Video Game / Ruphand: An Apothecary's Adventure

Today, the story of Ruphand's hero shall be told. The story of the mighty warrior that saved the whole continent from a fate more dire than any of their nightmares...

...wait a minute. Do we have the right intro? This wasn't exactly a "mighty" hero. Or a warrior. Actually, she was a village apothecary. With almost no combat skills, period.

Opening narration

Ruphand: An Apothecary's Adventure is an Eastern RPG made in RPG Maker MV by DoctorSpacebar.

The player follows Brill Yance, an apothecary from a small town. While looking for ingredients, Brill falls into a cave; on her way out, she encounters the magical Crystal of Earth. The Crystal tasks her with searching the continent of Ruphand for four Orbs, which it needs to prevent the elements from fading away.

Brill doesn't have an "Attack" command, or, indeed, a regular weapon at all- the most she's got is throwing her supply of craftable potions, grabbing stuff off the ground with her Sample skill to make more potions between fights, or ducking behind a shield. The details of the battle system are shown to the player; each item has a "Windup" and "Delay" time in its description, and action bars show the player how long it'll be before both Brill's action and the enemies' actions.

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This game provides examples of:

• Abandoned Mine: Subverted. The Daltah Mines are actively in use. But, that's until they get attacked by Void mercenaries, who want to search the library they recently unearthed for information about the Orb of Wind.
• Accidental Good Outcome: Brill accidentally falling into the Earth Cave at the start of the game sets her on the path to becoming a hero.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: One of the last reachable bookshelves in the Hidden Library's Fire room is:
  Brill: A particularly profuse pack of pyrological publications.
• All-Accessible Magic: An inborn talent for magic is unnecessary to use it and it is uncertain whether such inborn talent even really exists. In the right side of the Arkenvali Academy of magic, some people speak of such a split, between "Lambents" and "Mundanes" and use it to discriminate against the "Mundanes", but even they acknowledge that Mundanes "can learn magic".
• Alliteration & Adventurers: "Castles & Cavaliers" is a fictional tabletop RPG seen being played in the Arkenvali magic academy.
• Anachronism Stew: Some books in some of the Hidden Library's elemental rooms:
  • The Thunder Room's last non-hidden passage bookshelf, although Arkenvali's Subterrane library's bookshelf on paraelemental interactions, books 500 years old, does talk of electrons.
  Brill: "Cooking with Electrons: 100 Top Recipes that you can make by casting Thunder I!" Beat ...wait, electrons? Have those even been discovered yet?
  • The Earth room:
  Brill: Books about rock... music? Was that even invented?
• Anadiplosis: Brill's Bestiary's response to her note about Ebon Rooks' shields connects the phrases at the touching end with "almost anything":
  Ebon Rooks have a heavy shield that blocks almost anything. Almost anything except Thunder!
• Anti-Wastage Features: Trying to use Healing Potions when at full-health outside battle, is blocked, with a buzzer sound that's Sound-Coded for Your Convenience to indicate that it's blocked.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Yg'Xel the Acquisitor, the boss of the Daltah Mines, whose entire gimmick is analyzing his enemy and then firing an Analytic Gravity attack that takes the target down in one shot. Brill can avert the trope by hitting him with the right element to throw off his analysis.
• Bottomless Pits: The first bookshelf after the Stationary-type Preexisting Encounter Argent Rook in the Hidden Library's Wind room, which features bottomless pits, apparently, not that Brill can fall into them:
  Brill: This entire shelf is full of public service announcements about reading while walking near bottomless pits. Why DID they put bottomless pits in a library, anyway?
• Cap: 999 items can be stacked at once, as said by a man in the Castle Town of Evrandel.
• Carnivorous Healing Factor: Hollow Howlers, as said in the Monster Compendium, are "floating skulls" that can "drain life with Chomp", a.k.a eating part of the enemy to recover.
• Catching Some Z's: The top-left guard at the Arkenvali magic academy is sleeping on the job, but still responds when Brill tries to pass him before completing the Daltah Mines quest, stopping her from continuing any further:
  • Talking to him:
    Guard: Zzzz... no entry, unless... a student...
    Snoooooore...
  • Trying to walk past him:
    Snoooore...
    Sorry... Students only through...
    Zzz...
• Classified Information: When talking to a Challenger Meteo Soldier group after battling them, Brill asks if they're aliens, and it says that that's "classified".
