I’m so glad to have finally given Darklands a proper bash. MicroProse’s dark fantasy RPG set in the Holy Roman Empire of the 15th Century has long hovered in my list of classic CRPGs to sit down and sink some time into. If just to see what all the fuss was about.

Today, the day of doing so finally arrived.

Getting Started

Darklands hit store shelves for DOS PCs in 1992 – and only DOS. I remember hearing about it at the time, dearly hoping it would be released on Commodore Amiga. But, having sunk a few hours into the game today, I can see how that would be difficult given its grand scope. It undoubtedly would have been one of the rare hard drive-only games. The amount of disk swapping you would otherwise have to do would be excruciating. The non-CD DOS version required ten 1.44MB floppies to install the game from, which would have equated to almost twenty 880k Amiga floppy disks.

Booting up the GOG release of the game in my own DOSBOX setup (DOSBox PURE in RetroArch), I ran the installation program to tweak the sound options. I was pleased to see it offered Roland MT32 support, one of my favourite things for DOS game audio. Darklands offers both a lovely soundtrack through Roland and (importantly, unless you want various chimes, drums, and wind instruments for SFX!) separate digital sound through Soundblaster or similar hardware. Amusingly, the clue book for the game notes that they discovered how to do this too late to provide comprehensive instructions in the technical supplement bundled with the game. You’re required to tweak the game’s sound file naming structure yourself to enable it.

Welcome to the Holy Roman Empire

Darklands greets you with an appropriately moody introduction, imparting some of its gritty gothic fantasy flavour. The gargoyles are animated a little goofily, which detracts from their fearsome appearance.

In Darklands’ alternate reality Europe of the late medieval era, the creatures of folklore are not just tall tales but actually exist. Alchemy is a recognised art capable of producing effects similar to magic but with heavy restrictions on what can be accomplished with it. You’ll fling more poison cloud bombs and flasks of acid about than you will fireballs. And invoking the name of one of the many, many saints in prayer will sometimes be rewarded with holy boons.

Now, before you go expecting something like Trench Crusade or Warhammer Fantasy’s Old World, the fantasy aspects of Darklands are more akin to those in Vampire: The Masquerade or a more subdued The Witcher, drawing from Germanic myth and legend directly rather than by way of Dungeons & Dragons. Supernatural creatures and a few fantasy races do exist, but they are not omnipresent. They dwell in the dark places of late-medieval Europe, just as people then imagined they did. The Designer’s Notes section of the manual lays out much of MPS Labs’ design philosophies.

Unlike any other game in this genre, Darklands is set in a real time and place. Darklands is fantasy because whatever people of the era imagined was possible, now really is possible. Then we took a few additional liberties for the sake of gaming and playability. However, much care was taken to
make this world be the real 15th Century, as perceived by its inhabitants.

The average citizen of Darklands’ Greater Germany might go their entire lives without seeing a giant spider or a werewolf, but they’ll have heard of someone who did, perhaps seeing the corpse of one paraded through town by a hunting party; more than enough evidence for them to know they’re out there; hungry for the unwary and foolish who tread the deep woods or delve too deep into caves.

It’s an intriguing premise. One that makes encounters with the supernatural and fantastic only that much more evocative. Most of the time you’re steeped in 15th Century life as it was, seeking a life on the road as freebooting fortune-seekers no differently to how someone might have actually tried to do so then.

This segues nicely into the adventure log proper: our first session seeking fortune and glory.

It’s a Medieval Life for Me

When you start a new game of Darklands, the first thing you’ll need to do is generate some characters and take them through their lifepaths until the moment they decide to go adventuring. There is a quickstart option which will give you a party of four pre-generated ones to get rolling with right away; these can also be part-added to a party of otherwise custom-generated characters. My partner and I decided to create two new characters and use two of the pre-gens for this first exploratory session.

“Make him a woman” is a wee bit of an awkward turn of phrase! And this is an awful lot of stats and numbers to be hit with. I would advise anyone trying it to have the manual to hand as the game uses a lot of abbreviations.

Once you’ve picked a name and gender for a character, then it’s off to childhood and picking your family background aka your place in the social strata.

Each background brings its own set of strengths and weaknesses, both in your starting stats, skills, and which professions are available to you. Nobility, for example, will have a higher base charisma but rural commoners will benefit from a higher strength and a larger pool of EPs (Experience Points). These you can use to further customize your starting stats: Endurance, Strength, Agility, Perception, Intelligence, and Charisma. Twenty-five is considered the baseline for adults and each experience point from the pool of 89-99 raises a stat by one.

After consulting the manual to learn more about all the stats, skills, and their abbreviations, I decided to give my custom character, Sasha “Sash” Eberhardt, a noble background and boosted her stats to a minimum of twenty-five, raising a few of them to 30+ in line with the military career I had in mind for her.

