Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 23: Gold Box - Death Knights of Krynn (MS-DOS) - Part 3

This week on Super Adventures, I'm just going to write a little more about Death Knights of Krynn.

I don't usually drag these things out to three parts, because I usually spend the time to properly edit them down! But this is a fairly interesting game so I don't feel too bad about making an exception. I won't be finishing it though, I haven't turned into the CRPG Addict. Yet.


Here have some links to help you get around:

• Death Knights of Krynn - Part One
• Death Knights of Krynn - Part Two
• List of the Dungeons & Dragons games I've played

Going to three parts means that I get to show off the C64 title screen as well. It's nothing that amazing, but I can appreciate how the C64 versions of the Gold Box RPGs all share the same theme and look like they're part of a set. That is not the case for any of the other versions. Not that there are many other versions left at this point, as the game only came out for PC, C64, Amiga and PC-98. I was thinking of showing off the Amiga title screen, but it's just the PC version with slightly better colours.

Once again I should mention that there will be SPOILERS here, for both this and Champions of Krynn.

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Previously, in Death Knights of Krynn:

With the forces of the undead threatening the land, the Solamnic Knights have entrusted the Champions of Krynn with a mission. They were sent to find the Dream Merchant so he can show them a prophetic dream recorded onto a Sleepstone.

Though what ended up happening was that the Dream Merchant got kidnapped and the Champions got arrested. He eventually got away on his own, but he took the Sleepstone with him, so now we're looking for his shop in Vingaard to see if he's there. We also need to watch out for the evil cleric Sebas Astmoor, servant of Lord Soth, as he's probably lurking around somewhere.

And now, the continuation:

We arrived in Vingaard and a woman came over with some info about Crook Street. It's a crooked street filled with crooked people and even the knights have learned to stay clear of the place. It's also where the Dream Merchant's shop is, so I'm going to have to go down there.

Right now though I'm just strolling around and checking out the shops, hoping to eventually find something worth buying. So far I've bought a candle, some bread and a pair of shoes. None of it appeared in my inventory afterwards.

I'm also selling the loot I've picked up from the last few battles, even though the last thing I need is 2500 more coin weighing me down. Wait, that sword just sold for how much?

Damn, I'm glad I reloaded a save and got it identified, as it turns out I was carrying a +4 long sword somehow!

Sorry Celes, you can't keep this, this has to go to a frontline fighter. The damage increase from 8-15 to 11-18 is nice to have, but it also decreases THAC0 from 8 to 5, meaning that it's more likely to connect with an enemy and inflict that damage. Oh, the game doesn't tell you any of this information by the way, you have to unequip your weapon, check your stats, then check them again with it equipped.

I went back to exploring Vingaard and Crook Street really is a proper maze of interconnected buildings, many of them offering the same services. Sometimes you spend ages looking for a training hall and then three come along at once. I've also had a few scripted fights here.

Damn, they took Rinoa down fast. I'll need to get someone to bandage her. Not Barret, I need him to carry on hitting people, I'll wait until it's Faris' turn.

Hang on, Rinoa's not 'dying' or 'unconscious' she's 'dead'. That enemy cleric must have hit her with an instant death spell! I don't like reviving dead characters because I've read that it costs them a point of constitution, but I don't have a choice here. 

What I mean is, she was an elf, and elves can't be revived, at all. Either I load my last save, or that character is permanently lost. I don't think I like this death spell.

I always load my save when someone falls, because I like my characters and I want the best for them, but now I'm curious... what would happen if I didn't? I haven't been playing all that long, I haven't gotten much XP, I'm going to try rolling with the punches this time and roll myself a replacement hero. Welcome to the team Quistis, you haven't missed much.

NIGHTMARE ON CROOK STREET

I've finally found the Dream Merchant again and he looks pretty relaxed right now, mixing his 'tiny dancing girl' potions. He's not though, as being kidnapped in Kalaman has left him with nightmares, and he wants us to go inside his dreams and defeat the monsters. We've got nightmares of our own, so he says he'll help us with our problem if we help him with his. Sounds fair.

