#altar of evil

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2005): Altar of Evil

Three days after the 413 reckoning.

You come out of your bunker with a shovel in your hands, and some random stray cat tied to your waist.

A- Are they gone?

...

You hear nothing.

Oh, thank God! They came back to their degenerate caves.

You come back to your room.

Now, let’s get back to work.

S2: Altar of Evil

Main author(s): Ronald Lubbelinkhof (Dutch Devil)

Release date: March 8th, 2005 (original release)/ July 7th, 2005 (database upload, updated version)

Version played: Updated

Required port compatibility: ZDoom

Levels: 1 (MAP01 replacement)

Our second runner-up WAD (or rather map) from 2005 is Altar of Evil. And spoiler warning (because I don’t know what to say in this section): It’s better than For Whom to Bell Tolls; and no, the fact that it needs ZDoom doesn’t mean anything in that department.

So why won’t we take a look at this map, and see what works and what doesn’t?

Altar of Evil looks really good. It tends to get repetitive due to how the texture pallet is almost the same in every room but somehow I didn’t feel like it constantly looked the same. Honestly, for me, this con sounds more like a nitpick due to how the author makes it all look incredible for the lack of better words.

What’s funny about this map, is that whenever you look through the window, there is nothing but emptiness; not even when you are looking at a place where the nearby room is; suggesting that the titular area is in some God-knows-where location.

Sound effects from Doom 64 and the music from Doom I are almost always welcome for me when it comes to Doom II WADs/maps.

This map isn’t really that hard to understand, although it is kind of ridiculous when you have to press the door near the beginning to reveal a switch that will open the door you just pressed.

As for more interesting stuff, the first key you acquire (the red one) is actually needed for the exit area, but you basically end up going around the map to actually reach the red door.

Also, in one of the secret areas, there is a hidden switch that will open up an area across the secret, leading to an optional area where you can get Plasma Gun and Rocket Launcher earlier.

Altar of Evil is kind of challenging. Half of the time it’s rather fair with battles, but another half is basically you ending up surrounded by Imps that bombard you behind cages/bars. The fact that there are 361 Imps on Hurt Me Plenty doesn’t help. But to be fair, I’ve played levels that were more annoying and had more unfair difficulty. And knowing that Altar of Evil doesn’t have even one hitscanner is a blessing.

This map also adds new enemies to the roster; and depending on which skill level you choose, you will fight either two new types of monsters, eight of these, or none at all.

On HMP you will encounter Flame Demon and Nightmare Spectre, both of which are just tougher variants of Pinky without any new abilities. It probably wouldn’t surprise me if the rest of the new monsters were like this but I might be wrong here.

Also, five original enemies have a new look now.

The new Imps’ look doesn’t help with fighting them.

The only bug I’ve encountered was with new Pinky variants having scuffed attack sound effect that actually plays when they manage to bite you.

With all of that in mind, I can definitely recommend Altar of Evil. As I said at the beginning, it is better than the previous WAD and its cons are more like nitpicks for me rather than actual problems.

And speaking about both runners-up, they get promoted to the Revenant Awards 2005 too (For Whom the Bell Tolls to the Pug-of-Pink section, and Altar of Evil to the Sole Survivor section).

Welp... Guess it’s time for me to take another two-day-long break (technically just a day of a break after uploading this post since I finished this review yesterday). But after that, we can finally take a look at the best ten WADs of 2005 (according to Doomworld).

I’ll see you then.

Bye!

[sunderwight]

Thinking about Black Widow Luo Binghe.

Hear me out -- so just like in canon, Shen Qingqiu self-destructs to save Luo Binghe, dies, and Luo Binghe steals his body to put on ice while he looks for methods to resurrect him. But unlike in canon, staving off decomposition is simply not that doable for a matter of years, even with cultivation and Luo Binghe pouring qi into the process. The qi costs are still high, so is Xin Mo, and now Binghe also needs a special artifact that can actually preserve Shen Qingqiu, but that runs on blood sacrifices.

