I just checked back through the saga, and I explored the mountain 11 times. The first time, of course, we met the wind spirits. Once we found treasure, the last time the party never came back, and the rest were all confused or meeting explorers from another clan. One of the explorations was in a year when our godspeakers said Orlanth wanted us to go visit.
The explorers were generally Odaylans or Issarians, but I'm pretty sure I sent at least one Elmali and I may have sent a Barntari once (he was a bit of a super-hero until the damned sorcerors killed him).
I even tried, right near the end (once I'd saved it) sending our Vingan queen. Besides the fact that all hell broke loose while she was gone and she missed her own wedding, she came back having merely met explorers from another clan....so sending a Vingan certainly isn't a magic bullet.
So, I still don't know the answer.
A couple of other game ending thoughts:
--In the final summary, shouldn't a Vingan go sit by Orlanth's side rather than Ernalda's?
--I gave myself an objective to pay off all of our favors owed. We sent out food and goods by the cartload, and even gave away horses and cows. One clan, who would take huge gifts and not foregive a favor, we finally gave a treasure to. So I cleared them all off....except for the Praxians! We only used them to raid once, we paid them their due, but ever after the game said we owed them a favor....but at the same time we couldn't send an emissary to them. Trivial, but annoying.
--The final scenes seemed to make more sense to me the second time through. The first time I was a bit "whatever," this time I really got into it.
--I still wish that there was a function to let a tribal king step down voluntarily. When opportunity knocked we made a Vingan our tribal queen because she was the clan's only good leader. Eventually we had a new wave of nobles come of age, including a few strong leaders dedicated to Elmal (our primary deity). I would have liked to have the Vingan step down and one of them attempt to take her place for a few reasons. The simplest one is that in my first game I won with a tribal queen, and this time I'd liked to have seen the ending with a king, just to see the different take on events and artwork.
Finally, I've played this thing for at least nine months now, I've finished a short game and a couple of long ones. I've failed once. I think I've seen almost all of the possible events (although I still find surprises once in a while).....and I still love this game!!!!
--Bryan
Powered by hypermail