Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 18: Sewer Saunas, Piranha Movies, and Rogue Megas

Last we left off, Taunie is heavily in debt and has dragged the rest of us into the sad world of being indebted to gangsters! But Rogue Mega Evolutions are threatening the city. 

First up is the brand-new mega evolution, Barbaracle... and I must admit, the positioning of the quest marker made me spend way, way too much time trying to figure out how to get into the closed-off area. To make things worse, there are two massive scaffolding puzzles and I thought I had to do something with it and Roto-Glide to get around and find a way to climb around the walls. 

That is most certainly not the way the game designers wanted me to do it. Turns out that all I have to do is to look for a sewer-like exit near the Wild Zone, and just walk up maybe twenty steps to where the Barbaracle and Lida are waiting. 

Lida rather helpfully informs me that Mega Barbaracle will transform into a Rock and Fighting type. Yay! New type changes! I have my Mega Meganium ready to fight, and the battle begins... and... I don't know what I expected from Mega Barbaracle, but it's certainly not this! It does make sense, though, in the theme of Mega Evolutions being exaggerated versions of themselves. But Mega Barbaracle's body has expanded, it's got way more tentacles -- or more accurately, additional goose barnacles -- and the general result makes it look like a crazy octopus alien. Except it's a giant cluster of barnacles! There is definitely some heavy Sentai/Ultraman kaiju vibe to it, too. 

Mega Barbaracle's fight is intensely chaotic. It starts off with just shooting out water pulses or something, not too hard... but then it starts flash-stepping and teleporting right in front of me, and unleashes gigantic barrages of ORA ORA ORA punches. I don't know what move this is in the game, but it actually reminds me of the Fighting-type Z-move that summons a whole ton of punches! Close Combat, I guess? It's quite awesome.

Honestly, the biggest unexpected thing is just how utterly fast Mega Barbaracle is. I wouldn't peg Barbaracle as a fast-looking Pokemon, but in this game, at least, it's just blitzing all over the place like a Bleach character. It also summons Rock Slide from the sky, which is terrifying. Mega Barbaracle does feel extremely fragile, or it might just be that my Mega Meganium really is a bad counter with her Giga Drain and Dazzling Gleam attacks, but we won rather quickly. I was actually rather surprised at how fast Meganium was carving through Mega Barbaracle's health pool.

After this scene, we get another shot of Zygarde showing up and howling, before L appears and says some more of his ominous stuff about the protection of Lumiose City and the Rogue Mega Evolved Pokemon. He notes that the incidents of Rogue Mega Evolution seems to have something to do with the Prism Tower renovations. I mean, it's kind of what's expected from Pokemon at this point, right? The Mega Corporation is the real evil? L notes that Zygarde is an entity that's egging him on to investigate all of this for the betterment of Lumiose City -- and that it ties to his goal of a more beautiful city, and therefore a more beautiful world. 

I mean, sure, Lysandre. You still tried to nuke France with the powers of the god of death for a beautiful world, you muppet. 

I go for the Ampharos next, and Naveen is there complaining that the holovator leading to the top of the building where Ampharos is isn't working. Lurking from the side of a nearby building is... Gwynn! I like Gwynn! She's not really good at hiding, and most certainly not when a human-sized Chandelure is also peeking from the side of the building behind her.

Gwynn is extremely rude to Naveen, telling him to be quiet several times during the conversation. Gwynn wants to fight me as a revenge for her earlier defeat. She's actually changed her team a bit, adding a Gengar to her original team. We have a proper Mega Chandelure vs Mega Chandelure showdown! I think either one of our Chandlures would've one-shotted the other, but I quick-drawed her with Shadow Ball. 

Turns out that Gwynn wanted to avenge Canari more than her own defeat, leading Naveen to realize who she was -- she was in the Quiz Whiz contest or whatever. So turns out that Gwynn's hostility was more because of Naveen's status as a huge Canari fan, and she's... she's not having that. She gets a bit confrontational with Naveen, before walking up to the Holovator and doing a whole deal where she pretends it's cursed... but then tells her Chandelure to fix the problem, driving away a Phantump that was haunting the holovator. 

Okay? Was a bit weird, but it was nice to see Gwynn back again. I climb up the rooftop and fight the Mega Ampharos, and... there's really not a whole ton that I find to be special here. I don't have anything particularly good against either Electric or Dragon -- my only anti-Dragon measure is Slowbro's Ice Beam, but would get wrecked by Mega Ampharos's electric attacks. Ampharos's field attacks aren't the most impressive, really, it's just rather easily telegraphed thunderbolts coming down from the sky or rising from the ground. Eh. 

After taking out Mega Ampharos, Emma shows up! I like that these Rogue Mega Evolutions are starting to involve more of the secondary cast. Emma just notes that she hasn't been particularly lucky or fruitful in finding either Zygarde or L, although she suspects L is actually evil. 

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And up next is a bit more of a side-quest batch! First up is a director, who is filming a scene near the docks... but then realizes that I'm a trainer and ropes me into helping out. He wants to catch footage of the wild Pokemon within a city... but he's also terrified of filming a real wild Pokemon. They are dangerous and scary! The script calls for a Carvanha, and he asks me to bring him one. 

I do, of course, and as I let my Carvanha out in the canal... she refuses to attack or pretend to attack the actors. Oh no! Is the Parisian canal water getting to you, Carvanha? The actors tell the director that they studied up on the Pokemon, and turns out that Carvanha is actually very timid when alone, away from their pack. This leads the director to get surprised... before retooling the movie to feature a friendly Carvanha who is afraid of humans instead. 

...I didn't actually know that about Carvanha! I actually learn something new about an older Pokemon!

I then find Herup in the sewers near Wild Zone 5. I actually discover him muttering about profiting from some entrepreneurship plans. Herup and his Camerupt reveals that this is another gateway to the Sewers, unlocking another portion of the Sewers we visited to find Gwynn. And a very convenient teleport point that makes me not need to look for where the frozen Clawitzer statue is! 

