A Strange World II - The Legend of the Sinwa

A Strange World II - The Legend of the Sinwa - By andgalf.

WARNING : This module contains Adult content. Even if it's most of the times skippable, don't play if you are young and uncorrupted. Don't let your children play it. Patch level 1.23. Requires both extensions MotB and SoZ.

A Strange World II - The Legend of the Sinwa is a single player story driven module for a level 1 male player character (human, half-elf, dwarf or elf) of any alignment. (Need to play a male character - the story won't make sense with a female character. Sorry!)
Most of the dialogue choices assumes you're not an evil character. This is a standalone adventure and you don't need to have played A Strange World before this one. However, I would recommend you playing the first one since some characters from that one might appear, and there is talk about the events that happened which you may not understand. And if you plan on playing the first A Strange World later you will be spoiled in this module.

Link to A Strange World, the first module: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/module/strange-world?page=1
 
About 7-8 hours of play depending on what you do and in what order.. Use a level 1 character to start with. You will be levelled up to level 5 at the beginning of the module. For roleplay and dialogue purposes please play either human, dwarf, half-elf or elf. It's a bit more unlinear than the first one, and not as focused. I think it's ok but maybe I was more pleased with the first module and how that turned out (My brother actually liked this one more than the first one, I believe). I still hope you like this one.



Story Synopsis:

It's been three years since the events of A Strange World. You were born in the City of Ascension in the Core World, but weren't around when those events unfolded.
An adventurer by trade, you have been doing quests all around your world, and when getting back to Ascension you heard about everything that took place there.

Just recently you were out on the road in Celomar forest, on your way back to Ascension, when an ominous cloud appeared. All of a sudden, creatures you couldn't identify cast
a spell on you. Then when waking up you find yourself in a chamber with people you've never met...

To play this module it is assumed you are either a level 1 male dwarf, half-elf, elf or human. You can play with a character of higher level if you wish but the game might
become unbalanced.



Installation:

I'm sorry for the extremely large override folder. I've downloaded so many things from the vault, nexus and modgames (I think I've downloaded almost every new head there is and all new armors I could find) that I use that I haven't been able to keep track of what I don't use in this module, therefore I put everything here to be on the safe side.

So the first thing you should do is make a backup of your own override folder before putting all the stuff there.

    
All files must first be uncompressed with 7zip. Then put the contents of each folder into Users\...\Documents\Neverwinter Nights2\ (10, 8, 7, Vista) or into My Documents\...\Neverwinter Nights2\ (XP)
    In detail:
  
        1. Put the contents of the music folder into ..\music\
        2. Put the hak folder into ..\hak\
        3. Put the module file into A Strange World II.mod into ..\modules\
        4. Put the contents of the override1.7z, override2.7z and override3.7z into ..\override\
        5. Put the asw2Intro.bik file into ..\movies\

I've been working on this module for more than a year now (probably around a year and a half). It's been frustrating and great fun at the same time. I started it while my first module was beta tested by my brother, many months before my first module was published. Just like the last one I only use prefabs, sometimes a bit modified, and I've had a lot of help with scripting from my brother and the awesome neverwintervault community. My brother and 4760 have beta tested it (4760 has been very thorough!), and I've played it through from the beginning 3 times now, and all the major game breaking bugs are hopefully gone. Still, NWN2 is quite buggy and the module is quite complex so...

Since ASW1 apparently didn't work on Mac (at least one player reported a lot of odd game crashes), my guess is that this won't work there too. If you have a Mac, of course you can try, but don't expect it to work.

v.1.01 release notes

Bug fixes and other little things:

- I had forgotten to remove one of my "debug-chairs" I use when playtesting. It was left in an area. I removed that.

Notes about the module:

1. Story driven module for a level 1 human male player character of any alignment (Need to play a male human, elf, half-elf or dwarf character - the story won't make sense with a female character. Sorry!)

2. Important skills: If you want all possible options you should probably put points on Charisma, Diplomacy, Intelligence, Intimidate and if you are a bard - Perform. Some side quests might not be completeable without points here.

3. There are a lot (way too many) companions. You can have up to 11 but not all are mandatory. I don't know how it turned out this way, but since I make it up as I go along, and
I've only had a general idea about the story and characters, it just became what it did.

4. All except one of the female companions are romanceable, plus there are two female romanceable NPCs.

5. There is bit of fighting. The fights may be too easy, I don't know. I've tested the module with the easy setting. Just remember, this module isn't focused on that.