• Cliché Storm: The main plot's setup, as lampshaded by Brill, since it's part of stories In-Universe, but it's being given to her by the magical Crystal of Earth, so she accepts it:
  "Collect four artifacts scattered across the continent... It's like the stories of adventure they used to tell. In fact, it's almost EXACTLY like them. It might as well have been taken out of one grand epic or another... If it was anyone else giving me this task, I'd wonder if they were pulling a prank on me."
• Color-Coded Elements: Generally, icons and items follow a specific color scheme.
  • Fire is orange.
  • Ice is light blue.
  • Thunder is yellow.
  • Water is blue.
  • Earth is brown/gray.
  • Wind is green.
• Cursed Item: The Cursed Coronet, which gives its wearers 200% Attack at the beginning of the fight, going down by 25% each turn until hitting 0% after 8 turns.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: When talking about Red Cap's weapon-creation abilities at the end of the Scharlachrot bestiary entry:
  Brill: I wonder why Red Cap even turned to a life of crime to begin with? He could make buckets of Sil building weapons like this!
• Damage Over Time: Burns on a character deal damage when their turn ends. And also when they get hit.
• Detective Mole: After Vae's quest, the adult down the hall from the Arkenvali robe seller mentions that she was suspicious, as an unassuming little girl illusionist who was determined to hunt down a feared Master of Illusion:
  Adult: That poor little girl must have felt all alone. I hate to admit it, but I was a bit suspicious of her too, given her interest in Illusion... But she just wants to learn how to tell stories, bless her heart.
• Disciplines of Magic: Multiple types of Whatevermancy are mentioned, including Enchanted Tomes' Arithmantic magic and the White Mask Hiemancers' Winter magic.
• Door to Before: The Dragon Statues are used to send people from the end of dungeons back to their entrances.
• Double-Edged Buff: The Flower status turns Brill into a flower, lowering her attack and defense, making her unable to move, and making her weak to Fire and Ice. The only positive effect is elemental absorption of Water.
• Dungeon Town: Mimic Moorage, populated by various Mimic pirates, many of whom will initiate a battle if Brill walks by them.
• Enemy Scan: Brill receives the Check ability if she returns to Orvas and speaks with her boss who gives her Check Specs, which gives her the ability. "Check" lets her see an enemy's stats and weaknesses as well as a list of its attacks. Also, you need to unlock it to enter the Hidden Library.
• Epiphora: Monster Compendium on Slimes, as written by Brill, a memo to wash her robe:
  the worst I got was ooze all over my robe. On that note, I should remind myself to wash my robe.
• Fantastic Naming Convention: The back of the last bookshelf behind the librarian of Arkenvali's Grand Librarium mentions that having a pun for a name is an Arkenvali tradition, and Brill (full name Brill Yance) then mentions that it's caught on in Evrandel too.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Some dungeons (or, in a few cases, individual fights) have a second party member join Brill. They'll leave when Brill leaves the dungeon/battle they join for.
• Hearts Are Health: The Heart Containers called Life Gems are a red Heart Symbol with a white circle edged with more red.
• Heart Container: The Life Gems, which give Brill 2, 3, or after the first two, +5 Max HP every find.
• If Only You Knew: The upper-leftmost student at the Arkenvali cafeteria, when talking about their new cook's past:
  Student: The new cook is so good! He said his last boss didn't appreciate his cooking, though. Crazy! To not like his food, your taste buds would have to be dead, or something. Was his boss a freakin' zombie?
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: The first treasure chest to be opened is remarked upon:
  Brill: A... treasure chest? In a cave where nobody lives? Weeeeeird.
  [Loots the chest]
  Well, it's not like I'm complaining about it.
• Ironic Name: Yg'Xel the Acquisitor references Brill's name being a pun on "Brilliance" by saying she's not, when she asks for its motives:
  Yg'Xel: Your name is clearly a misnomer, "Brill Yance." It ought to be obvious that I seek magical items within the Library. Now if you know what's good for you, don't bother me while I'm browsing it!
• Item Caddy: Brill's potions are usually her only viable method of attack.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Pointedly rejected:
  • Trying to Sample inside the Orvas Apothecary:
    Brill: Are you trying to get me to steal samples from my boss? I'm not that kind of apothecary!
  • Interacting with a box in the double-bed bedroom the orange-roofed house in the eastern side of Orvas:
