15 minute read

The Madonna Of Sasau

In Warhorse Studio’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance, a DLC was released named A Woman’s Lot. In this DLC, two new quest lines were added. While they are both fantastic in their own right, I was really moved by The Madonna Of Sasau. In it, you are tasked with helping your old friend, Johanka, by doing some quests for her. She works as a nurse at a sick house in one of the game’s towns, Sasau. She is a kind soul, doing all this grunt work just for the goodness of her heart. As you do these quests, which seem oh so boring, Johanka tells you that she had a dream. A dream from the Virgin Mary. Yes, the very famous and well-known mother of Jesus Christ. In her dreams, she describes the Virgin Mary taking her to a cave in Skalitz, the town you and she grew up in, before abandoning it because of a ruthless general who viciously destroyed it. In this cave, she finds Mr. Devil himself! She tries to escape his glaring, fiery eyes, but before she can move, a fire engulfs her, bringing her back into the realm of the living.

It sounds crazy. It sounds maniacal. But, despite that, you try to follow her dreams and go to that same cave in Skalitz. After finding the exact cave, you venture deep below, the only light guiding you is the torch in your hand and the fear of what you might find. Eventually, after delving deeper into the drenched and abandoned cave, you find a bloody mess. A pile of rotten bodies, stacked one on top of the other. The smell is rancid, and the view is horrendous. You exit the cave, trying to search for another clue. Who might do such a horrible act? After climbing the hill to a soldier’s camp, you meet an ordinary fellow, proclaiming that he is a Skalitz soldier. Though he tries to deceive you, you find out the truth. It turns out this fellow has been luring soldiers to this abandoned village to kill them, steal their possessions, and dump their bodies onto that reeking pile. Using your bravery and skill at arms, you manage to defeat the bastard, finally putting the souls of the dead at ease…

You go back to Johanka and tell her everything that transpired. Though she is surprised (and perhaps a bit scared), she decides that this is her fate. Through her, the Virgin Mary will speak, shedding light on the darkness and evil that has engulfed the land. After a bit, Johanka tells you of another dream she had…

Throughout this quest, Johanka’s dreams slowly turn into chores for the good of the people. You help a bath wench (medieval speak for, um, a “lady of the night”) to leave her ways and repent her sins. You help a gambler to stop his evil ways and to give that wasted money to his wife and children. Slowly, Johanka’s reputation in the town of Sasau grows. Some see her as a vessel from God, guided by the Virgin Mary to help the poor and bring the people closer to God. While others see her as a charlatan whose only purpose is to lie and deceive the innocent. Some good folks go to her small and humble abode in the monastery to give her gifts and to pray at her doorstep, believing that she’s a messenger from God. An innocent and pure being, possessed by the holy ghost. Others, however, give a sly look. They spit at her and run their mouths behind her back. Some even plan for her downfall.

Naturally, since this is an RPG, there are multiple endings to this questline. Some are good, while others are bad. And, of course, I thoroughly followed a walkthrough to get the best ending ever, since I was not about to see my girl Johanka get into trouble due to my incompetence. I’m saying this because, throughout my many years of playing RPGs, I’ve never seen a questline that forces the player to use every skill in the game to complete it “correctly”. Speech, stealth, combat, and even your dice-playing skills (which I excelled at since I’m a gambler). You had to be careful with what you said to certain NPCs, or otherwise, you would fail at it. Well, not “fail” at it as much as it would nudge you towards the not-so-good ending. And since I’m a retched soul who easily gets attached to a good story, I had to make all the right decisions. Otherwise, I would not be able to sleep at night.

Either way, throughout this quest, you and Johanka will make a lot of friends and a lot of enemies. One very prevalent enemy is the pope himself. Or rather, an inquisitor. Either way, hearing of this false prophet, the inquisitor decides to hold a trial for her treason. After all, he cannot have some nurse going around town saying that she’s getting visions from the Virgin Mary. What does that say about the church? And this is where the quest can either end badly or well.

Everyone that you met throughout the quest will be a witness in this trial. From the bath wench to the gambler. If you succeeded at befriending everyone, while making as few enemies as possible, they will vouch for Johanka and give her a good word. And, if all goes well, the inquisitor will let Johanka go under the condition that she stops speaking about her “visions” and keeps to being a nurse. This is the good ending. If you are a sleezy, bumbling buffon, though, you could easily have persuaded the witnesses to give Johanka a bad word, sentencing her to burn at the stake. I don’t know what happens in that ending. I never watched that cutscene. And you know what? I don’t want to know. I’m good. I got my good ending. That’s all I care about.