Herup walks down to the humid and secluded room in the sewers, boasting that it's the perfect room. He then fights me with Camerupt, wanting to get it warm and fired up. And Herup reveals his plan... CAMERUPT SAUNA! He wants to use the rather airproof nature of the sewer room and the superheated body of Camerupt to create the perfectly heated water vapour. 

...other than the fact that this is sewer water, you absolute muppet. There's a reason why sauna facilities aren't located in the sewer. Not to mention all the potential public property discussion. 

My character doesn't point out the fact that this is a SEWER, but rather the fact that it's hard for people to reach this location. Yeah, sure. Herup is disappointed, but then a Scraggy, a Noibat and a Patrat show up. they like the warmth, which actually kind of makes sense for the lizard-based Scraggy in particular. Herup is reinvigorated and is happy to make the sewer sauna for the sewer Pokemon. I mean... it's still breaking public property and you're not going to profit from the Scraggys and Noibats, but whatever makes you happy, Mr. Herup! I kind of expected a bit more from you when I discovered you earlier in the game, not going to lie. 

Another neat quest is a Canari fan called Anguil, who has been training up some Eelektrik, trying to figure out which one is the strongest to evolve into Eelektross. I fight him and beat up all three of his Eelektrik, and he is about to decide on who to evolve... until Mani,  the 'main' fan from that part of the quest, shows up and yells at Anguil to not be a fool. Canari, after all, didn't evolve the strongest Tynamo she could find, but rather raised a weak Tynamo into an exceptionally strong Eelektross. Even the three Eelektrik had a surprised animation at that! And... it's actually quite heartwarming as the two Canari fans run off to train, followed by the three Eelektrik following behind. 

Finally, we've got a reunion with Dora, the lady who was the companion of the Rogue Hawlucha. She has gone back up on the roof to look for her friend. Apparently the formerly Rogue Hawlucha is depressed and despondent... because it wants a rematch! It's a nice little coda to that quest. I fight the Hawlucha with my own, which is both an Alpha and Mega Evolved. I crush the Hawlucha with a Flying Press, but the point for him is not to win -- it's to fight with his own full might. 

Inspired by this, Dora decides to adopt the Rogue Hawlucha as her own partner, wanting to learn everything there is to know about Pokemon battling to better support Hawlucha. Aww, that's kind of a sweet way for this sidequest to end. 

And finally-finally, I explore the two Wild Zones. Wild Zone 14 is a factory-looking location, not too dissimilar to the place where the Quiz Whiz contest took place. It's mainly patrolled by Excadrills and Drillburs, but bursting out from the sand are large Onix, and some Aron and Lairon are also around. Rather interestingly, Helioptile show up here in the morning, and are a huge pain to catch with the Aron and Drillbur family being exceptionally hostile. 

Wild Zone 15, on the other hand, is insanely hostile. The two poster boys of super-aggressive bug monsters, Beedrill and Scolipede, patrol this area and are as hostile as their anime counterparts. Also in this area are Pumpkaboos and a particularly angry Alpha Gourgeist. Not as cool as zone 13, I feel, but I think that's because I was low-key hoping for a full Halloween-themed location for Pumpkaboo. 

Random Notes:

• More sidequests that don't make the cut for me properly describing them:
  
• An overacting dude who yells 'feel the energy' a lot, and has a team... based on the move Focus Energy? Out of all the moves to make a quest around, this isn't it, sorry. The overacting jokes also kind of fall flat, and I wonder if there's a better pun in the original Japanese script. 
  
• A far more interesting move-based side-quest is a woman who insists that Detect is better than Protect, because it might do the same thing but it's cooler. In ZA, I do feel like Detect actually activates the second you hit the button, while there's a bit of animation with Protect. So you're cool, Detect Girl. 
• Another broken holovator, but this time I need to hit it with a physical move to get it up and running. A bit late for the physical/special split. This was was kind of cute because it's one of Ivor's muscle-brained minions that tell that to me, and insists that percussive maintenance is the only way to fix machines. 
• Mega contacts lady asks me to bring her Mega Medicham and fight her with that. Same old, same old, but she unlocks some rather interesting contact lenses, letting my eyes have the colours patterned after the Poke Ball, the 'cyberspace' box, and pure lifeless void. Mmmkay! 
• I've been reading the dex entries. Most of them are honestly quite boring, but Mega Chandelure's actually got one eye that has turned purple, and its dex entry points this out -- that eye is connected between this world and the afterlife. Cool! 
• I've also been slowly evolving a bunch of my Pokemon in the box. Gallade, Venusaur, Sylveon, Lucario, Pidgeot...
• The pokedex still differentiates between the different sizes of Pumpkaboo/Gourgeist despite all Pokemon having size differences. In real life that's because the different Pumpkaboo sizes have incrementally different stats, which justifies them as separate forms. The Pokedex insists that this is because 'the varieties of Pumpkaboo vary not only in size, but also in the sized of the souls they collect', excuse me,  how do you measure- I mean- uh- okay. Sure. Fine. 
• One of the random NPC's insists that she wants to know what "you are not the one" means. That has been one of the creepier easter eggs in Pokemon XY that everyone thought was going to lead to something, some secret encounter or a foreshadowing to a new game... but never really led anywhere. I guess them making fun of it is the final nail in the coffin, then. 
• A bit less of an orphaned joke is a tourist who wonders if he should go to Alola to get a 'Strange Souvenir'. The Strange Souvenir is a weird key item in Pokemon XY whose only usage was to foreshadow Alola in Generation VII. That's cute. 
• A bunch more easter eggs of older characters include the revelation that Diantha stepped down as champion to pursue her acting career; and Siebold also left the Elite Four to pursue his cooking career. Man, with Clemont also presumable MIA, ain't nobody in Kalos taking their duties seriously. 