    Brill: It's a jewelry case that I'm not opening because that would be theft.
• Lame Pun Reaction: When Brill finds a cute door in the Arkenvali Subterrane, even she dislikes the pun she makes:
  Brill (smiling): Aww, look at the tiny door!
  It's... adoorable!
  (stopped smiling): Sorry. Even I thought that was bad.
• Large and in Charge: The Kings fought in the Hidden Library are the largest of their enemy type seen. We don't know anything about the unseen Queens.
• Modular Difficulty:
  • The Weighted Dress which slows the Action Meter to 3/4 of its regular speed. As its Flavor Text says:
    It takes a real pro to win wearing this!
  • The black-haired girl at the top of the Champion's Guild, as she says: "I'll level with you. The badges I sell make fighting harder, not easier. If you really want to have a tougher journey, well, I won't stop you..." The badges she sells are:
    • Danger Mode: "Brill takes double damage"
    • Shield Break: "Halves Brill's Block Strength and slows her Block Speed by 10%"
    • Bumpy Road: Prevents Regenerating Health from working between battles, making healing items more important.
• Monster Town:
  • Jelirol, a Slime village that Brill can visit on her way through the Barrier Wood, is populated almost entirely by peaceful slimes, most of which speak in varied "glub" noises.
  • Mimic Moorage, a Not-So-Safe Harbor populated by Mimic pirates.
• My Name Is ???: When trying to enter Defia's castle, a scream from off-screen comes from a ???, revealed to be a Scared Child after they make it on screen and speak.
• Named Weapon: Torel's elemental swords as he says after fighting Yg'Xel:
  Torel: Lavina is a strong Ice blade, and Raikiri is a swift Thunder sword, but I'm gonna to need more coverage.
• Newbie Immunity: Losing while trapped in the starting dungeon sends Brill back to where she entered it, with all her Starter Equipment and Hit Points restored if she dropped below their starting amounts, preserving all her unused crafted weapons.
• Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack: Fairies' Lilliputiation Shrink Ray and Damage-Increasing Debuff by a multiplier, attack:
  Shrinks the target, causing them to take quadruple damage.
• Note to Self: A letter in Sir le Faike's quarters has one appended to it:
  ...it goes on about the "Monster Way" for several paragraphs, and is signed "M". Sir le Faike wrote "Note to meself: never do this" more recently.
• No Indoor Voice: THE GASTRONOMICON, a talking cookbook.
• Notice This: Most spots with loot have sparkles coming from them:
  • The note under a chair on the first floor of Torkenwatch Lighthouse is indicated by the chair sparkling.
  • The sparkles are In-Universe too, at least once, since one of Khid's pages has someone near it saying:
    I've been seeing these strange glimmering papers all over the school. Who is it that's doing this much littering? It's getting rather bothersome.
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: The back side of a bookshelf near the Gastronomicon's hiding place in the Grand Librarium mentions gnomes. They're tiny:
  Brill: The books here have tiny doors and windows, and little ladder rungs on them that correspond to holes in the shelf. It almost looks like a little town.
  A note from the librarian reads, "DON'T BOTHER THE GNOMES AND THE GNOMES WON'T INJURE YOU."
• Padding the Paper: The Arkenvali student that needed to find the hidden pyramid uses really long words to pad out her report:
  Student: Still finished my report, though! Just had to find some really long words to take up space on the papyrus.
• Parodies for Dummies: One of the last bookshelves in the Hidden Library's Water room is a book "for Fools:
  Brill: "Shipbuilding: A Beginner's Guide," "Shipbuilding for Fools (A reference for the rest of us)," "Shipbuilder's Handbook..."
  Just a shot in the dark, but I might be looking at the shipbuilding section.
• Patrolling Mook: Mentioned when Brill sees the first enemy of the Gemstone Road, and He Knows About Timed Hits territory on how to avoid enemies:
  Brill: ...up there, more gems. It looks like that one isn't just randomly moving around, but has a set patrol route... And it looks to be stronger than the ones in the Low Road.
  These things tend to spot me when I'm within two paces of them. If I want to avoid fights, I might be able to sneak by them...
• Percent-Based Values:
  • The multiple "Healing [number]%" equipment, mainly robes, that boost healing to a percentage above 100%.
  • Elemental "Amp" effects, usually found on gear, that raise the damage of the given element's attacks by a shown percentage.
  • Fairies' Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack of "Lilliputiation" Shrink Ray and Damage-Increasing Debuff by a multiplier, attack:
    Shrinks the target, causing them to take quadruple damage.
