I only found two objects in the room after I killed the nasty sorceress...but the elven ambassador says I need three. All three were supposed to be in that room, right? I've looked almost everywhere in the dark forest for the third object but no luck. any advice? Thanks.

The third object is the staff that Josephine drops, though it is sometimes in the locked cheat at the back of the room. Run your mouse over the area where she was defeated; if it is hidden behind a wall, etc. the alt key will not show its description, but a little diligence and a slow mouse should find it. Do you have a recent save you could re-load and try again?

If all else fails, check out;
Lost Items - guide and directory of inventory files

i only got 2 objects too but bronthian excepted them i dont get it either

A couple other people have had this happen as well. Maybe you picked up the staff but didn't identify it? Or, maybe it is a bug.

Screenshot of the three Elven Ceremonial Items (70KB)

"The third object is the staff that Josephine drops"

I was afraid of that. I can see the staff, but can't pick it up. It's hidden behind the wall as you guessed, I can highlight it with the mouse but that's it. I'll try the inventory editing thing probably, my last useful save is way back before entering the dark forest and now i'm almost finished here.

Thanks for the help.

You can also use telekinesis to grab stuff out of walls. Spell books can be bought from Kistandalius or Blake in Ars Magicana and Corinna or Mpenzak in Verdistis. If you quick save before talking to a merchant, hitting alt or running your mouse over them, you can quick load if they don't have what you want. I'm not sure how long it would take looking for a specific spell book, though; I maxed this skill with spell books just keeping an eye open when selling off loot.

How do you use telekinesis to grab it? In my game it's just behind the wall but nothing I do will pick it up.

If it is behind the wall, it may be too far to reach with Telekinesis. You should be able to pick it up using the teleporter pyramids to get your character through the wall, described in the topic Josephine herself stuck in the wall.

Thanks! I'll give that a try and will report back.

I've tried that, but unfortunately it only seems to work for areas on the top and left sides of the map: in my case, the final elven item is halfway down the right hand side and even using the pyramid to teleport to the other side of the wall (which I can do on both upper-left corners in the map) I can't pick up the errant object even when I'm standing right over it.

I think at this point maybe it's time to call it a day: I now seem to have a significant number of quest bugs confounding me. Shame, I was really enjoying it, but I guess I can go back to enjoying D:OS (and hopefully its successor) which were a lot less troublesome!

If you don't have a recent save to reload and kill Josephine again, the Lost Items procedure will allow you to complete the quest.

I think even if I did have a recent save, I'd rather not have to kill her again! I'm not much good at boss fights.

Anyway, yes, that sounds like a handy solution, I'll give that a try. It'll be nice to be able to proceed. Well, I say "nice", my understanding is that the later stages of the game are quite tricky.

I think what happened with the staff thing is it actually got stuck inside the wall, so I couldn't access it from either inside the room nor from the outside when using the pyramid exploit.

The word 'even' probably makes this a moot point, but you could use DAD's item editor (broken link) to give a crappy weapon a large damage and vitality boost, to use temporarily in order to redo the fight (since you already beat it legitimately).

The game tends to become easier as it progresses. Josephine is arguable the most challenging opponent in the game.


Here is a mirror link for version 1.4 of DAD's Item Editor.
If you do not already have the Visual Basic 6 redistributable installed, and get missing file/component errors, use the full installer for v1.1, then replace the executable in the install folder with the latest version.

I think I'll grab myself a copy of that anyway! I can see it may come in handy.

I mostly got through that battle using the tried-and-tested method of running away and coming back again later. Oh, that and a handy sword with a frost enchantment which took some effort to get, after reading that it's probably the most useful weapon attribute in the game. "Took some effort" wasn't helped by the game's RNG seemingly liking to pair it with deathblow, and I read your warning elsewhere that the latter is probably not something I would want to use on a regular basis...

I'm pleased to say that worked, without any obvious ill-effects, so that's the gathering of the seven council members completed. Now to work on the various other bits and pieces!

