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Greed shall infest us all

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness is a Kickstarter-funded Western RPG, developed by the Austrian GrapeOcean Technologies and inspired by classics like Baldur's Gate. The website is here and the trailer can be watched here.

The game takes place in the kingdom of Isilmerald which was cursed by Zornilsa, the goddess of greed, envy and resentment. Now it's up to your adventuring party to break the curse and save the kingdom... or you could try to find a way to exploit the situation for all its worth.

The game provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Justified because of the curse of greed. It's not particularly noticeable early game, when the world's greed level is low. As the world's greed level increases, merchants start charging more and more for their goods, to the point of charging exorbitant prices for even basic supplies if the world greed gets high enough.
  • Antagonistic Offspring: Not you, but Lord Espen's legitimate son who ends up killing him and starting off the story.
  • But Thou Must!:
    • The Kickstarter trailer briefly shows a dwarf named Eric offering to craft something for the player, but only if they pay up first. All three of the options knock him back, only differing between a neutral "perhaps another time" and more antagonistic "I only deal in goods not promises" or "You pushing wares you do not even have?". To be fair, he is offering a pretty bad deal, and with the greed curse going strong, one would be wise to assume he is likely to just run off with your gold.
    • Shortly after the start of the game Lord Espen orders you to fetch his sword. No matter how you answer you will be forced to go and get the sword. Justified since he is trying to save you from the massacre that is about to happen.
  • Character Class System: The game features thirteen different classes to choose from: Cleric, Convoker, Druid, Fighter, Highlander, Necromancer, Ranger, Shaman, Spellweaver, Swindler, Templar, Thief, and Wintermage. When creating your character you can choose up to three of them, though multiclassing will make leveling up slower for your character.
  • Civil War: Before the beginning of the game, this has broken out in Isilmerald. Increased taxes has led to Deron-Guld rebelling against Isilmerald, and they're actively at war. The rebels have considerable support from some of Isilmerald's nobility too.
  • The Corruption: The Kickstarter trailer states Zornilsa's greed curse "poison[s] the land with chaos and betrayal, inciting conflict and war".
  • Either/Or Offspring: Justified, the protagonist is revealed to be Lord Espen's illegitimate child regardless of what race he is, if you picked a race that doesn't interbreed with humans you can point this out in an early conversation, turns out there was a prophecy that Lord Espen's bastard would save the land from the curse so the gods made it possible and made you take after your mother to hide your identity before the time was right.
  • Energy Ball: The Kickstarter trailer shows a group of hostile mages casting green orbs through their staves, and also a purple-skinned fairy-like creature cast an orb of purple ball lightning. The second level spell Severine's Sparkle is basically this.
  • Evil Pays Better: The game wouldn't be much of a moral dilemma if it didn't. Choosing greedy responses when finishing quests generally gets you more gold and oftentimes magic items that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise, or at least wouldn't be able to get until much later. Doing this will worsen the world greed, though.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: You'll come across several NPCs who have glowing, green eyes. All of them are generally completely insane, extraordinarily greedy, and violent at the slightest provocation. They're called Misers, and they're those who have completely lost their will to the curse of greed.
  • Greed:
    • The Kickstarter trailer discusses the many implications of the greed curse on the kingdom. For instance, donating to a temple's priest would seem to be a good and ungreedy thing to do...but if he is already afflicted by the curse himself, than all the gold will go directly to his pocket and only hasten the spread of the curse.
    • In the actual game greed is an important mechanic represented by two bars. One is for the party greed - it starts in the middle and can move toward Greedy or Generous depending on the party's actions. The other is the Global Greed Level. It starts low, with the curse of greed faintly affecting the world, and gradually increases. The party's actions can increase or decrease the speed with which the world's greed increases, but some events will increase it no matter what.
  • Item Crafting: The Kickstarter trailer shows that various herbal ingredients can be not just brewed, which is rather traditional, but also dried, with specific equipment available for that.
  • No Campaign for the Wicked: Averted. The Kickstarter trailer explicitly mentions the possibility of "joining Zornilsa's wicked cause" and/or offering obedience to her for wealth and power, ultimately thrusting the kingdom into "chaos, despair and everlasting darkness". Of course, you can also be a good guy and defy her, and struggle with more challenges as a result of her wrath if you do.
  • The Plague: One of the starting plots is a plague going around the kingdom, though mostly Deron-Guld is afflicted. When you get to Deron-Guld, you see how badly things are going because of it, dead on the streets, white writhers nibbling at plagued corpses, it paints a very bleak picture.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: There's a lot of questgivers who are down on their luck. You can refuse rewards from almost all of them, and even offer to give them gold or other gifts to help them through hard times. Most of them thank you in a heartwarming fashion when you do this.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: There is a lot of opportunity for this. You can shake down almost every quest giver for every penny they have after you do what they ask you to do. You can frame an innocent maid for murder to further your own plans. The list of awful things you can do is very, very long.


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