  • The Spellsteel Robe for sale at the Arkenvali magic academy, and can be crafted by Brill:
    (Defense +12 | All damage reduced by 10%)
• Pun: There are books in each of the Hidden Library's elemental rooms for puns of that element, and Brill always has a bookshelf where she makes a pun for that element. For example:
  • The Water bookshelf:
    Brill: And this shelf is full of water puns. Beat At least they're all done well.
  • The Ice bookshelf:
    Brill: It's all a bunch of books about ice... Beat Cool.
  • The Thunder bookshelf:
    Brill: They managed to fill an entire shelf with lame lightning puns. I'm shocked.
  • The Fire bookshelf:
    Brill: It's a collection of fire puns. Some find them heartwarming.
  • The Earth bookshelf:
    Brill: This shelf is all Earth puns. Beat That rocks.
  • The Wind bookshelf:
    Brill The shelf is full of wind puns. The sheer amount just blows you away.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: If Brill inadvertently helps out the Arkenvali student that was looking for the hidden pyramid, the student remarks she didn't get the assistance that Brill did going there:
  Student: And that Sphinx? Did. Not. Help. At. All. Still finished my report, though! Just had to find some really long words to take up space on the papyrus.
  • Kairos, one of the bidders at the Altolato Auction House, responding to another bidder calling him weird:
  Kairos: Of course! Weird! Wins! AUCTIOOOOONS!
• Punny Name: One book in Arkenvali's Grand Librarium mentions that having a pun for a name is an Arkenvali tradition, and Brill then mentions that it's caught on in Evrandel too. Some examples being:
  • Brill Yance herself. Pun on Brilliance.
  • Genn, Brill's boss at the Orvas potion shop. His full name is revealed to be a pun on "Generation", when given during the Altolatio auctions for the Pepperevenge medal, as they only work with his "patented Pepperflasks".
• Regenerating Health: There's multiple sources of health regeneration over time, a.k.a every few steps out of battle, and per turn in battle:
  • The multiple tiers of Regen Rings.
  • Sleeping at the Altolato Inn gives a 2 HP regeneration per turn, for 15 battles.
• Resource Reimbursement: Brill's "Recycling" badge gives her back some of the ingredients needed to craft a potion when she uses one.
• Respawning Enemies: In the Ice Orb's dungeon, there's a poem on a plaque on the wall, that talks about the respawning, since it's required to progress if mistakes are made:
  Brill: "Walking upstairs
  after walking on down
  helps your foes pick themselves
  up off the ground."
  I've noticed most monsters recover after I leave the area they're in, and are ready for a rematch. If I have to use them as a brake again, that might be handy...
• Revealing Cover-Up: Upon hearing that the Phantom Magus tried to silence Vae because They Know Too Much after reading some publicly available Council minutes, Al'Radi states that he'll read said Council minutes aloud to the entire school.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Invoked Trope:
  • The Weighted Dress which slows the Action Meter to 3/4 of its regular speed. As its Flavor Text says:
    It takes a real pro to win wearing this!
  • The black-haired girl at the top of the Champion's Guild, as she says: "I'll level with you. The badges I sell make fighting harder, not easier. If you really want to have a tougher journey, well, I won't stop you..." The badges she sells are:
    • Danger Mode: "Brill takes double damage"
    • Shield Break: "Halves Brill's Block Strength and slows her Block Speed by 10%"
• Shout-Out:
  • Examining the barrel in Brill's house will lead her to say "Barrel!"
  • A basket of bread in one of the houses in Orvas has Brill mention that it "has done nothing but transport bread for three days."
  • To multiple generations of Pokémon: Pokémon Red and Blue: Youngster NPC that says “I like shorts! They’re comfy and easy to wear!”, and Pokémon Gold and Silver: Younger Joey's "top percentage" Rattata: The Royal Library of Ruphand has one bookshelf's interaction talk about one book:
    Brill: "On the comfort and ease of wearing of shorts." I heard this book's in the top percentage of books...
  • Bookshelves in the Hidden Library's Ice room:
    • "A Song of Ice and More Ice", with the next text box having Brill lament that the author killed off one of her favorite characters.
    • Another has "Buddy Elvenchild's unparalleled manual of snowball-fighting prowess."
  • To the meme spawned by the SpongeBob SquarePants episode, "No Weenies Allowed":
    Man: Welcome to tha Challenge Tower, how tough are ya?
    Brill: How tough am I? How tough am I? I once took out a spider four times my size!
    Man: Yeah, so?
    Brill: Without any trinkets.
    Man: Right this way, sorry to keep ya waitin'!

