Mostly the city of Tarondale; the beginning of the module consists of some exploration/travel in locales surrounding Tarondale as well.
Gameplay Length
I would guess between 5 and 7 hours here.
Number Players
Single Player Only
Language
English
Level Range
See "Classes" and Readme--you must be level 15 overall
Races
Any
Tricks & Traps
Medium
Roleplay
Medium
Hack & Slash
Medium
Classes
Here's how it works: You must be level 15 overall, and 10 of those 15 levels must be taken in the rogue class. A level/XP adjustment/manipulation area is provided at the start for characters that do not meet those requirements. Other classes (multi-classed) are welcome (nay, encouraged!) for the remaining 5 levels besides the minimum 10 in rogue. Shadowdancer and Assassin both make fine choices to multi-class in.
Conversation choices are often presented which account for good, evil, and somewhere in-between; there are opportunities to be generous and lawful and opportunities to be greedy, chaotic and cruel/evil. Anything works, really, as long as you take into account that you worked for an organization that was all about supporting the cause of the common-folk of Tarondale by assassinating the oppressive people in Tarondale responsible for the plight facing the lower-classes. See "Description" and Readme document for more info.
Gameplay Hours
06
Description
The Art of Death - Back in Black
Email me at [email protected] with comments, questions, that kind of thing.
REQUIRES NWN 1.68 AND CEP 1.52, 1.53 & 1.68
The year 1250 had not been a good one for the city of Tarondale. Ryvual II, who had been the King at the time, had been far from the perfect ruler; under his reign, poverty became commonplace, wealth was concentrated in the upper elite noble class, and the people were not happy. Crime was rampant, and to go out in the streets at night was like asking to be mugged.
No end to Tarondale's sorry situation seemed to be in sight, until The Arcanum, an elite group of highly-skilled assassins led by a man named Gauvral, took matters into their own hands. The Arcanum was an organization dedicated solely to the good of Tarondale and the protection of the commonfolk. The assassins of the Arcanum decided that change was needed, and that the noble class was causing the problems in the White City; the organization's assassins struck with frightening efficiency--every high-ranking noble house in Tarondale suffered a death near the top of their hierarchy. However, this simply served to make matters worse; it broadened the gap even further between the common people and the wealthy noble class.
The Arcanum realized that progress could not be made until the problem plaguing Tarondale was pulled out by the roots; King Ryvual II had to die.
One of the Arcanum's master assassins was given the task of killing Ryvual II -- they successfully infiltrated the Royal Apartments of the Palace and slew the King. Unfortunately, the king's son and heir, Vastan Ryvual, had awoke when the assassin crept by to slay the king, and had confronted the killer as they attempted to make their escape-they fought only briefly, for the assassin gave Vastan a cruel cut across the eyes, blinding him, but the noise of their skirmish was enough to rouse the palace guards.
As the assassin fled the palace, they were seen by several guards, but the assassin outran them and was not found. Vastan Ryvual, the heir to the throne, was blinded permanently and his face was horribly scarred, and he disappeared a few days after the assassination--it is said that he took his own life, throwing himself out of the highest tower of the palace, into the bay which surrounds Tarondale's royal district.
However, despite the Arcanum's success, Tarondale's problems were not so easily solved. Various powerful and wealthy noble houses began warring against each other, vying for the throne; after all, the King and his only heir were dead, so what was to happen regarding succession was unclear. As chaos set in, the Arcanum disbanded and disappeared.
Thirteen years of internal strife and noble warfare followed the assassination of King Ryvual II. Finally, in 1263 (current year), things began to settle down in and around Tarondale. House Kolarros emerged victorious from the noble wars, and King Kolarros I has begun re-instating order into Tarondale.
However, though Tarondale's future finally seems relatively secure, things are not as calm as they may appear on the surface...factions and intrigue abound, and some nobles still aspire to take the throne...
The Art of Death - Back in Black is the story of the master assassin responsible for the murder of King Ryvual II thirteen years ago. After the Ryvual Assassination blew up in your face, you had fled to Jarylin, a small, tired, secluded village in the countryside, a three-day journey from Tarondale. There you had lived in peace-you had minded your own business, and your neighbors, ignorant of your true identity, had minded theirs. Had you been given a choice in the matter, you would have remained away from the sinister plots and intrigues of nobles and guilds for the rest of your days-the life of the assassin was, you thought, behind you now. Then, early one fateful morning, the letter arrived...
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This module is designed for a character that is exactly level 15 overall; additionally, 10 of those 15 levels must be taken in the rogue class. If you are not level 15-total and/or you do not have at least 10 levels of rogue making up those 15 level, you will be taken to a holding area in which you can manipulate your XP and your level until you do meet the requirements; from that holding area, you will be able to re-enter the module normally.
(RECOMMENDED) ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good (willing to assassinate for a good cause). This is just my interpretation of what alignment would fit the actions your character is supposed to take. You�re expected to be a clever-tongued rogue with a sense of humor who is a master at his/her craft and at assassination (you�re an assassin too (NOT THE CLASS, just an assassin) in the story). There will be plenty of back�n�forth banter between you and your henchman, and being a brooding and evil assassin wouldn�t make a whole lot of sense.
Special Features:
-Unique new 'Stealth Kill' system (see Readme for more info) which encourages a stealthy-approach to combat as opposed to a straight-forward hack'n'slash approach
-Custom music, tilesets, portraits, loadscreens, load-hints, creatures, items, skyboxes and visual effects
-A compelling central plot that (I hope) will hook you in and hold you 'till the end
-Numerous side-quests, most of which offer several (more than 2) ways of completing them
-A "unique" NWN experience (ok, how generic is that? But it's kinda true.)
