Moonlight Guidance – 18

April 2nd, 2025 Sage 14 Comments

Setting up a Kickstarter for Vol 3! I’ll post the link when it goes live next week!

14 Comments

just going to pop in. Ruindar it’s been too long how have you been.

So, the dragon was a friendly/neutral quest-giving NPC instead of a raid boss “back in the day”? Possibly one specific to dark elves or Lyrestra worshippers. Maybe this is the one Kaylin drank with – that story hook’s been out there for a while.

Does increase the odds this encounter will be more social and less combative, unless Ruindar feels the need to ‘test’ Kaylin or something. Or the Incident happened when she had one of the dragon’s quests still ongoing, and they’re annoyed she’s left it incomplete for this long. Watch her pull some random deliverable out of her inventory with a “Hey, here you go, sorry it’s late!”

Dragons are a special type of being in Rune Aria where they can be both a Raid Boss and a known NPC. As well as a few heroic humanoid NPCs that functioned as raid bosses in scenarios, but were also NPCs you could interact with. Granted canonically they could still die of old age so most of them are likely dead now- the Dragon’s live for thousands of years. Even if they die, they have ways of coming back. So, you could fight a dragon in a raid, and also find yourself getting a quest from one afterwards, or even prior. In which case you could end up with a unique scenario- getting called out personally by the dragon for not completing their quest and coming back with a bunch of people to kill them and calling off the quest making them fail it.

“Jean? Is that you Jean? IT IS! Jean! Didn’t I ask you to deal with those bandits in my old lair?! Instead you are here with these holigans?! JEAN! I really thought you were better than this! You won’t be getting any reward for that quest now after this betrayal. Also, my breath weapon just recharged- farewell Jean, I’m targeting you, traitor.”

Given how “recently” we’ve been on the topic of how the world handles death and afterlife, that particular line: “Even if they die, they have ways of coming back” feels notable! Think that’s still true, or like Kaylin do they “not plan on finding out”?

I also love the idea of a quest NPC having more contextual awareness to give special treatment like that – definitely a thing that’s typically missing from most current-day games unless the developers add it in as a special easter egg! Poor Jean, we hardly knew ye…

Is Ruindar a multiheaded dragon, with multiple personalities?

Or just nonbinary?

Or Sage just doesn’t want to reveal the gender too soon for story reasons.

gender and/or sex likely isnt a factor at all… Sage already said dragons live super long and can resurrect so it wouldnt surprise me if they are all unique singular beings rather than a proper species that reproduces.

They reproduce, they can do so in many different ways though. This should be a known thing though because I have also said Kaala is half Dragon.

Also- the next comic will mention their gender. As I mentioned a few weeks ago in the comments Masterofinfinity said-
“the question isn’t will the monster be able to talk or not, it’s will the monster be a male or female >;)”
and I replied-
“3 pages from now… they discuss that. Feels like a long time- but we’ll be there soon enough.”
And Wednesday will be that comic.

If I was a dev on Rune Aria, it would be impossible for me to resist referential Dagon Quests.

– catch barrel riding hoard thief, and his 13 bumbling hirsute accomplices
– return to sender: unwanted tribute gift, one royal brat
– hide seven painted spheres, for next year’s scavenger hunt
– urgent time limited: remove rear left foot tickler device, help, can’t breath