Part 55: Act Two Chapter Twenty - Three Things I Like About Illefarn

The ruins of Arvahn are tucked away up round the back of the Sword Mountains.

Along the way we get a random encounter - cultists hunting an innocent peasant. Malar is the god of beasts, the wild and the hunt, and he's not a pleasant fellow.
We kill them all for daring to cross our path.
* * *

Neverwinter Nights 2 Main Theme (listen it's a really good track)

I quite like the Arvahn area. It's a dungeon, just like all the crypts and caves and ruins we've been to, but it feels much more organic.





It's weird, because the Arvahn area introduces a ton of elements common to fantasy that I absolutely loathe. We'll come to those in a second.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the mountains... orcs. Orcs everywhere.

And ogres. And spell-casting goblins.
Which are all fighting each other.
What's going on?

First things first: the Ritual. This statue stands at the gates to the ruined city.




Zhjaeve's voice takes on a spooky mystical echo, like she's communicating telepathically or something. Hey, githzerai are psionic!



So here's the lowdown on the Ritual (and the whole Arvahn area).
The Ritual of Purification doesn't actually do anything; it won't unmake the King of Shadows or sever his connection to his minions or whatever. What it does do is make us more powerful. Each statue grants a bonus feat/ability that we can use once a day to make ourselves into undead-killing machines.
Aurora Chain buffs everyone's weapons so that they get +1 to attack/+1 to damage per four PC levels against evil opponents for five rounds. To translate: we can currently give the entire party +4 to hit and damage almost every enemy in the game for a short time.
The Ritual feats are pretty useful, but the drawbacks are that you only get one use a day; most enemies are easy enough already; you've probably already got enough abilities as it is; and it's cumbersome to select and use in battle unless you mess around with the interface shortcuts (which I might just do after we finish Arvahn).

Part one of the Ritual was easy to find, but we won't be so lucky with the other four statues. Arvahn's a big place and there's several subsections that we can choose to visit in any order.
That's one of the reasons I like Arvahn - you're in control. You're not being herded through a corridor of enemies like all the other dungeons up until now.


It's also full of nice fluffy stuff about the old Illefarn empire. We'll be back to this song portal later.

On the west side of the ruins is an orc encampment. Fortunately they're not hostile... well, they were until we barged in.
Who knew Logram Eyegouger had a brother?


Using a skill impresses Sand, but Uthanck wasn't going to attack us anyway. He's got a use in mind for us.


We agree to kill Ghellu (because Uthanck and the tribe attack you if you don't) but we're not going to Riverguard Keep just yet. We don't even know where it is!

The only other named orc in the camp is Ilrah Broken-Ribs, the tribe priest. He gives you one of his ribs (?!) which is an item that grants you Toughness and Blindfight as bonus feats (?!?!).

Past the camp is this abandoned structure. Is this Riverguard Keep?
No, as a matter of fact.








Mmm. And what happened to this ancient elven/dwarven empire exactly?







Annaeus... we'll be hearing more from him next update.
Anyway, we proceed through the door into the temple.

The first room is frozen over with ice. There's a book on a pedestal.



We turn the page...

...and are surrounded by Winter Wolves and Ice Mephits. Killing one monster respawns another at the side of the room, but eventually the room runs dry of guardians and the door to the next room opens.
Blade Barrier's a nice spell to use here, since the wolves and mephits all respawn at static points. In fact, any duration spell would do, although wall spells are easier for your own party members to avoid.

Next room is Spring (obviously). Now that we know what reading the books does, we can buff up and prepare before each fight - hence the summoned elemental.




This fight's a bit different. Again, two sorts of enemies spawn in: tough earth elementals and these strong Hunter Statues. Avoid the elementals, since they can take tons of hits, and just pick on the Statues. Once the Statues have fallen, the trial is complete.

Another reason I like Arvahn - it's full of puzzle elements like these. While it doesn't make a lot of sense (the curators of this museum-temple must have really hated visitors) it's more interesting than another room full of zombies.




Aieee, an iron golem
The toughest and strongest of all golems. They may be big and slow, but Damage Reduction means they take ages to kill and every hit they land can do over 20 damage, easy.

Obviously we beat it, though.




Here we are attacked by sylphs from all sides. Kill the sylphs as quickly as possible, else a stormcloud appears and everyone gets struck by lightning.

Finally, at last, in the centre of the temple, amidst the sarcophagi of the Heroes of Illefarn: the Ritual statue.






Casavir's still wrangling over his abandonment of Neverwinter to fulfil his vows. We're nice to him because I want to show you what he says next.



