Why save the historian?

[roehcai]

Many threads on how to save him, this is not one of them.

The question I have is 'why' (other than role-playing)? Saving him doesn't seem to trigger anything - no reward, quest, info, lore, etc?

People say it's the portal on the wall behind him, but that opened up for me after just dousing him with bloodrain, but he was still dying/cursed. Saving him with bless just seem like a waste of a source point.

[SeriousCCIE]

It's not really a waste of a source point considering that this area of the game is really close to other source points. But that's a matter of playstyle, as opposed to my attempting to describe reasoning regarding the historian.

I agree with you that there is no specific point in saving him. Also, I didn't use bless on him to save him. That seems to be the easy way to do it, but then I don't know if my approach of teleporting the poison bulb thing over to him and bloodraining the area is considered hard or novel; the end result is the same and there's no loss of source if you're seeking to save your point.

What I believe he is, however, is background story to help the player understand what a jerk Mr. Rex is. He also is a device that opens a magic portal based on your reactions to him.

Ultimately as a person, he can die or get teleported off screen and no one will care, including you, but the entire point is to challenge the player to think creatively and then to reward them with a means to get to a hidden area via a portal that otherwise is unreachable via the methods available to us at the time we are in the area.

That's pretty much it. There is no deep reason that is philsophically satisfying if that is what you are looking for. He's just background detail that is less rewarding now that we have internets that can tell you the same things without having to go through the process of discovery yourself.

Which means that if you read up on how to help him, the true goal is just to get the loot provided as a reward for doing so, since you already know what he says and the walkthroughs do not speculate as to why one would bother. That's up to the player to decide.

[Lethan]

Typically you are level 5 to 7 by the time you reach him, you have the Teleport gloves, he serves no purpose other than to make it a different kind of easy to reach the same loot. You only need him if you've decided on a pure solo play.

[Jogador Pedrão]

Has anyone tried stealing from him?

[SeriousCCIE]

I couldn't get close enough to try. Either I was getting lambasted by the skeletons, or he starts his conversation the moment you get too close.

But I admit I would like to know if anyone did what I couldn't do and if the guy had anything good on him! Killing him just yields low rate junk if I remember properly. I accidentally killed him after saving him a few times as I tried to perfect my rescue technique. He really gets in the way for just standing around complaining...

[roehcai]

I did try stealing from him, he had nothing. (I did it after the bloodrain but before the bless).

I didn't know the poison bulb cured his curse. That' weird. Lore-wise, we know bless removes curse (especially if you've done the pig thing), but poison?

Anyhow, I know he illustrates that Braccus is bad. They really hit you over the head with that before now, though. (Like, by this point, no player should be uncertain about Braccus' morality). The historian's dialogue kind of implies maybe he was messing with the same stuff Fane's king was, but its hard to say.
(Note: I didn't look up what he tells you on the internet - I saved him, then was puzzled about missing something, then reloaded. In the end, I'm still saving him because I'm playing a nice skeleton.)

And the portal shows up before you save him, so it didn't strike me as the 'reward', and if it was (from the game designer's point), it'd be cool if the historian, or the gargoyle, called it out.

I'm cool with there being no loot or anything, I just was wondering if there was something I missed or messed up or... something. Usually when you do something important (esp spending a source point, like with the pigs), they've give XP, or something, so it just made me think I'd missed something.

[Lethan]

If you look around, saving him opens a 2nd portal inside that portal place. Given some position play, you can teleport or jump up and access a chest that - pending level - contains random loot with at least one purple item.

[DeeVeeTree]

how can you 'waste' a source point when they're infinite?

[SeriousCCIE]

Roehcai, the reason you don't get XP for using the source point to save him is, perhaps, because it is not necessary to use a source point to save him. I didn't think to use Bless until... I read about it later to see if I did it "right". turns out, there is no right way to save him, just a few ways that work.

You can put out the flames with raining blood or by making him bleed regular fire I believe, and then convert the blood to poison. There's even a poison spraying bulb/pod thing right near by that has little purpose other than to provide a healing fountain for him, unless you have an undead guy in your own group that you want to stand around.

teleport the historian or the bulb to be together and he'll recover his hit points automagically, provided this also isn't directly in the area of effect of any spells or accidental explosions or whirlwind attacks, etc...

[roehcai]

I used bloodrain to douse him, and tried the poison bulb to cure the 'cursed' status, but it didn't work. It made him heal HP, but he continue losing HP too. Also no dialog. I've only been able to verify that he can be cured/saved via Bless, after being doused.

I admit I'm still 'early' in the game, as I haven't found an infinite Source... uh, source. So far it's been 3 pools on the ground, and 3 soul jars (which I smashed because absorbing the souls seemed kinda evil). Perhaps I'll find more later.

I didn't realize that curing him opened the 2nd portal inside the firey dimension place. If that's the case, then that really is the answer to my initial question. Thank you, Lethan.