Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

(Continued from my last post, or if you want to read my entire series on this game including when I played it on a MUD, the link here will work.)

I’ve done some major exploration of Moria, which is very open. I get the impression that part of the goal is “touristic”, just letting the player inhale the air of Tolkien’s universe without having too many puzzles in the way.

Not like Moria is as safe as the Polynesian Islands—

Moria, as shown on a movie poster by Dan Mumford. Source.

Let’s start with a meta-map. (If you haven’t seen one of mine before, this is a map where the directions are only vague, and is intended to show the general interconnectivity and sort things into regions.)

The maze may be an absolute trap — at least it seems to be one room that loops, and any items that you drop get swallowed up — and the trolls are an obstacle I haven’t gotten past yet. (And the point of them may not be to go past, but I’ll get into that later.)

The start area is central in more ways than one. There’s multiple holes visible in the ceiling from the start that you can’t reach, but you can go through the on the other side. That means multiple places will drop down back to the starting room (whenever they occur, I’ve marked them in red).

Regarding that “shadow” I saw just east of the start room, it appears at random at any point during the explorations, so is an “event” like the pirate appearing in Adventure. You can simply just wait in place (or as happened to me often, test to see if particular exits work and get lots of “dead end” type messages) and it will re-appear. There’s a knife nearby and I tried to USE it while the shadow was visible but Frodo is apparently “clumsy” and “unaccustomed” to handling one and just manages to cut himself instead. That’s not to say an aggressive approach will always fail but for the moment in my gameplay the shadow (my guess is, Gollum having reclaimed the ring and lurking invisible) is just something that happens.

Another possible random encounter is a “flokk med småtroll” (“group of small trolls”) although as long as you move to a different room when they appear they won’t cause trouble. (Orc in Norwegian is Orker; when I first encountered the flokk I briefly wondered if småtroll was intended to mean orc.)

Just to the north of the start is the axe which promised death, and I took it with no ill effects (but I theorized one might come in the future). Indeed, later (I don’t know if “at random” or on a timer) a “skummel dverg” (“scary dwarf”) arrives and looks at you; it may simply run away, but if you happen to be holding the axe, he’ll return with friends.

Dvergen ser skarpt på øksa du holder og piler rundt hjørnet. Etter noen sekunder kommer en hel flokk dverger løpende mens de roper noe opphisset. De river fra deg den hellige øksa og hugger deg ned.

The dwarf looks intently at the axe you are holding and darts around the corner. After a few seconds, a pack of dwarves comes running while yelling. They rip the holy axe from you and cut you down.

Closing out the central area is a pile of straw to the west of the axe, and a “wing of literature” to the east. Randomly, that wing has an elf hat and a pearl necklace, but also the inside text of the One Ring written in Black Speech.

Ash Nazg durbatuluk,
ash Nazg gimbatul,
ash Nazg thrakatuluk
agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

(“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”)

Proceeding in that same direction leads to a “square room”…

…where branching off to the north is a pyramid (“some notes of music can be heard in the distance”), a “rat’s nest”, and finally a dwelling of a “huldra”. The huldra is a Norwegian mythical creature/sorceress that is usually depicted as young…

Actual stamp from Norway, 2022. Via europa-stamps.

…but for the purposes of this game, it is old, and surrounded by toads. She asks if you want to solve three riddles; if you fail, you’ll get toad-ified.

Ei gammel trollkjerring sitter foran en stol oppstøttet av silkeputer.
Hun vrir det heslige ansiktet sitt til et groteskt grin og sier:

`Er du beredt til å svare på tre vanskelige og skjebnesvangre gåter?’

An old witch sits in front of a chair, propped up by silk pillows.
She turns her ugly face into a grotesque smile and says:

“Are you prepared to answer three difficult and deadly riddles?”

This was in MUD-Ringen and the riddles are the same, except that the translation of the creature is of a “ogress”. This is one moment we have confirmed from Pål-Kristian Engstad himself that this was added by him to the home computer version.

… I have only made this creature up from my imagination. It might or might not be very Tolkienish, but it always made the players wonder. I have personally always felt that the passing through of Moria was too briefly explained in Tolkien’s works, but that is in a way nice, since it allows to imagine what actually is there (or might be there).

The first riddle asks about a being who covets something round (Sauron) and the second, trickier riddle asks about which dwarf “made the great gate in the west.” Despite the gate in question being the Doors of Durin this refers to the dwarf Narvi.

He’s in the Rings of Power television show. (I like the dwarf parts, not wild about anything else.)

I have no idea the answer to the third riddle.

Deep in the mountains, in the Mines of Moria.
Witch and sorceress, what is my name?

It might be in-game rather than trivia (since the author already admitted the character was non-Tolkien). (And before anyone asks, “name” or “my name” do not work.)

Moving back to the main path, you reach a crossroads, then can go south down a slide (back to the starting room) or north past a “greenhouse”.

Du er inne i et fabelaktig drivhus av en dal!
Et mylder av vekster gror her, og det er ganske mørkt. Mot sør er ei åpning og mot nord fortsetter hagen så langt du kan se. Stien mot nord er smal, men brukbar.

