Enter the melancholic city of Tsurlagol in the shores of the Sea of Fallen Stars, where a sad story is taking place. Fate plays a cruel game to the group of adventures known as "The Five". What path will you choose?
This mod was made for the Obsidian's "Grimm�s Fairy Tales" contest. The first version was incomplete due to time limits. This is the final version of it, as it was originally planned. Please have in mind that the mood of this story was inspired by reading some of the Grimm's tales and may seem a bit absurd out of that frame, after all, this is an anti-heroic tale. A level 20 character is suggested, the game will level you up if you are not 15-20 level. For installation instructions and to learn how this is related to the Grimm's tales, please read the included ReadMe file.
Features:
-Introduction movie.
-Three different movie endings.
-Two companion and two henchmen.
-Forgotten Realms setting.
TIPS
Important:
-Turn of the shadows option (game options->advance tab)
-Set game to normal difficulty level.
-Keep the party members close by.
-Avoid performing actions with all the party selected.
Casual:
-Hit H (by default) for a better view of the town.
-Talk to companions and henchmen.
-Try to reach Vodus at the enclave.
-Some heal potions may come handy.
-Getting robbed could be fun.
-Set game to easy level if the battles are too hard for you.
-Read journal and use map if you don't know what to do.
This short tale is my tribute to Baldur�s Gate.
Special thanks go to Gon for his contribution in the construct of the Dock District area. Without his help, this area won't be so unique.
Many thanks to codepoetz and Grinning Fool for their wonderful plugins.
Thank you NWN2 community for your support and company.
I'll greatly appreciate if you comment of what you liked or not.
Posted by RMSXIII at 2011-02-27 17:22:13 Voted 8.00 on 02/27/11
Eeeeh......nice story, wonderful setting, but....IDK, I couldn't really explore the city much because almost every door isn't openable. I wanted to (spoilers) meet the wizard, go to townhall to buy the affirmations to free the prisoners, etc. etc. Half of that I realized in the 3rd play thru prolly wasn't possible. Oh, and the mage and my PC are currently locked in a neverending spell duel because neither of them will (or can) bite the dust. But do I have an unfinished version of this mod or this the final thing. lol besides the grammar (don't worry, I know English isn't your thing so I won't hate, haha) and the unexplorable and nearly desolate city, it's fun to play. I give 8/10 _________________________ "Never forget...the nightmare."
Posted by PaulBlay at 2010-11-16 10:09:26 Voted 7.25 on 11/16/10
Nice idea, got that 'not quite finished' feel to it.
Particular problems
* End movie did not play.
* No chance to export character before the game ends!
Posted by Mirmil at 2010-04-05 23:16:14 Voted 6.50 on 04/05/10
I'm little bit disappointed - it started so nicely and it ended so fast:
I decided to save the girl, had two big fights in the temple and.... game over.
Uhhh.
Posted by ShadowQueen at 2009-06-16 13:42:41 Voted 7.00 on 06/16/09
Thanks! I'll try that. _________________________ cats out of the bag! ...who puts cats in bags? cats HATE bags...
Hi ShadowQueen. The reason why the game crashes is because the area that is loading is very big (32x32 I think). I believe it is a memory issue. Try to free some memory by closing running programs.
A new issue I encountered though is that the ending movies with crash the game before they are launched. I will try to fix it.
Posted by ShadowQueen at 2009-06-06 08:42:52 Voted 7.00 on 06/16/09
Hi I have been trying to play it but my game crashes every time i try to leave that tunnel in the beginning. Help? _________________________ cats out of the bag! ...who puts cats in bags? cats HATE bags...
Hi! There seems to be some problem with the rar file. I've tried downloading it 3 times and when I try to open it, Winrar gives me a "corrupted file" error.
Posted by slobberknocker at 2009-01-22 17:34:04 Voted 6.00 on 01/22/09
Plenty of potential. Needs to be fleshed out.
Posted by zert at 2008-11-26 03:22:52 Voted 2.00 on 11/26/08
Sorry, this was not that much fun after leaving the tunnel. Too much of the city if empty, many of the named npc's can not be interacted with and the final encounters overpowered even at easy settings. Really was a disappointment after a nice start. Shame-though maybe it will be polished at a later date.
Posted by foil at 2008-10-26 09:04:59 Voted 6.25 on 10/26/08
While there is some potential for something interesting here, its just not fleshed out enough. Understandable for a contest experimental mod and should not discourage future experimentation. Some excellent work in the beginning in the inn and brothel, but looses out after leaving the tunnel into the city. Its something that I very much felt had a mountain of potential to be an excellent beginning for an epic module. If ever returned to and expanded/tweaked, I would be more than willing to try again.
Based on the vault voting, this seems to be the matching score: 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation
It does a few things well... Or, perhaps you found it enjoyable/useful, and something that you're generally positive about, but also found that it has enough drawbacks that it's not something you can recommend without a caveat. It's a good piece of content, but it's a little hard to find superlatives for it.
