Sir Robert the Innocent GCB

Changing character attributes with a hex editor... and I thought it was underhanded to keep returning to Harkyn's Castle to kill the 396 beserkers over and over. Walk in, teleport up, Mangar's mind blade, telelport out, repeat.

William, you are absolutely right about the societal breakdown in Skara Brae. Unfortunately, Bard's Tale encouraged the wrong kind of response: form a cabal with sufficient power to eradicate whatever ill you perceive at the moment. Seemingly effective in the short term, and appealing to a popular sense of justice, this "solution" produces no sustained improvement (evidenced by the continual return of monsters, even Mangar, the supposed underlying cause of all the ills). What Skara Brae needed was a leader who would not seek simply to kill whatever problems he saw, but to create an alternative form of politics that would engage key elements of Skara Brae: shopkeepers, tavern owners, priests, the Adventurers' Guild, yes even monsters (assuming they weere willing to forsake their violent methods in exchange for a voice in the new system). Creating such an inclusive system, based on civic institutions that would permit aggregation of demands, would take time. It would require compromise, not as vicerally satisfying as a hunter's critical hit, but would have the potential to address the broad range of troubles that you correctly identify in Skara Brae. Obviously we would expect Mangar and Baron Harkyn to oppose such efforts, but the real wild card is Kylearan. He is a wizard with the key to Mangar's Tower, powerful enough to poof in and out of the same, yet he sits idly by while Skara Brae suffers. Since he likely has the ability to counter many efforts to form a new system, it would be important to first understand the root of his complicity with the existing system.

Oh, and add to the list of social problems the Skara Brae Dept of Transportation. They're allowing Sinister Road to go on forever, a gross inefficiency that they're obviously milking for job security, larger budgets, and the opportunity for patronage.