Where we last left off, we had just finished examining the various bits of mod debauchery dumped on us after character generation. Since I didn't get a chance to post the full descriptions of the two items that were added in our inventory, here they are now...
Amulet of Sigil said:
This strange amulet is made from unknown grey metal. At first you can see a lot of runes engraved in it.
In the center of the amulet there is engraved the biggest rune of all, stylized in the shape of
www.sigil.cz. You cannot remember where but you are sure you've seen this rune before - maybe in "google" or "yahoo". The rune symbolizes certain portal.
Apart from the middle part the amulet contains twelve other parts. Each is marked by unique rune and a short notice. The runes probably points to some unknown gods related to Sigil. If you want, you can examine each of those twelve parts.
-------------
Potion of Refreshment said:
After (or during) a close fought battle, most adventurers take several steps - drinking a healing potion, looting treasure from fallen foes, resting to regain strength and spells and so on. This potion eliminates the need for several of those steps; the highly concentrated restorative juice heals wounds, removes tiredness and fatigue and also refreshes the mind, causing cast spells to be re-memorised.
STATISTICS:
Special: Heal HP
Special: Remove fatigue
Special: Regain cast spells
Special: 15% chance of 1 pt CON penalty (24 hour)
Special: 10% chance of 1 pt STR penalty (24 hour)
Special: 5% chance of 1 pt DEX penalty (24 hour)
Expect to see these quote dumps quite a lot in favor of screencaps (except on special occasions when the description screens hold visual fuckery.) It'll save us all on sanity, bandwidth and vertical scrolling because Big World does
not hesitate to vomit gear all over us. The gag reflex has been fully emancipated, and the floodgates are open. The express train to the vomitorium is in full throttle.
Also, since I promised I'd demo the functions of the amulet, I can think of no better time to do that.
When examined, you're given this menu. Each option summons a member of the website listed in the description (which seems to have been active as of 2019, but isn't in English and therefore isn't relevant to this conversation. Big World tries to translate a lot of mods, but some of its translations aren't complete. We'll get to those.)
I seem to have been talking shit when I declared the amulet's summons to be "useless." I never really used this thing outside of a few curious test runs during heavy combat. They're almost all free buffs, though because the NPCs have to be in range, it's possible they were useless at the time because I was in combat back then and... Liches got in the way? Fuck if I know. This one casts Draw upon Holy Might for free.
Anyway, we're saving the Inn for last. It's the
denouement of the whole tutorial area - everything else is a pale fart in comparison. So let's ride that goddamn fart wind and check out what the rest of this fort has to offer.
Many of the .CRE models are randomly replaced with models from other IE games (mainly Planescape.) I'm pretty sure this is the work of
One Pixel Project. It's not terrible, but the models look kind of wonky when they're outside their native resolution and they're
way too animated for BG2. I'd rather see it than blood in my urine, I'll put it that way.
Alright. Shank: here we go. Let's do this.
I decided to try conserving my potions for this. Not because I actually need to conserve them - by the powers, no. It'll become evident soon that any semblance of conservation is a farce and Big World laughs at you for even considering it. I just wanted to try to pretend this was still an RPG and there was strategy involved. So I tried summoning my Sigilian friends instead.
...Which would've been a sound strategy if I had memorized who they were and what they did.
YOU MOTHERFUCKER
He
deathspelled me!
That's it. Fuck conservation. The kid gloves are off. Shank can eat missiles.
The rest of Candlekeep is pretty bog standard, if I'm being honest. But this NPC stands out.
This NPC stands out like a
clown in a denim competition. This is Finch, the first in a long, bloody and painful line of mod NPCs. I'll let the audio speak for itself.
Not the worst mic quality we'll have to put up with, but the leveling isn't great. I'll leave the other "qualities" up to you to judge.
Dialogue said:
: Ooh! I'm sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going!
:
I suggest you start watching, squirt.* Haven't I seen you wandering around Candlekeep the past tenday? Who are you?
:
*(NPC mods will occasionally get creative and offer many satisfying methods of shooting a character down, but they are merely paths of temptation away from the highway of pain.)
: I am Finch, Finch Bloomwhiffler. So grand to make your acquaintance! I must say I am truly envious of you having the good fortune to live here in Candlekeep.
:
I cannot imagine why. I am a lucky man, yes,. But my time here in Candlekeep is coming to an end. I have recently gotten word that I must soon take a trip away from here.
: Not as soon as I, I wager. I have dallied in Candlekeep longer than I should have in service of my temple, though I am certain Deneir would understand. Anyhoo, I leave with all haste. I have a list of works needed to establish a new library on the Amnish border. I located a likely seller of one volume in Beregost, so off I go! Perhaps we shall meet again. I bid you a fair journey!
In any case, that's about it for the exterior of Candlekeep. The Priest of Oghma has a modded item table, but most of what he has isn't worth noting. It's all stuff shared by everyone else.
Also, special shoutouts to this fucking guy. I don't remember him being here and I'm suspicious.
Right then. The inn. Its all been leading up to this. And frankly, after getting deathspell'd out of nowhere, I'm not sure it'll live up to the expectations. I wasn't anticipating that. Kind of killed my groove, if I'm being honest with you.
Immediately, we're greeted with this goonery.
Dialogue said:
: Please, finally calm down thyself! My goodness! How many times must I tell you that I do not know where this stray is floating?
: Buzzurk! Gorschabarmarzabuldarvel!
: Cursing will not help you, my friend. Either you start searching for him, or you wait here.
: Hrmpf. Give me another one, barkeeper.