At the end, you see Johanka free, running back to her lover, who has been sick all this time (sorry, I forgot to talk about him). They embrace as the camera zooms out, ending the story with the sun shining on top of the Sasau monastery with all the hope and joy, glistening so brightly along the rooftops…

I have such a hate/love relationship with this game. In some sense, I love this game to my very core. Not just because it’s fun or engaging, but it’s also because of the story it tells. Rarely do I ever get emotional while playing a game (that’s because I’m a manly man, of course), but this game was exceptional. This quest specifically reached out of my TV, grabbed my heart, and squeezed it. I’ve played this quest more than a year ago now, and I still remember it. Not just the scenes and the dialogue, but the emotions I felt while I was playing it. From a game design standpoint, this DLC encapsulated the game perfectly. Everything that the game had to offer was shown here in its fullest extent. The soundtrack, the storytelling, the combat, and the intricacies of the skills Henry (the main character) can use. I sometimes wish that the whole game was just this DLC. Or, at the very least, the whole game was just constructed around this town, telling these small stories, where characters like Johanka and the gambler can shine.

But, despite that minor complaint, this game made me realize how much I adore RPGs, and how long they have amazed me…

A Thousand And One RPGs

Like many other gamers, I played RPGs ever since I was a wee lad. Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Gothic, Diablo, or Baldur’s Gate. I played the old and the new. Those in the distant future, those in the fantastical past, and everything in between. Some games I loved, and others I disliked. But, at the end of the day, through all these years, the RPG genre has been, consistently for many years, my favorite genre of games. Now that’s not to say I haven’t played any other genre besides RPGs. That would be a death sentence. I’ve played plenty of other genres. I still do. However, there is nothing that gives me the joy and the elation that RPGs give me.

I absolutely love city builders. I’m a programmer by trade, and city builders scratch a specific itch for me. Seeing those numbers fluctuate and then stabilize makes me go wild. Planning out an efficient city with a happy population, and a prosperous economy is an mazing feeling. Still, I cannot see myself playing city builders for the rest of my life without ever touching an RPG.

RPGs are unique in a lot of ways. One could make an argument that every genre is unique. But, for the sake of this argument, let’s just talk about RPGs.

The main purpose of an RPG is to immerse the player in its world. It is a role-playing game, after all. You have to make the player believe in the world, in the lore, in the people, and in the systems. You have to make the player feel like they are the chosen one. Make them feel like they are in a gloomy world with no hope for survival. Without them, the world would fall into disarray. Because of that, every mechanic introduced in the game has to serve that purpose specifically. The combat has to make sense relative to the setting and the fantasy. The quests have to feel believable. A fetch quest every now and then is fine, but an RPG where every quest is just a fetch quest would not be very fun (or maybe it would?). Besides that, the enemies have to match the lore, the items have to match the setting, and the dialogue has to match the overall feel of the world. Let one thing slip, and the player will lose the sense of immersion, sending your game down a path it may never come back from.

This sense of unbreakable immersion is precisely the reason many people lose themselves in RPGs, spending hours exploring caves and taverns. But that doesn’t mean that RPGs cannot tackle “real” problems due to their “unrealistic” setting. Rather, it is because of that unrealistic setting, RPGs can explore deeper ideas without taking the player out of the immersion.

Wars, mental health, power hunger, incompetent leadership, and more can all be addressed directly or indirectly in various ways through fantastical lenses. A dragon can serve as an image of a nuclear bomb (hello, GRRM). A tyrannical leader who gained immense power by using people’s fears and anger, ushering in a new age of war and chaos. A never-ending war that ravages an entire region, headed by yet another tyrannical leader. The ever-growing threat of doom and the end of the world. All of these topics were discussed in RPGs. And yes, they also topics we daily discuss in our real lives.

Besides the story, RPGs can use their countless mechanics to enhance the feeling of immersion. For example, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (or just Arcanum, since my fingers will suffer), uses a very creative setting. In Arcanum, both magic and science exist in tandem, each constantly fighting the other. Religion and science. The old way and the new. There are so many themes that can be (and have been) discussed solely out of this simple, yet effective, story. In Deus Ex, the designers asked a very intriguing question: What if every conspiracy theory was real? Biological weapons manufactured by the military to control the population? Real. A secret Illuminati organization hell-bent on controlling the world with their evil ways? Totally real. Super-enhanced soldiers used by the military to conduct secret operations? Yeah, man, that’s just a thing. What is real and what is not in a world like that? How can one live, knowing that everything is an illusion? How may one control their desires and psyche, when, with the press of a button, the government can access everything about you and destroy you? And, most importantly, how can one fight against the evil doings of these hungry empires? That’s Deus Ex for ya.