You are inside a fabulous greenhouse of a valley!
A multitude of plants grow here, and it is quite dark. To the south is an opening; facing north, the garden continues as far as you can see. The path to the north is narrow but usable.

Off to one side is a “low hill” with an herbal drink; this herbal drink serves as healing (in case of, say, clumsy knife handling). Farther on is a dense undergrowth “maze” I mentioned earlier which may be a trap rather than a maze.

Du har gått deg vill i krattskogen!!

>ø
Ok.
Du har gått deg vill i krattskogen!!

>v
Ok.
Du har gått deg vill i krattskogen!!

>n
Ok.
Du har gått deg vill i krattskogen!!

Reversing back to the beginning and heading west is what I’m calling the Gorge Area.

To the far west is a Maritime Room with a cylinder (no idea what it does); the most important room is a hall with a bag of gold dust and some elves that appear. They will shout “troll” if you appear normally, but if you happen to be holding the elf hat they’ll have a different reaction.

Jeg er Gloriendel, lederen for denne lille flokken. Jeg ser av ditt hodeplagg at du er venn av alvene. Er du Ringbæreren?

I am Gloriendel, the leader of this small group. I see from your hat that you are a friend of the elves. Are you the Ringbearer?

Saying “yes” has Gloriendel give some advice about an “enormous monster” known as the Balrog which “has been in Moria since the dawn of time.” According to the elf, the One Ring has “a power greater than the Balrog” and that if you have “received the wizard’s mark” you may be able to overcome him.

You then receive a gift of mithril armor.

While you can go directly to the throne room area by going up where you meet the elves, I’m going to loop back to near the start where the knife was, and go east to what I’m calling the Huge Corridor Area.

As the name implies, the geography is dominated by a large corridor, although you can go up to a “window” to get a scene that I remember from MUD Ringen.

Du er ved vinduet.
Du ser utover et majestetisk slettelandskap. Fra ditt utsiktspunkt høyt oppe i fjellsida har du utsikt over fjell og daler ute i det fri, og den klare fullmånen som belyser landskapet. Mot sør strekker Tåkefjellene seg, og mot vest de gresskledte slettene i ditt hjemland. (Snufs!) Det er ikke mulig å presse seg ut av vinduet, men det er et hull i gulvet her, og mot sør ei vindeltrapp.

The direct translation from the MUD is:

You are standing by the window. You have a majestic view over the scenery from here. From this spot high up in the mountain you can see past mountains and valleys out in the free, and the clear full moon shines upon the landscape. Southwards the Misty Mountains extend, and to the west there are the grassy plains of your homeland. (Sniff!) You cannot squeeze yourself through the window, but there is a hole in the floor here, and a spiral staircase in the south end of the room.

I had theorized this was pulled from the original just due to how unusual a description of state of mind is in MUD-rooms. (In general, the DOS game has lots of “scenery” rooms so leans to MUD-like already. I can see why Pål-Kristian thought of porting it.)

The corridor includes a black staff and a necklace and at the far north are two trolls that will spot you right away (I assume the One Ring mitigates this). You can run away by climbing up, or you can try to run down the corridor instead and get captured and thrown in troll-jail. It’s then possible to break out and this seems to be a new area, but I’m going to save describing the dungeon for next time because I haven’t explored thoroughly yet. The important point here is that possibly you need to get captured to win the game.

The lower dungeon.
This is a small hole roughly carved out of the rock. An exit is up. On the dirty and dusty wall is a sign: “I, Gloin, was here. There is a secret exit from here, which the trolls do not know about, made by us dwarves. Just say the name of the legendary Bilbo’s nephew, son of Drogo, and you will escape — but watch out for trolls!”

One branch off the corridor leads to a “secret meeting room” with some stinking sulfur which will be used for a puzzle in a moment. In the meantime, let’s go to the last section I’m talking about today:

There’s a throne room described as being where the “Mountain King” held court, with a small side offshoot behind some drapes containing a magnifying glass. To the east is a “holy room” (with a “scent of incense and myrrh”) next to a “gold room” (everything is made out of gold, but you can’t pick it up) with an empty bottle. Curiously, the spiritual room is right next to a Vampire room, where some bats will bite and poison you if you hang out too long. The game explicitly mentions the medicine at the greenhouse as curing the poison.

Under the ceiling are several thousand small vampire bats. The floor is covered in excrement and there is an intense smell.

Back at the throne room just to the north is a dragon’s lair. This was in the MUD version and I kept getting shoved out of the room because of my scent being detected, but while holding the stinky sulfur it is possible to enter safely.

A fifty-meter-long dragon lies sleeping here. There appears to be an exit to the north, behind the dragon.

The problem is that going past the dragon just hits a slide, which goes back to the start! So I have no idea why you’d bother with the dragon in the first place. I still don’t know if the game’s norms allow this to be a “scene” for fun or if there must be some deeper significance (or at least a treasure).

Speaking of treasures, you may have spotted there have been items like the gold dust and the necklace which seem to serve solely as treasures in the Crowther/Woods style. I don’t know yet if that’s how they’ll work out; the game’s sole objective given at the start is escape, but perhaps the treasures count as points and Frodo can afford a small beach vacation before tackling Mount Doom.