[Quest Mod] Dead Gardens

[Glittergear]

"The story behind the painting I drew is already told
No more tearstains on the pages of my diary 
Tired but unable to give up since I'm
Responsible for the lives I saved"

Mod Name: Dead Gardens
Premise: An archdruid died but rose again as an undead creature. He is unable to move on due to his greatest regret in life—he saved three children from being sacrificed to Malar. He regrets (1) his interference, and (2) the fact that two of the three children grew up to be terrible people. Help the undead archdruid find peace.... one way or another.

Start the quest by looking for Arianelle, near the Trademeet fountain, after defeating Faldorn. Expect maybe an hour of gameplay. Cernd, Jaheira, and high charisma will be helpful here, though you can complete the quest without any of those three. As always, the walkthrough is in the readme.

Thanks to: Moggadeet, for being my partner in crime; Nightwish, for their song "Dead Gardens", which loosely inspired this mod;  and Jastey, for helping with the Dead() checks and for showing me how to do journals

Incompatibilities: Will likely have issues with anything that modifies AR2602 (Cave in Forest to Suldanessalar). To the best of my knowledge though, no mod modifies this area.

DOWNLOAD FROM GITHUB

CHANGELOG
1.0 Initial Release
 

Edited February 26 by Glittergear

[megrimlock]

Your release of a whole series of mods is such a pleasant surprise. Excited to try these.

[Frenzgyn]

You're really steamrolling your releases, aren't you?

Already follow you on github, I will try your mods at some point in the - hopefully - near future.

[Trouveur80]

Congrats ! I will remember to try your mods when reaching BG2EE.

[Glittergear]

Thanks everyone! I hope you enjoy my mods--I sure enjoyed making them! Definitely let me know what you think whenever you get around to them

[Isewein]

You should add a variable condition to the cleric in the Lathander temple. I just ran into her and determined that she's from this mod via NearInfinity, but it seems that her dialogue refers to a quest to kill her I haven't received yet.

Quote

Will likely have issues with anything that modifies AR2602 (Cave in Forest to Suldanessalar). To the best of my knowledge though, no mod modifies this area.

Also, you might want to add an incompatibility note for Tashia and Check the Bodies, as those two mods do indeed (infamously) use the same cave.

Edited March 7 by Isewein

[Lumorus]

Hello @Glittergear

I find the idea of the Dead Garden Mod very interesting and downloaded it a few days ago and added it to my BGT installation.

Apart from the point raised by Isenwein that you can approach the priestess of Lathander about the undead druid's quest before you've even met him and accepted his task, the quest went off without a hitch for me - the archdruidess can be found at the Well of Handelstreff after Faldorn's defeat, the undead druidess can also be found in the (relocated) cave - which I was also able to enter thanks to the post-installed Tethyr Forest patch.

I solved the quest by talking to the archdruidess again and convincing the undead druid that it wasn't right to kill the people the three children had become.

Next time I'll try to play the other version and visit the former children.

What I have noticed, however, is that the staff that you get as a reward from the archdruidess has no icon. But I'm not sure if that's because I only added Dead Garden at the end of the installation - after 1PP

On 3/7/2024 at 7:12 PM, Isewein said:

Also, you might want to add an incompatibility note for Tashia and Check the Bodies, as those two mods do indeed (infamously) use the same cave.

I can't say much about the Tashia mod, but CtB doesn't use the same cave where the undead druid is. CtB replaces this cave with another dungeon that is needed for the Company of Eight quest. The original cave is moved to a position nearby.

If only CtB is installed, there is, as I saw in Near Infinity, the trigger to change the area, but it is unusable. However, both the map marker and the area connections are relocated correctly.

This is made possible by the Tehthyr Forest patch mod.

 

But I agree with you - that should definitely be in the readme.

[Lumorus]

After a few tests with the Quest, I can finally say something more:

The quest plays well and was great fun.
Unfortunately, there are some scripts that are not yet correct:

I can ask the innkeepers Pugney, Bernard and Samuel Donnerbölk about Alliast before I've even spoken to Rianor. Once I have promised to help Rianor, however, I can no longer enquire about him.

There's a big problem if the quest with the Unseeing Eye has already been completed - the archdruid has a script in "class" that makes her disappear immediately if someone in the party sees her - but only if the Unseeing Eye has been completed.

For the Shadow Druid and Alliast, the script is set so that they only spawn correctly once you have spoken to Rianor. This means you don't have the same problem with them as with the Lathander cleric, where you can talk to them about Rianor's mission before you've even received the quest from the archdruid.

I've noticed that you can still ask the Shadow Druid about Rianor's quest, for example, even if the quest has already been completed.

The staff that you get from the archdruid when Rianor has found his rest unfortunately has no icon when you go to the inventory, you can select it and equip and use it without any problems, but it has no icon in the inventory itself unless it has been placed in a weapon slot.