Round Table of Arkain

[Shar Dundred]

The next chapter is around the corner, ladies and gentlemen.
And it is quite the large battle, I tell ya.

 

[Kasrkin]

Just to note I do not have a musket.

 

[CosmicBard]

The next chapter is around the corner, ladies and gentlemen.
And it is quite the large battle, I tell ya.

Wow, that's exciting! The last levels of the first books have sure been some of the longest and biggest (and most annoying) battles out there.

Should we expect some new surprise levels btw? Because if my memory serves correct, we should only have 4 missions left before the story of the second books start (the big moba style map at the end of the human book, the siege that almost matches the one at Kome in the orc book, the tunnel mission where Krom is possessing humans, and then the huge undead vs demon tug of war). But to be fair, all of those take a ton of time to complete, so I wouldn't be surprised if this would be an act with a lower number of chapters.

Or I guess you could just start the story of the second book in the new act, but imo that wouldn't make much sense.

 

[VastanX]

THE DEBAUCHERY OF FLESH AND DEATH!



(The Undead are a bunch of Twats here)

 

[Shar Dundred]

Scarec Nexus probably approves of them cleaving flesh.
Gotta check why that keeps happening.

 

[Karmondia]

 

[Shar Dundred]

As the one writing this whole thing, I have to wonder what Gardon did to Salana's brain.
Trying to kill Lerrig already?

 

[nchp1903]

Since we're on the topic of Gardon and his Elven "companions", I want to ask if Gardon also did something to her brain, or she actually thirsts for Gardon (can't blame her if she does, really).

 

[xyallas]

I personally think Larine didnt need any kind of help, terrible queen but by doing that it solidified her rule a little bit since he would come and help if things happened, regarding Salana... i haven't seen in any cutscene anything unusual besides the necklace power he unlocked or did he? Maybe we will find out that it became cursed by him, but if its the case and It's get known by Salana, Zarin and others that it was cursed and she got influenced... i think they wont like it that much and probably would lead to bad stuff for Gardon

 

[nchp1903]

Gardon's enchanted artifacts are weird. Merlon has the amulet, but he still acts like normal person, even went as far as flirting with Claire, one of Gardon's lieutenant, while Salana's necklace makes her act like a thrall. I kinda wish there was a way for Gardon to take over the Elven Kingdom without manipulation for Zarin to side with him (or stay neutral) instead of siding with Van Deuce after he killed my man Blen.

Talking about Van Deuce for a bit here, because he's giving me mixed feelings. He is so punchable, but at the same time, the levels where I get to play as him are so fun. He himself is strong and tanky, and doesn't give the "final boss when you play as him" vibe (Thanks Shar Dundred for not lowering his stats), while his units are like Holy Crusader. Strong stats, and I like their clean, golden armors more when compared to the Ironfist (sorry Gardon), reminding me a bit of the Purifier in SC2.

 

[Vindicator777]

Here's my tier list

 

[Shar Dundred]

I want to ask if Gardon also did something to her brain, or she actually thirsts for Gardon (can't blame her if she does, really).

I feel like I am replying to a question for the Arkain Question Time here but why not:
It's kind of both.
She already was interested in Gardon beforehand. The amulet kind of strengthened that

Here's my tier list

That's an interesting list, I feel like it differs a lot from what I have seen so far.
I don't ask for justifications or anything but I am quite interested in the reasoning behind this one.

 

[Vindicator777]

Rath always be the best orc character in Arkain series. His hatred against humans legendary.

Dear Shar, you done Sas so dirty in Second Book. He wasn't so bad in First Book back in 2015, i remember that!
Amari always feel for me like MarySue kinda character. She never fail, she always do right decision.

Sorry for my bad english. I know this is really hard to read my post.

 

[Jayborino]

Amari always feel for me like MarySue kinda character. She never fail, she always do right decision.

What do you mean never failing? She gets betrayed, loses all credit for the battle, and takes a huge L as early as the 2nd mission - pretty much the most straight up example of failing there is. Not to mention she has an actual living god giving her directions later on when thing start working out for her. Gardon is very similar, yet everyone thinks he is cool and not whatever the male equivalent of a Mary Sue is. Hmmm... how strange, I wonder what the difference between these two characters is?

 

[Vindicator777]

Yes, Amari gets betrayed, but this is different thing in my opinion. She felt more like a victim in point of view by the player, not a stupid idiot how Sas become in second book.
For Gardon, he is Marty Sue character in my point of view. But little less annoying for me, mainly because he wasn't connected to orc characters.

 

[Jayborino]

Yes, Amari gets betrayed, but this is different thing in my opinion. She felt more like a victim in point of view by the player, not a stupid idiot how Sas become in second book.
For Gardon, he is Marty Sue character in my point of view. But little less annoying for me, mainly because he wasn't connected to orc characters.

