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moniquill · 4 years

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I’m going to talk about Greedfall. Fight me.

So recently Greedfall was on 70% off on Steam, and I bought it.

I did so fully in the knowledge that this game is a garbage fire. I knew from the moment I saw the trailers back in August 2019, and I made some posts about it:

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/187141616836/greedfall-comes-out-next-month-on-the-10th-get-so

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/187185773016/no-i-will-not-absolve-you-geek-friend

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/187213116466/i-think-youve-fundamentally-misunderstood-the

And reblogged people saying more and better things:

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/187152585746/dalishious-untilthisdreamisgone-akedhi

A particularly large FUCK YOU to Darkfreya, who said this in the comments:

“ I will definitely buy this and hope it does well. We need more games like this. The fact that is a game about colonization does not bother me at all. Your character is neutral (and probably desperate trying search for a cure to a disease that is killing your people) Who you side with is your choice, and I seriously doubt siding with colonizers is seen as being the “good” choice.”

But there’s a valid argument to be made that you can’t REALLY criticize a game just based on trailers and synopses and lets plays and all that. You need to PLAY it, to play it all the way through and get the CONTEXT of the STORY.

So strap in chucklefucks, I did that. All spoilers, no repentance.

Note: I am writing this reaction on the fly as I play. I have had no spoilers except what’s in the promotional material. This isn’t so much a game review as an admonition of bullshit; I will be focusing on the main questline; the things that the game forces you to do to progress the story. I’ll also follow native-specific sidequests.

I am De Sardet, a man or woman who is the cousin of the new governor of The Congregations’ colony on Teer Fradee. I have an unexplained green birthmark on my face. My first quest item is saying goodbye to my mother, the Princess De Sardet, who has the mysterious and fatal illness that’s plaguing the land - the malichor.

There is no mention whatsoever of my father at this time.

In Serene, I futz about doing minor sidequests, meeting my first two companions (Kurt and Vasco), and levelling up by looting boxes and murdering bandits. I get to witness the ravages of the malichor; the streets are full of dead and dying people, there're corpse wagons and bonfires, generally looks like a good time.

I meet with the two representatives of the Not!European nations that The Congregation is a neutral ally to both of. One is Theleme, the super religious spanish inquisition types who dress in Cromwell-era English and French clothing. The other is The Bridge Alliance, who are all about science and technology and seem vaguely middle east to north african flavored - they wear turbans and kaftans, their architecture has domes and minarets, etc. Each representative gives me a quest with MORAL DILEMMAS! Do I deliver the heretics to the guard for arrest, or allow them to escape? Do I do the same for the charlatan alchemist? If I listen to them, they’re all totally innocent, but letting them go is bad for my reputation with the diplomats. Except that I can lie. So yeah… this is pretty much a ‘Do you BE EVIL because you can, or do you act benevolent at absolutely no expense to yourself?’ choice.

As I’m getting on the boat to head to Teer Fradee, I am railroaded into my first boss fight! This bursts out of the side of an adjacent ship:

All I know about it is that it was brought back from Teer Fradee, and that ‘it was supposed to be out for days’ - presumably it’s drugged. It’s visibly injured. I see it take another bad hit from a falling mast in the pre-battle cutscene.

I have no choice but to kill it.

I beat it into submission (with magic, because that's what I spec’d into) and then get a cutscene where it’s helpless and desperately scrambling away from me, gazing at me with intelligent, desperate eyes.

I dispassionately shoot it in the head.

I am hailed as a hero.

Like seriously here’s the video (not mine, just pulled from youtube)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQfIHBIJiAU

We cutscene across the ocean, Vasco gets real serious with some shorebirds, and we arrive at Teer Fradee.

On the steps of the governor’s palace, I have my first encounter with a native - Siora, daughter of a chieftain, who is here to seek an audience with the governor. She speaks to me in the native tongue, presuming that I will understand. She has a facial marking similar to my own. I use my political clout to get her into the palace. When we meet my cousin the governor, he goes on and on about how similar Siora and I look; as if we could be related.

This is the first clue, in the story, that I - De Sardet - have native ancestry. There is no avenue for me to explore this at this time.

Siora wants us to be allies to her clan in their hostilities with the Bridge Alliance. I’m sent to speak with Mal Bladnid - the chieftain, her mom.

I’d like to mention at this time that the designers clearly went out of their way to NOT invoke NDN visual tropes with regards to be people of Teer Fradee - No beads, braids, and buckskins, no flute and drum music. They have an irish/celtic/norse/pagan vibe, as I read it. They have a ‘what even is that’ accent. They also wear a ton of different styles of face paint, the significance of which are never explained.

The game at large seems to assign characters without regard to phenotype - any person of any faction may be european/black/asian in appearance. There are about a dozen faces in the entire game, endlessly recycled. It comes off as :FINGERS IN EARS, SHOUTING “WE DON’T SEE RACE!!!”:

At the first opportunity to talk to Siora back at my legate pad in New Serene, I can ask Siora if she really thought I was a Native. She says that yeah, she did, because I look like one, and she’s never seen a foreigner who’s an on ol menawi - she doesn’t tell me what that means, and I don’t have an option to ask.