Braegar is a German mod. We could talk to him and get hints about his quest, but I don't speak Schnitzel and his dialogue in Candlekeep is the only part of the mod Big World bothered to translate. It has something to do with retrieving Mithril and a scroll or something. We'll run into bits of it down the line, or what I can only assume are bits of it.
Before we can move, a wolf approaches us.
All three options put
"Haiass's Whistle" in our inventory, meaning we're getting ass wolf whether we want it or not. The first option gives us a chew toy which we can't remove without Shadowkeeper. It's the most painful option, and we have elected the way of pain. (We pick the first option.)
The wolf acts like a familiar, or summon or whatever. The difference is that he's ludicrously, mind-numbingly broken. The key is in
Biotic Charge. You might not have noticed it, but your brain did. It's an ability added by a mod kit, which ass wolf just *has* for some unfathomable reason.
Insane Nether-Crunch said:
BIOTIC VANGUARD: By digesting a substance known as Red Sand, these warriors benefit from increased speed, and have developed the ability to forcibly slam their bodies into their enemies, damaging them while healing themselves. However, such a fighting style imposes several sacrifices on the warrior himself, as he can no longer wear armor, and can use single-handed weapons, but only clumsily so.
Advantages:
- Bonus -1 to speed factor and +1 movement speed for every 4 levels (starting at 1st level)
- Bonus +1 to hit and -1 to AC for every 6 levels (starting at 3rd level)
- May use the 'Biotic Charge' ability once per 18 seconds (no daily limit). The warrior is launched at full speed at an enemy, while his wounds are closed and nearby foes are damaged and briefly stunned by the force of the impact:
- The warrior gains 6 hit points, plus one for every level (up to a maximum of 44 hit points at 20th level). If the warrior goes over his maximum hit point total with this ability, he loses it after six rounds.
- Enemies in a 15' radius from the selected target suffer the following effects:
- 1st level: 2d4 crushing damage, stun for 1 second. Save vs. breath at +4 halves the damage and avoids the stun
- 5th level: 4d4 crushing damage, stun for 1 second, Save vs. breath at +3 halves the damage and avoids the stun
- 9th level: 6d4 crushing damage, stun for 1 second, Save vs. breath at +2 halves the damage and avoids the stun
- 13th level: 8d4 crushing damage, stun for 1 second, Save vs. breath +1 halves the damage and avoids the stun
- 17th level: 10d4 crushing damage, stun for 1 second, Save vs. breath at +0 halves the damage and avoids the stun
- May choose the 'Lift Grenade' High Level ability, which creates a much stronger explosion than 'Biotic Charge': enemies in a 15' radius suffer 20d4 crushing damage and are stunned for 6 seconds. A save vs. breath at -2 halves the damage and avoids the stun.
Disadvantages:
- May not use missile weapons
- May not wear armor
- May not wear gauntlets or bracers
- Cannot specialize in one-handed weapons
- Cannot become proficient in any fighting style other than two-handed weapons
If you were paying attention, literally none of those disadvantages apply to ass wolf because he isn't humanoid and has no use for weaponry.
Oh right, the game.
Haiass's Whistle said:
During your last years in Candlekeep, you taught Haiass how to answer to your call with this whistle.
STATISTICS:
The whistle can be used to call Haiass, as long as he is in the same area as you.
-------------
Haiass's Chew Toy said:
After a year with a very high rabbit population growth, a large increase of the wolf population in the region inevitably followed. Faced with the growing fears of the villagers and peasants, several groups of hunting parties sprung up all over the southern Sword Coast. You accompanied one of these patrols when, on your return, you heard weak moans under the dead corpse of a big female wolf that had fallen down into a ravine. Crushed in its body were several unborn pups, except for one, that had miraculously been born. When in the citadel they realized you had been secretly raising a wolf puppy, it had already grown so loyal to you that not even the gathered Candlekeep guards could separate it from you.
Haiass: Stage 1
Level 4: HP 15, AC 5, THAC0 16
Main weapon: bite
1d3 damage, 1 attack per round
STR 15 DEX 14 CON 14
INT 9 WIS 9 CHA 9
10% Resistance to Fire and Cold
One wonders how the Candlekeep Guard stood their ground against wolves trained in the ways of the Biotic Vanguard. Maybe we've been snorting the red sand this whole time and decided to put it to a better use.
He made short work of Carbos. You might even say...
He made him his bitch.
Or you might not, because that's a horrible pun. Anyway, you know how the rest of it goes.
That was the longest tutorial ever, gahdamn.
This is our main guy. In an ideal world, I'd be anything else. But in Big World, nothing matters, and the cheese factory is hiring with an equal opportunity policy. The basic mechanics of the game will still give him hell at the start, but it'll quickly dissipate.
Things start innocently enough, though we're already getting feedback from arcane mods tucked away in Big World's interminably long installation order. Some mods are familiar enough to where it's obvious what they're fucking with, and others...
Not as much. This spawns in our inventory whenever a new game is launched. Examining it summons a modder from a list of modders, who promptly spouts an in-joke and/or casts a random particle effect. We'll get to that when the time comes, because there's something more important to gawk at.
This potion is one of several which gets added to every merchant in the game. We get three for free at the start, and they aren't prohibitively expensive. I really hope I don't have to connect the dots for you on this.
Also, we get to pick a subrace. We're going with Aasimar because Tieflings are overrated and I prefer the bonuses to WIS and CHA. The stat bonuses stack if you keep importing the same character, but the XP penalties also stack.
