Part IV: Eastern Farmlands, Darkness Over Daggerford Walkthrough

Part IV of Darkness Over Daggerford Guide. Darkness Over Daggerford (2006) is a NWN Module for Neverwinter Nights 1 (2002).


Eastern Farmlands. There are four points of interest on these farmlands: a mill, graveyard, islet and dairy farm. I shall tackle them in that order.

Note: We are continuing to side quest here, returning to the main quest in the next post or the one after that. As per Baldur's Gate, DoD hosts a large number of side quests that are not interwoven into the main quest. There is nothing to stop you bee-lining the MQ, if you like, but in this series of posts I'm going for completeness.
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Stroll over to the mill, its wheel creaking as it gently turns the water flowing down the stream.
 

Mill. We are here to check on the miller at the request of Maerovyna, the Priestess of Chauntea in Daggerford (Quest: The Mad Miller).

Miller Fernd Krip is pacing around aimlessly inside the mill, mumbling nonsense to himself.


You won't get any sense out of him so head down to the basement...

Mill Basement. The floor of the basement scurries with rats; slay them for token Exp and step through the fissure in the wall.

Mill Cave. A suspicious monk is squatting down here: Loru. Under questioning he will expose himself as a gray slaad, a chaotic toad-like creature that's in need of a killin'.


Loru will summon a red slaad for support, use invisibility to annoying effect and drop Hammer of the Gods on the party, inflicting divine damage and possibly Daze. Slay the slaad and grab the journal from the chest.

(Loru: +367 Exp, Broken Ice Blade Hilt. This is a component that can be used to forge a custom weapon at Derval's Brightblade. However, we need to find the other piece, first.)
Chest (DC DT 15 OL 18): Loru's Journal.


Deliver the journal to Maerovyna at the Chauntea Shrine and inform her of the slain slaad. She will promise to send an acolyte to heal Fernd's addled mind (Completed Quest: The Mad Miller, +600 Exp).

Daggerford Graveyard. Wander over to the graveyard in the northwest and enter the mausoleum. Note: The western crypt requires a key and the Bricket crypt is in the east. If you enter you will notice that the door has been opened from the inside and footprints leads away from the opened sarcophagus...


Mausoleum. Read the directors log in the entrance chamber to learn of the recent burial of one Elveronne Bricket.


The door to the north leads to a small room with a sarcophagus, from which you may loot a random knick-knack.

The door to the right leads to an embalming room, smelling strongly of formaldehyde. You may remove the two gold pieces from one of the corpses but it shifts your alignment one point towards evil.


The door to the left leads to the undertaker's office. Moris Olgrund will request you locate Elveronne, a corpse that's gone walk-about; handing you some holy water and suggesting you begin your search at the Bricket house located in the Western Farmlands (Quest: A Party to Wake the Dead).


Bricket House (Western Farmlands). Hike west to the Bricket house and you will notice tracks outside the home, leading to a basement that's locked. Enter through the front door, instead.


A party is raging inside, hosted by Muriel and Alicine Bricket - the two sisters of the late Elveronne. Fluster the sisters with questions and they will hurry off, upstairs.


Follow them upstairs and you will catch Muriel tossing evidence out of the window. Awkwardly, she returns to the party. Loot her bedroom trunk for random knick-knacks.


In the adjacent room you will spot a diary as Alicine rummages through her bedroom trunk. When she returns to the party, have Purfbin unlock it.

Chest (OL DC-18): Alicine's Journal.


Have the gnome unlock the door (DC-18) to Elveronne's bedroom and lift up the loose floorboard to find Elveronne's Journal and a key to the Bricket home basement. Armed with the key and both journals, head back downstairs and then to the basement.

Note how the floorboard creaks when you manipulate it - a nice touch.


Bricket House Basement. Shambling around in the darkness is the undead Elveronne, who it seems was poisoned by Muriel and had his necklace stolen by Alicine.


You have several options, all of which result in +500 Exp when you return to Moris:

1.) Douse him with the holy water given to you by Moris.

2.) Encourage Elveronne to slay his sisters and take the necklace back himself (+200 Exp). A cutscene will ensue of the zombies revenge and you can loot the dead sisters for fine jewelry, afterwards.

3.) Fetch the necklace from Alicine and return it to Elveronne.

4.) As above except you return to douse Elveronne, keeping the Elven Keepsake Necklace for yourself (Str +2, Light Dim [5m] Blue).

I chose option four and gifted the necklace to Raegen.

