The Nemract Catacombs

So, a while ago, I conceived of an idea for how to redo Nemract. This idea has lodged itself firmly in my brain, and General Suggestions is the only way by which I may extract it.

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The Nemract Catacombs would be a significant area, lore-wise underneath Nemract (although it would actually be a zone outside the main-map, as it would likely be too large and deep to be properly underneath Nemract). A significant portion of Nemract's quests would involve journeying into some part of the Catacombs.

There are a large number of Catacombs entrances in Nemract, which the player can use to be deposited in different starting points of the Catacombs. Some possible entrances: Houses in Ancient Nemract, the Church crypt, Saint's Row graveyard, a rotting house in Nemract whose floor collapses, a cave near Nemract, a mine near Nemract, the Pit of the Dead.

Spoiler: Nemract's Quests (And Boss Altar, And Secret Discoveries)

Grave Digger (Level 20)
Sayleros, in Detlas, is a member of an enterprising family of Nemract nobles, who happen to own the local graveyard. They fled Nemract recently, due to the worsening situation, in part because their graveyard has become very, very dangerous. Alas, Sayleros' brother was killed in a battle with local bandits. His will was read in Detlas, revealing that he intended to leave Sayleros an amulet with great sentimental value - as well as actual value. Unfortunately, Sayleros' brother had this amulet on him when he died. Sayleros sends you to Nemract to meet with Drucks (nicknamed Drucksh due to his perpetual inebriety), the last member of the family remaining in Nemract.

As it turns out, Sayleros' brother was buried in Saint's Row cemetery. Drucksh gives you his key to the cemetery, and tells you which crypt the brother was buried in. You go to the mausoleum and descend into it, finding Sayleros' brother and battling him in a long and (somewhat) difficult fight to retrieve the amulet.
You can return to Drucksh or Sayleros with the amulet. Drucksh will send it via mail to Detlas, and warn you not to go into Saint's Row again, or indeed, just about anywhere outside of town - there are many ways into the deep catacombs, and they're so monster-infested that nobody comes out. Sayleros will jovially tell you about something or other. I'm not sure whether the brothers would give different rewards for beating the quest - I suppose Sayleros could give money while Drucksh gives a valuable item.

Pit of the Dead (Level 20)
Merloni, the starting questgiver for this quest, can be found in two locations. If you enter Nemract while passing the Pit by, he'll be in Nemract. If you go to the Pit, he'll be standing over it, walking around. In both beginnings, he'll tell you that the Pit recently opened - a sinkhole in the soft turf of the swamp. A lot of angry spirits have been exiting the Pit and causing trouble around Nemract, so he tells you to descend into the Pit and find their source.

Within the Pit, you have to navigate a small subsection of the Catacombs, until eventually, you find your way to the great room proper, where the spirits come from in force. Entering this room, they'll accost you and try to kill you, but if you can make it through to the end-point, you can ascend the little structure and destroy a crystal at its peak, freeing the spirits, who, appeased, vanish. An exit is presented, which you take.

When you reach Merloni, he tells you that he saw the Pit below shift, and that the proper Catacombs have been revealed. You can then return to the Pit, where a new path has opened up, enabling you to enter the true Catacombs and begin delving through them.

Crate Crane (Level 20)
Crate Crane plays as normal, except for a tidbit that you can see a Catacomb wall in the back of the hideout.

The Lost Tower/The Book of Rites (Level 22)
Laen, in Nemract, is a member of an esoteric cult, the Cryptkeepers (or some other name), who administered the Necropolis, long ago. It was a massive city of the dead, an enormous, opulent cemetery for all the dead of this thriving port city. Alas, it has since fallen to great ruin, and not only has the order diminished, but they have lost their sacred books over time.

The Book of Rites is one of their tomes, which Laen believes to have hallowed rituals by which the Necropolis could be cleansed and restored. It contains more necromantic knowledge than known to all the world's necromancers, and indeed, could even strike a strong blow against the Corruption. Unfortunately, all the copies of the text were lost in the fall of Nemract. However, Laen has discovered a tower where the order had congregated, the last known location of the Book of Rites, and located it in Ancient Nemract. She commissions you to delve into the tower and find the Book.

As you descend through the tower, you enter the Catacombs. Strangely, though, some of the zombies... aren't hostile. In the opening sequence of rooms, unconnected to the rest of the Catacombs, you find a sane and non-violent undead, standing in a crypt, looking over a coffin. He guides you down through the Lost Tower, as you fight the maddened, corrupted tenants of the crypt, and eventually he gets you to the crypt.

It turns out this nameless skeleton actually founded the Cryptkeeper order, and wrote the book. He was interred here to watch over this sacred tomb, where all the Cryptkeepers were buried, with special rites in the book. Indeed, at the very bottom of the Lost Tower, in the oldest crypt, there are several undead who are perfectly docile. He tells you that the Book of Rites contains the Cryptkeeper burial rite, although it is sacred and not to be used on non-cultists.

You have two options with this book. If you turn it in to Laen, she is overjoyed, especially with the information that ancient, thousand-year-old Cryptkeepers remain alive (ish) in the depths of the crypt. She sets off to reform the order, but the rite is lost to the sacraments of this cult. You do get some bits of armor and stuff from Laen. On the other hand, you can bring it to the militia's headquarters. The military of Wynn pays you handsomely for the book, and tells you that they'll put the burial rites to great use in the fight against the Corruption. This last bit is, of course, because moral quandaries are Wynn's favorite.

