Icewind Dale Roleplay-ish Duo Playthrough: The Urisunal Brothers
OlvynChuru
Member Posts: 3,075
I don't usually roleplay when I play the IE games (I don't usually powergame either, but I don't roleplay). So in this playthrough I might fail utterly to roleplay these my two characters but I'm still new to roleplaying.
The two characters are:
Sarestu Yoravian Urisunal, a transmuter
and Erastir Asdulero Urisunal, a warrior
The Urisunals were raised in a moderately wealthy family in Bryn Shander. Sarestu, the older brother, was an aspiring transmuter, but his fondness for getting into long debates with his brother and friends made it incredibly difficult for him to focus on his magical studies. Erastir, on the other hand, had a much more antisocial nature which allowed him to concentrate on his training; he rarely conversed with anyone outside of his own family.
Both of them shared an urge to solved mysteries that they thought had never been solved before. At one point, Erastir paid a skilled alchemist to concoct a large and terribly mutating violet potion. He drank the entire flask at once to see what would happen, and the effects were incredibly painful. Erastir's body became warped far beyond repair, imbuing him permanently with the might of a titan and the agility and stamina of a slug. It took him heroic effort simply to walk the short distance home. Because wearing heavy armor would now be too draining on him, he decided to start practicing unarmored combat.
One day, Sarestu heard a rumor of "malevolent forces" at work in the lands beyond the village of Easthaven, and of an expedition starting at that village to investigate. Both of the brothers wanted to go on this expedition, but their parents refused, saying that their talents would be more useful and profitable for defending Bryn Shander and the caravans near it against bandits and the like.
A few long days later, both parents died, one shortly after the other, from some peculiar sort of deadly disease. Neither of the brothers were trusting sorts, and so they blamed each other for the death of their parents, but they knew that now they had a chance to go and investigate the "malevolent forces" they were so interested in, and they suspected that they wouldn't survive the endeavor if they kept arguing about who, if anyone, did the crime. So, Sarestu sold most of their property for around a thousand gold and used a good amount of that money to get a nearby adept mage to cast a powerful and long-lasting Endurance spell on Erastir so that he would not die of exhaustion in the journey to Easthaven. They spent some more money on supplies and they left, with about four hundred gold remaining.
This is where the game begins. Here are the two characters' stats:
The two characters are:
Sarestu Yoravian Urisunal, a transmuter
and Erastir Asdulero Urisunal, a warrior
The Urisunals were raised in a moderately wealthy family in Bryn Shander. Sarestu, the older brother, was an aspiring transmuter, but his fondness for getting into long debates with his brother and friends made it incredibly difficult for him to focus on his magical studies. Erastir, on the other hand, had a much more antisocial nature which allowed him to concentrate on his training; he rarely conversed with anyone outside of his own family.
Both of them shared an urge to solved mysteries that they thought had never been solved before. At one point, Erastir paid a skilled alchemist to concoct a large and terribly mutating violet potion. He drank the entire flask at once to see what would happen, and the effects were incredibly painful. Erastir's body became warped far beyond repair, imbuing him permanently with the might of a titan and the agility and stamina of a slug. It took him heroic effort simply to walk the short distance home. Because wearing heavy armor would now be too draining on him, he decided to start practicing unarmored combat.
One day, Sarestu heard a rumor of "malevolent forces" at work in the lands beyond the village of Easthaven, and of an expedition starting at that village to investigate. Both of the brothers wanted to go on this expedition, but their parents refused, saying that their talents would be more useful and profitable for defending Bryn Shander and the caravans near it against bandits and the like.
A few long days later, both parents died, one shortly after the other, from some peculiar sort of deadly disease. Neither of the brothers were trusting sorts, and so they blamed each other for the death of their parents, but they knew that now they had a chance to go and investigate the "malevolent forces" they were so interested in, and they suspected that they wouldn't survive the endeavor if they kept arguing about who, if anyone, did the crime. So, Sarestu sold most of their property for around a thousand gold and used a good amount of that money to get a nearby adept mage to cast a powerful and long-lasting Endurance spell on Erastir so that he would not die of exhaustion in the journey to Easthaven. They spent some more money on supplies and they left, with about four hundred gold remaining.
This is where the game begins. Here are the two characters' stats:
Post edited by OlvynChuru on
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The three main rules I've decided to set are:
1. I'm playing on Insane.
2. Sarestu can't learn non-alteration spells unless they are at least 3 spell levels lower than the current max spell level he can cast.
3. Erastir can't use Kai, since he isn't a true kensai but rather a fighter who is trained to fight unarmored like a kensai does.