The work at higher level material is appreciated. Thanks for your effort on this.
Okay, haven't got started with this yet, but the .rar / .7z thing is a bit off-putting. Renaming the file as .rar changes the way compression/decompression programs interpret the data, so when you double-click to open, you get what looks like an empty archive. Just leave the extension .7z and put something in the description above. :)
I probably won't get to this one for awhile, as I started a new character for Keep on the Borderlands, but it's definitely on my list! Good luck. :)
So, I think I've finally found a spot for this mod on my play list. The hero of Phlan is now in the Red Prison, but after he's visited a temple of Torm nearby (assuming he finds his way back to Scornubel), he'll head towards Tsurlagol. :)
This mod has received such nice reviews from many; it needs some more votes in order to gain some more visibility.
Were you working on something on a grander scale, Novalis? And if you were, are you still, perhaps, working on such a project?
Anyway, looking forward to playing this some time in the near(ish) future!
Posted by doo-monster at 2008-04-11 11:42:33 Voted 6.50 on 04/11/08
The outdoors area is enormous, with sweeping and panaromic views but there is little to actually do. I really like the layout of the town. It would be a shame not to do something more with it. Perhaps build upon it in another module. The conversations were smart and sharp and tinged with a witty sense of humor that many native english speakers may not catch. The biggest problem areas of the module are a lack of journal entries and not enough map pins to indentify critical landmarks.
Hi barefoot. As you say, winrar should open the file, maybe you have an older version. I did rename it to .rar (since winrar would open it) to avoid confusion, some people don't know how to open .7z files. I would rename it, but I really don't like to bring my mod in the first page of the module section for this reason only, there are new entries that deserve to stay there for people to choose. If the 1.7 patch features require any tweaking to the module, than I will rename it also. If you feel like it, please drop a comment about your experience with this story, no need to vote if you don't want to. Thanks.
I found that winrar would not recognize the download. After reading the comments I tried it with 7 zip and that worked fine. I did not know that winrar was supposed to work on 7z files but if so why did it not work? Why not change the file to .7z?
Posted by theobeau at 2007-08-01 01:16:41 Voted 6.75 on 07/30/07
I'm getting your drift about that particular battle.
As for my OC character, too much tweaking after the campaign ended in terms of user designed items has made him a little overpowered.
I might try again to get the "Red Wizard" ending; eyes closed as you suggested.
Hello theobeau. Your character must indeed be powerful, the Red Wizard wiped my party relatively easy in my testings, except for few times that he wouldn't use powerful magic and the battle would go on for a long time, as seem to be your case. My apologies for that, this subplot ends in a particular way, and some choices had to be made, they become obvious if the ending movie for this path was launched. If you were to give it another try, please play it with some handicap present, let say with your eyes closed :) Thanks.
Posted by theobeau at 2007-07-30 23:54:08 Voted 6.75 on 07/30/07
Hi there,
Spoilers ahead.............
I finished the "Rescue the Girl" subplot with my OC character (1/2 Elf, W8, EK10, F2) who had custom weapons.
My brief comments are:
Great use of cutscenes to start and finish the module. Those particular sections had a polished, professional look about them.
Agree with all of Berliad's earlier comments; the typos we can excuse as you clearly state that English isn't your first language (it's mine and I still make typo's and grammatical errors).
My major comment relates to the "Rescue to Book" subplot: Isn't the Red Wizard villain a little too overpowered? My OC character, a L20 Sorcerer, a L20 fighter and a >L20 NPC couldn't defeat him (even when his bar was brought down to "Near Death", he just wouldn't die). Indeed, the fighters couldn't hit him at all (both fighter NPCs died); the mages ran out of spell breeches and dispel magicks (and he still continued to put up magical defenses) and even when the two mages spammed him with multiple Issacc's Missile storms (when at near death, causing well over 50hp of damage per round) the bugger wouldn't drop. Made that path uncompleteable and forced a restart of the module.
My minor comments relate to incomplete/uncompleteable sub-quests (help the halfling find get into the locked room; appears uncompleteable; help the dwarven supplicant pay his tithe, not a conversation option)
Still, I like the movies and your city design so full credit for those.
Thank you Berliad. I am very glad you enjoyed this little story.
Posted by Berliad at 2007-07-22 22:00:32 Voted 6.00 on 07/22/07
A few specific comments for the author (SPOILERS!!!!)
* Again, I really loved that you managed to present a difficult decision with no best answer to the player. That's rare.
* There were some merchants that seemed inaccessible because of the walkmesh.
* The foes in the underground passage seemed a bit inappropriate for a lv. 16-20 character. They were basically just low-level monsters with lots of hit points. That's the hard thing about high-level modules, of course, as it's not like you can have some sort of demon rift beneath every tavern to have level-specific monsters available to fight...