Note: Slaying the zombie outright yields +167 Exp but doesn't always complete the quest.

 
(Completed Quest: A Party to Wake the Dead, +500 Exp).

Islet & Hole (Eastern Farmlands). A frantic child will run up to you along the western stream, pleading for you to save her dog that fell down a hole on the nearby islet (Quest: Fishing With Live Bait).


Row the boat to the islet and drop down the forbidding hole. Note: Without a rope you will incur minor damage from the fall.


Bottom of the Hole. The girl will approach you at the bottom and polymorph into her true form, an imp by the name of Boonmoppet. The imp will conjure a red portal and fly back through a blue one, leaving you to fight creatures that respawn from the red portal.


Slay the wretches.

(Kocrachon +75 Exp ea)


Destroy the red portal and step through the blue one to find yourself transported inside Boonmoppet's Tower, located in the Western Farmlands.

Boonmoppet's Tower (Western Farmlands). You can either slay the imp for paltry Exp or let your grudge go and access its arcane store (Completed Quest: Fishing With Live Bait, +201 Exp.)


Choice items: Greater Belt of Guiding Light (Immunity: Death Magic & Fear, Listen, Lore, Search & Spot +4), Alatian's Spell Shroud (Sequencer: 1 spell, 1/day, Clear Sequencer: unlimited uses, on-hit Dispel Magic [3], Armor Bonus +1), Master Adventurer's Robe (DR 10/+3), ninth circle spell scrolls, various wands, rods and staves.

Churlgo Cheeses (Eastern Farmlands). Return to the Eastern Farmlands and wander over to the dairy farm to speak with Porto, a halfling pretending to work hard on his chores. He requests that you speak with his mother about dropping their unprofitable dairy venture (Quest: The Great Cheese Caper).


Churglo Homestead. Enter the homestead and speak with Millie, who offers you to sample their cheese.


Tell her it tastes like crap and she will complain of bandits attacking her wagons on the way to Gillian's Hill. Offer to escort Porto and the wagon.


Porto's Trail to Gillian's Hill. En route to Gillian's Hill the cheese wagon will be waylaid by a pack of blood-thirsty bandits.


Slay them and continue on to reach your destination.


(bandit leader, +118 Exp: Whip +2, Note to Bandit Leader, bandit thugs x3 +37 Exp ea)

This quest will be continued in the next post, as we have now completed the Eastern and Western Farmlands and have arrived in a new area, the quaint lil' hamlet of Gillian's Hill.

9 comments:

  1. Ooh, I will be following this with great interest. The effort that you have put onto the presentation and critique is fantastic.

    Under the pseudonym of Luspr I was actually the longest serving developer on the project, so you will understand why I'm interested to follow your progress. If it is interesting for you (and other readers) I would be happy to provide some context for the design and decision making process, especially now that quite a long time has passed - 10 years! - since the module was released. There actually are reasons (not necessarily good ones, mind you) that the cut scenes are sometimes so annoying and the treasure is madly imbalanced. But for now I will just say that you were right in your first campaign notes. The resting system was pure homage to BG1, as simple than that. Personally... I'm with you. Unnecessarily annoying rather than immersive :-)

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  2. If you're a Cleric, turning Elverone Brickett is also an option...

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    1. Dialogue option or just another combat option?

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    2. Dialogue option. I guess a Paladin would have that option as well, but that would be another play-through.

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    3. If you step outide, you'll find the vial of poison thrown by Muriel. You can use it to poison the sisters' glasses (dialogue option with Elveronne).

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    4. Good to know. Thanks! :)

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  3. Also, the broken ice blade hilt is only one half of the artifact; you still have to find the blade. There's also a hammer (head + hilt) that I've found, though I don't remember where those three parts were.

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    1. Yeah, I just find it odd the dwarf does not recognize that you have at least one component of a weapon.

      Cromwell and Cespenar would say something like, "Well you have the pommel, find the blade and hilt and I can forge Equalizer".

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  4. I was just playing this module and on the Cheese quest after being attacked by (and defeating) the bandits, I was unable to continue. The cart is clickable but due to walkmesh/collision the conversation to continue never triggered. My answer was to alter the code to add the wagon's conversation to the ox as well, but I wonder if anyone else has had this problem? Is it a new model/upgrade/walkmesh/object?

    I simply get the "walk action icon" in the top left corner of my screen, walk to the wagon, and it never clears because I don't get close enough I guess.

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