Then asserts himself.

"RIGHT! I shall take the lead now" he announces.

Everyone looks at him somewhat surprised.

"I won't take no for an answer. We're going to systematically scientifify this whole city before we ditch it just to chase after a possible encounter at a shrine we may never be able to find. It's about time I let you folks have the advantage of my SCIENTIFIC TRAINING!"

Further stunned silence except for the squeaking of Mell's pencil on his pad.

"We're going to start at the north-west corner of the town you see, and move eastward - looking in each building in turn, to assess what's there..."

Mell passes his note to Sira. She glances at it and reads "Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Has he been with us all along?"

As she looks back up she sees that Hoff has marched immediatly out of the building with Tom and Dirr following him - shrugging to each other.

"This is going great!" Hoff's thinking. "This was a brilliant idea!"

He glances at the map and heads to the most north western building.

"Right! You lot note down my findings - I'll dicate the important features. You see, with my trained scientific eye, I'll probably see things the average observer would miss!"

Without waiting for a reply he steps into the first house.

"15:23. Entered first building. Nice wooden floors. Regular human furnature. Ah, hello little girl..."

"Please sir - I haven't any money! I'm not supposed to talk to anyone! Please..."

"Relativly healthy looking human female child (are you getting this all down) looks a little pale - perhaps doesn't get out of the house often..."

"...You've got to leave now! Quick... He's coming..."

"...Nonsense. I'm a scientist. Right - onto the décor. Walls are relatively bare. Some human heads mounted as trophies. Large angry looking half-naked man. Crowds of cowering children behind him. Is that a wrack in the back room? Leave now. Time to leave. EVERYONE OUT!"

The gang run out of the dimly lit house and scurry away around a few corners before stopping to take a breather.

"Ok. Ok. So... the survey didn't get off to a great start. But keep with me gang. After all - science isn't without risks..."

Mell writes Sira another note saying "Shouldn't we go back and help those children?" But the breeze carries it out of his hands before he can pass it to her and then a sparrow swoops down and pecks him in the eye.

Meanwhile, Hoff leads the team around various streets knocking timidly on front doors and declaring "This building must be empty. Let's move on"

"But Hoff, maybe they didn't hear--"

"NO! Definitely empty. We're moving on now..."

Until eventually he bangs on a door and before he can declare there's nothing to see here it opens and a warty, crumbling face peeps round...

"Yeth? Pleath, do come in..."

"Oh... ah... um... ok..."

The stooped and drooling figure becons everyone inside

"we're doing a scientific survey you see..."

"Very good! Very good!"

"Well... so... what sort of place is this then?"

"Yes. I uthed to have it much worthe you know?"

Hoff sweeps his eyes around a the place - it's all one large room filled with beds. Some of them are occupied by withered and gnarled figures

"Sorry... Had what?"

"The cluthterth! Everyone here hath the clusterth..."

"The... clusters..?"

"Oh yeth. But I'm well on the way to recovery now! Look! Hardly any buboleth left!"

Hoff looks into the mess of weeping sores that is the crone's face.

"So... The Clusters is some kind of disease?"

"Why of coarth it ith! Why, who hathn't heard of the thcreaming oothing cluthterth?"

"And... it's the sort of disease where you have to have an entirely separate hospital specifically to deal with just that one ailment?"

"Oh thir! We could hardly have *GURGLE* other folk - ack - in with the cluthter victimth could *GURGLE RUMBLE SPOOT* we?"

"I'm beginning to... um... I see... so... er... tell me... what's through here then?"

Hoff grabs a door handle and steps through to find an even more gnarled and deformed Clusters patient at on the toilet. Rather than leave immediatly - he feels he needs to say something. To make it look like he's walked in on purpose...

"I..."

"LEAVE THITH PLATHE *GURGLE RUMBLE SPLART SPLART* THE CLUTHTERRRRRRRTH!!!!!!!!"

Back out on the street again, Hoff is crumbling inside. So far he doesn't feel like he's inspiring the team quite like he should be.

Quietly the rest of the team slink off to the pub. Everyone's getting really tired - and Hoff's marching around is just getting on their nerves now.

