Tales from the Lake of Sorrows

Lord Tysan of Thunder Bay needs adventurers. Men and women of all classes and backgrounds are invited to present themselves at the town of Littlelake, where they will be taken on on a first come first hired basis.
That was what the bard had said when he came into the inn on that wet afternoon late in the summer of 1374. That was the day your adventure started and the day your life changed forever.

Location Forgotten realms – in the area of Neverwinter.
Setting The module is set at the same time as SoZ against a backdrop of hard times in Neverwinter brought on by the war with the King of Shadows.
Play time 25 - 30 hours (plus 6 – 8 hours (see notes))
Level 1 - 13
Class Any
Companions 5 but not all at once

Tales from The Lake of Sorrows is an adventure for any class which will take your character from level 1 to level 12 – 13 over 25 – 30 hours of gameplay. The story is set on the Lake of Sorrows, a large glacial lake which I have located to the Southwest of Neverwinter. It takes place at the same time as Storm of Zehir and several locations and people will be recognised from that campaign and the OC.
If the player wishes you may also play a sixth part of the series, from this comes strength. This tells part of the story from a different viewpoint, that of Solace the npc. This should be played after chapter 4 and before chapter 6 and adds an additional 6 – 8 hours of gameplay. This additional module must be downloaded from the vault spearately.

This is a linear story led mod, there are some side quests and conversations which boost your exp but this is not a sandbox mod by any means.

Note on combat – Unless you are an experienced tactical player keep all the companions with you, the combat is balanced to be challenging at times on normal game setting but with preparation and tactics none of the encounters will be too difficult to manage.

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Loading instructions.
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With the exception of the video file the folders are zipped and named as thier destination folders.

The modules files 1 and 2 should be unzipped to:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\modules

The campaign folder file should be unzipped to:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\Campaigns

The Hak file should be unzipped to:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\Hak

The music file should be unzipped to:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\music

And the file named tlos_open.blk should be placed as it is (it is not compressed) into

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\movies

Having done this you can launch thegame and you will find the Tales from the Lake of Sorrows camapign in your list of campaigns.

Notes:
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1. You do not need to overwrite any haks you have but it does not matter if you do.
2. Some of the music files will overwrite if you have any of my stand alone modules on your hard drive. It is okay to allow them to overwrite.
3. It is useful to read the campaign notes before you start; in particular, note that Ember is faithless. Keep her that way and the story will make more senseTales from the Lake of Sorrows

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Things you should know:
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There are no race restrictions, but humans are the order of the day.

Combat difficulty varies and is tough in places but if you have the NPC's provided with you then you should always prevail, particularly if you use the terrain to your advantage. I have balanced the game for normal rules setting switching to hardcore will make the game much tougher as will leaving behind any of the npc’s I have given you.

Your facilitator for the first four modules is Ormin, if you find yourself not sure what to do and the journal does not help then you probably need to be talking to Ormin. In Modules five and six the facilitator is Matthias. Other npc's are carried along with the story and it is worth visiting principle protagonists as the story develops.

Transitions are made without a world map. In each outdoor area you will find either a stone, a sign or an area transition that will get you out. For indoor areas use the door like everybody else.

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NPC’s
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Your npc's are:

Ember(see below), Honour(Mage), Solace(ranger), Alan(fighter) and Harald(fighter).

In each module not all of these will be available to you except Ember. She starts out as a rogue but her stats are such that she can be used as a mage, fighter or other class. For story reasons do not make Ember a cleric and do not give her a god. She is faithless for a reason and you should keep her so to fully enjoy the latter part of the series.

Always talk to the the npc’s often. Each has at least 8000 words of dialogue, not all of which will be available on any given run through. They will give you hints if you need them and will develop the plot as well. None of these conversation are required to progress however and if you wish to ignore them you may.

You will know how well you are treating the npc's by the way they talk to you. The less well you treat then the less you will get out of them.

The npc's have back stories which you can access as the module progresses if you have a good enough relationship with them.

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Romance
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Ember is the only Romance available. It does not kick off properly till the end of Chapter 2 though to get that you need to be in her good books. Thus you need to start wooing her from the very start. There are three other conversations that will launch the romance later in other mods. Once started it cannot be stopped except by talking to one of the working girls in the last major town. She takes a very dim veiw of that. Any race or sex may romance Ember.

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Time
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This mod is very time based. Shops shut at night and certain npc's are not available at certain times. Resting is restricted in places but generally you can rest where you need to. All of the innkeepers and the sundial in the market square, will allow you to pass up to 4 hours without resting so you should never be stuck waiting. Note however, at night most, if not all, npc's go to one of the inns. If they are not there then they are not plot movers.

While in the main town of thunder bay you will hear a bell from time to time. This rings on the sixes, giving you a general idea of the time of day.

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What the mod has:
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This is a linear story driven module. There are side quests but limited possibilities for sandbox style play. That said there are places to explore with rewards for doing so. Talking to every one will reveal opportunities to gain exp and the barkstrings of no core npc's will change as the story develops.

The module has a good degree of npc interaction and the npc's have back stories which will be revealed as the mod plays out.

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What this mod does not have:
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SoZ style conversations.
Flexible npc hiring and firing.

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Big thanks bit:
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Thanks go to the following for their parts in the making and testing of the mod.

M.Reider - for all his support in the development, testing and scripting for this module. Without M.R. it would not be the same module.
R. Lebeau - for his help in getting some o the coversations right. R.L. has put many hours of effort into testing and conversation checking, all of which have been much appreciated.
Arkalezth - for his playtesting and help with character builds.
Lance Botelle – for his support and gold tinting for various statues.
OfficerDon - for playtesting and help with the lore of the sword coast.
Toupon – for the amazeing city Hak
BTH – for his houses and towers sets.
Realms of Trinity team – for the placebales set.
Quixal - for his support in play testing.
Alupinu - for his play testing support and walk mesh hints.
AllThatJazz - for her dialogue support.
Uncle FB - for the Uncle FB's NPC control.
Lilac soul for the script generator – all scripts, not written by Matt, were written using this.
RWS for the stirges model and the dungeon, sewer and circular building tilesets.

Finally thanks to the forum users especially Chaos Weilder who helped me with all the techie bits which I can't do, which frankly is all the techie bits.

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Music
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There is a lot of custom music in this module much of it drawn from my developing interest in medieval music, particularly where played on original instruments. Credit is due to the following persons.

For the playing of La Manfredina which may be heard in Thunder Bay, Grien Sluis which is played in the afternoon in the market Tavern and the Trotto which in played in the Market Tavern late at night thanks to Susan Sandman and Derwent crocker. This music in played on authentic instruments and, to me, sounds great. If it sounds good to you then you can find these and other tracks on The Medieval Lady, available on Leonarda productions. I payed royalties for these tracks please do not rip them.

For the playing of The nite watch (Anthony Holborne 1545 – 1629) as played at certain times in the Red Griffin and In this trembling shadow (John Dowland 1563 – 1626) as played in the afternoon in the Market Tavern thanks to Jon Sayles. Check out his website for an enormous free resource and also develop a love for his art.

For other tracks which I shall not list except by exception below, all were written and produced by Tillman Silescu and may be found on the Freesound website.

Portent (used in littlelake) - Todd Galtreau
Evil King – Peter Calandra.
Kyrie – James Wilson.
Broken hearted and Black arts – Mike Newport.

If you consider that all other custom Tracks were written by Tillman Sillescu it goes without saying that I am exceptionally grateful to him for sharing his art. You can find out more about him at Link

Edit: The bik file format was not supported. Added support and attached the movie - Rolo

2013-06-02: Updated module & campaign files - Rolo