Knight Bewitched is a 2018 video game developed by Joshua Keith in RPG Maker. The Enhanced Edition was released in 2021, which includes updated dialogue, new locations, and new events to maintain better continuity with both timelines.
The game follows Lady Ruth, a renowned knight that has just slayed a dragon named Typhus, The Younger. She's sent on a mission together with her team to take down a witch in a bog to the north. Once there, she is affected by the Bog Fever, but is rescued and healed by said witch, a sweet girl named Gwen, who says she has not committed any of the crimes she was accused of. Not able to bring herself to kill her, Lady Ruth is imprisoned under the assumption she was bewitched, but that same night, Typhus' father, Typhus, the World-Breaker, returns, promising to destroy the world in vengeance for his son being killed.
The game is also the first entry in a series called Knights of Ambrose, and is the point where the series splits into two timelines. The sequel for Timeline 1 is Mari and the Black Tower (2017) while the sequel for Timeline 2 is Knight Bewitched 2 (2020).
The game is available on Steam
, itch.io, and Google Play.
This work contains examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: Gwen calls Ruth "Ruthie". Ruth seems to dislike it.
- Amazonian Beauty: In a conversation with two other characters, they'll comment how Ruth's toned physique attracts all kinds of guys and girls. The official player guide also puts her height at 5'11".
- And Then What?: Strasza questions the heroes about this. After killing Typhus, the situation of the dragons would be more or less the same, they still would be enemy of the humans and have way too little food. They strike a deal to dedicate themselves to make peace between humans and dragons and transport dragongrass to them.
- Anti-Frustration Feature:
- In which case you forgot what you were doing, after taking the ship, you'll be given a quest log, which tells you what is your current goal in the story and a general direction towards it. Even before that, the main menu always displays the primary objective.
- After fighting through each dungeon, there's usually a quick way out of it. After finishing the Midnight Desert puzzle, you're also exempt from having to traverse it again, as you can just warp to the center of it.
- Apocalypse Cult: Typhus the World-Breaker has a doomsday cult, the Cult of Drakon, that worships him and has been making the rounds trying to collect more people for it. They fully support his plan to wipe out humanity, even though most if not all of them are humans.
- Boomerang Bigot:
- Alduin is a son of a witch, which likely explains his magical talents. However, he despises witches because he believes his mother killed his father and kidnapped his sister.
- The Cult Of Drakon consists of humans who want Typhus to wipe out their kind.
- Boss Bonanza: There are three bosses before facing Typhus in the final battle: Bjalla, Hydrax, and Life Eater, which are fought in the same dungeon.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Malady, one of Gwen's sisters, falls for Uno, and points out that since their portraits are on the same side of the screen, they must be meant for each other. Other characters seem to have no idea what she's talking about. She also notices when his portrait moves to the left again in the end of the game.
- Cain and Abel: Bjalla and Strasza are siblings on opposite sides of the conflict. Bjalla is a red dragon that loves Typhus, being his concubine, and sides with him in killing humankind, Strasza is a blue dragon that leads the remains of dragon society and is trying to take Typhus down. Bjalla seems to be under some sort of control, though, as she thanks you for defeating her.
- Casual Kink: When Ruth threatens to beat up Gwen when questioning if she put another curse on her, Gwen's only response is that she might enjoy it.Gwen: Well, joke's on you cause I'm into that.
- Child by Rape: Bjalla is Typhus's concubine and is the mother of Typhus the Younger. When she dies, she implies that Typhus brainwashed her for the sole purpose of breeding offspring.
- Closet Key: Ruth had dated men before starting a relationship with Gwen. She never noticed she was attracted to women up until she started feeling attracted for Gwen.Ruth: To be honest, I never thought i'd be in love with another woman. If I never met you, I'd probably stay single forever.
- Clothes Make the Superman: In this game, the character's skills are partly determined by the weapons and trinkets they use, meaning your strategy can change based on which weapons you have equipped. Gwen, for example, can have access to massively powerful magic by equipping different trinkets.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Meredith is this to her much more eccentric sister Malady, reigning over her when she goes full Stalker with a Crush for Uno.
