Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) General Can you break the Harvest Disaster quest?

Got a little save happy lately and was saving a lot so as not to have to keep doing things over again. Usually i don't save often enough and hopefully i haven't saved too often this time. I just have one save file that i have been saving over. Last save i could go back to is right before you meet Zanilor. I think i'd have to take a vacation from the game if i have to go back that far. I've cleared nearly the entire area!

I've done many of the other smaller and quicker quests. I've even cleared the entire Orc populus. Have the whole map open. But i came back and did the Harvest Disaster quest. But i think i may have skipped parts. These are the three parts relating to the quest that i have open right now..

1) Who is responsible for the Harvest Disaster?
2) Dr. Elraths key was stolen.
3) Dr. Elrath exposed!

#2 is the one that scares me. I think once i turn him in that the other two most likely will be complete. But i am unsure. It might only complete #3. I have yet to think of where i go to report him but i think i might be able to figure it out. What i am wondering is that i noticed with some of the parts of the quest, there was a lot of running around involved. Back and forth to Hugh mostly. I don't know if i was supposed to report every damn move to him or something. It just makes me nervous that it is still open. I didn't notice until after i saved. I saved right before i kill the assassins, and i have a second save now after i went to the quarantined area and gave antidote's to the sick. But the other save i have already been kicked out of Elrath's house.

Have i broken this quest or missed something? I got his letter. I checked with Hugh a couple times but just got tired of going back and forth to complete each little step of the same quest. I went downstairs and got the letter written to Elrath. I can't think of anything i may have missed that would complete the stolen key part of the quest. Especially because up until that part, all of the smaller steps in the quest were being completed one at a time. I didn't realize it but i got the one before and after that step in the quest and i swear i will break something if i have to go all the way back and go through all of this again. Please tell me there's a way to complete this still.

Thanks for any pointers or help in advance.

Sorry for the false alarm. I went to Ralph and when you show him the letter it clears the entire quest. Still curious if i could have gotten more experience doing everything but possibly not. The last conversation with Hugh i tell him pretty much everything so it probably would have happened then. I also wonder if i had picked Elrtah's door and picked his key up and kept it, if i could get back into his house now. I could use it as my new base. I have some chests with items i want to hold onto in George's house. Have been looking for a new home and would take his, kind of a nice layout. Hmm maybe i can get back in there now that he has been arrested. Didn't try that yet.

New things i haven't figured out that i will look into later. I remember finding a large wasp or bee, i think it is green. Never attacked me but i could not attack it or speak to it. A thought was maybe i needed to kill all the smaller wasps and bees and go back to it. Will check back later on it. I believe it was near the Dwarven town. Also looking for how to get into the graveyard near the church. I think most everything else has been explored or completed here. Haven't left town yet. Next big quest will be once i go to Stormfist castle.

I don't think you can complete the stolen key quest before exposing Elrath. I don't recall the quest in great detail, but logically you can not prove or disprove his claim of loosing the key to the storage room until you have hard evidence to implicate him, at which point you can finish off the rest of the quest as well.

Once you have Elrath arrested the house gets sealed for good, and you can not get back in using Lockpick or the key.


I think a couple people have mentioned that friendly bee/wasp. There is nothing special about it, and it does not turn hostile after some trigger. An area effect spell that does not need a target may work on it (ie Hell Spikes or Poison Cloud).


You will have access to the graveyard by the church after going to the castle (which there is no reason to rush). In the latest game version I think you can Lockpick the gate (level 5) and the key for Nericon's garden will open the graveyard. There is a second Nericon garden / graveyard key in the alchemist's back room in Ars Magicana, but there is a bit of a trick needed to be able to get in there (Stealing from Walker and part 2).


You can head to Verdistis (north of Ars Magicana) and/or the Dark Forest (entrance near the archer's guild) before going to the castle, if you wish. There is little fighting in Verdistis (aside from the sewers) and you can find a few good traders and a couple pretty handy items there.

Yeah i thought of that as a possibility. But you can pretty much narrow it down to Elrath lying. I suppose you can't really say you have complete proof for most of the quest. But after getting the letter to Elrath, and especially after he sends the assassins after you, it seems pretty dang logical that he never lost the key! That is what made me think i may have missed something. Once you have all of that evidence, going to Hugh i would have thought would complete that part of the quest. Especially the convincing you have to do to Hugh to get him to believe it's the truth. Why he was such a key part in the quest always confused me a bit, but he was the one i had gotten the info from and the key to completing at least a couple of the steps. I dunno. Maybe on the next play through i will do this quest a bit slower and more carefully and see what i can do.



