Tales of Arterra - The Awakening

Thanks for the up. First ever mod I played and loved it. 

This is a must play, definitely a top 5 of the mods you need to play.   Very well done & good flowing story. 

I played this ages ago, but I still remember some of the things I loved about it. Tales of Arterra is a well-crafted, traditional fantasy epic. To call it 'inspired' by Baldur's Gate II would be a vast understatement. But that is not to say that the pastiche felt cheap - to the contrary! Especially in part II the author merges his various inspirations into something new and memorable. The polish of his work is outstanding; it really feels like one piece of work.

Even after years I still remember some of the memorable characters - the Warrior High Priestess, the dragon who lost her love, the Seer, the protagonist's mysterious parents... and above all, the lovable companions. Something that really stood out for me about them was how they offered meaningful interaction and relationships not limited to romance. I'm pretty used to having to disable gender checks to get any interesting reactivity from female henchmen in NWN modules - it makes for a bit of awkward dialogue, but it's better than nothing - and so I did here, unnecessarily so as I found out. Cheers to the author for making us remember that affection and friendship are not limited to mating! :p

Everyone interested in NWN now should play this and Shadowlords to see where the community 'started out'!

Great gem and a must play especially for good alignments! I grant 10/10 for the series (10/10 for superb “Awakening” and 9/10 for the first module, which is a bit less engaging, but also very good). It is a very well written story (I like complex sentences like: “you can feel the dragon’s tension like a crushing weight upon you, squeezing the breath out of your lungs”), novel-like characters, moral dilemmas, grey ethics, well written dialogues and psychological depth of companions almost comparable to Dance with Rogues. Persey, a succubus that may turn good thanks to your support is one of the most enjoyable creations in NWN modules  and I have played majority of what is worthwhile (consider this quote: “Countless men told me they would go to hell for me, but it is only you who actually did this”; in principle whenever you read “Persey looks at you curiously, with her bright grey-green eyes” there is an interesting talk ahead).   

Prepare for a memorable  story about war of faiths, religious crisis, philosophy of life, salvation, weakening kingdom, battles (only some will be hard, but most will be enjoyable), redemption and complexities of good of evil. The second part of module 2 (Awakening) actually takes place in hells (they will try to sell you post-mortem your own equipment, haha!), which brings about memories from Planescape: Torment, additionally enhanced by some music from PT.  Some quotes, such as “there are infinite numbers of path in one’s lifetime; destiny is defined by those paths that are most common” (Seer) exhibit philosophical profoundness.  

In spite of only basic tilesets available back in 2005, Kevin Chan successfully created lots of interesting locations, characters and custom items (e.g. celestial Oni summon or shortsword granting hide-in-plain-sight feat).  If it is not enough, an adequate selection of cool custom music coming among others from Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment, contribute to the immersion.

Best classes to play this module: fighter/wizards (for magic items), fighter/bards (for summoning instruments), paladins, rogues with high UMD skill (for crucial class specific haste items,  especially monk robes early in module2); a cleric may be a bit too easy. You will have 3 henchmen available: a fighter, a cleric and a rogue for almost the whole gameplay.  

The module do not have major bugs, but there are minor bugs or exploits:

- On meeting Tianara after discovering Warlords' death: if you do not tell Tianara you would like to help  her ("dont tell me what to do"), an option to show her the key to interrogation chambers disappears (this does not prevent you from finding chambers in temple district but may leave you clueless).

- Wand of Rejuvenation to be bought in hells allows for infinite rejuvenation if you cast it on itself; even if every use disperses all magical effects you cast, with such wand and a TimeStop from sequencer you could basically spell-spam the baddies like a magical perpetuum mobile. Well, you can get this by the end of the game so it might have been intended

- In spite of receiving permanent immunity against death magic later in Awakening I was killed for failing saving throw against death.

PS. Additional thanks go to rogueknight, the author of Swordflight series whose post on Lilura blog convinced me to try Tales of Arterra.

Also rating this a 10/10.
As I said in the prequel, It is indeed a gem worthy of Hall of Fame in it's time, and perhaps until today.
I really made a huge mistake for not finishing this series when I started playing NWN again around 2010.

I also like modules which have an epilogue based on the choices you have made throughout your adventure. An ending to the story which concludes everything, and I really liked it that this series has that.

This series is a definitely a must to play after finishing the Campaigns and want to experience a different story.

Another must-play mdoule.

Arterra is an excellent series

Just finished this excellent follow up to the Tales of Arterra - The Lost and it was fantastic. I really enjoyed this module. It is one of the best on the vault IMO. I loved every bit of it. The author clearly put a ton of very hard work into this. I will echo every positive comment above. 

The story is excellent and well told. Just like a good book there is bit of sadness when you get to the end of the story, it is that good! 

I will play this one again, I would like to pursue the story from a different alignment. 

I had one issue that I was able to work around, I only throw it out there in case someone ever runs into it. When entering the area out of the southern gates of Sirion the first time, the area would hang on load and throw an Nvidia error and then NWN would crash. I ended up updating the Video driver on my laptop to see if that would solve it, it did not. I lowered the video settings from Max to their minimums and the area loaded. I was able to set the Video settings back to max and then never had another issue. :-) 

One last comment, what is truly amazing about this module is the last update I believe was in 2006 and despite having outdate tilesets and visuals, the module was so well done that you really don't even notice.