* I hate to "pick" on someone's language, but I think the module could be greatly improved with a thorough proofreading of a native english speaker. I did note three corrections in Germ's conversation before I stopped keeping track:
- "its my idea, or is the air filled" (probably better as: "is it me, or is the air filled")
- "specie" (should be "species," which is singular and plural).
- "accordingly" (should just be "according")
Thanks again for sharing this module, and congrats on getting it done. I did enjoy it! -B _________________________ My NWN Blog FRW Character Creator
Posted by Berliad at 2007-07-22 21:53:26 Voted 6.00 on 07/22/07
My Vote: 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation
Character: lv. 16 Dwarven Defender (leveled up after Grimm Brigade)
Module Version Played: Dated 5 July 2007
This module does a lot of things really well. The companion NPC's are well-defined, and the author succeeds in the very difficult task of making companions that you've just met in-game seem as though they've been the life-long friends that the story requires. Combat, particularly in the second half of the mod, is challenging and over-the-top high-level action. The introductory movie is extremely well done, and the closing movies do a great job of emphasizing the consequences of the actions you take in the module. Area design is generally quite good, especially the beautiful exterior rendering of the docks district of Tsurlagol. The module successfully nestles itself within the Faerun, and named characters from source books make substantial appearances. And most importantly, the module challenges the player with a difficult decision, in which, no matter what path you choose, there is no ideal outcome.
All that said, there were some aspects of the limited how highly I can recommend the module. The first is its brevity. It's perhaps unfair to critique the module for this, as it was an Obsidian Contest module, but what we get to play feels essentially like the last hour of what could be a 5-10 hour module. The author does a good job of catching the player up on what has happened in the story, but I can't help but feel like we missed out on all the great stuff that lead to that point. Furthermore, the scale of the area design is large enough that the module feels a bit underpopulated. There are NPC's with which one can interact that fall outside the main plotlines, but there weren't really true side-quests (that I could find, though there are hints of some) that would make the city feel alive and real. In fact, the fairly superficial interactions that are present and the sometimes rough English (it's usually very readable, but I still recommend soliciting the help of a native English speaker to make your dialog flow better), made the mod as a whole still feel a bit unfinished.
But that doesn't take away from the fact that what's there is good, thoughtful, and worth playing. I love the fact that there are three endings, and that the outcomes are far from predictable given one's decisions in the game--though they make perfect sense. I really look forward to playing more of your work. I had a hard time scoring this one, but I think my impressions best match this line from the FAQ, which indicates a 6 is the most appropriate score: "perhaps you found it enjoyable/useful, and something that you're generally positive about, but also found that it has enough drawbacks that it's not something you can recommend without a caveat." _________________________ My NWN Blog FRW Character Creator
Point taken, I promise the next one will be bigger.
Posted by Aredhel371 at 2007-07-10 06:08:51 Voted 5.00 on 07/09/07
Thanks for your reply, Novalis. Well, my hero was indeed L.13, but rather tough. So this explains the second point...Refering to the first one, I found it a pitty looking at all that work of your's already going into it (especially the excellent intro-movie! ;-) )that this story wouldn't last a little bit longer!
You could take this as a compliment as well... _________________________ Aka Gront0307 - because of a second adress..;-)
Aredhel371, any feedback is appreciated. I prefer giving me a 1 and some feedback than nothing at all. This is a short mod designed to be played in one hour or less. It�s not aimed toward character advancement, I figured everyone would have a 20 level favorite character from the OC or through level up mods sitting around and waiting to be thrown in a little action. You are leveled up to 20 level if you are not 15 or bigger level when entering the game. So if you are 15 level you won�t be auto-advanced in the beginning. Personally I think the battles are pretty tough for anything less than that. Thanks for taking the time to play it.
Posted by Aredhel371 at 2007-07-09 09:18:01 Voted 5.00 on 07/09/07
Although appealing atmosphere, a story told thru dialogues and a nice designed area "at the shore", these are rather long beginnings to three rather short climaxes!
Furthermore my hero was leveled to 20 without any reason (the description saying Level 15 - 20), so there is even no motivation to develop him/her any more... ?!?
Sorry. _________________________ Aka Gront0307 - because of a second adress..;-)
Hello Gomez. Thanks for playing the mod and for your kind word, they mean very much to me. I updated the ReadMe about the compressing matter, hope it doesn't cause any more confusion. Thanks.
Just a few words of encouragement here. Like what I see but am still playing the mod so won't vote for a while yet. Did have some heartburn with the installation, but learning about a different compression scheme than I've used before was a good thing. Leaning towards a 7-8 on this so far. The play is fun but there are some disconnects between what I think should be happening and what is. The guards think of me as an enemy but I don't know why yet. Maybe too soon for me to post anything, but I did want to at least say thanks for your very recent update.
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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