But I could probably just get on with the main plot instead, now that he's gotten us the clue from the Sleepstone. I have to start at the candle and follow the red doors, apparently. Well, I visited a candle shop, and I've been seeing a lot of red doors around. I think I've got this figured out.

Oh fine, I'll stick around and help him with his nightmares first. It's a job I can literally do in my sleep.

SEVERAL BATTLES LATER

Hey it's my buddy Dread Wolf again.

I've been fighting a gruelling gauntlet of battles against the giant dogs that haunt the Dream Merchant's dreams and right now I'm starting to doubt that this is something I can win. Poor Lulu's on her last hit point. Maybe Dread Wolf is using reverse psychology to trick me into staying here when the only way out is to wake up.

Nah it was just a regular series of fights and I was able to make it through without losing anyone. Which is good, because Quistis needs the XP to catch up with the others.

FOLLOW THE RED DOORS

Following the red doors was straightforward enough. It's lucky that I've been marking locations on my map as I find them, so I knew exactly where the candle shop was.

I was interrupted with battles a couple of times when I wandered into a bar and chose to talk too loudly or too quietly, but they spoiled the flow of the GIF so I edited them out. (I won, by the way.)

Eventually I found who was hiding at the end of all the doors...

It's the evil cleric Sabas Astmoor! He's had an alignment change though, as the absolute power he was sent to get has inadvertently uncorrupted him, giving him a conscience.
 
I tried to convince him to trust me, and he asked if someone on my team would be willing to die to defeat Lord Soth. I feel like the correct choice in these games is usually 'yes', and if anyone's going to sacrifice themselves it's going to be my Solamnic Knight, so I picked him. Sabas was satisfied with that answer and gave me the next destination.

This means I get to leave Vingaard and go have some more random adventures on the overworld instead!

RANDOM ADVENTURES ON THE OVERWORLD

Sabas didn't mention anything about Throtl, but I saw it on the map and felt like visiting.

This was the first dungeon I visited in Champions of Krynn and it's actually looking kind of similar here. In fact it's looking extremely similar.

Champions of Krynn (MS-DOS)

Look, I'm back in the hallway from the first game! I love it when things that should stay the same do stay the same.

Those circles at the top of the interface are more obviously moons in the sequel, but there hasn't been a huge graphical upgrade otherwise. The hallway has a ceiling now, so there's that.

I was going to explore Throtl a bit, see how similar the layout of the map was, but every time I try to sleep to recover health and spells I get interrupted by a dozen skeletons and I'm just not in the mood for that right now.

Is there anywhere else interesting nearby?

TUREF

Next I found a dwarf village called Turef, and it seems like I arrived in the nick of time as the villagers are currently trying to murder someone.

Now I have to decide what to do about it. I could stand and watch as they attack a stranger who arrived saying "I come in peace", or I could rush in to help him. What would a lawful good Solamnic Knight do?

Well the dude came all this way riding a wild boar and I respect that, so I'm going to intervene. Even if it does risk making enemies of the entire town.

It turns out that the villagers have a dragon sleeping in their barn, so that's unusual. On the plus side, there's something going on here! Turef's not just an empty set waiting to become relevant in some later chapter of the story, there's an actual side quest I can do here right now.

Right now I have to decide what prize I want to claim. Someone left some loot propped up against the sleeping dragon and I have just enough time to grab one of them. And while I'm doing that, one of my other six party members grabs the other one, right? No? Fine.

The shield sounds nice, I could do with improving my armour class, but the bag could contain anything. There could be a Dragonlance in there, or powder that makes you invisible, or one of six components that can be assembled into a magical suit of armour. I'll take the bag!

SOON, AFTER SLOGGING THROUGH THE VILLAGE OF THE CRAZED DWARVES

Man, I really hate the spell 'slay living'. I didn't get around to smacking this enemy cleric fast enough and now Barret is just dead. Plus Celes got level drained by a vampire or whatever at some point and I didn't notice.

