Discendo Vox on 29/5/2024 at 05:35
Next I'm going to tackle the contents of Abubtiyar's tablets (this is a recap of a post originally in the Mission 10 thread, with some new info). I'll be using the Keeper-translated version. As before, ALL CAPS material was encoded in ur-magic script, normal text is Keeper annotations.
Text:
Below a copy of the mandala with symbols of the four traditional elements, the following text occurs:
LIGHT THREE DIVIDE
FLESH TETRA COMBINE
The primary division of light counters the primary combination of flesh
Interpretation:
This is fairly easy to parse, but its meaning is still enigmatic. It's worth noting that the Keepers added the "counters" part.
Below, three images corresponding to the three magic talismans appears with the following text:
AHMAR Red
AZRAQ Blue
ASFAR Yellow
Interpretation:
These names are just Arabic for each of the colors involved, fitting for a Hand document. This informs us that the elongated pentagonal shape corresponds to Aldrius's Demise, the blue pentagon corresponds to Teidir's signet, and the yellow hexagon corresponds to Dubyj's Amulet. It may or may not be significant that none of these shapes seems to in any way fit the geometry of the mandala.
The combination of the shapes may be intended to on some level reflect the internal geometry of the ceremonial circle, though that's not very clear. It's also not clear from the materials onhand how the artifacts were supposed to work to counter the ritual/brand, nor why they didn't.
In the upper right we have a set of text that gives artful names of the four Galenic humors, followed by elemental symbols and the same humor names in ur-magic script. These are very useful for decoding the cipher!
Flegmat (phlegm) (Water symbol)
Sanguin (blood) (Air symbol)
Coleric (yellow bile) (Fire symbol)
Melanc (black bile) (Earth symbol)
Interpretation:
This gives us a correspondence between each of the traditional elements in the mandala and the four Galenic Humors. The actual mandala goes in the following order, clockwise:
Black Bile/Earth
Phlegm/Water
Yellow Bile/Fire
Blood/Air
I'll get into other variants later, but this is sort of the default correspondence we have to work with (it also has historical precedent in the work of Greek philosopher Empedocles). It does not clarify how these correspond to the four parts of the human being indicated in the Mission 5 text, however.
Next we have some notes from the Keepers on what turns out to be how much of each Humor to use.
Text:
In addition to souls, ritual requires exact amounts of each of the four flesh materials.
FLEGMAT ELDER DOE
SANGUIN CHILD TO WOMAN
COLERIC LARVAL HONEY
MELANC LIZARD DEATH
These quantities ae given in cryptic format. Parables of weather and animal breeding cycles. Further research required
Interpretation:
"Cryptic format" indeed! The tablets don't say that these are quantities used in a ritual, they just give the humors and these phrases. I've figured two of them out.
The blood phrase, "Child to woman", refers to menstruation or menstrual blood.
The yellow bile phrase, "larval honey", refers to royal jelly, the excretion fed to larvae in bee hives. I've got no clue on the other two of these.
Next up I'll tackle the four humor "fountains" in Mission 10 and how they and other parts of the mission seem to both match, and contradict, the above information.
MeisterdiebderEchte on 29/5/2024 at 19:20
Quote Posted by tone_lord
The Black Parade is a complete, professional quality game on par with The Dark Project and The Metal Age. It deserves a place in the pantheon as an equal companion to those classics.
I will really, really, really miss this one now that I have finished playing it.
Will I play it again? I just might. The content and depth is there.
I bow deeply to those involved in its creation and give heartfelt thanks for their vision and dedication.
Only at Mission 4 so far thanks to technical/pc problems and personal problems and work and so forth ... but have to agree. It's not over-hyped or exaggerated to state that this is indeed rather a masterpiece and stands close to the original first two games. Thanks again on this occasion to Bauchlein for making the campaign run on my graphics card!
SPIDIvonMARDER on 30/5/2024 at 09:22
Hi.
I'm pretty curious about this part of Hammerite choral from Trial of Iron:
(
https://youtu.be/YldDifLUGdo?feature=shared&t=3101) <-starts here
Sounds really like Dungeon Keeper 2, but there is no samlple like that.