On a slightly unrelated note, do you know if anyone ever got DAD's Item Editor to work on bows? I did a quick Google but was again unable to spot an obvious answer (though I admit I'm not exactly on top form at the moment). I'm guessing the answer is that it's not possible unless I want to experiment with a hex editor, and y'know. If I was awake enough to wield a hex editor without causing disaster I probably wouldn't need it in the first place.

No, I don't think it will work on bows (an issue with the earlier editor, as well). They do show up in the 'all' category (only listing the durability, not damage), but at least when I try to save changes it crashes the editor.

Yeah, I noticed that the attributes weren't coming up; I thought better of attempting to save it anyway as it wouldn't be the first time I'd forgotten to backup first.

Well this has all been very helpful, I've now proceeded through the Council Chamber element, died, got better and I'm now wandering aimlessly around the desert. Now you've showed me a couple of really useful quest un-mangling tips I can get on with enjoying the game and pontificating about more trivial matters like "why did Larian decide to make the Divine a bloke called Lucian when mine is a woman called Vometia?", and realising I just kinda answered my own question there.

I am surprised at just how much I've enjoyed this (not so) little almost ZX Spectrum styled game, though. My opinion a couple of years or so back is that I couldn't see myself ever going back to non-third-person games with the latest and fanciest graphics.

Yes, the hand drawn 2D graphics have aged pretty well.

If you get bored wandering around the wastelands, once you explore enough to know where you need to go, you can run past most opponents to go straight there. I did a lot of cleanup finishing off quests, etc, before the Blessing ceremony, so was in the mood for hack and slash by the time I got to the wastelands, but eventually started skipping past common opponents.

I just wish I could zoom in a bit! Then again, I can zoom in Beyond Divinity and that leaves me wishing I knew how to mod it to change random stuff, because it's what I do. So it's probably as well I'm looking at my ant-like avatar in 1920x1200 mode.

Talking of ants, blimey there's a lot of imps in the Wastelands. I decided I needed to kill them all on my quest to eradicate any black squares from my map, but only because they don't respawn, otherwise I'd definitely do as you suggested.

I'm also just realised after the last set of spikes in the next segment that maybe I shouldn't have have used the pyramids to get past them...

The only way to 'zoom in' is to lower the game resolution.

As you may already have discovered, you'll need to go back and finish off all 5 of the Black Ring bosses. The final fight will not start if you use the teleporter pyramids to get over the spikes.

Fortunately I didn't have to sit there wondering what was going on! I eventually looked on the Gamebanshee guide wondering why my attempts to hunt down the bosses didn't seem to be going anywhere and realised my error.

Although I have a save right outside the dungeon, I don't fancy killing all eleventy billion gargoyles again so I'll attempt to chuck my pyramids back over the spikes: or rather through them as I also discovered I can do.

It's a pity I'm approaching the end: I never realised DD was so much fun. Y'know, in spite of everybody else saying it is! I'll resume Beyond Divinity next, although I think just mostly not being set on Rivellon (at least AIUI) makes it a bit harder to tune into.

Hmm, spoiled a bit by my second encounter with Josephina, who was a big enough pain the first time round but who seems utterly invulnerable to everything I can throw at her now: flash attack, hell spikes, curse, elemental hail, life drain, a big sword with frost damage, summons, nothing has even the slightest effect. I've read various tactics and tried all sorts of things, but absolutely nothing works.

I found her much easier the second time around; I hit her before she could finish summoning (warrior character with the passive Stun skill maxed), so she kept retrying that and never moved on to attacking.

Did your character get blinded? Hell Spikes should have still worked then, though. Try using a shadow potion to take a break and set up for another attack (a warrior character using their special move will not turn visible if they don't direct target a nearby opponent).

Burning wall can be very effective, if you have it or spare skill points.
That's probably the best tactic you may not have seen already in topics like Chasing Josie...

