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Low-Spoiler Arcanum Area Guide: Roseborough and Beyond
This page was supposed to be the final chapter of my Arcanum walkthrough
(Roseborough, T'sen Ang, Thanatos, Tulla, and the Void). Instead, it's going to be a short explanation for why I abandoned the
walkthrough after Caladon.
My first time through the game, I missed several of the quests; among them the Siamese Twins/Halfogre Island
conspiracy. On my second play-through, the one I used to write this guide, I discovered that quest, and became quickly
caught up in it. I really wanted to find and punish the wicked gnomes. I wanted to rescue or at least avenge the sexually
abused human women, and I wanted to do something about the enslavement of the unfortunate halfogres.
Unfortunately, the game gives you no option to do anything about any of these things ever. What you get to do is listen
to a smug gnome give a very poor X-filesish summary of why you can't do anything about any of it, and then nothing. No
option to outwit the gnomes, betray the gnomes, anything. Despite having the ear of two or three of the most powerful
men on the gameworld, you don't have the option of mentioning it to any of them. The programmers just assume you're
going to be satisfied with "Ha ha, can't do anything about it! Those wily gnomes. Wasn't that a funny plot about kidnapping,
rape, and racial enslavement?"
The 'conclusion' to this plot came at a time that I was starting to get frustrated with the slow and tedious movement interface
of Arcanum. When I killed the gnome conspirator and the game penalized me because his alignment was 'good,' that was really
the final straw for me. Folks, it isn't good to engage in slavery, rape, breeding humans as farm animals, and political sabotage.
It's not even funny. It's a pretty darn serious plot, deserving of a resolution. If you're going to allow room in the game for evil characters
to kill innocent people, you're going to have to allow room in the game for good characters to care about pursuing things like this.
So I stopped playing. Not in protest or anything; it just wasn't worth slogging through the awful movement screens,
tedious combats, and ugly graphics anymore.
My one-year-old son has since broken my Arcanum CD, so the odds of my ever getting back around to finishing this walkthrough
are not good. I apologize for any inconvenience, and hope that the rest of this walkthrough--and the
Arcanum Quest Guide, which includes basics on the quests from Roseborough through
the end of the game--has been helpful to you.
Please check out my links page for pointers to some other good walkthroughs
and hint pages which do include the final chapter of the game.
World of Ataniel
Kachina lodge
My Maricopa
Royal Caribbean
Arizona map
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