  The original lines being

  Welcome to the Salty Spittoon. How tough are ya?
  How tough am I? How tough am I?! I had a bowl of nails for breakfast this morning!
  Yeah, so?
  Without any milk.
  Uh, right this way, sorry to keep you waiting.

  • Sand Crabs' Massive Damage attack is named for Sony's E3 2006 presentation, which involved hitting a crab for "massive damage".
    • Crustitans, a much larger crab-like monster, have "Truly Massive Damage".
  • To Monty Python and the Holy Grail's multiple jokes about swallows in the Hidden Library's Wind room:
    Brill: How do they have so many books about swallows? I guess people needed to know these things when they were a king.
  • To Dark Souls: The Sun Stone ingredient's Flavor Text, since the use of "grossly incandescent", especially in reference to the sun, is a reference to Solaire's view of the sun:
    "If only I could be so grossly incandescent!"
  • Fairies' Lilliputiation Shrink Ray attack is named as a reference to Gulliver's Travels's Lilliput where everything is one-twelfth normal size.
• The Slacker: One of the White Mask goons in their hideout doesn't even bother fighting Brill, instead just deciding to chill out in his office. After the hideout changes, he's still there after everyone else leaves, happy that he now has the whole place to himself.
• Some Kind of Force Field: In Arkenvali's Grand Librarium, the Illusion bookshelf has one, and its invisible, so the only way that Brill knows to talk about it, is if she bumped it:
  Brill: A spellbook shelf labeled "Illusion". It's got some kind of invisible force wall in front of it, most likely because of the Phantom Magus scare.
• Starter Equipment: Brill starts the game wearing a Simple Shield, along with carrying 10 Tonics, 5 Antipoisons, and 20 Pepperflasks.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: Brill notes that seeing that Door to Before Dragon Statue always means there's a fight, when seeing the Gemstone Road's, and the fight options are available:
  Brill: Dragon Statue, rows of crystals...
  They always have a really tough monster to go with this sort of architecture. I should be ready to fight.
  [Ready to fight!] [Not yet...]
• Tile-Flipping Puzzle: Tor Torken is a basically-still-intact Forruno facility and has some treasures locked behind laser walls that unlock when a "light wall", a.k.a a square grid of 9 tiles of circles and/or squares, is in certain configurations. There's a button corresponding to each tile, and pressing said button flips the states of the tiles that form a cross-shape from the corresponding tile being the centre and its 4, 3, or 2 adjacent squares, since the grid doesn't wrap around.
• Transflormation: Under certain circumstances, Brill can be afflicted by this Status Effect:
  • When applied, the Status Effect is described as:
    Turned into a flower for 30 ticks! Brill has halved Defense and 0 Attack, is weak to Fire and Ice, absorbs Water, and can't move.
  • When Brill mentions the status effect later:
    Brill: ...I mean, there's an untapped market for being able to turn yourself into a flower for a short time.
    Goblin Gadgeteer: Really? You're serious?
    Brill (smiling): Oh, believe me. I've had some days where just turning into a potted plant and resting on a sunny windowsill for half an hour would've sounded nice and relaxing...
    Brill (slight frown): ...buuuuut (pause) it wasn't so relaxing when I got turned into a flower in the middle of pitched combat.
• Whatevermancy: There's multiple types of magic mentioned, that are -mancies, such as:
  • Enchanted Tomes' Arithmantic magic
  • White Mask Hiemancers: Winter magic
• Wizard Beard: A math teacher in Arkenvali's teacher's lounge says someone expected him to be a Cryomancy teacher due to his beard:
  Math teacher: Bah! Just because I have a grey beard, they're asking me to teach Advanced Cryomancy! For the last time, you cretins, I am a MATH professor!
• You Say Tomato: When first meeting Sir Vantus, Brill and him talk about how to pronounce Malixinne:
  Vantus: I am not from around these parts, but I do keep abreast of the local history. So you pronounce it "Mah-leek-sin-uh," or "Mah-lik-sin"? Her name baffles me.
  Brill: Everyone pronounces it a different way. We honestly don't know how to pronounce it around here. Sometimes we just call her "Mal".
• You Watch Too Much X: When entering the Thieves' Market, and wanting proof that Brill should be let in, the left stall says that her guess is off, due to watching too many action movies, or plays, in this case:
  Brill: Then what kind of proof is it? Do I need to yank out a dragon's tooth or something?
  Left Stall Mimic: Ye be watchin' too much action theater, landlubber.

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