While the Urisunals were traveling on the road near Easthaven, Sarestu spotted a band of goblins sitting around in the snow, eating some sort of meat. The goblins were too busy to notice the two of them, and the brothers were at this point too exhausted to put up a good fight even with weak goblins, so they just continued on the path.
When they finally arrived at Easthaven, they encountered the leader of the expedition they had heard about. They agreed to help out, Hrothgar told them about how the latest caravan from Caer-Dineval hadn't come to the village yet, and he sorely needed the supplies from it for the expedition. They told him about the goblins they found but he wanted them to investigate further, and quickly too, before the pass gets sealed.
However, the brothers still needed a good rest after their journey. The next morning, Sarestu went to Pomab's Emporium to buy more supplies while Erastir stood outside the store. Surely no shopkeeper would want to do business with a malformed monstrosity. Both of them liked to use the quarterstaves they brought with them as weapons, so he didn't have to buy much. Sarestu went to the tavern, but Grisella was afraid to go down to the cellar, so he went outside and called Erastir to come in and help get rid of the insects.
Those beetles were large indeed. Erastir easily crushed all four into goo but one of them bit him in the leg really hard. His leg started to hurt so much that he had trouble walking, but he just managed to get himself upstairs. He begged his brother to buy a drink for him, or do something else to ease his pain. Since Sarestu was curious to see how much alcohol Erastir could stand (as this information could prove useful in the future) and the begging was starting to really annoy him, he bought a tankard of Grisella's Dale Ale for each of them and told his brother that they would drink it in the cellar. Although Sarestu was fine, Erastir became severely intoxicated after one drink. Soon his pain returned and he accused his brother of causing the pain.
Erastir took hold of his staff and swung at Sarestu, who, with a stroke of luck, dodged it. He picked up his own staff and swung as well. The drunkard, sluggish beyond belief, was hit square in the head and died.
Sarestu took his brother's corpse to the temple of Tempus to be raised (of course, Erastir was easy to carry). There, Everard considered the request, but first asked the mage how the warrior died. He answered, "He died fighting a large band of armed goblins and orcs. He destroyed the majority of them singlehandedly, but one with a mighty club managed to kill the brave warrior."
Everard noticed the wounds on Erastir's head that seemed to have come from blunt objects such as clubs and agreed to raise him for a modest donation. He woke up sober and without much memory of what happened after he got drunk. Sarestu agreed to tell him what happened some other time.
After Sarestu solved Jhonen's issue with his strange dreams and after Erastir shattered Apsel's door, beat a wolf's brains out and threw the wolf's corpse into Lac Dinneshere, the two of them met up and decided to go find out what happened to the missing caravan. They came across a boy who was asking for help defeating some goblins. It turned out that this was the same group of goblins that they encountered while coming to Easthaven. Sarestu cast Color Spray on them, knocking them unconscious and making them easy pickings for Erastir. The boy got his fish back, but the two adventurers still had more work to do...
That's all for now. What do you think of this playthrough so far? Do you feel like I'm digressing too much?
Also, I've changed Erastir's picture because the old picture had heavy armor on, and this one still looks like a fighter and also wields a staff like Erastir does.
I didn't mind your digressions as you call them, and am looking forward to read more about them. Good luck!
Further on, they spotted a solitary orc. He had an axe in his hand, but when he saw the two of them he fled into a nearby cave. Next to the cave entrance there were several large empty carts. There was a very good chance that these carts were from the caravan from Caer-Dineval, but just to be sure (and potentially to crush another group of humanoids), they decided that they would investigate the cave. However, Erastir was exhausted by this point, and traveling all the way back to Easthaven to rest would most likely just make the situation worse. They certainly didn't want to sleep in the snow either, so they decided that they would find a place to sleep in the cave.
Sarestu went in the cave first. There were a few orcs at the entrance; he provoked them to come out into the open, where he used his final Color Spray for the day on them. The brothers then entered the cave together and Erastir fell asleep in a matter of seconds. Sarestu would wake him if any orcs came.
After four hours, two axe-wielding orcs did come; Sarestu was still out of spells, so he had no choice but to awaken his brother. Even after Erastir noticed the two orcs, he took a frightening amount of time to regain his bearings (while Sarestu distracted the orcs by running away from them), but once he did, he grabbed his staff, came at them and chopped them both in two.
By this point, Sarestu suspected that the orcs had learned their lesson for the time being, so he decided it was safe for both of them to rest at once. They managed to rest for eight hours in the cave without interruption.
