I feel a strong desire to rant and rave again. May start a 2nd blog on here specifically for that purpose. Not that I use this one much…
Dragon Age: The Dalish Curse, pt. 2
[The finale of the first trek through the Dragon Age pen-and-paper RPG. Scenario by Green Ronin Publishing.]
Coalan stood vindicated in his suspicions and Sarel was disgusted to see his people turned into darkspawn. The two argued, with Coalan standing firm that the elves were responsible and Sarel stating that the elves couldn’t be blamed because something had been done to them, had distorted them. Finally the two agreed to disagree and rest for the night.
The next day they game to a chasm that descended straight down 70 feet with only a large, uprooted tree forming a bridge across. Sarel, Rylan, and Jade forced Coalan to take the lead across. As soon as he started, the group heard a strange cawing briefly before a flock of vicious bloodcrows descended upon them. Coalan ran to the other side, then turned and called for the others to hurry up and join them. Sarel jumped into the bushes to buy himself some time until he could get a makeshift torch started. Rylan and Jade took the battle to the bloodcrows, with Jade spouting bursts of fire from her hands and Rylan cleaving through bird after bird. One bloodcrow tore at Jade’s throat, but she quicky tore it off her and used a healing spell to close the wound.
Once Sarel had his torch ready he ran across the tree-bridge, waving the torch around to hold the flock at bay. He managed to make it across without incident. Rylan pushed Jade towards the tree and she started her trek across the chasm. She quickly lost her footing and fell, but Rylan picked her up and attempted to cover her as she continued across. It was to no avail as the flock descended upon her and she lost her footing, falling to her death to the riverbed below.
Rylan managed to make it across and the group fled the flock by running into the woods, determined to reclaim Jade’s body when they could. Seral, Rylan, and Coalan continued on and soon came to the lost keep that Eshara had indicated on her map. Making crude torches, the trio descended into the keep and were soon set upon by living skeletons, placed to guard whatever secrets the keep held. Seral, Rylan, and Coalan immediately attacked and quickly laid waste to the undead protectors, but not without suffering some damage. They did the best to heal themselves before continuing on.
After checking the only other door in the room for traps, and finding none, the trio headed through, with Coalan in the lead. Unfortunately, they were mistaken in there being no traps and a several rusted, but still very sharp, blades fell on Coalan, all but killing him. Seral claimed one of the blades and mercy killed Coalan.
Seral and Rylan searched the reminder of the room, finding the elves that had been captured and freeing them. Orellis, the Lorekeeper of the elves told them that the abomination Mythallen, the one that had taken them, had recently fled with a small group of darkspawn to wreak vengeance on the town of Vintiver. Seral stated his indifference and left with Rylan to claim to Jade’s body and give her a proper burial, leaving the town of Vintiver to it’s harrowing fate. 
Dragon Age: The Dalish Curse, pt. 1
[As a diceslinger, and a huge Dragon Age fan, I’ve been itching to give the Dragon Age pen-and-paper RPG a try for a while now. The other day I finally had the chance. What follows is just a breakdown of events, rather than being written in a proper story format. The scenario is courtesy of Green Ronin Publishing and I claim no rights to any of it. This is just for fun.]
Jade, a novice Circle Mage, and her Templar-in-training bodyguard, Rylan, were on their journey to the Circle Tower on Lake Calenhad when they were joined by the elf rogue, Sarel. They journeyed together for a brief time before stumbling upon the Fuldor farm on the outskirts of the Brecilian Forest. The bodies of the Fuldor family men littered the fields of the farm, victims of a recent massacre.
Sarel noticed a pack of blight wolves trying to sneak upon them and immediately took off for the nearest house. His elf speed had him there in no time. Meanwhile, the wolves began their charge towards Jade and Rylan. Jade cast a vulnerability hex on one of the wolves, affecting its senses, while Rylan, with sword and shield in hand, took his fight to two of the wolves. Meanwhile, Sarel entered the house and found the bodies of the women and children of the Fuldor family. He quickly spied a short bow and a quiver of arrows and headed to an upstairs window that overlooked the battle happening below.
Jade cast a flame blast that burned the two wolves attacking her, causing one to momentarily back off while the other pushed through the flames and bit down on her arm. Tearing free from it she changed tactics and started sprinting towards the house Sarel took refuge in. Rylan defended himself from the attacking wolves, blocking incoming attacks with his shield and taking a few fruitless swipes with his longsword.
As Jade fled, one of the blight wolves tackled her while the other bit her in the leg. Sarel took a shot at the one biting her, hitting it in its side and causing it to release Jade’s leg. The next shot, however, missed, the arrow sticking in the ground near Jade. She grabbed the arrow and jabbed it in the eye of an advancing wolf. Sarel delivered a killing shot to it, putting it out of its, and everyone else’s misery. Rylan delivered a one-two strike of stabbing one of the wolves, then spinning around and decapitating it. With half of their pack dead, the surviving wolves ran off into the nearby forest.