Shrug, that's fair

 

[Karmondia]

 

[nchp1903]

For Gardon, he is Marty Sue character in my point of view. But little less annoying for me, mainly because he wasn't connected to orc characters.

Since I like Gardon, I'll try to justify this a bit.
I assume being a Gary Stu or Mary Sue means he needs to be: powerful, too perfect (personality-wise), and lack of character development.

• Powerful: As in military power, he's a general of a devoted force, the Ironfist, and even took half of Cleavehand's force to add to it (just realizes that this means he's partially responsible for the fall of the Imperial Border to Rangul, so now it's harder for me to defend him, but oh well). He has a big army whose trainer is a guy that's a literal dragon, paired with the fact that he's one of Brian's apprentices, so of course he's powerful.
• Perfect personality: If I'm a guy who shows his devotion to mankind, sacrificing his men and his humanity to help destroy the Demons, and all I receive is betrayal (from Genethas' slaves, the Golden Guards, the Emperor, the Toranites), I'll be angry and edgy all the time as well. So yeah, he's pretty human to me, and not at all perfect.
• Lack of character development: This one I cannot say yet, because we never see how he's like before Derryn. I might come back to this if Shar ever decide to release something like "Small Stories of Arkain" where each chapter features one character from the Main Story, and the events that lead to them being who they are right now.

tl;dr: It's fine if you don't like his personality, but don't call him a Gary Stu.

Rath always be the best orc character in Arkain series. His hatred against humans legendary.

I agree with this though. He's so angry, that it's always guaranteed to be entertaining whenever he has screentime. It shows in his gameplay as well, with the abilities Immolation and Avenge, while his Barracks units are all high movement speed units, encouraging the playstyle of constantly pushing into the enemy bases, instead of sitting on fifty Cannon Towers.
However, in True Story of Arkain, that hatred makes less sense, because on The Bull and the Wolf, as the chapter's name implies, the attack on Darkmind Clan is led by the Bull Regiment of Dorbric, while Zoia's force and Lerrig's force are basically speedrunning war crimes on the 100% category. I feel like Rath should hate these three more than Blen.

Dear Shar, you done Sas so dirty in Second Book. He wasn't so bad in First Book back in 2015, i remember that!

Always thought he did a pretty good job taking on Merlon and the Knights of Kome. Then again, Amari holds quite a big grudge, and since she's the warchief, no one who supports Sas would dare say much on the topic of her killing him. Also, him sharing the same model as Thrall makes me no longer able to take Thrall seriously.

 

[xyallas]

What was done dirty was Glen! I still can't get over the fact he died in the normal story ... quite out of nowhere in that prison, back then I was convinced that it'll be some kind of Glenn Silent Knight Hero vs Gardon Anti-Hero End justifies the means. Then Glen well... he died and I don't actually think there is really a counterbalance to Gordon.

I still am in hope that True Story will change that fact, but then again I am an old fool

 

[nchp1903]

What was done dirty was Glen!

True. It's a shame that the only way for him to stay alive is in the A Dish Best Served Cold mission of the Orc Campaign, and even then it's kinda forced, since you just switch control to him and destroy the Darkmind. And since the mission let us play as Darkmind from the start, racking up forces, building expansion, slowly advancing into the fortress, etc, I kinda have an emotional attachment to them, and at that point, Rath deserves the (temporary and very short-lived) victory. Switching to Blen and destroy everything I've been building up until that point is not what I want, despite the fact that I also like Blen.

I still can't get over the fact he died in the normal story ... quite out of nowhere in that prison, back then I was convinced that it'll be some kind of Glenn Silent Knight Hero vs Gardon Anti-Hero End justifies the means. Then Glen well... he died and I don't actually think there is really a counterbalance to Gordon.

I think the point is to show that Van Deuce, is in fact, a deuce, like many of his thugs. And like the problem I said above, the same also applies to the Second Human Book, where the player has the choice to switch to Van Deuce near the end, after spending the whole book building up a large force with Gardon.

On a side note, in my playthrough of A Dish Best Served Cold, after picking Rath's side, somehow Blen teleported to the back of the main Darkmind base, alone, and attacked every Orc building in sight before dying to Spiked Barricades. Did that happen to anyone else?

 

[VastanX]

Not so much of a debauchery this time... still good.

 

[Jorgonson]

On the topic of Amari being a Mary Sue, I feel like she maybe is, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. @Jayborino is right in that the term Mary Sue is often used as an unfair criticism of female characters, but Amari doesn't really have any shortcomings. This stands in contrast to Aridon and Gardon, the respective main characters of the other two factions, as Gardon's tendency to reach for the most brutal and often evil solution has real consequences for his story (the dwarves and some of the Royal army turn on him). Likewise, Aridon's insistence that he's always right and his devotion to a largely arbitrary balance is implied to be a cause for many of Arkain's problems.