Reviewing D&D 5E Monsters - Planescape - Morte's Planar Parade, Part 2

  

This is part two of my coverage of Morte's Planar Parade, the Planescape bestiary for 5th Edition. I did a longer deep-dive into Planescape's lore. I really have been dipping a fair bit into the original Planescape books from 2nd Edition thanks to this, and I do really feel like it deserves a bestiary and a setting guide that is a lot more extensive than this. It's kind of a similar feeling to what I felt with Spelljammer, although to an admittedly lesser extent. Planescape at least gave us a lot of subgroups like Archons, Guardinals, Demodands, Rilmanis and the expanded Modron family. 

Anyway, this has been a pretty fun run! Reviewing the Monster Manual again is fun, of course, but it's always great to venture out and talk about monsters that are a lot more atypical to your regular fantasy setting. 

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• Click here for the next part
• Click here for the previous part.
• Click here for the index.

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Kolyarut

• Medium Construct (Inevitable); Lawful Neutral; CR 20

A group of enemies I found particularly fascinating in the pages of the 3.5E are the Inevitables. Perhaps not their visual design, where they are merely more elaborate contracts. But the idea of a divinely-created race of constructs who existence is to ensure that certain 'inevitable' aspects of the cosmos is maintained is such an interesting idea to me. We got the Marut represented in 5th Edition with a significant change in design, but more or less the same concept. For a while, though, it seemed like 5E didn't really care to adapt the rest of the Inevitables, merely relegating the role of the Inevitable to the strongest among their ranks, the Marut.

But lo and behold, the Kolyarut makes its 5E appearance in Planescape, with an interesting twist. Kolyarut is now both the name of a type of Inevitable, but also its leader, The Kolyarut, which was created by Primus of the Modrons. Capital-The Kolyarut hangs out in Sigil, and acts as the ultimate judge and arbiter of binding terms and contracts. And if some enforcement or investigation is needed, The Kolyarut will send out Maruts to enforce the terms of the contracts, and fragments of itself -- the Kolyrauts given a stat block here -- to be both investigator/detective and enforcer. 

The original 3E Kolyarut is merely just a robot man with some Greco-Roman robes. 5E's Kolyarut is a four-armed robot with blades. Star Wars General Grievous jokes notwithstanding, I feel like they could've done something more interesting here visually. The Marut redesign was a very distinctive steampunk/clockpunk design with a strange organic eyeball within. The Kolyarut just feels rather... basic, really. I still enjoy the lore of the Inevitables, and having these multiversal robo-detectives running around is neat, but I kind of wished they didn't look so bland. 

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Maelephant

• Large Fiend; Lawful Evil; CR 10

Ah, monster elephants! When I first saw the Maelephants, I kind of rolled my eyes at what's just another monstrous animal-man. 5E did give a nice reinvention to the Maelephant that makes it a bit more monstrous while still keeping the base silhouette -- the 5E Maelephant has several spidery eyes on its head (or perhaps it's a helmet?) and has rather exaggerated tusks and spiky armour that sets it apart from a mere elephant-man like the Loxodon. The end result is a monster that only appears to have the head of an elephant instead of just being a cartoon elephant man, which is what this design is meant to be. 

Maelephants are fiends that unleashes toxic fumes from their trunk that specifically saps memory. In the game, this is represented by a Maelephant's opponents to temporarily forget their combat training, spellcasting abilities and proficiencies; leaving them vulnerable to the Maelephant's considerable strength and to follow the orders of whatever fiendish allies. They are apparently extremely faithful to whatever sinister contract that they have entered, putting them as lawful evil. 

I find them quite interesting. Elephant devils that absorb memory isn't a connotation I would've made on my own, but I do find this guy to be quite neat. 

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Modron - Decaton

• Large Construct; Lawful Neutral; CR 8

Gasp, can it be? Modron expansion? Yes! The original Monster Manual brought the Modrons to a spotlight in modern D&D, but only the weakest Modron variants, all the way up to the Pentadrone. Planescape brings in the top dogs of the Modron race, the hierarchs whose names end in -ton. We are actually counting backwards in terms of power, starting off with the Decaton and moving up until we get all the way to Primus. 

And right away you can see the difference in the aesthetics of the Decaton from the monstrous octopus-creature in 1E with the mouth of a dead fish. 2E and 5E both give us a more mechanized take of the generally same body design, interpreting the starfish tentacles as metallic limbs. I must say that I like the 2E 'steampunk' design a lot more. 5E has this obsession of giving the Modrons weirdly and contrastingly human features... which worked out for them a bit. The 5E Decaton has the Monodrone's very human eyeballs and lips, which is fine... but also has a pair of baby legs that it walks around in, which I find to be supremely disturbing. I don't know. I just don't feel like I can take the Decaton particularly seriously with those legs. 

Keep in mind that the Decaton is a large creature, too, and you can see the scale to a normal human helmet that it's manipulating in its ten tentacles. A Decaton has ten tentacles and ten eyes, and their function is to monitor the physical well-being of the Modron minions. They are able to unleash lightning bolts from their eyes, and all the Modron hierarchs have the ability to plane shift and cast buffing spells. 

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Modron - Nonaton

• Large Construct; Lawful Neutral; CR 10

Going up another rank is the Nonaton, which... yeah, just looks weird in 1E. 2E and 5E reinvents the Nonaton as a snake/caterpillar robot with the single eye and mouth on the end. I like the Nonaton's design a lot more than the Decaton, for the simple reason that we got rid of weird fleshy baby-feet. Fleshy eyes and luscious lips are good enough for the strange contrast that the 5E design team wants. 

I do like the Nonaton as well, with four pairs of arms running down its serpentine body, and the ninth arm popping up from the center of its head. Nonatons, interestingly, are the enforcers of Mechanus, being in charge of hunting down rogue units (which is a plot point emphasized in both Monster Manuals' entries for the Modrons), and also interrogate any interlopers that come to Mechanus. Most importantly, it is able to summon a massive pillar of truth that forces anyone that enters it to revert into its natural form. 

