Lets talk Grout's mansion

Aznbabygirl101 · Post by **Aznbabygirl101** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 11:38 am

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS (in case you didn't know *eyeroll*)

It's definetly one of the highlights of the game, the whole story and such.

i freaking loved that house, but it scares the absolute crap out of me, especially the first time i played it when i was in the room where you have to open the fireplace i killed the women and then looked in the "mirror" and i was like O_O OMFG! (turn around and take a swing at nobody) it was absolutely priceless, beautifully done.

anyway lets talk anything at grouts mansion, but i'll start off the conversation.

1- the woman in the glass (grouts wife? can they even have wives?) any speculations?

2- your thoughts on the recording tapes that grout left all around the house.

MalaksBane · Post by **MalaksBane** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:46 pm

The tapes ... yeah ... well ... it's a pity there's no way to change the balance between voice/dialogue and soundeffects. As it is, I have to limit volume based on combatsound, making most spoken text incomprehensible without the subtitles. And the Grout tapes are not subtitled.

Anaximander · Post by **Anaximander** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:49 pm

especially the first time i played it when i was in the room where you have to open the fireplace i killed the women and then looked in the "mirror" and i was like O_O OMFG! (turn around and take a swing at nobody) it was absolutely priceless, beautifully done.

Mmm... I never fell for that one. For one thing, I assumed that all the crazies in Grout's mansion were, in fact, his childer. He experiments on them to find a cure for vampirism. Very early in the game you can observe that mirrors do not refelct your character. From that we can deduct that either vampires cast no reflection, or Toika was a little lazy with regards to how mirrors work in their game. Regardless, it gives away the trick of that particular room in Grout's mansion.

I do believe the woman in the dress is intended to be Grout's wife. I suppose he left here there for safekeeping until he could find his "cure."

I, for one, enjoyed Grout's recordings immensely. I listen to them each every time I play through the mansion. My favorite is the one where he talks about his method of psychological research and his disdain for Freudian psychoanalysis.

pennypincher · Post by **pennypincher** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:16 pm

Vampires do show up in mirrors, the programers were just a little lax...

Either that, or every vampire you play is secretly a member of Clan Lasombra, the only clan who DOESN'T show up in mirrors or photos.

MalaksBane · Post by **MalaksBane** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:27 pm

The mirror thing, hehe, I remember that. For a long time I did assume that vampires had no reflection (Bloodlines is my introduction to VtM), but none of the 'mirrors' sofar had shown any decent reflections at all, and never of any NPC's. But with these mirrors in Grout's mansion I could finally see, ehrm, my non-reflectiveness, or so I thought. Untill I got to look behind them.

On Troika's lazyness ... I'd guess it was choice to not include 'real' mirrors, maybe for performance reasons.

yrthwyndandfyre · Post by **yrthwyndandfyre** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:15 pm

[QUOTE=Aznbabygirl101]1- the woman in the glass (grouts wife? can they even have wives?) any speculations?

2- your thoughts on the recording tapes that grout left all around the house.[/QUOTE]
1: Grout's wife - while he was alive. After he was Embraced, he was Caitiff, since his sire died before he woke up. Being thus unaware of his nature, presumably his wife was the first one he nearly killed, and having no knowledge of how to embrace, he contrived to keep her in that thing until such time as he could learn how to 'cure' her. By the time he knew he was a vampire and how to embrace her, he was already barking mad.
2: The tapes provide a chronology of how he came to know what he was, and why he didn't Embrace his wife when he finally knew how. By then he felt that he had to put off 'curing' his wife until such time as their personal safety could be guaranteed. He could have no way of knowing that he was about to die, but in any case, it wouldn't have mattered because he was by then totally paranoid and seeing boogie-men behind every lamp-shade.

By and large a plot device, but it goes a long way to explain why Grout's mansion is the way it is.