Thanks Kevin Chan for a wonderful module!

I've registered on neverwintervault specially to say thanks to the creator of these amazing series - Kevin Chan.

For me it's trully a gem amongst the other modules that only proves that no custom content is needed to create a captivating story and a fun gameplay.
I enjoyed roleplaying with my human ranger, it felt natural and satisfying. Not many mods provide this feeling. And also for my personal taste - I like that it is not an intense hack-and-slash mod and it's focused more on the story.

Almost every character in this game is well-thought and interesting. They don't feel like cardboard cliche NPCs, they all have their individualities, their secrets, their rights and wrongs. You can comprehend their motivation, even for the characters you don't like - and that's the sign of a well-written script. 

Now for the main part - I must admit, I'm a sucker for a romance plot in the game. It becomes one of the main motivation for a playthrough and sometimes a replay of the mod for me. Basically because I like to see progression in relationships between NPCs and protogonist, I like seing the bonds being made, I like to see their reactions on the actions and personality of my character. It gives your roleplaying a sense and a goal. And I may be a hopeless romantic but I do really immerse into this relationship and forget that it is a scripted game.

Before Tales of Arterra the only romance I found satisfying was in the Aielund Saga series. But even though AS series have more interactions with your romantic interest, they are very detailed and the story itself is longer - it doesn't come near Tales of Arterra because of the simple fact: you actually  fall in love with the character you can romance (I can only speak from the male perspective, I don't really know how ladies react to Montador :)) because of how unusually interesting and deep their personalities are, how sad/haunting/beautiful their backgrounds are and for just the sheer fact that they are loveable. 

Evanine is sweet romancable character, but my heart belongs to Persephythys. Everything from the beginning till the end is perfect in her story just like herself. I don't play in "adult" mods, I don't care for the physical concept, and I trully enjoyed the progression of her story with PC throught the game. It also proves that you don't need graphic content and constant sex-dialogues to depict true love. "Reaching Heavens with Persey" was more than enough...
She is what makes me want to replay this mod again and again ocassionally. Bravo for creating such a great character! After finishing the story I felt a bittersweet sadness that it is over.

** To avoid the frustration in the Pt2 of Awakening if you've decided to romance one of your henchmen remember that you should trigger romance yourself in the Pt1 (ask them to tell their story even if you remembered it from "Lost", ask them how do they feel about you somewhere in the middle of Pt1, don't rely on the scripted dialogues only). Otherwise you won't have the option later. Also triggering romance with 1 character blocks it for the rest.

P.S. The only critique I can provide is maybe for the simingly linear choices in the Awakening, forcing you to play along even if you already guessed who is "the bad guy", but that's not critical.

That's a great mod and I recommend it to everyone who still plays in this old game, especially after it was "enhanced" recently.

I generally liked the module for its story, though I found a lot of "grey" situations was too easily solved, while you had to follow the plot into obvious traps.

I think some of the praise given above is slightly exagerated, it is a VERY good module, very playable, but I have found other modules with might tighter story, better story and better balance.

I found the late game fights way too easy. For example all the fights in hell  was done without using healing poitons or summons, and I was not really "optimal" build (bard (with 4 levels of fighter) using a quaterstaff as it seemed apopriate for a peasant lad). Perhaps it was the super equpiment, or perhaps the bosses should have some help. Killing Deamons like a 10th lvl character killing oprcs isnt very gratifying. Similar with the final encounter: I never felt in danger, and the super powerfull liches whent down really fast. Battles is not everything though and the modules story IS very good.

I give it 7/10, and some might find that hard, but too me a 5 is a decent module that can be recomended, a 6 a good one, a 7 a very good one, 8 a superp one, and I have only rated a few modules above this.

Looked promising but once my character decided to kill Bart Sidious upon meeting him. I went to the militia leader and he told me to bring proof of Bart's death, I looked everywhere but on his body it says nothing found, so I cannot provide the proof or progress story. Anyone else have this problem??

I really liked both parts of this series and can heartily recommend them to anybody that enjoys long and somewhat epic modules without Stones of Recall. All transitions seemed to work, although some you had to hit just right, and the companions were first rate. The fact that they came with their own decent gear was a nice touch as there is not much to find early on, for oneself or the up to three henchpersons that you can have at one time.

I am not a fan of modules that strip, which this does at the beginning and at one point late in the mod you are stripped completely and given virtually no gear (a club?) against some pretty tough enemies. That was the low point for me, but thankfully it improved as things went along. Very good story and interaction with NPC's at multiple points in the mod made it interesting and fun. You have a choice at various points between being Good and Evil, and of course I chose the Good path, as always. Not comfortable otherwise, not into killing innocents as an example. A great work of module buidling I would have to say. Thank you, Kevin Chan!

It was all good except that it was very laggy in places with fire effects. It was probably because my computer is toaster level, but I had to get away with 'movetoarea'.

This like it's precursor are good. Magic stuff is way to easy to come by and the plot is too scripted. Also, don't know if this is NWN of this module only but the henchmen do really crazy stuff. Persey is worthless in combat. Literally worthless.

Hate to say it, but very early on I lost interest in the mod. Author seems to have complete lack of regard for balance (he even states this), setting and areas feel very generic, nothing about the storyline so far (admittedly not very far in but just couldn't find the motivation to continue) stands out.

5 out of 10 for effort/work involved in building modules.