Avadon: The Black Fortress is the latest release from veteran independent RPG developer Spiderweb Software. After years of releasing titles in the familiar settings of Exile/Avernum and Geneforge, Jeff Vogel is launching a brand new IP and a whole new setting with Avadon. Following the Macintosh launch on March 1st, the game is currently running in beta for a late April PC release – which is the version that afforded me the opportunity to pen this preview.
More than anything, Avadon will feel instantly familiar to Spiderweb fans. It brings some welcome graphical additions to Spiderweb’s catalogue, while also recycling and updating a lot of graphical assets from older Spiderweb titles, and all of these are presented in the traditional top-down 2D perspective. Combat is a pure turn-based affair, with the player’s party and individual enemies taking turns to attack or use abilities. All of it from the pacing of exploration and combat to the interface will feel instantly familiar for anyone who has played pretty much any Spiderweb title, particularly an Avernum title. For that reason, I want to talk about just two things that are noticeably new: the setting and the character system.
Setting
The setting of Avadon centers around the Pact, an alliance of five nations (the Wyldrylm, Holklanda, Dharam, Kellemderiel and the Kva). Avadon is the name of a large fortress that sits high in the mountains on the shared border of the Kva, the Wyldrylm and Holklanda. Under the guidance of the unfortunately named Redbeard, it is one of the more important spots of the Pact, policing each of the five nations. To do so, Redbeard sends out his agents (called Hands) to ensure everyone lives up to agreed-upon rules (such as safe main roads), and to resolve conflicts between nations or problems the nations have with the independent and sometimes wild areas bordering the Pact, from the ancient Tawon Empire to the Titan Peaks.
On the surface, Avadon’s setting is fairly standard high fantasy fare. Whereas Avernum was unique in being set in an underground prison colony, and Geneforge unique in the importance of the geneforge technology, Avadon doesn’t have something as obviously setting it apart. It offers fairly typical fare, with late medieval style nations fighting off goblin-like wretches, giant titans, robbers or hostile nations. The wilder parts of world have forests or desertscapes inhabited by giant spiders, wolves, hellhounds, and the like. Even demons and dragons make appearances, though the latter tend towards the neutral, or are at least wise enough not to make enemies out of the Pact.
It’s in the Pact that the setting’s potential is most obvious: the Pact is not simply a flawless, good-guy alliance. The five nations have long histories of conflict or open warfare with one another, while the Pact itself is considered a necessary evil by many, maintaining a tenacious peace by holding everyone to the same rules. But inside and outside of the Pact there are people that consider its rules arbitrary, who think that the Hands of Avadon are given too much freedom and are thus open to corruption.
Jeff Vogel shows a deft hand at storytelling by not rubbing any of this in your face. Instead, you start the story as a young Hand, rushed into action due to (initially scarcely detailed) events putting pressure on Avadon’s position. The game’s events send you to four different regions in the game world: Avadon, Dhorl Stead in the non-Pact area of Khemeria; the border of the Kva and the wretch lands; and Castle Vebeaux and the contested Beraza woods between Holklanda and Kellemdriel.
The areas as well as the followers you pick up are carefully picked to highlight specific weaknesses of the Pact. By sending you to the southern Kva first, the player gets a sense of the power of Avadon’s authority, and the importance of its reputation and aura of invulnerability. The non-Pact area shows that open defiance to fortress does exist. And finally, the Bereza woods is a contested area that is claimed by both Holklanda and Dharam, and shows the fragility of the peace enforced by the Pact.
The game’s story slowly unveils a conflict brewing, and as the player resolves many smaller conflicts he or she uncovers more of the bigger picture. It soon becomes clear the player has a choice to make between two sides, though he has some room in deciding how to handle the situation. Neither side is clearly the “good” choice, each choice has its advantages or disadvantages depending on how you feel about the things you’ve learned during your travels, and your beliefs about the advantages and disadvantages of a strong centralized authority like Avadon. It is reminiscent of Dorikas’ story in Avernum 5, but more well-crafted in the details and the plot’s pacing.