Oh and I bet that bag I picked up from the dragon has gems in it, which are just more worthless money, weighing me down. I should've taken the awesome shield instead. I'm getting really tempted to reload a save from before I even came to this forsaken hellhole.

In fact, you know what? My misery all started when I lost Rinoa and replaced her with Quistis. Screw this doomed timeline, I'm going load a save I made way back, before Rinoa got hit with slay living, and I'm going to rewrite history.

SOON, IN A BRIGHTER TIMELINE

Well, I am happier now that Rinoa's back, though I'm still at risk of being bored to death

I decided to check out the gnome town of Quazle, and was immediately dragged into the Hall of Innovation to see their awesome inventions. Well, to read what they are at least, I can't actually see anything but walls and a floor. After each item I had a choice to flee, but I decided to continue the tour despite the danger to my team because I was curious if it was leading somewhere. Nope, the joke just keeps looping until you escape the museum.

The whole village has this kind of humour in it, plus murderous undead beasts. I can help them with the second problem at least.

I checked every door and finally learned the town's backstory. 

Turns out that the crisis started when one of the gnomes basically invented a camera. The other gnomes freaked out over being made redundant by technology and caused him to fear leaving his home. An evil wizard saw this as an opportunity, secretly murdered him, and then used his house to do evil experiments without anyone wondering why the dude never came out any more. It's an incredibly dumb and terrible idea, so I guess he fits right in with this place.

Anyway, that was an entirely optional side mission! So you can do a Skyrim and go explore in this game after all, I just had bad luck with my first few destinations.

GARGATH OUTPOST

I hiked back around the mountains and returned to my home base of Gargath Outpost to get my loot from Quazle identified. I could do that in any shop, but Gargath is apparently the only place in the world which has a bank to let me dump my money as well. I've got 21,747 coins saved up right now and I've no idea what I'll do if I ever find anything that costs that much, because there's no way I'll be dragging all that metal around.

This isn't where I need to be for the main quest so I assumed I could visit the shop and then leave without incident, but I spotted a rope dangling down and then stumbled across a dead dwarf with stab wounds. I figured this was worth investigating, so I went upstairs and found a spy about to murder Ayn Rampike!

I've no idea if you can keep returning to base between quests to get bonus events like this, or if the main quest eventually takes you back here to see it, but it was nice to get some unexpected story.

FUN HOUSE

I checked a guide to see if there are any optional locations I should visit, and it turns out that there's a Fun House hidden down at the bottom of the mountains. Here I must answer... a riddle.

What runs but never walks. Sings, but never talks.

Uh... a tap! A nose? I want to say "water", but I don't think water sings. It'd be easier if it was multiple choice, but I have to type the answer in.

Turns out the answer actually was water! Unfortunately that's not what I typed in, so it put me into a fight as punishment. Honestly this Fun House doesn't seem very safe for kids. In fact I messed up the second riddle as well and got another fight right afterwards. Fortunately the reward was pretty good: I got a girdle of giant strength that's turned Celes into an absolute monster.

SHIPWRECK

Next I visited a wrecked ship haunted by the tormented spectres of its former crew. Actually by the look of this guy's portrait he seems to really love being a ghost. Almost as much as he loves killing people who drop by to take his treasure.

Unfortunately ghosts are a bit of a problem for my team, as we're the Draconian-slaying Champions of Krynn, not the Ghostbusters. This isn't really our area of expertise!

Nah, I'm just bullshitting you. I've got three multiclass clerics and a holy knight on my team, ghosts are nothing to me. 'Turn undead' scared them all off in one turn and even blew up their zombie rats. If I'd brought pure clerics they might have been a high enough level by now to make the ghosts explode too!

The moral of the story is: if there are skeletons on an RPG's box art, bring a cleric.

Though I'm still having problems fighting the skeleton knights themselves. That's partly why I'm out here looking for optional side quests to do instead of getting on with the plot. Turns out a lot of them have a mace +4 at the end, which is exactly what I need to crush cursed bones.

