Black Geyser - Lore: The Gods of Yerengal

GrapeOcean Technologies shared a piece of lore.

The Gods of Yerengal

In this lore entry, learn more about Black Geyser and the Gods who inhabited its world.

Ho there, adventurers!

There are many mysteries surrounding the gods of Yerengal and yet their influence is felt throughout the kingdom. It starts from the icy tundra of northern Jotnar, moves to the rising dunes of the Eastern empires, and beyond the endless Zandur sea. Our understanding of them depends on our ability to look to the dawn of creation…

Generations ago, Alnarius, the King-god of Love, and Tilindia, the Mother goddess of Nature, created the universe, and Yerengal was their greatest creation. The first beings, also known as the Many, were created by Alnarius and Tilindia. They have been formed by Tilindia, but shaped by Alnarius, who gave them purpose, passion, and ambition. The Many were tested in order to demonstrate their worth, allowing them to show they can and would live in harmony with this new planet.

As the Many prospered, they began to refer to themselves as Man. Having realized the purpose of their existence, Man cared for the planet and sought the mysteries of their existence. The power and influence of man grew as did his faith and his faith granted the gods abundance in nourishment.

When new gods joined Alnarius and Tilindia, they welcomed them with open arms, even though many of these new gods yearned for the great power the two originals possessed. Alnarius and Tilindia, however, were happy to share their creation with them. These new gods did not always come from the light of the sun, but rather from the shadows of a void, attracted to the power of human infidelity or worse qualities such as chaos and disharmony.

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Fingers crossed it's ready for release in March.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Fingers crossed it's ready for release in March.

I feel the same, though I must admit that this "greed" mechanique has made me a little wary.

To me, it almost sounds like the developers are putting 2 important game aspects in crpgs, in direct conflict with each other. "The Looting", which many, if not most, would consider important or essential for an enjoyable crpg experience. The "Positive Narrative" which many, if not most, would want to follow since they don't particularly enjoy playing evil characters.

It sounds bizzare to me, to design a game in a way that deprives the players of a normal source of fun, forcing them to choose between "enjoyable looting" or an "enjoyable story".

Though, I've tried to avoid spoiling the game for myself, so I haven't really looked into the issue on my own. This is just the impression I have gotten from reading stray comments.

Originally Posted by Feist
"The Looting", which many, if not most, would consider important or essential for an enjoyable crpg experience.

If sharing is caring, then looting must be smoothing, eh?

I think looting is done wrong in many if not most RPGs. Take something like the Witcher 3. Gerald, a monster hunter, not a thief, rummages through peasant houses "looting" all sorts of things from ladles and broken rakes to star dust, precious minerals, beer, and bear skins without any kind of consequences (sure, if you "loot" a merchant, the guards will attack you)

What is the lore background for that kind of behaviour? I say it is an immersion breaking gamey feature made for gamers who love to loot. There is this believe in the industry that "exploration must be rewarded" and somehow in the world of materialism where we live, this reward is often taken to be material (in the game world). The Witcher 3 is by far not the only game doing that.

No, looting is mostly stealing, depending on the location and situation, of course. Killing someone and looting the corpse is seen a crime in most communities. We should give the greed system a chance. There is hoping that it works and starts a new less immersion breaking trend in the industry.

Originally Posted by largh
If sharing is caring, then looting must be smoothing, eh?

I think looting is done wrong in many if not most RPGs. Take something like the Witcher 3. Gerald, a monster hunter, not a thief, rummages through peasant houses "looting" all sorts of things from ladles and broken rakes to star dust, precious minerals, beer, and bear skins without any kind of consequences (sure, if you "loot" a merchant, the guards will attack you)

What is the lore background for that kind of behaviour? I say it is an immersion breaking gamey feature made for gamers who love to loot. There is this believe in the industry that "exploration must be rewarded" and somehow in the world of materialism where we live, this reward is often taken to be material (in the game world). The Witcher 3 is by far not the only game doing that.

No, looting is mostly stealing, depending on the location of course. Killing someone and looting the corpse is seen a crime in most communities. We should give the greed system a chance. There is hoping that it works and starts a new less immersion breaking trend in the industry.