6. If the game somehow stops and you can't do anything, it might be because a cutscene dialogue is about to start. Just wait for it to happen. If you can't do anything for several minutes, somehow that cutscene wasn't started, probably because your companion or NPC was too far away from you. So keep your companions pretty close to you. If you run too fast and they get too far behind, a cutscene that was suppose to start might not happen and then the game freezes. Most of this problem should have been corrected after 4760's beta testing, so I hope you won't encounter this problem.

8. Talk to your companions often. You have a camp you get to where most of the talking take place. They have a lot (some of them too much) to say. However, if you've spoken to them one or two times at camp, you can move on. If you start a romance, you could technically, with some of them, get very far if you continue to speak to them, by clicking on them again and again after a dialogue is finished that is. That was not my intention with the module. Speak to them a few times, and then go out and do quests. Also, try and talk to every NPC you see. There might be quests or there might not be. Some of the NPCs, that don't have anything to say the first time you click on them, might
have information to give at another time, so just because you've already clicked on them, doesn't mean they don't have stuff to say at a later time. To summarize things: There is lots of talking in this module. Perhaps too much. :) If you don't like to read lines of dialogue this module is probably not for you.

9. If you're a hardcore gamer you might be dissapointed with this module as the fights are quite easy.

10. There are a few puzzles in the game. They aren't that hard, I think, but you might get stuck in a few places. I've provided a hints and walkthrough guide.

11. Since this is a custom world not everything might work the way you think if you're an expert on D&D and its rules. If you get stuck, try to think outside the
box or check the hints and walkthrough.

12. Be sure to save often, and have a number of saves. If you encounter some strange bug, it's always good to be able to back and replay to maybe get around it.

13. There are two places where the game autosaves. The reason for this is that you might fail with the task that you are about to do, because of buggy NWN2, and that might break a certain side quest. If that happens, just reload the autosave and try again. And in the other case it's because of the "sitting on chairs" that can be quite buggy. However, 4760's scripting skills helped me and should prevent the characters from not sitting down.

14. If you romance a character, please do not try to romance another at the same time. I've tried to prevent the player from doing this, but I might not have covered all
possibillites. If you ignore this the game might break (though 4760 told me it didn't), especially in the end and then you might have to replay a large chunk of the module.

15. When I've tested the module I've always used the Exploration Mode when it comes to camera. 4760 pointed out that in a town area it can be a bit difficult to move around and see stuff. I'm sorry for that.

16. A weird bug occured when my brother was betatesting, that when you're not controlling your main character, he said that the journal entries
looked screwed up. I have tried to fix this but I'm not sure it's entirely fixed. If this happens, just go back to your main character and
everything will/should look normal.

17. When betatesting the module 4760 found a huge mistake I had made. Most of the companions have the same ability scores. When making the
characters in the toolset I thought when using a package for say a sorcerer, all those scores would be the the standard for that class, but I must have missed something on that part. I could have corrected all this before release, but when discussing it with 4760 and my brother,
we concluded that the fights might become unbalanced so we kept it as it is.


External sources used in this module:

One music piece from the module Legacy of the Dragon by Illondar

Teper's Prefab Area by Tepers or aadatepe

Teper's Void Prefab Area by Tepers or aadatepe

Teper's Lakeside Mts. Prefab Patch 1.04 by Tepers or aadatepe

Tank’s Prefab World by Tank6ge

3 Small Interiors by Vekin

Cozy House Prefab by Borrie BoBaka

Forest Pathway by Tank6ge

Just Add Encounters - Exterior Forests by SGK73

Inn by the forest road by Br0adsw0rd

Sorceress Ashura's Prefab Area Pack by SorceressAshura

Temples - Evil, Neutral & Good by Lady Lilia/Shimmer

Canyon Grove by AmstradHero

Gothic Home Interior by Chaos_Theocrat

The Hospice by Vekin

Generic Inn by Marcelo_Lopes

Generic Chapel by Marcelo_Lopes

A Forest with a Camp by Marcelo_Lopes

City HAK by Tupoun

Witsend by rjshae

wizard tower by indyanna

Butterfly (Fey) Wings by Trinital

Kamal's Gargoyle Reskins by Kamal

Ignus Pack by jestemwlodzimierz

The Faces of Neverwinter Project c 2.0 by Jude Inc. (I've modified the color slightly of one of the faces for a air genasi, so please use my files here)

Haven_Series_SP6 by Jude Inc. (I got this from the Discord forum)