To get the thing working, Luo Binghe feeds it a bunch of prisoners from the Water Prison. Then he starts kidnapping cultivators to drain for his own qi reserves, but that's difficult, controversial, and he can't use the same victims for the blood sacrifice afterwards. Frankly, between one thing and another it would be easier to satisfy Xin Mo with dual cultivation, and focus on finding victims for Shizun's Snow White style glass preservation coffin without having to choose between using targets for one or the other. Especially given that, if he finesses it, Luo Binghe can extend the use of his sacrifices and get more out of them with fewer deaths that way.

He's pretty sure that Shizun would want fewer deaths.

Of course, he is not a fan of the logistics of the plan itself, but he'd do worse things to one day be reunited. He consoles himself that he's building up bedroom experience for one day being with Shen Qingqiu, and that it doesn't really count because his heart's not really in it, and also if Shizun got to spend all that time in brothels then it's only fitting that Luo Binghe be his equal in this as well. It still doesn't make it pleasant for him, but it makes him able to tolerate the necessity of it.

So Luo Binghe ends up marrying a string of rich and powerful figures -- mostly the villainous single fathers and mothers and evil uncles of harem members from PIDW, rather than their daughters -- and coming up with creative ways of making all their deaths a few months into the process look like accidents. After the third one people are undeniably wary of marrying him, but there's always someone with a big enough ego to think they'll be an exception, or stupid enough to believe that it really has just been so much bad luck up to that point. It helps that the universe is predisposed to let him hit it.

When SY wakes up in the shroom body and hears about Luo Binghe's succession of marriages, he's not surprised. What he is surprised by is the bisexual graveyard of toxic dilfs and milfs that has replaced the harem.

What did he do to cause that?!

And what does Luo Binghe mean that he wants to marry his own shizun now? Is this his new method of revenge??? Binghe, you don't have to marry someone to kill them!

[oldschoolfrp]

Ghouls and bhuts surround the great cauldron in the main temple of the evil abbey. (Keith Parkinson, D&D Expert adventure module X4: Master of the Desert Nomads, TSR, 1983)

[ministarfruit]

having normal thoughts about the demon king today

[creepydoll-lady]

I am by no means a smut writer but by Jove do I feel compelled to write something unholy in the worship of Mother Miranda based on 'Goddess' by Xana

[lilzurapage]

my life has legit gotten better since my worship of Eris cause like, everything chaotic and weird happening to me is from Her and that's okay but there is good in evil and chaos in order :)

[giallos]

a truly terrible idea has latched hold of my gremlin brain which is, buck and tommy do break up so that buck can pursue eddie because either tommy thinks buck is in love with eddie or buck feels like he should be with eddie because everyone else keeps suggesting there's something more there BUT buck/eddie getting together changes their dynamic so much that neither of them are enjoying themselves (and they're worrying about losing what made their friendship so special because of all the changes to the dynamic) AND buck and tommy keep hooking up [air quotes] platonically (with tommy stumbling into inconvenient feelings and pining pathetically for buck while fucking him) while buck struggles to sort out intense feelings toward eddie (which obviously have to be romantic of course) vs. his calm, more settled feelings toward tommy (they're not as intense as his feelings about eddie so they can't possibly be romantic) blah blah long story slightly less long but buck realizes he's been in love with tommy the whole time and was having trouble separating strong but platonic feelings for eddie from his romantic feelings toward tommy and then tommy's like "newsflash asshole i've been in love with you the whole goddamn time"

i'll never write it because it's irredeemably stupid and i value my peace but it IS sitting in my hindbrain tormenting me right now

[castaccio]

Ethantwt got me thinking about animal symbolism again...