As they walk in the game announces that they're caught up immediately in the hustle and bustle of the bar - but in actual fact there initially only seems to be one person in there.

Walking over to talk to the lone drinker, Tom starts up:

"Hi - we're doing a sort of survey of the town... we're not from round here..."

"I was trapped in a cave once. Take torches with you. Torches and rope. The shadows! The darkness!!"

"What is with this town? Seriously - is this the city of mis-fits that We've stopped off at?"

Walking further through the huge pub I find a small crowd tucked away in one of the far corners.

The first person I speak to gives me a little background on the mountain pass. She explains that the reason its fallen into dis-repair is that none of the towns along it could decide who was responsible for maintaining it. Thus "Because we don't really need to visit them much anyway" no one bothered to keep it from crumbling and becoming over-grown.

This is a bit of a weird bit of back-story and in my opinion strongly hints at this area of the game being looked on as not all that important for the dev team. In other areas they've clearly laced the world with a relatively rich history - there's a hinted-at mythology behind the human arrival on this planet, the tale of ancient wars that left the underground druid-hive plagued by monsters. The whole imaginary culture of the Iskai people and the different factions and their relationships across the planet.

But this city doesn't seem very thought though - and the result is that it's an exceedingly weird feeling place. Apparently it's a big centre of commerce - a thriving and important port town. But at the same time it's almost completely cut off from the world with only trade ships coming in and out of port (someone earlier told me that passenger ships were INCREDIBLY rare - so it would actually be easier to leave via the dangerous and intermittently non-existent mountain pass).

At some point, someone has built a big and difficult to construct mountain pass connecting this town with the two un-friendly local religious retreat villages (and, presumably, via them the rest of the world). But whoever built this road must've been from somewhere else entirely since other-wise it would surly be them who was expected to look after the road wouldn't it? And why make the effort to build a pass in the first place if no-one wants to visit the other towns?

To be honest though - before I became a games developer I would never have started thinking about the settings like this. Previously I'd've never thought "this place is weird because the developers didn't put as much effort into it as they did the wider setting". I'd've just thought "this place is weird!"

It's sort of like a spooky isolated Silent Hill city - people go and trade there by boat, but no-one ever gets out to visit. And if you DO get out to visit, you become immediately stranded there with no way to get out except over a perilous mountain pass. Not only that, but it's peopled by mis-fits - human-head collectors, "Cluster" infected patients, husks of former explorers and the grandly titled (but difficult to find a function for) Council of the Just.

The team chat to a few more of the patrons. A child amongst them tells us about "Gato Mork" (an Albionian comic book character who I've LOVE to hear more about, but am aware I never will since it's only a throw-away reference... But how could would that be? what kind of comic would druids on another planet develop intendant of earth pop-culture) while someone else tells me I simply MUST visit "Kariah" and get her to tell me some of her wild stories. She apparently lives with a hunky rouge assassin monk called Khumag.

ALSO - we excitingly find out that maybe the Council of the Just isn't as just as it might seem! One chap tells us:

"I had a dispute with my neighbour about a patch of land. We went to the council to sort it out and they just took that land off us! That's not right is it?"

"Hmm... it doesn't sound it... tell me about this patch of land..."

"The land is immaterial!!!!!" cries the man and stomps off leaving the whiff of suggested conspiracy hanging in the air...

At this point, Hoff stomps over - riled up that his leadership's been undermined. But before he can give everyone a piece of his mind EVERYONE is suddenly overtaken by so much exhaustion that they can't even move from the spot. Suddenly the weight of all the stuff their carrying is more than any of them can manage!

I've never had the guys get this tired before! I actually can't move off the spot and have to throw away food in order to stagger to the inn for the night.

In the morning, Hoff re-asserts himself. After a brief chat with the inn proprietress about how Kariah (the crazy story lady) works there but is always causing trouble by making the guests too excited(?!?!?!) we leave (actually, we look around for exciting Kariah - but she's not about, possibly because it's 3am).

"Onwards with the survey!" declares Hoff and before anyone can complain he's swanned into stranger's a house, recruited a blond warrior called Siobhan, accepted the challenge of clearing a basement of warniaks from a child and then been promptly killed by them.