Placeable OC Doors by crystal violet

The Complete Beldin Collection by NinjaChip Studios

Krighaur's Female head pack - by Krighaur

FXE Generator Tool - by 0100010

NWN2 Facelift Pack - by Xaltar

Tera Online Hairstyles - by Voidwraith

Big Hair Pack (24 hairstyles) - by Krighaur

Fearthegn Clothing - by Mimi Fearthegn

New garb for your Adventuress - by chuckerIINO

Skins for all Races - by Casa

Jester's New Nudes - by Jester

Necrolord Full Nudes - by Necrolord

Oblivion to NWN2 - by glee

Tchos' HD UI panels and dialogue compilation & expansion - by Tchos

Tchos' HD widescreen loading screens - by Tchos

New beautifull armors, hairstyles and weapons - by MorgothPalantir, PhantaNeko and Antras

To sit on objects (v1.76) - by Patcha

Dragonlance Pack #1 by PDubulous and revisions - by Holgadard

Arcane Trickster [Female] Soundset - by Serenity Frost

Soundsets from IWD2 and BG2

Progress meter UI - by Electrohydra

Blackjack scripts by Joe Leonard taken from Pot Luck Casino by Scott Clarke

Rashi Hairstyles by Rashi


Scripting and toolset help from:

Aqvilinus (You have been a tremendous help this time around, with explaining and helping with a lot of scripting! I can't thank you enough! This module would never have been finished without you!)
My brother
4760 (for all the long hours beta testing and also helping with scripting)
Everyone at Discord's NWN 2 Creator Channel that have been so much help
kevL's
Lance Botelle
kamal
and everyone else on the forums that have helped me (too many to mention here)


Special thanks to my dear friend Mattias, for helping with ideas for two side quests,
and getting a nice discussion about the middle ages, which he is somewhat of an expert in.

Beta tested by: 4760 (he's been very thorough) and my brother.


Known bugs:

1. Sitting on chairs only worked half of the time before. At first I thought I had fixed it with scripting help from 4760, but after further testing it was apparent that it still only worked 50 % of the time. One scene in particular may look a bit strange with the camera just focusing on a chair. Lance Botelle was kind enough to help me getting it fixed.
I've tested it 6 times since his fix and it hasn't failed any of those times. So it should work now. If though you are unlucky and this scene is still buggy, just reload from the
from the auto save that I put there before this scene.

2. The heads from the Faces of Neverwinter project by Jude Inc are excellent. However, some of them has a problem with eyes moving strangely at times. I kept them anyhow, since it's nice get a larger variation of heads than the boring ones that are in the core game and even the facelift pack to some extent. Some outfits are not 100 % when on a character, but those are such minor things I wasn't bothered by them, and I hope you can live with that.

3. At one time in camp a character comes running towards you. I have no idea why that is. There's no logical reason for this scripting-wise. I suspect it's just one of many NWN2's bugs.

4. At a fight near the end of the module, if you save and reload in the middle of the fight, some visual things might be missing. This doesn't affect gameplay though as you can still complete the fight, but you might get a bit confused by it.

5. If you do a certain thing while being in the area of Mikondor, a strange bug sometimes appear when you are to reunite with companions. They just stand there and won't unite with you. This might actually break the game. Hopefully my precautions for this is enough, otherwise let me know. Update: I have replaced the script used here, with a new one from cuiilv on the forums, that hopefully has removed the bug. My brother, who beta tested the module when I hadn't updated that script, encountered this bug, but he said he solved it by going back to camp and going out to Mikondor again.

6. This should be fixed but...If your companions are too far away from you when a cutscene is about to start, it might not start at all, and in that case the game freezes and you have to reload. To prevent this, make sure your companions are never too far behind you when you're running around. In the first area 4760 said it worked without problems now. Hopefully he is right.

7. To get everything to work as smoothly as possible, make a habit of always controlling your main PC when running around. When in fights though, you can of course micromanage your companions.

8. When in Mikondor at the count's residence, 4760 found a weird bug that I couldn't reproduce. He said that if you open a door while upstairs the room behind
the door is pitch black and you can't move into it. If you click very close to the entrance of the room the room apparently lights up and you should be able to
go in. As I said, I don't know how to reproduce this bug.


A side note: At the moment I'm working on A Strange World III, which have been in development for about 7 months now. Hopefully I will finish that too eventually, and put it here on the vault, but my guess is it will probably take a year from now to release that. It too is a standalone adventure, set 30 years in the future from A Strange World II. We'll see how it goes.