Vilma

In this case, if just some NPCs did not align with their fractions, I would just assume that someone with different understanding of the fraction goals wrote this piece. If the same characters were not consistent throughout the plot, then it's another thing. Was that what you meant? Do you have a particular example in mind? I have little to contribute to the Good vs Evil debate. I just know what classical DnD have to offer on alignments. But that system is the child of the society at the time of its creation. So it cannot be trusted. Neither can be trusted what a white middle-class RPG player as myself has to say on the topic :D Try to teach your principles to another culture.I just have one question: Or is the person good no matter what he does if he means well? As I understand, neutrality does not mean connected with nature. You can be just self-serving and do practical things, but not too cruel and restrain from devoting too much time to giving to others and here you are in the Neutral alignment, as I see it. But the nature is regarded as a self-balanced system (roughly: the deer is eaten by a tiger, the tiger dies and the trees grow on its remains), that's why people who are close to it (druids), take a mixture of principles from it. I think, if druids want to be neutral, they have to balance out nature vs. civilization as well. There is reasonable amount of wild regions and civilization is okay unless the balance is threatened. It all comes to self-preservation mechanisms. If you are endangered, you'll do everything to protect yourself and others around you. The safer/more powerful you are - the bigger is the circle of those "others" you can think of.

That's the reflection of our world: sometimes the actions you take seem moral to you, but the person who witnesses them thinks otherwise. Doesn't that happen to you in reality? And sometimes you can even accept, that these actions can be in fact interpreted in two or more ways. Moreover, I would regard the creators of the game not as a single being that corresponds to your actions and judges if you are bad or good in general, but as a collection of different opinions on your different actions. You cannot follow your moral standards, bobthe, and be seen as good by all the members of the society. Because everyone has a different opinion (is it better to mercy-kill or not commit the murder, but let the sick person live? or take another highly discussed moral question). Try and start that debate across the world, you will see not everyone agrees with you. Throughout the game I acted as a good character would, I tried to be forgiving, loyal, honest, sympathetic etc. Yet still I came out a mixture of everything (except cruel and aggressive) in the end. You know, I see it as a natural thing, because there are always at least two points of view on what you are doing. Not all characters in the game appreciate all the aspects of your morally good line. Some would appreciate honesty over sympathy, some can't bare honesty and will regard you as good if you tell them sweet lies but they just do not know. Nevrose, same goes for the Mother's Plea quest. You can regard xaurips as sacrificing bloody brutes, who live to bring more chaos by worshiping and helping the drakes, so the land is better off without them. Or you can see them as another of nature's creation, although flawed but not to be blamed for they are born that way and thus do not deserve being killed (I guess, defending all sorts of beings no matter their nature that'd be the Neutral alignment in the classic DnD, not Good?). I regard killing those xaurips at Compass as self-defense, I do not kill unless that can be helped. But they do not give me a chance to negotiate - they get killed. Period. There's killing in the fantasy worlds, because it's perilous. The moral principles are pushed forward, where survival is in question. Think of it.

Edit: Dyrford disposition gain (or loss) also indicates how well liked the lord was. Well, I am not sure if to count Skaen folk diaries for a good source of information. They seem like a nasty group of people and the Skaen highest priests could be using the average folk to reach their own goals (happens a lot in my experience). The villagers didn't seem an exclusively nice bunch of folk either, so the reputation with them is of small guidance to my character. They were like "hey we are not telling you anything (also not telling there is a huge foul Skaen dungeon underground), you are an outsider to us, but we hate the lord". Almost everyone hates their bosses and power. It doesn't always have to end in killing them. Maybe the villagers didn't give any information out to me because I was an Aedirian and had little Perception. For these reasons it didn't feel right to kill more people than I already did by this time in the game. Boy, I found many choices in the game hard, of course.

I ended the quest by letting the girl go with clear memory to the temple and let the Lord go and I didn't take any money from him. I still wasn't sure that the Lord did something really horrible. It used to be common in Medieval times or in some cultures to have children from other relatives than just your wife. So I just didn't feel I had enough power to judge those people. I am an outsider in this culture. Those Skaen guys speaking of him didn't make me believe them either. I was like: "look who's talking! You have blood all over your tunics and floors". And I found no other proof of the Lord's horrible deeds other than the ugly Skaenist words. Did I miss something? Sure he isn't the nicest person in the world, but that didn't give me the right to kill him, did it?

I've had a lot of pondering to do over this quest. In general, gods of this pantheon came out as attention-seeking selfish beings. I liked the fact that they weren't one-dimensional anymore (see Latander/Imlater/Auril/Umberlee etc.), seems like the right thing for the plot. But it also makes them a lot like mere empowered humans. When I came into the "temple" to ask for their advice, I thought I'd try and pray to Eothas, he seemed like the least attention seeking god and had sense (I still don't get if Waidwen was his idea or not). Silly me, Eothas doesn't answer to prayers anymore. I bet other gods were just jealous of him and plotted against him . I've gained a lot of respect for Berath, while killing so many people along the way I had to remind myself, they will be reborn and I'm not breaking the balance. But his quest to kill two people, none of whom seemed like very evil and deserving bastards made me realize I was tired of murder and needed a break. There were people, I'd have to kill with those two as well, what kind of fair is that? Hylea seemed like a nice goddess and she wouldn't actually ask me to kill anyone in her name, would she? So I let the dragon stay and defended my choice. Other gods were like "worship me more, we need those souls, so people would be just grateful to us". Rymgrand, really? He already takes away bits of souls every cycle, what does he need those extra for, I wonder? Selfish once more. Skaen? Don't make me laugh. But Hyleas option went well with my own goals: my character was determined (obsessed) to put an end to the legacy and bring joy to people who have almost lost their children. I wanted to spread joy to the people, who were affected and scared there was no god could protect them. I could do a good thing! Yay! In the end I didn't care for Hylea herself much. Especially how she answered to Pallegina. Very selfishly. If Wael came with his proposal earlier, I would have considered his proposal very tempting. But as I have already made a promise to Hylea and given her blessing, how could I betray my own words? Wael, what were you counting on really? I've done enough betraying in my past lives!

Ok, here are my two cents: 1) the description of Fulvano's Amulet contains the description of Fulvano's Boots. (when you right click on the item) 2) in the Encyclopedia of beasts the description of Andragan contains the description of Delemgan (copypasted) I understand that this is almost the same beast, but there should at least be a name change for the Andragan entry... 3) the Enchant button in the item description (as someone already mentioned) remained untranslated. 4) And the overall quality of the battle mechanics translation (e.g. "Radius") is misleading. Overall opinion: As a translator I understand, why this happened and it needs to be considered and repaired for a better image of the game. The translation of the dialogues is good, I'd say, the translators know both Russian and English.