The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
[Let's Play] King of Dragon Pass
Demiurge
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Played any good stories lately?
What is King of Dragon Pass?
King of Dragon Pass is a story game set in the ancient fantasy world of Glorantha. Your clan has fled their homeland which has been conquered by the evil Pharaoh who commands strange magics. They are the people of Orlanth, the king of the gods and worship his pantheon.
The goal of the game is to create a tribe and eventually unite all of Dragon Pass into a great kingdom.
The game has no graphics, instead it uses text and beautiful drawings to depict the story and the choices you make. It has an intuitive system for managing the every day needs of your clan, such as trading with neighbors, clearing land for farming, exploration, warfare and much more.
There are five seasons in the game, Sea, fire, earth, dark and storm. Planting and harvesting is done during sea and earth seasons. Fire season is traditionally used for raiding. Storm and dark seasons are when the snow falls upon the earth and leaving your tula is generally dangerous.
The Pantheon:
The Lightbringers: Orlanth led the Lightbringers in a quest to renew the world. They were seven in all, one died on the quest and another remains an enigma. Five are worshipped by the clans.
Orlanth: King of the gods and the Storm Tribe, he led the seven lightbringers to renew the world, he made the first clans and the first justice.
Issaires: The talking god is the god of trade and travel, and also of communication and conciliation.
Lhankor Mhy: The knowing god, and god of lawspeaking. He is the patron of jurors and scholars.
Eurmal: The trickster god. Fool, outlaw and scapegoat. He brings trouble to those around him.
Chalana Arroy: Goddes of health and healing.
Other gods:
Barntar: The plowman is the peaceful farmer god, backbone of the clan. He is the son of Ernalda and Orlanth. His wife is Mahome, goddes of the Hearth.
Ernalda: The earth queen. As Orlanth's wife and mother of Barntar and Voria, she's also the familiy goddess with a pantheon of household spirits.
Elmal: God of the sun. He was rescued by Orlanth, and married into the Storm Tribe. Elmal guarded the stead when the Lightbringers departed.
Humakt: God of war and death, and of all endings. He is the patron of the severest of warriors, each of which has a list of stringent vows to uphold.
Odayla: God of hunting. He is a friend of the Lady of the Wild and of Orlanths brother Yinkin, the Alynx god.
Uralda: The cow mother. One of Ernalda's daughters and represents the herds.
Urox: The storm bull is unruly and lawless, but his powers are indispensable in the fight against, which he hates more than anything.
Vinga: Adventuress. She is the patron of women born with a warriors heart.
Evil Gods:
Malia: Mistress of disease, pestilence and plague. She is one of the unholy trio.
Maran Gor: Earth shaker and mother of dinosaurs. She is Ernalda's grim sister and causes earthquakes.
Ancestors: The long dead who still watch over the clan, they are revered all the way back to those who bravely survived the Great Darkness.
Orlanth: King of the gods and the Storm Tribe, he led the seven lightbringers to renew the world, he made the first clans and the first justice.
Issaires: The talking god is the god of trade and travel, and also of communication and conciliation.
Lhankor Mhy: The knowing god, and god of lawspeaking. He is the patron of jurors and scholars.
Eurmal: The trickster god. Fool, outlaw and scapegoat. He brings trouble to those around him.
Chalana Arroy: Goddes of health and healing.
Other gods:
Barntar: The plowman is the peaceful farmer god, backbone of the clan. He is the son of Ernalda and Orlanth. His wife is Mahome, goddes of the Hearth.
Ernalda: The earth queen. As Orlanth's wife and mother of Barntar and Voria, she's also the familiy goddess with a pantheon of household spirits.
Elmal: God of the sun. He was rescued by Orlanth, and married into the Storm Tribe. Elmal guarded the stead when the Lightbringers departed.
Humakt: God of war and death, and of all endings. He is the patron of the severest of warriors, each of which has a list of stringent vows to uphold.
Odayla: God of hunting. He is a friend of the Lady of the Wild and of Orlanths brother Yinkin, the Alynx god.