Amari is almost always clearheaded, and usually attempts to find diplomatic solutions where possible (think of her treatment of the surviving humans of Salria, I couldn't see Gardon or Aridon adopting a similar policy). However, this contrast felt like a breath of fresh air for me. I think the overall dark tone of Arkain is really engaging, but I could totally see it becoming stale or oppressive if every character was brutally utilitarian. Characters like Amari who genuinely try to improve the world (and largely succeed) may appear flawless, but they make Arkain way more interesting and diverse. That being said, I might be a bit biased because the Tribal Dominion is by far my favorite faction.

 

[FOEHN]

There's a lot of talk regarding certain characters being Mary Sue or not. While I respect each opinion, personally I think NO ONE is. The 'standard' line for 'this is Mary Sue and it ruins the story' is pretty low, blame certian 'sequel trilogy' for this.

I mean, seriously, nobody accomplished what they wanted without issues.
-Gardon during First Book eventually failed, and in Second Book he was deduced to nothing but a lowly general and got betrayed, and he had to fight former allies even though he was willing to do so. Canonically his closest non-Ironfist figure Merlon's dead and he lost Gate of Hell, backstabbed again, this time by Undead.
-Amari wanted nothing but appreciation from his father and her races, that she can do more than stay behind. She got betrayed by none other than her younger brother and casted away. Even in Second Book Redfist, Bonelords and Daric's mercenaries were constantly threatening them, and eventually she lost her father Rangul.
-Aridon, while won in the end since Souleater legion winning the war was never canon, failed several times. He never successfully controlled Orcs neither succeeded in eradicating them(even consider his pact with Bhaarizel). And most of all, LARGOTH. So much for 'all-seeing being'.

 

[CosmicBard]

If I were to rate Amari and Gardon from a scale of 1 to 10 on how much they fall into the Mary Sue trope, then I'd give Amari a 3 and Gardon a 2, which basically means that you can see it a tiny bit in their characters, but it doesn't really make the story worse, and even coming up with counter arguments isn't that hard.

The thing with Arkain is that it has a bunch of choices that the player itself can make, which can lead to some characters either succeeding non stop, or failing really hard. You can literally kill Gardon by choosing Van Durce and you can kill Amari by making Vanessa join Redfist's army, which kind of shuts down the idea of them being Mary Sues pretty hard.

Though you can also just make the right choices through the story, which will lead to them doing amazingly, whereas Blen gets executed no matter what, Sas gets killed no matter what, Aedale gets imprisoned and corrupted no matter what, and so on. This is the main reason why a lot of people feel like Brian's two apprentices get a bit of favoritism, even though they don't (at least not that much).

The only real "Mary Sue moment" that I could find in their stories was Amari winning the raid in the mission where you get the Scepter of Healing. That didn't really make sense, because she was fighting against the brother of the dwarf king, one of the highest ranking elven military generals and some imperial army too, whereas she was somebody whose combat experience only came from training by herself in secret, and sneaking into a few raids. She was outnumbered, had less combat experience than her enemies, and had less experience as a leader compared to Mordin and Saphira, yet still won. But I simply just couldn't find any other moment like this. Yeah, she was extremely successful in the Second Orc Book and saved multiple races, but all of the events that actually happened make perfect sense and can easily be explained, and even her raid had a horrible consequence of her getting exiled.

Tl;dr - The story is kind of made in a way that some characters might feel like a Mary Sue character, when in reality they aren't. A lot of their successes can either be explained by a player choice or some other external factor. Bad things did end up happening to them, but them recovering from said bad things isn't really on them being "immune to consequences" but more on them trying their absolute hardest while being supported by other characters.

 

[Mvicio]

Why did i lost the watch on this post? Thx hive i suppose
So i´m really late but here goes my Arkain roomate tierlist:

I think all 3 top tiers would be good enough. Specially the first one since i smoke and i wouldn´t need any lighters on the flat anymore.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Ornasion also has fire, you know.

 

[Khush352]

I'm craving for some Zoia x Blenn "action".

 

[Shar Dundred]

I'm craving for some Zoia x Blenn "action".

Them killing each other?

 

[Khush352]

Aww.... how innocent, Shar.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Not "innocent" but "hoping you were not going where i thought you were going".

 

[Khush352]

Not "innocent" but "hoping you were not going where i thought you were going".

Maybe.... maybe not. Too bad you can't see one's thoughts, ain't it? smirks

 

[Karmondia]

Rahandir x Krom "action" when, Shar?

 

[Mvicio]

Ornasion also has fire, you know.

