Deathlord: Ships Ahoy

Last post I got a ship for free from the Emperor. This opens up the world considerably. However navigating Lorn is not easy, as it's designed terribly. This is what the map of the world looks like, as printed in the inside cover of the game package:

And this is what the game world actually looks like (shrunk 8x so that 2x2 pixels = one tile)

Deathlord's world map has a lot of water. Well over 90% of the world map is covered by it. Given any particular water tile and moving straight in one direction, you have a better chance of circling the entire world than finding a new continent. Getting lost at sea is extremely easy.

At this point I don't have a particular destination. Deathlord is pretty open-world. There are a few places in Kodan I haven't been to yet. Mostly Wakiza, since so much of it is only accessible by water. I went there to see if there's anything more that I could find. One thing amusing was this sign on an island:

...Oceana?

I thought this place was called Wakiza. I'm going to wager this was another pre-EA-meddling name change that never got fixed. On this same island was a Mahotsukai with a tip:

Pressed for more information the Mahotsukai will tell you that there are seven gates in Hell. A "clue" is going to be needed to open each.

There's still the pirate den in this area but I'm not going to take it on just yet. I could probably loot the first few floors in safety--and normally I might do just that--but I think it'll be better if I show it off in its sadistic entirety once my party is powerful enough to take the whole thing on.

The other area that's worth noting is that small island in Tokushima that I couldn't get to before. Here I got a much more pertinent hint:

That's much more like it.

With everyone telling me to seek Senju this wa a good enough start. Looking at the map in the package posted earlier here, you can see there's a town called "Two Rivers" on the continent of Nyuku so that's a good destination.

However before I left Kodan I went back to the Yakuza guild to grind up another level--I was already close, and level 10 gets me a new set of spells I'm going to be needing:

Shigeko:
DONASU: Cures poison. Probably the "Do" comes from the Japanese "doku," or "poison."
MONASU: Heals 17-32 HP of damage; a very nice healing spell I'll be using a lot of.
MAKATAI: Like the KATAI spell, only it affects the whole party.

Gio:
HITATE: Allows you to walk through fire squares for a while without being damaged. Derives from "hi" (fire) and "tate" (shield--the kind you hold).
SANTATE: Like HITATE, but for acid. ("San" is the Japanese character for "acid")
TABEMONO: Creates food when cast on an tile with some sort of plant life (oceans count). Not a whole lot usually--somewhere in the teens--but with enough persistence can restock the party's food. "Tabemono" is Japanese for "food."

Tomoe:
HITAMA: Group damage spell that scales on caster level. Derives from "hi" (fire) and "tama" (ball)
UGOKU: Teleports the party to a random square in an 8-tile radius. Japanese for "to move."
MOKOWA: Like the KOWA spell, but affects all enemies.

Frank:
MANIJIN: Like the NIJIN spell, except affects the whole party
KAKUSU: Like the Hide command, only it never fails. Derives from the Japanese "to hide" (though this is very E-J'd--this means to hide an object, rather than yourself)
GENEITODO: Basically a high-powered Todo spell that affects multiple opponents. "Genei" means "illusion" and Todo is--well, whatever they were going for.

These are some nice spells. Shigeko and Gio especially; DONASU is a critical spell to have before leaving Kodan--healers are few and far between outside of the first continent, and if you get poisoned it's very rare to be able to get to one in time before the affected character dies. And Gio's HITATE and SANTATE spells are the primary reason to take a Shizen. Sure, she'll get some nice spells at higher levels, but none will be as critical as these two.

On to Nyuku!

Spoiler alert: I'm not going to be able do much here and will have to come back later.

Most of Nyuku's points of interest are on the west coast. There are two separate towns right across an inlet from each other, the Spindrifts:

They're opposite in more than one way

I decided to go into Northern Spindrift first. It's actually the more dangerous of the two but there are things I want there.

The sign in the middle of town here is interesting: the sign says "Northern Spindrift: All Brigands and Rogues Welcome." On the way there I saw Ninjas and Hobake and other assorted bad guys--Northern Spindrift is the "evil" themed town; Southern Spindrift is the "good" themed town.

The main thing I wanted here is sold by the ninja tending the "Specialty Weapons" store. He sells Katanas. This is the best weapon in the game that Yoshinaka can equip, and the primary reason to pick a Samurai. Katanas give a -1 AC boost, do 2-15 damage, and strike twice in a round. The Katana is arguably the best melee weapon in the game; it doesn't hit quite as hard as other top-tier heavy weapons, but they all strike once. Katanas are expensive but after looting that big treasure store behind the secret doors in the middle of town, I had more than enough to cover the cost.

