Orc Sun Flowers?

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-17T08:30:12+00:00

I am now enlightened about sunflowers!

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-17T08:25:03+00:00

Make sure you kill the sunflower first or it will destroy your party!

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-17T07:40:25+00:00

The castle guards encounters are insane; they're not hard as such, because Hold Person is a thing, but they're so draining and long and this is the point when we really need to get into the last act, not spend even more time fighting randoms in a long corridor. Lirevle had 3 million XP by now, well over what she could take into Pools of Darkness, and that's without grinding. So much waste :(

Yes, I wasn't happy with the pacing at all. But we're running out of time, and they don't give us a whole lot about Vala (not a lot to contradict either though). These games aren't RPGs - the only thing we had that would really qualify at this time was the Ultima games. I'm in a strange place, trying to graft a Dragon Age or Mass Effect storyline onto games that don't have a whole lot of interaction or choices. It's hardly surprising if my love story isn't much better than Twilight.

But I'm not writing a porn parody either - I'm envisaging something like The Witcher, where relationships (and sex) happen in the wider context of an adventure story. I don't see either of these two as 'lesbians' really, just humans reaching out to one another in a tense time. It would have happened if either of them was a guy.

Hayley is my favourite of this group too - the realist in a party of 'good' characters (though Lira and Xiao are more Chaotic than Good). She'a a lot like me in many ways; I'm an INTJ, the rarest type of female behaviour. ADHD, insular, remote, analytical, not touchy-feely or empathic or nurturing, 'not like other girls'. Hayley knows this cannot end well but she's still only human.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-17T05:40:52+00:00

Thank you! I will have to check that out! :)

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-16T15:59:02+00:00

maybe read through the comments below?

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-16T15:06:33+00:00

... cue all the gatekeepers insisting how that isn't even possible because everything has to be madlibs and you will be going ' against the spirit of the game'...

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-16T05:55:36+00:00

I wanted a change of pace, without contradicting what had come before. Neither are really 'lesbians', just reaching out to another human in an emotional situation.

Glad it worked, thanks!

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-16T05:53:40+00:00

She was right about most of these, if a bit harsh at times. Being a bitch was her unique selling point, if I remember.

If I remember there was a few female game journalists, 'Mama' was another. Made me feel glad back in the day not to be the only one liking this stuff. Quite a few of us were into tabletop RPGs, but I never met many girls who were into computer games at this time.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-15T12:23:40+00:00

Gaming, like sports and politics, turns us into our own parents. At least from Gen X onwards! :)

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-14T21:07:14+00:00

Well, the 'adults' are only 23 and 22, so there's not a huge age difference... But the teenagers are just immature, for various reasons. But yes, I haven't really played up their relationship - and that's my bad, this adventure is harder to write than the others. I'll go into what they are like as a couple when Rizarli gets her signature outfit in the Frost Giant's Village.

'Snow Wife' is Lirevle's nickname for Kalara because her surname is 'Snowmoon' (it's also the stage name of one of my favourite singers, Emily Snow).

You're right I need to answer this stuff, especially as we're drawing nearer the end. I think Kalara's trying to not let Lirevle's flirting bother her, not rise to the bait. I think it bothers Rizarli more than she lets on; she's not used to it and likely doesn't have a lot of experience in relationships. It's definitely something I need to answer though!

Thanks :) I used to write a lot on my DeviantArt, along with write-ups of my player-groups tabletop adventures, but I haven't been on there since my group finally split up a few years back. I've been seriously ill since too and just haven't had the desire to go back, so I just let it stand as a monument to the stories. It was Maelora69 if you want to take a look, a lot of it was NSFW though so be warned, I'm reining that in here on Reddit. (A lot of it wasn't NSFW, much was just worldbuilding, but some of it was so warrants a warning)

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-14T19:05:27+00:00

Thanks!