I may give Burning Wall a try: I still have a spare six points to spend on something interesting. The main trouble is that even when I use Flash Attack, the Beige Shield of Invulnerability comes up before my sword strike even happens and it's all downhill from there; I'd hoped to get away with shadow potions and area attacks but I still turn visible as soon as I use Hell Spikes (which have no effect anyway thanks to the Beige Shield) and she immediately skewers me back, at a huge health cost in spite of me having 100-200 shielding against the various types of elemental attack (though I'm not sure they're relevant).

I'll try the Burning Wall but I may need to resort to cheating!

Still no joy: there were a couple of times I just used the "hit her until she's dead" approach but unfortunately relying on the weapon's frost damage to stun her is much too unreliable so at some point she'll just side-step me, outrun me and as soon as she gets to complete her chain of spells it's pretty much game over: I find her utterly unassailable from that point onwards.

I did eventually succeed by resorting to cheating, but I'm not particularly happy about that. I am utterly useless at boss fights though and as a rule I hate them, so I guess I can now revert my sword back to its previous attributes and continue (as an aside, I noticed that the one-handed sword seemed to have a much better success of striking than my usual two-hander: I guess it's faster).

Still, it wasn't as bad an experience as DKS' notorious Zeppelin escort mission. D:

Josephine shouldn't be anywhere close to invulnerable; she can blind the character and dish out decent damage (nothing armour, HP bonuses and restoration potions shouldn't be able to handle), but isn't particularly resistant to damage.
What level / class is your character?

Hell Spikes do physical damage, so you'd need Aura of Guarding to add a little protection for that, not Spell Shield.

If you didn't try it, circling opponents with Burning Wall can do a lot of damage quickly, with good timing and coordination, or slow / damage following opponents.

Er, yeah, I may have messed up my character build slightly, as I tend to do. I started off as a mage, and then decided an archer was more my sort of thing, before finally settling on a one-handed sword. And then a two-hander.

I suspect that my stats pane probably reflects the rest of my rather meandering and ill-conceived specialisation, since my characters seem to invariably end up as the old adage, Jack of all trades and master of none.

A mage gets less hit points per constitution point than a warrior, though with decent equipment bonuses it should still be ok (and less damage bonus per strength point). For a melee character the points put into intelligence would probably have been better spent split between strength and agility (relying on equipment bonuses for mana).

Just before the final fight, my stats were as follows (the number in brackets indicates the values with no equipment, without Finnigan's lockpicks in my inventory).

Level 53 Warrior

Vitality 1260 (444)
Magic 574 (30)
Strength 145 (111)
Agility 150 (112)
Intelligence 18 (10)
Constitution 100 (74)
Offense 124 (89)
Defense 108 (78)
Damage 139-178 (54-64)
Armour 484 (0)
Lightning Resistance 95 (25)
Fire Resistance 110 (25)
Poison Resistance 35 (25)
Spirit Resistance 95 (25)
Reputation 51
Weight 4500 (3820)

Thanks for posting that so I can compare: I think it confirms my suspicion that it's probably amazing I got as far as I did, even on easy. I'm reminded of my first attempt at Ego Draconis where I was being repeatedly pwned until I read some guidelines on how to do a proper build and how to not waste points, since I seem to be incapable of figuring it out for myself.

I may attempt another play-through now I'm almost-but-not-quite at the end, only this time I'll start as a warrior as that's obviously what I seem to find most comfortable in DD. Which is odd, as that was generally my least-preferred build in D:OS, though I admit that was probably in part because I always used to play mêlée characters and figured I should diversify a bit. But I probably shouldn't diversify with the same character in the same game.

I'm also wondering if I've somehow overlooked some of the better equipment in the game: in fact I only had four bits of the Dragon set (shield, cuirass, belt and gloves) so maybe I should've spent a little more time looking for the others. I was a bit disappointed by the damage rating on some of the swords, though: even Sword of the Gods seemed about as effective as a stick of celery sometimes.