Following the main quest line and going to see Siora’s mom, I learn that she’s already taken off to fight a battle. We catch up at the tail end of the battle, hundreds of people on both sides are dead. I meet Siora’s sister, and I can talk her down from a roaring rampage of revenge. We find out that their mom’s been taken. We spend some time optionally looking for and healing survivors - you can also just let them die. Save them, and you gain a reputation boost with the natives. Then we explore the ruins, which are continental in style, and learn about the legend of super doom battle of old vs wave of colonizers the first - the native people made a pact with the land which raised guardians, and in exchange certain people become ol menawi. What this means is not explained at this time, other than it’s a pact with the land and why the native people have magic.

At this point I diverge from the main quest to find out what happened to Siora’s mom; we go to the Bridge Alliance camp and find that she died on the way there. We have to argue/finagle/blackmail the captain of the outpost into allowing us to take her body.

Upon returning to Siora’s village, we find that her mother’s remains have been delivered, but new complication: there are missionaries from Theleme insisting that they had an agreement with queen Bladnid - the village would convert to Not!Christianity and in exchange Teleme would aid them against the Bridge Alliance. If they agree to this, they’ll have to bury Bladvid according to Theleme religious standards. Siora thinks this is bullshit, we must investigate. It is unclear how I’m supposed to pursue this.

I return to Constantin and report on the ancient ruins where the battle took place. He tells me to go see Lady Morange, who tells me to go check out some other ruins near some mines. This continues the Ancient Mystery questline.

I proceed to San Mateus (which is also where I need to go for main questline things regarding talking to the Theleme leaders on the island)

Entering the city for the first time thrusts me into a cutscene so fucking upsetting that I had to put the game away for a while and come back later. Upon entering the main square, I see a priest strangling a native man, while a creature not unlike the one I was forced to fight back in the first boss battle is being burned alive. The priest is demanding that the native man denounce his gods. He then strangles him to death. I am given no opportunity to intervene. Afterward, when I’m able to talk to the priest, I can declare myself as a believer or not - I can answer yes or no, or attempt charisma to weasel out of the question. If I fail charisma I have to answer yes or no. If I declare that I’m not a believer, we have a fight scene. I am not allowed to kill this man; the fight ends as soon as he’s incapacitated. He wanders off, declaring that he won’t forget this and that I’ll have to fight him again later.

THE BURNED CORPSE OF THE TREE-BEING REMAINS IN THE SAN MATEUS SQUARE FOR THE REST OF THE GAME.

In the palace I meet Petrus, after talking to the Mother Cardinal, Petrus becomes one of my companions. The Mother Cardinal asks me to investigate a native village that she believes is worshipping a demon. Yeah sure I’ll get right on that.

I proceed to Hikmet to talk about their science team’s work on the Malichor, and learn that the natives are very antagonistic toward their people. A soldier interrupts the conversation to tell us that an outpost has been routed in a native attack. I’m asked to assemble a team to investigate a science party that’s gone missing.

I return to Constantin to tell him about meeting the governors; he tells me to proceed with all the questlines I’ve opened and whines about how his parents never loved him. Worth noting at this time that Constantin appears not at all well. He’s pale and has dark circles under his eyes. He claims to be fine, just nauseated.

My main questline threads are now:

An Ancient Mystery

Scholars in the Expedition

Demonicial Cult

I choose to follow the cult one first, because Native involvement.

I proceed to Tir Dob, and meet with the investigators. The leader is frustrated because the natives don’t want to talk to her, and she’s convinced that there’s deep evil afoot. When I talk to the villagers, they dismiss me and tell me it’s not my business. Which, I mean, fair!

Notably, one woman asks about my mark/status an on ol manawi. When I say I’m not bound to anything/I didn’t do anything to bind myself, she tells me that one of my parents must have been a doneigad. I have no opportunity to pursue this.

There is no story-continuing option for me to leave it, or to pursue a path of gaining the villagers’ trust. I am required, by the game’s narrative, to spy on a villager. I break into his house and look at his things; I comment on how terrifying his fresco is and how morbid his altar and how horrible his mask. Siora points out that the mask is just worn to intimidate enemies in battle. It’s identical to the warthog spirit mask I can buy at any number of native merchants and wear. Petrus says that there’s obviously demon worship going on.

I tell sister Ephesia, and she sends me to follow the villager on his journey into a secret place in the forest. He disappears into a sacred grotto. I commune with a tree and experience a narrative, then have to solve a very obvious puzzle to enter the grotto - to invade a sacred place that I am obviously not welcome in. There is no option to refuse to do this that forwards the story. In the grotto I witness a ceremony that’s presented, through cinematography and music, to be SO TERRIFYING AND OBVIOUSLY EVIL because there’s… a small amount of bloodletting? A glowing tree spirit speaks at the end of the ritual and all participants triumphantly shout.

Siora, if in the party, says that the rituals of her tribe aren’t so scary, cementing that the game feels that this ritual is intrinsically horrifying in some way.

We go to ask the chief of the village about what we spied on, and she explains that it’s a ritual to evoke the strength of warriors and invoke a blessing against the Theleme investigators. She tells us that the voice we heard one one of the many faces of nature, and that if we proceed to another location and perform a ritual, we may hear from another face of nature - but that we might not be happy with the results.

We proceed to Vedvilvie, where we meet Aged Hermit. He tells us that a detachment of Bridge Alliance soldiers was here a long time ago, and gives us information about where to find their camp. We explore the swamp, looking at assorted corpses and ruined tents and ancient frescoes, then talk to Aged Hermit again, who tells us about a ritual to summon the earth.

