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Oh! I didn't know about supercooling, that's pretty neat. I always wondered how reptiles survived the winter. That does explain how Silithis' troupe doesn't immediately freeze and die.

(and in Sarn Kamina's case, wear a heavy wool hooded robe).

How effective would that actually be for a cold-blooded creature, though? The reason insulated clothes are useful for us is because we radiate heat naturally, so there's something for the clothes to catch. Windbreakers and such might slow the loss of heat they've already acquired, but they wouldn't be able to establish a long-term equilibrium. (If anything, I think clothes would actually make them lose heat, since it's an additional heat sink of its own and provides a barrier to external sources such as sunlight. Anything other than a pitch-black bodysuit seems of questionable and circumstantial use.) Personally, I assumed Sarn wore the cloak more for concealment than protection from the elements. I suppose it is possible it's a specially-made cloak that focuses more on blocking cold than trapping heat, though...

(Actually, if we're talking gameplay realism, wouldn't it make sense for Sarn to start with a Fur-Lined Cloak in her inventory?)

Well, I more assumed there was a canon explanation we could figure out. :p

I presume that lissit are cold-blooded, due to their temperature-based elemental weaknesses. With that in mind, how do they survive the trek through the snowy mountains in the campaign? A naked human would quickly catch hypothermia in those circumstances, and that's with producing some heat of their own -- it should happen to lissit even faster.

Depending on how cold the island itself is, this could also apply to Sarn Kamina and Siripent. I guess they spend a lot of time in the sun?

The Nameless One is referred to as "a veteran of the Shadow War", so he's not David. I thought it was pretty clear that he was the protagonist of TRPG2.

I find that unlikely. The man looks like a cyborg, not a robot. Of course it is possible he is a very realistic-looking android, but in that case I would imagine his creators would be able to avoid giving him such an obvious tell.

Veeery interesting. I think this image provides the best evidence that this is in the Telepath universe after all.

As for where I'm getting bone marrow, the creature's skin has the same spongy, porous texture. Perhaps more importantly, the pattern is irregular: something that is ubiquitous to organic tissue, but virtually nonexistent in standardized technology. The blades do look clearly mechanical, but I wouldn't be so quick to conclude that these creatures are 100% mechanical construct. Armor or exosuits seem more likely.

What makes you so certain they're mechanical? The "skin" of the construct looks like bone marrow to me, and I'm not sure where you're getting the idea the hand is just covered by a gauntlet -- the claws and hand look pretty seamless to me. The left figure in 03 is the only one that looks mechanical to me.

But yes, it does seem odd that shadowlings would use such organic forms -- bone is a recurring theme in these pictures, and bone is a pretty quintessential essence of organic life. Going off your theory that these pictures are in-universe propaganda, perhaps shadowlings are rarely seen, and these are artists' depictions? It would make sense that artists would assume alien creatures are humanoid, rather than floaty smoke ball things.

Personally, I'm pretty interested by the bone horse, particularly the detail of the flies. It looks like they're flying towards the horse, possibly even making up its components? Very strange.

On another note, the rebar in 04 is very interesting... I wouldn't be so quick to assume it disqualifies this from being in the Telepath universe, though. Wikipedia says that rebar was used as early as the 1400s, and Cera Bella's technology is actually pretty modern, so I wouldn't be too surprised by its existence in the Telepath universe. It might denote a future era, but not a far future one. It would fit if this was a century or two after the events of TRPG2.

Note that, while this does show you what they use to counterattack with as well, it does not explicitly tell you their range. Usually it's pretty obvious -- you should know that Spear is 1-2 spaces, Bow is 2-4 spaces etc. -- but that is still a potential blind spot in the game.

I can agree that it would be nice to have easier access to information -- including attack range into enemy movement range, in particular, would be nice.

If this is set in the Telepath universe, I have to wonder if it's an alternate universe based around the a bad end -- either the continuation of the shadowling empire, or the continuation of the cult. Perhaps both at once? SoG and TT have both been part of "good end" universes where the evil authorities were overthrown, so it would make sense if Craig wanted to switch gears.

However, given that we've yet to see any distinct evidence that these pictures are part of the Telepath universe, I'm inclined to believe this is a completely new franchise.

From the Epilogue map:

Code Select Expand

<Dialog branch="23">
    OnTurn/0//Silithis, carefully observing how Emma had been interacting with her men, began to pay more attention to her own manner of speaking. She strived to be more observant of others' nonverbal cues, and to be less rude and dismissive.-N-After extended discussions in lissit, Silithis eventually convinced a hesitant Sarn Kamina to return with her to the zaris to be reunited with her mother, Ambuur Sang.
    <Action>IfValGoTo/SarnDead,=,1,24</Action>

<Dialog branch="24">
    OnTurn/0//Disgusted at her own failure to protect Sarn Kamina, Silithis left the mines and returned to the zaris in disgrace.
    <Action>IfValGoTo/SilithisDead,=,1,25</Action>

If I'm reading this correctly, the game will only skip both of these if Silithis and Sarn are dead. It doesn't look like there's anything to block branch 23 if Sarn is alive but Silithis isn't.

Doran and Edwin don't get epilogues (and neither does the very last party member you get), which makes me wonder what happened to them. I mean, they're not very important characters, sure, but it does feel like a bit of an oversight.

In Fangiss Ka, if -iss is the adjectival marker, wouldn't that make it "The Fanged Lissit" or "Our Fanged People", or some other construction where Fangiss modifies Ka?

Nope. The manual says "fangiss" is a noun. Which is indeed odd, since like you say, -iss is usually an adjectival marker. I like "Our Fanged People", though! You should be a localizer.

And on reflection, I suppose "it is to commit suicide" would still make grammatical sense... It does still feel strange to me, though.

And uh... I seem to have gone over the limit for number of attachments per post. I'll continue here, if that's okay...?

Building off of this thread, I decided to make a mod that translates all Lissit text in the campaign. Translated text is demarcated by curly brackets {}.

English sprinkled with Lissit words is kept unchanged (since they're usually obvious from context anyway). And don't worry, I didn't try to localize Silithis' name as "Patience" this time. :p I did take one liberty, which is that I assumed that every cutscene where the lissit talk among themselves is actually in Lissit and translated into English for our benefit; thus, I bracketed those entire conversations, and translated any sprinkled Lissit.

Feedback is appreciated.

Huh. I actually found it pretty interesting, and I don't remember any other scenes bringing up that particular point.