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RUNEvember Session 15: Cogrealm of the Mechanist
November 30, 2022
Session 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
For the final RUNEvember Realm, I entered the Cogrealm of the Mechanist!
The whirring, ever-dancing fragment of Obron known as the Cogrealm has been a beacon of light and progress even in the grimmest days of the shattering. Wielding the wondrous power of Uncertain Mathematics, the people of Cogrealm can create machines and devices that defy the paltry limitations of reason and physics.
But the tick of the Cogrealm is winding down. Cold, harsh reality seeps into the dream of invention that is the Cogrealm, born in the harsh logical fist of an interloper. Something rigid, something arbitrary, something cruel has slipped into the heart of the Cogrealm, and is rewriting the its wonder with the brute certainty of reality. A new rune pulses in the black heart of a Rune Lord, usurping the land’s old order and replacing it with a new, rigid regime. Only an Engraved can restore things now.
Overview and Realm Mechanics
For the Realm as a whole, there's not much in the way of overarching mechanics (Clock/Death aside).
The big Realm Mechanic is Contraptions. These are like Gear but don't take up a Gear slot (but you can only have one out at a time). Some of these have a Power Up rating, which means you can spend Stamina Dice to get it completely charged, at which point it does something.
Some enemy attacks have the Suppress keyword as well, which sets the Engraved's highest die on their next stamina roll to a 1.
Realm Clock
Every 8 movements/actions, one of your Contraptions at random becomes entirely inert. However, every unique enemy you kill resets the clock to zero.
Death Penalty
You lose a Contraption. You can regain it by returning to the point where you died.
Play Impressions
Neat little Realm. Not much in the way of exploration but some very fun gimmick fights here! Give it a look!
Everything in this part of the post is spoilers for the Realm. Click this to show it if that's fine with you!
As you can tell by the map, the Realm's pretty linear, all in all. Which is fine, of course. You need all the Lore and a key item to get to point 8 and the Rune Lord and you'll need to hit every point to do it.
Enemies are interesting. Every other fight in this Realm is some absolute nonsense and I mean that in the best way possible. The gimmicks I remember are:
- Two sets of enemies, one of which only acts on an odd roll, one of which only acts on an even roll
- An enemy that has a different range for each roll.
- An enemy that you fight on a hex grid.
- An enemy who hates randomness, and as such they just get 1-6 results that get chosen in line
The Contraptions you can get are similarly cool:
- One gives you a bonus on roll combos (1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6): you either gain 1 Move, Block, or Harm.
- One needs to be charged with every die in order (1, then 2, then 3, etc) but once it's charged.
- One needs a huge charge period but gives you a 5 Harm ranged attack.
- One lets you invert your dice (1 -> 6, 2 -> 5, etc)
- One gives you a 1/combat extra stamina die
The weapon you can get is the Axe of the Prime. It's a two-hander which only operates on a 2, 3, 5, 7, (9 for some reason), 11.
The Rune Lord is the enemy with the randomness gimmick. Phase 1 is pretty easy because he has 8 Health and range adjacent, 2, and 3 - if you can get to Same and stay there he's not so bad. Phase 2 is where the tough part begins, he has Harm 3 or 4 on every attack, 20 Health, Range same/adjacent/2, and a ton of movement. Your saving grace is that every contraption you acquired is active this fight - meaning that if you're smart about things, you can charge up that 5-Harm Contraption and ping him at range. It's pretty rough going though.
The Rune lets you use those Contraptions elsewhere. (Pretty powerful given that one of them just gives you a flat +1 Harm when powered up!)
FINAL
- Weapons:
- Blood-Drinking Blade (The Scourged City)
- Witherburst (Shrouded Hamlet)
- Radiant Heater (Cragcliff Reformatory)
- Gear:
- Broken Timepiece (Echo Crater)
- Raynard's Resistance (Abrus Island)
- Runes:
- E: Tide Run (Coral Rock)
- E: Osteomancer's Rune (World's Grave)
- E: Rune of Control (Castle Blanchard)
- Fate's Foe
- Silvertongue Rune (Cragcliff Reformatory)
- Devouring Rune (Bulwark Hollow)
- Obran Express Medal (Obran Express)
- Obsidian Arm (Obsidian Brink)
- Fate's Hunter (Great Serpent Tree replacement)
- Grinea's Stasis (Abrus Island)
- False Rune (Dread Manse)
- Scourged Rune (Scourged City)
- Backtrack Rune (Echo Crater)
- Command Rune (Shrouded Hamlet)
- Rune of Uncertain Mathematics (Cogrealm of the Mechanist)
And that's it for RUNEvember! I'll make a wrap-up post probably sometime this week.
(Read the original on cohost here!)