With the stats distributed and with Sasha turning fifteen, old enough to be considered an adult in the medieval world, it’s now time for her to embark on her first profession. At this point, Darklands’ character generation system evoked memories of playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Traveller. In both TTRPGs, your character isn’t born an adventurer; they gain their skills through having a prior profession before they embark on a life of adventure. In Darklands, you can even have multiple, switching every five years. Or you can specialise in a single one and advance through rank tiers – if you meet the stat, skill, and family background requirements. I had a military career in mind for Sasha, so first took Noble Heir, then Soldier, followed by Veteran, and then finally Captain. This brought Sasha up to 40 years old.

The age of your character is also something you’ll have to consider. You can push your character all the way into their 70s, but they’ll suffer stat decreases as they get older. You’ll be awarded fewer Experience Points each time to represent that decline. But! Unlike Traveller, there’s no chance for your character to die during generation! (Hooray!)

My partner (Kit) rolled her character next: Ragna “Ember” Brandt. Kit had a crafter in mind, so she picked a Town Trades family background. And thanks to her starting stats, she was able to skip the Apprentice stage and begin on the Journeyman Craftsman profession. This enabled her to focus fully on this job, raising her Artifice skill to a masterful degree and reaching the highest tier: Master Craftsman by the age of 20.

With our custom characters created and wanting to dive right in, we recruited two of the pre-gens to fill out the remaining slots in the party: Hans and Gretch. Both had focused on archery and alchemy, neatly filling out gaps in our combined skill sets. Welcome aboard, friends!

And with all that done, it was time to go adventuring.

An Inauspicious Start to Our Adventures

We began our adventure in the Gasthaus (a combined inn, tavern, and festhall) in the Dutch town of Nymwegen (Nijmegen). Full of good cheer, food and ale, our party of four pledged themselves to seek fortune and glory!

Leaving the Gasthaus in good spirits and with a few vague ideas on how to achieve our goals, we pondered our first course of action.

Gorgeous artwork accompanies the text and menu-driven interface. It’s actually quite daunting navigating the larger cities as there are a lot of locations to visit. And aside from the suggestions your fellow party members make in the tavern, there is no other guidance on where to start. No immediate ‘main quest’ thread dangled before you to grab onto. Darklands is a true sandbox in the Mount & Blade style, focused as much on being a simulation of late medieval Europe as it is on providing a role-playing experience.

Hunting down thieves and other ne’er-do-wells sounded like a good idea, so we set off to look for these back streets that Hans mentioned. But with it being early morning and with time to kill, we decided to just explore the city and keep our eyes open for opportunities.

“What say you to some fine new equipment?” Sasha asked as we walked down a side street filled with small workshops and the sound of hammers striking anvils. She glanced at the well-worn short sword scabbarded at her belt, a memento of her captaincy of the household retinue. Perhaps a fine longsword?

Alas, their combined purse (holding coins of three denominations) was too slender to enable such an upgrade, even with flattering the city’s smithy with flowery words and small talk. So, much to his annoyance (and our own), we left empty-handed.

The Eiermarket beckoned next, the bustling commercial hub of the city. It was then that Gretch made the suggestion that we visit the local factor for the all-powerful Hanseatic League (which rose again in 2018!). Perhaps we could find employment as caravan guards or bodyguards?

After an hour of waiting simply to be noticed by the snobby little paper-scribbler sitting behind a reception desk, we somewhat impatiently inquired about gainful employment.

After being made to wait yet more hours before the master of the house would deign to meet us, we left the Hansa offices with scowls on our faces. Laughter and derision had greeted our attempts at ingratiating ourselves and offering our services!

A more polite but still unreceptive experience awaited us at the office of the local representative of the powerful Medici banking family, wasting the rest of the afternoon waiting to be seen.

It seems that more than just fine words and oaths delivered in the comfort of a Gasthaus would be needed. We had to build a reputation (or needed a more silvered tongue aka higher charisma) before the more rarified aspects of society would even entertain offering us a job. Even the local Rathaus (town hall) laughed us out of their comfortable offices, amused by our attempts to present ourselves as credible agents.

By this time, the sun was setting. Most of the day had been spent in uncomfortable silence, waiting for one puffed-up official after another. But! We were determined to pick up some sort of lead on adventurous work. The local notice boards beckoned.

Uh-oh. We had forgotten about the curfew. Citizens of the city are not allowed to be on the streets after the hour of Compline unless they have a damn good reason to be out after sundown. So engrossed had we been reading the many notices posted that it was already dark by the time we looked up again. “What do we do?” asked Sasha in a low whisper. “Well, this would be a good opportunity to seek those footpads,” Ragna murmured, indicating toward Hans.

