Adventure! Riches! Death and Madness! (ET Plays Darkest Dungeon)

I write this journal so that I might remember how it all happened, and that I have not gone insane - that the things I and the others have seen are indeed real.

I arrived at the behest of the last correspondence of a distant relation. We even now waging war against an enemy that we do not fully understand. Will we win? I do not know, but if by any chance we fail there might be some record of our findings, so that our effort is not wasted.

My name is....Paranoia.



What is this?

This is Darkest Dungeon, a game by Red Hook Studios and published by Devolver Digital Edit: scratch that. It's published by Red Hook themselves - I'm not sure where I got Devolver Digital from but it. This thread specifically is for a sort of communal LP - I'm going to ask for volunteers as 'adventurers', and let them as a party dictate their actions in battle and in camp.

In most cases I'll explain things as we get to them, however.

Isn't there an intro to the game?

Yeah, there is.



Have a look at it, if you want to.

So how does this play out, anyway?

Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike - a party member's death is final, and cannot be reversed! In addition, each party member has a stress bar - with enough pressure, they can even snap, or have heroic second winds.

If they snap and get even more stressed, however, their body will give out and they will die.

Apart from that, there are several persistent elements, like gold that can be used to buy supplies before delving into a dungeon, and you can upgrade various services around town to unlock new skills or upgrade equipment for your party members.

So what do we need to start with?

I need Four (4) people willing to probably die horribly. With that in mind:

Victi- err, Adventurers (0/??)
1. Coldblooded
2. Whimbrel
3. Mirdini
4. Credit
5. SupahKiven
6. chimericWilder
7. Slorange
8. Sanzh
9. Palamedes
10.
....

I volunteer to be thrown into the meat grinder.

Me me me!

Death and Glory and Etc.

Due to a lack of demand in the labour market, I must resign myself to grave-robbing ancient tombs.

They also said this will look good on my resumé... if i survive to make one.

I'd enjoy a good ol' rough and tumble adventure rumble

i shall resign myself to an inevitably fatal fate

end my suffering

let's die horribly

I'm invincible just try to prove me wrong.

Upon my arrival I was in need of heroes - brave fools who would explore the ruins, and uncover my ancestors secrets, or die futilely on the claws of whatever lies below.



[i]Our first recruit, Sanzh, is a doctor oh so willing to test out their diseases and scalpel work on the brigands and horrors here - to cut back the diseased, festering blight that's taken hold here.

First up, Sanzh prefers being in the back of the group - usually the third spot in the party lineup because of Incision. Any further forward and Sanzh cannot use three of their skills, and any further back and they can't use Incision. That said, they have a decent bit of utility, at least!

Thing is, because of their clumsy quirk, Sanzh has no ability to dodge jack shit, so things that hit the entire party or just plain don't like them will wreck their day. The on guard quirk offsets that, however. For one turn.

At the start of a fight. Here's hoping your luck isn't terrible, Sanzh.



Sister Credit arrived alongside the doctor. Devout and zealous, perhaps even a little foolhardy, they may just be able to resist whatever lurks in the shadows.

Credit... got kind of shafted, skill wise. Three of their skills can only be used together from one spot - the spot already designated for our plague doctor. I'm going to put them in the back so they can at least heal, but I'm hoping I won't have to wait too long to unlock their other skills. They're also slightly less tanky because they have a lowered hp quirk.

On the plus side, they're stress resistant in the ruins, which is nice.



A man claiming to know of the abominations that freely roam the area after my ancestor's damnable dig arrived as well. Claiming his name is Mirdini, he has offered his services in driving back the madness and monsters.

Mirdini has access to a decent healing skill and plenty of abilities to shift the enemy about - useful if you need to move something forward for someone else to hit.



Another Highwayman, a gormless fool looking to either earn absolution for past misdeeds or to make their riches beyond just robbing stage coaches. Either way, Dang Ron Paul has entered my services.

Annnnd everyone wants to be in the back of the party. Almost any of Dpauls damaging skills are more useful from the back rows - the only one that isn't is a self buff with a terrible damage modifier.

Oh well.


Normally I'd ask what type of quest you'd want to do, but the only one available right now is the beginner ruins one, so let's just move on.



It's time we worked out what we're taking into the ruins, and I'll leave that to our erstwhile motley crew of long ranged squishies to figure out.

I recommend at least eight rations and three or four torches - and that might be a pretty conservative guesstimate of what we need.

Shovels are for clearing out rubble, bandages stop bleeding, anti-venom deals with blights and poisons, and holy water and keys can help with the things that aren't monster encounters.

Once you've hashed out supplies, I'll send you off to probably die horribly.

i say bring nothing

bring 5000 gold worth in holy water

it... glows. yeah just drown yourselves in it and you'll be living torches. As for rations? well... water is very tasty, I must say. You'll be dining in style.

I've never played this game before so if somebody else has a better suggestion I'll go with that, but for now let's say:

15 rations
6 torches
2 shovels
6 bandages
4 anti-venom
4 holy water
3 keys
and then 1 of whatever that gross green goop is. (Ectoplasm I assume?)

i say bring nothing

Alright, funny man. Since you are so effective at cutting costs I'll send you into the dungeon alone.

You obviously will not need any companions or food or the like, I'm sure.

I haven't played either, but Coldblooded's proposal sounds solid to me.

This is just Beginner, I reckon:

10 rations (this shouldn't go on too long)
4 torches
1 shovel (they're kinda expensive)
2 bandages (we have 3 healers, and I'm not likely to go down b/c i have the highest health in the party. Kinda ironic considering I have a low hp quirk)
2 anti-venom (how often are we going to get poisoned, people? this isn't a cavern of cobras. As far as I'm concerned, even 2 is too much)
2 holy water (pitting us against unholy spawn this early is also cruel)
3 keys

Q: does my health stay at 23 even after leveling?

Coldblooded's plan sounds solid, BUT

I want to send Chwoka in solo first

Coldblooded's plan sounds solid, BUT

I want to send Chwoka in solo first

PROVE THYSELF, CHWOKA

do not misunderestimate the strength of just one chwoka. i contain multitudes. i'm sure you all remember chwoka mafia

no i don't

still lets not spend our entire fortune just yet. dying works so much better when all your supplies have run out, your tools are broken and your maddened mind recognizes the inevitable doom

tbh, going in with nothing is a solid strategy for the early game. Just go in, get as much loot as you can while everyone goes mad, then run back out with your ill gotten gains. Once you're out, you can fire the survivors rather than pay to have them healed. After you have a bit of gold and a few of the objects that you need to upgrade your party, you can start equipping adventurers and so on and actually try to keep them hearty and hale.

Okay so the plan is to fire ourselves after the first mission, and then come back again later wearing incredibly convincing disguises of other classes, but forgetting to come up with a new fake name for the registration form? Our adventurers must be incredibly dedicated to their job of dying in horrible, unspeakable ways.

conceivably, if we fire ourselves, the next 4 people in the list will have their go. I wouldn't like our run to be that short.