I decided to restart using an actual warrior character this time and I have to say it's significantly easier. Part of that will just be that I have a better idea what I'm doing second time through, but I was surprised as how easily I breezed through the Aleroth catacombs at a low level, even completely clearing out the bottom one. I admit I'm still playing on easy because I'm a bit hopeless, but I guess I'm a bit less hopeless if I actually choose a character build that matches the playing style I'm using!

Now I just need to find a guide to spending skill points: at the moment it's all basic utility stuff like lockpick and identify, but I could do with a better idea of what I should be using in combat.

Getting the dwarven smith to upgrade the cuirass with the Dragonheart Gem (Warrior guild quest) and showing it to the king will get you the helm, to complete the set.


Warriors tend to have plenty of skill points, especially is relying on found or purchased spell books for mage spells.
Free skills, and spell books you can buy

The passive Stun skill is nice, but at low levels it doesn't get triggered very often, so you can wait until higher character levels to boost it.
Besides the obvious Sword Expertise, Augment Damage and Augment Defense:
A level of Repair is useful (I put 2 points in and had 3 pieces of equipment with that bonus, so could batch repair damaged equipment to maximize the value when trading... not that you need to worry about getting enough gold in the game).
I found level 1 of Reflect Missiles helped in spotting ranged opponents in forests, but I didn't boost it past that 'testing it out' skill point.

Keep any items you find with Pickpocket, Identify, etc. Alchemy level 1 is very useful for making restoration potions.
I maxed Magic Barrier, though eventually equipment bonuses should provide most of your resistances. A level or 2 of Survivors Instinct helps to top off your hit points when you return to populated areas to trade or turn in quests, but the healing is not fast enough to make any difference in combat.
Telekinesis is handy. I maxed Spell Shield and Aura of Guarding from purchased spell books, and used them during the middle of the game. Restoration can be maxed with spell books and quest rewards.


Stat points for warriors tend to end up as 2 parts strength, 2 parts agility and 1 part constitution, but that varies quite a bit at the beginning, depending on the bonuses and requirements on the equipment you find.

Early Starter Tips (NON-Spoiler Version)

ARIC'S WARRIOR GUIDE

That's very helpful, thank you. I feel like life in DD is an awful lot easier than last time, although I kind of miss my mage's ditzy-sounding voice.

It's also nice to have side-stepped some of the potential embuggerences such as refusing to get George's drudanae for him, sorting out the assassin subquest and remembering to take a look at the Thieves Guild.

I'm trying to remember the stuff that I'm gleaning from the guides you've posted: there's so much of it! But at least I'm making less of a mess of things than I did the first time through.

I suppose I'll continue to use this topic for my random dribbling in order to keep it in one place.

I thought I'd take a few screen shots of DD so I could look at the artwork in a bit more detail, and I have to say it's amazing: cropping and enlarging random bits (and smoothing the jaggies away) there's so much detail there that I realise I don't normally see, whether my character, others, even just the background image.

I thought that because I was running it at a higher resolution than it was actually designed for that I was miniaturising everything into oblivion, but I just did a rough back-of-an-envelope calculation for what I'm currently using (26" monitor at 1920x1200) in comparison with what would've been a fairly typical screen at the time DD was originally out, something like a 17" CRT at 1280x1024 (at least). What surprised me is that my monitor actually has fewer pixels per inch than the older type contemporary with the game, ~87 vs. 100, so its pixels (and therefore the details) are actually bigger than they would've been back in the day. Weird, that; I guess it's just because there's so much stuff on the screen all at once that you're sort of overwhelmed and none of the individual bits of artwork has as much of a chance to stand out.

I did try running it at a lower resolution with automatic resizing to fill the screen and I think it did look better, but I found myself just not wanting to get used to a much more limited overhead view.

Which I guess is where BD (and subsequently D:OS) have the advantages of being able to zoom to suit one's whims at the time. But DD is mostly set in the green-and-leavy parts of Rivellon and BD... isn't.

The original release of DD supported 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x786 resolutions (a config file edit could set the resolution higher, but that could cause the game to crash when opening the main map, the frequency of which was resolution and system dependent). Beyond Divinity added 1280x960.