Hugging the shadows lest we be accosted by a member of the city watch, we made our way into a back alley. Yes, perhaps this would be our first step toward fortune and glory!

“Stop right there, criminal scum!”

The traditional city guard’s challenge greeted us a few steps into the alley. We turned, shielding our eyes as lantern light stabbed at them.

Well, that was us in a bit of a pickle. We looked at each other, considering what to do. A hefty fine was the punishment for not complying with the curfew. Should we pay the fine? Stand and fight?

“RUN FOR IT!”

Alas, our attempt at scarpering away came to an abrupt halt as Sasha lost her footing and landed in an undignified heap on the crude, unpaved street. Rather than leaving her to the less-than-tender mercy of the guards, the other three turned back and helped her up onto her feet.

Back at the Gasthaus, their purse now quite a bit lighter, the party sullenly licked the wounds in their battered pride and considered the events of the day. It seemed so long ago now, that initial toast and pledge. The good cheer and camaraderie. Dirty, tired, and poorer than they had been that morning, they decided that the best course of action would be to earn some coin doing odd jobs.

It wouldn’t be glamorous work but it would pay the costs of staying at the inn and put some coin back into their purses.

The Open Road

The next morning, their egos still stinging from all the derision they had gone through the previous day, the party decided it would be best to wave the city goodbye and seek their fortunes elsewhere.

A few miles out of town, as their spirits lifted a little higher with the fragrance of the open countryside replacing the stench of the city streets, Sasha came to a sudden halt. She raised her hand to shield her eyes as something up ahead caught her attention.

A-ha! A merchant caravan under attack by bandits! Now this was more like it! The party grinned eagerly as they looked at one another, envisioning the thanks they would receive from the beleaguered merchants – and grateful rewards!

Alas, things did not go as planned here, either. Ragna had forgotten to buy a quarrel of bolts for her crossbow and there were a lot more bandits than we initially thought there were. As they charged in, Ragna armed with the small pocket knife she used for peeling apples, the would-be rescuers found themselves overwhelmed by a swarm of ragged outlaws eager to plunder the wealth of the caravan.

Hours later, Sasha, Ragna, Hans, and Gretch dragged themselves to their feet, rubbing the lumps on their heads and wincing as they favoured bruised limbs. They had all been knocked out; only remnants of the caravan and a few bloody corpses could be seen.

Perhaps it had been fortune smiling upon them, though it didn’t do their pride any favours. Much to their surprise – and indignity – they found that the bandits had left them where they fell, not stooping to loot what appeared to be such a shabby band of would-be adventurers.

Well, that was the last straw. Ingloriously, they limped back toward the accursed city that had already treated them so poorly, suffering the indignity of having to queue up with the afternoon traffic seeking entrance into the city. “I’ll be damned before I hand those swine a coin to get in!” hissed Sasha. Haughtily, making sure the mud-stained family crest on her torn tabard was visible, she marched past the merchants and peasants lined up at the main city gates. She ignored their protests and catcalls and struck a defiant pose, demanding immediate entrance into the city.

Ill-fortune continued to dog the party as her attempts to play on her noble upbringing fell on deaf and scornful ears. A subsequent attempt to just sneak into the city ended just as poorly.

Handing over the toll with a scowl, the foursome slunk in back through the gates. The hour was already drawing late – another fruitless day spent. Perhaps… just perhaps, they’d have more luck the next one.

The End of our Adventures… For Now.

I really enjoyed our first experience with Darklands; there’s definitely something special about the game. It’s bursting with opportunities to spin your own narratives like the ones Kit and I enjoyed thanks to its sandbox nature and just how many little systems are in play. But it is an intimidating game. You’re left as clueless about what to do first as you really might be if you decided to just embark on a life of a freebooting fortune-seeker then. Opportunities aren’t just going to fall into your lap, nor is a king or lord suddenly going to call you to service. You’ll have to work your way up from the bottom, whisper in the right ears, put the coin in the right hands, and build a reputation. In this way, it’s similar to other sandbox MicroProse games such as Sid Meier’s Pirates! or their flight sims where you earn ranks and medals throughout dozens, perhaps hundreds of missions.

Insight has been kindly granted to me by someone more familiar with Darklands that it does have a main story that you’ll eventually and organically become entwined in. I was aware of several quest arcs, but not that yet there was a core story with what sounds like high stakes. So! I’m looking forward to experiencing that and seeing which direction it takes. I feel though that you could completely ignore its storylines if you so choose. Fully embrace the sandbox aspect, live the life of a denizen of its sprawling world and explore its intricate political and socio-economic systems. Participating in them in whatever way you wish.

That’s pretty damn ambitious for 1992.