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Anyhow, I really hope you enjoy this module; I've spent QUITE a bit of time on it (many months) and I'm pretty pleased with the finished product. Please report bugs, comments, suggestions and feedback here or email me (see above), and please vote, if you feel so inclined. :)
FOR DIAL-UP USERS WHO WOULD, FOR THE HAKS, MUSIC AND TLK, RATHER DOWNLOAD MULTIPLE FILES INDIVIDUALLY THAN ONE BIG .exe FILE, GO HERE!
Cheers,
Hugie
CURRENT VERSION :: 1.5 (NWN and CEP v. 1.68 compliant)
Love the mod so far, but I am having 2 problems. 1) I can't read the readme doc as it keeps coming up with a conversion filter error or something like that. 2)Finding/defeating the necromancer. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Posted by Epona at on05/27/08
Thank you for making such a fun module! I enjoyed myself very much :) _________________________ "By believing, one can see"
Posted by Mirgalen at 2008-05-2706:01:18
Bug Report *** SPOILER WARNING *** I was just playing/testing this again with a similar character. Used a boat to access one of the noble house... The bugged NPC is a female mage (obviously) with the portrait of an actress. I tested the module w the DM client she only got one magic item: a robe that does nothing related to casting. She does have the quicken spell feat but that would not allow casting 2-3 lvl 7+ spells in a single round. I have witnessed her casting up to 4 spells per round a few times. Therefore I don't think this is a feature (either a bug or a cheat). Could be some time stop related bug, can't tell as I have never seen this in any other module.
Posted by Elhanan at 23:52:18 Voted9.50
Mirgalen - Uncertain of the NPC you ref, but do not forget that some items do allow spell storage that allow multiple effects to be released upon command. As I never had to cheat or use meta-game tricks to complete this mod, you may wish to relook at the tactics being used.
Posted by Mirgalen at 2008-05-0403:07:44
* BUG REPORT - SPOILERS * I played a bit more of this one but with the huge bug (or worse cheat) I found I cannot recommend it. 1. I play with hardcore setting and AoE spells should affect the caster and crew (e.g. fireball). Not sure why but Hugie decided to disable the feature so that AoE spells will only affect the character(s) on the player side. 2. I also found a specific NPC with at least twice the legal number of hit points. 3. Worse that same NPC can cast not one or two but up to five high level spells in a single round (5 reflex save roll by my character in the same round)! I would assume that this is a bug. I verified that this NPC is not hasted (and her quicken spell feat will not help with spells lvl 6+). As a result you may have to use reload/respawn a fair number of times to defeat that NPC (how Heroic is that?) or you will need a great deal of luck to stop her. I had some success with chocking powder and similar items.
Posted by alordofchaos at 2008-04-1112:05:40
Great fun and very engrossing so far. Game stopping bug (spoilers ahead): After the arrest, the king speaks one statement. When I hit "continue" as my response, the conversation ends. NWN/SotU/Hotu 1.68 patch Some minor bugs which I got through: no portals appear after killing the nobles (sorceress, took key, went to small octagaonal chamber across from the large room, no portal - undead noble, went to locked room, opened room with ledge and pit, no portal or conversation) Same problem as laisee and others, crashes on entering winter wasteland. i have no problems with winter scenes from other mods, no HotU issues, etc.
Posted by Mirgalen at 2008-03-0822:58:07
I tend to agree with Armin on this one. I may try it again some day. * Minor Spoilers * I really enjoyed the part before the city. The irresponsible group trying to stop a druid (ok rogue/druid) in a forest. A couple of caves (too) easy to "clean" giving an opportunity to re-equip the naked (item strip and de-leveling of) character... I found the city boring on the other hand. The first small quest (to silence a guy) was OK but I got bored after just trying to enter some places and/or trying to locate the temple district. It seems that things need to be done in a specific order.
Posted by Alex at 2007-11-1610:41:17
Hey laisee, This is some kind of issue with your HotU installation, I suspect...is your HotU disk scratched,perhaps? Do frozen wasteland-type areas load successfully in other modules? If they do, then it's probably a corrupt download--if they don't, it's something to do with your NWN installation, I think. Hope this helps! _________________________ Alex "Hugie" Hugon Writer - Ossian Studios NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate - NWN2's first Adventure Pack Moonshadows - An Action-Packed, Story-Driven Adventure in the Forgotten Realms [Development Blog] The Third Sign - A Novel-to-NWN2-Module conversion of Gregory A. Wilson's book [Purchase from Amazon]
Posted by laisee at 05:12:00 Voted9.50
Hugie, been revisiting this mod after re-playing Tales of the Mage and encountered repeated problem in the Mage basement with "frozen wasteland" literally freezing my computer on loading the area (it could be my system). The gate to it was pretty subtle, and I am just wondering is this tongue in cheek or for real.
Posted by Alex at 2007-10-1413:03:45
Thanks guys! :) _________________________ Alex "Hugie" Hugon Writer - Ossian Studios NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate - NWN2's first Adventure Pack Moonshadows - An Action-Packed, Story-Driven Adventure in the Forgotten Realms [Development Blog] The Third Sign - A Novel-to-NWN2-Module conversion of Gregory A. Wilson's book [Purchase from Amazon]
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