So I'm wondering, is this oryginal Black parade's music or came from something.
thehardyboyz on 7/6/2024 at 22:08
Well, I finally just finished The Back Parade !
It was a very, very solid campaign, with very good things, and others not that good...
Here is my review !
+ The global amount of work and inspiration put in this project is simply amazing...
+ The maps are amazing, even though some missions could have had maps of more areas, even basic one to remain coherent
+ A great variety of missions, with huge references to some OMs. Basically, some of TPB levels are to me 2024 versions of some OMs
+ The cutscenes are amazing
+ Hume is a pretty nice character
+ The story is solid as well
+ Kaamelott references :cheeky:
+ Some panoramas are pure beauty. The view from the top of Old Castle in Mission 9 is an absolute delight
- Way too many undeads and other fantasy creatures
- Mission 10 is an awful finish which is actually a kind of tradition for a Thief game, isn't it ? :cheeky:
- I was expecting sooo much a huge city mission - Considering some of the missions were a bit redundant, I think there was a spot for something like Sound of a Burrick in a Room
Huge thanks to Feuillade Industries for creating The Black Parade !
Our community is lucky to have members and creators like you :D
thehardyboyz on 7/6/2024 at 22:13
Quote Posted by MeisterdiebderEchte
Only at Mission 4 so far thanks to technical/pc problems and personal problems and work and so forth ... but have to agree. It's not over-hyped or exaggerated to state that
this is indeed rather a masterpiece and stands close to the original first two games. Thanks again on this occasion to Bauchlein for making the campaign run on my graphics card!
Imo, The Black Parade is by far better than the original first two games.
Even though they created the universe and set up a basis, these two campaigns are actually pretty average, with very good OMs and very bad ones too.
It's difficult to compare, considering Feuillade Industries got 7 years to develop their campaign, they have NewDark and nearly 25 years of FMs and ressources behind, but if we put TDP, TMA and TBP on the same level, TBP is a way better product...
Lady Taffer on 14/6/2024 at 05:29
Ok, I'm late to the party, but I've finally started playing Black Parade and I'm really intrigued so far! However, I've run into some gameplay issues. I noticed there's a distinct lag when having Hume take various actions, most noticeably walking. Also there seems to be an odd lack of traction: if Hume is walking and I have him stop, he "slides" forward a bit before coming to a full stop. These issues are small, but they're really annoying and I'm not sure how to fix them. I've tried disabling fog, lowering sky detail and lowering the resolution, but nothing seems to work. Anyone have any ideas?
I'm using AngelLoader, btw.
Thanks in advance!
BennySwims on 19/6/2024 at 19:24
Only on mission 4 so far, but bloody hell!! Well done to the team, this is canonical stuff!!
Too Much Coffee on 19/6/2024 at 22:17
I have been away from the Thief community for at least 10 years and I want to install Black Parade since I just recently heard about it for the first time. I have my original Dark Project install disc and the Thief 2 install disc. I do not have Thief Gold, although I remember years ago I was able to update my Thief install to Thief Gold, maybe it was part of the Tfix patch? Anyway, 10 years is a long time and I no longer have a functioning disc drive (who still builds PCs with disc drives?). If i remember correctly, my installation always required the disc to be in the drive to play. Will I have to repurchase Thief Gold online to be able to play Black Parade? I know it usually can be bought dirt cheap especially from a Steam sale.
Renault on 21/6/2024 at 00:00
It kind of feels like you're already answered your own question, but yes, you need a functioning copy of Thief 1/Gold to play The Black Parade. If you don't have any way to play your disc, you can buy it on gog.com right now for $1.18. Install it then update with Tfix.
Too Much Coffee on 23/6/2024 at 02:21
Yes I suppose I did post a dumb question. But ultimately I just bought Gold and T2 for only .97 each on Steam, and had "fun" today getting all the pieces parts it needs to work and to play Black Parade,which I am good now. Probably will catch up on some other FM's I have missed over the past 10 years.