- Crazy Cat Lady: You can meet one lady in Westvale that spends most of her money in getting more cats and even
- Dark and Troubled Past: In the original version of the game, Uno reveals that in his past, he started off killing a lord that did unspeakable things to a young boy who begged him to reduce taxes on the town. His relationship to the boy or even if he is the boy is left unclear. The guide book DLC and Enhanced Edition confirms he was sold as a slave to that lord, who he killed, though the taxation part is no longer part of his backstory.
- Death by Despair: Alduin's mother, who also turns out to be Gwen's mother, died from heartbreak after her husband died protecting her while she fled from a city that found out she was a witch, and couldn't bring Alduin along, believing he might have died with his father.
- Disproportionate Retribution: An NPC in Northshire spreads false rumors about Gwen stealing blood because she refused to go on a date with him.
- Dracolich: If the party returns to the Lair of Typhus the Younger and explore the new underground section, they can fight a zombified version of Typhus the Younger.
- Dragon Rider:
- If the player defeats Lilith before fighting Typhus's second form, the former will mount the latter so that they can fight as a single unit.
- In the ending, Halonia reforges their alliances with the dragons, and Stray rides Strasza to become the kingdom's first Dragon Knight since the previous alliance.
- Elfeminate: In the city of Westvale, you can meet a male elf that is upset people keep thinking he is a woman.
- Elite Mooks: Alpha monsters are rarer and stronger versions of existing monsters. They also have a guaranteed chance to drop more powerful equipment than the regular mobs of the same area.
- Evil Counterpart: Typhus, despite seeming like a generic Evil Overlord at first, has a lot of the same vices as some of the main characters and not a whole lot of virtues to compensate.
- He has a lover, Bjalla, just like how Gwen has Ruth. However, he brainwashed Bjalla into loving him and when she's released, she's just glad to be free from his control, showing that there's no mutual love between them. Gwen does put a curse on Ruth to make the latter more compliant, but the curse doesn't overwrite Ruth's feelings and she apologizes doing so, leading to the two forming a true relationship.
- He's racist against humans while Alduin is a Boomerang Bigot against witches, and both seek the genocide of those groups. Typhus is willing to start a war against humanity, even if it means getting his brethren killed. In contrast, Alduin has a Heel–Face Turn when he realizes his vengeful crusade will lead him to kill the sister he wanted to save.
- Like Uno, Typhus believes in taking justice into his own hands and is willing to kill others for a perceived greater good, regardless of society's opinion. Uno is at least self-aware that his vigilante assassinations are still evil in their own way, and he doesn't want Stray to go down the same path. Unfortunately, Typhus is very self-righteous about wiping out humanity for the sake of dragons and is unable to comprehend why his fellow dragons oppose him.
- Experienced Protagonist: Ruth is, already at the start of the story, the strongest and most well renowned knight in the Kingdom, who falls from grace when she refuses to kill a witch in one of her missions.
- Fantastic Racism: Dragons and humans once lived in peace together, up until Typhus infiltrated the human kingdom of Zamaste and disguised himself as a human in order to manipulate them into warring with the dragons. As a result, dragons and humans live in fear of each other. Even when the party manages to gain the trust of the current leader, Strasza, some of the dragon citizens aren't ready to give coexistence another chance.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Ruth is the fighter, being a Knight and tank for the party, Alduin and Gwen are the Mages, with the latter replacing the former after he becomes an enemy, and Stray and Uno share the role of thief, with them having high agility, however, Uno fits the stereotype better, with a reliance on poisons and daggers, while Stray is an archer.
- Foreshadowing:
- There are a few times where Ruth quickly and inexplicably changes her mind to agree with Gwen. It's later revealed that Gwen cursed Ruth to be suggestive to her ideas and inclined to agree with her if she says "Don't you want to [X]?".
- When Alduin first meets Gwen, he notes she looks oddly familiar, though neither can say they've met each other before. It's later revealed they're brother and sister, long separated.
- Freudian Excuse: Alduin's mother was a witch who killed his father and took his sister away, leaving him behind to fend for himself when he was still a kid, which is what prompts his extreme hatred of witches. He changes his mind when it turns out his father was actually killed by an anti-witch mob while defending his mother.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: In the first town you visit, you can find a woman complaining about losing her flute in another town. When you get to this other town, you can find said flute in an inn.
- Great Off Screen War: A few character mention that the kingdom of Halonia was in a war with a mysterious nation a long time before the current time. In the Dragon's territory, you'll learn that it was a war against the dragons, due to Typhus's manipulation of Zamaste.