There were some useful hints here too. The most useful one came from a Ronin in an isolated garden:

Everyone tells me to find Senju--this is why.

Unfortunately I don't have a crystal yet so even if I find Senju I won't be able to get this spear. Nobody knew anything about the crystal here either. They do know about the dungeon in the area; a hint comes from a townsperson that told me to search the entrance of it. (I'm not going to this dungeon yet. It's one of the hardest in the game, and completely optional)

Lastly there's this place:

A "sennin" is essentially an immortal supernatural enlightened hermit. Derives from the Chinese concept of "xian."

"Sennin" is a Necromancer, identical to the one in Tokugawa. He did some damage but I took him out with little difficulty. He dropped a Runeblade, too--a nice heavy weapon that I gave to Shuten.

Sennin had his own jail, with an imprisoned Yakuza. Smashing down the gate to his cell, the Yakuza told me I could use crystals to move through magic walls. Yet another use for Crystals. Now I'm going to need to get two somehow--one to give to Senju, the other to get through magic walls.

Sennin also had a pet. A pet significantly deadlier than he was.

I wouldn't bother taking on this fight until the end of the game, if at all.

If beholders aren't the deadliest non-boss monster in Deathlord, they vie for the distinction. They have a ton of HP, their physical attacks not only do a lot of damage but can drain levels, petrify, or paralyze, and they have a mass death spell (shown above) and a powerful mass damage spell. Do not mess with beholders.

That's about it for North Spindrift so it's on to south Spindrift:

Being the "good" Spindrift, South Spindrift is considerably more benign than its northern neighbor. It's also a frankly much less interesting town, both in amenities and hints. It does have a healer that can cure petrification for 750G which is nice, especially since there's an extremely nasty dungeon on this continent. Beyond the temple healer is a garden with a Shizen that points you to the secret door north of him, but the hint available behind that secret door is less than helpful:

Thanks, I already had figured that.

There is a more useful hint provided by a Mahotsukai hidden in a chamber beyond an illusionary wall:

If you make it to the Deathlord and find you can't deal any damage to him, this at least explains why.

The final major hint in Southern Spindrift can be found in a small chamber in the extreme southwest corner of town. To get there you either need to cast the water walking spell (which I don't have yet) or find the secret door in the building by the lake, which leads to a back room with a boat. That building is guarded by two hostile groups of Yabanjin but if you made it this far they should be no problem.

The hint, however, is summarily useless--"Beware of traps on Level 4." This probably refers to the crazy dungeon on Nyuku but that's just good advice for Deathlord dungeons in general. (Also Level 4 is by far not the worst there when it comes to traps)

There's some risk-free loot to be had in Southern Spindrift beyond a secret door in the Daimyo's house. (The Daimyo here, by the way, is not aggressive like the one in Kawa and will not attack you if you break into his house) There's also a decent amount of loot beyond some illusionary walls in the tools store, but as you have to murder the proprietor to get at them, you're better off not doing so.

There's no purpose in sticking around here any longer so I headed to Twin Rivers to find Senju. Twin Rivers is right north of the Spindrifts along the coast, (unsurprisingly) between two rivers.

 There is very little going on in Twin-rivers. Some very basic equipment, a half-baked healer who can't even resurrect, and lots and lots of trees. One hostile group of Yabanjin is inside a house but the main (really only) attraction is the house of Senju in the southeast:

By this he means a crystal.

Based on the hints I've gotten in the Spindrifts things start to fall into place--by giving a crystal to Senju, he'll give me a spear capable of harming the Deathlord. It also explains why the Deathlord and Kawahara invaded his old home back in Yokahama in the first place.

Of course at this point I had exactly zero hints as to where this crystal could be; nobody in all of Twin Rivers (or anywhere else on Nyuku for that matter) knew anything about them. In fact the only additional hint I got from Twin Rivers was that the dungeon on this continent everyone talks about is 16 floors deep. (It's huge, probably the largest in the game)

So no clues as to next destination. I head to the continent of Chigaku. The map says there's a town called Crystal Mist there so maybe that has something to do with the crystals, but more importantly it's close and I know I'm close to capable of tackling the dungeons there.

While I want to check out Crystalmist, the first place I end up is Fort Wintergreen, in the northwest area of the continent:

Despite being an armed fortress, if you're going to start something in any of the towns, Fort Wintergreen is probably among the safest places to do so. Rather than guards, there are just generic Senshi, which aren't too tough. There's some decent armor to be bought here, including some Heavy Shields, which aren't that common.

