This module is designed for single player as the best choice, but for multiplayer I would recommend playing this module with a small party, and only having one party. Having a bigger party and/or more than one party could very well decrease the fun factor.
Language
English
Level Range
This module is designed for players to create 1st level characters, by the end of the module players can get to the higher levels.
Races
Be any race you would like, all are accepted in the land of Damara. Make the best choice based on attributes and the way you would like to roleplay your character.
Tricks & Traps
Light
Roleplay
Medium
Hack & Slash
Medium
Classes
This module is balanced for all classes. While it may be harder for some, you can always come back when you are more experienced as there are lots of things you can do to make your character stronger.
Scope
Epic
DMNeeded
No DM Required
Single or Multiplayer
Single Player or Multiplayer
Max Character Level
14
Max # Players
04
Min # Players
01
Min Character Level
01
Content Rating
Teen
Alignments
Any alignment is fine, however there are more quests written for good players than ones for bad players. So if you are looking to be very bad there are definitely opportunities, and there is always the promise of riches to intice bad characters to do good things.
Description
You spent your youth on a small farm in the northern country of Damara. Between the time spent planting and harvesting, you dreamt of the world outside your quaint home, of the life of an adventurer. Lately, However, the weather has been changing, changing for the worse. The folk have been talking about the times of old, when the great glacier of the north covered the entire area. If the temperature continues to drop at this rate, the glacier might yet again claim the entire region. When you receive a mysterious summons from the mayor of Wellsfar, a nearby town, your desire for travel and excitement is renewed. Even if this is just a social call, it will give you an opportunity to quell the worries weighing on your mind, worries over the ever threatening cold... -Over 140 unique magical items. -Over 50 subquests to complement the deep main quest. -100's of NPCs -8 ready to join party members, including a famous drow ranger. -Over 300 pages of written dialogue.
Wow, looking at some of these comments, I find myself wondering if I have a tainted copy of the module... The writing in the Ancient Heart module that I have is mediocre at best and the storytelling is poorly handled. It borders on atrocious. 300 pages? I would have preferred 100 pages that were more carefully constructed and better inspired. The main quest is boring and one-dimensional. 'Go retrieve an item so we can stop the bad weather.' Every single phase of the journey is outlined (in a rather disorganized manner) by the mayor at the very beginning of the module. Why not let the phases of the quest unravel as I adventure? The 'it keeps getting colder' theme is abandoned after the first town. Everyone in Wellsfar rightly bemoans it, but few of the NPC's after that even mention it. I was wandering around Bloodstone Gate at times asking myself 'uh, what am I doing again?' The PC is given no attachment to the quest after the initial onslaught. Most of the subquests seem thrown together on the spur of the moment, the author not having much of an idea of what he wants to write beforehand. The pocketwatch quest in the opening village is the first example. The fisherman wants you to find his missing watch. He instructs you to ask Old Man Webber about it. Old Man Webber tells you to ask the stablemaster about it. The stablemaster tells you he saw the thief speaking to one of his stablehands and directs you to him. Wait ... how did Old Man Webber know that the stablemaster saw this? And how did the fisherman know that Old Man Webber knew? None of this is explained. It amounts to a poor chain of 'speak to this person' then 'this person' then 'that person.' Few of the quests are any better. They're mostly of the 'go retrieve this,' 'go kill that' variety with little development and shallow characters. Very much like the OC quests, only not as well written. More evidence of the poor construction of the quests was the -continual- (emphasis strong) lack of consistency between the journal entries, dialogues, quest items, and story developments. The bounty hunter and journal entry tell me that no one knows where the criminal is. Yet the contract says he's in the Bloodstone Pass. I get a journal entry when I kill Boddynock. It tells me what's written in the letter in his pocket even though I haven't even touched the corpse yet. Why not attach the journal entry to the letter? Or not even mention the letter in the entry? I speak to some NPC's and before I say 'hi, how's your father' I get a journal entry reporting that I killed them and telling me what was on their corpses (good clue that there's no chance of a diplomatic solution, I guess?). The author strives to include as much information in the journal entries as he can, but it's entirely excessive and poorly timed, so that it all comes across as terribly clumsy. I found the NPC's in Tyrants of the Moonsea nicer than the people in this one. The frikkin -Moonsea-! For some reason, 80% of the NPC's here are moody and bitter and snap at you for daring to even talk to them. Many of the ones who don't give you an attitude talk like loonies or children. I guess mature = nasty? Your own dialogue options don't give you much of a chance to behave better. You can't accept a quest reward, for instance, without sounding like a total jerk. And while nasty responses tend to be rather wordy, the polite ones are woefully short. Some of the encounters are ridiculously unbalanced. I was amazed to run into a Bodak in the Bloodstone Gate crypt ... as a 6th level character. One death gaze wiped both my henchman, my animal companion, -and- my summoned wolf out. A second one took care of my PC. There are good reasons that monsters with special abilities like that should not be placed in front of characters that aren't up to its CR. The endless long walks were a romp of tedium. The tree gates provided much appreciated relief from this, but only to the extent that they still required journey to and from them. Bioware placed recall items in their campaigns for a reason. They avoid the annoyance of long pointless walks which does -not- exist in tabletop D&D because the DM is there to move the party around quickly. Yes kids, recall item = portable DM = true to PnP! There are a few bright points. It was nice to see custom items with descriptions that provided setting backstory and abilities that were true to those descriptions (thankfully, none of it is uber). Some of the henchmen had interesting bits of dialogue to offer. I especially enjoyed the story of the minotaur's childhood tragedy and his falling in with Belpus. The pixie's hyperactive personality was rather amusing -- this is one style that the author seemed to find a nice writing niche with. Really, I have to stretch to find the good points. Basically, the module boils down to an often poorly balanced hack 'n' slash with some hollow dialogue sewn over it. If you think the writing in this module is among the best the Vault has to offer, you ought to try A Tangled Web or the AL series -- you're really missing out!