- Greater-Scope Villain: If the player defeats Lilith in the depths, the Final Boss cutscene changes, revealing that Typhus is relying on Lilith's master for power. In a flashback cutscene with Morgoth, Typhus refers to his master as "He," indicating that Typhus is serving an evil deity.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Alduin, when learning that Ruth left Gwen alive, instantly turns against her and her party (granted, he never seemed to even care much for Stray and Uno), accusing her of being bewitched and arresting her. The rest of the party breaks Ruth out of jail and becomes fugitives alongside her, resulting in two boss fights with Alduin over the course of the story. Alduin chases them down to Malady and Meredith's hideout, but agrees to help them enchant Sylvanaras once he realizes Gwen is his sister.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Gwen is a witch, but she is working in a permanent cure for the Bog Fever afflicting people who visit the Underbog. Despite this, the city is terrified of her for no particular reason, and she is being accused of massive crimes.
- Hidden Elf Village: The Nymphs and elves have a village hidden within a deep wood, there's nothing indicating where their village is in the middle of the dense forest in the overworld map, but it's pretty much in the center of it. A drunken Nymph in Westvale will give you the information. This is actually Mari's hometown from Mari and the Black Tower, before it was destroyed by the miasma of the Black Tower.
- Infinity +1 Sword:
- After upgrading the Sylvan to Sylvanaras, the blacksmith that did will inform you of a legendary blacksmith dwarf living isolated to the far northwest of the world. If the player goes there, the party will find him simply bemoaning the loss of his hammer. In order to get the hammer, you'll need to talk with the dwarves in Deep Forge II to learn they sold his hammer to nymphs who live hidden in the woods, then find a drunken nymph in Westvale that will reveal the location of the Hidden Elf Village where they hide the hammer, then the three nymphs that have the hammer will demand to play a game of hide and seek with you and spread themselves across the world Locations . Only after locating the three of them can the player bring the hammer back and the blacksmith will start working for you. he will first upgrade Sylvanaras to Ascended Sylvanaras, and for three pieces of Arcanite Ore, he can create a special weapon to each of your party members: the Celestial Harp to Stray, the Fist Of the North Star for Uno and the Catastrophe Staff for Gwen. In the Enhanced Edition, the weapons are renamed Daedalus Bow/Harp (Stray), Southsea Skullcracker (Uno), and Schicksalsschlag (Gwen).
- Played with when it comes to the equipment in the Depths. Other than Platinum Star, none of them are straightforward upgrades to the Arcanite Ore weapons, instead having their own tradeoffs compared to the original ultimate weapons. Of note is the Chaos sword dropped by Lilith, which has higher attack than the Ascended Sylvanaras, but comes with no skills attached.
- Insecure Love Interest: Gwen originally placed a More than Mind Control curse on Ruth as a precaution in case the latter tried to kill her upon recovering from Bog Fever. However, she doesn't lift the curse for most of the game because she desperately wants someone who loves her, and isn't sure she can make the relationship work if she removes the curse from Ruth.
- Item Crafting: Gwen can use monster drops and other items to craft special consumables and charm equipment.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Uno calls out a thief for stealing from the Eastport Freebooters and selling the loot. The thief retorts that although the Freebooters steal from the rich, they're still disregarding the harm they're causing to those who financially depend on their victims. Uno is taken aback and agrees to purchase the stolen goods, which indicates that he sees the thief's point.
- Uno himself is one of the ruder party members and has a deep distrust towards the rich and powerful. When Prince Jaiden gets no punishment for firing on Ruth's ship and leaving the party stranded on Eastport, Ruth admits that Uno has a point about how the law favors the upper class.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: While the party opens chests regardless of who the owner might be, Uno goes a step further when he reveals that he stole Halonia's legendary Sylvans sword shortly after Alduin and the king arrested Ruth.
- Long-Lost Relative: Gwen turns out to be Alduin's long lost sister, who he falsely believed was kidnapped by their mother.
- Magic Music: Stray can equip various different types of flutes and harps all of which give him different magic skills he can use in battle and out of it, usually in some sort of support role.
- Malicious Slander: There are multiple stories about Gwen floating around, most notably, the idea that she is infecting people with Bog Fever and stealing their blood, when in truth, she is healing the people sick with it and asking for blood samples afterwards to keep making tests and medicine.