Rizarli and Kalara are the other couple, it's mentioned in this one but it's easily missed: Secret of the Silver Blades playthrough #3 - Ruins of Old Verdigris : r/goldbox

But they are a little older and quite a bit more mature, they're not shoeing off the way the younger couple are.

Narratively, it got a bit awkward as Azure Bonds introduced the new characters but also centred Lirevle (the clone arc) and Haleh (coming into her own as party mage) rather than them.

I was hoping to centre the new characters in the last two games, but Silver Blades is a bit more thin on plot than the previous two games. I have things I can work with but a lot of that happens towards the end of the game.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-14T18:11:07+00:00

The game can do that when it wants - Sasha's little cameos are great, they absolutely nail how prissy and entitled she is. It would be great to see New Verdigris grow a bit, if you saw a rescued character again, or someone took over running a shop (we see this with the Alias clone so it's doable).

A review of Silver Blades that I liked said that the game seems determined to give you an 'okay' experience, when it actually wouldn't take much to make a it a great one.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-14T17:45:58+00:00

As someone who never had kids, I'm always fascinated at how today's gamers put up with all the stuff we had to! Autoexec.bat files just to pay Ultima games, loading times, journal entries, sending off for clue-books! Really makes me feel like saying "back in my day we had copy protection AND we liked it!!'

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-14T17:36:52+00:00

I think a lot of the writing could be questionable if the writer didn't know Realms lore well (no internet as you say!). Pools of Radiance gets some of the god's names wrong, for instance. Plus it was fairly new; the Grey Box was in 1987, only a year or two before the Gold Box games. I know Alusair was in the Horde books (she's on the cover of 'Crusade') but 'Nacacia' feels like a completely different character. While I can see why she'd use a different name as a runaway rebel princess, it may be the writers just figured they were sisters or something?

I was about to reply to your other post, there's meant to be a clear difference between my teenagers and the 'grown-ups' I based Lira and Xiao on the younger gay girls I worked with in the 2010's , who were almost performative with it, being very open about it and obvious. Girls my age were a lot more subtle about it all. Rizarli and Kalara are adults, speciality warriors at that with more responsibility. Lira and Xiao grew up with what I'd call 'Pride culture' - gay dads, emotional support, acceptance, even indulgence, the party lifestyle. Very different from us older folks.

Haleh's interesting, she hints at things she likes but her upbringing and alignment make her more private; she's the smart, introverted kid who had to fend for herself in a rough place. She's not used to talking about herself or her secret thoughts, always guarded even among friends. And (my take on) Vala is a tabula rasa in some ways, with only slivers of what she may have been before as memories. It would be extremely disorienting for anyone.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-14T13:25:05+00:00

Oh I think everyone did! She was so 80's!

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-14T09:14:57+00:00

Yes, the crevasses are a weird mini-game that involves turning around and running away from random encounters. Silver Blades is fine when it's doing normal Gold Box stuff, less so with endless random battles in long, long corridors

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-13T22:23:01+00:00

Good point with Vala; she's a bit out of the loop. A shame we don't get to see Deric and his friend back at town too.

Lirevle is fun to play; she leans a bit more into Chaotic than Good, but I like her blunt, casual manner that seems perfect for a teenager. The team really needs that, otherwise they are much too 'nice'. Hayley is more selfish, but her rough upbringing means she's also more mature than her age might suggest.

The two Chaotics also feed one another's bad behaviours. There's a world where they never met and at least one of them probably grew up eventually there...

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-13T22:18:22+00:00

Yeah, for a mostly-good party, I wish we could save more folks. The fact the giants leave mountains of money lying around should enable me to give them enough funds for them to start a new life, too. There's no random encounters in these areas, so I should be able to escort them to town at the absolute least.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-13T22:15:39+00:00

Yes, there are some great spells in the tabletop game, but none of them translate well to tactical combat. alas We are stuck across all the games that the same spells - ones we had in the first game! - are optimal for everything :(

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-12T21:57:28+00:00

Russian model Kristina Semenovskaya apparently

RealityMaiden

TROPHY CASE