Well…I get the principle you're advocating. Although, at least in my eyes, you're taking it quite a bit too far.

I would agree only to the point where looting a living persons belongings would always be "marked" as stealing and doing so while observed, should always provoke a response.

Originally Posted by Feist
I would agree only to the point where looting a living persons belongings would always be "marked" as stealing and doing so while observed, should always provoke a response.

I agree that for a corpse it is hard to respond when you steal its belongings unless that corpse becomes an undead. Still, the society around the to-be-corpse should respond to the acts of making someone a corpse and then stealing their belongings

Originally Posted by largh
I agree that for a corpse it is hard to respond when you steal its belongings unless that corpse becomes an undead. Still, the society around the to-be-corpse should respond to the acts of making someone a corpse and then stealing their belongings

Yes, however that is also highly situational.

It depends on what outlook the (often pure fantasy) society has on taking items from dead bodies. Also, whether a dead body belongs to a "wicked enemy" or a "dead ally". Possibly also whether we are talking about some kind of "intelligent monster", like how goblins are often portrayed, or if it's about a more civilized being.

In any case, my point was essentially, that it is to many an enjoyable game aspect and therefore not ideal to put in opposition to something else that is also enjoyable.

I am surprised at the passion for loot, I guess because it doesn't matter as much for me. I play games for much more than loot. As long as I can get some stuff in some manner that is fine.

I don't know how strict the game is though. I mean if you can't even get some gold for doing a job for someone (paid for services) without that being considered greedy then that would be a problem.

I mean you need some way to get weapons and clothes and so on. Whether it be gifts for doing a job/service, being paid to do something and buying from a merchant, etc.

If now and then you refuse acceptance of a reward because the person is in need that is okay but you do need some jobs that pay where pay is for services rendered as part of day to day business and not considered greed. I mean one can accept money and not be considered greedy.

I also see a big difference between loot gathered from killing innocents, stealing from people's homes, and so on … versus say killing some monsters that have been eating villagers and finding some gold in the monsters lair - you should be able to keep that w/out it being considered greedy.

So I tend to agree with Largh's post. It feels so odd running around as a "hero" looting everything in games, often right in front of people. Wrath of the Righteous was super bad like this.

Looting other than fallen enemies usually doesn't bother me much. There are two patterns that I find counter-productive for the game immersion, however:

1) The excess of looting, even more when items are out of place - similar to what @largh described. For example discovering ammo all over the place or money in dustbins.

Games like Fallout 3 or Outer Worlds (the latter from reviews, I haven't played it) are obviously counting on players' addiction for loot, and you find anything anywhere. Encased has this tendency too.

2) Being able to loot what is obviously people's property without getting any negative reaction.

This shocked me in Viking, and even more considering they have a "steal" flag, but it's rarely used. So you can enter someone's house and start taking all sorts of items without raising any eyebrow, it feels wrong.

I have no idea how or whether the game will handle the different aspects of looting / stealing, I just hope that 'greed' in general is not the type of mechanics that makes you feel constrained to limit your actions artificially. Two example of this that I don't appreciate too much are the alignments in Pathfinder dialogues, where sometimes I want to answer something but a tag makes me hesitate, or the personality traits in the Expeditions games, where I have the feeling of walking on eggshells.

Ay, it is situation dependent, of course (meant to write it, but used the word "location" instead of "situation", a non-native word choice).

One thing I also find immersion breaking is along the lines what @Redglyph writes. Take slums or something in games. There is a beggar on the street begging for money. Right next to the beggar, there are boxes containing all sorts of things worth by far more than the beggar would earn by begging in a year. Why did not the NPCs "loot" these things before me if they were so much in need?

(obviously that was a rhetoric question as we all know the answer: the game was made for the gamer).

If a greed system or something similar to hinder brainless looting is made correctly, it can improve the immersion. Naturally, there are many pitfalls, some of which were outlined by @wolfgrimdark. We'll just have to wait and see, but let's not judge the idea before we have seen how it works.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
1) The excess of looting, even more when items are out of place. For example discovering ammo all over the place or money in dustbins.