Oh I see. So to pick a couple of examples, say 1024x768 on a 17" screen or 800x600 on a 14", that'd be around 75 ppi, so the individual bits of the image would be physically a little larger than I'm seeing, though not by a great deal.

I guess I just have to accept I can't have it all! If I want as much of the world on my screen as it can manage then the individual details do tend be be drowned out, but I'm not sure I could really live with the restricted visibility I'd get from the zoomed-in image, as much as it looks nicer and more artistic.

I should probably be less nerdy about all this and go and skewer some zombies instead.

Hmm, run into another "no dialogue" problem: I've now completed the Council of Seven quest, recruited the dwarf after recovering the Axe of Stone, freeing the elf and implicating the mayor, but the king has no dialogue option suggesting anything about the dragon armour, nor anything acknowledging the end of that quest.

I did approach him before remembering to pick up the manuscript so he asked for proof, but now he has nothing but his usual dialogue options regardless of whether or not I speak to Eolus before or after or get him to join the council or not, the king has nothing further to say about the matter. Is his dialogue irretrievably broken? I know the dragon armour dialogue is glitchy when talking to Sir Patrick but I seem to have found a new problem before I've even got that far...

Do you have the letter on you when you talk to the dwarven king? You need to toss it into the throne room and pick it up after entering, or toss a teleporter stone in to bypass the guards that take your stuff (or kill them using Poison Cloud, or something, cast near but not directly on them, to do damage without turning them hostile or resulting in a reputation drop).
IIRC the dwarven council member can take the letter and axe if you talk to him first.

I never thought about that! I'm not sure how I did it last time as I'm pretty sure it didn't involve me having to do that, but maybe that's why the Sir Patrick bit was glitchy.

I'll give that a try and see what happens. Worst case I have my savegames backed up from halfway through the mines part of that quest so I could start over, but I'd rather not...

Throwing the manuscript into the king's chamber did the trick: I'm glad it didn't involve violence, I generally prefer to avoid that except with characters I really dislike.

So about 1/10 for my creative thinking, again.

Next step Sir Patrick, who is also not being helpful, but I read your solution to that elsewhere, namely try talking to the king and his blacksmith again.

Well I've obtained the dragon armour and had it modified by the dwarf smith: I wish I hadn't bothered, the "new improved" version has worse stats than the original rusty old thing that Sir Patrick wanted rid of!

I guess these things happen, but it seems I've ended up with a pretty ropey lump of armour. I'll fire up the item editor but I'll have to look around to see what seems to be a reasonable set of stats...


Edit: I didn't realise that the stats weren't "rolled" until I hovered over it in my inventory which made reloading a bit easier. I don't really like doing that but when I'm supposed to end up with a really legendary item, it's annoying if it turns out to be pants.

I did that with the Holy Sword too, and probably ended up with something a bit over-powered, but it seemed to make my experience with Jopsephina a lot less painful. For me, at least...

You can buy back the original version of the dragon armour, as well. You'd just need the upgraded armour (depending on what you get reloading) to get the helm, and wear the full set once to complete that quest.

I reloaded for the dragon armour pieces, etc, which helped make the game too easy near the end, given that I was also a completionist and the game tends to get easier, anyway. I reloaded for the holy sword (and was also tempted to go for the amulet, which I tried a few times), and then switched to another unique one handed sword not very much later, shortly after getting to the wastelands.


Items placed directly in your inventory don't get stats until you mouse over them. To save potential candidates and keep reloading, make sure you move the item in the inventory, or the newly generated stats will not actually be set.

Oh, I hadn't realised that thing about moving them to make sure the stats were fixed: just as well I never wanted to restore any of my "kinda, maybe" saves!

It seems a lot of stuff I've tripped over got fixed in later games. Though I'm really glad I've finally played DD seven years after becoming acquainted with the series, even if it has been a bit unpredictable at times.