Posted by optimus at on08/05/07
I didn't care for this module and ended up not finishing it. Three significant flaws in my view: * Non-standard henchmen leveling, where each henchman has to acquire their own XP instead of tracking the PC's level. This makes it impractical, even ill-advised to swap henchmen in & out of your party as needs require, as doing so will cause henchmen to start dropping levels behind you, rendering them almost useless. This is particularly the case with the sorceror, as of course he doesn't acquire second level spells until level 4 - hauling him around until he gets there will be an exercise in frustration. * Large areas that require significant back-tracking when you need to resurrect henchmen or even yourself, with no means of short-circuiting this through teleportation. I finally spawned myself in a pair of Boots of Speed to deal with this. * Too many "Challenging" combat encounters during the low levels. Low-level combat, even against "Moderate" monsters can still often enough lead to PC death since it's so die-roll related, but encountering a group of 4 "Challenging" monsters is all but a death sentence when you haven't even hit level 5. Even with two clerics in the party, myself and a hench, the monk, and a level II summon - couldn't get through the forest without at least 4 deaths. I also found one journal error - I persuaded myself out of a combat in the marsh, with the minotaur and his partner, but the journal still recorded that I killed them. Part two of this series might be better, but I doubt I'll check it out.
Posted by fire&ice at on06/23/07
A really enjoyable 'straight NWN' module. Large scope and always something to do. Doesn't break ground in any way but shows you can make an entertaining adventure without custom content. Played it about 2 years ago and thought I ought to get round to voting now I have a vault account! _________________________ NWN2: Big Font/High Res GUI // Extra Spell Swapping // NWN1: Colourised Scrolls // Both: Reviews and more
Posted by StealthWinsBattles at on05/30/07
A very enjoyable module. The only thing that slightly irritated me was the fact that, although I played almost the entire module without a henchman, a lot of the conversations addressed me as if they were talking to more than one person. I look forward to playing the sequel.
Posted by Braethorn at 2007-02-2408:01:06
I played thsi module about a year ago and enjoyed it so much I'm going to start it again and then do PartII. About the commander Rodek dying bit..if that glitch hasn't been fixed , I solved the problem by simply making him a member of my party (be damned if I can remeber the debug command now though) so could heal him , oder him to stand his ground etc. etc.
Posted by Alex at on12/16/06
Really good, I enjoyed very much. But final confrontation is too easy.
Posted by RDS at on11/27/06
I really enjoyed this module. No monkey business, just a good story and well-executed quests that work and make sense. I found the ending a bit abrupt, but otherwise a very good module.
Posted by Tesseract at 2006-10-3014:19:39
Brynlath: *** spoiler *** There is an old woman on top of the hill in Bloodstone Gate City who has the broken rune sword.
Posted by Brynlath at 2006-10-1510:26:04
Great mod so far, but I can't finish because I can't find the'Broken Runed Sword'. I assume the item spawns after speaking to the gold dragon in the ruins of Bloodstone Gate City. I went there and searched in detect mode and could not find it. I would use the toolset, but for some reason the pallet refuses to load 95% of the time. No clue as to why, but it makes it hard to pinpoint items *WG*. Can someone help me?
Posted by Tesseract at 2006-10-0116:13:11
OK, never mind, I misread slightly. *** Spoilers *** I just thought the logical course of action would be to unmask the informant as soon as possible, to minimise further leaking of information, especially with an important battle coming up. IMHO he should be in a place you can get to *before* the battle, or you should be able to alert the general of his presence.
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