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Modron - Octon

• Large Construct; Lawful Neutral; CR 11

I actually love the original 1E design of the Octon, with its design best described as a plate with alien tentacles, stubby feet, and a pointy head-like organ. 2E redesigns the Octon into a rather boring design that's just a more elaborate Quadrone, and 5E also redesigns it to a rather mundane octopus-bot with a semi-dome head. I don't think this newest design even feels like a 'Modron', and most certainly not one that's supposed to be higher-up in 'evolutionary' ranking compared to all the Modrons we've seen before. I don't know. They don't quite feel like 'part of the set', if you know what I mean? 

Anyway, Octons oversee daily governance, collecting and providing data to other heirarchs both above and below them. Their unique attack is a rather bland 'whirlwind attack'. I don't know. Design-wise it's a cute octopus/jellyfish robot, but as part of a set in the Modrons, it really feels off. 

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Modron - Septon

• Large Construct; Lawful Neutral; CR 12

The Septons were also a lot more elaborate, alien-looking affairs in 1E and 2E. But in 5E, it's just... another almost-fully-mechanical robot. I do like that it at least still has eyeballs, with a tiny moncular head, and two eyeballs floating on top of two of its seven tentacle-claws. But once more, I would like to reiterate that this just feels like a random robot. There's nothing that screams 'Modron' visually from him, and you could say that these guys are part of the Rilmani or something and I'd believe you. I don't know... if you introduced a pattern for most of a type of creature and drop it without any real reason, they just feel off, you know?

Septons are the auditors of base Modrons, ensuring that operations are in perfect order. They also record stuff, so that kind of makes the Octons' jobs a bit more redundant. They have a 'lightning network' attack. And... I don't know. Maybe if the writers cared a bit more to give the more powerful heirarchs more interesting roles, I would be able to forgive their more generic-robot designs.

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Modron - Hexton

• Huge Construct; Lawful Neutral; CR 13

And I mean, I wouldn't want the Modrons to be just 'weird organic aliens with some metal parts' like what the 1E and 2E Hexton turned out into, but 5E went the other way and made the Hexton into just a big, lumbering iron giant with a single organic eye. Again, this just doesn't feel like a Modron, but just a random generic big mecha. 

The Hexton is of the 'huge' size class, and the artwork we see it in has it looming over a Septon and two Octons that are barely half its height. Hextons serve as field generals that command troops, and are often the leaders of the Great Modron Marches. The 'hex' thing extends to the six glowing spikes in their body... which, again, feels a bit boring. They kind of also just dropped the whole geometry thing, didn't they? How is this a Modron? This is just a giant robot that shoots lightning bolts. 

It is a bit of a letdown, really. I admittedly wasn't a fan of the original Planescape's take on the hierarch Modrons just turning into weird 'Frankenstein' cyborgs with random amalgamations of organic and robotic parts (and it gets increasingly human-like as we go up the Quinton, Quarton, Tertian, Secundus and Primus), but making them fully robotic, particularly after all the previous Modron variants have had a rather consistent 'uncanny organic features on geometric shapes' theme feels very odd. 

I was actually quite excited when I flipped through this book and saw that we're getting some Modron expansion, but they didn't really give us much lore, and the three stronger Modron hierarchs just didn't get anything interesting either visually or lore-wise. I don't tend to be so negative in my D&D monster reviews unless I have a strong opinion, but in this case I definitely do. 

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Planar Incarnate

• Gargantuan Celestial or Fiend; Any Alignment; CR 22

We've got a more abstract creature here, which does fit with the whole 'Planescape' setting. I will readily admit that these sort of more ambiguous-looking creatures are not my cup of tea in monster design, although I recognize the need for them. Essentially, the Planar Incarnates are pure, fundamental expressions of the Upper and Lower Planes made manifest, roiling energies with features distinct to whichever heaven or hell analogue it is birthed out of. It's like elementals, but instead of embodying fire or water, the Planar Incarnates embody good and evil -- such as D&D's cosmology defines them, anyway.

Morte's Planar Parade gives us an example of a good one and a bad one, with the Lower Plane Planar Incarnate being a ball of hellish rock and flame, while the Upper Plane has like miniature copies of the idyllic grasses and buildings on it. Planar Incarnates are noted to appear to protect their home from destructive or antithetical forces, before melding and merging back to their plane of origin. This does raise some questions -- do they always appear when a sufficiently powerful antithetical force enters their plane? What does this mean for the Blood War between the lawful evil devils and the chaotic evil demons; why are the Planar Incarnates not involved there? 

The Planar Incarnate itself is a whopping CR 22 creature, but I honestly don't find its abilities all that interesting. Other than generic attacks and legendary resistances, its 'planar exhalation' is a very simple necrotic/radiant breath weapon. I know 5E is moving away from being so alignment-focused, but I felt like Planescape would be the setting to do an exception. 

Being a bit curious about what they are in the original Planescape, I ended up looking them up... and the original Incarnates (not 'Planar'!) are far more interesting to me. Incarnates are embodiments of specifically abstract principles, and exist as balls of light that gravitate towards planes and beings that suit their individual aspects. And when they possess a being, they will essentially enhance that quality in whoever they possess. The evil incarnates are the seven sins in Christianity (anger, greed, envy, lust, gluttony, pride and sloth) and the good incarnates are the seven virtues (charity, courage, hope, faith, temperance, wisdom and justice). Even if the designers wanted to stay away from the more religious themes, I felt like being incarnations of like, lawful obedience or chaotic freedom or whatever would be way more interesting than 'big blob cloud go smash'.