RPGs can act out a play with a thin veil around their fantasy, telling a story that, though in a completely different world, accurately embodies our fears, desires, hopes, and hypocrisies. But this is not exclusive to RPGs. This has been true in the Fantasy and Sci-Fi genre for many decades. In RPGs, though, that story could be told with an immersive element.

Having said that, even though RPGs benefit from their size, they can also suffer from it. Sadly, there are plenty of RPGs that try to make a big world, with hundreds of NPCs, and plenty of quests, but fail at adding depth to their world. The lore feels redundant and cliché. Characters are often one-dimensional, while looking and acting the same. Weapons and items in the game are just like they have been copied and pasted from another RPG. But can you blame them?

It’s not a secret that RPGs are super hard to make. As I said, there are plenty of systems that have to be developed in order for the world to be immersive. And the world has to be immersive. Besides immersion, however, the developers have to give the player plenty of agency. That means different classes, which just leads to wildly different playstyles. With every class, developers have to playtest all the possible quests, making sure that they can be completed. In addition, developers also have to ensure that the different playstyles don’t break any level barriers or any mechanics. These different classes indeed allow for such a distinct playthrough. However, that also means there is more work for the developers to ensure everything runs smoothly without anything game-breaking. And that’s why most RPGs you play will have very prevalent bugs. Although that can be tossed to a veriaty of reasons. Yet, because of its scale, RPGs often need more time in the oven. Despite the magical sense that every RPG carries, these games are not created by flinging a magic ball at it and saying a weird Latin word. They take time and effert. A lot of time and a lot of effort.

And now, for a little bit of drama…

A Personal Tale

I always loved stories.

Losing myself in a world filled with colorful characters and beautiful scenery seemed like magic to me. Listening to the lore as some dude with barely any pixels explain it to me in a long rectangular box always felt like uncovering the pharaoh’s tomb. Fighting demons in caves and finding items that have a slightly higher number than the one that I have filled me with an immense sense of joy. I still remember the first time I played Oblivion. It was a terrible time in my life, filled with horrible memories that I’d rather not recount. But, despite that dark spot in my life, I still look back at it with fondness, specifically because of Oblivion.

When I got Oblivion, it was bundled with all its DLCs. But, as a 15-year-old lad, I was oblivious to that (huh? Right? Fuck you, that was funny). Nonetheless, shortly after exiting the deep dungeons, I played for a tiny bit before encountering a weird sound. I went to explore the origin of this strange sound, and discovered that it was a portal that took me to a weird island. I later discovered that I just entered the realm of Sheogorath. It was part of the Shivering Isles DLC. Of course, out of all the quests of Oblivion, the realm of Sheogorath is not the most memorable one. I’m not even sure people knew Oblivion had a DLC. Obviously, the Brotherhood questline or even the main questline affected me. But the realm of Sheogorath was my first encounter with any long quest in Oblivion. I was lost and did not understand anything. Yet, I was having so much fun.

I was lost in Oblivion’s terrible bloom filter, and not in the real world. To me, the province of Cyrodill was all I cared about. The gates of Oblivion that opened, and the terrible demons that terrorized the innocent people of Cyrodill, were my major concern. Of course, I still had a body that lived in the realm of the humans. I still had to live through the shit and endure. Oblivion was not a drug that I had to take. No. Oblivion and its world were a nice break from the real world. It did not make the problems go away. But it sure helped me survive.

But it’s not just Oblivion. Dark Souls, too, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Fallout and Baldur’s Gate. Gothic and Deus Ex. To me, they are devices of immersion that helped me endure the worst of times. Through their stories and worlds, they helped me realize how I can express myself and create my own worlds. In the depths of their characters and the beauty of their worlds, they taught me how one can convey emotion through just a few pixels on the screen. Their fun and immersive mechanics planted the idea in my head to be a game developer.

I do not really have a single moment that made me decide that I would like to be a game developer. Rather, it was a gradual realization that took years to form. That realization was embedded in the emotions I felt when I played any RPG. That sense of immersion. That feeling of blissful happiness. That sharp focus kept me glued to their worlds and characters. It is this feeling that I wish to emulate. It is not just one story, one mechanic, or one game. It’s an emotion. A feeling. It is a dream. A dream that I one day can use the word Oblivion to tell a good joke…

So, to all the RPG developers who populated my childhood, I say thank you. Truly, thank you. You may not know it, and you may not care, but you saved a soul with your amazing lore.

Thanks for reading, and have a good day/night.

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