Uralda: The cow mother. One of Ernalda's daughters and represents the herds.
Urox: The storm bull is unruly and lawless, but his powers are indispensable in the fight against, which he hates more than anything.
Vinga: Adventuress. She is the patron of women born with a warriors heart.
Evil Gods:
Malia: Mistress of disease, pestilence and plague. She is one of the unholy trio.
Maran Gor: Earth shaker and mother of dinosaurs. She is Ernalda's grim sister and causes earthquakes.
Ancestors: The long dead who still watch over the clan, they are revered all the way back to those who bravely survived the Great Darkness.
How we play:
The game is divided into five seasons, each season passes when you pass time or after two actions have been taken. Decisions or events may fire during each whether or not you take any actions and decisions can have effects through the entirety of the game.
You will select the early history of the clan and I will play and make decisions based on our clan history and what you tell me. I will play one year at a time, or more if nothing interesting happens and post updates for each year and you will outline the general actions of the clan for the next one. For very important events that happen during a year I will let you decide what to do.
Screenshots:
Lets play!
This is our primary deity and is the most important decision of all. Orlanth is the king of the gods and the one most worshipped by most of the clansl. He is also a warrior. Elmal is the loyal thane and guarded the stead when Orlanth led the Lightbringers, he is god of the sun and also a warrior. Ernalda is a peaceful goddess and worshipped by women. We cannot change our primary deity, ever.
This basicly creates a shrine to another deity, or makes our primary deity's shrine larger.
This is an important decision, do we keep slaves?
Our great enemy, a great enemy can be summoned and fought for great rewards but some do not fight with weapons...
Another very important decision and determines what sort of clan leaders we start out with, can be changed later in the game.
Again, a shrine choice.
The spoiler below is a story piece related to this decision. It determines out relationship with the dragonkin of Dragon Pass.
Land is good to have, it lets us grow but the larger our Tula (Tula is the general term for land owned by a clan) the harder it is to effectively patrol and defend.
But lets get to it! Once we have determined our clan history we will get on to preparing for our first year and let the story unfold.
Map and neighbor breakdown as of year 9.
Feuds: Wildcat, Rakstanti.
Allies: Greenwing.
Border map from year 6
Blue Spruce: Known for their hatred of chaos.
Isolting: They have a history of mad chieftains.
Elkenval: Known for their collection of ancient texts.
Enhyli: Known for their tradition of female chieftains.
Wildcat: Known for their large pig herd.
Arnoring: Known for their aggressive persuit of trade.
Anmangarn: Known for their large boulder with war powers.
Colymar Tribe: Anzari, Orlundi, Zethnoring, Orladnast, Ernaldori.
Demiurge on
0
Posts
Year 1
I, Gardrostan, chief of the Lysang clan will lead my people to greatness in the time left for me before I go to Orlanth.
The Lysang is an old clan, tracing our history all the way back to when the ancient king Heort ruled after the gods retreated from our world as recorded by Lhankor Mhy himself. We have always worshipped Orlanth because he is the strongest and we are strong. We have always known the sword to be the strongest and that is how we shall be, always!
This is our Tula, it is not much now but I plan to build mighty walls and other defences so that we may safely raid our enemies cattle and steal their goods without reprisal.
We have conducted the rituals to renew the world, the snows have receeded and the sun returns as is Orlanths will! I have ordered our magic channelled into war and hunting to aid our warriors in battle. I have also channelled small amounts into helping keep our warriors strong and healthy and to aid in rediscovering the knowledge of the gods.
My first order was to promote new nobles to our clans council, we have purged the weak worshippers of Uralda, Ernalda and Barntar in favor of good, honest warriors of Urox and Elmal. My wife insisted however on Vininna, who serves the healing goddess for she knows me and that we will have many battles to fight, we will need her expertise. On the ring is also Bastakos, a trickster, normally I would not tolerate the rascal but we will need the trickster gods blessings to survive in this new land. As custom demands it, we also have a worshipper of Issaires and Lhankor Mhy, no clan may prosper without them.