- Man-Eating Plant: The boss of the Underbog is named Man-Eating Plant, and is a larger version of the fly-traps that you've seen on the bog. In Typhus's lair, there's an upgraded version called the Life Eater.
- The Maze:
- On the way to the reunion of the Witches, there's a maze created by one of Gwen's sisters to keep intruders out, and the party has to find and turn off 4 levers to get past it.
- There's another one in Morgoth's lair, which is more mind-bending since it seamlessly loops in itself and contains several block pushing puzzles.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: In Gabenport, the party talks with a girl offering her services in an inn, Gwen is pretty eager to accept it, up until she realizes the woman is actually tickling people and nothing more.
- More than Mind Control: Ruth ends up a victim of this due to Gwen's curse, which causes her to go along with any suggestion Gwen makes as long as it uses a specific phrase. According to Malady, this curse won't work unless Ruth already has a desire to follow through with the suggestion in the first place.
- Necessarily Evil: Although Uno kills villains who are immune to the law, he admits that he can't consider himself a good person because murder is still murder.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Zigzagged. Typhus claims that he wants to kill off humanity because he believes they will eventually do the same to dragonkind. However, he instigated Zamaste to attack the dragons in order to start the conflict early and refuses to admit his error even when Strasza calls him out on his hypocrisy, and feels no guilt for all the dragons that died in that pointless war or for ruining the dragons' food supply. In the original game, Gwen believes he's just a generic villain who just uses his claims of humanity's evils to justify taking over the world. While the Enhanced Edition reveals that he's a Tautological Templar who fanatically worships Lilith's master, he's also very insistent that he's favored by this divine being and refuses to accept the growing evidence that his master sees him as disposable, showing that he's too Egocentrically Religious and blinded by pride to ever consider a better path to saving dragonkind. On the other hand, he built a memorial to dragons who died in battle, which implies that he may feel some guilt in getting them killed but viewed them as a necessary sacrifice. The sequel reveals that he was driven insane by the Vulcan Stone, causing whatever good intentions he had to be corrupted in service of Lilith's master.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons are sentient beings that are not that different from humans in the way that they organize their society. Appearance-wise, the game mainly uses western-style dragon assets with bat-like wings.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: In the Depths's Labyrinth zone, the Minotaur boss prowls the hallways in order to hunt down the party. While the player can see it in the westernmost map of the area, where it is blocked by a gap, it will show up in the easternmost map too, and killing it in one map keeps it from appearing in any map in the dungeon. This implies that the Minotaur knows the layout of the labyrinth and decided to take the initiative by going through the basement to reach the eastern map rather than wait in the western map.
- Overlord Jr.: Typhus the Younger is the son of the Big Bad, Typhus the World Breaker. He's also just as genocidal towards non-dragons as his father.
- Palette Swap: All the dragons living in Dragon Rock look like recolors of Typhus the Younger, down to using the same face portrait.
- Parodies for Dummies: Instead of helping them, Morgoth gives the party a book called "Enchanting For Dummies" when he is unable to do the enchanting. Meredith is slightly offended by what he is implying with that book.
- Poisonous Person: Uno is a master at using poisons. At the start of the Underbog in the game, he'll talk about this and gather mushrooms to make a poison. He can equip these poisons to add effects to his normal attacks, usually the chance to cause status ailments in enemies.
- Pragmatic Hero: Uno's description in the player guide DLC states that there are rumors that the king of Halonia hires Uno as his own personal assassin. It's implied that some of the corrupt aristocrats in the kingdom are so well-connected that even the king cannot publicly oppose them, which is why he secretly uses Uno as a way to avoid getting his hands dirty.
- Pre-Climax Climax: Ruth and Gwen spend the night together after Ruth is freed from her curse. This is immediately before Typhus' castle re-appears for a fight. When they return, Malady asks if they kissed and made up, to which Gwen replies they did more than that.
- Random Encounters: All non-story encounters are random, including alpha monsters. All encounters can be fled from with guaranteed success to prevent the player from wearing out their resources.
- Rank Up: The game begins with Stray being promoted to Ruth's Squire. The game ends with him being knighted, and becoming the first Dragon Knight in years. Gwen also gets the title of Lady.