We perform the ritual, and are thrust into a boss battle with Nadaig Vedemen. There is literally no choice but to kill her. The Aged Hermit rebukes us for having done so, calling us murderers and monsters. Gotta say, I absolutely agree with him. Siora tells him to calm down, that we were only defending ourselves. She explains to me that he knew her before she became a Nadaig - that Nadaig are Doneigada who’ve called upon the power of the island to the point of physical transformation. That it will happen to her and to me, eventually. That’s what on ol menawi and the mark means.

There is no opportunity for me, as a player, to avoid killing the Nadaig.

We return to Tir Dob and confront Derdre about sending us into a death trap; she had hoped the Nadaig would kill us. We now know secrets that no one outside the clan has ever known. She asks us not to tell.

I proceed to the Bridge Alliance Scholars’ camp and find they’ve been captured by locals, who want to trade them for prisoners that the Alliance has previously taken. We run into some locals who give us important information about where the prisoners are being held, because they feel it would be better if the prisoners were gone. We meet Aphra, who joins the party and leads us to where prisoners are being held. Two options here - guns blazing bloodbath, or ghost sneak mission where we bust the prisoners out undetected and harm no one. I choose the ghost option. Regardless, upon bringing the rescued scholars back to camp I’m confronted by three natives who I have to fight with. Once defeated, I have the option to either spare their lives or finish them off. Only Siora argues that I should let them live. I do.

We return to Hikmet and talk to the governor. This opens the Search for Panacea questline. Aphra is now a permanent possible companion.

Aphra’s personal quest: More required spying on the natives. Siora greatly disapproves. I have no option to shut this shit down, to tell her ‘No, we are not doing that.’ We spy on the elders, who are having a meditative session where they listen to the voice of en on mil frichtimen. They catch us spying and call us down, chastise us, and then invite us to watch the rest. Aphra makes comments about how ‘it’s almost like they really can hear a voice on the wind; must be delusion-level faith!’ She then says she has to mull this over and to talk about it later.

We proceed to the ruins that Lady Morange mentioned; two of the three required fetch items are in the general vicinity of a Nadaig. It is possible, through sneaking, to reach them without having to fight the Nadaig, so I do that. We find that the people who built the ruins were…. DUN DUN DUN…. From the congregation! We used to be EVIL! Like we’re totally not now!

We report to Constantin, who is looking even more sickly. He tells us to investigate this history with the Nauts and laments more about his daddy issues. He also says that I look too much like a native for it to be a coincidence which, at this point, fucking DUH. This opens the The Prince’s Secret questline.

Meanwhile, on the quest for panacea, I head back to the village where I freed the Alliance prisoners to talk to the chief. There’s several dialog options, since I didn’t go bloodbath when rescuing the prisoners, but there’s also a spying option. One way or another, I gain the information that I need to go to the village of Vigshadir in Frasoneigad to find the Tierna harch cadachtas. Siora knows how to get there.

Upon arriving, I’m told that this is one of the holiest sites on the island and I’m not welcome. Alas, I can’t continue the story while respecting that answer - I can insist forcefully or I can gain the villagers’ trust with a couple of fetch quests. Either way, I end up learning where the Tierna harch cadachtas can be found. I disturb her taking a nap with some salamanders. She’s not at all happy to see me, even when Siora speaks on my behalf. She sicks her salamanders on me and takes off; I have to kill them. I then follow her up a path to a root door that requires an offering to unlock. Siora suggests that it’s a seed; we go back to the village and talk her bodyguard into letting us into her house to poke around. I should mention that there’s a bunch of lootable stuff in her house, and the game doesn’t punish me in any way for taking it. I find the correct seed and we proceed through the root door to a maze that Siora says is SUPER SACRED. Nevertheless, I’m forced to kill a bunch of animals on my way through. I tried sneaking several times; due to bottlenecking, the animals always become hostile. Toward the end of the path, we also come upon an instantly hostile native man, who I am also forced to kill.

We come out on the other side of the maze in Credgwen, just in time to witness the tierna running from and being gunned down by an Alliance solider. Cradling a bullet wound to her abdomen, the soldier is poised to execute her with a pisol shot to the head when Nadaig Fresamen appears and throws him ass over head. The Tierna then tells Nadaig Fresamen to attack us, and I’m once again in a mandatory boss battle where I am forced by the narrative to kill a Nadaig. Once again it ends in a cutscene where I shoot the Nadaig in the head. I think maybe the game designers think this looks badass, instead of coldly sociopathic? The Tierna is visibly distraught, screaming and crying at what we’ve done. She’s about to attack us when she’s shot in the back by the Alliance Soldier, who then says a bunch of Evily McEvil things, then tries to fight us. Upon besting him, I get to either kill or spare him.

I kill the shit out of him.

We bring the very very wounded tierna back to her village, where she wakes up and tries to kill me (Siora calling her off). She explains that the panacea she made is to treat islanders who’ve escaped captivity from the Alliance; those who are captured are gruesomely tortured in the name of science. She suggests that the malichor might be a curse from En on mil frichtimen.

We take this news to Constantin. It is now super duper obvious that he is very sick.

Siora tells us who we need to talk to about En on mil frichtimen, Constantin tells us to do that.

I’m level 16 now.