KUO-TOA SLAVE SHIP

I read about a Kuo-Toa slave ship and went looking for it, but I wasn't expecting it to be a random encounter on the overworld that traps you in a quest you need to beat in order to continue with the rest of the game. Save often, make multiple saves! 

The first part of the quest is an undercover stealth mission, where you need to make your way through the ship disguised as one of the slaves and avoid combat. This means you have to keep saying 'no' whenever it asks if you want to fight someone... and that's pretty much it. That's as stealthy as you need to be.

Though when I saw someone about to be sacrificed on a starfish I decided to drop the act and leap into action... and my main hero got poisoned and instantly killed. It's going to be a tough fight this one, which is a bit awkward, seeing as I'm trapped here and can't run away to level up.

Fortunately next time I knew where the encounter was so I was able to get everyone buffed in advance. Plenty of 'protection against evil', 'enlarge', 'bless', 'prayer', and so on. I went in there and I unleashed my offensive magic until the Kuo-Toans were smoked salmon.

Unfortunately I've got a lot more battles to win before I get out of here and it turns out there's some archaic 1st Edition AD&D rule that says you can't sleep in a room after you've set it on fire and the entire ship is burning down around you. There's no way out of here but through, so I'll have to make do with the health and spells I have left.

I stuck with it, killed the fish monsters, freed the slaves, and got another magic mace for my trouble. I'm just going to pop back to Gargath to get it identified and drop off my money.

GARGATH OUTPOST AGAIN

Oh damn, what the hell? I arrived back at base to find it under siege by Draconians! There's never a dull moment in this place. I had to keep fighting battles until they were able to open the gates and let us in.

I'd go somewhere else to drop off my coins, somewhere that isn't up in the mountains on the far side of the map, but I haven't found another bank. So it's either this, or I start throwing my excess money away.

At least I'm safe inside.

Nope, two dragons swooped down inside the fort to attack us!

They're the blue ones, the kind that shoots lightning magic and kills everyone in a row in one hit. Okay sometimes it takes two hits if a character's got a lot of health, but lightning bounces off walls, so they often do get hit twice. One time everyone got wiped out before I'd even had a chance to move people out of the way.

It took me a few tries, but I finally figured out a solution. Lulu has a spell called 'mirror image', which makes duplicates that can be hit instead of her. So I used her to keep the dragons distracted while the others kept on hitting them. Tactics!

Man, I really need to find myself a bloody dragonlance already. In fact, I've spent enough time doing sidequests so I'm heading to the High Clerist's Tower to get on with the plot.

Oh, this is new! I've stumbled across a merchant caravan carrying rare and interesting items. This is exactly the kind of thing I've been saving up my cash for. I've got over 40,000 coins back at base, enough for anything I want.

Unfortunately it's all back at base, so I can't actually spend any of it. As soon as I leave the shop it's gone, the merchant's not going to wait here for me to make another trip across the mountains and back. These Gold Box games take all the fun out of accumulating wealth.

Alright, onwards to the tower. It's just down the road so I'm basically already there.

THE HIGH CLERIST'S TOWER

The knights at the High Clerist's Tower were pretty sure no one had breached their walls, but they let me in to check anyway and it turned out there were bad guys in their crypts stealing all their skeletons!

Fortunately I'm in a Solamnic Knight stronghold, so they're all rushing to my aid in every fight. Plus a Solamnic NPC has joined the team! Sir Durfey is a level 12 Knight of the Rose with 2,699,680 XP. That's roughly 2.5 times more experience than my Knight of the Crown has, so he's got me feeling a little underlevelled now.

Durfey's not going to let me take his gear and get it identified, but I'm sure he's equipped with something I'd want to borrow for my own characters if I could. He can also cast cleric spells, which my own knight could do as well if I switched him to a higher order. The trade off is that the other orders level up more slowly, so I've been hesitant to give him the promotion. I don't know what I'm doing really.

