Okay, it’s finally here — the first six featured quests in the Cult of the Dragon foundry contest. The devs say this contest could take MONTHS to finish.
We start out with a mixed bag of quests… and there’s gonna be some you want to play. And some you want to avoid.
I was going to rate these things with an elaborate point system I came up with, but who cares about that? It’s the players who will decide.
So let’s get into it.
The Artifact by kanddaloor
The Cult of the Dragon threatens Neverwinter! You need to stop them!
But really… are they? They supposedly have “an artifact”, which they have hidden in a small village outside the city. Unfortunately, they fell down a well… into a sewer… I’m no sanitation engineer, but I think I would rather draw my water from some non-sewer source. Anyway, it’s all good. Guards are making sure they can’t crawl back up. So all you need to do is fall into the well……. into the sewer….. and hunt them down through several underground miles of sewer and static encounters (a surprisingly comprehensive sanitation system for a small village), and then kill the boss who drops “the artifact”, which you then destroy.
Pre-made maps, no real connection to the Cult of the Dragon, boring, static encounters that we just ran through, entirely worthless quest. Kasul and I both gave it one star. Its adjusted score has risen since it dropped last night, from 0.8 to 2.96.
I don’t know what quest those players were playing.
Shadows of Purple Wings by thrymskvida
The Harpers need you for an investigation. Could the Cult of the Dragon be involved?
Turns out that the Cult is trying to assemble a potion that will let them raise a dracoliche, as they are wont to do. The ingredients are held by a suspicious wizard in a nearby hamlet. Can you stop the Cult — or is it the wizard you need to defeat?
“Shadows” is a full adventure, with lots of conversation (usually three different kinds of responses you can give — a positive one, a negative one, and one in pseudo-old English, which I like to call “Renfaire Medieval”. The NPCs will usually react in different ways depending which response you take, perhaps telling you about a secret bookcase or a sneaky method into the wizard’s home. Maybe some optional encounters.
This quest would be a great one to play even if it weren’t a contest entry. Kasul and I both gave it four stars. Adjusted rating is 3.99 at the moment. Why not five stars? I’m not sure. I may have rated this one too lowly, having played the others.
The Pact of Luskan by reiwulf
A disease has stricken Neverwinter’s neighbor to the north, the seaport of Luskan. For some reason, you’re their only possible hope. So…. off you go.
Luskan is an amazingly well-realized city. If this isn’t a premade, then it is a masterpiece of level design. The action soon shifts into a mansion, and finally sewers (inevitably…) in a cinematic finish.
Once you’re in the mansion, you soon meet up with the Cult, who threaten you impotently, and rescue a slave, Jox, who may be more — or less — than he appears, and is your companion from then on.
For such a well-made city map, I was surprised to find that the quest spent little time there — you talk with some people, and then leave it forever. The Cult aspects seem dropped in, and the disease plot really doesn’t depend on the cult. However, this is still a quest well worth playing, and Reiwulf, the author, is no stranger to being featured. A masterpiece by a master.
Like “Shadows”, the adjusted rating is 3.99. And, like “Shadows”, Kasul and I gave it only four stars. As mentioned above, I felt the Cult aspects were just dropped in. Nonetheless, you’ll enjoy this one.
Relative Security by Sarlacc1979
Lord Neverember’s cousin, Lord Adrian, has come to town, but is strangely reluctant to enter the city until he has enough forces arrayed to come in at the head of a vast parade. Your mission is to go see why he won’t come with a more normal retinue.
Well, mindflayers, obviously.
Following the mindflayer plot takes you into a dungeon, where you first hear of “the Claw”, the leader of the local Cult who has gathered two spheres of annihilation along with some black ice and is going to see what happens when you smoosh them all together. Because, wouldn’t you?
Most of the dungeon is just killing static encounters, but the quest picks up a little toward the end, as the Cult fights back at its most fierce, and you finally meet “the Claw”.
I gave it three stars, and I think Kasul did as well. I just don’t like long strings of static encounters. My view is, if you have an encounter, how did they come to be there? Do they live there forever until someone comes by? Is that any way to serve the Cult? And what happened to the mindflayers, anyway?
Adjusted score: 4.06.
Dark Plans by Omacrowhite
“This quest will test your medle”, says the description, and our “medle” was tested.
This quest is just a bunch of stacked mobs. I don’t recall if any of them had anything to do with the Cult of the Dragon or not. We rode past all the stupid encounters on the open world that weren’t part of the story, and all the ones in dungeon, and then it finally ended.
Looking back on notes I took when I was playing it, it doesn’t look as bad as I remember. Well, long lines of static, vanilla encounters are kind of a trigger for me. Authors who don’t even care about checking their spelling are kind of a trigger. Though we didn’t encounter any particular problem with the quest, reviews point to a lot of bad things that can happen to break the quest.
Kasul and I each gave it one star. The adjusted score is 3.14 (yay, pi!). Again, I have no idea what quest THOSE people were playing.
Ending with the Beginning by Taciog
“put an end the era of dragons, do not let the Scourge Warlock Ahab with peace of neverwinter”
The trampled English is courtesy, apparently, of Google Translate, which the author used to translate from their native Portuguese. As near as I can tell, they don’t speak any English it at all. That’s fine, but there’s bunches of people on the Foundry forums who would absolutely help with the translation. None of this was used, and so, to this English speaker, I couldn’t understand much of what was going on.
This quest had little, if anything, to do with the Cult of the Dragon. Most everything was devoted to defeating Scourge Warlock Ahab. Thinking back, I can’t think of anything that dealt with the Cult, though Kasul claimed he saw something. I think some of the mobs were Cult, though they were named as minions of Scourge S. Ahab.
Okay, looking back at the screenshots I took, the Cult was mentioned. We had to defeat the Lord of Dragons — twice. And finally, Ahab himself.
The maps were custom, though poor use of some special effects made the quest hard to continue in places. Puzzling out what was supposed to be happening was hampered by the poor translation (find the three… tabernacles?)
Still, even though I think the author should just have stuck with their native Portuguese, there was some good stuff to be found. I think, with a lot of work on the translation and the maps, this could really shape up to something great. In its current form, though, it was only worth two stars for us.
Adjusted score: 3.89 stars. So, clearly, most players don’t share our opinion.
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At the end of the first week, I’m giving the crown to “Shadows of Purple Wings”, followed closely by “The Pact of Luskan”. These are the kinds of quests we want to see featured.
Until next week…!