How incredibly morbid.






Suddenly Zhjaeve is filled with panic. So what if he knows? What can the King of Shadows do to us here?


Cleansing Nova is our direct-damage Ritual power. The Nova has a small radius of effect, but it does 1 point of fire damage per second per level to undead and outsiders and last for four seconds - so at Level 20 (when we finally confront the King of Shadows) it'll do 80 damage, straight up, no saves allowed. It also combines with the Web of Purity power (which we don't have yet) to extend its reach.

We also quickly loot the Knights of Illefarn. They each have one or two decent magic items.
Had, I should say.
Had had.
You know what? Let's move on.

Now, this is Riverguard Keep, around the north side of the ruins.



The last reason I like Arvahn is that the quests, puzzles and encounters are imaginative and well-developed. This inscription is a clue as to how we can get to the third Ritual statue (the last for this update).
With any other developer, that'd be it: get the Sword, Shield and Sceptre to unlock the magic door. Boooring.
Not so with Obsidian.


Riverguard Keep is home to the ogres and goblins that we saw fighting the Corpsewalker orcs earlier on. Ogres are just dumb meat shields but all of the goblins have some kind of magic attack or spell buff.

There's one more species dwelling in the keep - bugbears.
It's a regular humanoid jamboree!






We're killing Ghellu for Uthanck anyway. Why not cosy up to Ralidor too?

* * *

Down a floor we encounter more goblins and more ogres.

In the largest room is an 'Ogre Chieftain' - only marginally more powerful than the normal ogre warriors.

He does, however, have the Master's Shield. This may be key to gaining access to the Ritual statue.

Also on this floor is Ribsmasher. He's a prisoner and he can also help us get to the statue.


Ribsmasher's genuinely nuts. If you rescue him early on, he'll run all over the level, attacking everything he sees (apart from you) - ogres, goblins, doors, chests... if you want all the loot and XP, better leave him be until you're done.





* * *


Final floor, the very bottom of the keep.



Throne room, incompetent minions, reckless disregard for the lives of his underlings... all Ghellu needs is a moustache to twirl and he'd be perfect.




Another Influence point for Sand. He's easily amused.







Gah. More ancient Illefarn abjurations. Why can't all the statues be as easy to access as the first one?
Actually there's a very good reason - two very good reasons.



Ghellu seems like a nice enough chap - civilised, like us. We agree to kill Uthanck for him.
There's a set of stairs nearby that take us all the way back to the top floor, right next to the entrance.

Oops.
It seems we've made a few too many promises. Uthanck, Ghellu and Ralidor all want to be king of Arvahn, but none of them want to share.
This is a good quest because of all the different ways we can complete it.


One option is to side with Ghellu, which means killing Uthanck and Ralidor. If we hadn't promised to bring Ralidor Ghellu's head, we'd have just killed him anyway inside Riverguard Keep - and at least this way we get a cool fight out of it.











That's one way of opening the door - Ghellu opening it for you.
But we're not done yet.

We can choose to kill Ghellu, for either Uthanck or Ralidor.

Ghellu's corpse not only has one of the Master's items we need, but also... two heads?

If you give Ghellu's head to Ralidor, he becomes lord of Riverguard Keep. Uthanck doesn't actually mind this - Ghellu was a threat, but he can negotiate with Ralidor.
We need the Master's Sceptre, though, and Ralidor has it, so we choose to kill him. Ralidor's kind of a prick and won't give you the Sceptre if you help him - you have to make a Diplomacy/Intimidate check, and if you fail (or can't do it) you have to fight him for it.


With Ghellu's Sword, Ralidor's Sceptre and the Chieftain's Shield, we can open the statue door without event.
But we're not done yet.

Kill Ghellu. Don't kill Ralidor. Don't get the Sceptre.
We're a Rogue, surely we can get through this door without the proper keys?

Aaarrghaghargharghaaargh

Not this joker again.







That's another way of opening the door - like Ghellu's method, but crueller. And more evil. And it upsets Shandra.
But we're not done yet.

Kill Ghellu. Don't kill Ralidor. Don't get the Sceptre. Don't free Ribsmasher.

We can just open it ourselves.
Yes, we take lots of damage, but we can always stop halfway and have Zhjaeve cast Heal. Or, you know, sleep for eight hours.


Opening the door through










Shining Shield is a defensive power that grants the party protection from negative energy and cold resistance, 3 points/level. That's quite a lot, though it only lasts for two rounds.
All right, that's enough for now. In the next update, we delve a little deeper into the Arvahn ruins and learn a little backstory about our Big Bad Endboss.