My second order of the new season was to order the construction of watch towers, to begin the first forifications of our Tula.
Disaster! Fire season was supposed to come but a great storm has descended on us. The clan ring is in agreement, it is the work of our ancient enemy Valind. Dendrick has proposed we send a war party to kill the demons and I agree, it is the only way to be sure.
Dendrick ultimately succeeded in killing the demons and we celebrated his great courage.
Despite my reservations I accepted, the Isolting may be mad, but they pay in cold, hard wealth.
Success! I ordered a raid upon our hated enemies of the Wildcat clan and proved our superior strength of arms, although I wanted to capture slaves we were not successful but we came away with a healthy amount of loot.
After the raid I also dispatched Farad to explore the mountain closest to us.
One of our neighbors came to complain about the actions of our thanes. I told them that Elmal must always be subordinate to Orlanth. They said they would make sacrifices to Elmal and that we would suffer ill-fortune as a result. I scoff at the notion that Elmal could act against true worshippers of Orlanth!
After this event we sacrificed to Orlanth to grant us new knowledge and he did, giving us knowledge of the thunderstone blessing to allow our archers great power in war.
While travelling to the mountain however, Farad was ambushed by bandits and wounded, he returned in shame, I will not allow him any responsibilites for a while for this failure.
I lost the pic for this event, sorry.
A great oppertunity has arisen, a caravan of ugly trolls is moving close to our lands. Our war magic is still strong despite our battle with the Wildcat earlier this year. While some of the more cowardly of my clan ring urges caution, I have ordered the fyrd to battle.
Dendrick led 25 warriors and returned with enough loot to begin construction of stone walls for our Tula. We again celebrated his valour.
More disaster! Our clan healer, Vininna is sick! Dendrick tells me it is the work of chaos! We interrogated the women of the clan but nobody knows who made the skirt. I have ordered an investigation.
It is now Storm season and I have ordered the construction of a new shrine. These statues of our greatest ancestors will protect us from evil spirits and hopefully shield us from further disaster. We also sacrified to Chalana Arroy and she gave us the knowledge of the curing ritual, hopefully this will help us cure poor Vivinna.
That is the end of the year 1329. We have gained a trading partner, asserted our dominance over our hated neighbors, the Wildcat clan and build a mighty wall to defend out Tula.
This is the end of the first year, since nobody put up posts I decided on the clan history and played through the first year. Gardrostan is 56 years old and will probably die soon, I'd like people with the interest to put forward suggestions for the next year. Should we focus on exploration, getting the gods magic, building up our defences and more warriors or or maybe start a heroquest?
If there's no interest I'll probably let the thread die, but its a pretty cool old game so I hope that doesn't happen
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
This game looks really cool.
Anyway, I vote for exploration! A wall should be enough protection for now.
That's a very draconic thing to say, Smaug.
Clan leaders
Stats are important, but the game never gives them to you in specific numbers. The highest level is heroic and can be obtained through events or natural progression. Younger leaders tend to increase as time goes on and older leaders go down in certain stats but up in others.
Since our current leader is 59 years old, here's a list of potential candidates for the new position, we can potentially chose a leader who doesn't worship Orlanth, our main deity, but it will have some side effects, both good and bad. People currently on the ring are also candidates but only those with a leadership trait.
Candidates
Also I'd like to explain how our army works. When you go on a raid, or defend your tula every farmer grabs a spear and becomes part of the Fyrd. We can currently support 200 men on a raid which is a lot but we can increase it with certain blessings and a specific shrine allows the Fyrdwoman blessing and boosts your ranks with female warriors.
Weaponthanes on the other hand are professional warriors and don't work. They each count as 3 regular warriors but can be boosted to twice that with a shrine. They are however, expensive to maintain.
For what it's worth, my votes for the clan's history would've been:
1) Ernalda's List of Names
2) Lhankor Mhy and the marking bone
3) Adopted the strangers as family
4) Baztokang
4) Peace
5) Chalana Arroy
6) Neutral
7) More than we needed, to grow into
Yes, I would have voted for a clan of wise, caring and relatively peaceful dinosaur-mounted Vikings. Alas, 'tis not to be.
