Video Game / Gemfire

There are many paths to the crown.

Gemfire, known in Japan as Royal Blood, is a turn-based grand strategy game by Koei.

Long, long ago, there was a country called Ishmeria, far away in the northern seas, which at the time of the game has fallen to open civil war and rebellion against the tyrannical and murderous King Eselred, who is using the crown of Gemfire — both the ultimately symbol of the Ishmerian monarchy and an extremely power magical tool, with six wizards and wizardresses and a dragon sealed in its jewels — to terrorize his people into submission. Desperate, his daughter Robyn broke the spell that held the gems together and hurled them into the night sky, sending them to hopeful nobles who would use the power of the gems to beat back Eselred and unify Ishmeria once more. Enraged, Eselred imprisoned his daughter and set about his own course of action to restore his power under his own terms. It is up to you to choose a family to side with, end the senseless war, stop Eselred's evil, and unite the gems of Gemfire.

Players take control of "families" — a dynasty of nobles and their vassal allies — most of whom have a Gemfire wizard (sometimes two) at their employ, but there are some who do not. (The lack of one is more or less playing the game on hard mode.) The object is to attack and conquer all thirty of the numbered provinces of Ishmeria, or get their rulers to defect to your cause. In combat, there are five units — four by default (cavalrymen, two units of knight-infantry, and archers) and a fifth that is for hire, or which can be a Gemfire wizard or wizardress. Fifth Units, as they are known, will often tip the balance on the battlefield for those that have one.

The game has been described on this very Wiki as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms in a Standard Fantasy Setting version of the Wars of the Roses," down to the king you are fighting against being from a family called Lankshire, and the land you are fighting over, Ishmeria, being shaped like England and Wales (including the Isle of Man) with the king's bastard (or so he says) heading up one of the families, called Tudoria.

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Prince Troper, what is your command?