I hop back to the other main questline, grabbing Petrus and Vasco to go to San Matheus and investigate the Nauts’ problems there. Go to talk to Bishop Domitius but am pulled into a cutscene where Mother Cornelia asks me to get back some sacred tablets that she thinks were stolen by island natives. Yeah, lady, I’ll get right on that. I talk to Bishop Domitius, who accuses the Nauts of being the origin of the malichor. I go to the docs to investigate the rumors. Long story short, the Nauts are fine and I shut down the Inquisition’s investigation of them. When I get back to my residence, there’s a letter asking me to come see some natives at the embassy. Because Native rep[resentation and Native storylines are pretty much all I care about in this game, I pause everything else to pursue that, bringing Siora and Petrus.

I meet with them in the woods, where they’re camped out with the body of an inquisitor they killed. Petrus greatly disapproves. We get some keys and a letter from them, learn that there’s a camp that Native captives are being brought to, and go to investigate the inquisitor’s house for more details. We rummage through his house, find another letter detailing the camp and a chest in the order headquarters. We also find a key to said chest. On our way out, we’re confronted by a bunch of ordo luminus thugs. I have the option to get Petus to talk them down, so I do.

We go back to the place where the natives are holed up and find we’ve been followed by inquisitors. Talk talk fight; we kill them. The natives thank us and say they’ll report this to queen Derdre. I’m now level 17.

I head back to Admiral Cabral to tell her about shutting down the Naut investigation. She tells me that the Nauts discovered the island 200 years ago, the congregation tried to colonize, a few bad apple lords got all tyrannical, and both the natives and thier own workers rebelled against them. The colony was destroyed and only a few survivors made it out. The princes of the congregation swept it all under the rug in humiliation. Then she drops the bomb that I’ve been waiting for the whole game: I am the product of a later Congregation expedition. I’m the child of a Native and was born on a Naut ship. So yeah, I’ve been playing as a stolen child divorced from my native culture this whole time. I’m just gonna leave this link here:

https://www.vox.com/2019/10/14/20913408/us-stole-thousands-of-native-american-children

I immediately go to demand answers from Constantin.

This is a major act shift; things I find out in the next string of cutscenes:

Constantin has the malichor and is totally dying.

Kurt comes in to warn us about a coup d’etat that’s in the works - the coin guard plants to take out all three governors and seize control of the island. Apparently if you haven’t followed his personal questline about abuse within the coin guard ranks, he betrays you at this time. I’ve been doing the companion quests all along but not commenting on ones that don’t involve natives.

After putting down the coup d’etat, I go back to Constantin to rally. We’re now in Act Two, and my main quests are as follows:

The Suffering of Constantin, where I have three leads - San Matheus, Hikmet, and Native.

The Trial of the Waters, where I need to go speak to Glendan.

So I head to Wenshaveye to talk to the healer there. The village is having problems with missionaries and with abruptly and violently aggressive tenlens - animals that are usually docile. The aggressive tenlen attacks started right about the same time the missionaries showed up. Hmm.

There’s an interlude here where I come upon a bunch of merchants fighting a Nadaig and for a brilliant moment I thought I could kill the merchants and save the Nadaig but no. It’s instantly hostile to me and I have to kill it. The killing of Nadaig in this game is treated as a neutral action, like killing wild animals.

So yeah turns out the missionaries brought a vicious white tenlen, holed it up in a cave, it was riling up the others, it killed two village kids who went into the woods to canoodle. I shut all that down, kicked the missionaries out, and was able to bring the healer to Constantin. Plot thread resolved! Let’s go see Glendan.

I can’t get in to see the council without having a seal proving that I’m the chosen representative of a current council member. Fetch quest time - literally I just have to go back and talk to Cadasach, the healer, and he hands me the seal I need. I presume it’s more involved if I’d chosen one of the other healing paths.

I talk to Glendan, he tells me I need to complete the trial of the waters, a new questline opens. Also, the next part of Siora’s questline - promises set in stone - opens. I drop everything and follow that because I’m kind of in love with Siora.

We head to her village and talk to the missionaries, they send us to go see the stone that the agreement was engraved on, we get there and fight a bunch of enemies, the stone is destroyed and we can’t read it. Time to go see the engraver, Caradeg. We get to his house to find it absolutely destroyed. The only clue is a stone bearing the mark of the Dunncas’ clan. So we head to Vigyigidaw. Dunncas tells us that they exiled Caradeg because he wanted to make war on the settlers. Have fun, bootlicker. On my way out of the village I’m snagged by a guy with a side quest; he wants me to get some settlers to stop preventing the clan from going into a sacred glade to replant trees that the settler clear cut. See sidequests for details on that.

Before doing Trial of the Waters, I decide to go check up on Eden and Father Iustinius, bringing Siora and Petrus.

Stolen tablets, lots of talk about how primitive and naive the natives are and how those who aren’t converted are obviously worshiping demons and that’s who must have stolen the tablets.

Siora comments that this place is horrifying, and wonders how the people could have tolerated the priests building continental-style buildings over the top of their village.

We go to talk to the theologians, then to Ler. Because I’m not awesome at Charisma, I’m left with no option except to threaten and bully my way into him giving me the name of an old woman, mother of one of the warriors who left the village. I lose re with both the natives at large and Siora personally. The old woman tells us where to find the exiles, and gives us hints on how to avoid traps and sneak in unseen. She implores us not to hurt her son.

We head for the exiles’ camp. I choose the option where I sneak in and don’t murder everyone, and the old woman meets us as we’re leaving and thanks us for that, saying she’s going to try and talk her son into finding a new clan. We head back to Eden.