There are a lot of locked doors and portcullises in Fort Wintergreen, and a lot of pissed-off guards (and in one case, merchants!) behind them to fight. Both the vault in the northwest and the jail in the southeast have Senshi groups you'll have to fight. I was hoping the prisoners might have some good hints, and one talked about a dungeon nearby called the "Troll Hole" but that was it. Not all the prisoners were happy to be released though.

Some gratitude...

At the back room of the jail was a Kichigai imprisoned by a "Rakhamon's Curtain," or just "magic wall." These are the walls you need the aforementioned crystal to get by, so I wasn't able to talk to him. He probably had a useful hint but I couldn't get it. I did, however get a useful hint from a  Mahotsukai in the northeast corner of the fort:

So no weapons and no magic.

From this and what I learned in Nyuku it sounds like this spear that Senju can give me is the only thing that can hurt the Deathlord. (In fact, it's not, but it's pretty darn close) Already I can anticipate 5 out of 6 of my party being dead weight in that fight if I make it that far.

Fort Wintergreen has a few annoying random red herrings Deathlord is oh-so-fond of. The first is behind a hard-to-find secret door found in an otherwise unremarkable stretch of wall. This leads to a very long corridor with 4 Arkhan's walls (remember, those are the ones that sap half your HP) beyond which is a sign that presumably has a hint:

Mauling your party for no reason--all too common in Deathlord

Except it doesn't, because the only thing south is an illusion wall that leads to the beginning of this tunnel. There is no point to this area other than to trick the player into thinking they've found something secret and risking their party for a payoff, except the payoff is nothing. I don't mind secret areas going to nowhere, but this crosses the line into obnoxiousness.

A lesser but similar annoyance is the following area:

This long corridor isn't hidden, but this immobile Senshi is blocking the sign. If you want to read it, you have to kill him, and set all the town's guards on you. The sign, however, just says "Dead End" so is completely without worth.

That more or less does it for Fort Wintergreen--like many Deathlord towns, it's mostly empty and feels a bit half-finished. There's another town on this continent though, Crystalmist.

Crystalmist is a great place to stock up on any equipment for your party you might be missing; it's got a wide variety of both weapons and armor to buy. It's also got a trainer. But it doesn't have either a food merchant or a healer. Neither does Fort Wintergreen for that matter, so that means that if you need food or healing, you need to sail to another continent to get it. This isn't isolated to Chigaku either; most continents in the game lack one important amenity or another.

As you can see from the map, there are a LOT of chests in Crystalmist to loot. Most of them are behind merchants, and you won't be able to get to them without killing them first, which again is something you probably want to avoid. Unless you use the UGOKU spell, which Tomoe can now cast, to teleport inside the treasure areas:

Of course,  these chests all have weapons which won't do any good unless you sell them individually.

Without teleportation (or murdering merchants) the only chests here are in the two southern storehouses. Of course both storehouses have a hostile group of Guards in them. At my levels I had some decent group-damage spells on three of my characters (HITAMA, GENEITODO, and YOBUZUMA, the last of which I can use since towns count as outdoors) so I could take them on with caution. But in most cases it probably isn't worth it.

There are some other hostiles behind locked doors in this town too--a group of Kobito, and three groups of Ansatsusha in a building labeled "Home of Sotashi, All Elves Welcome." But there's information to be had in locked buildings too--one Kishi told me to beware a necromancer named Shumi, who lives in a tower by the sea (the tower in the southwest corner of the continent). A Ryoshi told me to "Find the lantern of Kasumi, it will light the way." When I inquire about Kasumi, I learned that he was a "great samurai who drove back the dark hordes." The most pertinent piece of information though I gain from a group of brigands outside the walls of the town:

There we go, finally something useful!

When asked about the Lagoon, the brigand said "In a land south of Nyuko"(sic). That's good information. When I'm done with this continent at least I have general idea of where to look next.

At this point I saw about all that there was to see with the towns on Chigaku. However there are two dungeons on this continent as well, both of which I learned about from townspeople. There's the "Troll Hole," a sunken city in a cave and the tower of the necromancer Shumi in the southwest.

Next post I'll tackle these dungeons. After the first continent, dungeons become far less forgiving and the two on Chigaku are no exception. Fortunately the monsters are less of an issue in the Chigaku dungeons--it's just the obstacles that are really dangerous. These are still just the tip of the iceberg though--there's much more sadism left ahead.