So, then, I said we'd be playing a necromancer this time.
◊ But first, we must select our race, namely the vampire
◊. Vampires are a bit odd, they're technically undead and evil. Again, this means that Zin, TSO, and Ely won't take Tsukiko, but it also means Fedhas won't take you on board either. You'll notice that the caption below also says shifting between life and undeath and that's a gimmick that runs on how much blood you've got in you, which we'll get into later.
And Tsukiko will be a necromancer.
◊ It's a bit more fitting than being vampire at least. Anyway, necromancers start in an interesting little branch of magic call... necromancy. Basically, if it's related to death, dead bodies, and/or degeneration, it's in this branch, which makes it one of the branches with more choices on hand as to what you can do, though early game this mostly means being able to make skeletons and zombies that follow you around.
Upon starting, you'll notice we have a slightly odd item in the inventory, namely a potion of blood.
◊ This is because, you guessed it, vampires subsist off of blood, which allows them to kill an enemy and suck veir vlood. However, there's a catch, vampires can't starve, they can only get really empty. See, how fast you generate is dependent on how full of blood you are. At "Alive" status, where you're a fat, round vampire ready to burst, you're regenerating ridiculously fast, while at Bloodless, you don't regenerate at all. In addition, when you're closer to bloodless, you get undead bonuses like resistance to poison, negative energy, cold, rot, torment, etc, that you'll lose as you get more alive.
Actually, just look at this image.
◊ This is a good of time as any to explain resistances (the rest of the stuff we'll get to later). The starting state is satiated where we're barely undead and is currently highlighted. Now, there are three major elements in this game that have resistances: fire, ice, and negative energy. At the first level of resistance, you decrease damage from that element by 50%, at two levels 75%, at three levels 90%. 90% may sound like overkill, but just say that after going to the corresponding elemental hell branch.
Other resistances, like poison, electricity, rot, torment, and others just need one level and either make you completely immune, darn well near immune, or are 50%. In the case of poison, you're completely immune to most poison except for a few enemies that have a level of poison that you can't resist, (I call it poison+).
Enjoyed that info dump? Great, I hope to avoid that in the future, but then again, this is a learning LP, so meh. Anyway, Tsukiko hasn't killed anything yet, so let's get to that. The first victim.
◊ Our only spell right now is pain which... well, it sucks. It has two less range than magic dart and hurts you a bit when you use it in addition to its 1MP cost. On the bright side, enemies can't dodge it, however, they can resist it and it always does more damage to the enemy than you. It still sucks.
You kill the goblin.
Still, you can make enemies spasm, though this has no actually effect on gameplay.
So let's see those other spells.
◊ There's one other we can learn right now, animate skeleton. Note that that is quite literal, it only animates skeletons, which are inferior to fleshy zombies in every way. It's a bit of pet peeve spell for me and I'm skipping it all together. More so, you need an enemy skeleton to actually make this work, meaning that even though I have a nice bloody body of a goblin right here in front of me, it needs to rot first until it's a skeleton to make the spell work. Screw it. Onwards, with more PAIN!
Choices choices.
◊ See, this corpse has blood, meaning I can suck it out for nutrients, but if I don't, I can get more undead. As you'll notice though, that might not be the best idea ever seeing as that's my HP after not being hit once by the goblins (halfway gone and in the yellow zone). Yeah, pain is like that. It's best in early game to stay alive so you can heal up and then move into undead later if you want to get stealthy and what not. Me? I'm going undead immediately because it leaves more room for zombies and if you remember the book of Necromancy has a spell called regeneration... you'll see what I do.
On a side note, poison corpses? Still poisonous, so you can't go sucking koboldian blood unless you've gone so undead as to resist it.
Level up! HP is up from 9 to 14 and we've now got 5MP instead of 4. We've also got access to a new spell called Lethal Infusion. Basically, this spell enchants a weapon to have the pain brand for a while. Brands on weapons are basically weapons that have special types. In the case of the pain brand, it gets stronger as you get better at necromancy and hits with negative-esque damage. This enchantment eventually wears off, so you'll need recast it if you're going to be using it often. It's also good for "Alive" vampires since they can take hits and heal up, Tsukiko, however, will be a bit more sneaky and casty as "Bloodless", so we're going to pass up on this spell.
(Note from the future: Actually, this is just me being wrong, it gives a weapon the negative energy brand, something I'll describe later.)
Later, on the second floor, Tsukiko has gone full on bloodless.
◊ You'll also notice I managed to pick up a cursed dagger. I'll eventually get the curse removed on that sucker, but until then...
More importantly, look at those stats.
◊ Nothing related to negative energy can scratch Tsukiko because she's not living! More so, she's undead, meaning that cold has little effect on her. She can't rot because she's undead! She has no blood, she can't be poisoned! She sees invisible things (this is actually something vampires at any blood level can do, they have superior eyesight). You'll also notice Tsukiko's non-regenerating and stealthy. This means using pain is suicidal now and we're going all stabby until we get some spells that can heal without Tsukiko having to suck blood.
Did I mention bats hear exceptionally well for early game enemies?
◊ Well they do and it doesn't matter now because Tsukiko is like a shadow!
You hit the helpless giant bat.
You bite the giant bat, and draw its blood!
You feel better. You feel slightly less thirsty.
You kill the giant bat!
Wee hee! This is called an unarmed attack. If you've got a level or more in the unarmed combat skill or have a body part particularly adapt at doing this (vampires have their really big death), then you can sometimes make additional attacks when using your primary attack. Bites are nice since they heal a little, so Tsukiko is up to 11 HP instead of 9, but it's not a guaranteed source of health.
Anyway what you don't see is me getting cocky, Tsukiko sneaking up to a group of orcs and then getting her face pounded in when one inevitably turns around. Eh... this update was getting wordy anyway, next time, more vampires and necromancy!
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