They thank us for the tablets, are excited to set out a new expedition, the game tells me to wait 24 hours for the results. So I have to hike my ass to out camp, sleep 24 hours, and haul back to where I just was to find out that a party that went into the swamp ran afoul of…. something.

Siora points out that the survivor was obviously bitten by a poisonous swamp creature and that a local healer probably knows the remedy. We go talk to Ler again.

Ler tells us that the village doneigad is one of the exiles, but that the old woman we talked to earlier knows plants well. I’m pretty sure that if we’d murdered her son to death in the previous quest, she’d refuse to help us. Because we didn’t, she makes us a potion. The wounded guy wakes up and begs us to go and rescue his dumbass loser friends, so of course I do.

We’re going back to Vedvilvie, because of course we are.

We arrive at the camp, listen to both the ordo luminous guy and the research sister whine about how the other is mean/incompetant, and go to investigate the dig sites. We find a dude with a caved in skull who was clearly struck from behind with a mace, a guy who was killed to death by lewolans (big lizards), and a poor chump was was obviously stabbed to death before being fed to lewolans. Siora says it’s pretty clear that Mr Inquisition orchestrated this to frame the research lady. I agree. We go to confront him. Choices: Take a bribe and side with him, tell him to leave the expedition, expose his bullshit to everyone.

The ‘correct’ choice in the game is not to reveal his crimes before everyone, but to banish him. Because [Centrist.jpeg goes here]

We follow the path of San Matheus, come up against a nadaig magamen, murder it to death, and enter a cavern. Long story short, Saint Mat totally became a doneigad. He saw on en mil frichtimen as an extension of the concept of light and prayed to him. Also I found a bitchin’ set of holy armor. I put it on Petrus.

Theleme’s gonna be big mad. We head back to Eugenia to tell her, are confronted by Virgil and the Inquisition. He wants to destroy the relics and evidence that Sait Mat converted to the faith of the island, we kill him to death and go tattle to Mommy Cardinal. I push her to make the decision to reveal the truth to the masses, and to visit the cave herself.

Theleme is not, in fact, big mad.

Anyway, returning to the main questline.

So there’s two options through the cave of testing, bloodbath or sneak. I chose sneak. Touch a basin, have a vision, solve a very easy puzzle - just like the tree one from earlier.

There’s a Nadiag waiting, and the command prompt I have for it after solving the puzzle is ‘Tame’... yanno, like one does with an animal. Because indigenous people are fauna. Fucking gross.

I see a fresco depicting a spirit of the volcano. I go to talk to Glendan. He sends me to find the high king, who is missing. I need to see the rest of the high council: Derdre, Dunncas, Ullan. Guess it’s time to finally deal with the Ullan plotline. See side quests for details.

When I head back to Hikmet, I get a whole string of cutscenes because it’s been a while since I’ve been there - including one where I follow up with the islander rebellion. The governor asks me to parlay with the leaders of the rebellion, where I find out that the on ol menawi who the alliance have been kidnapping from villages have been taken to laboratories for experiments - where they have been tortured and killed. This lines up with all earlier accusations, and with that Hikmet dude who was trying to murder the tierna and me - he said they were going to dissect her. So yeah. I go to thier main camp, and fucking surprise, I was followed by Alliance soldiers who promptly stark attacking. I have two choices: fight alongside the natives or put an end to the rebellion. I, of course, fight on Team Native. I then proceed back to Hikmet to ask What The Entire Fuck, Sir? He denies knowing anything about natives being captured; he assures me that this lab is a medical research center. I declare that I”m gonna take a look at it myself.

I grab Aphra for this, and in the process agree to continue her personal questline. We ask the young apprentices about how to get into the Cave of Knowledge, which, I cannot state enough, IS A SACRED PLACE CLOSED TO OUTSIDERS. Only people who are becoming doneigad are supposed to go there. The narrative makes me. This happening, over and over, gives lie to the premise that the game allows you to make good or evil moral choices - that you can DECIDE to be a good guy or a bad guy. You can’t. You can either choose to violate the sacred spaces of the indigenous people or -not play this game-. There is no ‘Sit Aphra down and tell her that it is implicitly wrong to do this’ option.

So we go to the cave, it has a seed gate, we find some brigands who’ve murdered a native, they’re planning to dynamite thier way into the cave, we can talk them inot leaving or murder them to death, guess which one I chose just guess. We get the seed and enter the cave.

In the cave, we examine several frescoes; one depicts a ritual where, in a circle, someone is pouring blood on a stone in the presence of a Nadaig. Another depicts the same figure, but now marked as an on ol menawi. We then hear people coming and are prompted to hide, because being caught here would sure lose us the trust of the natives. Which we do not deserve at all, after this. The game prompts me to spy on the young people, which I do, listening in on thier conversation. When we leave the cave, Aphra says that clearly we need to spy on a whole, actual ritual. The game teases me with ‘accept’ or ‘refuse’, but the choice are actually ‘start the time now, or later’ - the story doesn’t allow me to ACTUALLY refuse. We show up, and Dunncas actually gives us permission to watch if we don’t interfere.

After the ritual, Alliance soldiers show up. We kill them to death. The chiefs thanks us for having been there. Aphra says we should look into Dr. Asili. So off to the lab we go.

I’m pretty sure, narratively, that I’m supposed to have stealthed my way through this. However, after seeing a pit of burning bodies and people in cages right as I entered, I just bloodbathed my way through. Also arrested the apprentices and killed the fuck out of Asili. Fun fact: Asili gave Constantin the malichor! Also me, but I’m resistant, since native and on ol menawi.