Well i suppose Pentiss and Rahandir can also use fire spells. or corrupted Aedale. That doesn´t mean i wanna live with them. I suppose i should just kept Redfist, Kenos and Scarlet on that tier.

 

[Khush352]

Rahandir x Krom "action" when, Shar?

Gives bonehard a new definition, doesn't it?

 

[Jayborino]

Maybe.... maybe not. Too bad you can't see one's thoughts, ain't it? smirks

Thanks for making it weird

 

[Khush352]

Thanks for making it weird

tips fedora Always....

 

[Karmondia]

Hey Shar! Ever since "Pride of the Empire" was released, I can't open the campaign in the world editor. It that intentional? I know you used to protect your maps, but you haven't done that since the Second Human Book. Are you doing it again, or is this a bug? (Note that I have older versions of the True Story and I can still open those, but none of the new versions.)

 

[Shar Dundred]

That desperate to find out how to get that special unit that you want to look at the editor?
I didn't.

 

[Championfighter25]

Hey Shar! Ever since "Pride of the Empire" was released, I can't open the campaign in the world editor. It that intentional? I know you used to protect your maps, but you haven't done that since the Second Human Book. Are you doing it again, or is this a bug? (Note that I have older versions of the True Story and I can still open those, but none of the new versions.)

Rangul would be so proud to see you so dedicated in finding those clues.

 

[Tuwnew]

I really like to check some campaigns... and yes, can confirm your make my editor crash :/

 

[Shar Dundred]

I don't know why it happens, I didn't do anything to make it happen and the campaign works
just fine for me in the editor. If I added protection mechanisms, I would tell you that.
No offense, but I am not going to look into that one. It was nothing I did and fixing such a thing
isn't something I consider that vital anyway - it might as well be something I couldn't fix if I wanted.
The important part, for me anyways, is that I can open the campaign and keep working on it.
Maybe the next update fixes it somehow anyway.

 

[Karmondia]

Okay, so this is weird. The 1.31 editor crashes with the new version of the True Story, but 1.30.4 works fine. I have no idea why.

 

[Karmondia]

I don't know why it happens, I didn't do anything to make it happen and the campaign works
just fine for me in the editor. If I added protection mechanisms, I would tell you that.
No offense, but I am not going to look into that one. It was nothing I did and fixing such a thing
isn't something I consider that vital anyway - it might as well be something I couldn't fix if I wanted.
The important part, for me anyways, is that I can open the campaign and keep working on it.
Maybe the next update fixes it somehow anyway.

The 1.30.4 editor can open it.

 

[nchp1903]

That desperate to find out how to get that special unit that you want to look at the editor?

TIL there's a special unit in the campaign. Maybe it's time for me to do another playthrough, and hopefully, this time I'll be less of a coward and actually set the difficulty to Hard.

Also, here's my (totally justified and not biased at all) tier list.

And yes, I have a personal grudge against every one who spam Holy Light, Divine Shield, or Resurrection. Those attack waves from the last chapter of First Orc Book are still haunting me.

 

[Khush352]

Thanks for making it weird

Wait a minute! After careful pondering on what would make it weird, let me clarify. I was referring to fluff. NOT SMUT. I didn't think about any 'weird' development. No need to reply, just needed to clarify. -Khush signing out.

 

[nchp1903]

it's only weird if your head makes it weird.

Also, if I want smut, I would not go for such an obvious pairing like Zoia x Blen, but instead more spicy ones like Gardon x van Durce and Ornasion x Kersidar or worse, Galareth x Brockta and Bonelords x Krom.

I, of course, don't want any of this to become reality. But if it makes any of you guys feel extreme discomfort and unable to sleep at night(s), it's good enough for me.

 

[Khush352]

it's only weird if your head makes it weird.

Also, if I want smut, I would not go for such an obvious pairing like Zoia x Blen, but instead more spicy ones like Gardon x van Durce and Ornasion x Kersidar or worse, Galareth x Brockta and Bonelords x Krom.

I, of course, don't want any of this to become reality. But if it makes any of you guys feel extreme discomfort and unable to sleep at night(s), it's good enough for me.

I can't imagine Bonelords x Krom[/SPOILER]. Not anatomically, at least. But hey, whatever floats our boats! Prost!

 

[VastanX]

From what mission is that?... and where do I find the next part or FF or custom art?

 

[Championfighter25]

@VastanX
The interlude "death of a legend" in the second human book.
Comes after chapter 6 "Burning Forest".

 

[LISBOAH]

View attachment 391899

From what mission is that?... and where do I find the next part or FF or custom art?

From what I recall, you have to make Salana reject Gardon's offer in the "Allies" mission in the First Human Book in for this to happen. But I could be wrong.

Edit:

Spoiler

By the way, if you go to the Official Arkain Timeline, you will know that this scene is canon. And apparently Larine has some Yandere vibes.