There was a bit of story here and then I finally got to meet the main villain of the game himself, Lord Soth! In fact he came straight over and decided he was going to take on my whole team single-handedly! Man, I wish I had that confidence.

Well, maybe it would be better to have a little less confidence, as it didn't really work out for poor Soth. I wiped the floor with him in four turns before he even got a chance to move.

This led to one of the best "I'm not owned!" speeches I've come across in a while, as he just picks himself up and says that my victory was a demonstration of the futility of resistance!

I suppose he has a point. We beat the absolute shit out of him and he's still running off with the Solamnic bones to make more death knights. There's something kind of unnerving about a guy who waits for his enemies to die so he can enslave their corpses.

After successfully failing at the High Clerist's Tower I returned to Vingaard for my next mission. (Seems like the game wants me to go through the whole chain of red doors every time!) Sabas told me that I'm not worthy yet, but he has a new destination for me, in the mountains to the north west.

DRAGON PIT

Hey it's Maya the dragon elf woman! I haven't seen her since the beginning of the game, when she flew off to chase her expired lover, Sir Karl. Does this mean we're going to team up and I'm going to have a dragon in the party?

Nope, chasing Sir Karl is something she has to do alone, apparently. So I guess I'll just explore this undead dragon lair without the best backup I could've had.

Whoa, I've found an altar! This is the closest I'll ever come to seeing an actual bit of furniture in this world, even if it's just a different bit of wall really.

Plus there's also glittering treasure, so that's cool too. I'm hoping it's a mace +4 but I'll settle for some better armour. Or a necklace with a special effect, like immunity to poison.

Oh it's worthless money. Great. I'll just throw it on the floor somewhere. Hang on, there's a shield and some armour here as well, plus some scrolls. This could be a really good haul actually. I'll get it identified someday and find out.

Oh look who else just showed up here. It's my old buddy Dread Wolf, the guy who's been showing up to harass me for the whole game, and it appears that he intends to brawl with us this time.

That works for me, this is the kind of climatic confrontation I've been hoping for!

Someone wiped the smug grin off this guy's face years ago, along with the rest of the skin, and the flesh he has left is kind of rotten. I guess the heroes are well aware of how a dog with no nose smells. He's clearly got a lot of nerve though, enough to feel what we're about to do to him.

Oh, I was expecting more of a fight! Especially when I saw the rows of wights and skeleton warriors standing in front of him.

I still don't really know what Dread Wolf's deal was, but I do know he won't be laughing about this later. It'll take some powerfully dark magics to come back from that.

And then I got humbled right afterwards by a fight against a death dragon. 

Damn, it just breathes on you, deals 120 damage, and you die. What are you supposed to do about that? 

Oh, I could try choosing a character with more than 120 health to be their target, that might help. Barret has 129 HP, that's just enough. I could keep healing them as well, but with the game's pathetic healing spells what would be the point? Better to keep hitting the bad guy with every turn I have and then heal the survivors later.

And my reward for finishing the death dragon off was... 100 jewels! More money, yay. I suppose gems are easier to carry than coins though, so I'll be ready the next time I find something worth buying. I never saw that travelling merchant again by the way.

This isn't all I came away from the dungeon with however...

I got a level up for Lulu! Now she can finally use 'delay blast fireball', which isn't actually delayed at all. It's really good, I've been told..

Also, I finally got a DRAGONLANCE! It's taken me all this time but at last I have a dragonlance in a Dragonlance game. Okay you start off holding one in DragonStrike, but that's a flight sim, it doesn't count.

I didn't understand what the weapon did at first though. I mean I noticed it does a ton of extra damage, but I gave it to Celes, my cleric/fighter/mage, when I should've given it to Barret, my dwarven fighter. That's because when you're fighting dragons a dragonlance will deal the wielder's HP as damage, so he could be taking off 129 HP every turn.

Man, I was ready to turn this game off here, but now I've got this new toy to play with and I want to go find a dragon to try it on.

And then Celes got eaten by a crocodile on the way back to Vingaard. Not dying, outright dead.

Okay screw it, I'm done with the game.