Games like Fallout 3 or Outer Worlds (the latter from reviews, I haven't played it) are obviously counting on players' addiction for loot, and you find anything anywhere. Encased has this tendency too.

Aww but I enjoyed snooping around broken toilets to see if there are any cash lying around

2) Being able to loot what is obviously people's property without getting any negative reaction.

This shocked me in Viking, and even more considering they have a "steal" flag, just rarely. So you can enter someone's house and start taking all sorts of items without raising any eyebrow, it feels wrong.

Yes, it was really bad in Viking especially because you get a lot of materials you need to upgrade homestead this way.

In saying that, looting isn't immersion breaking for me most of the time - I think I accepted it as standard practice.

Originally Posted by purpleblob1
Aww but I enjoyed snooping around broken toilets to see if there are any cash lying around

Naughty All right, I may have done that a few times.

Don't repeat it to anyone, but I made a point to loot every dustbin in Encased to find money

Originally Posted by purpleblob1
Yes, it was really bad in Viking especially because you get a lot of materials you need to upgrade homestead this way.

In saying that, looting isn't immersion breaking for me most of the time - I think I accepted it as standard practice.

Well, it felt strange a few times at first, then I just played along. As you say, we need it. It was overdone though, I find a bit repetitive to have to clean up every place to get enough materials. Or gear after a battle. It's better handled in Rome but it's still making you run all over the area sometimes.

If it was for me, general (item) loot could completely disappear from RPGs.

I hate it when I get tons of item loot and after every encounter or "treasure" I have to check wether one of the new items is 1% better than the ones currently equipped by your characters.

It would be enough for me if we can find only meaningful items only when it's somehow embedded in the story/setting. For example when you kill a Wizard in his tower you can loot his poerful staff. Or a magic sword from a fighter that somehow had been mentioned before. Same for finding actual treasures in dangerous dungeons where it makes sense other adventurers couldn't find it before. Quest items would also be an exception.

Killed enemies could just drop money or some kind of abstract dummy item called "valuables" that can be sold to merchants.

Of course then there need to be ways to buy cool items from merchants, or special NPC who sell only one special item.

That all would make acquiring more powerful items a lot more exciting and rewarding.

Somehow, I don't think Black Geyser will be a landmark game which will cause the fantasy rpg industry to give up traditional style rpg looting…

I played the demo, and was not impressed. It will probably not do great in sales, just my guess from my (bad) impressions.

I guess you're right… with both.

But I think it's stil good that (especially) smaller devs try something new. A new feature might work and the niche game might get successfuly and new features could be acquired by mainstream.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
If it was for me, general (item) loot could completely disappear from RPGs.

I hate it when I get tons of item loot and after every encounter or "treasure" I have to check wether one of the new items is 1% better than the ones currently equipped by your characters.

It would be enough for me if we can find only meaningful items only when it's somehow embedded in the story/setting. For example when you kill a Wizard in his tower you can loot his poerful staff. Or a magic sword from a fighter that somehow had been mentioned before. Same for finding actual treasures in dangerous dungeons where it makes sense other adventurers couldn't find it before. Quest items would also be an exception.

Killed enemies could just drop money or some kind of abstract dummy item called "valuables" that can be sold to merchants.

Of course then there need to be ways to buy cool items from merchants, or special NPC who sell only one special item.

That all would make acquiring more powerful items a lot more exciting and rewarding.

You just described a jRPG.

Originally Posted by lackblogger
You just described a jRPG.

You've apparently never played a JRPG.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
You've apparently never played a JRPG.

Well you certainly haven't.

Originally Posted by lackblogger
You just described a jRPG.

Even if this was true (which apparently is debatable) I still wouldn't play them because of the visuals. I just can't bare them.

As far as the Greed mechanic goes, you're not going to get penalized for looting a corpse.

It's more about decisions you make in conversations and quests. Do you extort people for money? When you've finished a quest, do you choose not to accept a reward, or press the NPC for more? Or threaten that you'll take everything they have? So in every context it's about a decision, not whether you leave gold coins in a dead guy's pockets.