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Razorvine Blight

• Medium Plant; Neutral Evil; CR 1

This is kind of cute. The idea of Razorvine has been around since the original 2nd Edition Planescape Campaign Setting, with Razorvine itself being likened to the 'kudzu of the Outer Plains'. Location-specific hazards are one of the sorts of things you kind of take for granted, but does end up adding up to the flavour that gives your locations some identity. Now 2E's Razorvines are just that, spiky vines that can drain vitality. 

But with the Blights slowly rising to prominence across the newer editions, I love that they decided to merge the two together and create the Razorvine Blight. Regular Blights are created from a powerful vampire's curse, but Razorvine Blights are created by vampiric blood spilling upon a clump of Razorvine. Most of them are just ambush predators, acting like regular Blights... but the entry also notes that the Razorvine Blights are exposed to so much life and variety in the city that they sometimes mimic the behaviours of beings in it; and a particularly notable Razorvine Blight has actually spread copies of itself across the city, creating a one-plant spy network. That's cool!

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Rilmani - Aurumach Rilmani

• Large Celestial; Neutral; CR 17

And now we have the Rilmani, who were introduced in older editions as weird-looking metal men. And... again, they kind of look a bit boring concept-wise, the nice 2E art notwithstanding. The Rilmani are redesigned to be a lot more angular, a lot more geometric in 5th Edition, and... while I don't agree fully with just how sci-fi they look now, I will absolutely admit that this helps them stand out a lot more. Rilmani are mainly associated with the Outlands, and they represent the alignment of True Neutral. Rilmani want to maintain the equilibrium between good, evil, law and chaos, because they view all of these as fundamental to the multiverse's existence. Thus they try to ensure that no force over-exerts itself in the balance of the cosmos. 

This is something that I feel is quite specific to the setting of Planescape and the clash of ideas between the different planes, and I feel like many of the other celestial, fiend, law and chaos factions actually do this a bit more interestingly. Just being a fence-sitter that makes sure everyone gets the same share of cosmic territory doesn't feel particularly exciting or easy to work into stories. 

The Rilmani are also all metallic thematically -- which brings them in rather close conceptual theme with Metallic Dragons, Modrons or Inevitables. They go for a very angular, more abstract-sculpture looking design. Starting off with the most powerful is the Aurumach Rilmani, representing the metal of gold. They've got got a mouthless head that's floating off a slender body and is orbited by several floating spires. They normally wait within the Outlands, only appearing when the risk of planar collapse is about to happen, fighting with their spells and manifested blades.

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Rilmani - Cuprilach Rilmani

• Medium Celestial; Neutral; CR 12

Next in line for the Rilmani is the Cuprilach (copper), and I find the design of the two trooper Rilmanis to be a lot more interesting. The Cuprilach has legs that are still metallic, but not robotic -- the legs are bent in weird ways that wouldn't look too weird on like a demon or something. There's an orb on the hips, and then the upper body is just hovering on top of it. I like the head, too, which appears to be an eyeless cobra hood ending in mandibles. 

Cuprilachs infiltrate places of power, serving the Rilmani as spies and assassins. They have spells that allow them to disguise themselves or to infiltrate, and they will follow the Aurumachs without question or emotion, and are single-minded at completing their mission. 

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Rilmani - Ferrumach Rilmani

• Medium Celestial; Neutral; CR 9

The weakest Rilmani is the Ferrumach, which feels a bit more mundane as a robot. I do like the angular head and shoulder-pads, and the extremely strange design of the legs. This is kind of what I want to see in 'fantasy robots', which I didn't find particularly interesting with the 5E Kolyarut and to a lesser extent the Aurumach, both of which wouldn't look too out-of-place as Star Wars extras. There's something about the Ferrumach's proportions that make it look a lot more like something that magic would create. 

Ferrumachs are footsoldiers and are relatively single-minded at, again, obeying the orders of their Aurumachs. Their arms can transform into blades, and they can shoot these at the enemy. I find the designs of the Rilmani to be a bit interesting, but I also find their lore to be quite... a bit too underdeveloped for my tastes. This is another thing that I feel I needed to go back to the 2E work to really understand what's going on with them. 

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Sunfly

• Tiny Celestial; Chaotic Good; CR 0 (regular)
• Medium Swarm of Tiny Celestials; Chaotic Good; CR 1 (Swarm)

It's a little buddies! I think these are new to 5th Edition, and they sure are... interesting? Sunflies are obvious mascot material, and they've got head of a smiling cow-thing, a huge fuzzy body with bumblebee wings, bug legs, and a stinger tail. And they are colourful. The Sunflies move around different Outer Planes, and they act as a bit of a barometer on how 'healthy' a plane is. When the planes they are in struggle, so are the planes around them. Sunflies are also able to inject a specific toxin to other creatures, and these toxins have different effects depending on which plane you are in. Apparently, in the city of Sigil, Sunflies are treated as very valuable pets. 

They are neat, but I also feel like every setting in D&D is a bit obsessed at churning out a brand-new 'cute' thing that sometimes feel a bit forced. In the Sunfly's case, they don't really scream 'plane-hopping being' to me, nor does the artwork really feel like this is a creature easily mutated by other planes. I would find them more interesting if they showed off proper plane-touched Sunflies. But maybe I'm just cynical here, but I feel like they just added the Sunfly to potentially sell more cutesy merchandise. I don't know. I'm very indifferent about these guys. 

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Time Dragon

• Gargantuan/Huge/Large/Medium Dragon; Neutral; CR 26/18/11/5

We've got a new setting, and with a new setting comes a new dragon. And I think I can skip through a lot of introduction about the different size and age classes, and all that jazz. But I have a nice soft spot for the Time Dragons, and for me personally it's because of Warcraft. Warcraft's pulp novels is the first D&D-adjacent fantasy world I've stepped into, and this was before World of Warcraft popularized the game. But in the novels I read, among the five main dragonflights is the Bronze Dragons, which unlike D&D's equivalents, are actually the stewards of time. Giving all the dragonflights an aspect of reality to protect gave them such a huge level of gravitas. 