Well, anyways, for next year I vote we focus on exploration. We just moved in here, might as well try and figure out where 'here' is, exactly.
EDIT: And I also vote for Iskalli as Gardrostan's successor. Let's try to get a working economy going first.
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
I am also in for a warlord.
What is the research path for dinosaur mounts? Is it like farming --> domestication --> horse back riding --> dino breeding?
If only Civ had that research path...
I read the SA Let's Play and it was... something else, that's for sure.
Don't. Trust. The. Ducks!
Voting for Garnath, you should be able to pump up his stats during Quests and combat seems to be a factor in most.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Wondering this, too.
The makers are selling 'copies' on their own site for 20$:
http://www.a-sharp.com/buy/
Looks like they are actually just burned cd:s from original without manuals and stuff as it is out of print.
---
More on warfare:
There's two kinds of fighting:
1. Raiding some cattle/sheep. Jolly good fun that even friends do to each other. with luck, no fight and few sheeps missing. with bad luck small scale fight with couple livestocks captured.
2. warfare: Not so nice version. Always a fight with bigger looting opportunities. Oh and they really won't like you afterwards.
---
I vote for whatever Bastakos recommends. Clan life doesn't have to be dull. He has clans best interest next to his heart. And eggs, but clan is closer!
Unless it's really funny.
That's what I said.
Make that three... and then I saw the answer
Anyway I'll cast my vote into the Iskalli helmet, let our neighbors then we are going a peaceful path... until we gather the wealth to support enough thanes to bring havoc to our foes!!
I'll definately be checking this out.
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
Then they should loot enough to fund more weaponthanes.
They would make good wallpaper material, even if they're small.
As I scoured web, I found this:
http://kingofdragonpass.blogspot.com/
Looks like A# is making IPhone/pad version of the King of dragon pass!
That's awesome. I hope they make a proper Ipad version, and it's not a 2x blown up thing.
EDIT: From the website:
"What about iPad?
In a perfect world, we could do King of Dragon Pass for iPad. Unfortunately, the original artwork was scanned at 640 × 480 pixels, which is way too small for the 768 × 1024 pixel iPad screen. The app does run, and we may still customize the layout for iPad, but sadly can’t create a game with full screen art."
Ah well, at least I still have it for the PC.
Year 2
We have performed the rituals to renew the world, for this I ordered magic assigned much like last year and we made early preperations for a hero quest. When the new season began we immediatly sacrificed to Chalana Arroy and she cured all our sick but could do nothing for her own disciple, Vininna. If Vininna does not recover I do not think I shall entrust another of her weakling ilk on our circle!
I have also begun to groom Garnath as my successor, he is young, strong and a devout worshipper of Orlanth. He will represent our clan in the realm of the gods when we embark upon our first heroquest. I also sent a group to explore the southern end of the lands known to us.
The weaponthanes are angry, we are a war clan and they are too few, I have bowed to their wishes and sent Swen on a mission to find the best warriors and bring them home, he will be gone for 3 seasons.
As fire season began, Vivinna made a full recovery, I guess her weakling goddess finally decided to help her.
Since it is fire season, I have recruited more thanes. While we were busy reshuffling our thanes the hated Wildcats snuck by our patrols and stole 11 cows. I have ordered a raid in reprisal!
As a true and courageous daughter of our clan, Varansor rushed forward to heal Hendrick while our warriors kept the wildcat at bay.
In the end, we captured only 1 enemy and captured little loot but we lost no soldiers and killed some of theirs. We kept him as a thrall.
A mighty treasure, we will keep it for dark times and honor whoever must yield his life for our victory!
The Orlundi have come! Repell! Repell!
A bitter defeat, my faith in my warriors is shaken. How could this happen to our glorious clan?
I sent another party on exploration while I pondered our response.
I am unwilling to go against the Orlundi, we are already feuding with two clans, and the Orlundi are part of the powerful tribe to the south who control ancient hill forts, they are too strong and we were soundly defeated in the last battle. The widows saw the wisdom in this.