Character System
The character system is considerably different from anything Spiderweb Software has done before. Whereas Geneforge was a solo title and the Avernums saw the player create four characters for a party, Avadon emulates the BioWare tradition of having the player create a single character who then recruits several followers.
The game offers only four classes, and character creation consists of you picking one such class: male blademaster (warrior type), male shadowwalker (rogue type), female shaman (healer and summoner), or female sorceress. Early on in the game, you are presented with four followers, each of which matches one of the four options at character creation, which means that your character is always a duplicate of one of the early available followers.
Two things are customizable as far as the protagonist and his or her followers go: the attributes (strength, dexterity, intelligence, and endurance) and thirteen class-specific skills, the majority of which are combat skills. You start out at level one with all of your attributes at set values, and can add one point to an attribute of your choice per level-up. Likewise, you start out knowing only the most basic skills at level one, and get two skill points that can be allocated with each level-up. Increasing a skill costs only one point, while unlocking a previously unknown skill costs two points.
The basic skills don’t have any attribute requirements, but if you wish to increase or learn more advanced skills, then you will have to increase the lower skills to appropriate levels as well. For instance, if a blademaster wants to increase his archery training, then both melee training and path of the shield need to be at at least at the same level that he wants to increase his archery training to.
There are three branches for each class: battle, power, and utility. “Battle” tends to be direct damage and combat skills, “power” features a range of passive supporting skills, and “utility” sports a variety of boosts and curses. Each class has two “top” skills, which always root into the power branch, as well as either the battle or utility branch. For example, the Shaman has an earthquake skill rooting into battle and power, and a higher-level summoning skill rooting into power and utility. Specializations unlock at levels 7, 15, and 25, but rather than unlocking new skills, each one gives passive +1 bonuses to one of the three branches.
The advantages to this system are obvious. It allows for easier balance, something the Avernum games sometimes lacked as certain builds or skills were excessively powerful or useless. Furthermore, this system lets the player jump right into the adventure, and leveling up is an immediate and satisfying affair, as with each early level up you can opt to unlock a new skill, and many later levels-ups unlock bonus abilities that become available when a skill reaches a value of 3, and again at 6.
The system doesn’t come without a disadvantage, though, in that it feels a bit constrictive. The options for customization certainly exist, but because of the way the branches work, you end up either specializing in two branches or generalizing in all three (the power branch is a necessity no matter what), which opens up roughly three valid builds per class. And because the follower builds are identical to the main character’s build, with no added skills or restrictions, you get to freely explore all of the builds in one play-through. What’s more, if you feel like switching things around, the game grants you the ability to respec fairly early on in the game.
While I feel that this system is a bit of a step down from his previous titles, some ground is made up by the inventory system. There’s a fairly rich variety of weapons, though a lot of them have class requirements – only shamans can use javelins and only blademasters or sorceresses can use bows. That said, individual items can be upgraded using runestones. Additionally, each character can carry a number of scarabs on his/her skin, the amount of which is limited by the character’s level – a new scarab slot becomes available every seven levels. The scarabs can give the character unique boosts or various abilities that may not be available to them normally, and they help to increase character customization.
So…
The character and party system are pretty different from anything Spiderweb has done before, and it’s pretty obvious that they’ve borrowed some inspiration from BioWare. The changes come with both drawbacks and advantages, and as such some people will like them, and others will take issue with them. Avadon could’ve done with some additional branches and classes, but, again, this is a trade-off, as a narrow system allows for better gameplay balance.
That said, with a simpler RPG system coupled with a brand new and accessible setting, Avadon: The Black Fortress serves as a great introduction to people who are new to Spiderweb’s offerings. It is their best-looking title to date and presents one of the better stories we’ve experienced in their games, with rich new characters and setting elements introduced. As such, it’s a good stepping stone toward what will inevitably be a whole new series of role-playing games from the veteran indie studio.