I return to talk to Constantin about the sanctuary and the Hikmet problem and everything and find that he’s gone on a journey with the doneigad healer and things have gone wrong. I set out after him. I follow combat signs and talk to Aiden in wenshaveye, then head to the alliance outpost. We catch up with a badly wounded and unconscious survivor, get him a potion, and then have to wait 24 hours. This is a repeated feature of the game an annoying as hell, because the only way to wait is to return to camp. When he’s awake he describes the attack; animals controlled by some kind of native sorcerer and fire and explosions. A native grabbed Constantin and ran off with him. We continue the investigation - I go to talk to Daren. Daren says that they weren’t behind the attack - no one would ever attack Catasach. Catasach is, btw, super dead. I examine the body. He was killed by something than can wield magma. Good times. Daren tells us there’s a ritual by which a doneigad can see the last moments of his life - only tierna can perform it. Good thing we saved her earlier…. From danger that we put her in….

So we head off to see tierna, and she readily agrees because I avenged her earlier. Pretty sure it would have taken more convincing if I’d let the dude who shot her live. One fetch quest to get spell components later, we’re able to perform the ritual.

Vinbarr did it.

I go to question Derdre, Ullan, or Duncas. The latter two have the best opinion of me, so I hit up Dunncas first. Dunncas tells me to go to Wennshavar. Folks there give me some backstory, tell me to find Cera at the cave of knowledge.

We come upon alliance folks torturing a native woman, presumably Cera. This bitch has a whole ass villian speech. I’m pretty sure she’s one of the people I saved with Aphra’s science team? Could just be a recycled face though. We run down to interrupt. Aphra wants to reason with her, Siora wants to kill her. Yep, it’s the science team I saved. I have several options here; fight them, use intuition to remind them I saved them, threaten them, or let Aphra speak. I choose to let Aphra speak more because I want to hear what she says than anything.

Aphra shames her and reminds her that they left Asili together because of his cruelty. She whines that Aphra knows she’s not REALLY like that, and stomps off like an angry toddler. No fight. Cera thanks us for saving her, leads us to the cave, and opens it for us.

Inside the cave we find a fresh new fresco; it shows Vinbarr going to talk to the spirit of the mountain. He’s gone to join En on mil frichtimen. We see another fresco depicting a nadaig meneimen - the bird/mountain form. Vinnbar’s gonna turn into one. We look at some other murals, I let slip that I’m looking for Constantin, Cera peaces out and seals us in the cave because she thinks we’re looking for Vinnbar on a vengeance quest. We find another way out. The path is now laden with traps because she doesn’t want to be followed. Sorry, Cera, that no one informed you that I am a protagonist and thus no one can prevail against me.

We go to the mountain passage depicted in the fresco, go through a cave maze, and find the mountain trail to the sanctuary. We meet up with Cera, who forces us to fight her. We snag a seed from her body after killing her and her folks to death. Which the game offered no way out of doing. Now we have both seeds and can open the sanctuary. We scamper through some scenic vista and arrive to find Vinnbar burying Constantin with rocks using telekinesis. He says the on en mil frichtimen told him constantine is the bringer of doomtimes. Now we have to have a boss fight. Partway through, he transforms into a nadaig. We continue fighting andf kill him to death.

I sure do murder a lot of nadaig in this game.

We return Constantin to New Serene and I’m pretty sure this is the break into act 3… Catasach made Constantin on ol menawi and he is stoked about it. He has branch antlers and pointy teeth and yellow eyes and feels great. I am concerned.

Time to go talk to Glendan again.

I lose three rep with the natives over, yanno, having murdered their high king to death. I now have to go and talk to the three potential high kings and gain the support of one of them - Derdre, Dunncas, or Ullan. Of those three, Dunncas is the only one who hasn’t tried to murder me or betrayed my trust so… off to Dunncas. His agenda is balance and healing. He easily agrees to let me see en on mil frichtimen if he’s chosen, and tells me how to make sure that he is - if I get a spectacular ancient crown from the grave of the high king that became the first guardian. He expresses distaste for using such a method. Siora is also worried about me making a decision that will impact all of her people. Gotta say that I agree, I have absolutely no place being involved in this decision at all - let’s see if the narrative lets me opt out of meddling! I go to see the other two candidates and hear out their agendas, out of fairness.

Ullan’s agenda is peace and alliance with the colonizers. He also readily agrees to help me.

Derdre wants to repel the colonists and take back the island. She says she’ll let me see en on mil frichtimen only if I rally Eseld/Siora’s tribe and join in the attack on the Ordo Luminous camp. Which, morally, I am absolutely all for. However, it seems like the game is heavily leaning on Dunncas as ‘the right choice’.

But yeah, fuck it, I’m backing Derdre all day long. Lets fuck up some Spanish Inquisition!

I have the option to inform the mother cardinal of the coming attack. Why the entire fuck would I do that?

So I destroy the fuck out of the camp and murder a bunch of inquiition torturers and free the surviving prisoners and gather evidence of war crimes. Then I go to mommy cardinal, who is big mad (Theleme -2 rep) that I didn’t tell her first. Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

Having done that, no there is no way to proceed in the questline without retrieving the crown, which involved murdering a Nadaig Magamen. I get the crown, and Derdre meets me there and rebukes me for entering a sacred place, trying to take the crown and throw the election, as an outsider. She is 100% correct. I give her the crown.