Further on in the cave, there was a large chamber with many orcs, several of whom carried bows that could kill the brothers before the orcs got in Color Spray range. Sarestu came up with a good plan: while Erastir stood outside the cave (not in sight of those about to exit the cave), Sarestu would provoke the orcs and flee the cave as well. Since the entrance was narrow, the orcs would have to stay close to each other if they wanted to all leave the cave at once. That would be Sarestu's opportunity to cast a devastating Color Spray, and of course afterwords Erastir would finish the orcs in their sleep. The plan worked all too well, and in that large room they found many crates containing various kinds of supplies for long journeys. Clearly these crates were from the caravan from Caer-Dineval. After clearing out the cave through similar strategies, the brothers returned to Easthaven, took care of other minor businesses and reported their followings to Hrothgar. They gave Pomab the supply list and set out on the expedition!
At first, the expedition went without a hitch. Although the party had to deal with countless orcs, ogres and trolls, they always found a way to win. Hildreth withstood every hit the orcs gave him and in return gave each one an axe to the face. Erevain dodged each clumsy attack the ogres made, distracting them while Erastir cleaved them. Hrothgar sent the trolls reeling with mighty blows, and Sarestu finished them off with Burning Hands. But Accalia was the real lifesaver of the party, as she rewarded Erastir's valiant fighting by keeping him refreshed with Unfailing Endurance. If it wasn't for her, the feeble warrior would not have survived the harsh journey.
However, at one point Erevain heard a very loud rumbling noise. He screamed "look up!" to everyone, but for many it was too late. Frost giants above were about to hurl boulders down onto the adventurers. Hrothgar and Sarestu were the next to notice it, but Hrothgar was severely weighed down by his heavy armor and couldn't run fast enough. Hildreth and Accalia noticed it next, and they too were too slow. Erastir, burdened by terrible reflexes, was the last to look up, but when he realized what was happening, he ran. Sarestu had never seen any living thing run so fast before. Erastir, using every bit of his stamina, ran faster than the boulders the frost giants threw at him; faster, perhaps, than even a frost giant could. At the end of the avalance, Sarestu and Erastir survived, but Sarestu could not find any other survivors. By this point, Erastir had fallen unconscious, on the brink of death... but not quite dead.
That's all for now.
Their next task was to clear a path to Kuldahar through the goblins. Sarestu asked the hermit if the goblins had ranged weapons, and he said yes. From what the Urisunals could see, the pass didn't have much good room for cover... aside from the hermit's cave. Erastir's plan was for one of them to leave the cave, provoke the goblins, run back to the cave, and when the goblins came into view, they would do the usual Color Spray combat. Of course the hermit opposed this plan since he was worried that a stray arrow might hit him, but Erastir managed to persuade him by pointing out that it was the best option. "Would you rather we charge right into them, get shot down, and then eventually and inevitably the goblins find you and your cave and kill you anyway? At least with our strategy we will deal with the goblin threat for you. Or do you have a better plan, hmm?"
Indeed, if Erastir had simply charged straight into the goblin archers, due to his nonexistant reflexes he would have had to rely on the goblins' inability to hit a stationary (or more specifically, non-strafing) target, which, while considerable, wasn't extremely reliable. So it turned out as expected: the goblins were really stupid and they fell for every trick the brothers had up their sleeves.
In a mill-house, they found the orc Uligar, the self-proclaimed "Chief of Bleeding Eye." For irony's sake, Erastir decided to thrust his staff towards one of Uligar's eyes. The orc didn't have a shield so he foolishly raised his axe to parry the blow; the staff broke through the axe effortlessly and went so deep into Uligar's left eye that his brain was severely damaged and he died. The brothers easily took care of the other orcs.
They went downstairs and killed some more goblins. Sarestu opened a closet and it turned out there was a boy in there. Erastir tried to hide from the boy behind some crates, but Sarestu grabbed the poor mutant and held him in front of Jermsy because he felt like it. The boy got scared and decided to flee to Kuldahar. The brothers followed suit, after completely clearing the house of goblins and taking a nice rest.
Next up is Kuldahar...
At last, the Urisunals arrived at Kuldahar. Hrothgar had never informed them who the leader of the village was. Sarestu thought that the tower on a higher part of the town might belong to the leader, so they took a look.
The first thing they saw was an unarmed goblin who was walking around the room, picking up bits of dust from the floor and furniture and eating them, showing no interest in the people who just walked in. Sarestu saw the goblin pick up some specks of strange blue dust from the floor, and when he put them on his tongue the tongue vanished. Perhaps this tower was a wizard's study. Erastir decided the he wasn't a threat, so the brothers went further into the tower, leaving the goblin to eat the dust and not masticate it.