• AI Is A Crap Shoot: The artificial intelligence comes in two flavors, with no in-between: ruthless, or catatonic. You can either get endlessly harassed and bullied by enemy families, or just as easily steamroll them in only a few gameplay months.
• All There in the Manual: The backstory to how King Eselred abused his power and had Ishmeria falling into civil war in order to oppose him is described in the manual as being the result of stuff that has zero bearing on the game's plot. The genesis of the Fire Dragon, the creation of Gemfire and the Gemfire gems — you'd never know it was the doing of a wicked sorcerer named Zemmel. Even though the story is a little superfluous to the game itself, it does make for an interesting read.
  • Some ports of the game that took out the introductory cut scenes, like the NES version, leave the player wondering exactly how the scenarios have progressed the way they have. The manual definitely fills in the gaps, but if you didn't have it, some things like Pender betraying his brother Erin and defecting to Eselred's side even as the Lankshires were facing total collapse comes across as unexpected. Altogether, it makes for rich amounts of the player having his or her own interpretations.
• Artificial Stupidity: The AI sometimes gives up the chance to seize the player base and not attacking with its Fifth Unit at all. Even worse: they don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that their base is under siege. They will set a unit on their base and surround it with fences, thus being an easy target for archers. Outside of battle, the AI will try to form an alliance with you right before they're about to die at your hands...only to cut the alliance when it's just you and whoever you're allied with.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Pluvius, the most powerful of the six wizards, is this in the eyes of a lot of players. He is the most powerful, but the next one down, Zendor, is only a little bit less so, and can move three spaces per turn to Pluvius's two, making him more effective in most cases.
• Blow You Away: Scylla, the other Gemfire wizardress, "sets the winds free" in battle.
• Celtic Mythology: Gemfire actually has several examples of (fairly obscure) creatures from Irish, Scottish, and Welsh folklore. They include:
  • The Fachan, a boulder-heaving cyclops which is a very effective Fifth Unit for northern provinces, coming from Scottish mythology.
  • The Far Gorta, here portrayed as a kindly old man that collects food for a lucky province.
  • The Oilliphéist, here reduced to its péist suffix to give us Pastha, which is the best defense against the Dragon but which only appears to rulers in provinces with high morale (i.e., you as the player have been kind to the peasants by giving them food).
  • A Gwragedd Annwn, which oddly enough is referred to by its Welsh name, Gwraig, can appear to rulers in a dream to give them a charm boost.
  • And of course, there's a Banshee, which can kill nobles living in the home province.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Aiden, a Lankshire noble, is ridiculously easy to get to defect, to the point that for some fans it's practically a meme how disloyal he is. Ironically, by the last scenario, he's one of the few people left still loyal to King Eselred.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: During battles, the attackers have red sprites, whereas defenders have blue ones.
• Completely Different Title: Obviously. Royal Blood has a nice double-entendre to it, but Gemfire is the name of the crown that everyone's fighting over.
• Deadly Gas: One of the Gemfire wizards, Skulryk, has this as his attack. It's actually one of the weakest Fifth Unit attacks in the entire game.
• Death from Above: Two of the Gemfire wizards use this: Pluvius launches meteors, Zendor calls down the lightning.
• Dem Bones: One of the hireable Fifth Unites are skeletons with swords. Cheap, but effective.
• Developer's Foresight: The game will recognize and handle a variety of bizarre situations, even though they'd never be seen during casual play.
  • Every noble has their own coat of arms for their territory, in case they somehow end up as a prince (either via a Game Mod, or by intentionally killing off the existing royalty).
  • If a player stalls the game long enough for everyone to die of old age, the game recognizes the situation and informs the player the game is over.
• Elemental Powers: Weaponized, for the most part, by the Gemfire wizards and wizardresses.
• Game Mod: Dedicated fans have produced at least four game mods: one is a scenario where two weak forces are on the verge of total defeat, one is a scenario where Ishmeria is down to only three forces (and one province under Lankshire), and one is a fictional scenario where there are thirty forces each covering one of the thirty provinces. The fourth mod? It's an Expansion Pack that takes place a generation before the vanilla game, giving four new scenarios and, naturally, replacing most of the officers — and, as a bonus, adjusts the 5th units so they're more balanced than in the vanilla game.
• Gender-Blender Name: Erin, leader of the Blanche family, is male, but has a name generally associated with women.
• The Fair Folk: As discussed, show up usually as random events to help, or harm, provinces and rulers.
• Hard-Coded Hostility: You can form an alliance (technically a non-aggression pact, despite the name) with any faction...except Lankshire, who nearly all the other forces are rebelling against. Oddly enough, if you used a cheat code to play as Lankshire, you can send alliance offers to other forces — and they may even be accepted!
• An Ice Person: Chylla, one of the two Gemfire wizardresses, who "unleashes a deadly chill."
• Kill It with Ice: Chylla, again.
• Lady of War: There are actually a surprising amount of female characters in the game, four of which can be heads of families and, therefore, eventually rule all of Ishmeria — all of them can be present in battle and lead troops.
  • Keyla, of the Lyle family, has a very high military rating, making her a more straight example of this trope.
• Master Poisoner: Skulryk.
• Meaningful Name: Crosses over somewhat with Woolseyism. The wizards and wizardesses were in the Japanese version were given oddly generic names based on their powers, but in the English translations their names were far more evocative and interesting.
  • Pluvius, who summons meteors from the sky, has a Latin name that roughly means "rainy."
  • Chylla, An Ice Person, has her name derived from "chill."
  • Scylla shares a name with the Greek lady-monster; they are both associated (kind of) with tempests and forceful winds.
  • Empyron's name is corruption of Empyrean, "the fire on high," mentioned in Dante's Inferno as well as other places as being the fiery firmament of the heavens.
  • Skulryk's poison gas cloud is headed up by a skull.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The gems that control the wizards and the fire dragon.
• Playing with Fire: Empyron, a Gemfire wizard, kind of, as he doesn't shoot fire from his hands, but from a magical crystal of sorts.
• Plot Coupon That Does Something: The magic gems and the crown that once held them. Far from being a MacGuffin that's too powerful to be used in-game, each piece lets the player control a powerful wizard or dragon when they fight a rival army.
• "Risk"-Style Map: Remarkable for being one of the earliest videogame examples outside of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The entire point of the game. The heads of families are princes and princesses, only one of whom can become the sole monarch of Ishmeria.
• Stock Ness Monster: Owing to it's péist origins, and as a truly esoteric Historical In-Joke, the Pastha looks like the Plesiosaur version of Nessie.
• Technicolor Toxin: Skulryk's poison clouds are really purple.
• Vestigial Empire: Lankshire in the fourth scenario, about twenty years after the first one, is down to four provinces, a tiny fraction of Ishmeria, and most of the King's vassals have either switched sides (including his own acknowledged son, Prince Adryl) or formed their own Houses.

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