With IIRC the ring that Verlat can give you in Verdistis (if you heal him in Aleroth), I got a really good ring the first or second try, saved, reloaded a couple times noting the average was worse than what I had, so reloaded the save with the 'identified' ring, only to find that the stats were different. I had to reload quite a bit to get another ring comparable to the first.

D:

I'll bear that in mind for when I decide to do a third play-through! I guess I can delete a bunch of my "kinda, maybe" permanent saves on the basis that they're less permanent than I thought.

For all my complaining about other stuff, I think I did pretty well with Verlat's ring both times I've played: decent stats and I think both had four or five charm slots.

Now I'm at the point where I'm looking for stuff to do in "the nice bit" of Rivellon so I can put off completing the council quest for a while longer. I've now resorted to completing the sewers, and then it'll be scouring the game guides for anything else I may have missed... I dunno, even the tree in the Dark Forest has given up trying to kill me and is now just feeling sorry for itself.

Just a spot of random curiosity, and as usual because I couldn't find anything on Google (at least not yet), is there a (semi-)official map of Rivellon through the series? I know it might not make much sense anyway since they're set in different eras, but I'm imagining that the Orobas Fjords and Broken Valley are in the mountains to the west of Aleroth in the original DD map, and sea beyond them (at least in the NE corner of the map) where Sentinel Island lurks. I've no idea where Cyseal and Luculla might be, which I'd assumed were on their own island, or maybe they're just a bit provincial; especially if the forest in D:OS is the same one in DD (I'm not sure if it is or not.

I'm imagining the same landmass as various characters like Jake and Thelyron get around a bit (Jake being spotted in Cyseal in D:OS, Aleroth in both DD and ED, Thelyron in Cyseal, Aleroth and so on) although I concede they did have a naval fleet from early on and Zeppelins later! As well as handy teleporters. But anyway we do know that Aleroth isn't too far a journey down the fjords from Broken Valley and lies in a more open landscape; I'm wondering how much of that is designed with careful attention to world-building and how much just kinda happened...

The only Rivellon maps are the in-game ones, at least so far. The Lore book being written for D:OS 2 may get into the geography and its evolution.
There were a couple map areas dropped from Divinity 2. I'd guess some attention was paid to the previous map, but 'magic' was an easy excuse to do things differently (especially since non-flat landscapes needed to be introduced), in addition to natural changes (swamp encroaching on the farmlands in Beyond Divinity).

I'd like to see that! The autistic bit of me likes to see all the background detail that makes up a game.

I decided to use my conjecture to stick the names on the Divinity map here. I think Broken Valley and the Fjords are a fairly safe bet, but Luculla is more risky as we're not even certain it's on the same landmass, but if it is, it seems like a sensible place for both it and the Dark Forest (which I've decided could probably be the same general place as DD's Dark Forest).

Another question... there seems to be a bit of a sound glitch in DD which involves brief but annoyingly frequent blips of very loud white noise. Is there a known fix? Again, I looked it up but drew a blank: the only suggestion I could find was to mute the system sounds thing in the mixer settings but that made no difference.

I seem to have now comprehensively hijacked this topic. I would split it into "Vom's random DD issues" but there doesn't seem to be a topic split option like there is in IPB. Still, better than me having a sudden flurry of random posts in a dozen different topics, I suppose...

The easiest fix for this issue is to set the game to run in Win 9x compatibility mode (or otherwise getting it to run on a single CPU core: static noise?).

Thanks very much! That's one of those minor irritations that was becoming less minor the longer it went on. Good to know it has a cure.

A minor random annoyance, I can't close Marcus' "Missing Delivery" quest: any ideas? I've successfully done everything else in that quest line, and the completion of Missing Delivery seems to be a pre-requisite to do The Burning Cart, so I'm guessing it's just glitched (it's not the only one, the "fetch a potion for..." quest is also stuck now that I've delivered the two available potions as I didn't use the "drop -1 glitch" to duplicate them). I still have the letters from both Pedro and Victorio in my inventory, but neither Marcus, Lt Robin nor Trevor has anything else to say. I'm guessing I'll just have to deal with it!