Strange neighbors these, surely they are beastmen and one of the ancient enemies of Orlanth, despite our earlier defeat I have no qualms demanding they cede their lands to us. They are just ducks!
The ducks took offense at my demands but were roundly defeated, as I knew they would! By right of the sword we took all their lands rather then the half we had demanded. I don't particularly care where they went off to. Good riddance.
Are we only beset by disaster? Thadart was one of my finest, and yet I cannot bring myself to accept he is gone. There will be no funeral until I see a corpse! In the words of King Heort:
Six times have my enemies thought me dead, and six times have I returned to harry them.
Six times have I vanished, and six times have my friends kept my place at table, knowing I would be back.
I am getting tired of this, assemble the Fyrd!
The enemy is repelled, once again our warriors are strong, but we have many wounded now...
What is this trickery? Send for the shamans!
The price was steep but the shamans told us it was the work of the Rakstanti, a clan far to the south we are feuding with.
They do have a point... It was decided that Swen will go to the old country to bring worthy young men who chafe under the oppression of the Pharaoh.
It is Storm season, and Orlanth is the storm god. It is time to embark upon a heroquest! I have chosen Garnath to enter the realm of the gods to bring us his favor. We shall honor him as he honors us!
A quest is the re-enactment of history. To stray from history is to know failure, we know Orlanths secrets however and I have faith in Garnath's strength to withstand the horrors he is meant to face.
We seek to make Garnath stronger, so that he may lead our people to glory when I join the ancestors.
Garnath spoke the words words of Orlanth (option 1) and continued further into the realm of the gods.
Garnath stoically took the ninety-nine blows meant for Orlanth.
Garnath defeated them all and took the weapons needed to defeat Aroka.
Garnath accepted the help of the Storm Bull.
Chaos is not Garnaths purpose, he goes on to meat Aroka!
Garnath has returned a hero! His experience will give our people strength!
Year 3 begins
We're coming into our third year. Year 2 was a bad year for raiding, we have over 50 wounded and a lot of our warriors died last year. We should probably focus on learning the healing ritual and gaining Barntars blessing of Vigor to allow our depleted ranks of farmers to work twice as hard to make up for the loss.
Garnath came out of the realm of the gods wounded but alive and is recovering.
What is our focus for year 3? Do we consolidate and ignore war for now or do we launch cattle raids to increase our wealth?
I say we consolidate, make sure we have more weaponthanes before we go out to punish the Rakstanti for bearding our children!
Anyway, yeah, we should probably consolidate for now. Maybe we shouldn't ignore raiding entirely, but it's probably not a good move to antagonise even more people right now.
Anyways, since we have 22 Magic to distribute across various... stuff... for next year, I'd like to make a few suggestions.
With the forecast the way it is, I guess it couldn't hurt to take that point in Hunting.
Finally, throw a point into Mysteries. Just because.
And were warriors so raiding is expected,
although we might want to limit ourselves to stealing some cows for few seasons.
I Suggest we do some exploration this year as well. Maybe south or sw.
Last year was a disaster, I have ordered magic distributed widely to ensure our safety in the coming year. My wife's estimate was right, we will indeed need the extra healing magic afforded by Vininna. I have allocated our strongest magic to War so that our warriors are well prepared in case of an attack.
Thadart has returned, I think. He is an ugly thing now but I swore I would not take him for dead until I saw a corpse. Yet he was a strong warrior, I will allow his return, for now. (option 5)
Later, we recruited more weaponthanes bringing their number to 15 and sent a trade mission to a neighbor to buy cattle and wealth in exchange for horses.
I must find out why only bad things happen to us... I had Bastakos, the knave, send the spirits elsewhere.
In a cattle raid we also snuck away 28 cows from the arnoring clan and our trade caravan returned with 31 cows and 25 cows worth of wealth.
Bloody tricksters can never be trusted. I should have known Bastakos would be more trouble then he's worth. I promised not to do it again, we cannot afford to give out wealth as it is.