Red_X · Post by **Red_X** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 9:22 am

Grouts mansion was one of my favorite missions even though it was really hard, the taps added a special effect to the entire level that I really liked. The way he was slowly going mad and always talked about the man that was out to get him. Did he ever say who the man was? I always assumed it was the prince.

hehe Havent finished the game yet, my computer desided to go insane right in the middle

mr_sir · Post by **mr_sir** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 9:29 am

i think the tapes were supposed to make you suspect nines was the one that was out to get him, even though nines is not camarilla, but i also think that the person he was actually talking about was the prince.

MalaksBane · Post by **MalaksBane** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 10:39 am

Bach. Bach is probably the man who's trying to get him. In Bach's journal he mentions he and his hunters are watching Grout, I think even before LaCroix arrives in LA. And Bach is the one to set Grout's mansion on fire.

Lestat · Post by **Lestat** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 1:40 pm

[QUOTE=MalaksBane]Bach. Bach is probably the man who's trying to get him. In Bach's journal he mentions he and his hunters are watching Grout, I think even before LaCroix arrives in LA. And Bach is the one to set Grout's mansion on fire.[/QUOTE]Nope, it must be a vampire. Grout specifically mentions it's a vampire on the tapes.
Moreover, Bach is following Lacroix, as should be clear from your confrontations with him and what Lacroix tells you. Though of course anything what Lacroix says is suspect, he has little reason to lie in this case.
I'd go for Lacroix as the one who's after Grout, since most probably he set Grout up in collaboration with Ming Xiao, and that's something of which the voices might have warned him, though of course in such a way that he could not prevent it.

Edited for clarity.

MalaksBane · Post by **MalaksBane** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 6:17 pm

Indeed, Bach tracked LaCroix to LA, but he also mentions a battle with minions of Grout, and later his encounter with a 'younger vampire'. One of the netries also mentions "LaCroix's recent arrival". Interesting, though OT.

Grout does mention his fear of a vampire "the one he spoke of before" and it seems likely that this was indeed LaCroix, who sacrificed Grout - probably, Ming could have lied about this - to be able to call the bloodhunt on Nines.

Blitzer · Post by **Blitzer** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 7:33 pm

For one thing, I assumed that all the crazies in Grout's mansion were, in fact, his childer. He experiments on them to find a cure for vampirism.

grout's mansion was really hard and scary for me until i realized that none of the enemies you face there are vampires, ie: you can feed on them. after i figured that out, the whole thing became much easier and less intimidating.

Evrae · Post by **Evrae** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 4:55 pm

Yeah I thought they were vampires at first but then I found I could jump on those weird knife wielding women and drain the blood from them. I think that they're patients from an asylum or something, as in the tapes Grout does mention his 'love' for asylums and stuff the 'constant background sounds of screaming' and so on, strange guy >.> And he mentions them as specimens I think, so I assume he's using them to explore 'madness'. And yeah I love the bit where he's insulting Freudian thinking, that made me laugh =D And I can't exactly see him siring anyone as he saw vampirism as a disease which he was trying to cure, that's like giving someone AIDs in order to try and cure it 0.o And why would he when he had access to plenty of Kindred when he became primogen of the Malkavian clan.

Knox · Post by **Knox** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 7:26 pm

[QUOTE=Evrae]I think that they're patients from an asylum or something, as in the tapes Grout does mention his 'love' for asylums and stuff the 'constant background sounds of screaming' and so on, strange guy >.> And he mentions them as specimens I think, so I assume he's using them to explore 'madness'.[/QUOTE]

According to GB's tuts, they're ghouls. If that's the case, then you have to wonder if they were insane because of Grout's blood, or already mad/pre-disposed to madness...

ahs · Post by **ahs** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:04 pm

Knox wrote:According to GB's tuts, they're ghouls. If that's the case, then you have to wonder if they were insane because of Grout's blood, or already mad/pre-disposed to madness...

I've kept on reading threads since a while ( insomnia caused by a stress because of incoming serious exams, now it's 2:00 in Poland ) and here I've found funny thing.
If you say so than why Malkav's pet ain't insane? No crazy screams or histeric laughs?
Dammit, if only Troika had worked a bit more on this game...