Dwelling Walls (Level 22)
Plays out as normal, except improved in the update. Not connected with the Catacombs, so I won't suggest anything about it in this post.

The Dark Descent (Level 24)
Plays out effectively as normal. This isn't actually involved with the Catacombs, although dialogue is jiggled around slightly to imply you were spellbound in the Catacombs while you wandered in Charon's realm, and Graken had to drag you out.

Rotten Passage (Level 25)
Saint's Row contains a lot of normal mausolea, along with an entrance to the Catacombs, the way you took to reach Sayleros' brother. When you go down this way again, one newly-opened path will lead to the open, non-quest Catacombs, while another will lead to the Rotten Passage Boss Altar. Rotten Passage plays as normal from this point.

Misadventure on the Sea (Level 28)
Plays out as normal.

The Mercenary (Level 30)
Plays out as normal.

Spoiler: Catacombs Structure

The Catacombs, broadly, would be arranged into a number of layers. The deeper layers are higher-level, and are generally more challenging, but of course also have more loot.

The Catacombs could either take the form of a large, interconnected labyrinth, or many individual areas connected by crumbling tunnels. The former is better for the Catacombs as essentially a giant dungeon; the latter is better for the Catacombs if it was filled with quest areas (such as the Pit of the Dead, the Lost Tower, and Sayleros' brother's tomb).

You can mix these two if you want the best of both worlds. In a mixture, the top layer of the Catacombs - being around Nemract level - consists of the individual quest areas. However, beating the quests in the catacombs would allow you to access the broader Catacomb tunnels, which are connected to the lower, more dangerous and collapsed layers. The quest zones would connect to the broader Catacombs, possibly through breakable walls which you cannot destroy until the quest is over. Or maybe you just need to buy bombs to blow those walls to smithereens.

I'd have suggested having caves in the Catacombs, but on further thought, all caves I know are kept on the main map regions (with RoL included in that). Since the Catacombs are off-map, they probably wouldn't have caves.

Exploring the deeper portions of the Catacombs is difficult because of the monsters. More challenging, complicated, and high-level monsters lurk in the darker, deeper parts of the Catacombs. These lower halls are more difficult to navigate as well, but of course, have better loot.

With all the entrances the Catacombs have, depending on which way you take to the surface, you can be spat out almost anywhere. Likely, some sort of escape rope-type item will need to be provided if you get thoroughly lost, which will allow you to escape the Catacombs with no risk. This item is sold from a merchant for no small amount of emeralds (at-level). Likely somewhere around 5-10, so that you don't get truly stuck, but you're also incentivised to find a cheaper way out of the Catacombs.

Spoiler: Catacombs Lore

Ancient Nemract had a long, very storied tradition of honored burial. Massive crypts were dug out for the honored dead, which slowly expanded into the Necropolis, deep underneath Nemract. This Necropolis was the reason why Nemract fell so fast, when the Corruption struck - there were uncountable corpses in the depths, which rose out to overrun the city at their commander's behest. The Necropolis was destroyed in these attacks, at least partially, and is now run-down and collapsed, the Catacombs you adventure through. There are still remaining pieces of its former opulence, but for the most part, it's just a monster-infested ruin.

Spoiler: Alternate Catacombs

The Alternate Catacombs would lack any quest involvement whatsoever. These catacombs are accessed by a camp of delvers, who have merchants that sell items that will be useful in the Catacombs - an Escape Rope if you get stuck and can't find your way out, potions (health, 20-45, mana potions, stat potions), weapons, armor, accessories, basically everything. This version of the Catacombs plays out like a dungeon (in the traditional sense), mostly unconnected with the rest of the gameplay in Nemract. Lore-wise, you explored some of it when you did local Nemract quests, but they don't actually connect to the Catacombs proper.

The Alternate Catacombs can be a raid-like random assortment of rooms or a proper labyrinth. (These are Roguelike and Labyrinth variants, respectively.)

Roguelike consists of an assortment of rooms. You spawn into a room which throws a challenge at you, usually a combat challenge but with parkour or puzzle portions also possible - like in raids. The room, once cleared, opens several exits - it doesn't matter which one you take, as all of them will simply spawn you in a new random room. Occasionally, you'll fight bosses or minibosses, who will drop special tokens you can trade in to the merchants at the top for special gear - properly powerful gear, in exchange for how difficult it was to defeat this. After clearing a boss, you can flee the Catacombs or progress to a higher-level portion, where the rewards are better but the enemies more dangerous.

Labyrinth is a single, cohesive Catacombs. It is structured the same as Quest Catacombs, the one I describe in the other dropdowns. You explore these catacombs and find your way around them, opening many chests, fighting the infesting monsters, and locating secrets.
The Alt Catacombs, of course, have a ton of secrets. These secrets can be accessed through many tricks; there may be parkour segments, hidden entrances, or walls you have to use special bombs to blow through. They may have dangerous monsters to fight (which guard loot), or a lesser quantity of loot with no guard, or otherwise something of interest (such as a method to access other parts of the catacombs easily, or escape).

They can fit in the Roguelike variant, although in Roguelike, the secrets, slightly more overt, instead of leading to proper rooms instead lead to vantablock script passages to a randomly-assigned 'secret' room. Basically, an extra exit from a room you've cleared, which leads to a more valuable room than the normal exits would have gone to.

 

good idea !

 

funny