With the immediate threat of the wolves behind them, Jade cast a healing spell to take care of her injuries. The group decided to explore the farm to see if there were any clues as to what happened the the family. Rylan took the barn, Jade the stable, and Sarel the house. Sarel managed to dig up a handfull of silver pieces, which found their way into his coin purse, and checked the wounds on the bodies. He quickly noticed that the kill wounds on the family were inconsistent with the tooth-and-claw marks from the blight wolves. The Fuldor’s were killed by something else. To add to the mystery, Sarel saw a word in elven script etched on the wall. Given that he was raised in the Elven Alienage in Denerim, Sarel didn’t know the language of his people and couldn’t read it.
Jade heard a moaning coming from the hayloft and found an Dalish elf hiding under the hay. Her injuries were severe, but Jade healed them and gathered the group. They managed to bring her to consciousness long enough for her to plead to them to get her away from the farm. Sarel asked what the word on the wall was and she told them it was Mythal. Sarel knew this as the elven god of Vengeance. The injured elf had a pouch attached to her belt and Sarel removed its contents: a heavy link forged of silver, about the size of a man’s hand. It had been broken and twisted by some great force. Sarel pocketed the item. The group then decided to take her to the nearby village of Vintiver and hear what she had to say then.
The elf remained unconscious through the journey with Rylan carrying her. It was a short walk, taking less than an hour. The village was in the post-Harvest Festival time and the group decided to check into the inn. Jade and Rylan, exhausted from the previous battle, decided to turn in for the night, letting the elf woman recuperate from her injuries. Sarel headed into the village proper to mingle and drink. After a few hours of carousing with the locals, he headed to Jade’s room and attempted to extract some information from the injured elf woman. His attempts were interrupted by a commotion from outside.
Sarel opened the window and saw a mob of angry villagers surrounding the inn. One, their obvious spokesman, demanded the elf woman be given to them to answer for the crimes of the treacherous elves and to face justice. Sarel wasn’t about to turn over a fellow elf to mob justice and woke the party. He quickly devised an escape plan, but when they found out the inn was completely surrounded by the villagers, quickly devised a plan B.
Sarel led the group to the roof where Sarel and Jade lept to the roof of the nearby stables. Rylan tossed the injured elf over and Sarel caught her, and Rylan leapt from the roof of the inn. His armor and equipment weighed him down and he didn’t leap far enough, but did manage to catch the edge of the roof. Sarel helped pull him up and the group made their way into the stables. Luckily for them, the angry mob didn’t notice their escape.
Sarel procured some horses for them to escape with, but Rylan was against stealing the horses from the misguided townspeople. Jade slapped him for being stupid and Sarel explained to him the direness of the situation. Finally, Rylan reluctantly agreed if they would return the horses once the situation was resolved. Sarel told him he could bring them back once they had escaped if he really wanted to. The party then fled into the Brecilian Forest.
Once they had made their escape from Vintiver, the group woke the injured elf. They learned that her name was Eshara and told them her tale. Two weeks ago her band of Dalish elves arrived during the festival. They were welcomed and enjoyed the hospitality. But merriment soon turned to trouble as some of the locals had too much to drink and a confrontation was started with some of the younger Dalish men. Some harsh words were exchanged, and then Harralan, one of the Dalish hunters, attacked the big blacksmith. The village warden separated them before it got out of hand, but the damage was done. They were no longer welcome and they moved on as soon as the festival ended.
Harralan was angry at their treatment, but the elders assigned him to scouting duty as they made their way through the forest, hoping to give him time to cool off. He was the first to disappear, simply not returning from scouting one night. Then other scouts and hunters began to go missing, as did the ones sent to look for them. The elders decided they should go back, but by then it was too late.
Three days after Harralan disappeared, before they could reach the edge of the forest, darkspawn attacked the camp, emerging from the trees in the dead of night. Many elves were taken. Those who fought were beaten or killed. Eshara was captured along with the rest and taken to an ancient ruin in a rift valley deep in the forest, off the trails. The master of the darkspawn was an abomination calling himself Mythallen, which means “child of vengeance” in the elven tongue. Eshara was brought before him, and then to his chambers. She managed to escape, taking the broken link of silver she found laid out as though it was on a shrine.
The darkspawn chased her, accompanied by a pack of blight wolves. She was wounded, but managed to avoid them, hiding among the trees and gullies in the forest for more than a day, always moving, never resting for long. She came across the farm and hid herself in the hayloft. She heard the farmers coming, then heard their screams as they were killed.
She then pleaded with the group to save her people and stop Mythallen.
The group left Eshara after receiving a crude map detailing the location of the ruins. They journeyed for a day before stopping for the night and setting up camp. Sarel took first watch and long after everyone was asleep he started to see movement in the woods. He noticed one of the lurkers was the leader of the mob back in Vintiver. Sarel snuck up on him and grabbed him from behind, holding his knife to his throat. He ordered the man to call his men off. Fearing for his life, the man did so and the angry villagers left, heading back toward Vintiver, but Sarel kept the leader behind.