And Time Dragons are similar to this concept (or rather, the Bronze Dragonflight are most likely based on 2E Planescape's Time Dragons), being creatures that are detached from time, and have a unique viewpoint on past, present, future, and even potential branching timelines. Their hoard revolves around keeping items preserved from ancient history and fallen cultures... and perhaps even those that have been annihilated from timelines due to time-travel shenanigans. 

Also, my god how sick are those artwork for the adults? I particularly love the full-page art for the Ancient Time Dragon, with it almost ghostly-white scales, its massive set of feathery head-horns, its long tapering beard and the halo of light in the background. Of course it's coiled around a giant hourglass. Why wouldn't you, when you are a time-controlling dragon? They have a rainbow theme around their wings, with glittering rainbow veins that are meant to suggest 'time's pathways and possibilities'.

The Wyrmling and Young Time Dragons aren't particularly interesting combat-wise, merely having a time breath that 'desynchronizes' you from the timeline and weakens them. But the Adult and Ancient variants are a fair bit more interesting, having the abilities to 'slip' through time to negate attacks and teleport, 'fling' enemies through time (essentially removing them from existence for a turn), exist in two simultaneous space/time locations at the same time, or slow down the time of an attacker. The Ancients are able to create time gates to specific times and places in the multiverse (with the limitations being deities' domains) and the Ancient Time Dragons use this ability to essentially act as the multiverse's Dr. Who, preserving fate-determining moments or to banish threats outside the flow of time. 

I really like the concept of Time Dragons. Of course, they are mostly neutral and they are beings that exist outside the general perception of time, and I like the flexibility of these Time Dragons being as likely to be antagonistic, helpful, or straight-up indifferent towards the party that encounters them. The most important thing here, of course, is that the Time Dragons are able to view the world in a much larger scale than mere adventurers, giving them a unique motivation that not a lot of creatures can compete with. 

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Vargouille Reflection

• Tiny Fiend; Chaotic Evil; CR 1

Our last creature is another twist on a somewhat more obscure monster, the Vargouille. I love the Vargouilles, and I honestly found them to be a bit of an underrated horror story for the simple reason that the 'instant-death-and-become-a-flying-demon-head' isn't really a fate you want to push onto your very happy players. The Vargouille Reflection is a Sigil variant with a unique twist... instead of reproducing into more Vargouilles that look more or less the same, the Vargouille Reflection has a little ability to mimic its enemies, terrifying that creature by appearing as their own disembodied head. 

I'm not convinced that this needs a whole stat-block, but on the other hand the artwork and the little boost to remind people that Vargouilles exist is really neat! Vargouilles are canonically like 'hell ticks' that often find themselves planarly displaced anyway, so it does make sense that they are included in a Planescape book. 

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And that is it for Morte's Planar Parade! The third half of the book deals with a bunch of humanoid factions, like the Doomguard and the Bleak Cabal and the Fraternity of Order and the Harmonium... but as I've been mentioning, I don't really care to delve too deeply into very faction-specific enemies. I also skipped Shemeshka the Arcanoloth, who is a very specific character. There are, admittedly, some omissions that I find surprising (like the Lillend) but I feel like they did a much better job at representing a lot of the things highlighted in the original Planescape setting.

I did have some grouses towards how certain things are adapted, like the Modron hierarchs and Incarnates in particular... but overall, I felt like they tried a lot more here than some other setting updates. I do really feel that for a setting like Planescape, the truncated bios and write-ups for many of these monsters really do hurt the presentation, and I feel like there really could have been a lot more context given to so many more of them that doesn't require me to flip up the older editions for reference.

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 17: Debt Collectors

Now during the dinner after the Gwynn/Ivor sequence, there's a brief moment when Taunie gets a call that the rest of us aren't privy to, and she brushes it off. 

The next day, Naveen notes how quiet everything is, and how he's finally getting some peace now that Lida and Taunie aren't causing a ruckus in the morning. He's going to catch up with his sewing commissions, and he randomly gives me a pair of performance sneakers. Okay, Naveen. Lida then rushes in and, of course, something bad's happened. Turns out that Taunie has been borrowing money to film a Hotel Z Promo Spot... and now, we're in debt to a scary group called the Rust Syndicate. 

Hold the fuck up, we are having a debt collector arc? In a Pokemon game? Huh???

Also, Taunie, wtf? You were just filming videos on your Rotom Phone. You were even dragging random people into your videos! Why do you need to borrow money for? 

Naveen is horrified, Lida is terrified... and I get a call, of course, from the Rust Syndicate. The debt collectors know that I am a kid that lives and helps out Hotel Z. I can pretend to not be me, but the Rust Syndicate representative says that there's no use playing dumb. He talks about the amount of money that Taunie has borrowed and hasn't paid back. Regular debt collector stuff. He tells us that he could show up at the hotel but it would be preferrable for a reputable business to not have debt collectors showing up and causing a scene. So he's asking for us to go to them. Going straight to their base is not the best thing to do when you're facing off against the French Yakuza, but do we have a choice? 

Lida apparently also got the same call. Naveen says that Taunie didn't borrow a ton, but the interest! The interest is out of control, and that's how they get you. Naveen says that these organizations often force you to work off your debt by doing their bidding. Yeah, I doubt Pokemon would go that dark, but it's still a surprisingly mature plot to bring up in this game. 

AZ tells us to go and try and smooth things out, saying that it is only through speaking with each other that we can hope to find a satisfactory conclusion. I mean, when you have a disagreement about politics, maybe, not when you're dealing with the French Mafia! Lida and I go off to the Rust Syndicate. 

So Lida and I arrive at the Rust Syndicate's dojo, a very Japanese-yakuza-coded building with statues of Kingambit and Weezing in the courtyard. Two grunts, a guy with a funky haircut and a lady with a very 'goopy' blonde hair, do a little jingle. "We clean the city of dirt and dust! Watch us grunts wash away the rust!" Okay, not quite as catchy as 'to protect the world from devastation', but sure. The grunts are angry when we say we're here to talk, and threaten to crush us. Unlike what the cutscene seems to imply, however, it's not a 2v2 battle -- a bit strange, since the earlier Dedenne fight showed off that this is most certainly a viable technology in this game. But okay. 