- Red Baron: "The Demon Witch Gwendolyn", which is the name the citizens gave Gwen. She hates it, and claims that the only way anybody could make the name Gwendolyn scary was to add "Demon" to it.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Discussed in optional dialogue with Malady, who analyzes Uno's anti-bourgeoisie beliefs and implies Uno had a tragic experience where someone used their wealth to get away with crime.
- Shout-Out:
- You can find a group of cultists at the mountain playing a game called "Bosses and Briefcases", a DnD parody that focuses on the characters having an everyday life in an office job, giving slide-show presentations and flirting with co-workers.
- The description of the Boots of Speed item is simply "Gotta Go Fast".
- Meeting Westvale's Crazy Cat Lady, she will mention that she at least isn't a young person eating laundry detergent, a reference to a memetic trend on the internet of kids eating tidepods.
- The player can find a Ribbon equipment in the game, which protects the character from all status ailments, a staple of the Final Fantasy games.
- In the Hidden Elf Village, the player can obtain an Ocarina. It's description says that despite popular belief, it can't control time.
- One of the Infinity +1 Sword weapons that Ullo can forge for you is the Fist of the North Star
- The Stinger: A post credit scene shows what happened in the Sealed Tower: Typhus actually refused to fight Morgoth for some unknown reason, implying that Morgoth has a part to play in the plans of Lilith's master, though even he doesn't know what. Worse yet, it turns out Morgoth gave Hydrax the password to the tower, which allowed Typhus's unsealing. Combined with Keller saying Morgoth was sick and Typhus last words, this implies he will play a major part in the sequel. In the Enhanced Edition, there's an additional scene where Lilith returns to her boss arena and reminisces about a battle she fought a century ago, but she takes the dark-skinned blond appearance she has in a later game, Absinthia.
- Superboss:
- Ogopogo, in the Winterfall Cavern. You learn that he is one of the few dragons left not living in Strasza's village, and you can access his cave about as soon as you have the ship. The most important item to get there is the Blue Flame, necessary to go through the Midnight Desert, and is obtainable in the room before his, so you don't even need to fight him to get it. Defeating him does get you an achievement and a powerful accessory though. However, he's disproportionately powerful compared to the standard mobs in the cave.
- Lilith is a mysterious being who physically resembles the goddess Helena, and is encountered at the end of the Depths dungeon. She drops the Chaos sword, which surpasses even Ascended Sylvanaras in terms of stats. However, she's much stronger than Ogopogo, due to being added to the game later. In the Enhanced Edition, beating her unlocks the True Final Boss fight, where she rides Typhus so that that the two of them stand a chance against the party, who they realize are too powerful for them normally.
- A Taste of Power: In the first dungeon, Lair of Typhus the Younger, Ruth wields the legendary Sylvans sword. This sword is the property of the Kingdom of Halonia, so she gives it back to the king after slaying the boss. Afterwards, she automatically equips a basic Short Sword.
- Tautological Templar: At the start of his Final Boss fight, Typhus insists that he's still the savior of dragonkind and that all of his actions are justified, which means he's going to "save" his brethren from humans, whether they like it or not. Strasza points out that Typhus himself is responsible for the near extinction of dragons by igniting a pointless war with humanity, showing Typhus is either a Straw Hypocrite or is so insanely prideful that he believes his own lies. In the Enhanced Edition, he's trying to gain the favor of a divine being and considers himself a prophet for supposedly gaining knowledge of dragonkind's extinction from the latter. He refuses to accept that his master sees him as a failure, despite the evidence that his master intends to replace him with Morgoth. During the final battle, the divine being sends Lilith to aid him, and he declares that Heaven itself is on his side, implying that he worships Zamas.
- Title Drop: Played with. After Ruth reveals she didn't kill Gwen, both Alduin and the king refer to her as "Bewitched", being Ruth a knight, this implies Ruth is a "Knight Bewitched".
- Vigilante Man: During a mandatory cutscene in Westvale, Uno reveals that he kills those who use their wealth and power to escape the law. He's also willing to break people out of prison if they're unjustly arrested, as shown when he throws away King Floyd's pardon in order to free Ruth.
- Wedding Finale: The game ends with Ruth and Gwen's wedding.
- Wrecked Weapon: Typhus the Younger and the Cult of Drakon stole Stray's family heirloom, the Daedalus, after they destroyed Nilheim. When the party defeats Typhus's zombified form, they recover the Daedalus, but the bow/harp hybrid is too damaged to use and has to be repaired by Ullo.