When you found the cart, did you talk to both drivers? If you talk to Fred but not Luther, that quest log entry may not be cleared.
In either case, once you have the letter from Victorio, you should be able to talk to Marcus, which I think you must have already done, in order to get the letter from Pedro (he doesn't turn hostile until that part of the quest is advanced).
Lt Robin should have a dialogue option after you get Pedro's letter.

By design, only 2 of the 3 people in the quarantine area can be given a cure. Other than cheating to duplicate a potion, you can also Pickpocket one back to re-use (level 2 required) or kill one of the cured NPCs so they drop the cure potion.

Yeah, I've spoken to all the characters in question a couple of times... except for both of the now expired cart drivers. So I guess I'll need to live with it! I'm just being obsessive about clearing my quest log before I move on to the next stage of the game because I tend to be like that.

How come you manage to know every part of the game in the most intricate detail, no matter how obscure? I mean by way of comparison, I poured very many hundreds of hours into playing Oblivion and the same again when modding it but I don't have anything like that degree of knowledge about it. :o

So, you missed my edits in the last post?
I played the game at the original release, and have followed the Larian forum almost continuously since then. If I don't remember something, a quick search online usually helps, or I check Kiya's website, etc.

Well you say that, but knowing where to search and what to search for are all part of it!

I'm so used to playing Bethesda's games that I still keep wanting to reach for a console so I can type "player.additem" or "setstage": although their CLI was, er, somewhat unripe, it was extremely handy. Well, still is. At least it gave me the knowledge to do a bit of modding of Ego Draconis though, even though it was limited to altering the outfits, hairdos and stuff.

Kiya's site is one that comes up: that and Gamebanshee have already been incredibly useful. I'll probably spend more time visiting them to make sure I hoover up the remaining quests before I visit the wastelands...

And I'm finished! It was a lot easier this time, although I did, er, not so much cheat as "maximise my opportunities", mostly reloading to make sure I got weapons with a good freeze stat.

Josephina continued to be the biggest headache, though a much diminished one this time through: a combination of shadow potion, the aforementioned weapons and a twirl attack were enough to deal with her. I had used Flash Attack to sometimes good effect in my previous game but couldn't get it to work with my warrior build, curiously.

So I think I've done everything, including the slight shenanigans to get to the Larian Prison. I understand that the pyramids can be thrown into otherwise inaccessible areas to explore them too, so I may do that now just to finish off.

Maybe I'll continue Beyond Divinity next, though it's not so much "that voice" that's putting me off as the excess of awful grey-and-red landscapes: at least only the northern bit of Luculla was like that in D:OS but there's far too much of it in BD, I think.

Yay.

The DK's voice gets better as the game progresses, and he talks less. There is lava in the first level of act 1 and specific areas in acts 2 and 3. The indoor areas of act 1 and 4 are brown and grey (sometimes swapping the colours for the floors and walls), with some red/rust highlights. There are some green areas, though, and other colours.

It wasn't a bad ending, actually. I didn't know what to expect, so I was wondering if it might've been a bit of an Ego Draconis! I'm glad it wasn't. In fact I'd say it was one of the better endings I've had out of a game (up there with, say, Bioshocks 1 & 2 in that I felt that the story had reached a proper and satisfying conclusion, although not Bioshock Infinite's added ending; and then there's the worst, I think Mass Effect 3 will retain the undisputed claim to that crown for some time to come).

I don't actually mind the voice acting in BD, to be honest! Okay, the Death Knight is a bit silly but in a fairly cartoony sort of way; to look at it another way, actually I enjoyed Two Worlds, which has inadvertently become the yardstick for bad voice acting (though actually I think Skyrim's is worse: although professionally done, it's unengaging and charmless).

Yes, most of the bad voice acting in BD is concentrated on the first level. After that, generally I thought it was fine.