I wait two days and then go see en on mil frichtimen, who tells me that the malichor is the result of how the continental people treat their land. I’d like to pause here and talk about the role of Magical Natives in Green Aesop stories. Let’s review some tropes:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CloserToEarth

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InHarmonyWithNature

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicalNativeAmerican

This some some colors of the wind / Avatar’s blue cat people bullshit, the idea that indigenous people are implicitly and intrinsically more -one with the earth- and that ‘modern civilization’ has lost this, to their detriment, and can only heal through <s>cultural appropriation</s> learning and adopting deep earthy truths known by indigenous people. The point of this in the story is to tell a Green Aesop - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreenAesop - it sets a paradeigm of indigenous people being the noblest of noble savages - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NobleSavage - of indigenous people as a simpler, greener form of humanity. It’s othering. I’ve written a lot about this in the past, check out my post about woo: https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/32577796262/the-following-is-a-post-about-woo

This particular brand of othering of indigenous people directly and personally fucked me up, as an indigenous person, when I was a kid. That could be why I have a personal grudge against it.

Moving along.

en on mil frichtimen alo tells me that Constantin is the bringer of doom times, and that Catasach essentially stole power from the island to keep him alive. I need to put a stop to his endless bitter hateful hunger. So yeah, that’s a thing. I go check up on my dear cousin.

When I show up, emissaries from the alliance and theleme are there begging Constantin for troops and also me; they’re suffering horrible attacks on their outposts and people. They’re blaming the natives. I mean, to be fair I did just crown queen Derdre Kill ‘Em All so….just saying. But moving on, I talk to Constantin about the sanctuary. He...doesn’t react well to the warnings about himself. When I ask him about his body with the island, it sure does seem like he got high on apotheosis and wants another hit. He doesn’t believe that the malichor on the continent is the fault of the continentals.

My main quest lines are now

The attack on San Matheus

The attack on Hikmet

And honestly fuck both those places because both of them were running torture camps but whatever, I guess I’m off to investigate.

Mommy Cardinal over in San Mateus wants me to hit up an outpost that’s being attacked relentlessly by wild animals. Speculation is that ‘island demons’ are controlling them.

Governor Burhan says the same thing’s happening to his folks.

Upon checking it out, the islanders are also being attacked; the animals are attacking indiscriminately, and while having that conversation a guy bursts in to say the guardian of the village (a nadaig glendemen) has turned on his people. So we kill it to death in a boss fight and it’s revealed that the corrupted nadaig was causing the animals to be killrabid. Now that it’s dead, the animals are back to normal.

Samesies over near San Matheus.

A human must be responsible, the creatures wouldn’t be so coordinated otherwise.

Is it my cousin? I bet it’s my cousin.

We go talk to Constantin.

He says ‘ha ha ha nothing to worry about….peace out, my adorable cousin!’ and takes off to parts unknown. I shake down his guards, but all they can tell me is that he’s going north outside the city. I rummage through his papers, and find his journal. Yeeeeah he’s super high on apotheosis and wants to become a god. Like, supplant and replace on en mil frichtimen. And he’s off to ‘get rid of’ some natives in Cwenvar who saw him the other night and might denounce his actions. I’m gonna have to take out my cousin by the end of this game and it will be a tearjerker cutscene. Calling it now.

We head to Cwenvar to talk to the natives. They show me how to spy on Constantin. We follow him to a sacred grove, where he’s clearly gone cuckoo bananas. He’s commanding a corrupted nadaig, which he tells to hold us back - but not kill me. SO we kill the nadaig, and then have a chat with on en mil frichtamen, who confirms that Constantin is trying to gain godhood by murdering god and taking his power. Yanno, as one does. In a cutscene, I list all the people who will totally help me against Constantin. This includes… pretty much everyone, because I’ve diplomatted my way through the game and everyone likes me. Time to go rally armies.

It’s worth noting at this time that on en mil frichtamen calls me ‘flesh of my earth’ and earliet called me ‘the child that was stolen’ - there’s a very ‘YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE’ vibe here, implying that I’m only able to succeed at this task because I’m native by blood - I’m not REALLY a continental and thus a Tainted Person made of Endless Greed. It is my native-ness and my bond to on en mil frichtamen, passed down from my donegiad parent, that allows me to be the hero of this game.

I want you, dear reader, to stop and think about the gross racial implications of that.

Moving forward: We go to ask Dunncas for help in how to break Constantin’s links to the land. He gives me seeds to place at the base of the stone Constantin has erected, to topple them. I have to fight a corrupted Nadaig each time. At this interval Siora points out how wise and attuned to en on mil frichtimen Dunncas is, and I express regret at not choosing him to be high king. TOO SUBTLE, GAME.

So yeah, couple of tedious boss fights.

Having broken his links and gathered my allies, it’s time for the endgame. We go back to the sacred grove where I talked to en on mil frichtimen, I get a series of heartwarming cutscenes with my companions and allies as I ascend to Constantine’s heart stronghold.

I reach Constantin. I have to fight a big bad ultra nadaig, which Constantin tells not to kill me.

He has a long cutscene in which he pleads his case, asking me to bond with him and rule together. I can either bond with him and join him in godhood, which is implied to doom all of humanity to eventually succumb to the malichor because no land can ever be healed now, or I can kill him and save the world like a big damned hero.