Erastir doubted that a mage would be the leader of this unusual town, but Sarestu was eager to potentially learn some new spells. By this point he had the ability to cast level 2 spells, but he didn't have any. Erastir stood behind Sarestu when they approached the wizard.
The mage Orrick was polite and willing to sell Sarestu scrolls, but they didn't have much money left: only around two hundred gold or so. However, Erastir had found a ring in the orc cave; he could tell it was magical but he couldn't decypher to enchantments on it. After Orrick identified it as a protective ring, he offered to buy it for a massive twenty four hundred gold. After that, Sarestu had plenty of money to spend on scrolls. He bought spells called Endurance and Cat's Grace, both of which were level two spells. Endurance would help Erastir survive long journeys and Cat's Grace would be a big help for his terrible reflexes and coordination.
(Endurance is of course a made up spell here. It won't boost Erastir's Constitution but it's the excuse for how he can survive an eight hour journey to the Vale of Shadows, not to mention the longer trips. While I'm not modding to include the spell in the game, I've decided that to represent the spell, one of Sarestu's level two spell slots will be left empty.)
They left Orrick's study and came to another house in which they discovered the actual leader of the village, Arundel. By this point Erastir was exhausted, so he sat down on the floor and listened while Sarestu talked to the archdruid. Familiarly, Arundel spoke of "malevolent forces," and mentioned that, whatever these forces were, they were causing the warmth-giving power of the giant tree to become gradually weaker. He also mentioned abductions and strange footprints that he had never encountered before. Erastir entered the conversation and asked what kind of footprint wouldn't an archdruid be familiar with. Sarestu hadn't thought of that. Arundel answered that he wasn't very knowledgable with the footprints of extraplanar creatures, so perhaps they came from something from the lower planes which the humanoids feared the strength and brutality of. Despite this revelation, the brothers had not encountered any extraplanar creatures in the pass (as far as they could tell), so they asked the archdruid if there were any other places worth searching. He suggested to go investigate the Vale of Shadows, as there had been sightings of undead in the vale wandering outside the crypts that they usually stay in. Arundel marked the location of the vale on their map; it would be an eight hour journey from Kuldahar, but since Arundel was aware of its location, he said he would use his druidic magic to illuminate the shortest path there. Before they set out, however, they needed to rest.
Arundel gave them directions to the inn. Although Erastir had recovered some stamina, it was still very tough for him to reach the inn. Sarestu still had to practice his new spells in order to be able to cast them reliably and he hoped to practice them during the night. The halfling innkeeper was rude and demanded a high payment for lodging, but of course the brothers had just sold a magical item and they still had plenty of gold.
Erastir would've fallen asleep shortly after going to bed, but Sarestu's annoying incantations from the adjacent room kept him awake. Erastir noticed that the room's cupboard was locked, and he decided that since it was his room for the night he had the right to see what was inside it. He tore the lock to pieces and found an engraved silver ring. He hid the ring under his pillow. Eventually he was able to go to sleep.
We'll see what happens on the next day some other time.
(another side note: I've also been ignoring the fact that realistically Erastir would probably have broken about 20 quarterstaves by this point due to how hard he swings them. The thing is that as far as I know there is no easy way to aquire a magical sturdy staff early on in the game, and I don't want Erastir to have to carry a ridiculous amount of quarterstaves for so long. That would just be annoying. Sorry.)
Having practiced his new spells overnight, Sarestu woke up quite tired. Erastir woke up fine, and after a minute or two he remembered the ring he had hid under his pillow. He got it out and read the engraving. After Erastir mentioned the ring to Sarestu, they went downstairs and convinced the halfling innkeeper to confess to Arundel about the whole Eidan thing.
Sarestu was able to learn both of the new spells in one night since they were both part of his own school. He still hadn't mastered them but he still had plenty of time to learn. He cast Endurance on Erastir and then they set out for the Vale of Shadows.
Not long after they stepped foot in the vale, they encountered some undead shadows. Clearly the vale was aptly named. Sarestu's Color Spray had no effect on them, and Erastir was worried that his staff would do nothing to them either, but it did, luckily. Apparently these were very weak shadows.
Sarestu decided he had to start practicing Shocking Grasp, a spell which he had been taught back when he lived in Bryn Shander. By this point he barely remembered how to cast it, but he had some recollections, so he decided he would practice that night, but they needed a safe place to sleep. They decided to check a nearby crypt. Of course, this crypt had lots of skeletons in it, and so the Urisunals had to come up with some sort of strategy.