CONCLUSION

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Death Knights of Krynn is the sixth RPG to use the Gold Box engine, so I suppose an obvious question would be 'How does it compare to the other five?'

Well I'd struggle to pick it out of a line up, that much is sure. Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday was the first Gold Box title to show off VGA graphics, but this wasn't the second. The EGA graphics are barely improved over Pool of Radiance and it still has players looking at identical unfurnished rooms through the tiniest of windows. Though the art's more than good enough to get the job done. The PC-98 version is more advanced than the DOS game, with its 640x400 resolution visuals, but I'm leaning towards the Amiga game being the prettiest port. That's probably the last time I'll be able to say that about a D&D game, end of an era.

Though when it comes to music, the PC-98 game's soundtrack is objectively the best, because it's the only version that has one, and it's also pretty decent. Imagine what a metal album with the title "Death Knights of Krynn" would sound like. Well, it's not that good, but I reckon it's the best music I've heard in any port of any of the D&D games so far.

Like with Champions of Krynn, the Dragonlance setting helps make it feel a little different to the Forgotten Realms games even though the gameplay is identical. It's just a shame that even though you can play as a kender or a Quanlinesti elf etc., they never really appear as part of the game's setting and you learn nothing about their cultures. Though there is a gnome town, plus you do meet that dwarf who was riding a boar, he was pretty great.

The game sets up your problem right from the start. Not just the premise of the story, but also the skeleton knights you have to fight. They're apparently immune to magic and they're resistant to swords, which is a shame as they're my two favourite weapons! Playing Buck Rogers has given me an appreciation for just how crucial spells are to making the turn-based combat fun to play.

I also had a problem with all the enemies that use instant death attacks and poison to remove a character in one move; they should knock it off. The level-draining vampires too. They're not everywhere, but when you're just trying to cross the overworld to drop off your money and get something identified characters dropping dead is hassle you don't need. In fact money is also a hassle you don't need, as they've done nothing to fix it... even though Buck Rogers did.

Another thing I noticed is that when I switched to bows I was doing barely any damage against anything... which is good as it solves the issue of the weapon switching process continuing to be a tedious pain in the ass. Bring clerics with maces, that's what you need in a game about fighting the undead. In fact bring multiclass clerics, as Dragonlance is a lot more supportive of multi-talented demihumans than the Forgotten Realms games, even as they get to the higher levels. Not that you need to worry about higher levels just yet, as the game's in a mid-level range where you've got plenty of spells to play with and the combat is still fun.

I still haven't played enough to be able to say anything about the story overall. I know that other people have said it's a bit rubbish, but it's been good enough so far to fool me into thinking it's going somewhere interesting. Plus you don't just chat to an NPC, then go off, kill a bunch of monsters in a maze, and come back; there are story events that play out while you're making your way through the dungeons. It's a lot like Champions of Krynn in that way, with the big difference being that when you ignore the plot and go exploring, there are actually sidequests to find. In fact I've read that at least half the content in this game is optional, which is a big positive in an open world game! 

The other big difference is some small quality of life improvements, like automatically re-memorising spells on rest, and not having to fight any of the most annoying Draconians (the ones with gimmicks like your sword getting stuck in them when they die). Oh and Sir Karl's dead, so that's different too. That part of the story probably would've worked better for me if I'd finished the first game, as this is definitely a sequel.

Overall, I'd give this is the edge over its predecessor though, because its non-linearity and variety makes up for having a weaker start. In fact I'd rank it above most of the earlier Gold Box games. It's just a shame that it's not really reaching its full potential. I mean it may have the best turn-based combat that RPGs had to offer back in 1991, but for the most part it's still stuck in 1988.

I'm still going to give it a star though, as I could see myself playing more of this.

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That's seven Dragonlance games down, two left to go. Then I'm all out of Dragonlance games, forever. They never made any more of them.

Anyway, do you have any thoughts about Death Knights of Krynn? Do you have any guesses for what I'm writing about next? Have you spotted any mistakes? Type your words into the box below!