Yet more misfortune! Bastakos insisted he would make up for the trouble he caused us with the spirits. And despite the madness of the whole thing it worked
Explorers later discovered strange stones on our Tula. We conducted a divination, just to be safe. And our ancestors told us to awaken the spirits inside them, for they would lend us aid. We paid shamans 15 cows and the spirits taught us many forgotten secrets of craftmanship.
Servants of the pharaoh! Kill them!
A stray magic bolt from their hated implements killed Blacktail, our prized bull. But we drove them off, never shall we aid servants of the pharaoh.
The Eagles ask for a return on the favor we owe them, we asked him to take food instead as our cattle herds have suffered.
The wildcats come! I guess they weren't happy about those rodents. Our patrols successfully intercepted them, we will drive them off!
Harran is a servant of Elmal, the sun god. His magic is strong and he fights as thus. He summoned all of Elmals power, cutting through the wildcats as if they were children playing the game of warriors. We followed him to victory!
Yet more losses we can scarcely afford.
We sacrificed to the Storm bull and learned how to sense chaos, I have decided to dedicate his shrine to this blessing. The beserker blessing is costing us too many deaths.
So this year we learned a few blessings, lost Blacktail the bull but gained some crafting secrets from spirits. I have switched Urox's shrine to detect chaos rather then Berserker because its causing a lot of wounds and deaths. Good news though is that all our wounded have recovered and Barntar now gives the Vigor blessing allowing our remaining farmers to work twice as hard.
Year 4 begins
Looks like a poor year for farming, we'll have to steal or trade for food if we want to avoid famine.
I am choosing to believe that there is a perfectly logical causal chain between these two events.
Imagine the delicious size of the Duck Confit we could make? Alas.
The whole poor harvest thing sounds bad. Maybe we should invest magic into trade and get food from other clans?
More blood for the [strike]blood god[/strike] honorable overdeity!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Never trust the ducks.
Have you not seen Howard the Duck? The real issue is that they might try and breed with our women.
We allocated our usual magic into warfare and asked the gods to help us in trade and diplomacy so we can stave off starvation if the omens prove true.
I reduced the allotment of barley planting this year, as usual Bastakos had nothing useful to say. The other ring members are concerned we do not have enough cattle.
Our chief is dead, long live the chief! In a ceremony we annointed Garnath chief of the Lysang Clan!
The Orlundi's food stores are a tempting target, as new clan chief I had to establish myself as willing to fight, just as Gardrostan was. We sent a full war party and gained much loot.
Swen was sent to trade for food with one of our neighbors.
I have decided to bow to the wisdom of Lhankor Mhy... This once.
Kero Fin is the mother of Orlanth, her spirits are no doubt powerful, we sacrificed to these spirits and they manifested at the shrine we had built.
Oh Bastakos, I know Gardrostan never liked him, but he may have just staved off starvation altogether. I'll have to thank him later (200 food).
I have also ordered sacrifices to Humakt to strengthen our warriors, so far he has granted us the battle luck blessing.
So many! I ordered survival tactics and ranged weapons only.
We survived but they stole almost all of our horses! We will have to get more if we want to equip our thanes properly.
We declared a great hunt and added its meat to our larders.
We built a stake perimiter to fight better fight these horse spawn if they return.
Never!
It is storm season, but our people fought the Ice tribe in ancient times and know a few tricks to moving in the snow. I have proven myself a worthy leader of men this day and we return our days of weakness are over!
Blast!
We drove them of and captured horses, still, we lost good men and will need Chalana Arroys magic to heal the rest.
This was a good year, we gained almost 100 cattle from the raid and two cattle raids I did earlier. We are almost back up to a full fyrd of 200 warriors but the horse nomads made off with most of our horses and we don't have enough to equip all our thanes now. We built a stake perimiter and I think we might want to drop a ramparts next time.
Year 5 begins
Year 5 looks to be fairly typical, we're going to increase our cattle herd nicely thanks to that omen but we should still focus on getting more. 900-1100 cattle is considered rich for a clan of our size. We're still going to be short on food before this years harvest though.