[drondskaath]

Upon the Altar | Descendants of Evil | 2024

Polish Blackened Death Metal

Artwork by Mar.A.Artworks

[marshmurmurs]

she's a champion of the blood god to me. and by blood god I mean I believe the vault gods velara and idona are twin gods of blood

[handgiven]

if works of clay could speak to the hands that cared for them, crafted them, molded them, soothed their edges and found beauty in the ones that survived the firing process. if bees could apologize for every sting against the hands that hold their home together, praise them for their good works with use and reward their endless labor. that is what he does when he tries to come in quietly after a drunken night, stands in the kitchen at ungodly hours checking tea to steep it just so, just right. when he argues and questions em's thoughts and plans and intentions with furrowed brow and flaring eyes but his hands are tucked in tight to his sides like if he doesn't hide his worry it will be all that he is. when the sleeping fallen wakes with phantom fingers through his hair and a blanket drawn up high and tucked in tight. when things like seashells and fridge magnets and goofy tourist kitsch accumulate on counters and plant pots and door frames. when prayers start to sound like ones to god and not to mercy, or maybe both, because there has never been a mercy like em or a faith like john's in his, and it is fragile and it is stained but he is smudging paint off a little pot he made just for the flowers that em will grow, and he is hoping it's enough, or nearly. just enough to repay it all, everything. just maybe.

make emmanuel feel loved !!🥺 / @talentforlying

if works of clay could speak to the glue that holds them together, even as ancient pressure pulls them apart, gilded seams mended with rough hands and a gentle heart. if the beekeeper could reliably convey his thanks to the bee for the way it recognises him every day, over and over, even as he's changed atom by atom into somebody else, sometimes multiple atoms at a time. if there was a way to simply speak the truth that speaks itself through wandering and finding oneself again in the other's proximity, upon his couch, underneath his blanket, with his hand in one's hair. or drinking his tea. or arguing with him over one more righteous thought. or welcoming him home after a while apart, after a while of worrying and not much else.

it's easy to feel like he doesn't do enough. it's easy to slip into that thought because it has been his home since the dawn of time, the driving force underneath all of that glorious need for kindness. g-d is away from his mind, yet the gift from him remains, and remains in emmanuel's hands and so he is still driven to do more, to be more. john can barely comprehend the reach of loyalty so divine. the reach of adoration without pedestals, without bowed heads, without mighty voices, -- and yet so great. so ethereal. yetnemmanuel does not ask him to comprehend. he asks him merely to stay and withstand it. every day, every moment he sees him. it might be too great an ask of a man who was once just human.

it's not spoken, however. none of it is ever spoken. what if one or the other should flee at words too clear? gestures and reliability is where their love resides. warmth and forgiveness. tending and being tended to. knick knacks upon the window sill. one doing his best to build off the other for the both of them to prosper, or at least survive another day. – it doesn't take long for the flowerpot to find its purpose among it all, small seedling of basil opening up more and more of its leaves over the few painted fingerprints left behind by a man too eager to try if the paint job has dried down yet (it hadn't, and so they stuck, forever).

[enkidushield-a]

I'm just saying the moment g.ladio showed up at the alter in ep i.gnis i dun knew, i paused the game and called it my friend sharns who i lived with at the time can attest. and while i dun knew and was correct - parsons doing that particular tone of voice had me 👀👀 like hello?

[oldschoolfrp]

That old time religion -- Followers of Wakboth (the Devil, the Doom of the World) seek a return to the Great Darkness when Chaos reigned across Glorantha (Guillaume Sorel, Runequest supplement Les Dieux de Glorantha, Oriflam for Avalon Hill & Chaosium, 1987)

[cookie-nigel-dolan]

Resident Evil / Biohazard  (Remake, 2002)

[naffeclipse]

okay I’ll stop spamming memes now fjfjjehdssjjs he’s the worst and it’s his/your fault I’m into robots now 🫡 scsfsfsvsggs

PFFFFFFT!

This is what goes off in the vigilante's head every time they see Eclipse lol

Sorry I made you fall in love with robots rip ♥ I will do it again

[son-of-a-groke]

i have gotten my first crystals for my altar i am trying to set up