The dude grunt sends out Garbodor, followed by a Lairon. The Poison-type isn't too surprising, but the Steel-type? As I would soon figure out, the Rust Syndicate is a Poison and Steel themed team, so I guess they really, really have a beef against faeries? 

The two grunts argue at each other at whose loss is the more embarrassing one, with the female grunt insisting that her win is a 'near win'. They are interrupted by a big unit of a man, a massive dude in a fancy suit, with, uh... staples? Are those staples? And... uh... metal spikes embedded onto his facial hair. Okay. Let me not mock the French Yakuza. This man is Phillippe, and he admonishes the two grunts for not maintaining appearances and dignity in front of their organization base. The two guards kowtow for forgiveness, and Phillippe tells them that guard duty is a crucial part of their organization's charter, and they have to do it properly. 

Phillippe then addresses us, and we tell him that we're here to discuss Taunie's loan. Phillippe is the man that called me earlier, and thanks me for coming since they take loans and debts very, very seriously... before gaslighting us and saying that we are kind of horrible people for beating up his guards, 'humiliating them so thoroughly and heartlessly', and muttering if he could even 'do business with people as rude as [us]'. Phillippe then notes that it would be equally rude to send us back after we went so far, so the solution is to clearly for him to give me a thrashing in battle, and he'll call it even. 

He would be intimidating if this was the real world and he was a real yakuza intimidating two teenagers, but thankfully I have a monster centipede, a flower dinosaur, a mind-controlling psionic squid, a hippo with a parasitic shell friend, and a soul-sucking ghost chandelier on my side. Phillippe boasts that he is the top brass of the Rust Syndicate, and he won't leave me with false optimism as to how the battle will go... and we get a fight!

Phillippe is a Steel-type trainer, and he unleashes a massive, impressive Steelix upon us. Steelix spends his one turn on the field setting up Stealth Rock... and my Chandelure just unleashes a gout of Flamethrower that one-shots it. Phillippe then sends out Scizor, which doesn't even get to do anything as Chandelure breathes fire through the Stealth Rock and cooks the robo-mantis alive. 

Phillippe's ace Pokemon? It's a Skarmory! Oh! This wasn't a Pokemon I expected to get a new Mega Evolution! Honestly, I do like the rather random choices for the brand-new megas in Legends Z-A! Phillippe taps the Keystone on his lapel, and Skarmory mega evolves... into Mega Skarmory! It's, um... it's interesting. All of Skarmory's silver parts become golden, which looks pretty badass. Its secondary colour is black, but... most importantly, its talons elongate to an absurd degree. I mean, I shouldn't say absurd, some real-world birds like the jacana bird have those kinds of proportions, but it looks really weird on a Mega Skarmory that's constantly flying. 

I like it, though! For the ten seconds that it remains on screen before I mega-evolve my small chandelier into an even bigger chandelier and cook the metal bird to a crisp. 

Phillippe is shocked but regains his composure very quickly, even healing my Pokemon (yes, the 10 HP that Chandelure lost from running into Stealth Rock). Because he's a man of his word, he brings us in to do business. So Lida and I follow him into the Rust Syndicate building...

And oh boy, the presentation! It's just a single room, but we've got two rows of guards standing rigid with their arms behind them, and we can only walk, not run, as we walk down the guard-corridor towards where Phillippe is waiting in front of the lift. It really is quite tense, and, again, the yakuza aesthetics of the building is pretty cool. There's a random Sneasel-themed bar where a lady is muttering about a 'fresh start', but we can't really interact with her now. 

After that intimidating walk, Phillippe brings us to a massive, lavish yakuza boss office with a lot of fancy decorations -- a whole Japanese sand garden, wallpaper with Steelix on it, a giant golden Kingambit statue, random katana displayed all over the place... Phillippe reports to his boss, Corbeau, the boss of the Rust Syndicate. Corbeau is an interesting design, with the same 'goopy anime hair' texture on parts of his hair and the accents of his business suit, so he clearly is a Poison-type trainer. He's got a general businessman-with-glasses look, with two dangly things off the sides of his glasses. 

Corbeau isn't too pleased that we came in place of Taunie, so at least we know that Taunie isn't being held hostage in a yakuza basement somewhere. Corbeau then asks Phillippe why we are unharmed, since Phillippe should have 'crushed our spirits' to make us more persuadable. Phillippe freely admits his defeat, which Corbeau finds interesting. The two of them have a brief discussion, which reveals to us that Phillippe was the former boss of the Rust Syndicate, but freely ceded his seat to Corbeau after seeing how much stronger he is. Corbeau also notes that he didn't really want the title of boss, but here he is. 

Corbeau then directs us to the very comfortable sofas... "our guests all love 'em. In fact, they never seem to want to leave 'em... at least, not before agreeing to everything we ask."... Okay, that is surprisingly unsettling for Pokemon's standards! I still find it rather refreshing and awesome that we're getting a somewhat more serious debt collection and yakuza subplot out of Pokemon! 

Corbeau warns us and tells us that we better make it worthwhile for him. Lida explains the situation and says that we hope to negotiate in Taunie's place. Phillippe gives a recap of the situation from his side, emphasizing how kind he was when he offered Taunie help with funding when he found Taunie helping people in the streets. It's a service, and Taunie should totally be thankful to be offered such an assistance, because after all it's the yakuza's service to provide loans to those in need! A beautiful little circle, as they helped each other in the end... and, of course, all the terms were detailed within the contract. Corbeau tells us that he totally took Taunie's well-being and capabilities in mind, asking her if she's sure, if she could pay it back, because after all she's not a pro and her videos won't be that good.