He told them his name was Coalan, and that he was a blacksmith in Vintiver. He firmly believed that the elves are the ones causing such problems in Vintiver and he wants to see them brought to justice. Seral explained what they were doing and told Coalan that if he helped them and it was the elves then he could take Eshara back to the village to face justice. Coalan reluctantly agreed.
They journeyed until they came across an abandoned Dalish camp. The pack animals were killed and the entire camp ransacked, but no signs of the elves. Sarel picked up tracks heading south-south east, in the direction of Eshara’s map. All the footprints appeared to be elven and the tracks easy enough to follow. Before that could happen though, the group was besieged upon by darkspawn revengers.
Seral disappeared, climbing up a tree and taking post so he could shoot arrows at the attackers. Coalan quickly beat to death with his giant maul. Jade and Rylan were beset upon by two of the revengers, and Rylan’s heavy leather armor was shredded by it’s claws, but Jade pulled out her morning star and brained one of them. The surviving revengers ran off into the night.
The group gathered around their attackers just in time to see them revert to their true forms: the missing elves. Coalan’s suspicions stood confirmed.
…to be continued…
Bereavement
In 2006 Stevan Mena released onto horror fans a low-budget indie genre piece entitled Malevolence, the middle part of a planned horror trilogy. Mena paid for it pretty much entirely on credit cards and even went bankrupt for his efforts. However Malevolence seemed to resonate with those who watched it, enough so that Mena was granted another chance at directing with Brutal Massacre: A Comedy, a sort of This Is Spinal Tap for the horror genre. This was pretty well received by critics and Mena was given a decent budget to make the first chapter of the Martin Bristol trilogy, Bereavement. Given a solid shot, does his talent stand true? And more importantly: is the movie any damn good?
Before I can go into Bereavement, I need to talk about Malevolence for a moment. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you rectify that. It’s pretty good once you get past how much Mena blatantly took from John Carpenter. Halloween is the obvious inspiration for him here. The music, composition, hell, even Martin Bristol himself is a lesser shade of Michael Myers. Mena even uses some of Carpenter’s tricks with having Bristol standing in the background observing his prey long before actually approaching and making the kill. But despite the obvious mirroring of Halloween, Mena succeeds in making Martin stand out as his own character. And for what it’s worth, the movie is pretty brutal once it gets into it. I know today’s overuse of gore and the brief reign of torture porn movies ala Hostel and Saw have desensitized us to violence and a movie such as this where a lot of the kills aren’t necessarily on-screen might be considered tame, but your imagination more than makes up for the brutality Martin is inflicting on his victims.
Now for everyone who’ll freak out about spoilers and everything, I didn’t give anything away about Malevolence. It isn’t a whodunit. You know immediately the killer is someone outside the main cast the same way you knew Michael Myers was. What you don’t know is anything about him, which is where the ending of Malevolence comes in, and the ending of Malevolence is the hook for Bereavement.
But before I go too far into this: It’s too hard to talk about Bereavement without ruining the ending of Malevolence, and if you’ve seen Malevolence, you kind of already know how Bereavement ends. So to avoid any one getting pissed off about something and me having to pretend to give a shit about what they think, let me throw out the obvious:
Okay, you were warned.
So here’s the skinny: 6 year old Martin Bristol is abducted by serial killer Graham Sutter from his backyard in Minersville, Pennsylvania and forced to witness and participate in unspeakable horrors. 5 years later, following the death of her parents, Allison Miller moves in with her aunt and uncle and soon comes to realize that something isn’t quite right with the abandoned pig farm up the road. Her curiosity eventually opens a whole door of bad shit that doesn’t bode well for anyone involved.
Where Malevolence was a slasher ala Halloween and Friday the 13th, Bereavement is more of a character study about how someone becomes something like that. It has more in common with Silence of the Lambs than Scream, which is a great thing as I feel it made for a much stronger movie than Malevolence.
As far as I’m concerned Bereavement is Mena’s first “real” movie. At $2,000,000 it’s definitely low budget by Hollywood standards, but he does a LOT with the money. The first thing he did was hire a decent cast consisting of Michael Biehn, Alexandra Daddario, and Brett Rickaby, and a great director of photography in Marco Cappeta. If nothing else, Bereavement is beautiful to watch as damn near every single shot could be a photograph that tells its own story (and isn’t that the point?). The juxtaposition between the open, idyllic countryside of Pennsylvania and Sutter’s claustrophobic, grimy pig farm is as jarring as it is fitting. Regardless of anything else, Mena is definitely a visual storyteller.
This is a great little horror film and definitely worth the viewing. However, given that this is the first chapter in Mena’s trilogy, I would kind of like to see him remake Malevolence with a stronger budget and have Marco Cappeta DP again. It also makes for many intriguing possibilities for the final chapter in the Martin Bristol saga. As much as I enjoyed Malevolence, I much prefer this one. It felt less generic and made Martin Bristol more than just a Michael Myers clone.