Tiberius · Post by **Tiberius** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:39 pm

ahs wrote:I've kept on reading threads since a while ( insomnia caused by a stress because of incoming serious exams, now it's 2:00 in Poland ) and here I've found funny thing.
If you say so than why Malkav's pet ain't insane? No crazy screams or histeric laughs?
Dammit, if only Troika had worked a bit more on this game...

I suppose you mean the ghoul, Heather, if you play as a Malkavian; she does have different lines, she is a bit more loony and insightful (e.g. she says things like "I went fishing and I got a big one" when she brings home that poor bastard, a line she didn't use when I played as Toreador), but she doesn't have to be barking mad; she is just a ghoul after all she doesn't suffer the full blown curse of Malkav's childer.

Grout's "experiments" are not necessarily ghouls, if you hear the recordings, spoiler:

Spoiler

you will realize that Grout is an old fashioned psychiatrist following the school of phrenology (regarded as pseudo-science today); this school afaik purports that the shape of the cranium is a map to the psyche and that physiology and psychology are inextricably linked. Grout has been probably performing brain surgery on his subjects to test and advance his theories. That would explain the surgical instruments and the operating room as well.

spoiler:

Spoiler

also he probably embraced his wife to keep her from dieing of old age. He mentions in one recording that his wife suffers from the same condition as he does.

ahs · Post by **ahs** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:41 am

Oh, you're right, I must have mislooked that, thanks for opening my eyes.

Coruel · Post by **Coruel** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 5:31 am

Also there are about 50 loonies or more in the house, that's a lot of ghouls to maintain as they all need at least one vitae per month to maintain. So I suppose they're just inmates.

roller1234 · Post by **roller1234** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 8:43 am

with a Malkavian it was all like obfuscate, stealth kill, obfuscate, stealth kill, obfuscate, stealth.. DRAIN

. But pretty scary yeah. Though the haunting hotel was more scary imho, so far. Maybe thats because i safe pretty often

Malks are overpowered

][_aVey · Post by **][_aVey** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 3:14 pm

Aznbabygirl101 wrote:THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS (in case you didn't know *eyeroll*)

It's definetly one of the highlights of the game, the whole story and such.

i freaking loved that house, but it scares the absolute crap out of me, especially the first time i played it when i was in the room where you have to open the fireplace i killed the women and then looked in the "mirror" and i was like O_O OMFG! (turn around and take a swing at nobody) it was absolutely priceless, beautifully done.

Anaximander wrote:Mmm... I never fell for that one. For one thing, I assumed that all the crazies in Grout's mansion were, in fact, his childer. He experiments on them to find a cure for vampirism. Very early in the game you can observe that mirrors do not refelct your character. From that we can deduct that either vampires cast no reflection, or Toika was a little lazy with regards to how mirrors work in their game. Regardless, it gives away the trick of that particular room in Grout's mansion.

It amuses me how some primitive programming can make some people specutale about vampires and ghouls. :laugh:

Yeah, the first time when you kill the two gals in the fireplace area, and then you take a look at the mirror just to see the reflection of their souls frozen for eternity brings a tingle down your spine, and of course, since you're a vampire it's logical you can't see your own reflection.

That's until you cross the fireplace and discover that those "souls" were just another two gals on the other side to simulate a reflection, and that the mirror was just a miserable window!!

MalaksBane wrote:The mirror thing, hehe, I remember that. For a long time I did assume that vampires had no reflection (Bloodlines is my introduction to VtM), but none of the 'mirrors' sofar had shown any decent reflections at all, and never of any NPC's. But with these mirrors in Grout's mansion I could finally see, ehrm, my non-reflectiveness, or so I thought. Untill I got to look behind them.

On Troika's lazyness ... I'd guess it was choice to not include 'real' mirrors, maybe for performance reasons.

You got it right, you may pick your prize anytime!