Of course, despite all of the totally-legitimate-business's warnings, Taunie's interest ballooned to ten times her original loan. Pretty typical loan shark story, really. 

Corbeau asks us what we're going to do about the situation, and we give the standard reply of 'we need more time to repay'. Corbeau decides to leave the matter of the initial 100K loan to just Taunie, but essentially gang-presses us to deal with the 1 million Poke-euro interest. Because of course this is for our own good, and this is for our sake so we don't have to deal with debt hanging over our heads. Sure! Totally for our mental wellness. 

Corbeau says that he'll give a proposal that's not too hard -- just some little jobs here and there for us.  This sounds very much like either indentured servitude (of any kind, really, including the less-PG-13 one) or that they're hiring me as drug carriers or hitmen. Lida asks what guarantee that we would have that the yakuza would follow through... and Corbeau just shrugs and says that this is the best deal we'll get, it's out of the goodness of his heart and it's up to them how much of the interest-debt they want to shave off with every job. Lida gets angry because we might end up working for them forever, but Corbeau just brushes it off as it 'probably' won't come to that. 

Lida gets a bit angry, and Corbeau also starts getting pissed off... before calming himself down because he shouldn't be losing his temper at civilians. He emphasizes that this deal is the best for all sides, and if we don't like it... he'll just show up at the hotel with the entire Rust Syndicate at his back and call to have a big, messy yakuza Pokemon showdown. 

I can actually say 'no way' in response to Corbeau's offer, but Lida immediately accepts on my behalf in panic. Corbeau thanks us for a good deal, and spins some yarn about how the job will be for the benefit of the city -- just do our best, and everything will be fine. Phillippe sees us out after the agreement, and Lida bemoans the fact that we might find ourselves indebted to the Rust Syndicate forever. Oh no!

Returning to Hotel Z, we are greeted by Naveen, Floette and AZ. Naveen is very thankful that we came back alive, and also notes that Floette was apparently ready to go full-on Light of Ruin on the yakuza base. I mean... let her! The Syndicate was ready to bring the fight to our doorstep, let's unleash the whole flower power on their base! AZ is also wholly unconcerned despite his wards just being threatened and dragged into free enforced labour by the goddamn yakuza. 

Lida starts a meeting with just Naveen and myself, essentially recapping the Rust Syndicate situation and trying to figure out where Taunie even is... only for Taunie to come in and be confused at what she has missed. Lida gets angry at Taunie, and it's at this point when Taunie realizes just how much of interest debt she had accumulated. She missed the small print in the contract! Silly Taunie. She can't even see it without zooming in!

Taunie is apologetic and feeling silly for herself, but the plot ends up being a bit interrupted by a call from Vinnie. Three more Rogue Mega Evolutions have appeared in the city, and with the Rust Syndicate not calling yet, Team MZ decides to tackle these evolutions. There is a Mawile, Ampharos and... Barbaracle! That's another new one! Another rather underrated generation VI Pokemon! I love that a lot of the Gen V and VI Pokemon are given some attention!

But before I go on a Mega hunt (or really, a side-quest hunt -- the Gwynn, Ivor and Phillippe scenes have triggered the activation of a bunch of them) I think I have decided on who's going to be my sixth party member. Chandelure and the shiny Slowbro have basically ousted out Aegislash and Greninja, thanks to the type overlap and the latter two not really having any megas. And I definitely want to use some of the newer Legends Z-A megas. Out of the ones available to me right now, Eelektross and Hawlucha speak out to me... but Hawlucha is a Generation VI Pokemon and I feel I need to have some Kalosian-originated Pokemon other than just my friend Malamar! 

Hawlucha spawns on top of some specific buildings, but they don't always spawn there! I had to do some resetting and climbing up way more times than I care to admit. But at least this time around I get an ALPHA Hawlucha! With the Hawluchanite in tow, this means that four of my six party members now have access to megas now, and I do know for a fact that the other two will get megas at some point in the game. Current party, and likely to be my final party: Meganium, Scolipede, Malamar, Slowbro, Chandelure, Hawlucha!

Next up is going to be me catching up on some side-quests, and maybe a couple of mega evolution hunting too! 

Random Notes:

• In an attempt to make us calm, AZ notes that 'the police has never moved against the Rust Syndicate', indicating that there might be more than meets the eye and that they might be a bit nicer than their population. I read it immediately as 'oh, the cops are fucking dirty'.
  
• I didn't realize the Z-A dex is a lot smaller than I thought, and as far as I can tell, neither Kingambit or Weezing are in this dex. Their pre-evolutions would've probably shown up at some point already. I think I was under the impression that like Legends Arceus we'd get all the Pokemon in the original national dex, but nope, as it turns out. We're just guaranteed all the Generation VI guys. 
• Since I've seen Mega Chandelure used by Gwynn, its stone is now on sale in Quasartico. So yeah, Chandelure is now my permanent fifth party member, replacing Aegislash. A lot of the trainer-tied mega stones become available either at Stone Emporium or Quasartico after beating the respective associated trainer, so Excadrill, Eelektross and Falinks are also available. 
• I bought the Amaura and Aerodactyl fossils and revived them for the dex! Also have been slowly staking out that one Eevee spot to catch more Eevees to get more dex entries. I don't think I care enough to do all the trading to get the full dex (boo hiss, no trading cable item in ZA) but I'll still make an attempt to. 
• I have a lot of colourful screws that I hunted during the downtime as well, which translates to a lot of experience and money bonuses! 
• Steelix's textures look really good. I don't know if this is an upgrade that Scarlet/Violet gave it. Did Steelix even appear in that game? But he actually looks like he's made of proper, glinting metal now!
• I am surprised the loan sharks didn't use a Mega Sharpedo or Mega Garchomp. Too obvious, I suppose. 
• Phillippe's quote if I re-enter the yakuza hall after the scene: "money is a very important matter. It has the power to destroy friendships."