Then Mr. deCourcillion narrates the epilogue, where I get to hear about the consequences of all my decisions through the game. My decision to crown Derdre results in forcible decolonization of the island and healing thereof, but the old world nations are plunged into war and the malichor gets worse there. Am I supposed to feel bad? I don’t!

In the ‘best’ ending, Magical Native Healers travel to the continent and teach the sad tained continentals how to live in harmony with nature and heal their lands.

Here, have an every possible ending video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcUByGfNXgY

Know what weirds me out as an actual indigenous person? Learning that I’m a stolen child way back in Act 1 never resulted in a quest where I in any way question or explore my real ancestry. I never try to find out what clan my real mother was from or if I have any living relatives. I never look into why the Congregation abducted my mother and why I was raised by Princess De Sardet. The game just feels that this is unimportant. The important thing was that I have Magical Native Blood.

So yeah. That’s the game.

In studying the fandom presence of this game, roughly no one is interrogating the fuckedness of the premise or narrative. The active fandom seems to be mostly people who want to bang Vasco, people who think Constantin is a sad wooby who deserved better (including a lot of people who chose the ‘bad’ ending because they wub himb) and people who want to bang Constantin and justify it because he and De Sardet aren’t REALLY cousins… and people who are just here for The Aesthetic. Fun fact there are exactly 12 F/F fics on a03 set in this universe.

Here, have some examples, all from https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/GREEDFALL and https://archiveofourown.org/tags/GreedFall%20(Video%20Game)/works

https://destiny-rahl.tumblr.com/post/616743783790460928/constantin-de-sardet-my-beloved-otp-this

https://swiveldiscourse.tumblr.com/post/615782041344147456/not-sure-who-needs-to-hear-this-but-this-game

https://totallyamoral.tumblr.com/post/615651870535532545

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20766497/chapters/49345631

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20676554/chapters/49106921

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20747450

Lots of people compared this game to Dragon Age: Inquisition when it first came out because the gameplay looks similar. But here’s the thing… the first time I finished DA:I, I immediately wanted to turn around and play it again, as a different character, as someone who made different decisions and followed a different romance and brought different companions with me on quests to see their different reactions.

I do not want that with Greedfall.

My first thought upon fisnishing was ‘Oh thank fuck, I’ve seen this to fruition, I don’t have to play this anymore.’

That is not how I should feel at the end of a game.

I feel tired and broken and hurt and used, much like I felt after reading Sister Raven.

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/165881710831/so-today-i-read-a-book-called-sister-raven

Native-specific sidequests of note:

In An Aspiring Merchant, you meet a native merchant in New Serene who’s trying to set up shop; because he doesn’t have the correct paperwork and didn’t follow the bureaucratic process, his stuff keeps getting confiscated. I do not have any opportunity to explore why his lack of paperwork gets his stuff repeatedly confiscated, rather than just getting him sent home.

While I’m getting the paperwork for him, his cousin arrives with a shipment of goods. The guards confiscate the goods again, and arrest the cousin. I go to investigate, and find that cousin threw some punches when the guards once again confiscated all of the goods, and was arrested for disorderly conduct. Ok. So I proceed to the jail and find that he has been sent to fight -to the death- in the arena?! When the prison guard says ‘Hey, it wasn’t me, I was just following orders’ I’m not given an opportunity to ask who’s giving the orders or pursue the miscarriage of justice. I head to the Arena. Despite being a Legate, one of the highest governing offices of the colony, I have no option to put a stop to these shenanigans. I can’t just spring him, or pay bail; I am required to fight beside him to secure his freedom.

Completing this quest opens the Ullan/Vignamri questline.

Ullan wants to trade with Hikmet, Hikmet wants us to secure the roads, we visit another chieftain, he agrees to a meeting, Ullan shows up and shanks him, I shout at Ullan about how that was bad to do, Ullan thanks me for giving him the opportunity.

In Logging Expedition, I follow up on the quest hook about settlers clear cutting a glade that I got in vigyigidaw. Standoff between the natives and the settlers, natives want to plant trees, settlers won’t let them. Three settler woodcutters died recently - after investigation there was a conspiracy to poison them by an elder in vigyigidaw - my character refers to this as an act of vengeance by a hateful old man. Despite having literally just had it explained to us that it was supposed to be an object lesson in why not to clearcut the forest - the meat would have been fine if it had been prepared with a particular (possibly now extinct?) berry.

So we pop all the way down to the congregation colony to ask Mr. Courcillon how to diplomacy this ‘property disagreement’. He tells us to go to the basement archives and then see Lady Morange. Just from a gameplay perspective, this - like many sidequests - is fucking tedious. Just running from one place to another, grabbing a few lines of dialog in each place, with no player decision or engagement. This is a poorly designed game. So we hash out the contract, which was created back where neither side had any understanding of the other side’s ideas of what land ownership means. Manhattan was bought for 60 guilders worth of glass beads, etc etc. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12657/was-manhattan-really-bought-24

We have to prosecute the old man for murder if we want a new land deal signed. To prosecute the old man, we have to go stop a mining operation. It’s just one thing after another, and all of it boring and tedious. I had to stop in the middle of this questline and put the game down not because it was upsetting, but because it was -boring-. I hope that the readers appreciate the work I’m putting into making a detailed critique of this garbage fire.

#Greedfall #NDN stuff #Indigenously Angry #Clusterfuck #NDN #Colonialism: The Game

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