First, Sarestu cast Cat's Grace on Erastir and himself. Although after the spell Erastir still had below average reflexes, Sarestu felt like he could dodge anything. So, Sarestu jumped into the crypt and gained the attention of all its undead inhabitants. Then, he exited; his brother was hiding just around the corner. Erastir smashed the first skeleton that came out of the crypt, but there were too many skeletons for him to handle by simply standing his ground, so they fled. The brothers separated their enemies; whenever a skeleton was even slightly isolated, Erastir destroyed it with a quick swing. Most of the skeletons had much shorter weapons than Erastir, so it was easy for him to beat them without getting hit. The zombies were even easier to beat. Deeper within the crypt there was a carrion crawler, and it too was slain in a single swing by Erastir.
After they cleared the crypt of all opposition, they set up camp in it. Other than the food they had brought with them, they had nothing to eat. The flesh of the carrion crawler and zombies they had destroyed surely carried all kinds of diseases. Next to a skeleton on a bier there was a medium-sized piece of bread, but it looked thoroughly decayed and inedible.
Sarestu started to practice Shocking Grasp on wooden objects; Erastir couldn't sleep with all the noise. After a few hours, Sarestu could recite the incantation flawlessly, and they went to sleep.
The next morning, the Urisunals explored more of the vale and found two yetis, which charged at them with all the determination that hunger causes. Erastir stood his ground and crushed the first yeti that came near him, but the ogrish beast survived the blow with a ghastly shoulder wound and staggered towards him. Erastir ran away, but Sarestu sprang forth, put his hand on the dying yeti's head and quickly spoke the incantation for Shocking Grasp. It died, but the other one still lived. The brothers killed it the same way. Sarestu suggested that they should try to eat the yetis if possible, so Erastir dragged them back to the crypt. Sarestu tested different parts of the yeti's body to see what was edible. Their blood turned out to be tasty, and their legs were quite filling. The rest was inedible. They had solved their food problem, but they were running sort of low on water. When Sarestu brought up the the subject of their water supply, Erastir brought up the idea of using Burning Hands to melt patches of ice and drink the water. However, Sarestu realized that if he did that he would have fewer spells to use in combat. So, they decided to come up with a plan later on, once the water situation became dire. Erastir threw the dissected yeti corpses down into the depths of the vale.
I actually beat the game with the Urisunals several months ago. It was a very fun playthrough. On this thread, however, although I somewhat enjoyed coming up with the writing for this story, much of what I wrote was quite far from what actually happened in the playthrough, and I'm not just talking about the parts that were obviously just for the narrative, like the part about eating the yetis. What bugged me was how I made it seem like the Urisunals got through everything without much trouble. In fact, in my writing the only time when an enemy actually hurts one of them is when one of the beetles in the cellar bites Erastir. In reality, the two of them went through quite an ordeal indeed. I made it sound like the Kuldahar Pass wasn't a big deal, when it was actually the most agonizing part of the whole playthrough. Previously I had thought that Dragon's Eye was the hardest part of the game, and usually it is, but now I know that there is nothing worse than trying to get through that pass on Insane difficulty with two characters who have no armor or helmets and have barely any health. It was like if you had to get through the Nashkel Mines with an all mage team, and none of the mages had Mirror Image, there were twice as many kobolds, and all the extra kobolds had bows. By the time they reached Belhifet, the Urisunals had been going at it for 1586 days and 11 hours. I'm surprised that Kuldahar hadn't frozen over by the time they were back from Chapter 2. If I had accurately portrayed how the game went in my writing, it would've had to document like half a year of them resting in that hermit's cave. However, despite me not writing accurately about how the game actually went, I did still follow the rules I set earlier in the thread.
Here are some anecdotes:
*Yxunomei was actually really easy. Erastir drank a potion of invulnerability, a potion of agility, and a potion of fortitude, and he became incredibly scary: he ended up with BETTER armor class and saving throws than most pure fighters would have at that point in the game and just as much HP, and of course he had 25 strength and some kensai bonuses. I didn't have Erastir do that too often, though.
*Before they encountered Poquelin, I was debating whether to start Heart of Winter now or start it after I beat the main game. I decided to beat the main game first. Since I knew that containers wouldn't carry over, I had Sarestu and Erastir carry everything I thought was valuable to the final boss outside of the containers.
*When I started Heart of Winter, for some reason there was a glitch that made it so that Erastir had twice the kensai bonus damage. He could easily do over 50 damage in a single non-critical hit!
And that's it for this playthrough. If anyone is interested I guess I could come up with some more lies about how the story supposedly went. Otherwise, I'm done with the Urisunals.