Interesting. Even after clearing the entire map of bees and wasps eh? I thought perhaps it would either turn hostile or would finally speak to you once you did something. But i have been wrong in the past. So i won't count it out. But it does seem odd to have it in the game and have no purpose. If i remember I'm going to even try approaching it with a few of the statues. Perhaps it will talk to me as a spider. Doubt it as most things you cannot do in transformed state. Worth a shot though.



The extra work to get that extra key seems a bit much. I might as well wait until i go through the castle. I went in to see what some of the fuss is about but i didn't save it since. Will go back when i'm ready. I had planned to go to Verdistis as there are some quests that tie me there that i have open. Figured there might be some fun to be had there and a few more levels before i conquer the castle.

It is getting to the point in the game though that i don't know where to go. So many things to look into and play around with. I'm especially troubled by the mage's that appear south of the barracks in the armory area (i think that is what he called it). The one's that turn all of the soldiers hostile. I did think about it, and figure i could lay waste to all of them and get some experience. But I'm trying for the honest approach. For example i won't take anything out of the poor or farm houses. But believe you me, depending on who's place it is i will thoroughly empty it. I plan to clean house in the castle. haha I'm a bit OCD. So that nearly doubles the game play when i play nearly anything. Takes a little of the challenge out of things at times but it's just the way i play. I'm an avid gamer, but sometimes i realize that i spend more time on prepping and post battle than i do in any action. But so be it until better games are made that force more action and still have customization. Put it this way. I already have four 50,000 count bags of gold in one of my chests back at home (George's place). Which by the way i have added 3 chests to the one George has in the beginning of the game. One from the catacombs, one from the Troll's cave, and i think the last one i took i took from the cave in the east with all of the chests in it.

By the way, this may be widely known by now, but i realized recently, unless it was a momentary bug, an easy way to move chests around if you want one for any reason. I realized that if the chest is open, it considers it's weight 0. I didn't thoroughly test it but i am pretty sure that i put it into my inventory and it actually had no weight to it. Normally it doesn't matter much anyway. I could have moved it even at 400 (i think) but it was nice as i had quite a few weapons on me that i planned to sell soon.



I think i mentioned, i think i may go ahead and go to Verdistis and complete a few quests. Most likely picking up a few more. I need to go back through the poor area and i'm sure there should be a few quests there that i can take care of before i leave town. I think that will pretty much clear everything aside from the castle and grave related quests. Oh and i haven't gone back into the sewers yet. I read somewhere that you can get a broken quest regarding the whole market mess if you don't get part of the quest in Verdistis. I think i need to slow myself down and do one thing at a time, and scout ahead a bit before i run into things and end up saving stuff that i want to have done differently. I think perhaps i'll try to leave an extra save or two here and there so i can backtrack in case i do skip or miss something.

Thanks again for all the help tips and pointers and whatnot Raze!

You will eventually meet one of the mages that cast the mind control spell on the army camp, after which the spell will be broken. Until then you can either kill them or avoid them; there is no way to get help earlier. I ran away at first, but when I could not tell General Alix or Captain Mitox about the camp, I returned for the experience points.


Before hitting the gong I had 29 stacks of 50k gold, as well as 59 silver charms and 6 gold charms. By the end of the game I had found or purchased another 60 gold charms.
I also brought about a thousand minor restoration potions with me (I used 3 in the wastelands for healing) and a few hundred regular restoration potions, but as long as I had Alchemy up a couple levels, started making regular restoration or health/mana potions and mixing them. I didn't need the potions, but at least it broke up the hack and slash a bit.


A couple people have had problems with the type of chests that weigh nothing when open.
weight bug and disappearing chests (broken links are fixed in a reply)


If you clear out the Rivertown sewers before going to the castle it will make things a bit easier later.


Part of the black market quest is received in Verdistis, but timing isn't an issue for that. I had Tingalf arrested before going to Verdistis, and upon being asked to investigate a suspected black market dealer, I could immediately say that that had been taken care of, to complete the last portion of the quest. There are other places in the quest that can get partly broken if they are done too much out of the expected order (checking the quest log can help, as it contains additional information).